[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
."Maybe I just move in here with you, sugar," she continued, squinting as smoke slowly rose over her face."Then Lena won't have to worry about gettin' too hot.'cept maybe at night.""Afraid I couldn't handle that one, Lena.""You skinny women all alike." She laughed loudly."Shit, I squash you like a bug in bed.""But if you're any good, it'd be worth dying for, right?""Don't you worry youself 'bout that.Lena good enough.What you got today? Same as usual.""Yeah, I haven't been back long enough to make much of a mess.""It ain't like you use all the rooms or nothin'.Three, four at the most." She leaned toward me."I tell you the truth, Jo.I a'most feel guilty 'bout takin' you money.""I don't feel guilty about giving it to you, so what's the difference?""You know, some of the nosies in town are thinkin' you and me got somethin' goin' out here.""Really?" I chuckled, remembering Cate's questions about Lena."You bet you ass.'Fore long everbody gonna believe I'm Jo Carlisle's woman."I had to laugh at the idea of the old-timers around Kerrville gossiping about me and Lena.Most of them hadn't seen me since I was eighteen and went off to college, although I liked to think I'd left one or two broken hearts behind when I left."No one believes that, Lena.You're too much woman for me," I said."You fuckin' right 'bout that."She crammed the cigarette between her lips, picked up her coffee cup, and waddled into the laundry room behind the kitchen.As I left the kitchen, I could hear her singing to herself and water running into the washing machine.Lena was a good woman who had developed an unsavory reputation when she was younger and never bothered to set the record straight.She had never married and had no children.Most people regarded her as easy, and I had heard plenty of men bragging about being with her, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to believe everything I'd heard.Half an hour later I was ready to go out the door.Lena was vacuuming the living room as I came down the stairs.She was wearing headphones and had a cheap cassette player clipped to the waistband of her polyester pants.In between pushes and pulls on the vacuum she undulated to whatever she was listening to.Watching her, I couldn't begin to imagine what kind of music could possibly inspire those particular movements.When I tapped her on the shoulder, she jumped nearly a foot, ripping the headphones off."You tryin' to give me a fuckin' heart attack, you stupid bitch! You shouldn't sneak up on a body like that.""Didn't mean to scare you.I'm taking Jack out for a while.I'll be back in an hour or so.""You think I give a damn where you go? Ain't like nobody ever calls or comes out here.You live like some kinda hermit anyway, like you 'fraid of folks.If you die, nobody know or care."She pulled another cigarette out of her pocket.As I was going out the door, I glanced back and saw she had resumed her dance with the vacuum cleaner.When I moved back to the ranch, I sold off all the livestock except Jack.He still had some fight left in him but was reliable, and like me, getting too old to care about very much.We hadn't gotten off to a great start, and I doubted that a friendship would ever develop between us because we were both too accustomed to having our own way.But over the last year and a half, I came to admire his independent nature while he tolerated my stubbornness.After lunch, I locked myself in the darkroom to develop some film I'd shot before I went to San Antonio on my Good Samaritan mission.I was in the middle of developing the first roll when Lena banged on the darkroom door."Jo! You got company!" she hollered through the door."Who the hell is it?" I yelled back."'Nother woman.You really be robbin' the cradle with this chica.""I'll be out in a minute.""Don't take all day.I ain't no hostess here."Damn! The road to my house was turning into a tourist attraction.The advantage to living away from town was supposed to be that no one wanted to drive all that way just to visit.No one was in the living room six or seven minutes later when I left the darkroom, and I thought maybe whoever it was had already left.As I entered the kitchen, Sarita Ramirez was sitting at the kitchen table with Lena, looking a little uncomfortable as she twisted a glass of tea in front of her.She stood up quickly when I came into the room."How are you, Miss Ramirez?" I said, going to the refrigerator and grabbing the pitcher of tea."Sarita, please.I'm sorry to intrude on you, Ms.Carlisle, but I really have to speak to you," she said."About what? Refill?" I asked, taking a glass from the cabinet next to the sink."No, thank you.I've spoken to Kyle's mother, and she told me she had asked you to help him.I wanted to tell you that I appreciated that.He's very stubborn, but he does need someone's help even if he doesn't want to admit it.""I've done everything I can without knowing more about his story.I have to have a starting point.""I can tell you what the story is.If you know that, will you help him?""Go ahead," I said as I poured tea into a glass and took a drink.She glanced at Lena and then back at me."Would you prefer to go into my office?" I asked."It don't matter none, honey.She gonna tell me everthin' after you gone anyhow," Lena said with a chuckle.Sarita blushed slightly and followed me to my office."Does Kyle know you're here?" I asked."No.I called in sick today after he left for work.""If he finds out he might not be too happy that you came here.""But he'd still be alive.""You know that Kyle and I aren't on speaking terms, and I assume you know why," I said."Cate explained it to me, and I've seen pictures of the three of you together when he was a child.""Have you ever asked him about them?""He doesn't discuss his past with me.""All right," I said with a shrug, "tell me what you know.""Before I moved to San Antonio and met Kyle, I taught school not far from here, in Mountain View, for a couple of years.It was a nice little town until ABP moved in.""ABP?""American Beef and Pork.They bought the old meatpacking plant in Mountain View and expanded it.Almost as soon as they bought the plant, ABP started bringing in workers from someplace else and laying off the local workers who were in the union.The new workers are earning half what the union workers were."I looked at her and shrugged again."Anyway," she continued, "the whole town changed almost overnight.Most of the workers hired by ABP were Hispanic and spoke virtually no English.In fact, the Hispanic population of Mountain View grew by nearly four hundred percent in the time I was there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

listy-do-eda.opx.pl