Chapter 3

Toni

Toni took a sip of her juice. The sleeve of her t-shirt once again fully covered her upper arm, drooping to her elbow. She savored the tartness of the juice, the sweetness of it, the blending of two tastes into something that no one had yet successfully imitated.

She looked at the other end of the sofa, where Roberto sat with his own glass in his hand. "What would you like for supper?" she asked.

She could see that he hadn't thought about it. And that's what he said: "I hadn't even thought of supper. I'm not used to eating supper."

"Well, perhaps we can get you used to it." She smiled to herself at the implication of that sentence. "I've been thinking that I could fry up some sausage and hash browns."

"That's not Spanish cooking."

"No, but I like it. I learned it from—" But she didn't continue. Some things weren't ready to mention ... or she wasn't ready to mention them.

He didn't seem to notice that she'd cut herself off. "It sounds good, Spanish or not. The fact is that I grew up with Anglo cooking. I've told you that my family's assimilated..."

"Yes – while the Anglos have been assimilating, a little, into our Spanish culture." She felt her lips curving in a smile.

"Yeah – Anglos using Spanish words, and eating their version of Spanish food. You know something, Toni?"

"What's that?"

"It's what I learned in history. We call ourselves Spanish – even when we've assimilated – but really 'Mexican' would be more accurate even if we refuse to accept it."

"How so?" This was a new thought. She'd always thought of native New Mexicans, without thinking about it, as Spanish, and had eventually started calling herself Spanish in spite of her Mexican birth.

"Well, in 1821 Mexico became independent from Spain. New Mexico was part of Mexico, then – not Spain. And it was Mexico that the United States took New Mexico from in 1847."

"Somehow I missed that in history class."

"I guess a lot of people did," he said with a smile. She liked his smile, she found, even with that scraggly mustache. "It's in the history books, but when was the last time you met anyone who knew it?"

"The first time was when I met you." They laughed together.

Toni found herself quite comfortable sitting curl-legged on the end of the sofa, her juice in her hand and a man she barely knew on the other end of the sofa. A man she barely knew? More like a boy. He couldn't be long out of high school. His face didn't have any signs of age at all. There was a bit of puffiness around his eyes, but if he drank the way he'd indicated that was understandable. He was skinny, like a teenager, without the size the maturity brings. She would swear he wasn't more than 20, and probably younger than that. And again a thought came that she squelched: I haven't been this comfortable with anyone since—

She took a drink of juice, searching for a safe topic to introduce. "Have you lived in Albuquerque long?"

"All my life. I was born in Bernalillo, actually, but we moved here when I was just a baby."

She nodded. Bernalillo was a smaller town a few miles north of Albuquerque, in Sandoval County, though Albuquerque was the seat of Bernalillo County. There's no telling how or why such things come to pass. Santa Fe was the state's capitol, even though Albuquerque was by far the bigger city, and more centrally located. And thinking of that gave her something else to ask.

"Have you ever visited Santa Fe, Roberto?"

"A few times."

"You gave me a history lesson, and now it's my turn. Did you know that Santa Fe is the oldest state capitol in the United States?"

He looked astonished. "I thought that would be back east somewhere, Virginia maybe."

"It's true that the English settled the east coast very early – in the 1600s. But Boston dates to 1620, if I remember right, while Santa Fe was founded in 1610."

"The Spanish must have been here early."

"They were. They came up from Mexico, where they'd been since the 1500s. My Indian blood is Mexican – you remember my family originally came from Mexico and stayed here for a while, before we went back to Mexico. The Spanish were exploring the southwest when the 13 states were still 13 colonies."

Roberto grinned. "I'll have to remember that the next time some Anglo talks about how old the rest of the United States is."

"You almost said 'how old the United States is, ' didn't you?"

He laughed outright. "Yeah. You've gotten that kind of thing too, probably."

Now Toni laughed. "Yes, I have. And if anyone knows better it's me. I wasn't an American citizen till I was 18, even though I grew up here. And I get so angry when people think we're part of 'old Mexico.' I wonder if anyone ever thinks that New York is an English city, or New Hampshire is an English county."

"Huh?"

Toni laughed again. "I thought you were the historian. There is a city in England named York, and a county called Hampshire. And for that matter, is New England part of England?"

Roberto laughed with her, and she found she liked the sound of their blended voices. "I never thought of that. I wonder why they only do it with New Mexico, and not anything else."

"I don't know. Maybe they just don't learn history or geography. I know I didn't learn as much in school as I really would have liked to – not about history or geography, anyway."

She looked at her watch. It was a thin watch, but it still seemed large on her arm. "It'll take a while to cook the hash browns, so I'd better get started."

He got up from the sofa. "Want some help, Toni?"

She smiled at him. "I don't need any, but I sure would like some. I'd like that."

"Cool." His voice sounded a bit rough, and a bit eager, as though helping her in the kitchen meant more to him than just helping a young lady in the kitchen.

She put her hand on his shoulder again – This is getting to be a habit, Antonia, she told herself – and led the way to the kitchen.

Roberto

Roberto found himself grating potatoes. Toni had helped peel them, but had then handed him the grater and the colander of potatoes and said, with a smile, "Go to it." She had then excused herself to go to the restroom, and when she returned had rolled up the sleeves of her t-shirt to her shoulders and began washing dishes. The sink hadn't been full, but it was a necessary task, he supposed.

He found his eyes returning to her arms. She was slim, all right. Almost he would have called her skinny, but there was something about her, a hint of firmness and strength, that kept him from that. She wouldn't have prominent biceps if she flexed her arms, but he thought that perhaps she wasn't a weakling. He didn't know what kind of labor being an instrument tech involved, but he imagined that a full set of instruments might weigh something – they didn't, after all, make scalpels and clamps out of cardboard.