Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Nina Farrell sat on the edge of the creek and waited for Lyndie to finish her late night bath.
She didn’t think it strange that her friend had stripped down in the creek, she’d done it a few times herself.
No, what she thought strange was that Lyndie was still up at…
she checked her fancy watch, the one she’d pined for until Lyndie had given it to her last Christmas, looking so elegant and American on her wrist… past midnight.
Interesting.
Everyone knew Lyndie couldn’t handle late nights, that instead she preferred to jump out of bed at the crack of dawn, ready to work, of course.
It was all about work with Lyndie, but despite the tough personal ethics, Nina still loved her.
Even if work was the bane of Nina’s existence.
Sure, she was the beloved daughter of Tom Farrell, a man everyone in town respected despite his white skin and terrible fly-fishing skills.
And sure, she had a relatively easy job compared to many women her age in rural Mexico.
She ran a cantina that her great aunt Lupe had started.
The hours suited her, the people she met suited her, the pay suited her.
She just hated being twenty-three and feeling as if her entire life had already been written in stone.
She lived in a place out of step with the rest of the world, which meant getting married, having too many babies, and working like a dog until she’d lost all her teeth and was a burden on the very kids she’d given her life to.
No, thank you. She didn’t want that life, she wanted her own.
And it wasn’t that she didn’t love kids.
She did. She just wanted to teach them, not necessarily have them.
She wanted to do that in the States, the land of do-whatever-suits-you.
She wanted everything her half-American blood was entitled to: the language, the music, the movies, the everything.
She loved it all so much she’d demanded that her father teach her English years ago, and prided herself on her fluency.
If only she could read it as well as she spoke it, she’d be home free.
With all her heart, she’d wanted to go to college in the States, but five years ago when she’d graduated high school, she’d taken one look into her father’s hopeful, expecting eyes, and had known the truth. He wouldn’t let her go.
Normally, that wouldn’t have stopped her, but she didn’t have any ties except right here in San Robledo, and back then, her young, naive eighteen-year-old heart had chosen.
Incorrectly.
She’d regretted it ever since and Nina didn’t live well with regrets. She wanted to go to the States and stay, and she would. Somehow.
To live in a city that had more than a handful of people she’d known forever, with a chance to make a difference, and not because of whose daughter she was, or how many drinks she could mix a night.
It wasn’t as if she was looking to forget her mother’s heritage, not at all. After all, she planned to teach Spanish. There were kids there she could help, she just knew it.
“Lyndie,” she said softly as her friend came out of the water.
No jumping in fright for Lyndie, nope the woman was far too tough for that.
She merely reached for the towel she’d set over a branch and wrapped it around her lithe body.
Tossing back her short hair, which was lit like fire beneath the meager moonlight, she sighed as she faced Nina.
“Why am I not surprised to see you up this late? Who did you go out with tonight?”
“Hey, I don’t always go out. I long ago went through all the guys around here.” Nina sighed dramatically. “I’m ready for new waters, Lyndie. Very ready.”
“You always have been.” Drying off, Lyndie sank next to Nina on the edge of the creek.
Around them the smoke clogged out much of the night. The insects hummed. The water rushed over the rocks, the only other sound. Nina wanted to hear cars, trucks, planes. Honking, hollering… She wanted big city noises as her lullaby.
“So what’s up?” Lyndie combed her hair with her fingers. “You’re looking for me in the middle of the night, you’re up to something.”
“It’s only midnight.”
“Which is the middle of the night,” Lyndie pointed out in her rational voice, making Nina laugh.
“Okay, yes, I am up to something,” she admitted. She took a deep breath and looked at her friend—her escape route. “I want to go back to the States with you. I want to move there and—”
“What? Why?”
“To go to college.”
“It’s cheaper here.”
“I do not want cheaper. I want American.”
Lyndie stared at her. “You can’t just up and leave Mexico.”
“Why not?” Nina leapt up to expel some of her energy.
God, would no one see? “Because I have a cantina to tend to? Because I have a future all planned out and already rotting? Because I am not allowed to have hopes and dreams like you, and then follow them through to reality? I speak the language as well as anyone there. I am half American, more than half if you count my great aunt’s first cousin on her mother’s side, who married a guy in Bakersfield and—”
“Nina.” Lyndie shook her head. “You’re young, and sometimes—”
“Don’t give me that crap about being too young.
You’re not that much older than I am. You just feel older because your life is your own and you live it how you want to.
” She shoved her fingers through her long hair and turned in a slow, frustrated circle.
“Oh, Lyndie, don’t you see? You’ve done what you want, when you want.
You’ve seen the world, and you’ve never, not once, let anyone or anything hold you back. ”
Lyndie stared at her for a long moment. “Yes, but we’ve had very different experiences.”
“Maybe I just want some experiences.”
“Nina…” With a disparaging sound, she lifted her hand. “Your entire life is here.”
“But my heart is not.” Kneeling at Lyndie’s side, she took her friend’s hands and pressed them within her own, close to her beating heart. “I want this,” she whispered. “I want this so much. Take me with you. Please? I’ll get a job, I’ll support myself, I’ll—”
“What about Tom?”
“He’ll get used to the idea.”
“You haven’t told him.”
“No.”
“Nina, you have to tell him—”
“Not yet. He’ll try to stop me.”
“Nina.” Lyndie pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I can’t. I can’t do that to him, I can’t help you run away without a word, without—”
“Fine.” Nina stood again, feeling her chest tighten, her eyes brighten with the tears she would absolutely not shed. “I’ll find another way. On my own.”
“Nina—”
But Nina wasn’t in the mood to hear empty platitudes, she was in a hell-raising mood. And lucky for her, the night had just begun.
Lyndie woke to the scent of fresh tortillas and the sound of Tallulah’s collar jangling, and sat straight up in bed.
It was still dark. Her clock glowed five o’clock. Rosa’s dog had pushed open the door that never locked and now sat on the floor by her bed, waiting expectantly to be rewarded for such adorable behavior.
“Go away.” Lyndie stretched and groaned. Every muscle ached, and then some. The long night hadn’t helped. She’d heard Griffin get up every few hours. The last time, near four a.m., she’d gotten up also, and had found him whispering with Tom at the front door.
Tom had the radio, checking in with the men on the status of the fire, and then relaying that info to their firefighter.
Griffin’s dedication and concern had tightened her chest, and she didn’t know why. Didn’t want to know why.
Still on the floor by her bed, panting sweetly, Tallulah added a little whine for attention.
“Oh, all right.” Leaning over, she reached out to pet her. With a blissful grunt, Tallulah lay on her back, exposing her pathetic hairless pink belly, which Lyndie now couldn’t reach. And she wasn’t getting out of bed to pet a dog.
She wanted to lie back and pull the covers over her eyes.
Normally she popped right up in the mornings, but last night had been a long one, and she glared at the paper-thin walls, through which she’d also listened to that amorous couple go at it for hours—and they had been particularly amorous, and arduous.
It hadn’t relieved any of her inner tension, that was for sure. “Damn it.” She sat up. She had a text from Rosa: eat.
That it was in English, not Spanish, made Lyndie shake her head. Rosa wanted to make sure she got it.
She did. But for once, it wasn’t food on her mind, but the fire, and the long day ahead.
She got out of bed, tripped over Tallulah, and ended up squatting down to pet her for a moment. Then she grabbed a towel and headed down the hall to the bathroom.
In the Rio Vista Inn, there wasn’t any sense in locking the bathroom. There were two toilet stalls and two showers, and no such thing as privacy.
Tossing aside the big T-shirt she’d worn to bed, she hung up her towel right outside one of the two showers, which were nothing more than a long tiled wall and two shorter tile walls no higher than her collarbone, jutting out to create the two different stalls.
A plastic curtain could be pulled across the back, creating the fourth wall.
Hopping into the shower, she yanked the curtain closed, dunked her head beneath the hot spray, and wondered what Rosa had left her to eat.
Something good, of that she had no doubt. Her mouth started to water.
Rosa always spoiled her rotten when Lyndie came, they all did.
She kept her eyes closed as she shampooed and conditioned.
What was it about being here, with these people, that got to her?
Why did they matter so much when all her life what had mattered had been seeing everything and everywhere and never staying in one place?
“And why here,” she murmured as she rinsed her conditioner out. “Why am I growing roots here?”
“Roots…where are they, coming out your feet?”