While it was heating she decided to take her own laundry to the basement, but halfway down the basement stairs she sagged against the wall and slid down onto a step, face buried in the dirty laundry.
“Hey,” said someone. “You all right?”
She looked up into the sympathetic face of the apartment manager, Mrs. Gaines, a round-faced, crop-haired plain-talking woman whose apartment was at the back on the so-called garden level.
“I’m so tired,” Angelica blurted. “He leaves it all on me. And I’m just so tired!”
The woman sat down on the step beside her. “Tell you what, Angel. There’s a little efficiency apartment upstairs, just big enough for you. Lots cheaper than the one you have now. I’ll let you off your lease if you want to move up there and let Carlos find himself some other place.”
Angelica regarded her blankly, mouth slightly open.
The woman reached over and pressed her jaw up. “Don’t think it’s kindness. It’d help me out. We get complaints about noise and drunks, you know, people get unhappy, they move out. Your mama must’ve got him off the tit, now you’ve got to let him grow up. Here, I’ll start that load for you. You look like you need a nice hot cup of something.”
And she was up, with the laundry load, trotting down the stairs while Angelica was still trying to think of something to say. Back upstairs she ate her soup, made a strong cup of instant coffee, and cleaned up the kitchen. At two she had to leave for her own classes, and Carlos was still asleep when she left.
When she returned home at seven, bearing a pizza, Carlos wasn’t there. The phone call was scheduled for eight, but the phone didn’t ring until nine, just as Carlos walked in. She grabbed the phone, glaring at him.
“Hello, Mother? Hey, Carlos is here. I’m going to put this on speaker phone. You’re late.”
“I know. Some very nice people invited me to dinner and it went on longer than expected. They dropped me off, but they had to make a kind of … detour, so there was no polite way I could hurry things up.”
“New friends, that’s good.”
“They’re just acquaintances, but they know I’m new in town and they’re being kind.”
Angelica asked, “So, tell us, are you looking for a new job?”
“I have a new job. The arrangements were all made this morning. It’s very much like the one I had in Albuquerque, but the pay is better than it was there.”
Carlos leaned forward, lips pursed, eyebrows raised importantly. “Mom, this afternoon I got a call from Dad. He’s wondering where you are.”
A moment’s silence. “Carlito, I left him a note saying I was going away. I’m sure Angelica told you why I was calling. I’m not coming back, and as I told Angelica, I don’t want your father to know where I am.”
Carlos frowned. “Where’s Sasquatch?”
“I have him.”
“And who’s this old lady who left you money? I didn’t know you had any cousins I didn’t know.”
“Not anyone you knew. She was my mother’s cousin.”
Carlos cocked his head, as though trying to see through the phone. “Dad could use some help with bail money. I mean, if you’ve got some extra cash.”
Angelica turned on him angrily, but the chill of the disembodied voice that came through the phone stopped her. “Bail money? For what?”
Carlos gave Angelica the look of superiority she’d grown to hate, the one that said, “See, I’m managing the family, thinking of everything.” He spoke into the phone, “He had a little accident. He says . . . well, he totaled his car.”
After a considerable pause Benita said sadly, “My car.”
Carlos had the grace to look slightly embarrassed as he said, “I just thought you’d want him out of jail”
Long pause. “No. Not particularly.”
Actual surprise. “Well, sheesh, Mom!”
No response.
He took a deep breath and asked, all too casually, “What time is it there, Mom? You sound tired.”
There was another pause before their mother answered. “I feel like it’s four in the morning, but it’s only a little after ten. I am tired. The long bus ride, mostly. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be rested.”