Joaquín Carbajál sat listlessly watching the employment ads crawl along under the six o'clock news. When his daughter came downstairs, he barely glanced at her.
"I thought you were studying."
"Oh, I'm, uh almost done," she said. "Just came down for a soda."
He watched her as she took a plastican out of the refrigerator. Even with the two of them in the kitchen at the same time, things weren't right. The room didn't smell the way it should; there was no scent of cooking in the air. It had all been different when Consuelo was alive. The apartment seemed to have died with her.
Nowadays it seemed as if Fausta only showed up to throw their meals together (she was not one for cooking--she nuked everything) and to study or sleep. Not that she did much studying; her grades were down, and she had made no effort to apply to college.
"You got plans for tonight?" he asked, as casually as he could.
"Hector and I were gonna go to the movies," she said, just as casually.
"Hector! I always wonder where he gets his money. He's got no job..."
"Neither do you," she said sharply.
"Don't you take that tone with me," Joaquín began, but she had already ducked out of the kitchen. He heard her run up the stairs to her room.
"Oh, Consuelo," he murmured to his late wife, "this stuff is all even harder than I thought it'd be." In the days when the kitchen always smelled wonderful, raising their daughter and dealing with household chores had been Consuelo's responsibilities. His was to bring in the money.
As his wife lay bedridden in the final stages of her insatiable cancer he had promised to do his best with both Fausta and their home. Even in his grief he had assumed he'd be able to hire someone to do the cooking and cleaning.
Then, only a few weeks after Consuelo's death, he'd been laid off from his construction job.
The pain and anger had slowly passed. Now he spent his time looking for work, doing what odd jobs he could around the neighborhood, acting as unpaid handyman for his building and tinkering with malfunctioning household appliances.
He got to his feet and went to the refrigerator for a beer. Draining it in several long pulls, he lowered himself back down next to the TV.
It was, he reflected, a hell of a way to spend a Saturday morning.
The doorbell rang.
It rang again before he finished deactivating the anti-burglar monitor. "Okay, okay," he yelled, "for Christ's sake! I'm comin'!" He flung open the door and hurried down the stairs and across the lobby's dirty mosaic tile.
Standing on the stoop outside the building's front door was a peculiar little woman no more than half his height and almost as wide. She wore a flowered dress and, under her transparent oxygen mask, a wide grin below a dolmen of hair the same bright green as her eyes.
"Señor Carbajál?" she asked in a chirpy voice.
He tore his gaze off her bizarre coif and opened his mouth to assent, then caught sight of the man on the steps below her.
"Is that a TV camera?" Joaquín asked in dismay, aware of his sweaty tee shirt and ink-stained hands, and the bridge that he hadn't put in yet.
The little woman laughed. "It certainly is!"
"Holy--" He clamped his mouth.
Her grin grew broader. "We're not live yet, don't worry."
"Well, that's good, I--what do you mean, yet?"
She laughed again. "Is your daughter Fausta Doris Carbajál?"
"Uh, that's right, but--"
"Is she home?"
"Well, yes."
"May we talk to her, please?"
Behind him, Joaquín heard old Mrs. Nebres's door creak open. "Uh, yeah," he said. "I--look, what's this all about?"
"Señor Carbajál," said the little woman in a suddenly gentle, soft voice. "Please. It's very important. And it's nothing bad, I assure you." Her voice grew stronger. "Quite the contrary!"
"Well, okay, then--Fausta!" he bellowed up the stairs, then coughed into his fist. The outside air quality wasn't good. He was tempted to hurry upstairs for his oxygen mask. At least it would hide the gap in his upper teeth.
"Yes, Daddy?" Fausta called curiously down into the hall.
"Someone to see you!"
Moments later Fausta Carbajál was at her father's side.
She was, like her mother, broad in the hips, with a narrow waist and small breasts. Like her mother, also, she had a fine silky complexion. Instead of Consuelo's curly brown hair, hers was Joaquín's glossy black. She also had Joaquín's strong jaw and dark expressive eyes.
As soon as she saw the tiny woman, Fausta opened her mouth, threw back her head so that her hair brushed her rear and shrieked at the top of her lungs.
Mrs. Nebres ducked back into her apartment and slammed the door.
"Holy Mother!" Joaquín said. "What's the matter?"
"Ananda Cristoph! Ananda Cristoph! Ananda Cristoph!" Fausta chanted, grabbing his arm.The Nebres door creaked open again.
Joaquín blinked. "Who the hell is--" The name sank in and his jaw dropped. He stared closely at the dwarf. "'Your Life Right Now'?" he asked her.
She nodded, eyes sparkling. "And I'm here to offer you, Fausta Carbajál, a two-thousand dollar contract for the next half hour of your time!"
)
