The Kerr Construction Company Read Free Page B

Jericho the way it just hung up in the sky immobile for hours at a time.
    The new worker came in handy for some things. At least for me. He lived with a couple of guys in an old house and said he’d let me use his shower when we came in from work. Now I could consistently freshen up at the end of the day with a nice warm shower instead of washing out of a sink.
    ****
    I looked serious and aloof as I walked into the restaurant after work. Carmen saw me and stopped dead in her tracks just to stare as I walked to an open table. She then returned to her work after a wink my direction.
    “Enchiladas,” I said when she came to my table to place my order.
    “They aren’t the special today,” she said.
    “Then I’ll have them at your place. You invited me last night, remember?”
    She puckered her lips to keep from smiling. “Rather bold today, aren’t we?”
    “To make up for lost time,” I answered. “I blew last night trying to be polite. I want to get to know you.”
    “I enjoyed last night,” she said with a nod. “Especially all your comments about Woody Guthrie and all after the movie. You know so much about him.”
    “Yeah, I like those times and his music. But I was nervous, too. And shy.”
    “Shy? You don’t seem the type. What’s there to be shy about?”
    “You.” I sighed. “I was shy, and talking gibberish helped. I want to get to know you now. I loved being with you. So, I’ll take your invitation. Okay?”
    “My mother wants to meet you,” she said. “We had a long talk about you this morning. Someone got my mind off the divorce I just went through. She wants to meet him. And see if he’s all she’s hearing.”
    “What’s she been hearing?” I asked quizzically.
    “What I told her.”
    I kept waiting for what that was.
    “You just wait on me here until I’m off work,” she said. “You’ll get the gist when we get home. Have a beer or two on me while you wait. Read your book. Keep yourself occupied for a couple more hours.”
    Her mother’s house was a two-bedroom wood-frame yellow cottage with a screened-off front porch. A middle-aged dark-skinned woman, slightly overweight, let us in. She was the same height as Carmen, I guessed five feet four, which was tall for a Mexican-American woman. She still had good looks, with occasional streaks of gray in her hair.
    “Mother’s been a widow since I was in high school,” Carmen explained. “My dad was killed in a car accident. I have a younger sister, but she’s in Germany. She married a soldier from Albuquerque.”
    “Have a seat on the couch,” Carmen’s mother said. “I prepared you some enchiladas after my daughter called me on the phone tonight. I’ll bring them in after I microwave them. They got cold. Eat all you want.”
    “You know,” I commented to Carmen, “the Mexican-Americans back home all have accents and they seem just as Mexican as they are American. You just seem an American with brown skin to me. It’s almost confusing.”
    “Is that okay with you?” she asked. “Would you rather me talk differently?”
    “No, I love it. Even the Mexican-Americans in college had accents. Not strong, but something. You don’t have any accent at all.”
    “I don’t know, I’m just me. Some of us here talk with an accent. Those just here or a generation removed. Most of my friends are just as American as can be. I have a lot of Anglo friends. I don’t even know Spanish.”
    Carmen got up to leave but looked back toward me at the entrance to a bedroom. “I’m going to take a quick shower,” she said. “I won’t be long. I get all sweaty, and there’s a tobacco stench on my clothes, too. So many smoke, you know.”
    She hadn’t returned when, several minutes later, her mother came out with two plates of enchiladas. One, I assumed, was for Carmen.
    “Go ahead and start without her,” Carmen’s mother said. “I know you must be starving. My daughter tells me you’re from Texas and that you work as a laborer