“I am learning from him, Mama.”

“Good. You’re a smart girl, Carlotta. I’m sure you’ll find a way to help out more. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

I end the call and place the phone back on the charger. It would be nice to have a cell phone, so I could talk to her more often instead of leaving it up to chance that I’ll be home when she calls. It’s not like I would waste minutes on it talking to someone else. Only two people call us. Mama, when she’s really missing us—or she wants to know how much money we’ve saved up—and Julio’s restaurant manager, who wants to know if he can work late or come in on his day off. But Julio won’t even pay for cable, let alone a cell phone. Not when we have a perfectly working landline. He wouldn’t even pay for that if it wasn’t essential to our cause.

I walk to the couch and fold the clean towels in the laundry basket next to me, then I gather Julio’s and my dirty clothes and get them ready to take to Señora Perez’s. I wash the few dishes in the sink, then wipe down the counters. The closer to the slow cooker I get, the worse it smells. I open it up to get a peek.

Then I take a pizza out of the freezer and preheat the oven.

The phone rings again, while I’m opening the box of my dinner. I wonder what Mama forgot to say. But it’s Julio who greets me on the other end. He must be borrowing a friend’s cell phone. “Carlotta, do you work tonight?”

“Yes, I’m getting some things done, then I’m going to try to sleep before my shift. Why?”

“Make sure you turn the slow cooker off before you go to sleep. Does it smell good?”

“Nope.”

He snickers. “Pick me up a candy bar at the store? I’ve been craving one of those nutty chocolate things. The ones with the red wrapper.”

I gasp. “Spend money on candy? Julio, where is your head?” I’m only teasing, but this seems to actually get under his skin.

“They’re two for a dollar still, right?” He sounds worried.

“Yes. I was just kidding. I don’t care if you want a candy bar, Julio.”

He sighs into the phone. “I’m not always going to be cheap, you know. When Mama and Papi are back, I’ll buy you all the candy you want.”

I feel bad now, because I didn’t mean anything by it, and I would buy Julio a hundred candy bars if he asked for them. Next time, I decide, I’ll keep my mouth shut. “Mama called,” I say, changing the subject. “She wants you to call her.”

“Did she get the money we wired her yesterday?” It’s generous for Julio to say “we” since it’s mostly his money we transfer to them each week.

“She didn’t say.” Both of them ask me money questions, but neither of them want to talk in actual numbers. I wonder if they think I’m too young to know about such things, or I wonder if they think they’re protecting me from the big bad world of finances—or the lack thereof. I’d love to correct them on both accounts, but I can’t think of a scenario in which I’d actually speak up and say this.

“Okay. I’ll call her when I get home tonight. Get some sleep, bonita.”

I hang up and pop the pizza in the oven, feeling guilty that I splurged on buying a few frozen pizzas this week instead of buying Julio any chocolate. I should eat Julio’s slow cooker concoction—or whatever else he makes. I should be more grateful that he still bothers to prepare a portion for me at all.

I should be more grateful, period.

Ten

Deputy Glass pulls his cop car into the parking lot of the Breeze Mart. It didn’t take much effort on Arden’s part to persuade the deputy to come to the little convenience store on the edge of town to check up on Carly. “She was here all alone that night, you know,” Glass says. “What kind of parents would let a girl her age work a shift like that?”

Arden is beginning to wonder himself. “Do you mind if just I go in? She’s a friend from school.”

Glass gives a reluctant nod. “Fine. But hurry up. Roger’s on a call for a domestic downtown so I’m up next.”

“Will do.”

Deputy Glass lets Arden ride with him sometimes on slow nights. One of the few perks of being the sheriff’s son. He gets to go on calls, which mostly consist of domestic disputes, reports of drunk drivers, and old people reporting the violation of noise ordinances.

Old people.

“I’ll just be a few minutes,” Arden says, shutting the door behind him.

The bells hanging from the door jingle as he enters. Carly is already waiting for him. “Why are you in a cop car?” she asks. “The sheriff’s son gets his own personal taxi?”

“Nice to see you too,” he says. He makes his rounds of the store, grabbing some gum and some chips and some beef jerky for Glass. When he circles back to the register, Carly has already dug back into her homework.

“I thought it would be nice to check on you,” he tells her, chucking his purchases on top of her graph paper. “Heard you got robbed the other day.”

She lifts her chin. “You heard wrong. Mr. Shackleford did. Of his dignity.”

So much for trying to be cute. Nothing works on this girl. “Does the owner know you do your homework on the clock?”

She shrugs. “He doesn’t care as long as I get my work done and my customers are satisfied.”

“Well then, maybe you should put the pencil down and ring me up.”