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Mom and Blanca were looking concerned.
“Let’s try this again,” I said when we approached them. “Tex, Nancy and Blanca. Nancy and Blanca, Tex.”
“You like cats?” Tex boomed to my mother.
Mom jumped, stared up at Tex and nodded.
Anyone would nod, even if they hated cats.
“Then this’ll work,” Tex declared. “I’m goin’ home at one, can you wait that long?”
“Sure?” Mom asked and answered, not certain which way to go.
Everyone stood around and looked at each other.
“Maybe you can make them a coffee?” I suggested to Tex.
Tex turned to me, blank faced.
I felt a little sorry for him. I mean, I knew how he felt.
“What’ll it be?” Indy asked. “Tex is the best barista in the Rocky Mountains. Whatever you want, it’ll be fantastic.”
“Latte?” Mom asked.
“Just coffee for me,” Blanca said.
Tex lumbered behind the counter.
“He’s a little strange, isn’t he?” Mom leaned in and whispered to me.
“He’ll lay down his life for you, or, more to the point, for Jet,” Indy answered in a voice that said she meant it.
Mom and Blanca looked at each other.
That was enough for them.
* * *
Twenty minutes later,Ally and Kitty Sue walked in.
“Blanca!Qué pasa?How’s it going, Nancy?” Kitty Sue peeled off and went to sit with them and Ally came to me.
She handed me a shiny, new, very expensive cellular phone.
“Mom and I got you that. I already programmed everyone’s numbers in it and it’s charged. You should text everyone so they’ll have your number,” Ally said.
I looked at the phone. I looked at her. I opened my mouth to speak but she got there ahead of me.
“Think of it as a Christmas present,” she said, waylaying my denial.
“It’s October,” I told her.
She shrugged.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said quietly.
“How about, ‘thank you?’” Mom yelled from across the room, using The Voice.
