Night at the Fiestas: Stories by Kirstin Valdez Quade Read Free Book Online Page A

over her parents, who sat slumped and shapeless on the bare concrete floor.
    “Amanda. Hi. What can I do for you?”
    Amanda looked past Monica, as if waiting for the person she really wanted. Or maybe she was simply curious about how they lived. Wouldn’t Monica like a peek into Amanda’s trailer?—provided, of course, she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone. But to walk around, inspect their things, judge—of course she’d like that.
    Monica stepped aside to let the girl in from the wind, and, when Amanda entered without hesitation, reminded herself to warn Cordelia never to set foot in anyone’s home alone, ever.
    Amanda surveyed the trailer: the Riverside Shakespeare , Beatrice’s wipes and diapers on the table, Beatrice herself, who’d wakened and stopped mawing her fist to greet Amanda with a pleasured gurgle.
    Amanda looked Monica over. “Why are you wearing that?”
    “It’s my mom’s best dress,” Cordelia said, clambering down from the loft. “It cost over three hundred dollars.”
    Amanda frowned. “What’s she doing here?” she asked Monica.
    “I missed the bus,” said Cordelia. She had brightened at the arrival of the older girl. “And Elliot took our car. Are you here to play?”
    Amanda didn’t answer, just looked with discontent at her backpack.
    “Is everything okay, Amanda?” Monica asked. “Why aren’t you in school?”
    Amanda straightened her shirt carefully under her coat, shrugged her skinny shoulders. “Why isn’t she in school?”
    Though Amanda was only nine, there was something teenagerish about her, something disturbing and sexual. She wore her sleek dark hair parted on the side, and it slipped off her shoulders and down her back. The white tips of her rather large ears poked though the silky curtain. In October, when it was still hot during the day, Monica had seen her in a bikini, spreading a towel on the hard-packed dirt to sunbathe. Another day, Amanda tucked the hem of her shirt into the neck and pulled it down so that it resembled a bra. Monica had watched over the edge of her book as the girl walked the length of the park, sashaying past the adults. Who knew what went on in that trailer?
    Now Amanda bit her lip, looked around critically, then set her backpack on the bench seat and scooted in. She folded her hands on the table.
    “Are you sick, honey? If you’re sick, you should probably be home in bed.”
    When Amanda didn’t answer, Monica abandoned the role of concerned, motherly neighbor. She sat at the table opposite her, pulled Beatrice to her lap, and waited. Cordelia sat beside Monica and folded her own hands, mirroring the older girl.
    Amanda frowned at the baby. “She’s got boogers all over her face,” she said, then seemed to lose interest. “Where’s all your stuff? Don’t you even got a TV?”
    “No,” said Monica, the same hint of pride in her voice she always had when asked this. “We don’t watch TV.” Stupid, showing off to a nine-year-old.
    “You don’t got heat either?”
    “Well,” Monica laughed. “Usually we have heat.”
    “It’s broken .” Cordelia shot an accusing glance at Monica. “And anyway,” she told Amanda, placing a protective hand on Beatrice’s forearm, “that’s not boogers. She’s just chapped.”
    Amanda pointed to the cardboard box that held Elliot’s soil samples, each tied and carefully labeled. “What’s that stuff?”
    “My husband’s samples. He’s a geologist, which means he studies rocks. Geo means rock in Greek.”
    To that teachable moment, Amanda made no reply.
    Several times over the months, they’d heard Amanda’s mother yelling at her children from across the lot. “You get back here this minute or I don’t want to see your face ’til you’re twenty-one!” She’d shout breathlessly, bracing herself with a hand in the doorway, as if even standing were an enormous effort, and Monica and Elliot would laugh. Elliot did a strangely accurate impression of Amanda’s mother,