Houston, We Have a Problema Read online

  “So, what’s been going on with you outside McCormick and Cynthia?” she asked.

  “Same old nothing. I got a new contract, setting up a system for a drywall company. I’ll probably do the whole thing over the weekend.”

  Being burned by workplace love wasn’t the only thing Jessica and Xavier had in common, it turned out. They both did freelance computer work on the side, too.

  “Oh, well, that’s good. Finish it early so you can party with the hotties, right?”

  He ignored her obvious baiting. “Yeah, right. More like go to my parents’ and help my dad clean his gutters.”

  Jessica loved to tease Xavier about the fact that he almost never went out. Secretly, she admired the way that he wasn’t interested in the bar and meat market scenes. Although her clubbing definitely made for some fun and wild moments, Jessica had to admit that it got old after a while. Clearly, Xavier was secure enough to do his own thing. She wished she could be more like him sometimes and be happy with quiet weekends.

  When they’d finished eating, Jessica cleared a space near the quesadillas. “Here. Let me show you what I’ve been working on.” As she pushed her own plate over, a hidden jalapeño fell off of it. “Oh, there was one more. Did you want it?”

  “Now that it fell on the table? No thanks,” he said, polite as ever.

  Jessica picked up the pepper before any germs could stick and handed it across the table to him. “No, it’s still good. Here. Eat it.”

  “Jess, I don’t want it.”

  “You must have, or it wouldn’t have fallen off the plate. C’mon. You have to eat it now, or you’ll get a fever blister.”

  Xavier laughed as he took the jalapeño from her hand and dropped it onto his napkin. “Where do you come up with these crazy superstitions?”

  “What? Didn’t your mom ever tell you that? About the food cravings and the fever blisters?”

  “No. She was more into spilled salt and holy water. Come on. Show me what you wanted to show me.”

  “All right. Here it is.”

  Jessica reached under the table and unzipped her laptop case to show him her latest web site.

  Later that afternoon, back down the beige halls at her beige desk, Jessica meditated on her theory that four to five p.m. was the longest hour of the day. Especially on a Friday. The longest of her life, it felt like, today. She’d done all the work she could stand and was now checking the clock every five minutes.

  Although it wasn’t as though she had a reason to be in a hurry. She wasn’t going anywhere. Was she?

  If she saw Guillermo again, it was true that they’d repeat their same old pattern. But now she had to wonder, what was so bad about that? Whether he called her afterward or not, she’d still be doing the same things in the meantime: Working. Shopping. Going out dancing with Toby. Working some more. Why not switch things up a bit and have a little fun, even if the price was a little drama?

  Her body sank lower in the antique office chair, trying to find some comfort. Her head, however, floated thirty miles away. Far, far away from McCormick, to a little house in a field on the edge of town where everything still grew wild. And to the person who lived in that house, waiting in its bedroom, lying across the bed.

  Naked.

  She shook her head and forced herself to focus on the wind damage spreadsheet on her desk. She had to stop thinking about Guillermo. She had already decided, once and for all, that she wasn’t going to see him again.

  Hadn’t she?

  Toni Braxton sang mournfully from Rochelle’s radio, as if in empathy.

  Why had Guillermo called? Why did he always have to call just when she was almost totally ready to give him up?

  Unfortunately, Madame Hortensia hadn’t been there during his phone call to help her decide what to do. Jessica always sought her advice because Madame Hortensia took the ways of the universe into consideration and made Jessica aware of signs she was sure she’d miss otherwise. But now Jessica had to decide on her own.

  She sighed and stared at the Hello Kitty on her screen saver.

  Give me a sign. Should I go to Guillermo’s tonight, or should I forget about him and move on?

  Hello Kitty’s cherry print outfit morphed into Gothic black as Jessica waited, eyes closed. Behind her, the radio spat out a burst of static.

  “Jessica,” called Fred from his office, “if a gentleman calls, tell him you won’t be going . . . that is, tell him that I won’t be going to the GlobeCo happy hour this evening, would you, please?”

  Jessica closed her eyes and concentrated. Give me a sign. Should I go to Guillermo’s or stay home and work?

  “Did you ladies read the news?” Rochelle said. “Another girl turned up missing the other night. Police said she was on the way to see her boyfriend. She should have been going to church instead.”

  Just one sign! thought Jessica as loudly as she could. Please!

  “Yes!” squealed Olga.

  Jessica opened her eyes. “What happened?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just won this solitaire game, finally. It took me forever to figure it out.”

  Jessica exhaled the breath she’d been holding into the last sigh of the day. She couldn’t deny it, could she? The answer was clear.

  3

  She hadn’t always been so superstitious. No, back when she was young, Jessica had no use for the superstitions people would share with her. When her mother had offered to light candles for her college finals, Jessica had waved her away. When her friend Toby’s mother had warned her against wearing so much unlucky black, Jessica had scoffed. When her friend Marisol’s parents told her about the chupacabra footprints they found at their ranch back in Durango, Jessica had laughed.

  Not anymore. Now she knew better. There were things in this world that went unseen. Things that couldn’t be explained. She knew now that it was safest to protect herself, with traditional knowledge and sometimes a little salt over the shoulder. And a Virgin Mary overlooking it all.

  Three years ago, Jessica had learned this the hard way.

  It was about a year after she’d graduated from the University of Houston with her BA in art history. She’d gotten a job in a run-down neighborhood just east of downtown, at the Centro de Artes Culturales (formerly the Centro de Arte Cultural de Aztlán, until Jessica had pointed out that the acronym, CACA, didn’t spell what they wanted to represent). As curator for the Centro’s new gallery, it was her job to discover and coordinate exhibitions for local Latino artists. The pay wasn’t much — barely more than minimum wage, actually — but Jessica had felt incredibly lucky to land such an opportunity at her age.

  As it turned out, her job description had included a little more than enjoying art. She was also expected to serve as accountant, receptionist, and personal chauffeur to artists-in-residence while she planned, organized, publicized, and cleaned up after all the exhibits, all on her own. The hours were insane, and on top of it all, no one gave her credit for the work she did.

  At first, she didn’t mind. She was servicing her community, wasn’t she? Also, she was dating Robert Fernandez, one of the Centro’s most successful artists. No matter how much work they gave her, she always managed to find time to steal away with him in one of the supply closets or under the fire escape stairs. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help herself. There was something about Robert that made her want to throw caution to the wind. He’d been her first. In retrospect, she now realized that he hadn’t been all that. He hadn’t even been a very good artist. But still . . . To this day, the smell of turpentine turned her on.

  One morning, after she’d been at the Centro for a year and sleeping with Robert for about six months, Jessica had gotten annoyed with the little plastic Virgin Mary hanging from her rearview mirror. It had been a gift from one of her aunts, and it kept swinging back and forth, hitting her windshield as she drove over potholes on the way to work. Fed up, she pulled over and took it down, feeling a little guilty but putting it away in the glove compartment
all the same.

  That turned out to be the mistake that led to the worst day of her life. With one careless action, she ended up bringing bad luck into every aspect of her life. First, at work, Jessica’s boss dropped a bomb on her.

  “Jessica, I can’t afford to keep you here anymore. Not unless you can work on these grant numbers and make a way for us to get more money.” She was shocked. The timing of his news couldn’t have been worse.

  Jessica was preparing for the unveiling of Robert’s newest mural that evening. On top of getting everything organized for the big night, she now had to think of ways to raise extra money, not just for her own salary, but for her community. For Latino art.

  But all these concerns were shoved to the back burner when Robert’s other girlfriend — the one carrying his baby — showed up at the unveiling that night. Jessica was floored. She had never seen any hints of him leading a second life. Suddenly, she was one of those women on daytime TV that she criticized for being so oblivious. But there hadn’t been any clues, ever. She wanted to figure out how she could have been so blind and what the hell he’d been thinking. But she didn’t even get to hear his excuse, because his babymomma dragged him away by the hair before he could explain.

  “Is this the skank you’ve been two-timing me with?” she’d screamed. “Oh, hell, no!”

  As Jessica had stood there with tears oozing down her face, her boss had walked up and ordered her to clean up the vomit of a drunken gallery patron. When it rains, it pours. And Jessica was stuck without an umbrella. And soon to be without a job. She’d decided to take matters into her own hands.

  She’d quit her job on the spot, then gone out with her friend Toby and gotten drunk.

  “What in the world am I going to do?” she’d asked him and the club. “My life is ruined. I can’t believe I was so stupid about Robert. I’ve been humiliated in front of the art community, and now I don’t have a job. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “I have an idea,” Toby had said, “but you have to promise not to laugh.”

  “Do I look like I feel like laughing? Tell me.”

  “You need to visit Madame Hortensia.”

  Before that night, Jessica had believed that fortune-tellers were just con women who told sad housewives what they wanted to hear. After an hour with Madame Hortensia, though, Jessica had become a believer.

  “Hello, m’ija,” she remembered the old woman saying the first time they’d met. “You look sad.”

  Madame Hortensia had known things about Jessica that a stranger had no logical way of knowing: that she was tired of living with her parents; that she used to be Catholic but had stopped going to church soon after her quinceañera; that she had been unlucky with her career and in love.

  That night, Madame Hortensia had made three eerily correct predictions.

  One: “A life-changing opportunity will come to you from an unexpected source.”

  Two: “Someone important to you will help you get over a bad relationship.”

  Three: “Another tall, dark artist or musician will have an impact on your future.”

  The first thing Jessica did after leaving Madame Hortensia’s was to dig the Virgin Mary out of her glove compartment and hang it back on the mirror, where it belonged.

  Within a week, her sister, Sabrina, had nagged Jessica into temping for a friend on maternity leave at McCormick. Even though Jessica knew nothing about insurance and hated to be bossed around by her sister, she took the job so she could get away from the Centro. When Sabrina’s friend gave birth, Jessica still hadn’t found any jobs related to art history. But then Sabrina’s friend had decided not to come back to work, and McCormick offered Jessica the job permanently. It paid fifteen thousand a year more than her curator job had, so Jessica couldn’t refuse. And so, without meaning to, her sister gave her the means to finally move out of their parents’ house — a life-changing opportunity if there ever was one. So that was Madame Hortensia’s first prophecy fulfilled.

  While all that was going on, Jessica’s idol, Amber Chavez, was going through a very similar situation to Jessica’s romancewise. Amber Chavez, the dancer who’d started out singing cumbias in Mexico and gone on to become a hip-hop sensation in the United States. Amber Chavez, the beautiful sex symbol who’d made big butts like Jessica’s trendy. Amber Chavez was the woman who had everything, and she’d gotten her heart broken by DJ Beat-a-Lot, the producer of her smash hit CD.

  Jessica followed the story in every tabloid, admiring Amber’s grace under pressure. Throughout every trial and tribulation, Amber remained classy and well dressed. Instead of throwing Beat-a-Lot’s engagement ring back in his face, Amber sold it on eBay and converted the proceeds to scholarships for poor Latinos.

  It couldn’t have been a coincidence that on the day Jessica got her first big paycheck from McCormick, Amber Chavez appeared on the cover of People, completely transformed. She’d gone from a sultry, raven-haired pop star to an angelic, blond-streaked starlet announcing her first movie role. As soon as Jessica saw that, she understood exactly what Madame Hortensia had foreseen. Jessica carried the magazine to her stylist and said, “Make me look like this.” One hour and ninety-five dollars later, she strutted out of the salon with a new lease on life and Robert totally forgotten.

  And now, three years later, here she was, just as Madame Hortensia had predicted. Hair still awesome, wearing nice shoes, carrying a new purse every week. Checking her e-mail in an office on the fortieth floor, under a framed poster of the word SUCCESS. Jessica realized that luck had finally found her, and she didn’t intend to mess things up again. From now on, she was keeping an eye out for signs from above.

  And all those signs were pointing at Guillermo.

  It had been almost six months since she’d met him. Obviously, he was the other tall, dark artist mentioned in Madame Hortensia’s third prediction.

  As Jessica sped down the highway, through the fields and pine trees that led to his house, she pondered the mystery that was Guillermo.

  For some reason, no matter how many times she promised herself otherwise, she hadn’t been able to get over her fascination with him. He was an artist — a painter — which of course made him a little flaky to begin with. Jessica knew from experience how forgetful and unrealistic painters could be when they got involved with their work.

  But she’d expected more from Guillermo. They’d been seeing each other for five months now, and with anyone else, she would have demanded some kind of commitment by that point. Not that Guillermo was seeing other people — not that she knew of — but he hadn’t given her anything so far. No promises, no settled dating routine . . . He didn’t even tell her that he loved her. Not in so many words, at least. He was like a stray cat who kept coming back for more food and petting but never wanted to live inside her house. He was basically nothing more than a long, long fling.

  Yet every time she felt she’d had enough and was about to give him up for good, he would do something maddeningly lovable and rope her back in. He had a way, through his calm voice and demeanor, of making her feel that she’d been angry over nothing. Making her feel she was just being silly for not enjoying what they already had, indefinitely, forever.

  Here she was now, for example, driving to his house to see kittens. She should be using this time in her car, she knew, to plan out the lecture she’d give him over not returning her last few calls. But she also knew, already, that that lecture would never be delivered. He’d charm her out of it, the way he always did.

  Sometimes she suspected that she kept hanging on to Guillermo for just that reason. He was so outside normal conventions and concerns, he made her forget everything that was boring and stressful in her life. For an hour or two, at least.

  She drove through his gate slowly, trying to protect her Accord’s paint job from his overgrown trees and shrubs. They seemed to have doubled in size since the last time she’d been here, out in this heated sundown. Two strange pit bulls rushed out to meet her car and scar
e her to death. Their barking drowned out the music from her CD player, and saliva dripped from their jagged teeth. They were like hounds of hell.

  It must have been an omen. I knew I shouldn’t have come, she thought.

  All the windows in Guillermo’s little pink house were dark, so she stayed in her car with the engine running. His truck wasn’t there, unless it was parked in the scraggly grass behind the garage or hidden behind the overgrown garden. She dug through her white patent-leather purse for her phone.

  Just as she found it, the glass-paned door opened and Guillermo appeared in the doorway, wearing bleach-spotted jeans and nothing else. He stretched his arms above his head, then strode over to her car. The dogs turned and gave him all their attention.

  Jessica turned off her engine and cautiously opened the door.

  “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” he said.

  “Who?” She looked around for something beautiful on the premises.

  “My new perritos. Napo and Josefina.”

  “Sure. Just gorgeous.” Jessica was out of her car now, but carefully keeping Guillermo between her and the pit bulls.

  “You look beautiful, too.” He leaned down and cupped her chin with his hand. Somehow, his hand against her skin felt rough and soft at the same time. Like always. He turned back to the dogs and spoke to them at some length in Spanish, gesturing at Jessica while he did so. They stood silently, panting and smiling, as if they could understand him. Then, one by one, they slunk up to her and licked her hands. All traces of the savage animals she’d first seen were gone now. Guillermo waved them away and they scampered off, mild as sheep.

  “There. Did you miss me?” he murmured before kissing her lips. Then he took her hand and led her across the gravel drive to the garage.