But my neighborhood doesn’t have a library. Luz thought this, but didn’t say it, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of knowing they had more than she did.
* * *
—
“I’m sick of those goddamn people,” said Lizette, tearing a dinner roll to pieces in a pink booth. Though it was midwinter, she was dressed in a bright yellow dress with a fuchsia ribbon tied in a small bow around her neck. The ribbon, Luz realized, had come wrapped around a jar of jam. Large fake pearls were clipped to each of her ears and they bobbed as Lizette spoke with a full mouth. She sat alongside Alfonso. Three blocks north of the Rose Dixon Library was the Park Lane Hotel, where Alfonso worked as a waiter. Lizette usually joined him for the free employee meal. It was no problem she didn’t work there herself, so long as they shared the plate. The dining room wouldn’t open for another hour. They all three sat beneath crystal chandeliers as other waiters pushed in and out of the kitchen’s swinging doors.
“What did you expect in this part of town?” Alfonso said, rolling knives and forks together with cloth napkins.
“To be treated like anybody else.”
“But you’re not anybody else. Not to them at least. You’re just some poor Indian and Spanish laundry girl.” Alfonso laughed and made a sarcastic sound like ay ay ay. Lizette flapped her hand across his hair. She leaned in for a kiss, but Alfonso scooted away, sitting taller to glance over the booth’s wooden walls.
Luz nibbled on her thumbnail. “Laundry isn’t cutting it. I need another job.”
“You and the rest of the country,” said Lizette.
“Look, if you need work that bad, ask Tikas,” said Alfonso in a low tone.
“Tikas?” Lizette scrunched her nose. “Luz don’t know a thing about grocery stores.”
“Nah, not Big Tikas. Dave at the law office. He needs a girl.”
Lizette cuffed Alfonso’s forearm. “Good thinking, baby!”
Alfonso pushed some of the silverware and napkins toward Luz, motioning for her to roll as he shimmied out of the booth. “I’ll ask around at the hotel, but get at David. And if he hires you, you can act like he does and march around with a sign that says: FAIR WAGES, FREEDOM FROM POVERTY!”
“Why you always have to make fun of him?” said Lizette. “At least he’s trying to make things better.”
Alfonso laughed. He looked like a poised penguin in his black button-down uniform. “David’s little Communist club with that Leon Jacob is the reason why ten Negroes were nearly killed last year in Wash Park. They said take a stand, go swimming on that whites-only beach. But who do you think that white mob came for first?”
“Jeez,” said Lizette, shaking her head. “Luz just needs more work. You suggested it!”
“And,” Alfonso said, getting up and heading for the kitchen, “I still think David’s a viable solution.”
When they were alone in the booth, Lizette leaned forward, looking like a little daffodil in her ruffled dress. “Well, what do ya say?”
All around them waiters in tuxedos with long finned tails rushed about carrying silver trays. Luz wondered about the people they served, the rich, the doctors and lawyers, businessmen and silver tycoons. Though they shared the same city streets, Luz often felt she and her people were only choking on their leftover air.
“Worth a shot,” she said.
TWELVE
I Heard You Need a Girl The market smelled of pine disinfectant and chokecherry jelly and trays of baklava. The light was unusually blue as the sunshine filtered through the indigo awning above the front door. Tommy Spiegel worked the register between racks of bananas and jars of pipe tobacco. He had bad skin and wore several silver necklaces, most with different charms, a Star of David, a crucifix, even something from an Indian god named Krishna. Papa Tikas had hired the boy to unload fruit trucks in July. He came from a Jewish family, and his father was a well-respected tailor. Tommy had a habit of calling all girls Chickadee and Birdy. As Luz walked to the counter, passing through the warm smells of tortillas and sourdough bread, he said, “Look who flew the coop.”
“I didn’t know you’re working today, Tommy,” Luz said with an air of annoyance.
“Saving up for our big date, thinking Lakeside. You like roller coasters, right?”
“Where’s David?” she asked.
“In back.” With hooked thumbs, Tommy adjusted his white apron straps. “He’s a busy man. I’m fielding visitors. What’s your business with the attorney?”
“Work,” said Luz.
“Work for who?”
“Please just go get him,” Luz said.
Tommy picked at a pimple on his nose. He leaned over the counter and, with his chest, dusted baklava crumbs onto the linoleum floor. “Did you hear about the murder yesterday? A man got lynched over in the Points.” He nodded with closed eyes. “A Negro, an entertainer. I think a horn player. They said he was working where he shouldn’t. A whole gang of them got him.”
“A gang of who?” asked Luz.
“Who else?” Tommy said. “The Klan. But now they got a new name and updated costumes—the Patriotic Legion, and most of them,” he said, “dress like cops.”
Luz frowned. “That’s horrible, Tommy.” She felt slightly nauseous. “Please get David.”
“For sure, Chickadee.” Tommy turned around and opened the back door, hollering the words Boss Man.
A moment later, David appeared from the back room with a stack of documents in one hand, and with the other he twirled wire-framed glasses between his lips. He held his face in a permanent smirk that coiled attractively, as though the entire world was a joke. He removed the glasses from his mouth and placed the documents on the counter, the hairs across his arms resembling etchings in wood. David patted Tommy’s right shoulder, told him to take care of the shelves in back. “We don’t pay you to scare away pretty girls,” he said, smiling at Luz.
David briskly ran his hands through his messy hair, which looked as if he’d been napping in the back room. Since returning to Denver, most days he worked downtown in a half-subterranean office between a shoe shine and a saddlemaker. He was building his law practice, taking small cases—unpaid wages, deportations, and many, many evictions. Whenever Luz saw David and asked what he liked most about being a lawyer so far, he said the walk to and from his office. The city was aligned on a strict grid, a certainty one could count on. On Tuesdays, David still worked in the market, repaying his father for the loan to start his own practice. He oversaw the books.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I wanted to check with you about something,” said Luz, fingering her dress collar. “I heard you need a girl at the office.”
David put his glasses on his face, widening his green eyes. “I do.”
“That’s great,” said Luz. “You must be busy.”
“I am,” he said. “What’s this about, Luz?”
“I was thinking, maybe, you could hire me.”
“I need a typist. Girls go to school for this.”
Luz smiled. “I’m a quick learner. I do laundry faster than anyone.”