Chapter 23 #2
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, peering into my brain, seeing my most intimate fantasies, defiling my most private hopes.
“He did seem to have a thing for you.” She rubbed moisturizer on her arms. “When he got in last night, he called me and woke me up. I was so drunk. What the hell did you and I do last night? My memories are so hazy.” She touched her temples.
“So I came over. He wanted us to call you and have a nightcap all together.” Jesus.
“I told him you were otherwise occupied.” She smiled. “Amorously occupied.”
Amorously? All oxygen fled my brain.
“Dee, here’s some free advice. If you want something, take it. Don’t worry about the details. And never underestimate the fragility of the male ego.” She started walking toward the closet. “One more thing. If they don’t fight for you—they’re not worth it.”
* * *
I didn’t go to the conference that morning.
I went straight back to San José. Everything I believed in had turned out to be false.
The man I had thought Matías was wouldn’t give up on someone if he cared for them.
The man I thought he was wouldn’t give up on a political fight because his opponents were powerful. The man I thought he was... wasn’t.
It was all too much for me. Disillusion at Café Alegre, deception from Suzanne, and now disappointment in Matías.
And worst of all, my inability to help Clara and Las Nubes.
I took one of the Central Market sleeping pills and slept for hours.
When I woke up that evening, someone was knocking on my door.
I picked up my phone from the tiles next to my bed to see the time.
Nine o’clock. And I had fifteen missed calls and thirty-three texts.
I heard another tentative knock and saw a thin strip of light come into my room from the crack beneath my door.
“Dee?” It was Eva. The concern in her voice brought hot tears to my eyes. Why hadn’t I let her in more? She wanted a daughter. I needed a parent. “Can I come in?”
“Yes,” I said. My throat was dry and my head was pounding.
I looked around to see if I had a glass of water in the room.
Eva opened the door slightly. She was carrying a glass of water.
She came and sat on the side of my bed, then turned on the light on my nightstand.
The lone bulb cast a rectangular shadow against the wall.
Eva felt my hot forehead with the back of her cool hand.
“Are you okay?” Her eyes were shiny and wide with worry. She smoothed the hair away from my forehead as I sat up. “Here.” She handed me the glass of water with Tabcin in it. I almost choked on the fizzy water. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I saw the genuine concern in her eyes and I thought about saying yes, but only for her. I didn’t want to talk about it, to anyone, ever. I shook my head.
“You got a phone call on the house line an hour ago, but I didn’t want to wake you. Should I have woken you?”
“No, that’s okay.” I tried to sit up straighter. “Who was it?”
“Clara Pérez.”
A little bit of water escaped from my mouth. “Did she say what it was about?”
“No. She just said it was important.” Eva wiped the corner of my mouth with the sleeve of her robe, just like I was her baby. “But I told her you were ill.”
“I should call her back.”
“You should rest.” She pushed me back into my pillows. I had the feeling that she was happy I was sick. Not in an ungenerous way, but just because, finally, she got to take care of me.
“Could you do something for me?” I asked.
“Of course,” she lit up.
“Could you make me some tea?”
“Right away.” As she walked out of the room, I saw her mouth stretched into a smile.
I resolved to ask her for more favors. Once I heard her fussing about downstairs, I picked up my phone.
I tried calling Clara. The phone just kept ringing and ringing.
When she finally answered on my fifth attempt, she sounded breathless and tense.
“Someone threw a Molotov cocktail into one of our warehouses,” she said.
A firebomb? My breathing stopped.
“No one was seriously injured.”
I let out a long breath. “Who was there?”
“Ramón and Héctor were unloading some berries, but they escaped the fire. Ramón was scratched by some flying debris. Héctor inhaled a little smoke. That’s it.”
My honorary big brothers. I shuddered with what might have been. “What happened to the warehouse?”
“Half of it burned to the ground. We lost some coffee.”
I closed my eyes, trying to digest this information. Eva came up the stairs with tea. When she saw my face, she put the cup on my night table and went to her bedroom. She left the door open.
“We think it was Alegre,” said Clara. My body filled with dread. “Does anyone know about the plan to decertify?”
“Suzanne and Matías from Justice Alliance.”
“I told you not to tell anyone!”
Fear and guilt choked me. “I needed their support to take the evidence to Ethical Coffee International. No one is going to listen to Dee, college dropout from California, or Tomás, alienated and angry stepson.”
“And they’re not going to listen to me, the competition,” she said, the anger draining out of her voice.
“Exactly. We need a neutral, respected body. Unfortunately, they said no. But I don’t think Suzanne or Matías would’ve said anything to Alegre. They’re not going to help us, but I don’t think they would act against us.”
“Did they see the footage?” she asked.
“They’ve seen a few photos. Why do you think it was Alegre?”
“Who else could it be, Dee?” she said. “And Héctor recognized the pickup truck.”
“How would he know their truck?”
“The same truck was spotted here a few days ago, driving around the fields. Right when, well... when I discovered the Rust.”
Holy shit. “You think they sabotaged your fields?”
“I know they did.”
Jesus. But it made sense. The Rust rarely grew at that altitude. It must have been planted there. Alegre was ensuring Las Nubes didn’t win the contract back.
“Dee, you need to get the evidence to Ethical Coffee International, now . As long as you’re holding the evidence, we’re all targets.”
But wouldn’t we still be targets? As long as Ethical Coffee International was investigating? If they investigated?
“This was just a warning, Dee. If they wanted to hurt someone, they could. Next time might not be so ‘subtle.’”
I hung up the phone and stared at my cooling tea.
A freaking Molotov cocktail ? I was in way over my head.
Was I making things better... or worse ?
Without Justice Alliance, I had no clear path to getting the evidence a fair hearing at Ethical Coffee International.
What if I had opened up a whistleblowing can of worms, but instead of helping anyone, I had just put them in danger?
Maybe I should just return the evidence to Alegre, tell them we were dropping it, and return home. At least that way no one would get hurt.
I didn’t know what to do. And unlike almost every other decision I’d had to make in my life, this one had serious consequences for other people. I paced my room, vacillating like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Was discretion the better part of valor here? Or was it just valor ?
My cell buzzed. It was a link from my father. My website?
I clicked the link and saw my bio had been completely rewritten. There was no mention of law school now.
“Dee Blum, photographer, organizer, activist. Proudly fighting for social and environmental justice.”
Wow. My dad had finally found a way to tell me he supported me. Sure, he had impersonated me again to do it, but he had also given me my answer.
I went to Eva’s room. She was in bed reading a romance novel. She put a bookmark in it, then looked up at me, expectant.
“Would you mind doing me another favor?”