Sisterchicks in Sombreros (19 page)

“Can you tell us how to get to this bank?” Joanne held up her copy of the official letter Aunt Winnie received last week and pointed to the letterhead.

The attendant seemed to study the paper a little too long in
my estimation. Reaching over and snatching the paper, I read the name of the bank for him. “El Banco del Sol.”

He spoke a few words of English and pointed the direction we had just come.

“Thanks.” I nudged Joanne to move toward the car.

“Stop being so pushy,” she said, when she pulled out of the gas station.

“He was reading the letter. I don’t think we should let strangers know what we’re doing here.”

“Okay, fine. But you can be polite about it.” Joanne drove past the grocery store, and a block later we spotted the bank. “How do you want to do this?” she asked.

“I’ll go in with the letter and see if I can speak with the bank president. You don’t mind being the one who waits in the car, do you?”

“No. Make sure you get a good map to the property and the key.”

“I know.” I started toward the front door of the bank and then stopped and turned around, realizing I might be taken a little more seriously if I weren’t wearing a sombrero. Combing back my disarrayed hair with my dirty fingers, I said, “I wish I wasn’t such a mess. The bank president isn’t going to take me seriously.”

“You can change if you think you need to, but—”

“Good idea.” I got back in the Jeep and forced my sister to drive to the Pemex station, where I went into the despicable restroom and changed into my nice pants and a crumpled but
clean blouse. I flipped my eyelashes a few times with a mascara wand and applied some lipstick. The whole process seemed ludicrous, but if Joanne and I were to be taken seriously as landowners, at least one of us should look the part.

“Ready?” Joanne asked when I climbed back into the Jeep.

“Yep. Drive slow so my hair won’t flip out.”

“Mel, your hair is—”

I shot her an evil eye, and she hushed up. She knew better than to make any comments about my hair or ears or any other of our “almost twin” features on sixth-grade-picture day or on going-to-meet-the-Mexican-bank-president day.

With renewed confidence I entered the bank holding the all-important letter. I walked up to a young woman who sat at what looked like a receptionist’s desk.

“Pardon me. Do you speak English?”

“Yes.”

“I need to speak with the bank president.”

She nodded and walked to a large desk in the back corner. A gentleman rose and followed her to where I stood waiting.

With my best posture and my rehearsed lines ready, I greeted him with a cordial nod and offered my hand to shake. “My name is Melanie Holmquist. Your bank sent a letter to my aunt Winifred Clayton regarding some property owned by my deceased uncle Harlan Clayton. I’m here to process the necessary paperwork.”

The man in the dark suit tilted his head and looked at me more closely. He then looked over my shoulder and seemed to
be studying Joanne in the Jeep parked in front of the bank window.

A smile brightened his face. “The women with the water fight. I was going to place a bet on your friend.”

Caught off guard, I stammered, “She’s not my friend; she’s my sister.” All my efforts to appear professional were pointless.

“Won’t you and your sister please come sit at my desk?”

“We have all our things in the car,” I stammered once more.

He waited for a further explanation.

“We’re not able to lock the car. Our clothes and food would be left out in the open if Joanne came in.”

His expression changed. Apparently I had offended him by assuming that we might be robbed. With crisp words he said, “I will ask my guard to keep careful watch on your belongings.”

I felt reprimanded. We still had business to transact, but my ability to impress him with my tidy appearance or my organized speech was nil at this point. He was no longer charmed to be talking to the woman who fearlessly participated in a water fight in front of the grocery store.

We walked together toward the front door, which he held open for me. As he spoke with the uniformed, armed employee seated by the front door, I called to Joanne to come inside.

My sister left her sombrero on the front seat and managed, despite all her scruffiness, to pick up the conversation where I
had exploded a land mine with my distrust. I felt humbled. It was a different sort of humbling than I’d felt at the adobe house last night. This humility was the kind that reveals the truth about one’s deepest and most unpleasant qualities, yet doesn’t make the effort to cover those foibles with an excuse. I felt as if I’d slipped out from under that sombrero of grace and found the elements were merciless.

“I’m Joanne Clayton,” she said, shaking his hand. I don’t think she realized that across her cheek, where I’d first squirted the water, she now had a streak of clean skin while the rest of her cheek still was covered with dirt.

“Please come sit at my desk.”

For the next twenty-five minutes, Joanne pretty much single-handedly managed the transaction. We were given the key inside a manila envelope, a hand-drawn map, and a stack of papers to sign, which we did in the presence of the notary who sat at the receptionist’s desk. It was all surprisingly simple. We walked out of the bank the legal owners of Uncle Harlan’s beach house. Or at least we were the legal beneficiaries because the bank was the holder of the title on all coastal properties held in trust by a Mexican bank.

“Would you like us to mail to you the final documents?” Señor Campaña, the bank president, asked.

“Do you mean this isn’t everything?” I held up a small stack of signed forms.

“Now you must have the official release form from the government.”

“How long will that take to get?” Joanne asked.

“Sometimes weeks. Sometimes a few days.”

“We’ll be here through Friday,” I said.

“Come back Friday,” he advised. “I will see what I can do.”

“Piece of cake,” Joanne said, as we exited the bank.

“It was pretty easy,” I agreed. “If nothing else, we now have all the papers with us. I’m sure we can have them translated into English through Aunt Winnie’s lawyer, and he can tell us if anything is missing.”

“No, I’m saying I’m ready to celebrate with a piece of cake.”

“We don’t have any more chocolate cake. We left it with Rosa Lupe.”

“Then let’s find some.”

“Now?”

“Sure. I saw a bakery back there. Let’s buy something to take with us to the house.”

We took our newly established positions in the car. Joanne was the driver, and I was the one with the map who gave directions. Joanne’s side of our power-balance teeter-totter was up at the moment.

“Why were you so uptight when I first came into the bank?” Joanne asked.

I told her my foible of assuming our things would be stolen.

“I thought Señor Campaña was a nice man.”

“Yes, well, he told me he was going to bet on you in our water fight.”

“Did he really? Smart man. Now I know why I trusted him.”

“He would have lost his bet,” I said. “Turn left on Puerto Lobos.”

“You wish,” Joanne teased. “What do I do after I turn on Lobos?”

“Puerto Lobos,” I corrected her. “And I would have taken you in a snap. Follow Puerto Lobos to the ocean and then left again on Ave Mar de Cortez.”

“You would have taken me in a snap. Ha! That’s something I’d like to see.” Joanne grinned at the thought as she drove slowly past a mix of old and new in this curious town.

Small cantinas lined one part of the street where old men sat outside on chairs in the shade. It looked as if they were doing the same thing their grandfathers had done and were sitting in the same chairs their grandfathers had sat in. Yet, two blocks farther down the street, a bright, modern video rental store sported posters of the latest releases direct from Hollywood. Next to the video store was a newly landscaped park area complete with a fountain and bright tiles. It was a surprising combination of the past and present.

“Is that the bakery you saw earlier?” I asked.

“No, but it’s definitely a bakery. Let’s stop there.”

We parked in front of a small shop that advertised
pasteles
in the window.

“I wonder what that means?” I said. “Do you suppose you can order your treats in pastel colors or something?”

“It’s probably the Spanish word for ‘pastries.’ ”

“Good thinking. Are you ready?”

“You go ahead,” Joanne said. “I’ll wait with the Jeep.”

“But you’re the one who wanted the cake. Shouldn’t you be the one to pick out what you want?”

Joanne laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Are you nervous about going in by yourself?”

“What if I am?”

“Listen, Mel, just because the bank meeting got off to a lumpy start, doesn’t mean you’ll have problems grabbing a cake for us.”

“You’re the one figuring out what the Spanish words mean. Like pasteles. I thought it had to do with color, but you figured out it was pastries. You’ll figure out what to order in there. All the signs are going to be in Spanish, you know.”

Joanne tapped her finger on the steering wheel. “Should we toss a coin to see who goes in?”

“No, I think you should go. You’re the oldest.”

Joanne really laughed at that one. “Oh, right, as if that has ever made any difference!”

“Come on.” I used my best little-sister whine. “You got to wait in the car last time. It’s my turn to sit this one out.”

“You are such a baby” Joanne pushed open the Jeep door. “I can’t believe you always get your way.”

“Me!? Always get my way? You were the one who said you wanted cake!”

Joanne paused, blinked, and seemed to have no comeback. “Well, so I did. And here we are. In front of a bakery. Imagine that. I guess I’ll go buy a cake.”

I shook my head as she pranced into the store, chin held high.

A few yards away I spotted what looked like a rubbish bin and decided to throw away our empty water bottles. Getting out of the Jeep, I noticed a half-filled beer bottle sitting upright only inches from the back tire.

That probably explains why Joanne pulled into this spot at such a crazy angle. I might as well throw it away before we back over it. The last thing we need is a flat tire!

With all the bottles in hand, I headed toward the bin. A uniformed police officer stepped out of what looked like a barbershop, and with his hands resting on his wide belt, he spoke to me in Spanish.

I offered a congenial smile and nodded.

He’s probably thanking me for cleaning up the streets a little
.

“Just tidying up.” I held up the bottles as he stepped closer.

He asked me something, and I returned a blank look. Reaching for the beer bottle, he shook it as if to verify it wasn’t empty.

“It’s not mine. It was over there on the street by our Jeep. I didn’t want to back over it.”

Does he think I was drinking the beer?

I vaguely remembered a warning the cruise personnel had issued when we took the shuttle into Ensenada. Joanne and I
were still in a state of stunned silence because of the trauma with the toddler, but something was said about it being illegal to possess an open beer bottle on Ensenada’s sidewalks. Did that law apply in San Felipe as well?

“It’s not mine,” I stated emphatically, pointing again to the Jeep. “I found it in the street.”

With all the compassion of a stone, the officer reached for his handcuffs as he spoke to me in Spanish.

“No, no! You don’t understand! I didn’t do anything. I was just cleaning up. That’s what I do best.”

He held the handcuffs to the side and kept talking to me, his chin motioning toward the Jeep.

“Do you want to inspect the Jeep? Is that it? Are you asking if I have any more beer? Because I don’t. It’s just water. Do you want to see? You can come look. Let me just throw these bottles away over here and—”

As I took two steps away from him, he yelled something.

“Okay. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll just stand here. My sister is right over there, in the bakery, getting cake.” I tried the only Spanish word I could think of. “Pastels. She’s buying pastels.”

“¿Pasteles?” he asked.

“Si, pasteles.”

Just then Joanne stepped out of the bakery, and from my throat came a terrified sounding, “Jo-anne! Over here! Come quick!”

M
y startled sister hurried over
, carrying a thin cardboard box.

“Everything okay?” She looked at me and then at the officer.

“He thinks I was drinking. But that’s not my bottle of beer. I was trying to clean up the street.”

“She does that,” Joanne said to the officer with a smile. “She likes things to be organized.”

He wasn’t impressed. The handcuffs made an irritating clinking as he slowly moved them from side to side. His eyes were fixed on the pastry box Joanne was holding.

“¿Pasteles?” He put down the beer bottle.

“Yes,” Joanne said proudly. “I bought two dancing ladies and some sort of coconut cream cake, I think. It looked good, but the woman at the bakery couldn’t tell me what it was.”