Chapter 11

Toni

Toni stood at the sink, looking at her face in the mirror. How on earth did we get from lunch at McDonald's to such emotional stuff? she wondered. Every time we start talking, one or the other of us gets deep, and we get all wrought up. She leaned closer to the mirror. Her eyes were just a little red from crying, but she'd not used mascara that day so she didn't have that to repair. She'd put on some foundation, and a very slight amount of rouge to set off her cheekbones, since she had enough fat on her – slender though she was – to blur them otherwise. And she'd put on some lipstick, a shade which blended well with her skin and simply gave her lips a little extra shine. Her mother had once told her that she didn't need much makeup, and she'd taken that to heart – and seeing what the fashion was these days, with women looking for all the world like prostitutes even when they weren't, she was glad her mother had been so interested.

So she looked all right in the mirror. It wasn't her face, really, that was the problem, but her emotions. She was on a roller coaster these days. These days? It hasn't even been 24 hours! She knew it wasn't the normal moodiness that came every month. In fact, she should be perfectly happy – except, of course, for the unfading presence of her sorrow, but that was something she lived with every day and it wasn't something she considered. What on earth is wrong with me, that I keep getting into these emotional swamps?

For that matter, what was going on with 'Berto? He seemed to be as emotional as she was. "I give you my heart?" What kind of melodramatic gesture was that? He's only a boy, for heaven's sake! Toni shook her head, still looking into the mirror. She inspected her face again, and decided she was satisfied with the result. Okay, back to the wrecking ball. She took a deep breath, and went back out to their table.

'Berto was sitting with his hands folded, his shoulders tense – she could tell from the way he sat that he was tense. She came up behind him and put a knee on the bench beside him and put her hands on his shoulders. "Hold still, 'Berto, while I relax you a bit."

He held still, after the first startled twitch. She could feel him relax under her fingers. She remembered the night before, when she'd chosen to rub his back as a way of relaxing him – and her; her hands on his back had soothed her almost as much as his hands on her back had done. He'd relaxed like a cat then, too. She realized that in her fingers she had a marvelous tool for building their relationship. By massaging his muscles, she could say without words that she...

But she absolutely refused to go there. I am not going to say that word, because I don't have the right. I don't even know if I can, and even if I can I'm just a ruined woman who ought to be grateful that any man would simply speak to me. She cared for 'Berto, certainly. But that was all that was possible. Her heart was a wreck, and she had forfeited all right to do more, regardless of who the man was.

So she wrenched herself back to the present. She worked up from 'Berto's shoulders to his neck, one hand doing the work now. With him sitting down his head was lower than hers, and she bent down and kissed his hair. "That," she said with a grin, "is payback for all the times you've made me feel short."

He turned his head and looked up at her, and her hand slid, with the movement, off his neck and rested between his shoulder blades. "You are short, Toni. You're what, five feet or something?"

"Five feet, one inch – and I'm exactly as tall as I need to be. Do you know how long Abraham Lincoln said a man's legs ought to be?"

"No."

She stepped around the table and slid into her seat. "Long enough to reach the ground. And that's how tall I am – tall enough to reach the ground."

"But you only come up to my nose."

"That's because your nose is too high. We could fix that, you know..."

"How?"

She grinned at him. "Just amputate the bottom six inches or so of your legs."

"Ouch!" He pretended to slap her hand, and she pretended to dodge. "You're a bloodthirsty thing, aren't you?"

"Maybe I am. Certainly I rescued us from the weepiness we'd gotten into back there."

"Yeah, we did get pretty maudlin, didn't we?"

One of the things she liked about 'Berto, Toni decided, was that however destructively he might have lived since leaving home, he had an education equal to hers. I'm no genius and I'm no scholar, but I did pay attention in school. Most people she knew would never use "maudlin" even if they knew the word – and most of them, probably, didn't know the word. "Yeah, we did," she said. "But we're over it. And it looks like we're about done with lunch, too."

"Yeah." He took a last drink of his soda, slurping it out from the melting ice cubes. He put everything on his tray, took her trash and put it on his tray, and stacked the two trays. "Ready to go?"

"Yes." She thought she knew what he was doing with the trays, and stifled an impulse to protest. If he wants to take my tray, I shouldn't interfere. It's his pleasure to do it.

He did indeed take their trays to the trash, leaving her only to bring herself. She put her arm through his as they emerged into the parking lot, and kept it there till they reached the car, where she unlocked the passenger door before going around to her side. For once she didn't fasten her seatbelt – they were just going across the road, to Wal-Mart. She pulled out of McDonald's, and into Wal-Mart, and found a spot to park. It wasn't right by the building, but none of those spots were open and anyway it was a nice day to walk.

As they walked toward the door, she again took his arm. "You said you wanted some chips and French bread, right?"

"Right."

"Okay, we'll get some for you. And I want to look at the bakery's markdown rack too. Sometimes they have good stuff there for a lot less."

"I know. It's like a 40% discount, I think."

She looked up at him. "Somehow, 'Berto, I can't imagine you shopping."

He smiled down at her. "And somehow I can't imagine you not shopping. You're pretty domestic."

"For a woman, I am probably about par for the course."

"Toni, you call yourself a woman, but I know you're just a girl."

She leaned her head against his shoulder. "I've told you, 'Berto, that I'm older than you think I am."

"And I find that hard to believe. When I look at you I swear you're not a day over 20, and sometimes you look five years younger than that."

"I appreciate the compliment, my lord, but I am older than you think."

She felt him kiss the top of her head. "So you say, my lady. I guess in two weeks we'll see who's right."

"I already know who's right, 'Berto. But," she said, looking up again and smiling, "if it pleases you to wait till then to believe me, then I shall enjoy the look on your face when you learn to believe me the first time."

'Berto

They found the French bread – Roberto chose loaves with the "everything," garlic parmesan, and rosemary herb toppings – and the chips. He decided on Ruffles, a bag of original and a bag of barbecue. And then they cruised the aisles, as they'd done at Albertson's, to see if there was anything they might want. They picked up a package of guacamole, and some sugar – Toni remembered she needed more – and various odds and ends. There wasn't anything on the markdown rack that either of them wanted, but that was all right. Between what they'd gotten at Albertson's, and what they got now at Wal-Mart, they had enough for two until Toni made her regular shopping run.

Roberto was surprised again at how pleasant it was to be domestic. He'd always avoided shopping except when he really needed to get something to eat, and he'd never understood how men could wander through stores with their wives, or girlfriends, and seem to enjoy it. Now he knew. He doubted that he'd ever be happy hanging around and holding the purse – not that he'd seen Toni with a purse yet – but walking beside her as she pushed a shopping cart around was proving to be fun.

I think the fun is in being with her, rather than in the shopping itself. Either way, it was fun. He looked at her as she scanned a shelf. He wasn't extraordinarily tall, but he could easily look down on the top of her head. She looked taller than that, because of her erect slenderness, but in fact she was a short little thing. Yet she was not weak; she had a strength within her that he'd felt the night before. As they'd wound down toward sleep she'd slipped an arm under his neck and rested her hand on his shoulder, and pulled him tightly to her. He'd buried his face in her neck, inhaling the natural odor of her skin. And he'd felt it then – a strength in her arms that belied her small size. Little she might be, but not a weakling.

He never got tired of looking at her. Of course "never" means not in 24 hours. But it was true. However short the time he'd spent with her, in that time he'd never looked at her without feeling happy to see her. Her face was a constant joy, her form was a perpetual delight. And her voice was likewise – soft and gentle, but not breathy, with just a slight Hispanic accent that intensified whenever she said something in Spanish.