Mañana Means Heaven

Chapter 28.

173 28 On Thursday morning, when everyone had gone off to the fields, Bea quickly packed a small bag with only one change of clothes each for herself and for little Albert, and tossed in a few sandwiches for the long bus ride to Los Angeles. There was no need to call Angie to let her know she was coming; it would only be a quick trip, to pick up Patsy and make amends with her sister, and possibly, depending on how that worked out, to ask her for a favor that could only be asked in person. By six-thirty that evening she was standing on the steps of Angie’s house on Blanchard Street, where kids were playing stickball and sipping water from a leaky faucet on the side of Antonio’s Market. She knocked on the door and her nephew Robert answered, and right away he and little Al bolted up the street together, shouting at the rest of the kids. Bea went on in and found Patsy sleeping against Angie’s chest. Her sister looked up at her from her worn place on the sofa, and spoke softly to her so as not to wake the baby up. “What are you doing here? Alex said you were back in Selma?” Bea set her bag down and went over and gently lifted Patsy away from her sister’s grip. She peered down affectionately at her tiny pink face, and then buried her nose into her small chest and whiffed deeply. She stood like that for several minutes before speaking a word. “I’m not staying long,” she said. “I just came to get Patsy.” She hesitated. “But I also needed to talk to you.” George walked through the front door, letting the screen snap back and slam against the frame. Angie hushed him, raising her finger to her mouth in scorn. He raised his hands in the air and glanced over at Bea. “She’s here for the baby,” Angie said. George nodded, then went into his bedroom and shut the door. 174 Outside, the kids were gathered on the front porch discussing Halloween costumes. Robert was giddy over a cowboy outfit his mom had made him from a couple of potato sacks, while all Knobby could talk about was how real his gun looked, the wooden toy his father bought him just to match his policeman’s costume. Meanwhile, little Albert hadn’t thought about Halloween at all, not until his cousins had mentioned it.When they asked him about his own costume he shrugged. “I don’t like Halloween anyway,” he replied. Bea went and put Patsy down in her bassinet and then returned to her sister, knowing there’d be words waiting for her. And of course, there were. “I have to tell you, Beatrice, you really surprised us this time,” she said, lifting a cigarette to her mouth and lighting it. Bea grabbed her own cigarette, and they went out on the front porch, shooing the kids inside. Angie continued. “Mom’s sick over this, you know?” “I’m not worried about Mom. I spoke to her about it already. She knows all the hell I’ve been going through with Beto.” “It’s not Beto, Beatrice, I mean of course we all understand that. So he’s a jerk,leave him then.But this gabacho you been going with,seriously,are you out of your mind?” Bea puffed her cigarette and stared out at the purple-hued Los Angeles skyline. She wondered how to respond in such a way that her sister might find a seed of understanding in all of it. “Will you just listen to me, Angie, honestly, for one minute?” Her sister rolled her eyes. “I didn’t plan on things going like they did, they just happened that way. I’m not making any excuses about it. I was coming here to be with you, just like I said I was. I wasn’t trying to end up with Jack. I was just minding my own business, right there on the bus, and next thing I know this nice man is being friendly with me.Not regular friendly,I mean,Angie,if you knew Jack,you’d see for yourself, he’s a sweetheart, he really is. I never met anyone like him before, and I bet you haven’t either.” Angie fired a look at her sister.“George is good to me.You don’t know what...