a seat.”
Jesse sat.
“Tell me about your plans for the Crowne estate in Paradise,” Jesse said, “if you would.”
“So you can figure out how to prevent us?” Nina Pinero said.
“So we can avoid any incivility,” Jesse said.
“Latinos are uncivilized?” Nina Pinero said.
“I was thinking more about the folks in Paradise,” Jesse said.
She was slim and strong-looking, as if she worked out. Her hair was short and brushed back. She smiled.
“Excuse my defensiveness,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“I understand you are going to bring in a few kids this summer, to get them started.”
She nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “A kind of pilot program.”
“And later add some more kids?”
“When the school year starts and if things have gone well, maybe.”
Jesse nodded.
“Your constituency,” she said, “probably has used the camel’s-nose-in-the-tent phrase by now.”
“They have,” Jesse said.
“And traffic,” Nina Pinero said.
She was dressed in white pants and a black sleeveless top. Her clothes fit her well.
“That, too,” Jesse said.
“You believe them?”
“No. They are fearful that when it’s time to sell their home, the prospective buyers will be discouraged by a school full of Hispanic Americans.”
“They have, I know, already tried the zoning route,” Nina Pinero said.
“Town council tells me there are no zoning limits in Paradise that apply to schools,” Jesse said. “There are regulations about what you can put near a school but none about what you can put a school near.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve done your homework,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“You have legal advice?”
“I’m a lawyer,” she said.
“And yet so young and pretty,” Jesse said.
“My only excuse is that I don’t make any money at it,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“How old are these kids?” Jesse said.
