Marcelo in the Real World

  “Honors.”

  “To tell me, you know, ‘Please pick up your things now and go.’”

  “It happens fast. When one gets canned.”

  “That’s the way it goes. They don’t want you to hang around and think of ways to get back at the firm for canning you.”

  “I have a question for you.” I am going to improvise. How can I say what I want to say?

  “Go ahead. Hold on, let me get a pen so I can sign this.” He goes to another room and returns with a pen. He signs the paper, puts it back in the envelope, and gives it to me. “What do you want to know?”

  “Is it Vidromek’s fault that the windshields don’t break into little pieces?”

  “Woo! Where is that coming from?”

  “I need to know.”

  He moves to the edge of his chair. “What do you mean by ‘fault’?”

  I search in my mind for what Jerry García said to me this morning. “Did Vidromek know the windshields would not break into little pieces and made them anyway?”

  “Very good.” Robert Steely begins to rub his right arm as if he had ants crawling on it. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “I need to know…so that I can help someone.”

  “Who?”

  I reach down in my backpack and take out the picture of Ixtel. “Her name is Ixtel. She was hurt by a windshield. I don’t know her.” He looks at the picture and gives it back to me.

  “I have never seen that picture.” He turns it over. “It’s not marked as part of a case. This didn’t come with any official papers, did it?”

  “It came with a letter to my father.”

  “I see. And your father said there was nothing that could be done.”

  “Yes.”

  “You shouldn’t blame your father. That’s the nature of the business. He had to say no. Even if he personally wanted to say yes, even if the picture came with a letter from your mother asking him to do something for the girl, he would still say no. You can be the kindest person in the world, a saint, but once you step into the world of defending corporations, you operate by different rules.”

  “If we can show that Vidromek knew about the windshield we can help Ixtel. Maybe others like her.”

  “You’ve been talking to someone about this. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know who. Do you know why Stephen Holmes canned me?”

  “You thought too much.”

  He chuckles. “I tried to show Holmes how admitting responsibility would actually save Vidromek money. I had the numbers to show that fixing the windshield was better business in the long run. He told me to leave the numbers to the accountants.”

  “Can you help Ixtel?”

  “You don’t know her?”

  “No.”

  “Does your father know you want to help her? Have you talked to him?”

  “I have not.” I am at a loss to explain why. I am doing something that Arturo would disapprove of, I know. Deep inside of me I hope to find a way to persuade him that helping Ixtel is something he should do, we should all do. But right now I don’t know how real that hope is.

  Robert Steely stands up and walks to the window. “You should go. I think your cabbie is getting impatient.”

  I stand up before I understand that he is telling me he does not want to help me. I have the strange sensation of not knowing where I am. Then I recognize Robert Steely’s house. I want to shake his hand, but he is still looking out the window. Just as I open the door to step out, he says, “Are the Vidromek boxes still in my office?”

  “Yes.”

  “All thirty-six of them?”

  “Thirty-five,” I say, correcting him.

  “Hmm,” he says. “I wonder what happened to the thirty-sixth box?”

  “Thirty-sixth?” I am confused. I am certain there are only thirty-five. It is not the kind of thing I am likely to be mistaken about.

  “Good-bye, Marcelo. I wish you luck in your quest.”

  He closes the red door behind me.

  By the time I get back to the office I can feel my body shake. “Stimuli overload” is what they call it at Paterson. I walk directly to the mailroom.

  The look on Jasmine’s face is one I’ve never seen before. She is happy and angry at the same time. “Where have you been? You’ve been gone all day.” She thinks that I just got back from Jerry García’s. “Did you get lost? I thought something happened to you.”

  “You were worried.”

  “I wasn’t worried. I was just…wondering. I thought maybe something happened to you and then I’d feel guilty the rest of my life for not going with you like you wanted me to.”

  “The minute I returned from Jerry García’s, Wendell sent me on an errand—to take a letter to Robert Steely.”

  “Why you? Why not a messenger?”

  “Robert Steely had to sign a copy of the letter. Wendell thought I would be a good witness. Who would doubt me?”

  “You could have just stepped in the mailroom to say you were all right. I called Jerry García and he said you left two hours ago. I tried calling you on your cell but there was no answer.”

  “I must have turned it off by mistake while I was waiting for Jerry.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Jerry knows about you. I told him.”

  “He told me about your visit.”

  I walk over to my desk and sit down. I can feel my hands tremble. “He showed me the letter he wrote to my father. Arturo knows about Ixtel. He said no. He said Vidromek would not pay for the surgery.”

  “Why are you trembling? Hold on a second.” She disappears and comes back a few seconds later with a paper cup full of water. I drink.

  “It is not possible to process everything one hears and sees and thinks no matter how hard one tries. In order to process, it is necessary to block out what is not important. For this, time is needed.”

  “Marcelo, you are babbling.”

  “There is a thirty-sixth box. Somewhere in the firm there is a thirty-sixth box.” I try to stand, but she pushes me down on the chair.

  “Just sit down for a second. You only have a few minutes before you have to catch your train.”

  “Jerry García said that there must be a document that shows that Vidromek knew the windshields were not safe. He said the person who worked on the litigation has probably seen it. Then Wendell sends me to see Robert Steely, the exact person who worked the most on the Vidromek case. I asked Robert Steely to help me. I thought of you because I improvised and then when I was leaving Robert Steely gave me a clue. He said there were thirty-six boxes, but I have only seen thirty-five. It is not the kind of thing that Marcelo would be mistaken about. Why is Jasmine smiling like that?”

  “Because look at you. You went to Jerry García’s and then to Robert Steely’s and you put all this together because you want to help a girl you saw in a picture. It’s good to see you with some fight in you!”

  “It is not normal to act this way from just looking at a picture.”

  “It’s not common, let me put it to you that way. But it’s kind of neat.”

  “We need to find the thirty-sixth box.”

  “Tomorrow. Right now we’re walking to the station.”

  “Jasmine can look tonight after everyone leaves.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “She knows all the places in the law firm where a box could be hidden.”

  “This is your quest, not mine.”

  “Quest. Robert Steely called it that as well. He said, ‘Good luck with your quest.’”

  “The key word there is your.”

  “Jasmine will look tonight. Please.”

  She shakes her head, but I don’t think it means that she won’t do it. “Sure. And then I’ll be out there with Robert Steely looking for a job. Come on, I’ll walk with you to the train.”

  CHAPTER 21

  All morning I have been making up excuses to go to the mailroom. Every time I find my way there, Jasmine is either on the telephone or away fro
m her desk. When she made the first mail run, she lifted up her right thumb as she went by. I think that means she found the thirty-sixth box. Or else it means something I am not aware of.

  Finally at noon, I am on my way to the mailroom to meet with Jasmine when I see Arturo walking down the hallway toward me. He smiles and I can see that he is glad to see me. I on the other hand want to turn around and avoid him. I cannot imagine Arturo writing the letter that he wrote to Jerry García. I cannot imagine him seeing the picture of Ixtel and reading Jerry’s letter and saying no. These facts stand in contrast to the father who said yes to the tree house, who said yes to Paterson, the man who likes to grab Yolanda in a headlock and pretend he is knocking on her head. I lower my eyes and pretend I’m on important law-firm business.

  “Hey, how about a hello for your old man?”

  “Hello.”

  “Is everything okay? You look like you’re down in the dumps.”

  “I am not in the dumps,” I say. I can hear the irritation in my voice.

  “Okay, you’re not in the dumps. I’ll take your word for it. How about lunch?”

  “I have lunch.”

  “We’ll save your sandwich for tomorrow.”

  “No.”

  “No? Why?”

  “I am having lunch with Jasmine.”

  “Oh, I see. Where?”

  “We go to the cafeteria.”

  “You do? How often?”

  I start to walk away.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you in such a hurry? Jasmine can wait a few minutes. Are you still upset because I reassigned you to Wendell? Come on, get over that. Wendell is who you should be having lunch with.”

  “Marcelo is not upset at that. Good-bye.” I don’t raise my voice when I say this. I don’t think I do anyway. Still I walk away from my father while he is not finished talking to me. I have never done that before. I can almost feel his eyes on my back. It feels good to walk away from him but I am also afraid. Of what? Of making him angry at me? Of losing him?

  No pea soup for Jasmine this time but clam chowder. Clam chowder does not come as piping hot as pea soup. She puts a brown folder on the table.

  “You found the box,” I say.

  “You need to think a little more about what you’re doing here.”

  I don’t know what to say. Jasmine seems afraid.

  “I mean,” she goes on, “you need to take some time and think about all the people who could be affected by what you’re doing.”

  “Marcelo has thought about it.”

  “Maybe in the abstract. But”—she places her hand on the folder—“it’s going to get real.”

  I reach out for the folder but the force of her hand prevents me from moving it toward me. “Look at your hand, you’re still shaking,” she says.

  “I saw Arturo. On my way to the cafeteria.”

  “And?”

  “Marcelo has never felt confusion before. It is painful. There is no peace. No certainty. Am I supposed to put my father ahead of everything?”

  “Let’s talk about what is in this folder, just so we are all clear on what we are doing.”

  “Yes.”

  “What is in here is bad, as far as Vidromek is concerned. If it’s made public, Vidromek will have a very difficult time proving they were not at fault. Then there’s what this may do to the firm. Vidromek is the firm’s biggest client, and if the firm is responsible for Vidromek’s losses, then…”

  “What? What happens?”

  “Vidromek has dozens of ties to other businesses in the United States and we, the law firm, do all their legal work. It would be like dominoes falling. If Vidromek goes, they all go. I see the money that comes in from Vidromek and the salaries we pay and the rent we pay. Without the Vidromek money, there will not be enough money to pay all that.”

  “Jasmine could lose her job.”

  “And Marcelo could end up going to public school.”

  I had never thought about it in that way, but it is true. Paterson is expensive. I have heard kids say that they are attending the school on a scholarship because their parents cannot afford to send them otherwise. Without the money Arturo earns from Vidromek, we may not be able to afford Paterson.

  “That is why I will show you what is in here only if you agree to one condition.”

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t even heard what I was going to say.”

  “I meant ‘yes’ as a question. But also probably I will say yes to your condition.”

  “Because I’m usually right?”

  “Because if I don’t say yes, I will never know what Jasmine found.”

  “Fine. Here’s my condition. You go with me to Vermont next weekend and think about everything we’re doing here. I have to take Dad to the doctor anyway and you need to get away from here. Things are happening way too fast. There you’ll have time to weigh all the repercussions and sort through all the facts and feelings that are so confusing. You might even stop trembling after a day out there in the hills.”

  “Vermont.”

  “Yeah, it’s the perfect place to ponder.”

  Ponder. I would like to slow down and ponder.

  “When you get back you can do with this as you wish.”

  “Is it so bad, what is in here?”

  She lets go of the folder. I open it and take out a single sheet of paper.

  It is in Spanish. I read it as best I can.

  MEMO

  Importancia: Urgente

  Dirigido a: Sr. Reynaldo Acevedo, Presidente

  Por conducto de: Lic. Jorge Baltazar

  De parte de: Ing. David González, Jefe de Control de Calidad

  Fecha: 21 de junio de 2005

  Re: Pruebas de Impacto Modelo 285X

  Se adjuntan Pruebas de Impacto—Parabrisas Modelo 285x. Pruebas demuestran fragmentación diferente a la especificación de diseño. Se recomienda descontinuar fabricación de dicho Modelo 285x inmediatamente.

  “I don’t know all the words,” I say. “What is parabrisas?”

  “It means windshield. I looked up the words I didn’t understand, but most of them are not much different than the English words. It is a memo from the engineer who is in charge of quality control to the president of the company.”

  “He is recommending that the manufacture of the windshield be discontinued.”

  “A whole bunch of charts which were probably the test results were attached.”

  “Vidromek knew.” I realize my hand is shaking again.

  “There are so many things we don’t know about this. Sometimes it is not as simple as it seems.”

  “Where did Jasmine find the memo?”

  “Some of the lawyers keep the important files in their offices.”

  My heart stops and then begins to race. “Arturo’s?”

  Jasmine ignores me. “The question is, now what? You give that to Jerry García and then all kinds of things will happen.”

  I put the memo back in the folder. If someone asks me where I got the memo, I will have to lie—otherwise Jasmine will lose her job. “Jasmine could have told me that she looked and did not find a thirty-sixth box. Why did she give me the memo?”

  She crumbles tiny round crackers into her clam chowder without looking at me. “Okay, so, if we’re going to Vermont, we leave early Saturday morning and get there in time to take Dad to the doctor. We can go camping on Sunday and come back on Monday. Have you ever been camping?”

  “I live in a tree house. Is that like camping?”

  “Look at you. You’re a mess, mentally speaking. Out there in the middle of the wilderness you see more clearly. There is less confusion.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, you’ll come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine.” She smiles. Going to Vermont has made her happy. “Belinda will take care of the mailroom on Monday. You don’t have to look so glum. It might even be fun.”

  I lift the folder with the memo. “Now Jasmine is involved in all of
this.”

  “Yup. That’s what happens. I’ll keep this. When we return from Vermont it will be yours to do with as you wish. But not until we return.”

  She is already up from her chair and going to dump her almost full cup of clam chowder. Another lunch where neither of us managed to eat anything.

  CHAPTER 22

  Jasmine’s battered Jeep turns into the driveway. The top of the

  Jeep is down. Namu acknowledges her by a simple pricking of his ears.

  “Ready?” she asks.

  I nod. I am putting my backpack in the backseat when Aurora comes out with a plastic bag full of sandwiches, assorted fruits, and juice drinks. The trip to Vermont is three hours if there’s no traffic on I-93, but Aurora always packs a lunch regardless of how long or short a trip is.

  Namu climbs into the Jeep by the side door and makes his way to the backseat. This he does on his own accord.

  “Someone’s looking forward to this outing,” Aurora comments.

  “He’ll have lots of fun,” Jasmine responds.

  Aurora was thrilled when I told her and Arturo about the trip. It was Arturo’s reaction, however, that surprised me. Just when I thought I was getting good at understanding the feelings behind most facial expressions, a new one presented itself for deciphering. Arturo, who has been pushing so hard for me to be independent, suddenly dropped his jaw and turned stiff when I mentioned the trip. What was that look of his, what did it mean, where did it come from? Suspicion? Resentment? I have never seen that look on Arturo’s face before.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Arturo said.

  We were sitting at the kitchen table. Aurora and I stopped eating when we heard his words.

  I repeated what I had just said in case he misunderstood my description of the trip. “We are going to take her father to the doctor’s on Saturday. Then on Sunday we will go hiking nearby for a few hours. Jasmine says she can drop me at home Monday evening around eight.”

  There was silence at the table. I looked at Arturo and saw that look I had never seen before and I felt fear.

  Aurora spoke, ignoring Arturo’s objection. “That sounds good. But I want you to take Namu with you. He’d be good company on the hike.”