The Marradith Ryder Series, Part 62
Her name is Miranda Abeyta.
She grew up in East Los Angeles. She was in her mid twenties at the beginning of the nineties when crack started flowing through the streets, disease powered by the lure of a cheap price and a police force that turned a blind eye.
She lived with her two little boys in a flat off of Caesar Chavez. That street was in a neighborhood where houses and apartments fought for space with thick traffic, penny shops and too many liquor stores. The park up the way from her house was beautiful, with a shining lake and swans that watched with a suspicious eye. But by the time the boys were old enough to play there, it had become to dangerous to let them .
She was invited to her friend Anita’s birthday party one Saturday. Miranda would always remember that she didn’t want to go that night; she wasn’t too happy about leaving the kids with a new babysitter, or having to get dressed up for what was probably not more than a boring family affair . She’d known Anita since high school, and was at her house so much that she was acquinted with most of the family.
Miranda decided she’d go — put in an appearance, at least.
When she arrived, a curly haired man was standing over a vat of punch that was so spiked it barely had any fruit flavor. He was laughing and talking with Anita.
“Meja, come meet my brother, Pablo,” she said with a gleam in her eye.
“Brother?” she went over her mental inventory of Anita’s family. And she could not remember a Pablo.
Anita must have sensed Miranda’s uncertainty.
“My older half brother, chica,” she said impatiently. “From my Dad’s first marriage.”
He extended a hand to her. “This is my first time in L.A. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss…”
“Abeyta.”
He smiled. “I like that.”
He had the smoothest voice and dark eyes. She liked the way he carried himself. Like a real gentleman. He spoke softly, and listened to her before he spoke.
Miranda and Pablo went on their first date the following Saturday.
Pablo extended his visit from two weeks to an entire month. When he asked Miranda to move back to New York with him and get married, no one was surprised.
New York was a bit of culture shock. Los Angeles was a cool, laid back city compared to the roar and rush of the Big Apple. Miranda couldn’t get used to the crowds that carried you across the street if you hesitated, or winter days when the snow came and the sun barely seemed to make a dent in the unrelenting gray sky.
It took a while, but she did come to like it. The speed of the city seeped into her blood.
Pablo ran a little cafe in Brooklyn. It was the neighborhood hangout. Miranda made herself a part of the diner immediately, and business went on the upswing. She made the best carne asada for miles, and tamales that drew crowds during the holiday season. There wasn’t a lot of good Mexican food in New York, Miranda always complained, because there were more Cubans and Puerto Ricans there . Back home in L.A., you could trip over a good Mexican restaurant on the end of every other block. So she added some of her Mother’s specialties to the menu, just simple things like changing the recipe they used for Spanish rice and refried beans.
She joked that even though her father was Filipino, her Mom’s food took domination in her kitchen.
Pablo handled the money, and she only worried about the menu.
The boys thrived. Pablo put up the money to put them through a good private school. And when they were old enough, he sent them to college.
He had big dreams for the boys, but also for his community. He was known as the guy you went to for a hot plate of food if you were short on money. He gave jobs to some of the young men from around the block to keep them out of trouble. Miranda had held hands with some of their mothers in church, and promised that she and her husband would help their sons any way that they could. The specter of drugs was dragging too many of them down. She saw these single mothers struggling and she understood, remembering the days when she’d worried that her own boys might grow up to emulate what they saw going on around them.
Pablo was fourteen years older than Miranda, and she realized that she might outlive him. He carried a few extra pounds than she would have liked. He insisted on eggs with either bacon or chorizo every morning, enough cholesterol to choke a cavalry of horses. He drank inordinate amounts of coffee, never went to the gym, and even sneaked an occasional cigar when his wife was not looking.
She always imagined that he would have a heart attack in his sleep, passing into the next life with a little smile pressed on his lips.
He was a good man.
He shouldn’t have had to die in the alley behind his own restaurant. Slashed up and bleeding in the snow.
That wasn’t the worst of it. When he came back, an animal with no instinct but to kill, she had to watch him die again.
**********************
Something broke in her when Pablo died.
Her boys came home for the funeral of their stepfather. Miranda’s youngest begged her to come live with him and his family. She’d have none of it. She wanted to keep Pablo’s business and his dreams alive.
So she said.
What she really wanted was revenge.
The night Rafael Castillo sat down at her counter, she thought her revenge might be coming closer.
©2009 Lori Titus
*****
MUSIC for this episode? Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM3KIvT1wgs
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Tags: Miranda Abeyta, Pablo, Rafael Castillo
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:09 pm
I’d get revenge too-poor Pablo. Love the culture in this, and the name Pablo; plus it made me hungry.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:21 am
LOL thanks Erin :).