esperanza

Ernesto

"Now, turn on reporter mode," I said. "How are we going to find that truck? Or failing that, find out who you are?"

She shook her head and plopped onto the couch like any teenager doing heavy thinking "It's gonna be tough using any of my contacts. One, I'm dead, and two no one is going to talk to a kid."

"You remember anything about the truck? A name, a brand name, can you describe it?"

She tried. "Pabst, Pabst Beer was the emblem on the side of the trailer. But the door of the cab had some other name on it...."

"Probably the tractor belonged to the trucker. But Pabst is good, that's an imported beer, well from Milwaukee, not made locally, and there can't be that many places that distribute it."

She had a strange look on her face. "What is it?" I asked. "The driver, his name, his name was --Ernesto?"

"How do you know that?"

"I dunno. I just, like, remembered it."

I studied her face. She wasn't making this up and the existence of the memory clearly disturbed her. I had noticed something else about her since we had the long talk in the parking lot but I didn't want to bring it up right now. Her manner of speaking had changed, less precise, more teenager-ish. I didn't want to know if she was doing it deliberately, not yet.

"That may help."

"Where's your phone book?" she asked. I passed it over. "We gotta look up the Pabst distributors in the area. I dunno if we can call them tonight. Sh-shoot, it might be Monday before anyone would answer the phone."

She held the book very close to her face and even so squinted as she tried to find the right part of the listings. "Can we get more light in here, huh?"

I flicked on more lights but took the book from her hands when I saw her continuing to squint. "Your eyes that bad?" I asked.

She grinned, shakily. "How would I know? Maybe it's just an effect of being new in the body and of having been farsighted for thirty years. I can see you fine enough, but little stuff, like printing, y'know, just kinda blurs out or breaks up or something."

She hadn't quite told the truth and something new bothered her. She bit a nail and stared at it while I made up my mind not to press this issue at this time. I found the listing of the Pabst distributorship and noted that their address was in Los Angeles, not too far from downtown. I tried the number but got a recording about business hours. At this time of the evening, it wouldn't be that long of a drive.

"Whatcha thinkin'?" she asked around another bitten-off nail.

"Don't do that," I said.

"Do what?"

"Bite your nails. It is really unbecoming." She blushed but put her hands together in her lap for a moment before changing position and pulling her legs under her.

"Get your feet off my couch, you've got mud on your shoes," I told her without really thinking about it.

"Yes, sir." She straightened up, put her feet back on the floor and waved her hands around vaguely and giggled.

"What -- what were we doing?"

She giggled again. "I called you 'sir'."

"Maybe you had better practice it." she seemed to decide not to giggle again. "Kelly, are you aware of what you've been doing for the last few minutes? Maybe longer?"

"I'm," she started then began again, "I've been trying to remember things, not George Kelly things, Esperanza things. Y'know?"

I nodded.