“No, señor.” I told him what had happened to Ignacio in Mexico.
“I am not surprised,” he said. “Desperate people do desperate things, and there are too many desperate people back home.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling at how even after all these years, he referred to Mexico as his home.
I got out of his car a few streets back from mi tía Isabela’s hacienda so no one would see that he had taken me anywhere. Again, these precautions were wise to take.
“I need a little walk anyway,” I told him.
It was just fall now, early October, and contrary to what people who didn’t live here thought, the desert did enjoy seasons. It could get surprisingly cold during December, January, and February. It always began to warm in March and was almost perfect in April. Sometimes April would have some summer desert days, where the temperatures might even reach 100 degrees. Today, it was in the mid-70s with a gentle breeze and a sky that looked like what the first sky for Adam and Eve must have looked like, a deep blue, cloudless.
It was hard to be sad here. Nature could be so comforting and fill you with optimism. It was easier to believe in tomorrow. Somehow, Ignacio would find a way, I thought. The obstacles would be overcome. We were too strong to be defeated. Gradually, my steps became stronger, my gait faster. By the time I turned into the hacienda, my heart was not as heavy, and then it skipped a beat when I set eyes on Edward’s fancy Jaguar sedan.
Why was he here?
I hurried up the driveway.
Both he and Jesse were sitting in the living room sipping some iced tea and obviously waiting for me.
“Why are you home?” I immediately demanded.
“Well, that’s not a very nice hello,” Edward said.
I would never get used to that eye patch, even though he joked and told me it made him exotic-looking. “Like some pirate or soldier of fortune,” he said.
“We decided we were working too hard and would take the day off,” Jesse explained. He wasn’t quite as tall as Edward, but they had similarly slim builds.
I looked at them both skeptically.
Edward laughed. “She’s not buying it, Jess.”
“Okay, we were worried about you,” Jesse confessed, “and decided we would come down to take you to dinner. We can’t take you out next weekend. You’re going to a high-society party.”
“If you both flunk out of college, I will be the one blamed,” I said.
“Good. I hate being blamed for anything,” Edward replied. “So, where have you been?” he asked. “And where’s my mother?”
“Your mother went to L.A. and is probably looking for you.”
“That would be a real surprise,” he said. He waited, because I had not said where I had been.
“I’ve been visiting friends,” I told them, and he nodded, glancing quickly at Jesse. He assumed correctly that I had been to the Davilas’ home.
“Where would you like to go to dinner? You name it,” Jesse said.
“I don’t know. We rarely go to restaurants with your mother.”
“I know,” Edward interjected. “Let’s take her to La Grenouille. She has to get more familiar with French cuisine, doesn’t she?”
“Good idea,” Jesse said.
“That is such an expensive restaurant,” I said. I had never been there, but I had heard Fani talk about it and Danielle Johnson, too.
“We’ll cut back on the dark chocolate,” Edward joked.
Of course, I knew he could afford it.
“I’ll go make the reservation,” Jesse said, and rose to go to a phone.