The Tortilla Curtain

like some freakish vortex, The Amazing Lady with the Shrinking Face. Ever since she'd had her nose modified when she was fourteen, it had a tendency to embarrass her in times of stress. Whatever the doctor had done to it--remove a sliver of bone, snip a bit here and there--it was always just a shade paler than her cheeks, chin and brow, and it took on color more quickly. It always seemed to be sunburned, for one thing. And when she had a cold or flu or felt agitated or depressed or overwrought it blazed out from the center of her face like something you'd expect to find at the top of a Christmas tree.
    You couldn't move property with a nose like that. But why dwell on it? She took out her compact and went to work.
    Just as she was putting the finishing touches to her face she heard Sally Lieberman chiming from the front door, “We're here!”
    Sally was mid-forties, dressed like she owned the store, worked out at the gym, a real professional. Kyra had closed six properties with her over the course of the past two years and she valued her input. The buyers, though, left something to be desired. They hung back at the door, looking sulky and hard-to-please. Sally introduced them as the Paulymans, Gerald and Sue. He was frazzle-haired and unshaven, in a pair of blue jeans gone pale with use, and she had pink and black beads braided into her hair. Kyra knew from experience not to judge from first appearances--she'd once had a woman in her seventies who dressed like a bag lady but wound up writing a check for a two-point-seven-mil estate in Cold Canyon--but they didn't look auspicious. Maybe they were musicians or TV writers, she thought, hoping for the best. They had to have something going for them or Sally wouldn't have brought them around.
    “So what's with the wet spot on the porch?” the husband wanted to know, confronting her eyes, his voice nagging and hoarse.
    You couldn't be evasive--evasive didn't work. Even the most complacent buyer would think you were trying to put something over on them,, and a buyer like this would eat you alive. Kyra put on her smile. “A broken sprinkler head. I've already called the gardener about it.”
    “That porch has a real pitch to it.”
    “We offer a one-year buyer-protection policy on every house we list, gratis.”
    “I can't believe this carpet,” the wife said.
    “And look at this,” the husband whined, pushing past Kyra and into the living room, where he went down on his hands and knees to wet a finger and run it along the baseboard, “the paint is flaking.”
    Kyra knew the type. They were looky-loos of the first stripe, abusive, angry, despicable people who'd make you show them two hundred houses and then go out and buy a trailer. Kyra gave them her spiel--deal of the century, room to spare, old-world craftsmanship, barely been lived in--handed them each a brochure with a glossy color photo of the house reproduced on the front and left them to wander at will.
    By two, she had a headache. Nothing was moving, anywhere, there were no messages on her machine and only six people had showed up for the realtors' open house she'd catered herself on a new listing in West Hills--all that Chardonnay, Brie and Danish soda bread gone to waste, not to mention half a platter of California roll, ebi and salmon sushi. She spent the rest of the afternoon at the office, doing busywork, writing up ad copy and making phone calls, endless phone calls. Three extra-strength Excedrin couldn't begin to quell the throbbing in her temples, and every time she lifted a document from her desk she saw Sacheverell as a puppy chasing a wadded-up ball of paper as if it were a part of him that had gotten away. She called Delaney at five to see how Jordan was taking it--he was fine, Delaney told her, so absorbed in his Nintendo he wouldn't have known a dog from a chicken--and then she left work early to close up her houses and head home.
    The parking attendant gave her her keys with a smile full of teeth and a mock bow that took him almost to the ground. He was a young Latino with slicked-back hair and dancing eyes and he always made her feel good, and though it was a little thing and she knew it was his job to make the ladies feel good, she couldn't help smiling back at him. Then she was in her ear and the rest of the world wasn't. She switched off the car phone, fed one of her relaxation tapes into the slot in the console--waves breaking on a beach, with the odd keening cry of a seagull thrown in