T. Boyle - The Tortilla Curtain

Jack was grinning, his lips ever so slightly drawn back to reveal a strategic flash of enamel. Delaney recognized the expression. It was skeptical, faintly ironic, meant to convey to judges, jurors and district attorneys alike that the issue had yet to be decided. “So what is it, Delaney-should we bring back the traps and quotas or not? You've lost two dogs, and how many others here have lost pets too?” He made a sweeping gesture to take in the room, the house, the community at large.

“That's right,” Kyra said, slipping up behind Delaney and taking hold of his arm, “and that's where we had our falling-out over the wall-or actually, it was war, full-on, no-holds-barred.”

Jack laughed. Erna laughed. Delaney managed a rueful smile as greetings went round and the string quartet built to a frenzy in the _con fuoco.__ “But really,” Kyra said, unwilling to let it go, “don't you feel safer now, all of you-Jack, Erna, Delaney? Don't you?” she said, turning her face to him. “Admit it.”

Delaney reddened. Shrugged again. The beer glass in his hand was heavy as a cannonball. “I know when I'm licked,” he was saying, but Erna Jardine had already leapt in to answer for him. “Of course we do,” she said. “We all do. The wall's barely been completed and yet I'm breathing easier to know there'll never be another rattlesnake in my garage. Or another break-in.” She gave them a pious look. “Oh, I know that doesn't mean we can let our guard down, but still, it's one more barrier, isn't it?” she said, and then she leaned into Kyra and lowered her voice confidentially. “Did you hear about Shelly Schourek? It was a follow-home. Right down the hill in Calabasas.”

The party went on. Delaney fretted. Had a second beer. Jack Cherrystone joined them and gave a farcical synopsis of a movie he'd just done the trailer for, yet another apocalyptic futuro cyberpunk vision of Los Angeles in the twenty-first century. People gathered round when he shifted from the merely thunderous tones of his everyday voice to the mountain-toppling hysteria of the one he wielded professionally. “They brokered babies!” he roared, “ate their young, made love an irredeemable sin!” Jack's eyes bugged out. He shook his jowls and waved his hands as if he'd dipped them in oil. It was a real performance, all of that voice pouring out of so small a vessel, and Delaney found himself laughing, laughing till he felt something uncoil inside him, overcooked turkeys, mucilaginous potatoes and other culinary disasters notwithstanding. He finished the second beer and wondered if he should have a third.

That must have been about four in the afternoon-Delaney couldn't place the time exactly in the frantic sequence of events that followed, but he remembered looking at his watch about then and thinking he had to excuse himself soon if there was any hope of serving dinner by six. And then the sirens went off and the first of the helicopters sliced overhead and someone jumped up on one of the tables in the backyard and shouted, “Fire! Fire in the canyon!”

Kyra had been enjoying herself. Delaney might have looked constipated, wearing what she liked to think of as his night-before-the-exams face, sweating the little details of their dinner party-the firmness of the turkey, the condition of the silverware and god knew what else-but she was kicking back, not a care in the world. Everything's under control, she kept telling him, don't worry. She'd had everything organized for days, right down to the last detail-all it would take was to reheat a few things in the microwave and uncork the wines. She'd already finished her run for the day and swum forty laps too (in anticipation of taking on a few superfluous calories), the flowers were cut and arranged, the turkey was in the oven, and Orbalina was more than capable of handling any little emergency that might arise. And while she could have been out showing houses-holidays were always hot, even Thanksgiving, though among holidays it ranked next to last, just ahead of Christmas-she figured she deserved a break. When you worked ten and twelve hours a day, six days a week, and sat by the telephone on the seventh and hadn't taken a real vacation in five years, not even for your honeymoon, you had to give something back to your family-and yourself. Her mother was here, her sister was on the way. She was giving a dinner party. It was time to relax.

Besides, she'd always been curious about Dominick Flood. Erna was forever dropping his name, and there was always something hushed and secretive about the whole business-his conviction, the anklet he had to wear, his wife leaving him-and though he was known to entertain frequently (what else could he do?) Kyra had never met him till now or been inside the house either. She had to admit she was favorably impressed. The house was tasteful, nothing splashy or showy, quintessentially Southwestern, with a few really fine details like the Talavera tiles in the kitchen set off by a pair of ancient _retablos__ depicting a saint at prayer, and it was interesting to see what he'd done with a floor plan identical to theirs. And the man himself had proven to be no disappointment either. Oozing charm. And with something dangerous in his eyes, the way he glanced at you, the easy crackle of his voice. He'd made one convert, at least-her mother hadn't left his side since they got there. It was a pity he couldn't come to dinner.

Kyra found herself drifting easily from group to group, almost as much at home as if it were her own party. She knew at least half the people here, and was curious about the ones she didn't know-Dominick's friends from outside Arroyo Blanco-in the same way she was curious about him. If she'd expected gangster types or little Milkens or whatever, she was disappointed. There wasn't a crack in the façade. She talked to a couple from Brentwood about cacti, nineteenth-century Japanese prints, property values and yachts, and to a muddled, bespectacled man in his thirties who seemed to be some sort of scholar devoted to plowing through ancient manuscripts at the Vatican, though to what purpose she never determined. And then there was the group of three-two sisters and the husband of the chunkier of the two (or was it the slimmer?)-who kept urging her to refill her wineglass, though one was her limit, and with whom she discussed tennis, Nahuatlan figurines, property values and the North American Free Trade Agreement. There wasn't a _capo,__ or _consigliere__ in sight.

She'd refilled her glass with Evian and was huddled over the canapes with Erna and Selda Cherrystone, her own little party beginning to splinter off, though her mother was still across the room monopolizing their host, and she was feeling good, really good, for the first time in a long while. Real estate was off her mind for the day at least-though the rest of the weekend would be full-bore, the last really big weekend of the season, people trying to get in on a thirty-day escrow before Christmas-and the Da Ros place was locked and shuttered and secured for the holiday. She hadn't told anybody yet-Delaney or Jordan, that is-but now that the wall was up and their troubles behind them, she was thinking-just thinking-of another dog, a sheltie maybe, for Jordan's birthday. That would bring things full circle. That would start the healing.

She looked out the window and the sun was a golden, beneficent thing, the rich green shining leaves of the camellias steeped in it, and she saw in a moment of clarity that it was a thing to reverence and enjoy, the realtor's greatest ally, and she forgot the winds, the late heat, the mad parched thirsty air rushing through the canyon for the sea, forgot all about it, until someone got up on a table and shouted “Fire!” and the day fell to pieces around her.

Delaney was no alarmist, but with the first blast of the sirens, he couldn't help but think of Jordan, alone, back at the house. He found himself out on the lawn at Dominick Flood's with all the rest of the par tygoers, staring into the twisting column of black smoke that rose ominously from the canyon below. There was no need for panic. Not yet. Brushfires broke out routinely up here and half the time the fire department had them squelched in a matter of hours, and yet the brush was ready to explode and everyone knew it-no one better than Delaney. He looked round him at the anxious faces of his neighbors, their necks craning, mouths drawn tight, a cold vestigial glint of fear frozen in the depths of their eyes. They'd survived last year's firestorms and the quake too-and the mudslides, for that matter-and no one wanted to get hysterical, no one wanted to risk looking foolish, not yet. Not yet.