The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 1

1

It’s your fault,” Sofia spits at Marta, sitting across the desk from her. “My husband left me. My children won’t talk to me.”

“Cases like this take a long time,” Marta says, trying to be patient. Sofia is Marta’s age, mid-forties. Marta and Sofia are speaking in Spanish. Marta takes a breath. “I know it’s been hard for you.”

“Your life is nothing like mine. You’ve got citizenship. Your husband’s a doctor. You’re a rich lawyer,” Sofia says, hugging her purse to her chest.

Marta leans forward, the edges of the desk cutting into her forearms. Nobody could think Marta’s getting rich from the work she does, that any of them in the firm are in it for the money.

“Why did you come to the office today?” Marta asks, trying to sound pleasant.

“I wish I’d never met you or Linda.”

“Too late for that,” Marta says. Easy, girl, easy.

“You’re witches. You put the evil eye on me.”

Marta’s never been called a witch before by a client, never been told she’s cursed anyone. And Linda Camacho, the community worker, is the most genuinely religious person Marta knows.

“All we’ve done is to try to help,” Marta says, hating her martyrish tone. She feels a buzzing start up in her left ear, and she shakes her head.

Sofia stares at Marta, her already bulging eyes protruding further from her round face. “I’m going to tell the investigators I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

“About Soto. I’ll tell them he never touched me.”

Marta’s whole body goes cold, and the buzzing grows louder. She rubs her temples. “If you change your testimony, you’ll be admitting to perjury.”

“I don’t know what that is, and I don’t care.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Marta snaps.

Sofia recoils like she’s been slapped, shrinking into the chair across from Marta. Marta could have put it in a nicer way, but she’s not sorry she’s spoken the truth. Sofia has no idea what she’s doing, what work she’s undoing.

Sofia jerks unsteadily to her feet, dropping her purse on the floor. It spills open, its contents scattering. Marta walks around the desk, squatting down to pick up a hairbrush, a compact, a tube of lip gloss, a little mirror, a pack of cinnamon gum, and a laminated prayer card with an image of Santa Muerte. She passes these things to Sofia, who stuffs them back in her purse. Marta spots a blue glass bead that’s rolled by the leg of the desk. She picks the bead up, holding it in her palm. Sofia snatches the bead from Marta.

“I’m going to tell the other women how you’ve treated me. They’re not happy with the case either,” Sofia says on her way out the door.

Marta’s glad to see her go. Sofia’s always been a problem, even early on, when she raised a stink about the contingency fee, convinced that Marta was in line to receive a personal cut of the settlement funds, as if Marta were a partner in a corporate law firm instead of the deputy director of a legal aid nonprofit teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Marta turns to look out the windows at the craggy Franklin Mountains. Plumes of dust blow from the west, yellow against the blue sky. Below, cars slide through the streets of downtown El Paso. In San Jacinto Plaza, the paths glow from the light of the dipping sun.

When the firm brought the sexual harassment case against Soto Pecans and its owner, Marta warned her clients it would get ugly. During the discovery process, the women and everyone close to them have been subpoenaed and deposed, their secrets revealed. With the revelation of each new ugly detail, Soto’s team has gone even harder against the plaintiffs. Meanwhile, with each new attack, Marta can feel a piece of herself splitting off.

Sometimes Marta wonders whether she’s really helping at all, whether she wouldn’t have been better off working to become a judge, like her grandma Olga and everyone else expected. On days like this, it seems like the Soto case has done more harm than good for the hardworking, strapped-for-time clients.

Clients like Sofia.

Marta feels a rush of prickly heat as regret settles in her jaw.

She hates losing her temper. No matter how glorious it feels in the moment, remorse follows shortly after. She can’t afford to lose any clients in the Soto case. She knows it wouldn’t take much for the case to fall apart. If Sofia can convince even a few other women to withdraw, then any hope of reaching a settlement, let alone winning at trial, will go out the window. Marta worries she’s spread too thin to be the lawyer she once was.

The firm needs a big settlement to keep the doors open. Marta knows this all too well. She’s in charge of the budget. The executive director, Jerome, nicknamed “El Tiburón” by his wife, Patricia, because of the myth that sharks must swim constantly to breathe, is almost eighty, still litigating cases. He’s a very good lawyer, and a friend, Rafa’s godfather, but Marta can’t seem to get him concerned that there’s only enough cash for a couple months of payroll. If the Soto case fails, Marta will be responsible, and the firm will be one step closer to shutting down. If that happens, who will Marta be?

A ladybug lands on her hand, walking across her thumb knuckle, tickling her skin. Marta wonders how the thing got in here. None of the windows in the building open. The insect’s shell is like hard candy, a brilliant red. Marta’s college roommate had a theory about this shade, that the biggest brands in the world used this red to appeal to young people because of its resemblance to blood. Marta had always thought she meant that youth is fixated on danger. But blood means other things. Blood is another word for family.

Blood is life, and Marta is at least halfway through hers. For the past twenty years, this firm has been Marta’s life, Jerome and the other lawyers and staff her closest friends, her other family. But there’s a secret part of Marta that longs for something different than the world she lives in. The secret part wants to take control, if only to lose it, to be outrageous, irresponsible, to blow it all open, to be free. If the secret part were in charge, Marta would have an affair, just to see what it was like. She would lose the Soto case, intentionally. She’d be so incompetent that she’d be fired and unable to ever work as a lawyer again. She’d start over, leaving the boys in El Paso with Alejandro while she traveled with her lover, a younger man, visiting the great swimming pools of the world and having wild sex in fancy hotel rooms.

The ladybug crawls to the center of Marta’s palm. It digs into her skin, as if it has little claws at the end of its legs. Marta brushes the thing off her, disgusted.

She has to get a grip. This is just daydreaming.

What Marta needs is to focus, to win the Soto case in a major way. A settlement of a couple million dollars would keep the practice afloat and might even be enough to convince Jerome to retire, so that she can finally be in charge. She’s tired of waiting. If Jerome needs a shove to make him leave, she’ll give it.

For now, Marta pops two ibuprofen tablets and goes to the kitchen for a cup of burnt coffee, all their ancient drip machine knows how to make. She heads toward Jerome’s office to tell him about Sofia. Jerome is still the boss, and Marta has always sought his advice, whether she follows it or not. The suite looks the same as the day she joined the practice, somehow feeling both under-furnished and cluttered at the same time. Dusty law books sit on sagging shelves, boxes of files stacked on top of dented filing cabinets. The humming fluorescent lights show the wear of the office, the brown institutional carpet threadbare, stained with spilled coffee. In the open area in front of Jerome’s office, Linda is parked at the paralegal Cristina’s desk.

Linda shakes her head, her hoop earrings moving back and forth as she laughs, a rich peal. Marta is struck by her love for these women. She’s not going to allow them to lose their jobs through any fault of hers.

She raps forcefully on Jerome’s open office door, startling him.

He throws down his pen and stands up.

“I screwed up with Sofia Hernandez from the Soto case,” Marta says, taking a sip of her coffee. “I called her stupid.”

“Not good, Marta, not good,” Jerome says, shaking his head, but the corners of his mouth twitch. Marta doesn’t think this is a laughing matter.

“We can’t afford to lose this case. Have you looked at the quarterly profit-and-loss statement?”

“That’s not good either,” Jerome says. “That’s why you’re going to win the Soto case. You’ll bring the chingona energy, and you’ll get it done.”

Marta doesn’t like that word. A man is never said to be pushy.

“It’s Nena on the phone,” Cristina says from the door.

“I’ll call her back,” Marta replies. It’s odd for her great-aunt to call in the middle of the day.

“She’s had a fire at her house,” Cristina says, as Marta rises, worried. “Don’t freak out. She says the fire department came and everything’s fine. But she wants you to come over.”

“I’d better go check on her,” Marta says to Jerome.

“She’s your tía, the witch?” Jerome asks.

“Don’t call her that.”