“Yeah, but his grandpapa, he called Pastor Andrés, he told him he’d report Pastor to the Immigration if he hear Billy going around with any Mexican girls in the church,” Julia shot back. “Wetbacks, he called us, you just ask anyone, you can ask Freddy, he was there when Billy’s grandfather called. And after that, how long was it before he called you?”
“He don’t need to call me; he sees me every Wednesday at choir rehearsal.”
The baby began crying more loudly. When her mother and her aunt still ignored her, I picked her up and started patting her back.
“How about now?” I asked, “Now that he’s not living at home. Does Billy call you now?”
“Yes, once, to say, can he come over here, but then, he give away, gave away, his cell phone, on account of he said there’s something in the phone, a detective could find him,” Josie muttered, staring at her knees.
So he’d paid attention to my warning about the GSM signal. “Why doesn’t he want to go home?”
Julia gave a syrupy smile. “He’s in l-o-v-e with the little wetback here.”
Josie slapped her sister; Julia started pulling her hair. I put the baby down and yanked the sisters apart. They glared at each other, but when I let them go, they didn’t lunge for each other. I picked the baby up again and sat cross-legged on the floor.
“Billy’s family, they were rude to Pastor Andrés,” Josie added. “Billy, he really cares about this neighborhood, do people have jobs, do they have enough to eat, like that, and his family, they just want to exploit us.”
Billy had definitely been preaching to his little wetback, and she was an attentive student. The baby grabbed at my earrings. I unclutched her tiny fist and pulled out my car keys for her to play with. She threw them on the floor with an excited crow of laughter.
“Who’s Freddy?” I asked.
The sisters looked at each other, but Julia said, “Just a guy who goes to Mt. Ararat, it’s a small church, we all been knowing each other since we was little.”
“Since we were little,” Josie corrected.
“You want to talk Anglo, be my guest. Me, I’m just a teenage mom, I don’t have to know anything.”
“Your mom and your aunt are such bad liars. I know, that makes you cry to hear it, but it’s true,” I spoke to the baby and blew bubbles on her stomach. “Now, who is Freddy really?”
“He’s really just a guy who goes to Mount Ararat.” Julia stared at me defiantly. “You ask Pastor Andrés, he’ll tell you.”
I sighed. “Okay, maybe, maybe. There’s something about him you don’t want me to know, though. It wouldn’t be his DNA, would it?”
“His what?” Julia said.
“DNA,” Josie said. “We covered that in biology, which you’d know if you ever went to school, it’s like how people identify-oh.” She looked at me. “Like you think he’s María Inés’s father or something.”
“Or something,” I said.
Julia spoke through clenched teeth. “He’s just a guy at church, I hardly know him except to talk at church.”
“But this casual acquaintance told you he heard old Mr. Bysen call the church and threaten the pastor with deportation?”
“It-he thought we should know,” Julia stammered.
Josie was crimson. “Billy been-Billy has been-singing in the church, like, since August, and him and me, we went out for a Coke after rehearsal once, I guess maybe in September, and Mr. Grobian, he’s at the warehouse, he’s Billy’s boss, like, he saw us and he told on us, like, it was a crime, Billy taking me for a Coke, and then Ma, she heard, she said no way can I see him ’less Betto and Sammy are with me. So it’s like I have to babysit if I want to see him, which would be horrible if you was on a date, to have your brothers with you, but, see, his ma, his mom, she don’t-she doesn’t want him going out with me, so we never really was dating. Were dating. Except yesterday, he took me up to the hospital to see April.”
So Billy had fallen in love with Josie, so much in love he was teaching her English grammar. And she loved him right back, which is why she was changing her speech. And that was also why Billy was fighting the idea of going back to Barrington. Maybe his ideals played a role, too, but mostly it was those pesky stars, crossing lovers once again. I thought of my own jealous worries about Morrell and Marcena Love-you don’t have to be fifteen to live in a soap opera.
“You won’t tell Ma, will you, Coach?” Josie said.
“I can’t believe your ma doesn’t already know,” I said. “You’d have to be brain-dead not to know when there was an extra person in this apartment. She’s probably just too depressed about the fire at Fly the Flag to deal with you and Billy right now. And about that fire-what’s the story on this soap dish? Which one of you bought it?”
“I got it at By-Smart,” Julia said quickly. “Like Josie said, I bought it for Sancia last Christmas. They’re real cute, these frogs, and they don’t cost hardly anything. But they had like a hundred of them, so how can I know if it’s the one I bought or not? Where you find this, anyway?”
“Outside Fly the Flag. In all the rubble from the building.”
“Outside Ma’s job? What was it doing there?” Julia’s bewilderment seemed genuine-she and her sister looked at each other, as if seeing whether the other knew something she wasn’t saying.
“I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t mean a thing, but it’s my only clue. By the way, Betto thought you got it for someone else, Julia.”
“Yeah, well, he was like six years old last Christmas, so I don’t know how he knows who I bought presents for.” Julia stared at me in hauteur. “All he cared about was, did he get his new Power Ranger?”
“You two make it sound so plausible, but I have to say I don’t believe you. I’m going to take this to a forensic lab. They’ll test it for fingerprints, they’ll test it for chemicals, they’ll tell me what it was doing at the plant, and who was doing it.”
“So?” The sisters stared at me sullenly, united on this one matter.
“So what?” I said. “So you know there won’t be fingerprints, or you don’t care who left them, or what?”
“So if Sancia gave it to someone else, I can’t help it,” Julia said.
“Coach McFarlane said you were the best player she had coached in decades, maybe ever,” I said to Julia. “Why don’t you go back to school, use your brains for your own future, instead of for spinning up lies for grown-ups like me. You could go back to the game; Sancia does, with her two little ones.”
“Yeah, well, her ma and her sisters help her out. Who’s going to help me? No one.”
“You are so unfair!” Josie cried. “I didn’t get you pregnant, but because you went and had a baby now I have to sneak around like a criminal if I want to see a boy! And I help you with María Inés all the time, so there!”
I handed María Inés to Julia. “Play with her, talk to her. Give her a chance, even if you don’t want one for yourself. And if you decide, either of you, to start telling the truth, give me a call.”
I gave them both business cards and stuck the frog back in my bag. When they stared at me, speechless, I got up and went through the dining room, looking for Rose. Betto and Sammy scuttled deeper under the table at my approach: I was the woman who could get them charcoal roasted if they talked to me.
Rose was lying on Josie’s bed in the girls’ bedroom. I ducked under the clothesline hung with María Inés’s wardrobe and watched her, wondering whether I had anything to ask that justified waking her. Her bright red hair clashed with the red in the American flag pillowcase; the Illinois women’s team smiled down at her.
“I know you’re standing there,” she said dully, without opening her eyes. “What is it you want?”
“I only went to Fly the Flag in the first place because you wanted me to look into the sabotage going on there. Then you told me to back off. What made you change your mind?” I kept my voice gentle.
“It’s all about the job,” she said. “I thought-what I thought, I can’t even remember now. Frank-he told me. He asked me to tell you to go away.”