Except Soledad. She don’t know me.
The odor of strange food is wafting out of her house making me feel sicker. My throw-up comes again — mostly spit and noise this time. I wipe my mouth, scoot back against the side of the house, lean forward over my knees, try not to smell it.
I had imagined Soledad’s house would be like this. No houses for acres around, and hers, dainty and clean like it’s new out a gift box. A carved blue sign on the front door say, “The Shepards.”
I close my eyes because the light across the street felt like it was thickening and reaching over to me, touching me, thumping against my temples now. I’ll keep ’em closed. No more wishes this time.
The screen door around the front of her house smacks open and I flatten myself against the wall.
“I can’t do this, Sole,” a man say.
“Yes you can, Bobby Lee. You’re here, aren’t you? Mr. Shepard’ll be out of town until next week, dinner’s almost done. We can have wine, make it special.”
I peek around the wall, and see Bobby Lee standing on the front porch. She hangs over his back, climbing up on her tiptoes, pressing her long, thin frame against him like a cape. Her sheer dress ripples away from her legs and a thin strap slides off her shoulder. She kisses his back through his clothes and say, “I can get you ready.”
She swirls around and ends up between the porch rail and his body. With her hands, she feels up the wall of his chest and he grabs both her hands gently, holds ’em together in one of his.
“Don’t worry about him,” Soledad say. “Mr. Shepard and I understand each other. We have a special relationship.”
She inches up on her tiptoes again, leans into his mouth, lips to lips. I notice he don’t kiss her back, though.
She pushes him. “Look,” she say. “We’ve already shared a bed so there’s no reason for you to go and get righteous now.”
When Bobby Lee don’t say nothin, she shoves him again. It only moves him slightly.
She say, “Everything’s not good and evil, you know. You’re always looking for somebody to protect. Last month, that person was still me.”
“’Cause no man should hit a woman,” he say. “Not Mr. Shepard, not nobody.”
“See, then you know what kind of man he is.”
“I talked to him, Sole,” he say. “You had me pinning that man against the wall, threatening to kill him, and he still swore he never did nothing to you.”
“You’re taking his side now?”
“It’s not about sides, Sole. There’s right and wrong no matter what side you on. What we did was wrong. I know it. I take the blame. You’re married. I. .”
“It’s that dead girl, isn’t it? Your wife.”
In one stride, Bobby Lee clears the porch, throws his hat on. “I shouldn’t have come back here,” he say.
He comes in my direction and I slide back a little further in the shadow, flat as I can go.
“You can’t mourn her forever, Bobby Lee,” Soledad say. “You deserve to feel something. Anything.”
He stops in the dirt next to me, don’t see me.
Almost pleading, she say, “I can make you feel good, Bobby Lee!” But he keeps on up the road, out of sight.
IT’S GETTING COLDER out here and I’m hungry. Soledad didn’t go back inside ’til long after he left. I huddle my legs to my chest and wrap my arms around ’em. That stanky food is smelling good now. I close my eyes and imagine it’s Momma’s cooking. Something savory, she called it — stew beef. Or maybe pigs’ feet. A side of greens. Some biscuits. Smothering gravy with onion and pepper, poured thick and rich over everything.
It’s only been about three hours since I left Cynthia’s and I’m already half starved to death, slobbering in my mouth for the food I imagine be inside. I finally knock on the door and take a whole-mouth swallow of spit.
I knock again.
I can hear Soledad sing-songy from the other side. She say, “Coming.” When the door opens and she see me, the smile she had goes. “Naomi?” she say, ’cause she’d hoped for Bobby Lee, then, “Darling,” like she’d wished it was me all along. “Come in,” she say and grabs a blanket from her arm chair. “You could catch your death of cold out there.”
She puts it over my shoulders. “Let me get you some warm tea. You must be hungry.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I didn’t have no place else to go.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.”
She takes my hand and guides me to her dining table like I’m her little girl, helps me sit. She takes a pink apron laid on top of the table, hooks it over her neck, then ties a bow around her waist.
“You don’t have anything to worry about now,” she say, and glides toward the back of the house, swaying from side to side as she go.
If she ask me where I been or where I’m going, I’m gon’ first say, “For a walk.”
She’s in the kitchen where I can see her cutting some green vegetable I don’t recognize. She say, “You look like a girl who can handle a little spice. This soup is my family’s recipe.”
From on top of the stove, she lifts a wagon wheel — sized lid from a deep black pot. What’s inside steams over her face as she stirs with her wide wooden spoon.
I feel so small sitting at the head of her big table in her big house. Even the vase on the table is big. Its fresh flowers reach out in every direction like a frozen and colorful explosion at the center of her table. The longest stem points to a wood and glass cabinet where little clay people are faceless. The painted-on clothes is how I can differ the boys from the girls. The porcelain dresses are green, yellow, and red, and the boys got wide hats of the same colors.
“Make yourself at home,” Soledad say.
I don’t even know what “home” means.
“I hope you’re hungry,” she say. “When we’re finished here I’ll fix a bed for you in the guest room.”
“No, ma’am. That would just be too much.”
She peeks around the wall at me. “We’ve got a bond, Naomi. You may not know it yet, but I understand things about you because I know who Cynthia is. And I know what it’s like to escape mistreatment. To be alone out there. Not a friend in the world.”
She jots around the kitchen area.
“Stay as long as you need,” she say. “Charlie won’t be home for another week or so. And when he’s home, he’ll agree to your staying.”
I want to feel what it’s like to stay.
I’m tired.
Tired of all the running.
“Do you drink spirits, Naomi?”
I lie and say, “No, ma’am.”
“Then you’re a good girl.” She sets two bowls on her countertop. “I’m sure you’ve never had any stew like this before. It’s from Mexico. My mother’s recipe. It’s called menudo.”
“No, ma’am. I haven’t ate that.”
“Then you’re in for a treat.”
I fold my hands together on the table, trying to act like I been taught some manners. The crocheted placemats feel lumpy under my hands and these silver spoons and forks is catching light. I put my fingers in the diamond-shaped holes of the tablecloth, give the net a little tug, slide my finger inside the scoop of the spoon, pick it up and see my reflection.
“You’ll like the bread, too. Finely ground corn, water. A few seconds on the griddle then. .” She walks in slowly. “Mexican flatbread. We call them tortillas.”
She balances two bowls of soup in one hand and a stack of flatbread covered mostly by a cloth in the other. She slides a bowl to me and sits down in front of hers. The steamy red stew washes up the side of my tan clay bowl and settles.
“My father used to eat menudo all the time. My mother said it was to cure his hangovers but he said it was to stop her nagging.” She laughs, unwrapping the cloth from over the stack of tortillas. “Menudo reminds me of family.”