Because I Said So Page 4

  “We cleaned the coffeepot about five months ago and it hasn’t been the same since.” Gustavo seemed about to add something else when his desk phone chirped loudly. “Talk to you again later. We’ll do the formal review next week.”

  She put her head back down and wrote up her evidence chain linking the two profiles in the interagency database, then submitted the recommendation to have them officially linked.

  By the time the day ended she was eager to get outside again and stretch her legs. Maybe go for a run after dinner. Thoughts about Paz resurfaced on the bus ride home. Who was this girl? If she knew her full name Shannon could no doubt find out more and easily. It would be unethical to use her resources that way except, given Paz’s status as a former protected witness, it would be prudent to make sure the girl was who she said she was. But if she asked him for Josie’s last name, he’d know exactly why she wanted it. Paz was not dumb.

  Deep down she knew she was also feeling hurt. Maybe that wasn’t the right word. Supplanted? She wanted Paz to grow up, but did it have to be this fast? It was what happened in the natural order of things, though. She’d liked living in Portland. It was a huge change from Los Angeles. Aunt Ryanne would have hated it there—too many eejits with daft ideas.

  Living there had done her a world of good. She’d taken cooking lessons, joined a hiking club, and socialized with people at work as she had in LA, but she had given it up to move back to help Paz settle into college. She probably should have stayed in Portland and let him find his own feet. He’d have been fine without her.

  But what if this girl was dangerous? Perps had long memories and families on the outside. She’d encountered plenty of gruesome stories in her line of work to know that her aunt’s perpetual paranoia about bogeymen weren’t without foundation. She could easily imagine harm around every corner in Paz’s life.

  She struggled her way around the whole question through dinner. Jeopardy! diverted her for a while, as did a well-deserved bowl of Ben and Jerry’s after she went for the run she’d been telling herself to do for several days. Who was this girl, and could she find out more about her without inciting any resentment or suspicion from Paz? He’d only known her for three weeks.

  She heard the echo of Aunt Ryanne’s reedy voice, heavy with warnings about “daft” ideas and reckless choices. She didn’t want to turn into Aunt Ryanne, to be sure, but she did want to protect Paz from All Things Daft. Love at first sight counted.

  Chapter Three

  For the next several days, Josie managed to avoid being at home when Kesa was. The one time Kesa attempted to bring it up, Josie immediately shut her down with “I have to go to the library.” Kesa was sorry she’d not heard Josie through and probably spiked any chance of Josie listening to her.

  Though, really, who was this boy? Couldn’t they live together? Kesa was sure it would help if they found out what it took to keep a roof over their heads before they signed on the dotted line of what was supposed to be “forever.”

  Her worries receded into the background when she saw that she’d been tagged in a Tweet from a model’s account, in which she was showing off the three-piece “suit-kini” Kesa had adapted for her. The woman wasn’t an A-lister like Jennifer Lamont, but she was high enough in LA’s celebrity strata to immediately generate three appointments over the next week for Kesa. The workshop was looking more and more a reality. The broker for a perfect space was calling her daily for a decision. Not only would she get all of the machines, dummies, and materials out of their apartment, it would allow her to work smarter.

  Much as she tried to tell herself that this marriage madness with Josie wasn’t jeopardizing all her plans, the anxiety was making her stomach do backflips. Every time she’d counted on something—or someone—they’d let her down.

  It was a perfect spring afternoon, so she decided to walk to the weekly Mahjong game. Exercise, sunshine, fresh air—they would all help. At least that was the theory. During rush hour she could walk the three miles in about the same time it took to drive and park near the always-congested Koreatown Plaza. Plus, walking was free. She’d take the route through MacArthur Park and enjoy the garden and lake. Refreshing after a day hunched over patterns and bolts of grosgrain and jacquard.

  Besides, if there was one thing that hadn’t let her down, it was the Mahjong gang. She had met Auntie Ivy at the local high school almost three years ago when she’d volunteered to do simple costumes for the spring play. It promoted her business, and at the time steady orders for altered and enhanced formal dresses for proms and quinceañeras had been essential to her cash flow. Auntie Ivy had persistently asked Kesa to join “the gang” made up of her granddaughter and a neighbor. Four made it easier to play, and they would teach her, happily. Hah—they were cutthroats, all of them. Even so, the evenings were full of laughter, talk, and food. As Auntie Ivy proclaimed, four women playing Manila Mahjong could fix the world.

  She allowed herself to be cautiously hopeful about the appointments she’d made today. One of the women was the Real Housewives type. If Kesa made her happy, she would tell a number of friends and they would also want a suit-kini, uniquely cut and modified to their personal taste. The jacket, fully buttoned, was tailored and sophisticated, reminiscent of Chanel. The neckline highlighted jewelry and a bit of cleavage. The skirt fell in a straight A-line to right above the knee. It went from business lunch to speaking engagement with ease.

  Lots of people could sew that.

  Her stroke of genius was the transformation of the shell worn under the jacket into a sleek, midriff-baring “bikini” top with built-in breast shields and support. That took the outfit from speaking engagement to after-dinner party with a wow factor.

  You’re not out here to think about work, she reminded herself. She hooked earbuds into place and cranked up Beyoncé. Her sneakers kept time with the “is y’all alright” beat, and she visualized the rest of her life disappearing into the dust behind her.

  The construction on West Temple gave way to gridlocked intersections the length of South Alvarado, and it was a relief to leave the honking and endless roar of engines behind. She followed Wilshire into the park and chose the footpath that would let her out on Seventh.

  The neighborhood quickly changed. Bars on windows disappeared, the streets widened, and gridlocked cars were mostly BMWs. Houses were replaced by generic apartment and office buildings that always struck her as drab compared to the rest of Koreatown. She relaxed when the white and gray structures gave way to goldenrod and paprika. A scarlet and lime mural paying tribute to the local music scene was almost finished, turning a concrete slab wall into a thing of beauty. That was the Los Angeles she knew. Her feet flew and she finally felt lighter than her worries.

  She stopped in at Lee Kum’s for their special baked lumpia. Inhaling the savory mist of garlic and black pepper brought her back to earth and in a good way. She turned down the sweet-and-sour dipping sauce as always. Auntie Ivy’s homemade tamarind-orange marmalade was way better.

  Bag swinging from one hand, she padded up the stairs to Auntie Ivy’s apartment, not surprised to find the door open and the pungent scent of pinakbet permeating the air. Her stomach growled. At least she thought it was pinakbet—okra and eggplant, sweet tomatoes, and bitter squash all stewed together in a shrimp sauce that woke up every taste bud she had. She had grown up on American food, and Auntie Ivy was determined to expose her to Filipino delights. Pinakbet had become a personal favorite.

  “Kesa!” Auntie Ivy’s granddaughter, Cami, bear-hugged her and adroitly took the warm bag of lumpia out of Kesa’s hand.

  “You don’t get those all to yourself,” Kesa chided. “They’re the baked kind, not your favorite anyway.”

  “But better for me. It means I can have twice as many.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  Cami tossed back her bright purple hair. The asymmetrical cut only allowed that on one side, but Cami made it work. Naturally theatrical, she had been the vivacious, eventually redeeme
d villain of the student-written play Kesa had made costumes for. Today she wore no makeup on her round face, which made her look fourteen, not seventeen. The small diamond stud in one nostril had caused no end of discussion. Auntie Ivy didn’t approve, but she finally agreed to stop bringing it up because Cami was a good girl and had a job at the grocery. Cami’s permissive parents, who spent ten months of the year observing primates in Tanzania, had said they were fine with it during one of their Skype calls. Kesa suspected that Cami had a few more surprises in store for all of them. Time would tell.

  She kissed Auntie Ivy’s cheek gently and assured her she was well. The hug she got in response was strong and heartfelt, belying the heart attack the old lady had had two months ago. Her short gray hair looked freshly cut and she smelled as always of roses and green tea. When Auntie Ivy’s back was turned she sent a raised eyebrow look to Marisol, already pouring tiles out onto the card table.

  Marisol, who lived in the apartment next door, shrugged and rolled her eyes. That meant Auntie Ivy was taking her medication, but probably not following any of the other recommendations the doctor had made.

  Cami already had the lion’s share of the lumpia on a plate and they all made a grateful pass at the assembled buffet. Marisol’s delicate handiwork was wonderfully apparent in the small half-watermelon hollowed out and heaped with grapes and strawberries and ringed with fanciful honeydew and cantaloupe rabbits and owls. Kesa was saving that for dessert. Marisol carved fruit to relax after long, stressful days of nursing. Kesa could think of nothing more refreshing for a California spring evening.

  She ladled out Auntie Ivy’s pinakbet, grabbed a couple of the lumpia before Cami could take the rest, and threw spinach leaves alongside—because greens. She didn’t have nearly enough of them, and the scare over Auntie Ivy’s heart attack had brought her face-to-face with all the stats about Filipinos and too-common heart disease.

  She hurried to the table where Marisol and Auntie Ivy were already seated as they rapidly stacked and lined up the tiles. When it was time to play, it was time to play.

  The tiles dealt, Marisol stretched out her short, sturdy legs. One hand released the large orange hair clip that had held her long black hair back from her face, transforming her from a tidy, impassive professional woman into a smiling, relaxed friend. “Finally. It feels great to take a load off.”

  “What’s new in your world?” Kesa frowned at her hand while she gobbled up the savory stew. She had drawn a pong, but the rest was disjointed and Cami hadn’t discarded anything she could use. She had no winds, which never boded well.

  “I got a raise and I’ll get an extra week’s vacation. If I keep saving, I can go home for a visit this fall.” Marisol grinned as she declared chow with Auntie Ivy’s discarded tile, making Auntie Ivy groan.

  “That’s great,” Cami said, picking up the four-stick Marisol discarded. “Mahjong.” She set out her tiles in front of her—four pongs and a pair of green dragons.

  They all threw up their hands with a variety of G-rated invectives while Cami smiled gleefully.

  “We’d only been around twice,” Auntie Ivy grumbled as she wrote the score and swept up the tiles for the next deal.

  “That explains why my hand was so horrible,” Kesa said. “You got all the winds. I’ll never catch up. Can I pay you in lumpia?”

  “That’s better than the pennies we bet,” Cami said.

  “Mari, if you visit Manila will you see that handsome Federico again?” Auntie Ivy had a teasing twinkle in her eye, though Kesa wasn’t sure if it was caused by the query to Marisol or the pong of red dragons she played off Kesa’s discard.

  “Perhaps,” Marisol said primly, her dark eyes giving away nothing behind her lashes. She had a way of making her expression blandly nonthreatening, which Kesa supposed was helpful in a nurse—and really helpful in a card player. She drew a fresh tile slowly, which Kesa had learned the hard way meant she was thinking carefully about strategies to go out. She probably already had two pongs.

  Her discard made Kesa wince. “You have my bamboos.”

  “Perhaps,” Marisol said, less primly.

  “You are all card sharks,” Kesa announced. It was true. “And you make good food. It’s a fair trade.”

  Cami muttered something in Filipino that Kesa missed, but it made the other two women laugh. “Are you plotting?”

  “You should learn your cultural language,” Auntie Ivy said, not for the first time.

  “I will, Auntie. I’m too busy now. I would have to give up losing my pennies to you all to make time.”

  “Why are you so busy?”

  “Work. And more work.”

  “I thought it might be your love life.”

  “Hah.” Kesa pounced on the discarded purple dragon and played her second pong. If she got a three-bamboo she had a shot at Mahjong. “No time for that, and women don’t seem interested regardless.”

  “If you considered men you would have twice the chances.”

  “Double zero is still zero.” Kesa rolled her eyes. “Besides, it doesn’t work that way, Auntie Ivy…”

  “I know, I know. I am teasing.”

  Kesa was aware that both of them were carefully not looking at Cami. Auntie Ivy didn’t normally bring up Kesa’s sexuality. It was possible she had begun to suspect what Kesa had the day she’d met Cami. She drew a North Wind and kept it for her pair. Just as she thought her chances of going out were good, Marisol claimed the seven-dot Kesa had discarded and played her third pong.

  “It’s not that the thought of men makes me ill so much as it doesn’t raise my heart rate, not even a little bit. Whereas some women do.” She finished her last lumpia and wiped her fingers carefully on her napkin before touching the tiles again. “I have a client, a really famous actress. You know her name, but I can’t say. I could easily build up a nice fantasy. She’s got all the assets in all the right places and she’s super smart. But she’s married.”

  “You watch out—her husband could come after you.”

  “Her wife, Auntie.” Kesa saw Cami blink in surprise. “And I have no intention of arousing the anger of someone who could buy half the state, not when I want to sell her wife an Oscar dress some day.” She picked up Cami’s discarded three-bamboo with a triumphant shout. “Mahjong! Woohoo!”

  Marisol laughed appreciatively as Auntie Ivy totaled the score. “So what kind of real women are you interested in?”

  She admired the dance of four pairs of hands over the tiles, turning them face down, deftly sliding them over the felt. The snick as tile met tile was soothing. What had once been an incomprehensible process to her quickly led to four neat, long walls of stacked tiles and the resumption of play.

  Noting Cami’s apparent nonchalance at Marisol’s question, Kesa said, “There haven’t been enough to have an obvious preference. The last one I really went for was taller than me.”

  “Everybody is.” Cami laughed when Kesa gave her the finger, prompting Auntie Ivy to swat Kesa’s hand.

  “Anyway, she looked like the kind of suntanned Southern California girl who gets to the beach but doesn’t live there. Nice eyes, brown like sepia silk. Funny when she relaxed. A smartass when she wasn’t relaxed.” Kesa pushed the memory away. Saying “I love you” and getting silence as an answer had been the end of it all. “And a good job she really loved that came first.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “A couple of years, maybe.”

  “So you mean four or five then. Girl, you have got to get out more.” Cami melded a pong of nine-bamboos before popping the last bite of her lumpia into her mouth.

  “You are very pretty and a hard worker,” Auntie Ivy said. These were stellar qualities to Auntie Ivy. “You don’t look like you turned thirty last year, either. And your eyes are beautiful.”

  “Thank you, Auntie.” It was the only right answer, even though the only true thing she’d said was that Kesa knew how to work hard. She didn’t feel attractive most of the time, alway
s lugging around sample books and garment bags and with needle pricks in her fingers. Sure, her blue eyes were uncommon for Filipinos, but the perpetual frown between her brows from poring over hems and embellishments detracted from their luster. She kept her hair long, but to her color-trained eye the once-rich black was fading. More time with conditioner and keratin treatments would help, no doubt. She had neither the time nor money for it.

  “My big news—because of the actress client mostly, I can finally get a workshop.”

  There was a uniform cheer. Auntie Ivy played chow on the discard, putting her a pair away from Mahjong. “Then you will have time to date and find someone who appreciates you.”

  “I might. At the least I will be able to exercise, eat more home-cooked food, treat myself better, like we’re supposed to.”

  “No heart attacks for you?” Cami shot her grandmother a sidelong look.

  “That’s the plan. I should set a better example for Josie too.” She toyed with the idea of asking the group’s advice about Josie’s announcement. It was easy to talk to all of them, so much easier than talking to Josie. But perhaps waiting a week would allow her to share more details. It was possible Josie would have broken up with the boy by then. “Our parents didn’t live long enough for me to know what they might have passed on to me genetically, so diet and exercise is all I’ve got.”

  “And regular checkups,” Cami added, again with a sidelong glance at her grandmother.

  “I see you, bata. I don’t want to talk about the doctor. I don’t need any of you to be my nanny.”

  “Auntie Ivy,” Kesa finally said into the ensuing silence, “we don’t think you need a nanny. We know you’re a grown-ass—grownup woman. This is us saying we love you and want you around for lots of years.”

  Cami said in a rush, “You didn’t go to your last checkup.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother. Let’s play.”