The Tortilla Curtain

twenty-five dollars the _patrón__ would give her, trying not to think about the ride back and what it would be like sitting next to him in the car. She pictured the _cocido__ she and Cándido had made from yesterday's profits, visualizing each chunk of meat, the _chiles,__ the beans, the onions--and the _tortillas__ and cheese and hard-cooked eggs that went with it--all of it carefully wrapped in the plastic bags from the store and secreted beneath a rock in a cool spot she'd dug out in the wet sand of the streambed. But what if an animal got to it? What did they have here in the North? _El mapache__, the short-nosed cousin of the coatimundi, a furtive, resourceful animal. Still, the stone was heavy and she'd wrapped the food as tightly as she could. No: it was more likely that the ants would discover it--they could get into anything, insidious, like so many moving grains of sand--and she saw a line of them as thick as her wrist pouring in and out of the pot as she scrubbed one of a thousand blackened Buddhas. The vision made her hungry and she removed the gloves a moment to devour the dry crackers and slivers of cheese she'd brought along, and then she dashed across the room to wet her mouth under the faucet and relieve herself, flushing quickly this time and darting back to the table before the roar of the rushing water had subsided.
    She worked hard, worked without stint for the rest of the day, fighting back tears and lightheadedness to prove her worth, to show the _patrón__ that all by herself she could transform as many Buddhas as both she and Mary had been able to the day before. He would notice and he would thank her and ask her back the next day and the next, and he would know that she was worth more than the kind of girl who would have lifted his hand from her lap and pressed it to her breasts. But when he finally reappeared--at six by the sunburst clock on the wall--he didn't seem to notice. He just nodded his head impatiently and turned to trundle heavily to the car while the garage door rose beyond him as if by levitation.
    He didn't put his hand in her lap. He didn't turn on the radio. When they swung into the lot at the market, he pulled out his wallet, shifting his weight with a grunt, extracted a twenty and a five and turned his blue-eyed gaze to the horizon as she fumbled with the door handle and let herself out. The door slammed, the engine gave a growl, and he was gone.
    She didn't see Cándido anywhere. The parking lot was full of white people hurrying in and out of the market with brown plastic bags tucked under their arms, and the labor exchange across the street was deserted. She felt a sharp letdown--this was where they'd agreed to meet--and for a long moment she just stood there in the middle of the lot, looking round her numbly. And then it occurred to her that Cándido must have gotten work. Of course. Where else would he be? A feeling like joy took hold of her, but it wasn't joy exactly or joy without limit--she wouldn't feel that until she had a roof over her head. But if Cándido had work they'd have enough money to eat for a week, two weeks maybe, and if they could both find a job--even every second day--they could start saving for an apartment.
    For now, though, there was nothing to do but wait. She crossed the lot, clutching the bills in her hand, and found an inconspicuous perch on a tree stump at the corner of the building. From here she could watch the lot for Cándido and stay out of the way--all those _gringos__ made her nervous. Every time a car swung into the lot she felt her heart seize. She couldn't help thinking of _La Migra__ and those tense silent men in the tan uniforms who'd ministered over the worst night of her life, the night she'd been stripped naked in front of all those people, though Cándido assured her they wouldn't find her here. The chances were small. Minuscule. But she didn't like chances, any chances, and she shrank into the vegetation and waited.
    An hour went by. She was bored, scared, beginning to imagine all sorts of calamities: Cándido had been picked up by the police, he'd gone back to the canyon and stepped into a nest of rattlesnakes, another car had hit him and he lay bleeding in the bushes. From there her mind took her to their camp--maybe he was down there now, starting the fire, warming the stew--and then to the stew itself, and her stomach turned inside out and gnawed at her. She was hungry. Ravenous. And though the store intimidated her,