Read Heart of the World for Free Online Page A

in a laundry room? When I found myself checking my cell phone to make sure the battery was charged, I realized how much I was hoping for a call, a message, a reprieve. I’ve got her , Roz or Gloria would say; she just showed up —and then I wouldn’t need to paw through the debris.
    I sucked in a deep breath and told myself I was goddamn lucky. If Marta had rigorously cleaned every surface, tossed every scrap, I’d have nowhere to turn. The woman's dislike of organization, not to mention mops, sponges, and dusters, was in my favor.
    The laundry room didn’t boast a closet. Instead there was one ofthose steel tubing coat racks, the kind you see at the door when somebody throws a big party. I went through Paolina's hanging items quickly, marveling at the lack of pockets in modern girls’ attire. I can’t say the majority of clothing in the room was hung on the rack. Much of it was scattered on the floor. I folded items haphazardly, more to distinguish them from the stuff I hadn’t yet fingered than to make things neater. I searched shirts and sweaters, summer tees, dungarees, cut-offs, read penciled notes to girlfriends, homework reminders, a history quiz graded C+.
    What did Paolina do with stuff she didn’t want her mother to see? I’d expected a hidden stash of secret items at my house, but I’d already been through the bedroom she uses two nights a week and found it disappointingly bare, although pretty enough on the surface, with bright posters of Colombia on the rose-colored walls.
    Colombia…where guerrilla troops shot down coca-spraying crop-dusters. When Paolina ran off before, it was a single half-assed effort, a kid's fairy-tale journey to meet her long-lost dad, to find the father she’d never met. She’d made it as far as the airport. I’d found her there, crying in a toilet stall. Was Colombia still her dream, her father a martyred hero despite his unsavory reputation?
    I had a photo of the man, Carlos Roldan Gonzales, cut from an aged copy of Newsweek , folded in a bureau drawer. It was a group shot, five men, high mountains in the background. The caption listed five names, all leaders of drug cartels. They’d been photographed brandishing automatic weapons, young and defiant. At least three of the five were dead now.
    The small four-drawer pine dresser was packed to overflowing, the top drawer devoted to old birthday cards, postcards, bits of wrapping paper and ribbon. I fumbled inside and came out with a hard Plexiglas cube. A music box. I twisted the silver key and listened to the raggedy metallic melody—”Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” a tune I always associate with the gruff, bluesy vocals of Dave van Ronk. I remembered Paolina winding the key and stomping her feet to the rhythm till the people in the downstairs apartment started smacking the ceiling with a broom handle. I swallowed and inhaled the scent of stale cologne.
    Second drawer: underwear and scarves. Third drawer: socks and tights jammed in with smelly sweaters. Bottom drawer: stuff. Old giftboxes and school notebooks from the fourth grade. Class photos. A pair of holey socks. A beaded bracelet with half the beads fallen off. Going through the bottom drawer felt like excavating an old cache. This wasn’t where she stored her current treasures, and there was no sign of her backpack. I couldn’t tell from the disorganized drawers whether underwear was missing or not. I didn’t see her favorite sweater, but she could have left it at a friend's house or in her locker.
    A flickering shadow on the drapes told me someone was watching. I turned and found Marta standing in the doorway. She’d changed into a short cranberry-colored skirt, a tight print blouse with a low-cut V .Her face was carefully made up; eyeliner dark around shadowed eyes.
    â€œYou done yet?”
    â€œMarta, let me make you a cup of coffee.”
    â€œI have to go.”
    I raised an eyebrow.