Chapter 2

Antonia

It seemed like forever to Antonia, but it was really only a few seconds. Roberto cleared his throat, and said, "Well."

"Well," she said, and smiled a little.

"I didn't expect this," was what he said next.

"Me neither." It wasn't much either of them was saying, but it was a conversation.

"'Vangeline told me she wanted me to meet a nice girl..." She got the impression he had planned to say something more, but had stopped when he realized how he sounded.

Antonia smiled. "I am a nice girl ... if I'm a girl. My mom thinks I am, still."

Now Roberto smiled. Antonia was unsure about him – he smelled of alcohol, and looked rather disheveled – but Angelina had brought him. And Angelina – or 'Vangeline, as Roberto called her – was a good friend. He scratched his nose and said, "Girl, woman ... I guess you're kind of between, really, as young as you are."

"Thank you."

The conversation lagged for a moment, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was, rather, a friendly pause, though they'd hardly known each other long enough to think in friendly terms. She stirred a little, and asked, "Are you hungry?"

A look of surprise came over his face. "Yeah, I guess I am, a little."

Antonia stood up. "Come on in the kitchen and I'll fix us a snack. It's still a little early for supper ... unless you eat supper early?"

He stood too. He wasn't exceptionally tall, but he was still, she guessed, about half a head taller than she was. She looked him over. His blue work shirt had stains on it – some looked like food, but others looked like something liquid, and she suspected it was alcohol he'd spilled. His hair looked like he'd combed it that morning, but hadn't done anything with it since. His jeans were faded, and one knee was out – and there were stains on the denim too. His face was ordinary, an Anglo's face, with a few freckles across the nose and a scraggly mustache that wasn't sure whether it wanted to grow.

"I don't usually eat supper," he said. And then he added, with an air of unaccustomed self-criticism, "I usually drink my supper."

Antonia had her ideas about drinking, especially to excess, but didn't utter them. Instead she said, "Well, let's have a snack, anyway, and we'll see about supper later."

She gestured him to go ahead of her, and put a hand on his shoulder as he passed. Well, I guess I'm now Miss Forward for 2006, she thought. But Roberto didn't seem to notice.

She had noticed. His shoulder under the work shirt was thin. And as she watched him walk ahead of her she saw that his legs, in the jeans, were thin. I guess he's just a skinny kid, she thought, probably barely out of high school.

In the kitchen she waved him to a chair at the table, and peered into the refrigerator. There was bacon, and some lettuce. But she remembered that she didn't have any bread in the house, nor any tomatoes. She did have tortillas, and some sticky rice a friend had made for her. There was cinnamon in the cupboard, and sugar in the container...

She took the tortillas out of the fridge, and the tub of margarine. She got a couple of plates out of the cupboard, and a table knife out of the drawer. "I hope you don't mind me experimenting a little. I wasn't expecting company."

"Not a problem," Roberto said.

They still weren't saying much, but every time they had a little exchange they seemed to be more comfortable with each other. She at least was relaxing, after the shock of Angelina dropping the young man off and then running out. That's not like Angelina. I wonder what's going on.

She could feel his eyes on her back as she mixed the cinnamon and sugar. She knew he wasn't looking at the bare skin of her back, but it felt like he was. I'm just not used to having a man around, she thought, and with the thought she relaxed.

When she had the cinnamon-sugar mixture right, she turned on the big burner on the stove. It was an older electric model, and took a while to warm up. She set it on high, and pulled two tortillas from the package. While the burner heated, she went back to the refrigerator and pulled out a half full gallon of orange juice. As she poured into two pebbled plastic glasses, she said, "I hope this is all right to drink."

"It's fine," he said, and though she was facing away from him it sounded like the idea of orange juice being fine was a surprise to him.

She set the glasses on the table, one in front of Roberto and one at her place across the table. Holding her hand above the burner, she found that it was hot enough, so she laid a tortilla on it. After a few seconds she flipped it over – and hurriedly snatched a drawer open and pulled out a pair of tongs. With the tongs she flipped the tortilla again, the scorches from the burner in rings across the surface. It was warm enough to the touch, so she put it on a plate, spread margarine, and as the margarine melted shook cinnamon sugar onto it with a spoon. She then repeated the process with the other tortilla.

Setting the plates on the table, she sat down, and saw that Roberto was watching her intently. She smiled at him, and said, "I've never done this before, but I'm going to roll it up and try it that way."

"You Spanish people always roll up your tortillas, don't you?"

She smiled. "Just like you Anglos always put ketchup on your hamburgers."

"Touché."

They both rolled, and bit, and nodded in appreciation. "This is really good," Antonia said.

"It is. I never thought of doing anything like that."

"I didn't either until today."

"Well, it's a good idea."

"Thank you, Roberto."

"You're welcome." He swallowed. "So, your name's Antonia."

"Yes. It was my grandmother's name. But most people call me Toni."

"Toni ... Cedillo?"

"Sí."

"You are Spanish, right?"

"Yes. My family came with the first settlers of Santa Fe. Then about four generations ago they moved back to Mexico, and I was born there. My parents came here to Albuquerque when I was just a baby, but I had to get naturalized American citizenship. So I'm both Mexican and Spanish – born in Mexico but with Spanish ancestors."

"My family's Spanish too, but I don't speak Spanish. Somewhere along the line we assimilated into the Anglo culture."

"Your name is Spanish, though."

"Yeah." He scratched his nose. "We have both Anglo names and Spanish names in our family. My brothers are John and Harold, and my sister's name is Maria Concepcion." His pronunciation of the Spanish name was pure Anglo.

"María Concepción," Toni said, giving it the Spanish lilt, her soft voice adding a touch of ethereal romance to the name. "Es un nombre muy hermoso."

She saw him smile, and it warmed her. "I didn't understand a word of that, Toni. I may be Roberto Vargas, but my ears are pure Anglo."

"I just said that it's a very beautiful name."

"She's a very beautiful girl. When she grows up she's going to break hearts."

"How old is she?"

"She just turned 14."

"So next year she'll have her quinceañera?"

"Her big fifteenth birthday party? We're Anglos, Toni – in our family it's sweet 16 that counts."

Toni shook her head. "I can't imagine turning 15 without a quinceañera."

"And Maria wouldn't be able to imagine not having a sweet 16 party."

Toni folded her hands in front of her. "We've got two different cultures here, no matter how much our names are both Spanish."

Roberto shrugged. "Not much we can do about it, I guess."

"No." Toni waved a hand at Roberto's empty plate. "Would you like another tortilla?"