Send Down the Rain(13)

Catalina watched him and finally looked at me, but didn’t speak.

Our waitress reappeared. A short, somewhat pudgy redheaded girl. Maybe a bit absentminded. She was quick with a refill followed by, “How ’bout a couple of milk shakes?”

Diego’s eyes widened and his head jerked toward his momma. She was trying to shake him off when I asked him, “Chocolate or vanilla?”

“Chocolate.”

Gabriela quickly said, “Banilla.”

The waitress disappeared. While she did not wear a wedding ring, the indentation in her finger suggested that she had. Even recently. As she walked away, her faded jeans, which had fit her two or three sizes ago, showed the outline of something in her back pocket. Something that would fit in the palm of your hand. When she stopped at another table and bent over to pick up a fork that had fallen, the thing in her pocket wiggled itself loose and hung just slightly over the edge.

A baby’s pacifier with a blue handle.

She stuffed it back into its hiding place and then grabbed the waistband of her jeans and tried to wiggle them above her tummy. She could not.

While we ate, Diego kept looking at me. Specifically, my hands. I held out my right hand. He looked at Catalina, who said, “Go ahead.” He reached out and placed his hand flat across mine. He then slowly turned my hand over and studied the scars—including two recent cuts.

Catalina spoke for him. “Your hands tell a story.”

I nodded. “And if they could talk, we’d be here awhile.”

Leaning forward, she chose her words carefully. “To Diego, no one was stronger than Juan Pedro. Ever. That knife is the emperor’s sword.”

Across the restaurant somebody clanked a knife on a plate. In the kitchen one of the dishwashers hurled obscenities at the short-order cook. The beleaguered waitress ping-ponged between the tables, trying to satisfy impatient customers.

Diego tapped his foot against the central leg of our table, and his eyes blinked several times. And across from me, Gabriela squirmed slightly like she had ants in her pants. I pulled an index card from my shirt pocket, flipped it over to the unlined side, and quickly sketched Diego’s face. I’m no artist. Just caricatures really. I can pencil somebody’s face in less than five minutes. It’s a habit I picked up when I needed to find a way to occupy my mind and hands with something other than what I was doing with my mind and hands.

I handed him the picture of himself. “You like to read?” I asked.

He pushed his glasses up on his nose and studied the picture. “Yes.”

I glanced at the time. “We’ve got a while. Maybe we could find you a couple books for the drive to Florida.” Gabriela was having a tough time sitting still. “She okay?”

“She has a rash.”

Gabriela was studying Diego’s picture.

Our waitress appeared with two milk shakes. “Anything else, honey?”

“Check, please.”

She set the check down, cleared a few plates, and left us quietly. Gabriela kept looking at my stomach and the insulin syringe.

Sometimes kids need permission. “You want to ask me something?”

With her top lip covered in milk shake, she asked, “Does that hurt?”

“It’s a small needle.”

“Are you sick?”

“I have a thing called diabetes.” I tapped the syringe in my pocket. “This is my medicine.”

She struggled with the word. “Dia-tee-tees?”

“Perfect.”

“How’d you get it?”

“That’s a good question. I’m not sure there’s a good answer.”

“How do you think you got it?”

“Long time ago, I didn’t treat my body maybe the way I should have.”

“What were you doing?”

“Stuff we shouldn’t have been.”

“Who were you with?”

“Bunch of young people as foolish as me.”

“Where were you?”

“California.”

“How long were you there?”

“Couple of years.”

Her head tilted sideways. “Seems kind of silly.”

I laughed. Truer words are seldom spoken. “Silly would be a good description of a lot back then.” A pause. I sat back. “You ask a lot of questions for such a small girl.”

“Papa say I ask too many.”

“Papa?”

She glanced at the TV.

“Well . . .” I never took my eyes off her. “He’s an idiot. Don’t listen to him.”

A spontaneous combustion of a giggle broke loose through her lips, and this time she could not conceal all her teeth. The giggle bounced in the air around us like a butterfly. Having satisfied her curiosity, she drank her milk shake. Evidently my encouragement served to break the dam. After a few gulps, she looked over her shoulder and then whispered, “Is he coming to get us?”

“No.”

“Did you stop him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you do all that man said?”

“Yes.”

“Were you afraid?”

“No.”

She finished her shake. “Mr. Jo-Jo?”

“It’s just Jo-Jo.”