Mrs. Fenwick reappeared at their table. She held up her black stick as if she had a great thought, but her face froze with half-opened eyes. She sneezed and then blew her nose into a blue hankie. “Pardon me,” she said, dabbing inside her nostrils with the handkerchief. “Will you girls please demonstrate the correct finger positions.”
“Certainly,” the sisters said almost as one.
Luz and the sisters began methodically tapping away on their flattened paper keys. Mrs. Fenwick watched for half a minute with a drizzly nose and reddish eyes. When she seemed satisfied with their progress, she blew her nose once more and pushed the hankie deeper inside her nostrils before stepping away.
Isabella smoothed her piece of paper. “Whatever you do, don’t fall in love with him.”
“With who?” Luz asked.
“Your boss, silly. Those things never end well.”
* * *
—
“Show me the back,” said Lizette, propped up on her elbows as she lay on her side on Luz’s bed. It was late afternoon, and the green shades were drawn. The cousins drank peppermint schnapps mixed with lemonade from a thermos, the radio up loud, Cab Calloway howling throughout the apartment. Luz twirled in her new work dress. They weren’t quite drunk, but they were on their way.
“You look like a million bucks, I swear it,” said Lizette. “Where’s it from again?”
Luz’s new black dress had a white sailor collar, white sleeve cuffs, and silver ribbons along her neck and down her back. “LaVerna’s.”
“What a smart dress,” said Lizette, resting the thermos between her thighs. She reached out, smoothing the fabric along Luz’s hips, dissecting the pattern in her mind. “That stitching should last you a while.” She then pretended a typewriter was before her and, with perfect posture, clacked away into the air. “So, how was school?”
“Fine, just learning about typing,” Luz said, thinking back to the lesson and the abundance of distraction. “I did meet these three sisters. They looked like triplets.”
“Oh yeah?” Lizette hiccupped.
“Yeah, and they said something about David.”
“Like what?”
“Not to fall in love with him.”
Lizette shot upright. She said, “Did he make a pass at you?”
“No, no,” Luz said. “Nothing like that.”
“I mean…” Lizette pointed at Luz’s body, her dress. “He is buying you fancy things.”
“It wasn’t free. He’s taking it out of my wages. Maria Josie and I barely had enough for rent last month.”
“Apply for relief. There’s no shame.”
Luz gave Lizette a serious look. “Maria Josie would never. The relief people make you sell everything you own, the clothes off your back.”
“The naked deserve release!” Lizette hiccupped into a laugh. “I mean relief. Well, what about that Avel you’ve been seeing? Can’t he help you? And does he know David’s buying you fancy dresses?”
Luz faced the oval mirror hanging near her altar. She considered the dark ponds of her eyes. She looked mature in the fitted dress, elegant even. “He is not buying me dresses,” Luz said a little louder than intended. She adjusted her white collar, and then said quietly, “And Avel’s like us, not a dime to his name.”
“Well,” said Lizette, raising her skinny eyebrows. “It’s love that counts, right?” She hiccupped again, and the cousins laughed.
SEVENTEEN
Words into Words
Within a month, Luz had time to do laundry with Lizette only on weekends. She had attended three more classes at the Opportunity School, but was disappointed by the absence of the Northside sisters, who seemed to have materialized and then vanished like morning frost. David appeared impressed by the speed at which Luz was acquiring new skills. He’d swiftly walk toward her with a prideful expression, resting his arms around her shoulders and onto her desk as she typed. With David above her, Luz would grow self-conscious, carefully noticing how quickly her fingers struck each key. It didn’t help that Luz could smell him whenever he was near her, the ripe currant of his aftershave, a plum-like ghost briefly overpowering the scent of acrid ink.
“You’re quick,” David said one afternoon. He was rummaging through a file cabinet with his shoulders to Luz as he spoke. Outside, the sun was shielded by a coal-fueled cloud, darkening the office a shade more than usual. “Much faster than I expected.”
“Thank you, David,” Luz said, feeling her head bow out of reaction. But she wasn’t that thankful. After all, she knew that she was a fast learner.
“Have you ever had any schooling? I mean, besides the Opportunity School.” David moved on to another filing cabinet. He stepped with ease, but his face pulled with a look of agitation, as if he wasn’t finding what he was looking for.
Luz said, “Just to grade four at the schoolhouse in the Lost Territory.”
“It’s a shame there isn’t a greater drive for smart girls like you to go on in school.”
Luz moved her index finger along her forehead, as if to scratch an itch. She didn’t agree with David. Luz knew she had spent her life learning. All the women she knew had. Lizette could sew an entire dress from a pattern she’d glimpsed only once. Teresita could heal someone as good as any doctor. And Maria Josie’s physical strength mirrored her abundant and steady mind. David had no idea what Luz had taught herself in the time since she and Diego had arrived in Denver. A whole new city, a map in her mind. Luz could speak two languages, and sometimes, without knowing how or why, she dreamed and understood another language, too, something older. When she first learned to read tea leaves, Luz’s mother told her that there was one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories. She had learned that, too, and still was.
Luz only said, “Maybe I’ll go back someday. To school.”
David repeated this word maybe, like his voice was a dinner bell. He had turned around and grinned at her over a stack of papers in his arms. He had pulled documents from a bottom drawer, which he plopped onto Luz’s desk, the stack shifting into a wayward tower. “This statement in Spanish,” David said, tapping the top slip of paper, “can you please transcribe it into English? It’s not very long. I understand some of it, but not all.” He then explained that he needed to leave early for a community meeting. “Don’t work too hard,” he said, swinging his coat over his shoulders.
Luz spent the afternoon typing documents on client meetings, billing notifications, and other scraps of casework. As she worked her way through the ledger, she saw Eleanor Anne’s name, and she made a note to ask him about it later. She then studied the slip of paper she was to translate. It was written in fine cursive, a steady hand, delicate black ink with the letters CR at the signature. Luz was used to moving words into words. She had been doing it since she was a little girl, but there was something about the way the writing made her feel, as if the letters themselves were weeping. As she typed, Luz found herself crying. Quiet at first, then building into staccato sobs. At one point, Luz dripped tears onto the page and had to blow it dry. It was a letter written by Celia Ruiz, the older sister of Estevan Ruiz, the young man found dead in the freight car.