Shoe Strings

rich, elongated
vowel sounds in the familiar cadence she’d come to know as her father’s
distinct dialect.   She’d met many,
many people from Brazil over the years, but no one’s pattern of speaking seemed
as deliberate as her father’s.   So
upon hearing it after only a moment’s hesitation, Lita found the muscles in her
throat constrict to where her own voice came out as a whisper.  
    “Hello, Davi.”
    “Angelita.”   The
sound of her own name had her nerves stretched to near breaking.   “Finally, you call me.”
    “I’ve been busy,” was all she would say.   He didn’t deserve to know about her life
or how his recent contact had affected it.   “Sophie said you called.”
    “For over a week now.   I hope you treat your customers better than you do your father.”
    Of course she treated her customers better.   She respected them.   “What do you want?”
    “We need to meet.   I have a business proposition for you.”
    Why did she feel like she was speaking to Tony Soprano?   “I’m not in town to meet with you.   It’ll have to wait.”
    He sighed with impatience.   “When you return, then.”
    “I don’t know when I’m coming home.”  
    “Angelita.”   He
spoke her name just as he had when she was a child, full of exasperation.   “That’s no way to run a business.   I guess I should have expected this kind
of carelessness from you.”
    “I’m not being careless.   I’m simply not available to meet with
you.”   She sounded defensive and was
angry with herself for letting him get to her after only a few minutes.   “I’ll call you when I return and maybe
we can set something up.”
    “Where are you?”
    “What?”
    “You said you were out of town,” he said patiently.   “So where are you?”
    She didn’t want to have to look over her shoulder every few
minutes like she would if he knew where to find her.   “Not in town.”
    The silence on the other end told her he was struggling to
hold his temper.   He didn’t like not
being able to control every situation.   “This really can’t wait.”
    “For me it can.”
    “You’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
    He was harder to shake than a bad cold and she simply
couldn’t put up with his daily phone calls.   Now that she’d called, he’d have her
cell number.   “I doubt that, but you
can put your proposal in an e-mail.   I’ll take a look at it when I get a chance.”
    “Angelita, business should be discussed civilly, not written
about like a college exam.   Tell me
where you are and I’ll come to you if you can’t bother to come home.”
    Giving him her location was out of the question.   For him to suggest it made her worry
even more about his motives.   He was
under a deadline that involved her company and she wouldn’t be squeezed into
cooperating because she had a long history of giving in to him.   “E-mail the proposal.   That’s all I’m willing to offer.”
    Again there was silence and what sounded like the ruffling
of papers.   He sighed once and then
spoke.   “E-mail is not an
option.   There doesn’t need to be a
paper trail for what we have to discuss.”
    What the hell was he talking about?   No paper trail implied illegal activity
and he wasn’t going to drag her good name through the mud.   “It sounds like I’m better off not
having this discussion in the first place.   Why don’t we just forget you called?”
    “You called me and I can’t drop this.”   She heard a door close and when he spoke
his voice was quiet, to the point of being intimate.   “Angelita, I’m asking you for a favor.”
    “Why should I do anything for you?”
    “I’m your father, for one.   And it may not be so good for your
business if you don’t cooperate.”
    She held the phone like a vise. Outside the car windows she
could see two teenagers riding their bikes along the sidewalk.   A mother and child walked hand in hand
toward the ice cream store.   “What the
hell are you talking about?” she asked through clenched teeth.   “Are you in trouble with the law?”
    “The Brazilian government is considering closing the
consulate here.   If that happens, I
will have to leave the country.”   There was a pause so long Lita thought their connection had failed.   “If I go back to Brazil, I’ll be…a
marked man.”
    “What does that mean?   Marked man?”
    “In the course of my position here, I’ve had to
make…alliances that have