The Tortilla Curtain

you promised me, didn't you?”
    She wanted. Of course she wanted. Everybody who'd stayed behind to dry up and die in Tepoztlán wanted too--hell, all of Morelos, all of Mexico and the Indian countries to the south, they all wanted, and what else was new? A house, a yard, maybe a TV and a car too--nothing fancy, no palaces like the _gringos__ built--just four walls and a roof. Was that so much to ask?
    He watched her lips--pouting, greedy lips, lips he wanted to 3“> Q wanted kiss and own. ”Well?“ she demanded, and she wasn't teasing now, wasn't bantering or joking. ”Didn't you?"
    He'd promised. Sure he had. He'd held up the lure of all those things, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, the glitter of the North like a second Eden; sure, a young girl like her and an old man like himself with gray in his mustache--what else was he going to tell her? That they would get robbed at the border and live under two boards at the dump till he could make enough on the streetcorner to get them across? That they'd hide out like rats in a hole and live on a blanket beside a stream that would run dry in a month? That he'd be hammered down on the road so he could barely stand or make water or even think straight? He didn't know what to say.
    She let go of his arm and turned away from him. He watched the morning mist enclose her as she began to pick her way over the boulders that cluttered the ravine like broken teeth. When she got to the foot of the trail she swung round and stood there a moment, the mist boiling beneath her. “Maybe somebody will need a floor mopped or a stove cleaned,” she said, the words drifting down to him over the hum of the invisible cars above.
    It took him a long moment, and when he spoke it was as if the air had been knocked out of him. “Yeah,” he said, sinking back down into the blanket. “Maybe.”

The Tortilla Curtain

3
    HIGH UP THE CANYON, NESTLED IN A FAN-SHAPED depression dug out of the side of the western ridge by the action of some long-forgotten stream, lay the subdivision known as Arroyo Blanco Estates. It was a private community, comprising a golf course, ten tennis courts, a community center and some two hundred and fifty homes, each set on one-point-five acres and strictly conforming to the covenants, conditions and restrictions set _forth__ in the 1973 articles of incorporation. The houses were all of the Spanish Mission style, painted in one of three prescribed shades of white, with orange tile roofs. If you wanted to paint your house sky-blue or Provencal-pink with lime-green shutters, you were perfectly welcome to move into the San Fernando Valley or to Santa Monica or anywhere else you chose, but if you bought into Arroyo Blanco Estates, your house would be white and your roof orange.
    Delaney Mossbacher made his home in one of these Spanish Mission houses (floor plan #A227C, Rancho White with Navajo trim), along with his second wife, Kyra, her son, Jordan, her matching Dandie Dinmont terriers, Osbert and Sacheverell, and her Siamese cat, Dame Edith. On this particular morning, the morning that Cándido Rincón began to feel he'd lost control of his wife, Delaney was up at seven, as usual, to drip Kyra's coffee, feed Jordan his fruit, granola and hi-fiber bar and let Osbert and Sacheverell out into the yard to perform their matinal functions. He hadn't forgotten his unfortunate encounter with Cándido four days earlier--the thought of it still made his stomach clench--but the needs and wants and minor irritations of daily life had begun to push it into the background. At the moment, his attention was focused entirely on getting through the morning ritual with his customary speed and efficiency. He was nothing if not efficient.
    He made a sort of game of it, counting the steps it took him to shut the windows against the coming day's heat, empty yesterday's coffee grounds into the mulch bucket, transform two kiwis, an orange, apple, banana and a handful of Bing cherries into Jordan's medley of fresh fruit, and set the table for two. He skated across the tile floor to the dishwasher, flung open the cabinets, rocketed the plates and cutlery into position on the big oak table, all the while keeping an eye on the coffee, meah N eye on†suring out two bowls of dog food and juicing the oranges he'd plucked from the tree in the courtyard.
    Typically, he stole a moment out in the courtyard to breathe in the cool of the morning and listen to the scrub jays wake up the neighborhood,