“Gloria, could you tomar el bebé? We’re gonna have some grown-up time.”
“Sure thing,” Gloria said in a crisp American accent that suggested she’d been in the States a long time, if not all her life. Kit thought it sounded a touch defiant, like she wouldn’t be put in her place. Nestor, upon seeing Gloria, pushed himself off of Sugar and toddled happily into his nanny’s arms.
“I think she loves them as much as she loves her own kids,” Sugar said. “Sometimes I think they love her more than me.”
“I know they love her more than you,” Beulah said. She cocked her head and gave a funny look like she was thinking something over.
“So, now, Kit, if you’re not a Mexican, what—” Beulah started to ask What are you, a question Kit had heard enough times to know when it was coming. But Beulah seemed to stop herself and took a vaguer angle. “What’s your deal?”
Kit waited for her to clarify.
“Like who’s your parents and whatnot?”
Kit still was not sure how to answer this. She let the question hang, awkward as a fart.
“Like . . . well, Eleanor says your mama was her niece. So, what was your daddy?”
Kit flushed. Why were they so obsessed with knowing “what” she was? It was as if they needed to know her race and country of origin so they could calibrate their opinion of her. The ache of missing her mother was familiar, but it stung in a different way to think of her father, especially here, in the company of these prying women. There was nothing, no trace of him to build on. He could be anyone, a king, a criminal, a poet, a nobody. How had he and her mother met? Had he singled her out in a crowded bar? Maybe her mother had made the first move, slipped her number between his fingers at a concert. Maybe they had one wild night together before parting ways. It must have been a casual encounter, but sometimes she let herself think she was born of love.
“I didn’t have parents,” Kit said.
Sugar slapped her hand to her heart and drew an audible breath. “Ohhhhh, my word, an orphan? That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It was fine, I never knew them so . . .”
“Did you grow up in an orphanage?” Beulah asked. “What was it like—were they cruel to you?”
Kit was beginning to buckle under the inquiry and the memories it stirred. The dictionary splitting her cheek; the surprise whippings, the taunts; being left in the car while a foster parent ran errands, no matter how hot it was outside, how she’d roll down the window and fight with herself the whole time about which was more trouble, staying or leaving. Loud, long nights in the group home in between placements; kids who sleepwalked and had night terrors, criers and fighters, and the one boy who talked incessantly to silence the voices in his head. All the nights she had gone to bed wishing she wouldn’t wake up in the morning. The constant feeling that she was not wanted, that her very existence was a bother. She had never told anyone about growing up in foster care, and she wasn’t about to start with these biddies.
“No, nothing like that,” Kit said. “You wouldn’t think it, but I had a pretty normal childhood.”
The two women exchanged a look, like they knew she was holding out.
“If you never knew your folks,” Beulah asked pointedly, “how was it then that you got hooked up with Eleanor?”
Kit tightened the muscles between her shoulders. The question sounded like a trap. She knew from running around with Manny that you never told a lie if you didn’t have to.
“My social worker told me about her,” Kit said plainly. “So, when I was old enough I came looking.”
“You just left everything?” Sugar said, gaping a little to show she needed to be convinced. “Your foster family and your life and came here? To Pecan Hollow?”
Beulah scowled at her.
“What?” Sugar said. “It’s not like it’s a destination.”
“I’d never had family before, not for real,” Kit said, and the truth of it moved her to the edge of tears. She muscled back the emotion, determined not to lose it here. Sugar’s hand went back to her heart and Beulah puckered her lips into a pout.
“Hey,” Beulah said and sniffed. “Are we gonna do makeup or what? I got my niece watching the kids tonight and she is dumber than a cow. I give her till seven p.m. before I have to come home to fix whatever she screwed up tonight.”
“You are bad, Beulah.”
“I know, I shouldn’t.”
“All right,” Sugar said, “let’s party.” She slid a thin pink suitcase with a gold clasp out from under the coffee table and opened it up for them. Inside were dozens of peach-colored bottles, compacts, and pencils, all labeled in cursive. Eye shadows, powders, lipsticks, creams. It smelled like vanilla and was so brazenly girlish, Kit began to sweat.
“Oh, this is like candy to me,” Beulah said. “I’ll have one of everything.” She reached out to touch the lipsticks, but Sugar swatted her hand away.
“Don’t touch the merchandise unless you really plan to buy it. Any product that gets damaged or used comes out of my pocket. Here, baby,” she said, taking Beulah by the chin. “Ima do your colors.”
“Actually, Sugar, why don’t you let Kit go first, I would looove to see what you would do with her. She’s got so much po-tential.”
Sugar clapped her hands together. “You don’t mind, do you, Kit? A little makeover? I won’t make you buy anything, it’s just—” She paused to choose her words, pressing her lips together, looking pained. “I don’t know, I’m just dying to pretty you up. Will you let me? Please?”
This was no place for her. All of it was wrong; ever since she got to Pecan Hollow she’d been lying and covering up, pretending to smile, faking a laugh, playing by rules she didn’t understand. Kit’s throat burned with anger toward the two women. On the surface, they were being friendly, but she knew they had brought her here to take her down a peg. She might be a freak and a criminal, but she was nobody’s clown. At least she had her own wheels. Kit got up and crossed the buffalo pelt without a word and let herself out the door.
Chapter Nineteen