Fifty Grand

another side to this land, there’s a-

His eyes flip open and he catches me staring at him.

“I could feel your look,” he says.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. I was awake.”

“What time is it?” he asks, sitting up.

“Six… Wait a minute, are you just getting in?”

“Yeah.”

“Where were you?”

“Denver,” he says after a pause.

“Denver? What were you doing there?”

“Manuelito came by at midnight, you were asleep. He was looking for someone to go with him.”

“Who’s Manuel?”

“You don’t know him?”

“No. What were you doing in Denver?” I ask, surprised.

“Clubbing, man,” he says in English with a huge grin. He pulls back the sheets and sits on the edge of his bed.

“Clubbing,” I repeat.

“You should go.”

“I don’t think it’s my sort of scene,” I tell him.

“What is your sort of scene?” he says with a bit of an edge to his voice.

“Not clubbing in Denver,” I reply.

He reaches into his boxers and scratches his balls. “You know what your problem is, Maria?” he says.

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“I am going to tell you. Your problem is that you act like you’re fifty, like you’re past it. Christ, man, you’re twenty-seven years old. You’re in a new country, full of opportunities and people and things, and you’re over there hunched with the fucking weight of the world on your shoulders, like you’re some old nurse in a cancer ward or something.”

“Tell me about the club,” I say, refusing the hook.

He shakes his head. “Man, those prices. And those white chiquitas. Shit, American girls. College girls,” he says to annoy me, which, bizarrely, it does.

“You’re disgusting,” I let slip.

“Is that what you think?” he says, standing up and walking across the room.

He’s all points and edges, and the booze or that white powder has loosened him up.

“Is that what you fucking think?” he repeats.

Oh hell, what next? The punch to the face? The stoned attempt at rape?

“You’re high,” I tell him.

“I’m not high, didn’t you hear what I was saying? I couldn’t afford to drink at those prices. Blow my hard- earned cash on ten-dollar beers? No thanks,” he says, folding his arms, glaring at me from a few feet away.

“I saw the bag.”

“Spying on me? Not that it’s any of your business, Esteban asked me to sell it for him and his buyer didn’t show, ok?” he says, his voice rising to an indignant bark.

“You’re scaring me, Paco. Go back to your own bed, please.”

“I’ll go wherever I damn well please,” he says, but after a moment he sits on his bed.

“We shouldn’t even be sharing a room now that all those guys went to L.A. I’ll talk to Esteban about it,” I say firmly.

“Esteban’s in Denver with his lady until Monday morning,” Paco says. “But he’ll do what you want. You must be the fucking golden girl.”

“What does that mean?”

Paco throws something at me. Two things. I pick them up. It’s the key to the Range Rover and a cell phone.

“Franco’s using the car today but Esteban says you can use it tomorrow to get supplies. Just give him a call.”

“I see. That’s good.”

Paco shakes his head and continues to glare at me.

I’ve hurt him somehow. I don’t need complications, I have to defuse this, now.

“Please, Paco.”

“‘Please, Paco,’ ” he repeats mockingly.

“You are high,” I say.

“So? You’re not my mother. Been working hard. I earned two hundred dollars this week already. I’ll make three hundred next week. Pretty soon I’ll be foreman of one of the work gangs. And when it gets too cold in January and all these Mexes fuck off to L.A., they’ll be begging me to stay.”

He grins again, wolfishly. He’s acting the big man but he can’t hold it for long. Finally the lines crack and a wave of unhappiness spills across his face. He crosses the room, sits on my bed, takes my hand, and kisses it.

“Maria,” he says.

“No, Paco,” I say, pulling the hand away.

“No, I’ll tell you what your problem is: you’re a virgin, that’s what’s wrong with you. You’re a virgin or a fucking lesbian.”

“Get off my bed and get the fuck away from me.”

“Fuck you,” he says, and clicks his fingers in front of my face. He walks back to his side of the room with a satisfied look on his face, but again it doesn’t last long. I’m in no mood for this game. I tell him so.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, Maria, I’m not high. I tried a little, but I’m not high. I’m, I, I don’t know. I’m tired.”

He sits down heavily on his bed and closes his eyes. I know he’s young and he’s emotional, but there’s something about his behavior that smacks of… what? I can’t quite put my finger on it.

“You have every right to be tired. You’ve worked hard all week,” I say conciliatingly.

“Not that kind of tired.”

He rubs his hands through his hair, thinking about something. Suddenly he sits up straight, places his hands carefully in his lap, and looks at me. He takes a deep breath and begins: “Listen, Maria, I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here, but I know you’re not what you say you are. I know you’re not from Mexico and that accent, that’s not Yucatan. I had a cousin who played baseball, professionally, for four years in the Cuban league. His wife talks just like you. I don’t know who you’re running from or what you did, but I know you’re not some fucking peasant girl from Valladolid. You picked a pretty bad disguise. You don’t talk like no Indian, you don’t look like no Indian. You’re a liar and not a good one, either.”

He stares at me, trying to radiate trust through those dark green eyes.

For some reason it works.

We’ve been through the mill, Paco, you and me.

“I was never going to say I was from Yucatan,” I begin. “I was going to say I was from Mexico City. I’d picked out a neighborhood and everything-Coyoacan-I walked the streets, memorized a few names, but I got spooked on the bus when you said you’d lived there for a while.”

“So what are you?” he wonders.

“Cubana.”

After a few beats he finds his voice. “That makes no sense. I mean, what game are you playing? Cubans are guaranteed a green card. You don’t have to put up with this shit. You could be legal.”

“I know.”

“So what are you doing here?”

What am I doing here? Perhaps explaining it to him will explain it to me.

And now it’s me who crosses the room. Me who sits on his bed.

“I need to know that I can trust you, Paco.”