bought food for himself, unless she asked him to buy ingredients that she needed to cook dinner. He didn’t pretend to like the milanesas she frequently cooked either.
“Have you ever known him to drink excessively, or use drugs?” Edward asked, twiddling his pen.
Her toes curled in her simple pumps. “Well, never drugs, but I’ve seen him drink a lot. But there were other people drinking a lot, too, at the time.”
“Does he change when he drinks?” Edward asked.
“Not really. I don’t know. I mean, I think everybody changes when they drink,” Fabiola said.
“Have you ever known him to become violent?” Edward asked, his eyebrows raised.
“To me?” Fabiola asked.
“To anyone.”
“No. He hates my dog; he says she gets on his nerves when she barks. But I’ve never seen him become violent.”
“What kind of dog is it?” Edward asked.
“She’s a miniature Yorkshire Terrier.”
“Oh,” Edward said, the look on his face showing that he sympathized with Layne to a certain extent. Fabiola looked at her hands for a moment.
“Have you ever seen him mad?” Edward said.
“Yes, I’ve seen him mad, but I was never afraid that he would hit me.”
Edward considered how to ask the next question for a moment while Fabiola sat silent.
“Do you speak Spanish with Layne?” he asked.
“Yes, he gets mad when I speak English to him. Well, I don’t mean mad, he gets frustrated when he asks me in Spanish and I answer him in English,” Fabiola said.
“Really?” Edward looked intrigued.
“Yeah, well, he speaks in a Mexican dialect.”
“You don’t like Mexicans?” Edward looked accusatory.
“No, it’s not that. It’s that I’m just not used to it, I guess.”
“When he goes to work in the morning, does he leave on time, or I mean, do you think he usually gets to work on time?” Edward was resuming his notes on a legal pad.
“Yeah, as far as I know. He leaves before me because he has to drive to work, but I’ve only seen him be late one time and he called his boss and told her he would be late. But that’s about it.”
“Do you think he gets along with his co-workers? Does he say anything bad about them?” Edward leaned on his right armrest.
“No, not really, he doesn’t like to talk about work. He has complained about hours and pay before but never specifically mentioned anyone,” Fabiola said.
“What about his character? Would you say that he has good character?” Edward asked.
“He’s honest as far as I know,” Fabiola answered. “I have never seen him steal or anything. One time, he found a wallet and he used the guy’s driver’s license to find him, and he gave it back to him with the money still in it.”
“Really?” Edward looked surprised.
“Yeah. He’s really superstitious about karma.”
Edward licked his thumb slowly and backtracked through his paperwork to jot down another note. Fabiola’s gaze fixated on her tiny flag while she thought over some of her answers. She had seen Layne drink a lot only a few times, once when he was drinking Jack Daniels with Kurt in Lodo. Or a time with Robert and Marcela at dinner when he passed out in the car on the way home. But he came home drunk and tried to pretend that he wasn’t; he thought she didn’t know.
Edward straightened his paperwork and began gathering his things. “Well, that’s about all I’ve got. How long are you planning to stay here?” He stood up with his briefcase under his arm, the question obviously benign.
“For now, I don’t know. I’m going to see how it goes. As long as my company can renew my visa, I think I will stay.” Fabiola felt relief as she walked him to the door. They shook hands, then she closed the door behind him.
LAYNE TYPED HIS LOGIN AND PASSWORD into the Government website for the hundredth time, and read the same information:
Entrance Exam - Complete
Oral Board Exam - Complete
Drug Test - Complete
Background Investigation - Incomplete
Hope was dying a little more with each day that passed. It felt like an eternity since he had taken the initial written exam at the Broomfield Public Library—too much time had elapsed without word from Edward. And it had now been months since the Oral Board Exam. He was certain that Edward had uncovered something disqualifying in his aberrant history, so much so that Layne was expecting a rejection letter instead of a bad news phone call. The notification felt overdue.
The thought tormented him that an investigator like Edward was accustomed to researching choir boys and occasionally unearthing a closeted story about teenaged shoplifting. Even trivial matters could be eliminating; there was no way to know. Edward would be disgusted if he caught wind of one aspect of the truth that Layne was attempting to erase from his memory. It would require a miracle for everything to remain hidden from him.
Fabiola was starting to behave as if what he had told her was true. She was realizing that he probably hadn’t exaggerated about his slim chance of being cleared for national security.
The fantasy about seeing “Complete” next to “Background Investigation” was growing faint. But parades still materialized in his mind when he tried, like the celebrations in New York City for the Yankees after a World Series victory, ticker tape, streaming ribbons and marching bands—the trophy being a woman of striking beauty and class, and Layne being the catch on her arm. All of his problems would be solved if he could just make it to the Academy. He needed a ticket to anywhere. He could abandon the wreckage of his life in one, brilliant chess move across multiple squares. He would be a success story, and his gleaming new status would eclipse the rough patch, both to himself and to anyone who discussed him. All of the people he envied—who had respectable jobs and shiny presentable cars that chauffeured gorgeous, proud wives—were living in a perpetual victory party. He imagined champagne and caviar if he could achieve their status.
The dream shimmered in contrast to reality. He dreamed that he would once again experience a feeling that he belonged. He would reach the goal of respecting himself.
Virtually the only thing he owned now that was not disposable was his car and guns. He was too old to live like this anymore. It was painful to come to terms with the realization that seven years had disappeared below his feet. His only hope was to leave now, or live and die this way.
Fabiola was the thread he was hanging from, and the days continued to pass by in a worrisome monotony. He was reaching a point that he preferred to be put out of his misery with confirmation that he was not fit for duty to the torture of not knowing. There was no contingency plan. Working for pennies in a cubicle was unsustainable. Living with the sense of self-worth that accompanied it was, too.
Fabiola had raised an eyebrow when he passed the Oral Board, but her repressed curiosity had faded concurrently with his as time passed. He could sense and see her growing increasingly unfulfilled with his halfhearted affection for her. He concluded that after another week of non-activity, it would be in his best interests to begin accepting her and treating her accordingly.
There were things about her he would miss if the dream came true. He enjoyed her nearness; she made him feel less alone. The lilt and inflection in her South American tongue was an intimation of Latin Romance. She made him imagine what love would be like.
He went through