In Big Trouble

'That's what they paid me for.'

'Give me a week. I'll call them a week from today if you don't tell them that you found me.'

'That doesn't seem right somehow. They're worried about you, all they want to know is you're all right.'

'And all I want is a chance to prove I can take care of myself,' Crow countered. 'What's seven days in the scheme of things? Look, I promise. You can go home, and I'll check in with them next Saturday. I bet you're missing Baltimore already, aren't you? Missing home, and all your little routines. Besides, Esskay's probably pretty lonesome.'

'Esskay's not even two mites from here, snoring at a motel on Broadway.'

'Really? I wouldn't have minded seeing her.'

The implication was clear that he did mind seeing Tess.

'I could ask you the same thing, you know. What's seven days? Why can't your parents know now that you're safe and sound?'

Crow rolled his eyes, as if maddened that he had to explain himself to her. 'There's a guy from a record company, someone who's interested in the band. He's coming in for the All Soul festival and he's going to listen to our real music, in this after-hours place we play. It would be nice to call home with good news.'

'What if he doesn't sign you?' The question came out crueller than she had intended. She couldn't help being skeptical. Then again, Emmie had been offered a record contract once before, according to Marianna. Maybe she wouldn't be so reluctant to leave Texas, now that she had Crow at her side.

'I'll still call.' Crow sighed, and his shoulders slumped a little. 'I'll call and give them my number, and we'll take it from there. But I can't take their money anymore, Tess. And they can't not send it. That's their peculiar weakness. They love me too much to let go. I've had the longest adolescence in history. It's gotta end.'

Tess thought back to the house in Charlottesville, the carefully preserved boyhood room. From the beginning, from his very conception, Crow had been central to his parents' lives. Perhaps he had been too central? Tess began to see some advantages to having parents who converted your room to a sewing room the moment you left home.

'I have to tell your parents I found you,' she said slowly, thinking as she spoke, trying to figure out a way to make everyone happy. 'They paid for that information, they deserve it.'

'Okay,' he said, throwing his hands up dismissively. 'Okay. Guess I was crazy to think you wouldn't let me down. Again.'

'They also deserve a son who's more considerate of them, but I can't help them with that.'

'You do what you have to do.'

'I always do.'

'You always did,' he agreed. 'You know your way out of here? San Antonio's a little tricky to navigate. When you headed?'

'On Broadway, near the zoo.'

Crow made a face. 'That's not so far from us. What are you doing, living on the cheap so you can pocket more of your per diem? I knew it didn't ring true when you started getting all holier-than-thou about wasting my parents' money.'

That hurt, if only because it came so close to the truth of the person she had once been. I'm not that cheap anymore, she wanted to tell Crow. I make good money now.

But all she said was: 'It was the only place I could find last night'

'It's easy enough to get to from here. Just go up Broadway.'

'I know that'

'Tess-'

She waited. It occurred to her it was only the second time he had used her name.

'I love my parents, I never meant to hurt them. Please make them understand that. I hope-I hope they're going to be proud of me, that they'll understand why I needed this time to be on my own.'

On your own, with Emmie. But she merely nodded.

Her stomach reminded her that she had not eaten anything since late afternoon, when she had polished off the rest of the Fig Newtons. She stopped at an all-night taco stand on Broadway, a bright pink one, only to be overwhelmed by the unfamiliar choices. Baltimore had not prepared her for the range of possibilities in tacos. What was carne guisada? Carne asada? Barbacoa would be barbecue, of course, but the sign said this was served on Sundays only. She settled for a fajita, feeling wimpy and defeated for settling for something she could have gotten back home.

Even so, it was so much better than anything she had ever eaten in Baltimore that she ordered two more. Charm City's inability to serve a decent taco remained one of its eternal mysteries. However, the Mexican beer, a Bohemia, was an old friend. Dark and flavorful, it smoothed the jagged feelings that seeing Crow had aroused.

What had she expected? What had she wanted? For him to fall into her arms and declare his undying love for her? For her to ride to his rescue, extricate him from whatever mess he gotten himself into, and thus settle the old debts between them? She wasn't sure. Something between the two. But Crow was fine, caught up in nothing more than the inevitable rebellion against one's parents, even if he had come to it much later than most. The pictures in his parents' home may have suggested unfinished business between the two of them, but that was five months ago. Some fruit flies lived longer than Crow's passions.

She looked down at the beef that had fallen from her tacos, and the image of the man in the pool house boo-meranged into her consciousness. How quickly Tom Darden had been dismissed by Emmie and Crow, how incurious they had been. She believed Crow's mystification, believed him when he said he knew nothing about the man, or how he had come to be there.

Emmie-Emmie was another matter. In Emmie's case, it wasn't clear if it was the body that had caught her off guard, or the body's location 'at Marianna's place?' she had asked, her voice scaling up.

And neither one had bothered to ask whose body it was.

Chapter 10

A telegram-now there was a concept. In a world of cell phones, e-mail, faxes, and beepers, Tess knew Western Union existed only because it advertised its money-wiring service on television. But did it still do telegrams? She couldn't even find a Western Union in the telephone book, just a list of 'offices' at the local grocery chain, HEB.

The closest one was only a mile up Broadway, but it seemed more like a food amusement park than a grocery store. In fact, groceries seemed an afterthought here, what with chefs whipping up pasta dishes on demand, a full menu of cooking classes, a walk-in-humidor, and a wine section that needed two aisles just for South America. Tess scuffed her feet on the rough floors-painted, a helpful clerk told her, to create the feeling of an old European market-filled with an intense and sudden hunger for things she had never heard of. She was enraptured, she was repulsed, she wanted to get a little cot and set up housekeeping, preferably near the flowers. Baltimore's upscale grocery stores-Eddie's and Graul's and Sutton Place Gourmet-were pathetic compared to this temple of food. She couldn't decide if the grandeur was driven by the Texas phenomenon of big-bigger-biggest, or whether it was the inevitable overcompensatory impulse of a founder who had been born with the moniker of Henry E. Butt.

Eventually, she shook off the store's decadent spell and asked someone where she could send a telegram.

'It's cheaper to call,' the girl at the front counter said, examining her nails. She had on a new kind of polish that could be peeled off, and she was slowly liberating her synthetic talons from a coat of celery green. 'I mean, you can buy a long distance card at the ice house. I got one there last week. It had a picture of David Robinson on it.'