The Scared Stiff

19

Time dragged after my funeral and Lola’s departure. All at once, I had nothing to do. I trailed after Carlos to his truck place a few times, but I sure didn’t fit in there, and Carlos wasn’t what you’d call encouraging. At the house was Maria, self-sufficient, at work in her studio or reading or swimming, obviously feeling no need to find ways to keep her house guest amused. I could watch television or swim, but mostly what I did was wait.

And, of course, watch Maria. And finally to wonder, What was her view of me? We were alone together in the house most of the time. She seemed amused by me, and friendly, but I couldn’t tell whether or not that amusement was linked to any level of sexual interest. Was there an offer in her half-mocking smile? I was certainly not going to take her up on any offer, if it indeed was there, but was it?

Of course I wouldn’t respond. If I didn’t have Lola to restrain me, and I did, the memory of Carlos delivering that Sunday morning beating would keep me in check all by itself. Still, without a word being said, without even a glance that was no more than ambiguous, I found myself feeling somehow less of a man for not having taken Maria up on... on what?

Watching her swim, sometimes, the powerful legs scissoring, the form-fitting black bathing suit, the long sleek body, the concentration in those eyes, I found myself drifting into unexpected shoals of thought. Was this somehow time out? If I were no longer Barry Lee, but not yet Felicio Tobón de Lozano, did neither Barry’s vows nor Felicio’s filial duty come into play? Keeping one eye out for Carlos, could Ernesto Lopez take a little taste of the sweetness this household offered?

I began to avoid the pool, if Maria was in it. I was beginning to avoid my own lecherous brain.

Saturday, the eighth day of my afterlife, the three of us were having lunch out by the pool when Maria said to me, “Arturo phoned; he’s coming up today. I think he’s heard from Lola.”

“Oh, good!” I said, and felt myself smile all over. Just to hear Lola’s name helped. And it kept those other impulses at bay as well.

Finished with me, Maria turned to Carlos. “I’m going to Miami on Monday.”

Carlos glowered. “Who with?”

Maria seemed amused by the question. “By myself, sweetheart,” she said.

Carlos is a jealous guy? That surprised me and might have worried me. I’m here alone with his wife every day and he never seems to think about it, but maybe I’ve been wrong about that. A good thing he couldn’t read my mind. I watched him more carefully as he said, “Friedrich gonna meet you there?”

“He can’t this time,” Maria said, easy and unaffected, as though Carlos weren’t showing jealousy at all. “He’s sending me to a woman with a gallery in Palm Beach. I think Palm Beach is too... bourgeois for me, but Friedrich says this woman has excellent contacts in New York.”

Carlos said, “When you comin’ back?”

“Wednesday. Unless I go see Friedrich on the way back. I’ll phone you, darling.” Smiling, she said, “You won’t be lonely, you’ll have Ernesto here.”

He grunted at that and went back to his lunch.

She said, “My plane’s at eleven-twenty. Can you take me?”

“The chauffeur’ll take you,” Carlos said.

“Oh, good,” Maria said, and smiled at me.

The chauffeur? Listen, I’m not really the chauffeur. But before I could figure out what if anything to say, Arturo bounded out from the house, a Heineken in his hand. “¡Hola!” he cried, and everybody greeted everybody, even Carlos lightening up a little. Arturo dragged a chair over to join us and grinned at me. “How you doin’, hermano?”

“Oh, going along,” I said. “Helping out where I can.”

Arturo turned his happy smile on Carlos. “That right? Felicio being useful?”

“Ernesto,” Maria said.

“He’s a good driver,” Carlos said.

I said, “I’ve got my own chauffeur suit.”

“A whole new career,” Arturo said, happy for me.

I said, “You heard from Lola.”

“Oh, sure,” he said.

Maria said, “Carlos and I are finished. You sit here and get your messages.”

“Thanks, Maria,” I said.

They went away, and I said, “What did she say, Arturo?”

“Well, she couldn’t say much, you know. On the telephone and all.”

“She could say something.”

“Yeah, but you know,” he said, “she had to talk like you was really dead, so what I had to do was — uh, waddaya say?”

“Translate,” I suggested.

“No. Get at the meaning. You know?”

We both thought about it. “Interpret,” I suggested.

“That’s it,” he said, and slapped his knee. “I had to interpret what she says, so when she says, ‘I love Barry so much, and I wish he was still around so we could be together and I could tell him how much I love him,’ I interpret that, you see, that it means I should say, ‘She loves you and misses you and wishes you could be together.’ ”

“Me, too,” I said.

“I told her that,” Arturo assured me. “I told her, ‘Wherever he is, Lola, I’m sure Barry feels the exact same way’.”

“Thank you, Arturo. Did she say anything about the insurance?”

“She give all the stuff to the insurance man, and it don’t look like a problem. It looks like a week or two, and then they send the check.”

“That’s great. It’s time for me to get my passport.”

“Sure. When?”

“I gotta drive Maria to the plane Monday,” I said, “so I’ll be right there in San Cristobal, dressed up in my chauffeur suit, with the tie and all. How about then?”

“Easy,” he said.

I grinned at him. “Every day in every way, Arturo,” I said, “I’m getting less and less dead.”