“Malaya?”
“Yes?” The young officer walked away, avoiding Tom’s gaze.
Coral knew Malaya would be frightened by Tom’s question, so she put her hand on the girl’s thin back. Coral could feel her trembling even as she looked up at Tom defiantly.
“You have a grandmother? She lives with you?”
“Lola? Is Lola okay?” Malaya looked to Coral with fear.
“I’m sure she is. I was just confirming that she lives in your house.”
“Yes. But she’s not here right now. She’s staying at her friend’s house.”
Coral and Tom looked at each other. She could see his relief.
“Do you expect her to come home today?”
“No.”
“Okay, thank you. That’s all I need right now.”
“Is this about my dad?”
“Coral told me about your dad. That helps us. But I don’t know. Listen, nothing’s happened. We’re being very cautious. It’s really helpful if you just stay here.”
Malaya looked at Tom, and Coral hoped she would not get angry. She had heard Malaya and Honorata shouting more than once. Tom reached out and took the girl’s hand. “Thank you. You’re doing great here. I really appreciate it.” This calmed Malaya, and she shook her head and dropped to the grass in one fluid move.
“Whatever. My mom’s going to be really mad if it’s my dad. And she’s crazy.”
Tom looked down at Malaya a minute, as if he were about to say something. Then he thought better of it, nodded to Coral, and walked back toward the police officers in the cul-de-sac.
32
“Mi shebeirach avoteinu,” June sang as sweetly as a child in a choir.
“Oh, Miss June, that’s beautiful,” said Jessy.
“M’kor hab’racha l’imoteinu.”
Her voice was clear and strong today, as if she were a younger woman.
“I wonder if you could teach me your prayers? I could sing them with you.”
June banged her hand sharply on her knee.
“Do you think Miriam has a songbook? Or that you could bring one home with you from services this week?”
Her leg jutted out straight.
“Arf!” she said.
Jessy laughed.
“I’ll mention it to Miriam when she comes by later, so she can help you get it.”
“Ruff!”
“Can you sing it again?”
June flopped her head toward her stomach.
“Oh, I’m sorry, June. Let me hum the tune for you.”
She had a pretty good ear, Jessy. She had the tune right, all the way through, though of course she had heard only the first two lines. She hummed it over and over, and June pushed the puzzle pieces around on the jigsaw puzzle, and knocked the one border that was finished to the floor.
Jessy bent down to pick up the pieces while still humming, and June noticed the red glare of a police cruiser’s light flashing in the street. She watched it in a sort of dazed way. It made her think of Christmas, and of the neon lights of the El Capitan’s Christmas display, and then of the dripping red and white stripes of a candy cane already licked.
“Ooooohhhhhhh!” she called.
“It’s just a police car, Miss June. The light’s out at Eastern, and there’s an officer directing traffic. It was like that when I drove in.”
“Oh doctor, I’m in trouble,” sang June.
“Well, goodness gracious me,” sang Jessy.
Jessy beamed at June, and June wished she could tell her how beautiful she was—how gloriously beautiful—though she supposed that Jessy did not think she was pretty at all. What Jessy thought of herself was there in her clothes. Today she wore a long-sleeved black cotton T-shirt that bunched up awkwardly under the lightweight fabric of a flowered halter-style dress. She wore black spandex shorts under the dress, and her heavy red-splotched legs disappeared into inexpensive maroon ankle boots, with a sharply angled heel that made her wobble as she walked. These clothes touched June.
Sometimes Jessy took her on excursions, to the indoor garden at the Bellagio or the Barrick Museum on UNLV’s campus. And on the way home, they would stop at a convenience store for Diet Cokes, and sometimes for Diet Cokes with chocolate donuts. Jessy would lead her in and carefully fill two giant Styrofoam cups with ice and soda, and June would look around and wish that she could make herself say hello to the little girl touching all the bags of Doritos or to the old man with the SpongeBob backpack and the plaid pants.
It was the sort of place Marshall would never believe his mother could be, where no one else she knew would ever take her, or imagine that she had been, and June loved these trips. Sometimes the stores reeked of smoke and were filled with signs forbidding things: no debit cards for purchases under five dollars, no checks cashed, no standing near the machines, no loitering, no change available. In these stores, there was almost always someone with hollowed-out eyes waiting to buy a pack of cigarettes, or jutting a hand into June’s face and asking for a dollar. The Cokes cost twice as much in these places as they did in the cleaner stores, the ones with cheerful clerks and a display case of fresh donuts and a clear plastic box where you could leave change for the people at Opportunity Village.
One time June noticed a woman give a dollar to someone begging outside a store, and then she saw the panhandler walk in and buy his own jumbo soda—the day was so hot—for eighty-five cents. And the cheerful clerk, with a broken tooth and her hair pulled back over a broad bald patch, asked the man if he would like to leave his change for Opportunity Village. The panhandler looked at the clerk, and then at the photos of the middle-aged men who worked at the training center, and then at the change in his palm. He tipped the nickel and the dime into the plastic box. “Thank you!” said the clerk, to which the man replied, “Of course.”
Seeing this made June shake her head violently and caused her to bump Jessy, and there was a little fuss about the spill and her dress. June couldn’t explain that her head shook because the man had given away the coins in order to help someone else, and because she never would have seen this if Jessy had not taken her into the Circle K—into the place that someone like June would never go.