Page 55 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
“Well my God.” Jenny stared. “I’m not going to be able to talk. What did your mother say when she was really piss… irritated?”
Graciela pursed her lips in a prissy moue. “When Mama was angry, she said she was displeased.”
“Huh!” She would have rolled her eyes and said Jezus, but Je-zus was undoubtedly prohibited also. “Listen, I’m going to forget occasionally. You have to accept that up front. I’ve been talking like I talk for a long, long time. A person doesn’t change overnight. So don’t go thinking I’m breaking a promise if a cussword or two slips out.”
Graciela cast her a sideways glance and a small smile. “If you forget and cuss… do I get to wash your mouth out with soap?”
Jenny blinked, then threw back her head and laughed. Every now and then there were moments when she enjoyed the hell out of the kid, and this was one of them.
“If you try I’ll be very… displeased. Besides, I’m bigger than you are.” They grinned at each other. “You know,” she said softly, “when you’re not being a snot, you aren’t too bad.”
Pink flooded the kid’s face, and she leaned forward, rubbing at her toes. “I’m hungry.”
“Senora Armijo is fixing us something right now.” She touched Graciela’s shoulder blades, gazed at the bruises around her throat. “There’s something I want to say. I’m sorry you had to learn that your cousins,” she paused, searching for acceptable words, “are rotten, greedy people. But it’s good that you finally know it. Because Luis and Chulo are still out there, and they’re still looking for you. They’re dangerous, Graciela. Maybe worse than the cousins we left in the desert.”
Graciela’s lip trembled. “Cousin Tito dropped the snakes right in front of me! He wanted them to bite me!”
“You were very brave, and I’m proud of you. It’s hard to be alone and scared and have snakes poured on you.”
The pink deepened in Graciela’s cheeks and her eyes shone. It astonished Jenny how much the kid seemed to value her approval. And it worried her, too. As far as she knew, nothing she’d ever said had affected anyone. Now it seemed that Graciela absorbed her words like a sponge. It was a sobering thought, a little frightening to wield that much influence on another person.
“I’ll bet you were never scared of anything.”
A smile curved her lips. “Well, you’d lose that bet. I’ve been scared plenty of times.”
One of the things that scared her opened the door and swaggered inside.
“Senora Armijo is right behind me with supper,” Ty announced, tossing his hat toward a wall peg. “What happened here?” Frowning, he inspected the muddy floor.
“Nothing,” Jenny said, noticing the anxiety fade from Graciela’s eyes when the kid realized she wasn’t going to reveal the soap incident. “Put the food on the table,” she instructed Senora Armijo.
They didn’t speak until Jenny had thanked the senora, and she had withdrawn. Then Ty lifted Graciela out of the hammock and placed her on a stool in front of the table.
“Looks like beefsteak cooked with tomatoes and onions,” he said cheerfully. He brought up a stool for Jenny and one for himself. “Are you ladies as ready as I am for something besides beans and tortillas?”
Slowly, Jenny seated herself and tucked a gaily colored napkin inside the collar of her shirt. It felt strange to be sitting down to supper with a man and a child. Suddenly she recalled a picture she’d seen in a catalog of a family sitting at a table together. They had been dressed better than she and Ty and Graciela, and the furniture was a hell of a lot nicer, but Jenny had studied the picture and she’d known the man and the woman and the child were a family. Not a family like any she had known, but a family like her heart wanted a family to be.
“You’re supposed to put your napkin in your lap,” Graciela commented. “Like this.”
“Well la-de-da.” Now she noticed that Ty had placed his napkin in his lap, too. A dull throb of color heated her cheeks. “I like my napkin tucked in.” Reaching with her fork, she speared a chunk of meat and dropped it on her plate. “What are you doing?” she demanded when she noticed Ty leaning toward the kid.
“What’s it look like? I’m cutting my niece’s steak.”
“She’s not crippled. She can cut her own damned meat.”
“You’re not supposed to say damn.” Graciela gave her one of the superior smiles that Jenny detested.
“Jenny, she’s six years old.”
“Which is plenty old enough to feed herself.”
“I’m not allowed to use knives,” Graciela said, turning a charmingly helpless look on Ty.
Jenny lowered her fork. The little snot liked being waited on. “Let me ask you something. If someone,” she squinted at Ty, “didn’t cut that meat for you, what would you do? Pick up a hunk and gnaw on it?”
“No!” The kid looked appalled.
“Would you sit there and starve?” Graciela glared at her. “If you were hungry enough, I’ll bet you’d figure out how to cut your own meat. So,” she said, deliberately issuing a challenge, “are you hungry enough?”
