A Trouble of Fools
while Boston’s delis can’t compare with the Detroit of my childhood, I find them soothing in stressful times.
    “I gobbled a huge wedge of strawberry cheesecake for dessert. If it weren’t for volleyball and a speedy metabolism, I swear I’d be as fat as Gloria.
    By the time I’d patted up the last crumbs with my fingertip it was after three, which meant Paolina would be home from school. The deli has one of those minibooths Ma Bell has installed now that Superman no longer needs a place to change. I punched the buttons. Sometimes I even miss dial phones.
    “Alio?” She answers the phone the way her mom does: “Alio?” instead of “Hello?” At school and with me, she speaks good old American slang. Except every once in a while, she starts a phrase with that multisyllabic “Nooooo!”
    which identifies a Colombiano every time. “iComo esta usted?” I replied.
    “Carlotta’.” she said immediately. “Hi!”
    My high school Spanish is good for one thing. It gets a guaranteed giggle out of Paolina, who says I have an accent like a Venezuelan peasant’s parrot.
    You could tell she was glad to hear from me. When I was a cop I guess I never really got used to the fact that pimps and hookers were not pleased when I showed up. Even now, folks are not always delighted to invite a PI into their parlor.
    Paolina is my antidote, my official welcoming committee.
    “How’re ya’ doin’, Carlotta?” Sometimes she gets deliberately slangy to show off.
    “You take your history exam?”
    “You remember everything.”
    “That’s not an answer.”
    “I got eighty-eight. But I think she’s going to grade on a curve, so maybe I got an A.”
    “You study?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You panic?”
    “Right at the beginning, when Miss Vaneer was passing out the papers, my heart started pounding, you know, but I thought about taking deep breaths, like you said, and then I was okay. I didn’t rush or anything, and I finished on time.”
    “You did great. Even without a curve.”
    “I did?”
    “Terrific,” I said.
    ‘Terrific,” she echoed. I could tell she was smiling, and I pictured her at the phone, sneakers untied as usual, eyes shining.
    When I first met Paolina she was seven years old, going on thirty, thin and tough as whipcord, with a knuckle splay of bruises across her right cheek, courtesy of one of her visiting “uncles.” Marta, Lord bless her, didn’t stand for that kind of thing. The guys could slap her around—something I’ve never understood, something I don’t want to understand—but mess with her kids and that was the end.
    When he wouldn’t stay away, she preferred charges against the guy who’d smacked Paolina, and some kind soul at the police station suggested Big Sisters for the small scared girl with the wide eyes.
    Marta doesn’t offer Paolina much in the way of praise, especially for schoolwork, because she’s not sure it’s any use to females. I’ve talked to her about it, and we’ve sort of agreed to disagree. So I try to fill the gap. I make sure I know when the tests come, and what the grades are, and I’m extremely generous with compliments. Paolina used to be so scared of taking tests, so sure she’d fail, that she’d faint or throw up. She used to spend testing days in the nurse’s office.
    Now she’s pulling As and Bs.
    Am I proud? Not so you’d notice, provided you’re blind and deaf.
    “Hey, about Saturday,” I said.
    “You can’t come?” Paolina’s always prepared for disappointment.
    “Of
    course I can come.” Sometimes, when I was a cop, I had to back out on our regular dates. Now I’m private, that doesn’t happen anymore. Ever. When you’re ten, there ought to be somebody you can rely on. “I just wanted to make sure you remembered.”
    “Noon, no?” she said, using the multisyllabic national marker. “I’ll be ready.”
    “I’ll honk.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “Surprise,” I said, to cover the fact that I didn’t know yet.
    “Jeans

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