She got back to the hotel at six, and called Angelica from her room before she even put the books down.
“Sweetie, can you settle down and talk for a few minutes?”
“I’m on my way out, Mom.”
“I need to talk to you, Angelica. Really. Right now. And I’m not where you can call me back.”
Long pause. “Give me ten minutes, Mom. Then call back. I’ll let my ride go on without me and arrange to meet them later.”
She hung up and sat on the bed, swinging her feet, staring out the window at nothing. She’d never lived in a city, not really. Though the farm was gone, the house Bert had inherited was more semi-rural than suburban, and the city wasn’t high density, even in its core. The Washington area was huge, with lots of crime and race problems and poverty. But one could work in Washington and live wherever one wanted. Out in Virginia, or in Maryland, or in Georgetown. Too expensive, probably.
She glanced at her watch. Five minutes more. She and Angelica talked at least once a week, though it had been two weeks this time. Angelica wasn’t telling her something. She had that feeling the last half dozen times they’d talked. She glanced at her watch again and dialed. She had decided not to mention aliens. Angelica was not very imaginative, she was really more pragmatic and aliens might set her off in the wrong direction. Make it a small inheritance. That was no less unlikely, but it was more believable.
At the end of five minutes, Angelica asked plaintively, “Mom, who was the cousin who left you the money?”
“You never knew her, dear. She was a very old lady, and I hadn’t seen her in years. She was fond of my mother. And the money doesn’t amount to much, but it’s enough for me to get away from . . well, you know what from. What I really want to know is will you and Carlos . . . will you be hurt if I do this?”
“Mom, I can’t speak for Carlos. Last year, I didn’t see that much of him. He roomed with those three other guys, and I was in the dorm, and it wasn’t like we were really staying in touch. This year . . . I have a confession to make. I told you he thought we should share an apartment to save money . . .”
“I told you, Angel . . .”
“. . . you told me not to, but he talked me into it . . .”
“Oh, Angel! Did you? When?”
“Since June.”
“You didn’t tell me! You’ll . . . you’ll regret it, dear.” She thought of those black, black moods that Carlos had, moods that should be transitory, but in his case were nurtured and fed and coddled until they became a black fog that stretched out interminably until everything around him was ashen and cold.
Angelica laughed, without humor. “It’s all right, Mom. You can say you told me so. You were right. It’s not working. I’m paying all the bills and doing all the work, and Carlos is just bunking here when he feels like it. He has also instructed me to tell people he is nineteen, not twenty-one, because he’s older than most sophomores and it embarrasses him. That idea came from his new girlfriend who is also a little older than most of us. She also tells him he wears the wrong clothes ‘to impress people,’ that he should have plastic surgery on his nose, and that she can help him with his career as an artist.
“Formidable,” said Benita, wanting to laugh and cry, all at the same time.
“Well, you get the idea why I can’t speak for him. Speaking just for me, however, if you get out of there, I’ll hire a mariachi band and dance a samba in the street for celebration!”
“You don’t mind?”
“What I mind was that Dad was Carlos’s role model. Totally self-centered and using you to let him be that way. You remember when we were in high school, Carlos was only one year ahead of me because he was held back in eighth grade? So, we knew the same people, and I heard what he was doing, just what Dad did: sneaking out at night, getting drunk, crashing with his drinking friends so you wouldn’t know. I blackmailed him into going to Ala-Teen, and I went with him. They taught us about drunks having enablers. Carlos figured right away it was all your fault Dad drank, and therefore all your fault that Carlos himself drank. I told him you were an enabler, all right. You enabled us to eat and have a roof over our heads, and if he ever said any such thing to me again, I’d tell you how he felt, and then maybe you and I would just leave him and Dad on their own to enable each other!”