Kicks for a Sinner S3 (23 page)

Annie, who held Macho by one silky bent ear, said, “I think she’s wearing my favorite sunflower dress.”

Defiantly Xochi answered, “The dog peed on it. You don’t want it no more even if it been washed.”

Annie cringed. “Yuck, dog pee.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “I knew this would mean trouble. I swear to God I left money with that welfare lady to buy her new clothes, but she likes these things the best. Considering the temporary foster parents mostly bought her white underwear and some shorts and tops from Wal-mart, I can see why. But look kids, all Xochi’s clothes burned up in a fire. You need to cut her some slack.”

“I want my shoes back.” Jude abandoned the dog, came in low, and grabbed one of Xochi’s feet. The new sister kicked her flying back into Macho who yelped and ran down the hall with Tommy in pursuit. Jude regained her footing and charged back with her hand made into a fist. Xochi raised her dukes in preparation for a battle.

They got one punch in each before Joe grasped both of the fighting girls by the backs of their dresses and parted them. “Listen up. No hitting. You almost knocked Mama Nell on her keester.”

“What’s a keester?” Xochi asked.

“Her backside, dummy. You talk funny,” Jude said only too happy to reply.

“Ay, her ass.”

“We don’t say dummy or ass or tell anyone they talk funny in this family,” Nell insisted.

“Then, you don’t say much. I gonna get the belt now for my smart mouth, right? ’Cause I don’t care. I got the belt lots of times. I never cry.” Xochi crossed her arms tightly.

Joe mumbled, “God-damned Bijou” under his breath for probably the hundredth time, but Jude’s dark eyes widened in admiration.

“You’re really tough,” she said.

Nell tried again. “Honey, we do have lots of rules in this family, but no one gets the belt ever. We do have punishments though.”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “She’ll think of a good one, too, like extra manure shoveling.”

Xochi wrinkled her nose. “In Mexico I don’t shovel shit. Papi did that.”

Nell shook her head as if giving up word correction for the time being. Tommy shouted, “Macho piddled in the hall, and now he’s eating the bean dip!”

Nell smiled, and Dean said, “Here it comes.”

Nell pronounced their sentence. “For fighting, insulting your sister, and use of bad language, the two of you go to the kitchen and get rags and clean up after the dog. Jude, show Xochi the way. If that bean dip runs right through him, you’ll clean that up, too. Join us in the den after you’ve finished.”

“I don’t think I like this place,” Xochi announced.

Joe clapped. “Hop to it!”

“But it’s Tommy’s dog,” Jude whined even as she took her new sister’s hand and started toward the kitchen.

“You all promised to take care of it. Everyone else into the den.” Nell marched them forward. They found Howdy and Knox already in place on the sofa, Macho restrained by Tommy’s arm around his neck, and a desecrated bowl of bean dip.

“Dean, please take the dip back to Corazon and tell her to put more in a clean dish.” Nell sank into a vast and comfortable recliner, closed her eyes and put her feet up. “Give me a few minutes to regroup.”

The quiet Annie crawled up beside her and snuggled. “She can keep my dress, Mama.”

“Glad I have one like you, Anna,” her mother whispered.

Cassie, who had taken this all in and not said a word, took a seat beside Howdy and murmured, “Why did I think I was ready for a big family? Nell, how do you do it?”

“Never let them get the upper hand,” Nell answered with her eyes still closed. “Patience, punishments to fit the crime, and consistency. Joe, I’ll need more household help fairly soon. Corazon and I can’t do it all.”

“You got it, Tink.” He reached over the high top of the recliner and massaged his wife’s tense shoulders. “Thank you for all you do.” She nodded. As a husband Joe Dean Billodeaux had come a long, long way for the better.

The two punished girls appeared in the doorway. Jude did the talking. “We’re finished. We put the rags in the trash and washed our hands. Now can we have the party?”

“A party?” Xochi said.

“Yes, silly, for you. See it’s supposed to look like Mexico to make you feel at home, Mama said.” Jude gave her a little shove into the decorated den.

“
Por mi
? Maybe I do like it here.”

Nell got to her feet. “Shall we eat first or do the piñata? Xochi gets to decide.”

“The piñata! I go first.” Joe handed her a plastic T-ball bat. Before they could do any blindfolding or turning the girl began to whale on the papier
mâché donkey in a way that would have been considered cruelty to animals if the thing had been real. It burst on her fourth stroke. Xochi filled her upturned skirt with falling candy. Macho barked and pulled loose of Tommy to join the scramble for treats.

Dean hesitated a moment. “I want
her
on my team.”

“You don’t get her. You and Tommy have the dog. I need Xochi on my team to help protect Annie,” Jude answered with her fists filled with sweets. Annie scraped up a small handful from the edge of the chaos.

“Okay, okay. Now pour everything into this bowl to be shared later. You can leave behind anything having dog slobber on it.” Nell held out a big, glass sphere. Her children queued up and deposited their gains. Xochi came last and reluctantly.

“In this family we share,” Nell prompted. Xochi dumped her catch into the communal bowl and sat down to sulk.

Corazon bustled in with the Tres Leches cake bearing a single candle. She set it in front of the angry child who refused to acknowledge her effort in any way. A flood of Spanish burst from the housekeeper’s lips. The little girl hung her head and nodded. “
Gracias
,” she said.

“Howdy, you catch any of that?” Joe asked.

“The gist is that this is a nice home with good people. She should behave and be grateful.”

“Good advice for anyone,” Joe answered, but he looked at Cassie not at Xochi. That young lady also hung her head and refused to meet his eyes.

Nell urged her new daughter to blow out the single candle representing her first day with her new family, which she did. “Now, this isn’t a birthday party so we don’t have lots of gifts, but Xochi, I want you to go to that chest and choose any blanket you want for your own. Each one of my children has one made by special old lady.” Nell pointed out the battered box, and the girl approached it cautiously as if a
bruja
might jump out at her.

“Go on,” Joe urged. “I guar-an-tee there ain’t no
loup-garou
in there. That’s a Cajun werewolf, sugar. You’ll learn more about that later. That old lady was very holy. She could see the future and made one of those exactly for you.”

Xochi raised the lid. She got to her knees and dug to the bottom of the chest but ultimately selected the one on the very top of the pile. Getting up, she wrapped it around her shoulders. Big enough to swathe a good-sized child and not a baby, Madame Leleux had created an afghan of multi-colored red, green, and white rosettes, the colors of the Mexican flag. “This one,” she said.

Joe gave Nell a triumphant look. “I told you Madame had the sight.” He went over to the box and held up the next afghan, pink with a frilly white edge. “For our baby girl to come.” He took out the next of deep cerulean. “For our boy.”

Dean edged up next to him. “What’s the next one, Daddy?”

Joe withdrew a small blanket of the palest blue threaded with silver. “Looks like it was made for another boy, son.”

Dean punched the air. “Yes, yes, another boy! The balance of power is safe.”

Joe smiled. “Seems like we only need one girl’s name, Tink. You want to know what else is in here?”

Nell shook her head vehemently. “No, I do not. Close it and haul it back to the attic while you have Howdy and Knox here to help. Right now. Who wants cake?”

“No, no,” Corazon corrected. “My enchiladas are ready in the kitchen. Sweets come last.” She swatted Xochi’s finger away from her frosting, then relented. “But you get the biggest piece after we eat.”

* * * *

Replete with Corazon’s enchiladas and stuffed with other goodies and cake, Howdy and Cassie waved good-bye to the Billodeaux family and headed for Oklahoma by way of Texas. Cassie rubbed up against his shoulder, and he put his arm around her.

“You still want a dozen kids?” he asked. “I don’t know about you but I was kinda overwhelmed back there.”

“What was I thinking? I came in the middle of my family and always had older sisters and brothers around to help, but eight all under the age of eight. I know Nell can handle it if anyone can, but I pity her.”

“Still, I wish I’d had siblings, only not so many. It’s hard to be alone and worried about the old folks. I keep thinking if I hadn’t gone off to play for the Sinners, maybe I would have been around to save Grandpa when he had that heart attack.”

“You can’t think that way. He lived to see you grow into a fine man, one he could be proud of, and maybe he was ready to go be with your grandmother. I’ve seen people in the hospital simply pass when they felt all their affairs were settled.”

“Thanks for saying that. So, you’d want maybe two or three kids now? That’s a lot less scary.”

Cassie kissed his cheek. “Who knows what the future holds? Too bad Madame Leleux is no more, but I understand her granddaughter has the sight. Maybe we’ll go see her someday, but right now it’s a little too soon.”

* * * *

Nell brought the children down from their sugar-highs with warm baths and a session of bedtime stories, Joe helping her all the way, but she asked to put Xochi to bed alone tonight. The girl, wearing a clean white nightie, sat crossed-legged on her bed in Corazon’s former room. The walls glowed with bright yellow paint and a wallpaper border of garlanded red roses. The furniture, an intricately carved headboard and a massive Spanish chest of drawers with matching night tables seemed too out-sized for a child’s room.

Nell sat down on the edge of the bed. She didn’t touch Xochi’s long, tangled curls or try to hug her because the girl seemed as wary as a stray cat that had been chased away too often.

“Honey, if you don’t like this room, we can change the colors and the furniture. The girls want to take you shopping tomorrow for more clothes. I see all your underwear is white. They like panties in colors or with designs on them. Would you like that, too?”

“Yes. I must speak American now all the time.”

“No, you should remember your Spanish, also, but you speak English very well.”

“Papi says when he home we talk American, but if he not at home, I speak Mexican with Mama.” Xochi’s face crumbled, no longer fierce and defiant. “I want my Mama, but I know she in heaven now.”

“Yes, dear, that’s right. I think you won’t want to call me mama for a long time maybe, but Tommy calls me Mama Nell because he has two mothers. Maybe you could call me that.”

Xochi nodded, but a few tears coursed down her face and made little transparent dots on the thin white nightie. She looked up hopefully at Nell. “At night, my mama brushed my hair to help me sleep, she say.”

“Well, it’s all tangles now and very long. The twins have curly hair like this, but they wear it shorter so it’s easier to care for. Would you like to get a haircut like theirs?”

“No!”

“Then you won’t. Tomorrow, we’ll buy a brush and comb set for only you to use and wash your hair with a cream rinse to remove the tangles. At bedtime, I will brush it for you if you will let me.” Tentatively, Nell reached out a hand. “For tonight, we’ll just do this.”

The child curled beneath the covers, and Nell stroked Xochi’s black curls until the child fell asleep. Nadine and Joe felt the Lord never sent more than a person could handle, and both thought they could fix anything. Maybe they were right.

TWENTY-FOUR

Cassie rolled over to get some sun on her front. She’d unhooked the under-wire top of the bikini to avoid tan lines and when she turned, her breasts escaped the boldly printed orange and yellow cups. Howdy, out deep in the small shining lake, noticed as she’d intended, and started making his way back to the flat rock where she lay on a beach towel. A total gentleman, he’d poked all around the slab of rock to make sure no rattlers hid beneath it before letting her stretch out to take a tan. Oklahoma certainly offered more than waving wheat and winds that came right before the rain—like a selection of venomous reptiles.

She watched him reach the shallows and rise up out of the water, the palest man she’d ever seen with just a touch of cowboy tan on his arms and neck. Unlike Brian, he didn’t believe in tanning beds or creams. That was so Howdy. Still, the water slicked down his lean body, darkening the triangle of hair on his chest and making its way toward a very ordinary pair of blue swim trunks with white stripes up the sides. No Speedos for him. Below the trunks, his legs emerged long and muscular, full of the promise of strength and endurance.

He came to stand between her outstretched limbs. Not bothering to cover up, she propped herself on her elbows and let him look. He smiled with that big goofy grin she was beginning to find very endearing. “Shouldn’t you cover those up? I hear redheads burn pretty easy.”

“Oh, once I get a start, I tan fairly well. It covers up the freckles.”

“Now that would be a shame. No more dot-to-dots. You don’t want to swim?”

“Hey, I put a toe in there. It’s freezing.”

“Spring water. Gets warmer in the summer.”

“And I was a little put off by the company.” She nodded toward a few head of white-faced cattle taking a benign interest in them from the far side of the pond. “Except for my adventure on the rodeo circuit, I’m basically a city girl. We can see the bottom of our pools, and they are guaranteed cow slobber-free.”

“Aw, come on, skinny-dipping is one of the best activities a country boy can offer. You’re half-way undressed already.”

He stared at her nipples, orange-tinged tan in color. They puckered as if he’d thrown a pail of cold water on her, but she didn’t feel chilled at all, the very opposite. He leaned over her and shook his auburn hair like a dog right after a bath. The icy droplets showered over her, and she brought her knees up to protect herself.