Page 35 of The Delivery

“No problem. Until nine. My name is Remedios, but you can call me Reme,” she says as she smiles at me genuinely.

“Good. Cause I couldn’t have said the other one. Thanks, Reme. I’ll be back before you close.”

CHAPTER 17

At the restaurant I order soup and coffee—the lunch special is over. The stoic waiter brings me greasy, thick tortilla chips with three different bowls of colorful salsa. As soon as I dip, the exciting flavors wake me up: there’s a green one, a spicy brown-red one and fresh pico de gallo, which I’m already familiar with. I can’t stop eating them, and it’s not long before my mouth is on fire. I have to order a beer to cool down because there’s only a ceiling fan and I’m sweating like a fat man in a Russian bathhouse sauna.

So far not one single customer has entered the Western Union. I take out my phone and save the fifty odd addresses’ of the various Tijuana locations. What’s my plan? To stake-out every money pick-up point possible in this money pick-up city? It just doesn’t seem possible. The beer is working to cool me down, and it’s making me feel all melty. I order another one and squeeze a wedge of fresh lime into it. With the beer they’ve brought me more chips and now a cobalt blue dish of peanuts covered in a fine red powder. I gobble those up too, and now even my teeth are on fire. I snap a picture of myself, with red on my teeth, and Instagram it for Lex even though I know he’s at work.

It’s not too much longer before I finally put two and two together and realize the more beer I order the more snacks they bring me. What a beautiful invention! Why not advertise it openly? Apparently it’s a secret only the brilliantly minded like me can figure out. Since it hit five o’clock, they’ve been bringing me miniature coronas in a cute little tin bucket. I’m dipping some white, crunchy, fruit-vegetable into an orange mayonnaise sauce when Lex hits me back on Instagram with a picture of his mop splayed out over public school tiles.

“Looks great, Lana. What ya doing? Chewing betal nuts again?” I pick up my phone and text him back instead.

“Oh, God, Lex! Free food with beer!!!!! They don’t put their peanuts in

honey—they roll them in satanic baby powder with enough citric acid to burn holes through flesh. I think I’m in love. I’m going to move here. Don’t know. I just like how they think.”

“Sounds good, sis. Maybe you should go home? Are you drunk? Any word from Mo yet?”

“No and Yes!!! He still didn’t pick up. I mean, yes to drunk.”

“Be careful down there. At least spring for a nice place to sleep. From the news and movies it seems like they chop off heads and carve up bodies for foreplay.”

“I’ve got a Marriot rewards card from Dale’s production company that guarantees me a soft bed with clean sheets. Don’t worry about me. This is like vacation, but without Dad wearing socks on the beach and mortifying us to death.”

“Oh god! Do you remember the year he shaved his beard halfway through vacation and walked around with a two toned face?”

“How could I forget? Those were his tan lines. Beard, Speedo and calf socks. I’ll be fine. Really.”

“Be careful. I hope you find him. “

“I hope you find him” echoes relentlessly through my head, like a sad mantra your batty aunt gives you at your junior high graduation, as if finding a man were your one and only ticket to salvation. I don’t want to put that much pressure on a man or a relationship. If I don’t find Mo, then it wasn’t meant to be. Speaking of pressure, my belly feels like a dragon’s lair filled with fire-breathing demons. I just ate so much weird shit. I don’t know what I was thinking.

I pay my bill, which is surprisingly cheap. I could live off of those chips and peanuts easily for at least a week. The cool part is you don’t get too drunk when you’re constantly snacking. Just a warm body buzz and a swollen face from the salty stuff.

I stop in to see Reme just as they’re closing up shop. She’s changed out of her blue polo shirt with the insignia and is wearing tight jeans and a midrift bearing t-shirt. She flings a tiny purse on a chain over her shoulder, hands me a stick of gum and says, “Come-on, I’ll walk you out.”

She lights up a cigarette as we walk to my car. “I ran his name through the database to see if he’s picked up before. A lot of people just go back to the same store. Stick with the same one, since they already know the location,” she says as she waves her match to extinguish it.

“Wow, Reme, you’re a genius. I never would have thought of that.”

She smiles at me and laughs. Her pink tongue darts out, and she pulls a stray bit of tobacco off the tip with her thumb and middle finger.

“No filter, huh? That’s hardcore. Or old-school depending how you look at it.”

“Cheap is what it is. Delicados. Only one peso, want one?” she says, adjusting her weight. She looks at my car and then back at my face. “Do you think you could give me a lift? I’m not too far from here, and it can be dangerous walking.”

“I. Uh. I…” Stop stalling you fool, she’s been so nice and helpful to you. “Sure,” I manage, sounding only a little bit strained. I’m scared, Reme. Of Tijuana, of Mexico, I’m even a little scared of Mexicans.

“Buenas,” her co-workers call as they lock up the door. The sound of padlocks banging against metal, roll-up doors being yanked back down signals the end of the day: the end of the business day that is. I’m sure for other creatures of the dark, their day is just beginning. The doors slamming down are an alarm clock to wake up those night crawlers.

“Yeah, of course I can! I just might need directions.”

I drive Reme home, and she lives pretty out of the way. Turns out, Tijuana has a huge residential sprawl that climbs up into the hills and eats up the entire countryside. At some point the pavement ends, and we’re driving on a dirt road. My car is pretending it has no springs and kicking up a dust storm to add to the already surreal ambiance.

“It’s just up here,” Reme says, pointing to distant light. “You can let me off at the corner, and I’ll walk up the driveway.”

“If you’re sure it’s safe,” I say, dying to turn the car around and scurry back to civilization. “Looks like a hike.”

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