Exposure Read Free Page B

a world of good to hear a woman caused him to back down." Pushing a stray tendril of hennaed hair back into her coiffure with the eraser end of her order pencil, she regarded Emma quietly for an instant. "You really know as much about cars as folks are saying you do?" she finally asked.
    "I know quite a bit," Emma admitted with a shrug. "I was probably the biggest tomboy in all of N'Awlins when I was a kid. My motto was 'Anything a boy can do, I can do better.' " She gave the other woman a wryly self-deprecatory smile and shrugged again. "For a lot of years it was just my big brother and me, and chere, from the time I was nine until I was fourteen years old I spent about every wakin' hour in his shop."
    "Would you be interested in giving my car a tune-up?"
    Emma's mouth dropped open, and she quickly snapped it shut. "Please," she said, waving a hand at the chair opposite her, "won't you sit down a moment? I'm getting a crick in my neck looking up at you."
    Ruby grinned and pulled out the chair. Sitting down, she commanded, "Eat your soup before it gets cold." When Emma obediently picked up her spoon and began eating, Ruby leaned back in her chair. "Bonnie!" she called out in the general direction of the counter. "Bring me over a cup of coffee, will ya, doll?"
    "Sure thing, Ruby." the waitress called back, and Ruby straightened, turning her attention to the little girl seated on her left in order to allow the child's mother a few moments to finish her soup. "So, your name is Gracie, right?"
    Gracie looked up. There was melted cheese ringing her mouth, but she was oblivious as she gave the red-headed woman a big, warm smile. "Wight! I'm fwee." Dropping her fork on her plate, she then bent in her little finger and held it down with her thumb, presenting the three remaining fingers in a crooked display for the woman to count.
    "Three years old," Ruby marveled. "That's a big girl."
    "Big girl," Gracie agreed. Always thrilled to entertain, and seeing this as an ideal time to show off some of her tricks, she splatted her hands in the casserole on her plate and grinned at her new friend as she chanted loudly in time to her movements, "Patty cake, patty cake, bakeoos man!"
    "Grace Melina!" Spoon clattering to the tabletop, Emma reached across the table to grasp her daughter's wrists. She pulled the little hands away from the plate and admonished her sternly, "Big girls do not play in their food, cherie; you know that." Deftly, she dipped her napkin in her water glass and wiped the child's sticky fingers free of macaroni and cheese. "You use your fork now or you can just kiss your dessert good-bye." Looking up at Ruby, she grimaced with rueful apology. "I'm sorry about that. Sometimes her manners leave a little somethin' to be desired."
    "Don't worry about it; I've got two kids of my own. They're both in their teens now, but kids are kids.
    I know how it goes." She accepted her cup of coffee from the waitress with a smile and then sat back. After taking a sip, she put down the cup and, nodding toward Gracie, said, "She's a friendly little thing, isn't she?"
    "Too friendly at times," Emma agreed. "Gracie subscribes to the Will Rogers school of friendship, don'tcha, angel? She's never met a man—or a woman, for that matter—she doesn't like. It scares me to death sometimes, because no matter how many times I've lectured her about not talking to strangers, I'm not one hundred percent certain she won't go waltzing off with the first one to present her with a persuasive enough story."
    "Gwacie'd say no," Gracie insisted, digging tracks through her macaroni with her fork tines.
    "I know you would, angel pie," Emma retorted, but she raised a skeptical eyebrow at Ruby and changed the subject. "About your car," she said.
    "I'm not asking you to do anything fancy," Ruby interrupted. "It's due for its oil change and—you know—that other stuff that usually goes along with a tune-up." She waved her hand in vague illustration, and Emma gave her