“Of course.”
“Come on, I’ll show you around the place.”
And they had been inseparable from then on.
“Since I didn’t think you would think to,” Doña Alicia said, “I called Maria and she’s bringing the children out for supper.”
“Abuela,” Fernando demanded, “how are the Gringo and I going to get drunk if my wife and the rug rats are coming?”
“You’re not going to . . . Fernando, stop! You are making me angry!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, contritely.
“Rug rats!” Doña Alicia said. “I don’t know where you got that.”
“Watching television comedy, Abuela,” Carlos said. “I agree with you. That’s disgusting! ‘Rug rats’! His own sweet and loving children!”
Doña Alicia tried and failed to keep a smile from her lips.
“Well, if you feel you must,” she said, “come in the house and have a cocktail. I may even have a glass of wine myself. ”
“I left my suitcase on the airplane, Abuela,” Carlos said. “Have I got a change of clothes in my room?”
“Of course you do,” she said. “You know that. You ‘forgot your suitcase on the airplane’? How in the world could you do that?”
“Tell Abuela whose airplane it was, and where you have been, Carlos Guillermo,” Fernando said, as they walked into the living room.
She looked at him expectantly.
“My boss’s airplane. Secretary Hall. The president sent for him and I caught a ride with him,” Carlos said.
“Did you get to see the president?” she asked.
“From a distance,” Carlos said, not liking the lie but knowing it came with the job.
“Your grandfather knew his father,” Doña Alicia said. “They did some business together in Alabama. Something, I think, to do with trees for pulp. Longleaf pines, whatever that is.”
“Really?”
That didn’t come up. Didn’t they make the connection? Or did they know? And did knowing that have something to do with that two-minute job interview? Until just now, I thought the president was just trusting Hall. Or maybe they knew and wanted to see if I would bring it up.
“We used to see them at the Kentucky Derby,” Doña Alicia said. “The president’s father, I mean. And his wife. A really lovely woman. Your grandfather really loved horses.”
“Abuela,” Fernando asked, from the bar. “Wine, you said?”
“Please,” she said. “There’s some Argentine cabernet sauvignon in one of the cabinets.”
[THREE]
Baltimore-Washington International Airport Baltimore, Maryland 0905 31 May 2005
“Lear Five-Zero-Seven-Five on the ground at five past the hour. Will you close us out, please?” Castillo, who was in the pilot’s seat, said into his microphone.
“Not bad, Gringo. We’ll have to report a hard landing, but not bad.”
“Screw you, Fernando,” Castillo said.
“BWI ground control, Lear Five-Zero-Seven-Five,” Fernando said into his microphone. “Request taxi instructions to civil aviation refuel facilities.”