THE MAID WAS NERVOUS because she had worked in this house only ten days, taking the place of her sister, and she didn’t want to do something bad and be fired. But she was so nervous she was afraid she was going to cry and not hear anything the man was saying.
She wished Mr. Donovan would be quiet.
She was talking on the telephone-the white one on the wall in the kitchen-to a man who had called and was telling her in Spanish to write something in English. She had finished high school last year, but she couldn’t think and spell the words fast enough to keep up with the man’s voice. Then she wouldn’t hear something he said, with Mr. Donovan talking at the same time.
Mr. Donovan sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of chili made with beans, a fence of green bottles in front of him; he wore only tennis shorts and appeared naked at the table. Before, when he began eating, he drank down an entire glass of beer and said, “Oh Jesus,” his eyes wet, as though he was crying, drank a second glass without stopping and said, “Honey, you know what? I’m going to live.” He asked her to get him two more bottles of beer from the refrigerator. Eating the hot chili his eyes watered even more and he said, “Oh Christ, Oh Jesus,” using this blasphemy to show his pleasure, using the good linen napkin to blow his nose. His eyes were so strange, appearing wet with emotion but at the same time drugged, staring without seeing. His body, too, was strange. A giant man made with parts and tones of color that didn’t go together. Waves of silver hair. His face colored red and brown. A handsome man if you didn’t stand close to him and see he must be fifty years old. Suntanned neck and arms. But narrow shoulders of bone and a body so pale and softly round it could belong to a fat woman from the States with very small breasts. She had seen such women.
When the phone rang and she began to talk to the man calling from Florida, she could hear Mr. Donovan saying, “I’m not here. Christ, I’m not anywhere yet… Tell whoever it is I moved and left no forwarding address… Honey, tell ’em you’re busy… The hell are you writing?” Never shutting up as she tried to listen to the voice on the phone and write the information, the voice telling her a name she thought was mágico, then spelling it for her and it wasn’t like mágico at all. She was saying to the voice, “Despacio,” repeating it every moment, and Mr. Donovan was saying, “Tell them they’ve got the wrong número.” She was feeling her tears coming, not wanting to lose this job that had been her sister’s, but thinking she was going to have to run out of here…
When the door opened and Mrs. Donovan came in from the garage to save her.
Mrs. Donovan, beautiful in her straw hat, her white dress that was tied about the waist but loose and showed her body as she moved. A saint coming in that soft dress, saying to her husband, “You look lovely.”
Mr. Donovan said, “Sit down and have one. It’s cocktail time.”
Please, the maid thought, not having to say it because she could see Mrs. Donovan’s eyes, shaded by the straight line of the hat brim, so calm, and knew she was saved.
In her quiet voice: “Who is it?”
“I don’t know what he’s telling me I’m suppose to write.” She believed she could let her tears come now and it would be all right.
Mrs. Donovan removed one of her earrings. She took the phone, covering it with her hand. “Someone’s at the front door.” Almost as she said it the maid’s eyes widened with the sound of the chimes and Mrs. Donovan smiled with her kind eyes. “I saw him as I drove in.” As the maid walked off she heard Mrs. Donovan say, “Yes, can I help you?”
She wished she could stay and listen to Mrs. Donovan talk to the man on the telephone. Her sister had told her she could learn amazing things working in this house and the house up north in New Jersey, where they lived most of the year.
Watch the way Mrs. Donovan treats the great Mr. Donovan, her sister said. It’s better than the television. They’re both married for the second time, to each other less than three years. Does she love him? See if you can tell. They sleep in different bedrooms. She’s more intelligent than he is, but he doesn’t know it. Watch out for him when he’s drinking, which is every day. Watch out for him late at night. He believes all women are in love with him. Her sister, who left this house to be married and live in New York, said, Never lie to Mrs. Donovan. Never tell anyone what you see and hear. Some of it you won’t believe.
The maid’s name was Dominga. As she reached the front door the bell chimed again.
Vincent said, “Hi, how you doing?” He told her he’d like to see Mr. Donovan.
Dominga paused a moment. “Can I say to him who you are?”
“I want to surprise him.”
“Yes, but I’m suppose to ask your name.”
He could use his shield and I.D., but it could complicate matters once he was in. “Okay. Tell him Vincent Mora.”
The maid came to life. She said, “Mr. Mora-yes, please, come in.”
He waited in a sitting room he believed no one had ever sat in: wondered about the Taino Indian bowl on the marble table, the primitive displayed in the formal setting; wondered why the maid had looked so surprised; wondered if this piece of pottery was more authentic than the ten-buck Taino stuff and if it was, how could you tell. He heard the sound of narrow heels in the tiled hall that was big enough to hold the rooms he lived in. The sound coming, echoing. Not the maid…
The woman in the Mercedes who had turned into the drive as he approached the house. Not wearing the wide-brimmed straw now… He liked her hair. Sun-streaked, natural looking, sort of parted and almost to her shoulder. Mid-thirties, five-five, slim, one-ten-his cop mind filing it away-movie star teeth, brown eyes that were calm, quietly aware, measuring him, maybe curious, maybe not.
“Mr. Mora?”
She came from the doorway onto the oriental rug, but only so far, a piece of plain white notepaper in one hand, the other closed around a small object that made the hand a delicate fist.
“I’m Nancy Donovan… your answering service.”
Vincent said, “Let me explain that, okay? It took me longer to get here than I thought it would.”
Nancy Donovan waited.
“I don’t have a phone.”
She said, “Oh, I see.”
“I thought, if I’m here and I get the call you wouldn’t mind. Except I didn’t make it in time. I had to take a bus from Candado.”
She said, “You don’t have a phone, you don’t have a car either.” She was looking at his cane now. “I’m sorry-here, let’s sit down.” Coming over to the marble table. “I’ll give you your message, if I can read my own writing. What’s your friend’s name, Torres?”
“Buck Torres.”
He liked her. He liked her quiet tone, her eyes. He liked her a lot. They sat across from each other at the marble table, cool to the touch. A conference in a room at the Institute of Culture. He watched as she opened her hand to place a pearl earring on the table, then move the Taino centerpiece out of the way, carefully. Maybe he should ask her about it; learn something. He watched her place the sheet of notepaper between them, turning it to him. He caught the scent of her perfume, saw her straight-up-and-down handwriting, saw the name on the first line jump out at him, printed in capital letters.
TEDDY MAGYK.
“Teddy,” Vincent said. He sat back and seemed relieved. “It’s funny, on the bus that name went through my mind, Teddy Magyk, but I didn’t recognize him. I don’t know why.” He had to think about that for a moment, seeing Teddy again in the Datsun-something different about him, more grown up.