“I was in a field of flowers.”
“Yip.”
“Shh.” Senora Mari gave his nose a tap.
“We want to know what kind of flowers.”
“Flowers from the moon.” She raised her brows, daring me to contradict.
I bit the inside of my cheek instead.
“Yip.”
“Shh, dog. Shh.” This time she gave him three quick taps to the nose.
“He’s just asking what kind of flowers grow on the moon.” I slipped down beneath the covers. If she was going to string us along from detail to detail, I was going to rest while she did it.
With a shake of her head, she continued. “Don’t look at me as if I am loco. I know flowers do not grow on the moon. But in my dream, there were bluebonnets.”
“What do you think that means?”
Lenny yawned.
“I also saw a lightning bolt.”
I bolted upright in bed. “On the surface, on a bluebonnet, where?”
“Yip.” Lenny jumped into Senora Mari’s lap.
Instead of handing him back, she ran a hand slowly from his head to his tail as she considered her answer. “It was electric blue, and it hung in the sky.”
“What do you think that means?”
Again she slowly drew her hand down Lenny’s back. “He’s gained weight.”
“Someone’s feeding him scraps?”
She shrugged. “I feed him nothing.”
“Forget I mentioned it.” She might pretend he was the biggest nuisance on earth, but Carlos told me he’d caught her on more than one occasion feeding him steak bones. “What do you think the blue flowers and lightning bolt represent?”
Lenny sensed she was in a giving mood and rolled over to expose his white belly.
“I have thought about that very thing all morning while you lay in this bed.” She did not deny him his pleasure. As his leg begin to jump in response, the corners of her mouth turned up into a rare smile. “Dead people turn blue, sí?”
“I guess.” I swallowed, envisioning a room full of dead people, lying on metal gurneys, naked and blue.
“I believe this to be true.” She lifted her palms to the ceiling. “Blue is death and lightning is power.”
“So Lucky experienced death by power . . . electricity?”
Her eyes grew wide. “Perhaps it means a misuse of power, like that of a tyrant or dictator.” She patted Lenny’s stomach and withdrew her hand.
“No, no. Let’s go back to misuse of electrical power.”
She stood and heaved a sigh. “I cannot change the signs in my dream to fit your ideas. It is death by dictator.” Brushing down her skirt, she moved to the door. “Get up or we’ll be late.”
“Yip, yip.” Lenny jumped lightly to the floor.
“You see, your little friend agrees with me. We will be on time.” She raised her index finger into the air dramatically. “The future of ballet folklórico in Broken Boot and all of Big Bend County depends on us.” She lowered her finger and aimed it at me. “Don’t forget his costume.”
As she marched for the door, I made up the bed. “She didn’t mention Lucky, did she?”
“Yip.”
“But if blue is dead, and Lucky’s dead, I still think her dream means death.” I took my skirt and blouse out of the closet. I rolled my eyes. “Or power?”
“Yip,” Lenny said in agreement.
“Right. Lucky’s dead to begin with. We can all agree that’s true.”
With his tail wagging a million times a minute, Lenny ran to the dresser and placed his front paws on the drawer that held his folklórico costume.
“Wait a minute, senor.” I wriggled out of my pajamas and tossed them into the hamper. “One thing is clear.” I stepped into my skirt and buttoned my blouse. “You and I need a home of our own that’s harder to get to.”
“Yip, yip.”
“Or a new lock. How’s a girl to have any privacy?”
• • •
Thirty minutes later, we were all up early having our usual cup of coffee and morning chat—only it was two hours earlier, due to the parade. “You’re telling me that woman pretended to have three children in order to win, but she didn’t win?” Uncle Eddie was reading his paper and gathering only the smallest threads of the conversation.
“No, hon,” Aunt Linda said. “Those were actually her kids. She just said that to be ornery.”
“How did you ferret that out of her?” My aunt had a way about her that brooked no nonsense.
She gave me a knowing smile. “The little girl told me.”
I laughed, which caused Uncle Eddie to look up in bemusement at the two of us.
Senora Mari entered from the kitchen, marched over to her son, and slid a plate of huevos rancheros in front of him. “Three children is a blessing.”
I watched my abuela carefully, but she didn’t glance at my Aunt Linda after her pronouncement. Though often salty, she would never insult my aunt’s inability to have children. In my abuela’s own life, she had known the sting of having only one child in a culture that applauded big families.
“Yes, Mamá.” The sunny-side egg smiled at Uncle Eddie from the small cast-iron skillet. The aroma of fresh salsa, leftover refrieds, cheese, and onions woke my sleepy brain and had my taste buds calling, Me, me, me.
“And what about your favorite reporter? May I too have some, Abuela? Por favor?”
“No.” She gave me the onceover. “You must fit in your skirt in one hour. If you eat breakfast, you’ll pop out of it.”
“She’s right.” Aunt Linda stole a bit of crumbled bacon from her husband’s savory mixture. “The salt in the bacon will make your stomach swell. If you’d lost that fifteen pounds you’ve been going on about, you wouldn’t have to worry about a few eggs and beans this morning.”
I paused until Senora Mari had all but disappeared through the swinging kitchen door. “I could eat a
