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Show -3- "Not yet. Wash your face and I'll get you some beans." The old woman stepped outside to stir the contents of a small pot that rested on the coals of the fire. Rosa eyed her younger brother contemptuously. "What are you so excited about?" she asked him in English. "Granny said I could go with the men today! I don't have to stay and help the women make jam!" "Ha! You'll just have to carry wood all day. You'll be sorry!" Rosa stuck her tongue out at him and went outside to wash her face with a scant cupful of water in a pottery bowl, thinking how she missed those hot showers in the dorm at school. Then she sat down on a pile of adobes to put on her tennis shoes. The sun would be up soon. Already the sky was glowing like a pearl above the mesas, silhouetting the forms of the towering saguaros that surrounded their village like an army of sentinels. Rosa scowled at them as she tied her laces in bows and then tied the loops into double knots so they wouldn't catch on the brush and come undone. If it weren't for the saguaros, she'd be thinking about catching a ride into Sells . She got up and walked away from the house until she was surrounded by the strange, tall cacti. "Stupid saguaros!" she said out loud in English. Then she unbuttoned her jeans, pulled them down and squatted, feeling primitive and silly, especially when her tennis shoes got wet. She felt a little better as she walked back to the house. Her cousin, Graciela, who'd been working for a couple of years as a waitress in Phoenix,was home, she'd heard. If Graciela was there to help with the jam-making, things might not be so bad. She liked Graciela. |
