"I'm Liberty Jones," I said, trying to smooth the moment over. "My mother and I are moving into the new trailer." I dug the envelope from my back pocket and extended it to him. "She told me to give you this."
Sadlek took the envelope and tucked it into his shirt pocket, letting his gaze slide over
me from head to toe. "Diana Jones is your mama?"
"Yes, sir."
"How'd a woman like that get a little dark-skinned girl like you? Your daddy musta been a Mexican."
"Yes, sir."
He gave a scornful snicker and shook his head. Another grin eased across his mouth. "You tell your mama to drop off the rent check herself next time. Tell her I got stuff I want to talk about."
"All right." Eager to be out of his presence, I tugged at Hardy's rigid arm. After a last warning glance at Louis Sadlek. Hardy followed me to the door.
"You'd best not run with white trash like the Cateses, little girl," Sadlek called out after us. "They're trouble. And Hardy's the worst of the lot."
After a scant minute in his presence, I felt as if I'd been wading through chest-high garbage. I turned to glance at Hardy in amazement.
"What a jerk," I said.
"You could say that."
"Does he have a wife and kids?"
Hardy shook his head. "Far as I know, he's been divorced twice. Some women in town seem to think he's a catch. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but he's got some money."
"From the trailer park?"
"That and a side business or two."
"What kind of side business?"
He let out a humorless laugh. "You don't want to know."
We walked to the loop intersection in contemplative silence. Now that evening was settling there were signs of life at the trailer park...cars turning in, voices and televisions filtering through the thin walls, smells of flying food. The white sun was resting on the horizon, bleeding out color until the sky was drenched in purple and orange and crimson.
"Is this it?" Hardy asked, stopping in front of my white trailer with its neat girdle of aluminum siding.
I nodded even before I saw the outline of my mother's profile in the window of the kitchenette. "Yes, it is," I exclaimed with relief. "Thank you."
As I stood there peering up at him through my brown-framed glasses. Hardy reached out to push back a piece of hair that had straggled loose from my ponytail. The callused tip of his finger was gently abrasive against my hairline, like the tickle of a cat's tongue. "You know what you remind me of?" he asked, studying me. "An elf owl."
"There's no such thing," I said.
"Yes there is. They mostly live to the south in the Rio GrandeValley and beyond. But every now and then an elf owl makes its way up here. I've seen one." He used his thumb and forefinger to indicate a distance of five inches. "They're only about this big. Cute little bird."
"I'm not little." I protested.
Hardy smiled. His shadow settled over me, blocking the light of sunset from my dazzled eyes. There was an unfamiliar stirring inside me. I wanted to step deeper into the shadow until I met his body, to feel his arms go around me. "Sadlek was right, you know," he said.
"About what?"
"I am trouble."
I knew that. My rioting heart knew it. and so did my weak knees, and so did my heat-prickling stomach. "I like trouble." I managed to say. and his laugh curled through the air.
He walked away in a graceful long-legged stride, a dark and solitary' figure. I thought of the strength in his hands as he had picked me up from the ground. I watched him until he had disappeared from sight, and my throat felt thick and tingly like I'd just swallowed a spoonful of warm honey.
The sunset finished with a long crack of light rimming the horizon, as if the sky were a big door and God was taking one last peek. Good night, Welcome, I thought, and went into the trailer.
CHAPTER 2
My new home smelled agreeably of fresh-molded plastic and new carpeting. It was a two-bedroom single-wide with a concrete patio pad in the back. I'd been allowed to pick out the wallpaper in my room, white with bunches of pink roses and a narrow blue ribbon woven throughout. We had never lived in a trailer before, having occupied a rent house in Houston before we moved east to Welcome.
Like the trailer, Mama's boyfriend, Flip, was a new acquisition. He'd gotten his name from his habit of constantly flipping through TV channels, which hadn't been so bad at first but after a while it drove me crazy. When Flip was around, no one could watch more than five minutes of any one show.
I was never sure why Mama invited him to live with us—he seemed no better or different than any of her other boyfriends. Flip was like a friendly, oversized dog. good-looking and lazy, with the hint of a beer belly, a shaggy mullet, and an easy grin.