Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

simple as that.”
Mary sighed and muttered “Shit” to no one in particular. This provoked a disapproving cluck from Mrs. Hernandez, the tortilla’s discoverer. In anticipation of her television debut, the portly matron was decked out in her grandmother’s lace shawl and mantilla.
“Excuse me,” said Mary Ann, bowing slightly to underscore her sincerity.
“We could highlight it,” the cameraman suggested.
“What?”
“The tortilla. We could touch it up.”
“No!” She was feeling sleazier by the minute. Her perennial wisecrack about working for the “National Enquirer of the Air” contained more truth than she cared to admit, even to herself.
“But if we explained …”
“Matthew, don’t touch up the tortilla, all right?”
He called for truce with his hands. “O.K., O.K.” He looked around at the blackened pots and pans of the cramped kitchen. “Should we shoot it here?”
“She found it here, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, but there’s not enough room for the others.”
“What others?”
He smiled at her lazily. “All those pilgrims in the front room. They came to be on TV.”
“Well, they can’t be!”
“Swell. You tell them that.”
She groaned at him, then stomped to the pay phone in the front room. She called Larry Kenan and suggested that the story be scrapped. His response was clipped and vitriolic: “If it’s too much for you, lady, I’ll put Father Paddy on it. Wait there and don’t touch that friggin’ tortilla!”
Forty-five minutes later, the television host of Honest to God alighted cassock-clad from his red 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. “Darling!” he beamed, catching sight of Mary Ann. “You poor thing! This is your first miracle, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure it qualifies,” she muttered.
“Tut-tut. Miracles are like beauty, I always say. They’re in the eye of the beholder. Where is the beholder, by the way?”
“In the back,” she answered, pointing past the mob in the front room. “In the kitchen.”
“Grand.” Father Paddy glided through the throng like a stately pleasure craft, eliciting devout murmurs of recognition from the television viewers present. “The thing is,” he told Mary Ann, “miracles are very, very good for people. We can’t let a little faulty technology stand in our way. Some miracles are easier than others, of course, but I’m sure we can manage. Have you noticed, by the way, how it’s always Jesus or the Blessed Virgin? Good evening, my child, God bless you. They should be seeing the Holy Ghost, since he’s the ambassador-at-large, if you know what I mean, but no one ever spots the Holy Ghost on a tortilla— God bless you, God bless you —since no one has the faintest idea what the poor devil looks like. He gets no press at all. Christ, it’s hot in here. Where’s the tortilla?”
When they reached the kitchen, an elderly friend of Mrs. Hernandez was using the tortilla as a sort of compress against an arthritic elbow. “Oh, dear,” said Father Paddy. “We may have lost Him.”
A hasty examination of the tortilla reassured them that the holy features were still discernible.
“It won’t show up on tape,” said the cameraman.
Father Paddy gave him a knowing smile. “Backlight it,” he said, “then tell me that.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me, Matthew. Father knows best.” He gave Mary Ann’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Never fear, darling. We’re home free now.”
He was right, it turned out. Backlighting the tortilla not only emphasized the color variations in the dough, thereby revealing the Christus, but also imbued the pastry with an inspirational halo-like effect. When the image finally appeared on the monitor, all twenty-three members of the Hernandez entourage uttered a collective murmur of appreciation.
“Perfect,” purred Father Paddy. “Nice work, Matthew. I knew you could do it.”
The cameraman smiled modestly, giving Mary Ann a thumbs-up sign. She was still uncertain, though. “They won’t see the clothespins, will they, Matthew?”
“Nah.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll shoot just below them. Don’t worry.” He reached out and touched the length of twine from which the tortilla was suspended. “We wouldn’t want Him to look like He’s hanging out to dry.”
She laughed feebly, hoping Mrs. Hernandez hadn’t heard the remark. She was actually beginning to warm to this story. The face on the tortilla did look an awful lot like Jesus, if you discounted the lopsided nose and a dark spot