Chapter 3

Lita was snuggled against my back. A little shiver from her slight form provided an acceptable reason for her move. She didn't put her arm around me or wiggle or give any other indication that this was anything but a way to handle sleeping in an air-conditioned room after weeks of sleeping outdoors or in makeshift shelters.

I surmised that the kid had already had enough trauma in her life without me making a big deal out of this so I went back to sleep, albeit rather fitfully. It's been a long time since I slept with somebody, especially somebody who was, in my mind, forbidden fruit. Still, I slept, drifting deeper into darkness.

I woke up to a wiggle. Not mine. Hers. She was trying to slide out of bed without waking me. I sat up. "Lita?"

"I'm sorry, Dave, I shouldn't have done this..."

"What did you do?"

"I got into bed with you. I was cold and I have never slept in a bed as big as that one by myself. And I felt alone..."

"You don't have to apologize, Lita. Nothing happened. We just slept."

"Good girls do not sleep with men. Especially men they only met that day."

"What good girls don't do has nothing to do with sleeping," I said.

Her brown eyes flashed, then a little smile grew. "It is... 'sleeping' ... it's a nice way to say something without using other words that sound bad. There is a word I cannot remember..."

"Euphemism?"

"Yes. Greek root. 'Eu' means good, nice..."

"Fourteen year old Guatemalan waifs are not supposed to know Greek roots."

"Books. Many books."

"Okay," I laughed. "I forget. Lita is smart."

She cast her eyes downward. "Do you think so?"

"I do," I replied. "Go get dressed. We need breakfast, then we drive to my home."

"Dave," she said in a 'little girl' voice, "Are you angry that I got in bed with you?"

"No, I am not. But Lita, I can get in much trouble for that if others find out. There are many laws to protect young girls in this country."

"We did not do anything, Dave. We slept."

"The people who enforce those laws will not understand or believe that, Lita."

"I will not speak of it. We did no wrong. You have done much right for me, Dave."

"Thank you. I am happy to help, but there are too many people in the world who would see me with bad intent."

She sat, pajama-clad, on her bed, legs crossed. Totally charming, except, maybe, for that too-short haircut. "Do they think that you search the desert for helpless girls?"

"You're trying to make logic of it. Logic has no place to those with an agenda."

"Agenda?"

I forgot. She does have a great command of English, but it's not her native tongue. "They look at things with a single goal in mind. If what they see does not match what they desire, they start shedding truth to make things fit."

"Oo-oohhhh! I understand. Agenda. I will remember it. I had an agenda. Save Carlita and find Tia Estella."

"I do not mind YOUR agenda. You will not put me in jail. Now go get dressed."

She grinned, bounced off the bed, grabbed some clothes and hit the bathroom. When the door closed, I hurried with my own dressing.

I was putting on shoes when she came out, passing her hand across the top of her head. "I so much want to look like a girl again," she said.

I surveyed the clean, neat creature in front of me. Definitely a girl. "You're definitely a girl," I said.

She caught my eyes, put her hands over her smallish breast bumps. "I am small there, too. Most girls my age are larger."

"If you were larger, you would not have made it this far. You can barely hide those."

"I did not want them noticed. THEM I don't care about. My hair ... I so much look like a boy."

"Hair will grow. I know boys who wear theirs longer than yours and girls who wear theirs shorter. You don't look strange."

That got me a little smile.

"Put your shoes on. Let's pack our stuff up."

Ten minutes later we were out in the parking lot and a short time after that, seated in a little diner for breakfast.

I watched her read the menu. She asked questions. I told her what I liked. We gave our order to the Latina waitress. Lita smiled, said something in Spanish to her that got a smile in return.

She saw me smile as the waitress left. "It is good to be pleasant to people," she said.

"Yes it is, Lita."

"I watched you. You try to be nice. It is good."

She devoured her breakfast. "Breakfast. Yesterday I had no breakfast. Today, I have too much breakfast."

"I don't indulge like this very often."

"Indulge. Eat too much?" she asked.

"Indulge. Give somebody more than they need, maybe. I don't NEED to eat a breakfast like this every day. Today's special, though."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I have you with me."

Her face brightened up. "You do not think I am troublesome?"

"No. Different. Not trouble."

The waitress asked about coffee. I looked at Lita. "Do you?"

Her head bobbed. She held up two fingers. "Dos, por favor." Smiled.

"I will take care of YOU, too, Dave," she smiled. "You are taking care of me."

That made me smile.

"How long until we get home?" she asked.

I noted the 'we' and 'home'. "A little less than six hours," I said. "No, make that seven. We'll stop someplace for lunch."

"Not McDonald's," she grinned. "I have had McDonald's now."

I laughed. "I generally feel that way about McDonald's myself, Lita. We can talk about what to eat when we get hungry again."

"What do you eat at home?"

"Oh, that varies. I eat simply. Cooking for one is a pain. Sometimes my sister and I will cook and eat together. Sometimes I have friends over. Sometimes I go out to eat."

"But you always have food."

"And you didn't."

"There were days I was hungry coming here."

"I'm sorry."

"Do not be sorry. I am here. It is better than staying in Guatemala."

I paid our check, talking about things all the while to Lita. I didn't know what she did or did not know about the way we did things in America. It was evident when we walked out to the truck.

"Your credit card? You use it like money."

"Yes. It keeps me from having to carry actual money. Not as much, anyway."

"How much is too much?"

"I generally have a hundred dollars on me, in case I want to buy something on the side of the road or in case of an emergency."

"A hundred dollars. Just like that."

"It sounds like a lot of money, but it's really not. I like to have a little cash for the road."

"I think I understand."

"There are many ways to do business, Lita."

"You do not mind me asking all these questions?"

"No. You want to learn. I like that."

"I will learn." She sat back. I heard a click, glanced sideways and caught her grinning at me. "See! I learned."

I laughed, "Yes, you did."

"If you did not have to show me, though, I would still be Carlos."

"How long do you think you were going to keep being Carlos?"

"I do not know. It is better that I am Carlita now, I think."

"I would have tried to help Carlos."

"A man is more likely to protect a girl, I think."

"You may be right."

"I am right."

She was. Charmingly, disarmingly right. Still, along with the cuteness and the need, Lita was a major change in my life. My head was running a string of thoughts.

"Do you think we will be able to find my tia?"

"I don't know. This is a new thing for me. I'm sure somebody will know something. We'll just have to look hard."

The drive from South Texas up towards Houston was revelatory to Lita. The view from US 59 is a constant stream of businesses on the highway and homes a bit further back. "It's all so BIG and NEW," she said.

"Yeah," I replied. "Houston's overflowing south pretty fast."

"This is Houston?"

"Technically, no, it's one little town after another. They all just grow together into one big blob. I guess it could be called the Houston metropolitan area."

There's no way I'm driving through Houston, not with a toll road looping well outside it. I took the toll road. The company foots the bill for a few bucks in tolls. I live longer without the aggravation of the higher traffic on the freeways. Lita's head was on a swivel. She saw the high rise buildings of downtown.

"That's the middle of Houston," I said. "We're in the middle of eight million people."

"I am glad I did not come here by myself."

I mulled that thought. I don't know how I would have done it myself, not at fourteen. "I'm glad you didn't try."

"I was going to try. Everybody said 'Go to Houston'. I was going." She gazed out the window. "Now I am NOT. Since I have now seen Houston, I am glad."

"Not my favorite place," I said. "I go there when I need to go there, no more than that."

"The orphanage was not far from the city," Lita said. "Much good in the city for the right people. Much bad, too, for too many people. No place for Lita. I hear of people, young people, who live on the streets."

Her eyes saddened. "I was afraid I was going to be one. Then I decide to come to find my Tia Estella. I did not have much chance, but better chance than staying in Guatemala."

I am thinking of history, the great migrations of my ancestors who left Europe for the New World, never again to see or hear the family they left behind. I glanced over at the dark-haired waif beside me. That's where she was right now.

I didn't harbor much hope for finding her aunt, but I wasn't even giving a hint of a thought about turning her over to the government for their tender mercies. I had images of the same group of people who gave us the IRS, TSA and public toilets and what they'd do dealing with this fascinatingly intelligent young girl.

Once we passed the majority of Houston, I asked her about lunch.

"I do not know what to choose."

"Okay. I know a place. We try it. I need to see what I need to feed Carlita."

"Carlita will live quite well on dry tortillas."

"No, Carlita may exist on dry tortillas, but we can't call that 'living'."

She smiled. "You used that word one way. I used it another. It is good to speak English with you, Dave."

"Lita, I'm amazed that you speak it as well as you do, but please, if I talk too fast or you don't know a word, stop me."

"So I can learn."

"So you can learn. I do not want to embarrass you, though."

"I won't be embarrassed."

"You shouldn't be. Like I told my sister, you speak better English than a lot of people who've been speaking it all their lives."

We drove along silently for a few minutes. She broke the silence, asking the question that I'd been asking myself. "Dave, what happens if we cannot find Tia Estella?"

"Gosh, Lita, I don't know. What does Lita think?"

"That Lita is fourteen years old and does not have family in America. Or Guatemala. And fourteen is too young..."

"Lita, you have me. I rescued you. I will take care of you until you decide you need to move on, and if you DO move on, then I am a phone call away." Then I parsed my OWN words. Mighty committal of me.

"You would do that?"

"Of course. It's the correct thing to do. What are my other choices?"

"You did not start this trip thinking you would find me."

"No, I didn't. But since I have, I have responsibility for you."

"Responsibility," she said carefully.

"Yes. Duty."

"Duty can be bad," she said. "Hard. Difficult."

"Or pleasant. Easy. Enjoyable. The duty to care for the garden means that one can see the flowers."

"The same goes for cleaning the baño."