“Yes, Mr. LeFrancois.” Masie’s eyes never left the card in front of her.
“Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz.”
“What’s that you sayin’, Del?”
“He said Beau has a girlfriend!”
“I did not.”
“Did so.”
“You young pups get over here and sit with your Poppy.”
Shuffle, shuffle. Del and Claude moved to Papa’s side for about thirty seconds before slinking back to where Del could look over Masie’s shoulder while Claude crouched at her feet underneath the table.
“You got any brothers or sisters?” Papa could never let a silent space go unfilled.
“I have an older brother, Mr. LeFrancois. He’s a year younger than Angie.”
“You know my Angie?”
“Sure, everyone knew who she was at school.”
“She’s a beautiful girl, my Angie. Smart, too.”
“Papa, let Masie concentrate. It’s really hard to do calligraphy.”
“Shoor, shoor. You go on ahead. Don’t bother with me.”
“It’s no bother, Mr. LeFrancois. I like your accent.”
“That there’s a Cajun accent. That’s our people from my side of the family.”
“He’s from Louisiana,” I added, since most people in California had no idea what Cajun was.
“Tha’s right. Tha’s right.”
“What heritage is Mrs. LeFrancois?” Masie asked while keeping her eyes glued to the card she was working on.
“California surfer girl,” I said, which prompted a roar of laughter from Papa.
“California surfer girl, tha’s right.”
“Papa, shhh,” I said.
And on it went pretty much like that until, after a couple of hours—and an aching back from the uncomfortable chair—we finally had our place cards along with a wastebasket half-filled with unsuccessful attempts.
“Oh no! I forgot to make a card for you, Beau.”
“That’s okay, you’ve done enough.”
My feelings were only slightly hurt.
By then Maman was home and over the moon about the place cards. She asked Masie to stay for dinner, but she had to get home. The only real time we spent one-on-one that day was the ten-minute drive when I took her back to her house.
“It was really nice of you to do the place cards,” I said. I wondered if I was supposed to lean in for the kiss before she got out of the truck. I mean . . . I knew that’s what you angled for after a date, but this wasn’t exactly a date and it didn’t feel right. And if there were signals I was supposed to pick up on before getting the green light to move forward, I was pretty sure she wasn’t transmitting any.
“No problem, really Beau. In fact, it was good because it kept my mind off Ethan. I didn’t think about him more than twice the entire time I was at your house. It was fun too.”
“Glad it helped,” I said, trying my best to disguise the disappointment in my voice.
“Your family’s really sweet, and so are you. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” I said.
I was wrong. She was transmitting signals. Just not the ones I was hoping for.
Nineteen
Iblew through Friday night even though one of my friends had a party at his house. Granted there were only six guys at said party and all we did was sit around and play video games, but that would normally be sufficient to heighten my mood at the end of the school week. That night, though, all I could think about was waking up early and reporting for work at the Diaz Ranch the next day. And Bettina—would she be there? Hopefully, she’d leave me alone since I’d be working with Ray and the other guys. But why did she give me that killer-stare the day I picked up Khalil? Was she mad at seeing me somewhere I didn’t belong? Would she make me pay for it somehow? Khalil told me to “stay as far away from her as you can.” Sometimes I had my doubts about him, but he was smart and had firsthand experience with Bettina’s anger.
I was one of the first to arrive Saturday morning, so I pulled my car into the shady spot under the big oak tree. I figured I’d head over to the vineyard where I could see a few people already at work. One of the garage doors was fully open, so naturally I took a look to see if the Range Rover was there. I was hoping not to see it and I didn’t, even though the garage was full of cars. There was the Bentley. There was the tiny convertible, still covered with a tarp. There was the black Mercedes sedan. And there was a big, bright, shiny red truck. Brand new. No license plates. Double cab. Enough horsepower to pull my house around town. But no sign of the Range Rover, so I guessed I wasn’t in danger of running into Bettina, at least not right then.
Over in the vineyard I found Ray and Carlos, one of the other guys I’d worked with the previous weekend. Carlos was trimming while Ray unloaded buckets from the tractor that was parked between where the vineyard met the avocado grove.
“Beau,” Ray called out when he saw me. “You’re back. Wasn’t sure we were ever going to see you again.”
“Why’s that?” I asked somewhat hopefully. I didn’t think I had any choice but to come back.
“Just messin’ with ya, buddy.” He laughed. “Diaz told me you came last Sunday, and Bettina put you to work.”
Carlos chuckled at the sound of Bettina’s name, but he didn’t say anything.
“Yeah, well . . . at least I got in my hours.”
“That you did,” Ray said. “And then some, if you ask me. Should’ve probably counted for double. But enough of that, the question is what’re we going to do to keep you busy today?”
“Pick grapes?” I suggested.
“That didn’t work out so well last time if I remember correctly,” he said. “I’m not sayin’ you did a bad job, but you filled one bucket for every four the other guys picked. Last time I asked what you were good at and you said—”
“—building stuff.” I finished his sentence.
“And what kind of . . . stuff . . . would that be?”
“Anything. I like to work with my hands. I want to be a builder—get my contractor’s license one day. I’m pretty handy.”
“Well, I think I have just the project for you, in that case. You game?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m here to do whatever you tell me to do.”
“We’ve had a few near misses with rattlesnakes lately. It’s the time of year they’re thinking about going back to their dens and settling in for the season, so they’re on the move.”
“O . . . kay.”
What horror did Ray have planned for me? Was this something Bettina somehow finagled? Payback for whatever I did wrong the other day? Not giving her enough competition in croquet? Not doing the dishes when she asked? Showing up at her school where I didn’t belong? Existing?
“Well, needless to say Diaz doesn’t want them showing up poolside when he has friends over for a barbecue, or find one tangled up in the pool filter like last year.”
My stomach clenched at the idea of a rattlesnake tangled up in a pool filter. That concept didn’t resemble any reality I’d ever entertained.
“And we sure don’t want Bettina to trip across a six-footer while she’s out there pounding the croquet balls around the course or practicing her putting skills, do we?” He snickered.
“I don’t know about her, but personally I wouldn’t care for it,” I said.
Was he still messing with me? It was hard to tell with Ray. I thought about the shed and the orchard and how there hadn’t been any thought in my mind about rattlesnake encounters. Sure, I lived in California and knew they existed—but I lived in the city where we never saw them.
“Although the babies are much worse than the big ones.” Ray was still talking about rattlers. “They may be tiny and sound like a bumblebee instead of that frying bacon sound the big guys make, but they don’t know how to measure themselves so they release all their venom at once. But you know this already, right? I’m just boring you.”
<
br /> “Yeah, sure I know.”
I wasn’t bored, but I felt sure he was trying to get a rise out of me, so I played it cool.
“Serpiente cascabel.” Carlos grinned. He made a rattling sound by vibrating the tip of his tongue against the back of his teeth.
So, it was tease-Beau day again. Glad they were enjoying themselves at my expense, although I did notice Ray and Carlos both wore thick denim pants tucked into sturdy leather boots in spite of the warming sun.
“Alright, so I get it. What do you want me to do today?”
Twenty
Ray walked me over to the fenced-in part of the Diaz Ranch, the part that separated their personal living space from the rest of the Ranch. This included the pool, grassy lawn, and small orchard. I’d been in and out of the side gate a few times already, so I was familiar with it. What distinguished this fence from the fence that surrounded the publicly visible part of the ranch was that this one was made from metal bars spaced about four to five inches apart. Very decorative but sturdy. It was meant to keep out deer, coyotes and bobcats.
“We’re going to build a snake fence around this entire perimeter,” Ray said.
But apparently it wasn’t meant to keep out snakes.
“It should also have the added benefit of discouraging skunks and raccoons.”
Or skunks and raccoons.
“How do we do that?” I asked. I’d never heard of a snake fence.
“We’ll trench the entire perimeter right up against the fence. We’ll go down about eighteen inches and then sink some sturdy mesh before filling up the trench. The mesh will extend about yay high.” Ray leaned over and put his hand at about a level of two or three feet above ground. “You’ll have to tack it to the fence to keep it in place. Think you can handle it?”
“Yeah, sure.” It seemed easy enough although it looked to be an awesome amount of work considering the size of the property. “Where are the tools?”
“Follow me,” he said.
Lucky that Ray provided work gloves because I could already feel blisters sprouting even with them. Without gloves, my hands would’ve been raw meat after ten minutes. I could also tell my shoulders and arms were going to be crazy sore by the end of the day. Not to mention the backbreaking part of the job. The good part—I got to work on my own with nobody looking over my shoulder. Luckily, I’d remembered to bring hat, shades, and music source. I plugged in the earbuds and was ready to roll. Ray told me he wanted me to do all the trenching first, but to begin he wanted to see a stretch of the completed job on all of the yardage leading up to the side gate—maybe about twenty yards or so. He wanted to see the entire thing including the mesh fencing sunk, buried and tacked. He needed to make sure I was doing it right before giving me the go-ahead.
The work was monotonous, but there was a certain satisfaction each time I cinched one of the plastic ties, securing the mesh to the fence, and cut off the end of the tie with shears. I was making progress. Inch by inch. Foot by foot. And finally, yard by yard. Try to get through this fence, serpiente cascabel! I thought of Carlos’s imitation of the rattling sound and a shiver passed up my spine. Was Bettina’s spirit animal a rattler? I played around with that idea for a bit before finally rejecting it. She didn’t look anything like a snake. Her scary face that I’d first seen that time in the driveway when she said one way—I hadn’t seen much of it since then. Maybe I was overthinking the whole Bettina thing. And why was I even thinking about her when I could instead be focusing on my job, and the tunes, and Masie’s pretty face framed by those big chunky glasses—and the way she poked her tongue out while she concentrated on her work.
A shadow fell over me and for a second, I was confused about the weather. It’d been nothing but blue skies and sunshine when I started work that morning. I looked up at the sky and then whipped my head around. I pulled the earbuds out, my heart pounding.
“You scared me,” I said to Bettina, who stood behind me wearing really tight white jeans, a silky royal blue blouse and another pair of high-wedge sandals. She had on a big, broad-brimmed white straw hat and a different pair of oversize sunglasses. Her hair hung loose.
“Why do I always scare you?”
“Because you creeped up behind me. I didn’t know anyone was there.”
“On the contrary. I did not creep, I made a lot of noise. I even said hello.”
“Well, I had my earbuds in, so I didn’t hear you over the music.” My heart rate was back to normal, but a feeling of unease had settled in.
“That’s not my fault,” she said. “I did everything I could to make my presence known.”
“I never said it was your fault.” I sat on the ground and leaned up against the fence. I guessed it would be okay to rest a few minutes. I’d already accomplished a lot.
“But when you said I scared you, it sounded accusatory.”
“Well, it wasn’t accusatory. I was making a simple statement, that’s all.”
“Okay, I accept your apology.”
With her standing there, she blocked out the sun, so I pushed my glasses up off my face and wiped away the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.
“It wasn’t an apology,” I said. Shut up, Beau. Just cut your losses and let this girl be on her way. But I couldn’t. Why did Bettina get to me the way she did? “It was just a statement of fact.”
“Well, I choose to give you the benefit of the doubt and accept it as an apology.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“You have dirt on your face,” she said. “Where you just wiped.”
I started to wipe away the spot where I’d just wiped before realizing it wasn’t going to help.
“Now you have more,” she stated.
“That’s the least of my concerns,” I said. “I’d honestly better get back to work before your dad or Ray comes over and chews me out for slacking off.”
“Dad just left and Ray’s working in the vineyard.”
“In any case, I’d better get back to work because I want to finish up to the gate before Ray comes over to inspect.”
“But there’s something I wanted to tell you,” she insisted, and I knew I wasn’t going to get anything done until she had her say.
“Okay . . . what is it?”
“Actually, three things.”
“Number one,” I stood up and brushed the dirt off the back of my pants. With her tall sandals, she was the same height as me and we stood eye to eye. Or sunglasses to shades.
“Do you like my hat?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s fine, I guess. That’s number one?”
I couldn’t care less about her stupid hat.
“Guess where I got it.”
“Umm . . . I have no idea.”
“Guess.”
“Hawaii.”
“No, I mean guess what store.”
So where does a girl like her shop? I remembered Angie talking about Neiman Marcus for her wedding dress, but saying it was way too expensive. Maman was making all the dresses now.
“Neiman Marcus.”
“Nope. I got it at Target,” she announced just as proudly as Del would show us an A+ on his spelling test.
“Congratulations.” What does she want—a Brownie button?
“Remember, I told you I was going there last week?”
“Mmm hmm. Okay, back to work!”
I picked up the trenching shovel I’d been using and plunged it into the ground.
“Number two,” she said really loud.
“I can hear you,” I said. Even though I’d put the earbuds back in, I didn’t have the music turned on.
“It seems as if you’re listening to your music.”
“It’s not on.” I deposited a shovelful of earth to the side and plunged again.
“Number two. I talked to my dad last week and told him I didn’t want you to work here anymore. That it wasn’t your fault and I could pay for the deductible with
my own money.”
“And?” She had my interest. I leaned the shovel against the fence and turned to face her again.
“And he said that my money is really just his money and besides, you need to learn responsibility.”
“I know responsibility.”
“And I said that too. But he said you seemed like someone with character and you’d be offended if he didn’t carry through with the bargain. That it would be a good life lesson for you.”
“I wouldn’t be offended,” I mumbled.
“I didn’t think you would either,” she said. “But once Dad gets something into his head, it’s hard to talk him out of it.”
She removed the hat from her head and smoothed the side of her hair before replacing it. Her hair was shiny and silky, all loose like that under the sun. I retrieved the shovel from its resting place and plunged once again.
“Now comes the good part,” she said. The other two parts hadn’t been so good, so I guessed anything else had to be better.
“Is that number three?”
“Did you see my new car?”
“Nope.”
By then I’d dug enough to lay down a whole row of wire mesh. I walked back to the place where I’d left off and she followed, I suppose waiting for my undivided attention before sharing number three.
“It’s in the garage,” she said. “I left the door open this morning so you could see it.”
I had to think for a second. “I looked in your garage and I saw your regular cars. Plus a truck.”
“That’s it!” It was the first real smile I’d ever seen on her face and it looked pretty good. At least better than what was usually there. “That’s my new car.”
“The new truck is your new car?”
“Yeah, do you like it?”
“Well, yeah, I mean I like it a lot. But I’m kind of surprised you’d want it.”
I walked along the length of trench that I’d dug and unrolled the mesh.
“Do you think you could grab that other end and lower it into the hole when I tell you?” I asked. “It’s kind of hard to do that part with just one person.”
As quick as a squirrel, she scampered over to pick up the other end of the mesh roll.
Beau and Bett Page 8