by Nancy Rue
Once the “needs” were taken care of, she was allowed to get some “wants” — as long as she didn’t go over the budget. She didn’t have to add things up in her head anymore. She just knew that if she had to buy tortillas that week, she couldn’t get Nesquik too.
She was deciding between creamy and crunchy peanut butter, always a tough decision, when she heard Mr. Benitez clear his throat. He did that so much, Lucy sometimes wondered if he had hair balls like her cats.
“Your father called,” he said. It sure sounded like he had a hair ball in there.
Lucy selected the crunchy p.b. and put it in the basket.
“He said to tell you to get tea bags.”
“Tea bags?” Lucy scrunched up her nose. “We don’t drink tea.”
“I don’t care whether you do or not. He said to get tea bags.”
Mr. Benitez pulled a box from the shelf above Lucy’s head and dropped it on top of her peanut butter. Then he peered in until Lucy felt like he was peeping into her brain.
“You don’t have enough money on your account for all of that,” he said. “Put something back.”
“I know how much money I have,” Lucy said, and then added, “Thank you, Mr. Benitez.”
Dad said she had to be polite to him no matter what because he let them have an account and nobody else in town got one.
Still, she gave his thick face an I-told-you-so smile when she didn’t go over the limit on her items, including the mysterious tea bags. She wondered about those until she got closer to the house with her two full-to-overflowing bags and saw a faded red pickup truck parked in front.
She slowed her steps. A repairman? No, nothing was broken this week. Somebody returning one of the kitties who’d wandered off ? None of their cats ever actually left town, and who in Los Suenos had a truck like that?
Lucy was no closer to figuring it out when she peeked through the window in the back door while she balanced both bags on one hip to turn the knob. The person sitting across from Dad at the table was a total stranger.
Only, even from where she stood, Lucy could see that she didn’t act like one.
The woman sat in the chair like a perfect L, making her short self look tall and important. In spite of the fact that she wore her black-pinstriped-with-gray hair in a straight-at-the-chin cut like a child in an old picture book, she wasn’t little-girlish at all, not with a face as square as a box and a mouth that pulled inward like she was sucking herself in. Anybody that serious couldn’t be there for a good time.
“Come in, Luce,” Dad called.
Lucy pushed open the door and deposited the bags on the counter and peeled off her backpack and extracted her arms from the sleeves of her jacket — until Dad finally said, “Enough with the stalling. Come say hello to Senora Herrera.”
“Inez,” the woman said.
Her voice was as dead-sober as her face, which was why Lucy was surprised as she crossed to the table to see that the woman wore a bright-white blouse with life-size red hibiscus f lowers embroidered on it, and a yellow skirt that matched the f lowers’ centers. Two strands of pearls followed the ring of wrinkles around her neck.
“This is Lucy,” Dad said, sounding as if Lucy had already been a main topic of conversation before she came in.
“Hi,” Lucy said, and stuck out her hand to the lady, because Dad would tell her to anyway if she didn’t.
The hand she put into Lucy’s had calluses that scraped like toothbrushes on her palm. She looked at Lucy with small, black, smart-looking eyes, like she knew things she wasn’t about to tell.
“I’ll put the groceries away,” Lucy said.
“They’ll keep,” Dad said. “Did you get the tea bags?”
“Uh-huh. What did we need them for?”
The lady — did she say her name was Inez? — stood up. She was only as tall as Lucy, but Lucy felt as if she were shrinking in front of her.
“Do you have the tea kettle?” she said. She spoke like English wasn’t the first language she learned.
“I don’t know,” Lucy said.
“In the pantry, top shelf, all the way to the left,” Dad said. “Get the step stool, Luce.”
Lucy was glad for an excuse to retreat to the pantry so she could collect her thoughts, which were now scattered like confetti. What was with the Mexican lady who had Dad buying tea and pulling out kitchen stuff Lucy didn’t even know they owned? If this Inez person thought she was going to cook it, or whatever it was you did to make tea, in Lucy’s kitchen, she better think again —
From the top of the step stool, Lucy spotted a bright yellow pot with a lid and a spout, which she pried out from behind two other mystery pots they never used. It was greasy-feeling and coated in dust, and she sneezed as she carried it to the sink. Inez stood still and pot-like herself and watched Lucy wash it off.
“That was your mother’s,” Dad said. “She was a tea drinker.”
Lucy cradled the lid in her hand and stared at it. How come he’d never told her that before? It made her feel cold to think there was something about Mom she didn’t know — something she would have known by now if she were still here.
Lucy dried the pot and the lid with exaggerated care, but she couldn’t put off the obvious question any longer.
“How do I make tea?” she said.
“Why don’t you let Inez make it?” Dad said. “She knows how she likes it.” He chuckled as if he were entertaining an old friend. “Diehard tea drinkers are persnickety about their brew.”
Lucy would rather have given Inez her soccer ball than to let go of her mother’s tea kettle, but she handed it over and turned to the door. “I gotta find Mudge and feed him,” she said.
“In a sec,” Dad said. “Come sit.”
Lucy sank into the chair next to his and tried not to look as if she were paying attention to how tea was made. She hoped it wasn’t too disgusting, because she was going to have to become a tea drinker if Mom had been one.
“Inez is going to be your nanny,” Dad said.
Lucy sucked in air. She’d forgotten all about Dad’s ridiculous suggestion about a nanny. He’d only said it to get Aunt Karen to stop bugging him, hadn’t he?
“After-school companion,” Inez said.
Lucy didn’t care what she called herself. She didn’t need her.
“Like we talked about,” Dad said. “She’ll be here when you get home from school to get you started on your homework, help you with all that girl stuff I don’t know anything about, make sure you have a good snack.” He nudged Lucy with his elbow. “No more rubber sandwiches down at Pasco’s.”
She liked Pasco’s.
“She’s going to do the grocery shopping for us too, so you can have more time to do girl things.” Dad chuckled again. “Whatever they are.”
She liked grocery shopping.
She liked making things at their stove.
She liked everything just the way it was.
Dad eased back in his chair and folded his hands on his tummy. “I’m waiting for the whistle,” he said. “Bet you didn’t even know tea kettles whistle, did you, Luce?”
“No,” she said woodenly.
“I love that sound.”
She didn’t know that either. Had she been the blind one all this time? Didn’t Dad like the way things were, the way she thought he did?
“So — ” Dad said.
“Sure,” Lucy said. “Fine. I’m gonna go find Mudge.”
She got almost to the door without anyone stopping her. Even then, Inez only said, “You want to say something to me?”
Lucy swallowed. There were no colors in the person’s voice. It was hard to tell what she really meant. But Lucy knew what she meant, and the woman had asked.
“I just want to say one thing,” Lucy said.
Inez nodded.
“Lucy Rooney doesn’t wear pink.”
And then instead of going to look for Mudge, Lucy took the carpet ride down the hall to her room and carefully closed the door
behind her without any tantrum sounds. That way Dad wouldn’t come in when Inez was gone and ask her what was wrong.
And this was wrong. She did not need a nanny or an after-school companion or anybody else to show her how to be a girl. She was going to be a girl like her mom — brave and strong and a soccer player who rocked.
Only when Lollipop leaped from under the pillows with a frightened mew and dove into the toy chest did Lucy realize she’d said it out loud.
She wanted to dive in after her and hide, but that wasn’t what her mom would have done. Lucy opened her underwear drawer and dug under the pile of rolled-up socks and pulled out the Book of Lists.
Mom would make a list. Maybe while she was drinking tea.
Lucy slid the pen from its holder and began to write.
7
Inez cooked dinner for Lucy and Dad before she left — another thing Dad said he was going to have her do on the weekdays from now on. As they ate, Lucy swallowed more of what she wanted to say than she did of the enchilada she pushed around on her plate.
Don’t you like it when we cook together? she choked back.
Do you think our enchiladas are icky? Do you think I’m icky all of a sudden and you need somebody to change me?
When Dad finally said, “What did you think of Inez?” Lucy just shrugged.
“Whatever that answer was, I didn’t hear it.”
“She was okay,” Lucy said.
“Just ‘okay’?”
“I don’t even know her. I guess she’s fine.”
Dad chewed for longer than it took anybody to soften up a tortilla, but Lucy didn’t fill in the blank space. She felt the same way she did in class, staring at that too-white piece of paper and not knowing what was right to put on it.
“I tell you what.” Dad felt for his checkered napkin and swiped it across his mouth, making a smile appear. “We’ll just give her a try, and if it doesn’t work out — ”
“How long of a try?” Lucy said. She came up on one knee.
“How does two months sound?”
Two months? She could grow an inch in two months. Or be well on her way to failing sixth grade. Or —
“Luce?”
But it was better than forever. And in two months she could also show him, and this Inez woman, and Aunt Karen, that she already knew how to be a girl.
“Hello?” Dad said.
“Okay,” Lucy said. “Two months.”
“Good. Now let’s talk about some ground rules.”
“Dad.” Lucy gave her best elaborate sigh. “I know the rules.”
“New rules.” Dad put down his fork and held up a finger. “No letting the cats loose on her.”
Oh.
Another finger came up. “No disappearing for hours on end with J.J.”
Rats.
“Three.”
“I know. No sneaking hot chili pepper into her tea.”
Lucy poked her fork into her enchilada and watched the sauce drool out.
“Well,” Dad said, “that’s all I need to say. You and Inez will work things out.”
What things? Lucy wanted to shout. Yesterday or the day before, she would have said it. She could have asked Dad anything and not been afraid. But now things were different, like someone had whispered something to Dad that had changed how he thought about her.
And that changed how she thought about him too.
At least Mr. Auggy didn’t give their papers back with big red Fs on them the next day. He didn’t even mention the assignment all morning, and by the time recess came around, Lucy could even get a little bit excited about playing soccer. Maybe Mr. Auggy would teach her about that thing he’d mentioned yesterday.
But when she ran onto their little playing field, ball tucked under her arm, J.J. stopped her with a jerk of his head. His eyes were colder than the air.
“What?” Lucy said.
“What’s he doing here?”
Lucy twisted to see where J.J. was directing his icicle stare. A big, dark-haired boy stood with his back to them, talking to Mr. Auggy. Lucy put the ball up so she could make a face at J.J. behind it.
“That’s Gabe,” she said.
“Duh,” J.J. replied.
“Did he get in trouble?” Lucy peered hopefully over the top of the ball. “Is Mr. Auggy yelling at him?”
“I don’t hear any yelling.”
“Lucy.” There was a tug at her sweatshirt sleeve. Januarie was using the Chihuahua voice.
“Not now,” J.J. said.
“No —listen. Mr. Auggy’s telling that mean kid he can play with us.”
Lucy watched J.J.’s eyes turn to ice cubes. Lucy was sure her own eyes weren’t a whole lot warmer.
“I don’t want to play with him,” Januarie said. “He called me a name one time.”
“Only once?” Lucy said. “You got off lucky.”
“I’m not playing with him,” J.J. said between his teeth, and he slunk, head down, to the nearest wall and stuck himself against it.
“Are you playing, Lucy?” Januarie said. “’Cause if you’re not, I’m not.”
Lucy watched as Mr. Auggy dropped a ball to the ground. Where had that come from? She always brought the ball. He said something to Gabe, who tapped it with the side of his foot and caught it lightly with the other one, dribbling several feet before Mr. Auggy smiled his small smile and captured the ball from him.
“He knows how to play,” Lucy said, more to herself than to Januarie.
Mr. Auggy blew his whistle, and the little team straggled toward him, all except J.J. Lucy saw Oscar and Emanuel and Carla Rosa casting cautious glances at Gabe, who ignored them all as he bounced the ball off his knee.
“Are you?” Januarie said. She was pulling so hard on Lucy’s sleeve it was sliding off her shoulder.
“He won’t want to stick around for very long,” Lucy said. “I guess I’ll play.”
Januarie gave a final yank and held most of Lucy’s sleeve in her hand. “Don’t let him hurt me.”
It occurred to Lucy that Mr. Auggy wouldn’t let Gabe hurt anybody. He was all about rules and being fair. Lucy grunted. Everybody was about rules these days.
“You all know Gabe?” Mr. Auggy said when they’d gathered around him in a ragged circle.
Nobody looked at Gabe. They just nodded at the ground. Lucy sneaked a peek at him as he swept his gaze at the tops of their heads and shrugged, like it didn’t matter whether they knew him or not. Lucy looked back at the still-icy J.J., frozen to the wall.
She tilted up her chin. “Yeah,” she said. “I know him. He almost ran over me with an ATV one time.”
Carla Rosa gasped. Mr. Auggy’s eyebrows went into upside-down V s. Gabe muttered something about being sorry he’d missed. If Mr. Auggy heard it, he didn’t show it. Of course not. No teachers ever came down on Gabe. He was in the smart classes, and he was never mean to white kids in front of the faculty. Besides, he was the sheriff ’s son.
“Nobody’s going to be running over anybody on my soccer field.” Mr. Auggy danced his eyes over them. “Understood?”
Everybody gave an automatic nod.
“Then let’s play some soccer!”
So now it was “his” soccer field. And his ball. And his choice of players.
What was up with everybody taking over everything that was hers?
“Lucy — throw in,” Mr. Auggy said.
And then the ball was in her hands, and she was sailing it over her head, and Gabe was trapping it with his thigh. Then Mr. Auggy was calling for Oscar to pass the ball — to plant it first and then —
They were playing soccer.
As Mr. Auggy darted back and forth among them, he captured the ball and taught them the push pass, and then he let them practice driving the ball up and down the field. Carla Rosa fell down a lot.
Januarie mostly stood there and squealed happily. Gabe passed fast and crisp and got the ball to somebody every time. Emanuel and Oscar sometimes actually got control of the ball. After
the first time, when Gabe smirked and told Lucy under his breath that she played like a girl, she never missed it.
“Lead your teammate!” Mr. Auggy called to Gabe. “Don’t pass it to where she is now — think about where she’ll be in two seconds.”
Lucy knew where she wished Gabe were, but she didn’t pass it all the way there — to Texas. It was too good, keeping up with this kid who thought he was David Beckham. It was way good.
“You guys rock!” Mr. Auggy said when the bell rang.
“What about us girls?” Januarie said.
Gabe hissed through his teeth, but Mr. Auggy high-fived the breathless Januarie. “You are all gonna rule the field pretty soon if you keep this up.”
The rest of the group headed for the water fountain, except for Gabe. He sauntered off to the regular sixth-grade wing, and Lucy expected him to kick back dust like a dog.
“So, Miss Lucy.” She looked at Mr. Auggy, who was now strolling beside her, twirling the soccer ball on his finger. “What’s up with J.J. Do you know?”
Lucy shrugged.
He stopped twirling. “Guess I’ll have to ask him.”
“No,” Lucy said. “I’ll ask him.”
The mood J.J. was in, he was sure to get himself thrown into detention if Mr. Auggy even said his name.
J.J. was only just beginning to peel himself away from the wall when Lucy reached him. She didn’t have to ask a single thing.
“I can’t believe you played with Gabe,” he said.
Lucy stared. “You’re mad at me?”
J.J. jammed his hands in his pockets and stalked toward the portable with Lucy on his heels.
“I didn’t ask him to play,” she said.
“Whatever.”
“J.J.!”
He stopped just short of the metal steps that led up to their classroom. “I’m done,” he said. “I’m not playing with Januarie or him. You can. I’m not.”
Lucy stood at the bottom and watched somebody she didn’t know disappear through the door. Had everybody in the world decided to have personality transplants, all at the same time?
