The Tortilla Curtain

once have been here, ranchers hauling hay or whatever to feed their cattle, Model T's and A's digging narrow ruts along the inside shoulders of the switchbacks, woodstoves and candlelight, chickens running free--Kyra didn't know what it was, but she was swept up in a vision of a time before this one, composed in equal parts of _Saturday Evening__ Post covers, _Lassie__ reruns and a nostalgia for what she'd never known. These people really lived in the middle of nowhere--Arroyo Blanco was like Pershing Square compared to this. It was amazing. She had no idea there was so much open space out here--and not five miles from 101, she bet, and no more than twelve or fifteen from the city limits, if that. Was it still in L.A. County, she wondered, or had she crossed the line?
    It was then, wondering and relaxed, enjoying the day, the scenery, the season, that she spotted the inconspicuous little sign at the head of a blacktop drive tucked away in a grove of eucalyptus just past the Comado Canyon turnoff: FOR SALE BY OWNER. She drove right past it, parting the veil of blue-gray mist that shrouded the road, but then she checked herself, pulled over onto the shoulder and made a U-turn that took her back to the driveway. The sign wasn't very revealing--FOR SALE BY OWNER was all it said, and then there was a phone number beneath it. Was there a house in there? A ranch? An estate? Judging from the size of the eucalyptus--huge pale shedding old relics with mounds of sloughed bark at their feet--the place hadn't been thrown together yesterday. But it was probably nothing. Probably a paint-blistered old chicken shack with a bunch of rusted-out cars in the yard--or a trailer.
    She sat there opposite the drive in her idling car, the window rolled down, the sweet fresh breath of the rain in her face, watching the silver leaves of the eucalyptus dissolve into the mist and then reappear again. It was twenty of five. She'd told the boy's mother--Karen, or was it Erin?--that she'd be by to pick up Jordan at five, but still, she didn't feel any compulsion. It was Christmas, or almost Christmas, and it was raining. And besides, the woman--Karen or Erin--had sounded sweet on the phone and she'd said there was no problem, Kyra could come whenever she wanted, the boys were playing so nicely together--and you never knew what was at the end of a drive if you didn't take the time to find out. The sign was an invitation, wasn't it? Of course it was. Real estate. She pushed in the trip odometer, flicked on the turn signal, took a precautionary look over her shoulder and started up the drive.
    She left the window open to enjoy the wet fecund ever-so-faintlymentholated smell of the eucalyptus buttons crushed on the pavement and let her eyes record the details: trees and more trees, a whole deep brooding forest of eucalyptus, and birds calling from every branch. Half a mile in she crossed a fieldstone bridge over a brook swollen with runoff from the storm, came round a long sweeping bend and caught sight of the house. She was so surprised she stopped right there, a hundred yards from the place, and just gaped at it. All the way out here, on what must have been ten acres, minimum, stood a three-story stone-and-plaster mansion that could have been lifted right out of Beverly Hills, or better yet, a village in the South of France.
    The style was French Eclectic, simple, understated, with a tony elegance that made the late Da Ros place seem fussy, even garish, by comparison. From the hipped roof with its flared eaves to the stone quoins accenting windows and doors and the thick sturdy plaster walls painted in the exact pale-cinnamon shade of the eucalyptus trunks and festooned with grapevines gone blood-red with the season, the place was a revelation. The grounds too--the plantings were rustic, but well cared for and well thought out. There was a circular drive out front that swept round a pond with a pair of swans streaming across it, and the pond was set off by casual groupings of birch and Japanese maple. FOR SALE BY OWNER: she'd have to play this one carefully, very carefully. Kyra let the car roll forward as if it had a mind of its own; then she leaned into the arc of the drive, swung round front and parked. She spent half a minute with her compact, ran both hands through her hair, and went up the steps.
    A man about fifty in a plaid flannel shirt and tan slacks answered the door; behind him, already trying on a smile, was the wife, stationed beside a