Page 14 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

Suddenly Jenny felt Marguarita’s presence again, telling her that it wasn’t a good idea to relate how her pa had taken a strap to her and her brothers and sisters when they didn’t work hard enough, answer quickly enough, bring him the liquor jug fast enough.

She gazed into space, seeking another example to show Graciela that she understood.

“Well, once I had to go into a dark cave by myself. My pa was a miner, see, and he wanted to know if anyone else was working a certain shaft. He figured if there were men inside the shaft, they wouldn’t shoot a kid, or maybe he didn’t care if they did.

Anyway, he made me go inside. I hated that, let me tell you.

It was cold and black as a murderer’s heart, and I kept hearing things moving in the dark and thinking I was going to get shot any second. ”

Graciela clutched the soap to her chest, her eyes wide. “Did they shoot you?”

“They were hiding outside.” Jenny laughed, remembering.

“They shot my pa. Didn’t kill him though.

Anyway, I guess I know about having to do things you don’t want to do.

That’s how it’s been all of my life. You probably won’t believe this, but adults have to do things they don’t want to do too.

I sure don’t want to smear bootblack in my hair, no sirree bob, I don’t.

But I’ll do it because changing my appearance will help us. ”

This was where Graciela was supposed to say that she’d do her part, too, but she didn’t. Extending an arm, she ran the soap up and down, not looking at Jenny. “Do you know my father?”

“No,” Jenny said, frowning, “I don’t.”

“I don’t know him either.” She glanced up, studying Jenny’s face. “You said you wouldn’t cut my hair until morning.”

“And I don’t lie.”

Graciela tilted her head, her lack of trust as evident as the bits of grass sticking to her bare skin. “I need you to help me wash my hair.”

“You know the rules. I’m not going to do anything that you can do yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not your fricking servant, that’s why. And because you have to learn how to do things for yourself, or you’ll never amount to a hill of beans.”

“I can’t get the soap out by myself.”

Jenny considered before deciding this was probably a legitimate request. She waited until Graciela had worked the soap into a thin lather, then she unbent enough to scrub places that Graciela had missed before she lowered Graciela in the water and gently rinsed the suds out of the long soft strands.

To her immense surprise, she got a funny warm satisfaction from helping Graciela bathe. She wouldn’t have believed it.

They ate supper downstairs at a table ringed by other boarders, none of whom spoke.

Then they returned to their room, and Graciela sat on the edge of the bed silently watching while Jenny cursed and muttered and applied the bootblack to her whacked-off hair.

The paste was lumpy, smelled bad, and was difficult to work with.

“Too much beeswax and not enough syrup in it,” Jenny said between her teeth.

When she finished, her fingers were blackened, the sheet around her shoulders was spotted, part of her neck was black, and her hair was stiff and waxy. She looked like hell.

“Well,” she said finally, staring mournfully into the mirror on top of the bureau.

The cut on her cheek had healed, and the scab had almost flaked away.

But the black eye Luis had given her flared purple and yellow.

All in all, Jenny decided she looked about as hideous as a woman could look.

“I’ve done my part.” Pulling the sheet off of her shoulders, she slid a glance toward Graciela, who had gone rigid and stared at her with an appalled expression.

“You aren’t going to do that to me!” she whispered.

“We’re just going to cut yours like a boy’s. That’s all,” Jenny snapped, suddenly irritated. “It’s time for bed. Get out of your clothes and go to sleep.”

“I have to wash my teeth and say my prayers first.”

“Then do it.” When Graciela was finally ready for bed, Jenny waited while the kid knelt and basically offered up the same prayer as she did every night.

Jenny made a face during the blessing of the cousins, and she spoke the last words in unison with Graciela.

“And strike Jenny dead, amen. We don’t need to suggest ways and means, all right?

We can leave the details of my demise to God. Now, go to sleep.”

She sighed when Graciela lifted her cheek for a kiss. She didn’t think she would ever get accustomed to death wishes being followed by a good-night kiss.

“Don’t get any of the black on me,” Graciela warned.

Not trusting herself to speak, Jenny brushed a hasty kiss across a silken cheek, then she blew out their candles and went to sit beside the window.

A pungent burning odor continued to drift from the tobacco factory, but the building was dark and empty now.

A man wearing a mended serape and a wide hat led a burro down the deserted street toward the sound of voices and music coming from some distant place that Jenny couldn’t see.

The burro’s hooves striking the cobblestones made a lonely sound.

When Jenny was certain that Graciela had fallen asleep, she lit a dark cigar that she’d purchased earlier from a vendor in the mercado. Leaning her arms on the windowsill, she gazed at the night sky, seeking the star she had assigned to Marguarita.

“I don’t smoke in front of the kid,” she said defensively once she located the correct star. Marguarita had not impressed her as the type to appreciate a good cigar. Not that this was an especially good cigar.

“I sure hope things are going better for you than they are for me.” She drew on the cigar and exhaled.

The smoke hung on the still, hot air. “I told you I wasn’t a kid person.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Waving a hand, she tried to clear the smoke that obscured her view of Marguarita’s star.

“I wanted to hit her. I came this close. So tell me. Sometimes you have to hit a kid. You just have to, right?” Jenny waited, gazing up at the star.

If the star winked, that would signal agreement.

The star gazed back as unmoving as a fleck of cotton on a square of black velvet.

Jenny sighed heavily. “Well, I’m not a fricking saint like you are,” she said sourly.

She smoked for a while, occasionally pressing down one of the waxy black tufts sticking out from her scalp.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told her about our plan.

Maybe I scared her, I don’t know.” She waved the cigar.

“This would have been easier if she’d been a boy.

I’ve been around men most of my adult life; it doesn’t matter what you say to them.

But see, that’s part of the problem. It’s not only that she’s a kid, she’s a girl kid.

I don’t know what to say to her. Can you imagine me talking about fashions?

Huh! And I don’t know how to fix her hair… ”

Leaning on the sill, she earnestly appealed to the star. “Marguarita? I’ve got to cut her hair. You see that, don’t you? It’s our best chance. So you tell her that she’s got to let me do it. She’ll listen to you. Hell, she thinks you can do no wrong.”

The odor from the tobacco factory mingled with the aroma of the cigar and the heavy scents of town. Jenny smelled grease and rotting garbage, dung and urine, smoke from a thousand cooking fires.

If she leaned far to the left, she could see a glow of light in the direction of the plaza.

Otherwise, the night was dark, hot, and sultry, the kind of night that made Jenny feel restless inside, itching for a vague something that she couldn’t name.

Nearby, someone unseen strummed a guitar.

The music was soft and achingly sad, opening a hole in Jenny’s chest. At that moment, she could believe that she and the guitarist were the only people left on earth.

When the cigar had burned to a stub, she flipped it into the street, then eyed the bed with anticipation.

It had been a long time since she had slept on a decent mattress, between clean sheets and with a pillow for her head.

After stripping to her shimmy, she elbowed Graciela aside and slid into bed.

Pulling the top sheet to her nose, she inhaled deeply, letting the clean scents of starch and homemade soap obliterate the stench of the night.

She was going to sleep as soundly as a dead man.

As it turned out, that’s exactly how she slept. When she awoke in the morning, Graciela was gone, and Jenny hadn’t heard a sound. Not Graciela getting dressed, not the click of the door closing, nothing.

In two minutes flat, she was dressed and running down the staircase, shouting Graciela’s name.