When Brianna doesn’t call back that day, he’s surprised by his disappointment. Since the Open House, he’s thought of their encounter in the conference room with fondness—he liked talking to her about art, this girl who is clearly intelligent, who recognizes his daughter’s gifts—but it’s when Angel mentions her teacher, when he sees her through his daughter’s eyes, that he experiences a rush of warmth. His crush is fueled by his daughter’s admiration, a strange and unsettling dynamic.
Last night, for instance, after she’d put Connor down, Angel marched into the living room, dangling a blue plush rabbit. “Who put this in his crib?” she demanded, looking accusingly from Amadeo to his mother. “We can’t leave crap in his crib or he’ll die. Ever heard of SIDS? I mean it: Brianna said.”
“Okay, hijita,” Yolanda said mildly, while at the mention of Brianna, Amadeo just grinned.
“I’m serious!” Angel cried, flinging the rabbit at his chest.
He’s still thinking about his phone message the next day. He does what he always does at home, but daytime TV depresses him and so do the internet and video games and the endless meandering stroll through product reviews and skateboard fails. On their social media pages, his high school classmates, the ones that haven’t been destroyed by heroin, show off their full lives—their adorable children, their trips to Disney-land. There’s so much to want out there—trucks and computers and vacations and a new house—and all of it requires money.
He must get started with CWS. But no one has responded to his ads on Craigslist or in the Rio Grande Sun or in the church bulletin, and he still can’t drive. He’ll need to talk to Angel tonight about getting started, now that she has her license. He reads some websites about business start-ups and takes notes in Angel’s math notebook.
As if rewarding his industry, Brianna phones that afternoon. “Mr. Padilla? This is Brianna Gruver, returning your call.” Her voice is swift, but not assured.
“Oh, hey.” His heart picks up speed. “I was just calling to say hello.”
“So it’s nothing to do with Angel or Connor?”
“No, they’re good. I wanted to see if you wanted to get a drink sometime.”
A long pause. “I guess I could do something Thursday.”
“Cool, cool,” says Amadeo, his own voice jovial, as if to make up for her doubt.
That evening he says nothing to Angel about his plan with her teacher, an impulse he decides not to think too deeply about.
And again he says nothing when, on the appointed day, Tíve, grumbling, drops him in Espa?ola. He’s early, so he wanders around, then stops in at the bar at El Paragua. Leaning on the sticky counter, he orders a whiskey. It’s the first drink he’s had since Easter—over ten weeks—but instead of feeling guilty for falling off the wagon, he’s proud that he can order a single drink in public like a normal man. The bartender scarcely glances at him, just delivers his drink and goes back to rolling place settings. In the corner, a woman in a floury apron operates a tortilla press, flattening each ball of masa before slapping it on a wood-burning stove. She flips it neatly with her bare fingers. A steaming, even pile of tortillas rises on the table before her.
The lunch rush is over. Amadeo catches the eyes of the two men at the table under the big artificial tree, who are having tacos and beer. Contractors, Amadeo guesses, from their air of competence and the hardness of their forearms.
He prods the scar in the center of his left palm, then the one in his right. In each palm is a shiny purple bean of raised skin. He could have severed a tendon, could have had lasting problems, but he was lucky.
He raises his glass and smiles at the contractors, and then, because he’s nervous and because there’s still another hour to kill before Angel’s school lets out, and another twenty minutes after that before he’s allowed to present himself at Family Foundations, per Brianna’s instructions, he orders a second whiskey, and a beer, too.