Page 15 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

Graciela had never been to a town the size of Durango, nor had she imagined that so many people could crowd into one place. Within ten minutes of slipping out of the hotel, she was hopelessly lost.

Although the prospect frightened her badly, she realized that eventually she would have to speak to a stranger, would have to ask directions, a dangerous act she had been cautioned against all of her life.

Thus far she hadn’t mustered the courage to approach any of the people who jostled each other in the streets as the morning progressed, but she was uncomfortably aware that she attracted attention.

Her hair hung loose like the hair of the ragged girls she saw in the streets, a condition distinctly at odds with the rich fabric and workmanship of her traveling skirt and jacket.

The campesinos’ daughters wore hats only on Sunday, and their hats were made of plaited straw, not fabric like Graciela’s.

They wore shapeless dresses, nothing fashionable or trimmed with lace and braid.

Most telling, her fine clothing signaled that she should have been accompanied by a duenna or a family member. That a richly dressed child wandered alone made her an object of curiosity and speculation. This meant that Jenny would experience little difficulty following her. She would be remembered.

Pausing beneath the shade of a log-and-thatch overhang, Graciela observed inquisitive dark eyes sliding her way.

Wringing her hands and averting her gaze, she understood that she had to do something to hide herself, and she had to ask someone for directions.

Both courses of action confused and upset her.

Always before there had been adults to make the decisions, adults to protect and care for her.

Never had she been on her own or imagined that she would be.

She was not accustomed to or prepared to rely on herself.

Therefore, no solution leaped to mind when she wondered how she might evade the eyes and memory of the vendors ranged along the street.

Troubled, she watched a wagon rumble past, watched the driver turn on the seat to look at her, and she stamped her boot in frustration.

What would her mama have done to solve this predicament? Or Aunt Tete? Unfortunately Graciela could not imagine either her gentle mother or ancient Aunt Tete ever finding herself in a situation like this.

However, she experienced no difficulty imagining that Jenny might want to hide from someone.

She considered this realization. What would Jenny do?

Though it galled her to rely on the person she most hated, the very person she wished to escape, thinking about Jenny revealed the first inklings of a solution.

Jenny would do whatever was necessary; neither pride nor vanity would stand in Jenny’s way. Jenny would…

Gradually Graciela comprehended that she had been staring for several minutes at a barefoot urchin on the other side of the cobblestone street. The girl appeared to be about Graciela’s age, but there the similarity ended.

She wore a formless dress that once had been white but was now grey with age and heavily soiled.

Rips in the skirt showed flashes of bare leg, and a torn sleeve hung from her shoulder.

Her hair had not known the touch of a comb or brush in recent memory, and dirt, twigs, and odd lumps were matted in the strands as if she had used the cobbles for her pillow. The girl was very dirty.

Lifting her hem, Graciela darted across the street, dodging offal, refuse, and horses and carts. When she stood before the girl, she noticed the child held a half-eaten tamale. The scent of roasted corn and meat made her stomach grumble.

“My name is… Theodora,” Graciela announced solemnly.

The girl slid an expressionless stare up from Graciela’s fashionable little boots to the ruffles trimming the throat of her jacket, but she didn’t speak.

Graciela glanced at the corn husks peeled back from the tamale and swallowed hard. “What’s your name?”

“Maria, Senorita, ” the girl said finally. Shy before the richness of Graciela’s clothing, she focused on a point somewhere above Graciela’s shoulder.

Graciela clasped her gloved hands against her skirt and watched two caballeros prance down the street. One had a saddle with silver inlaid on a wide pommel. Her cousin Emil had a saddle like that one.

“This is my first visit to Durango,” she said. “I rode on a train.”

Awe filled Maria’s eyes. “You rode on the train?” The tamale forgotten in her hand, she stared as if Graciela had fallen from the pages of a storybook. “Where is your duenna?” she asked at last. Even a street urchin knew a personage such as Graciela was never left unattended.

“I was stolen by an evil witch,” Graciela explained, watching to see if Maria believed her.

“Oh!” Maria’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “The same thing happened to my sister.”

“I escaped. I ran away from the witch because she wants to cut my hair to look like a boy’s.”

Maria did not disappoint. The girl examined the shiny hair falling nearly to Graciela’s waist and horror filled her eyes. A sense of satisfaction swelled Graciela’s chest. Even a child of the streets knew it was wrong to shear a female’s glory.

“I have an idea,” Graciela said, leaning to whisper in Maria’s ear. When she finished speaking, excitement danced in Maria’s dark eyes, and she nodded enthusiastically.

“Bueno.” Taking Graciela’s hand, she led the way into a narrow alley and ducked behind a mound of smoldering trash.

When they emerged, Maria wore Graciela’s finery and Graciela wore the filthy dress with the rips and tears, her gold locket pinned inside at the waist. Also, she had what remained of the girl’s tamale.

She finished the tamale in four hungry bites, then dropped the corn husks on the cobbles.

As she had no napkin, she hesitated, then wiped her greasy fingers against the folds of the skirt she now wore. The clothing stank.

“Thank you,” she said to Maria. Her traveling outfit was small for Maria, and a seam along the waist had already begun to unravel, but Maria gazed down at herself with blazing pride shining in her eyes.

When she finally remembered Graciela, she pointed to Graciela’s hair and then to her own.

At once Graciela understood. Sighing, hating it, she bent to the street and filled her hands with dirt, powdery sun-baked dung, and rotting garbage.

The stench made her eyes water, but she rubbed the refuse into her hair.

With a weak smile and a wave, she moved away from Maria, who had lifted her new skirt to inspect the first shoes ever to grace her feet.

Before she had walked half a block, Graciela turned her attention to her own bare feet.

Aside from the tenderness of unhardened soles, she felt a rush of disgust when she stepped on anything wet, anything that oozed up between her toes.

Revulsion shivered down her body when her bare foot came down on something warm and soft and smelling of dog.

Shuddering, she hurried blindly forward, not pausing until Maria was lost in the maze of narrow lanes and twisting streets behind her. Only then did she stop to catch her breath and dare to lift her eyes and carefully examine the people moving around her.

No one looked at her. No one paid her the slightest attention. She had become as invisible as the wind.

A jubilant grin curved her mouth and she swallowed a shout, celebrating her own cleverness. “She will never find me,” she said aloud, pleased with herself. The town was too large and teeming with people, there were too many alleys and places to hide. And now, no one would remember her.

She had triumphed over her enemy.

Not ten minutes later a hand landed heavily on her shoulder, and a man bent to examine her face. “ Hola, chica, ” he said in a hoarse voice that made her mouth go dry and her blood turn cold. If snakes could talk, they would sound like this man.

“You and me,” he said, flicking his tongue at her, “we are going to be very good friends. Sí. ”

Possessive fingers tightened painfully on her shoulder.

Heart pounding, Jenny raced to the end of the block, then halted, spinning around to scowl back at the hotel entrance. Graciela might have turned left instead of right.

“Goddamn it!” She struck her thigh with her hat, then jammed it on her head and glared up and down the crowded streets.

Not since childhood had she experienced panic this gut deep and overwhelming. Her heart galloped in her chest, she couldn’t breathe, her hands trembled as if she had the palsy.

Think, she commanded herself, calm yourself and think.

Graciela couldn’t have gotten far. Most importantly, she would be remembered, a kid alone wearing a fancy outfit that screamed wealth and status.

That was the place to start; inquire about the outfit.

Striding forward, she hurried from one vendor’s stall to another until she was satisfied that Graciela had not come this way.

Reversing direction, she tried another street and another, her shoulders as tense as rock until she located a mestizo woman selling blankets. The woman remembered Graciela.

From that point, it was as easy as following the beads on a necklace that would circle her right up behind the little snot.

When she found Graciela, she would wring the kid’s neck.

Getting angrier by the minute, Jenny followed the trail until finally she spotted Graciela in the middle of the next block.

Breaking into a run, she closed the distance.

And stopped abruptly when she saw the girl was not Graciela. The child wore Graciela’s clothing, but she was filthy and she didn’t move with Graciela’s ladylike prissiness and grace. At once Jenny understood what had happened, damn it to hell.