Chapter 4

I knew that Pat would be here as soon as she got out of school. I was right. The phone rang.

"Hi, Pat," I said. I noted that Lita was watching me.

"You two made it home?"

"Yep. We're here. Getting settled in."

"What's she think?"

"Hang on. Let me ask 'er." I turned to Lita. "Pat wants to know what you think of the place."

"It's a..." she paused, searching for the word. "Palacio. A ... palace. A home."

"Happy words," I told Pat. "So you're coming to meet her?"

"As soon as I can get there."

"Okay. We'll see you soon."

I re-holstered my phone. "Pat wants to meet you."

Lita turned bashful. "Will she like me?"

"She will like you."

"You do not think I am a ... an intrusion?"

I'm thinking of what manner of Guatemalan orphan can use the word 'intrusion'. "No, you're not an intrusion. You're an addition." Then, "You're an enhancement."

"Enhancement," she repeated. "Means that it is better, yes?"

"Better. Yes."

"But I am not your plan."

"Lita, my plan was to spend another evening alone in my hotel room, then drive that long drive home by myself. You have provided me with somebody to talk with, if nothing else."

"But you bought me things. Food."

"Worth every penny."

"I am trouble."

"Not trouble," I countered. "Besides, I am responsible for you. I will NOT turn you over to people who do not care. I care."

I did care, I told myself. It was easy for me to take a stand against illegal immigration as a principle, but here I was, faced with what happens to this one little teenaged girl. Sometimes one's view of a problem changes when the problem has a face. She was sitting cross-legged at the other end of the sofa from me. Make that a soft, rounded, CUTE face, a slightly prominent bottom lip when she was sad or concerned, brown eyes that came alive when she smiled or laughed. I was trying to imagine her when her hair grew out a bit. Right now it was of a length that was not long enough to identify her as a girl.

"You are thinking," she said.

"What makes you say that?"

"I see your face. I know you are thinking."

"I am. I am thinking about how I cannot give up on Lita."

And there was a knock on the door. "That would be my sister," I said as I got up to open the door. She came straight in, stopping long enough to give me a hug.

Carlita was standing.

"You're Carlita. I'm Dave's sister Patricia. Everybody calls me Pat."

"Hello, Pat. Your brother has rescued me. Please call me 'Lita'."

"Sit down, you two. We can talk," I said. I was trying to decipher the look on Pat's face. Lita's expression was easy. She was apprehensive.

Pat spoke to me, first. "Gee, Dave ... Lita ... I couldn't have left 'er on the side of the road."

"I did not give him a choice at first," Lita asserted. "I hid in the back of his truck."

"I've seen his truck, Lita. You could have brought some friends," Pat said, trying to defuse the conversation.

Lita missed the joke. "I had no friends. That is why I was on my own. If I had stayed with the others I feared they would find out I was a girl. Being a girl with those people would not have been good. I would not live..."

"It's that bad?" Pat stays more or less informed on issues of the day, but I keep telling her that she only sees the aspects of news that slant in a certain direction.

"Yes, Pat," Lita said softly. "Many young boys and men. Few young girls. Much bad. Very bad. I knew. I saw. That is why this..." She touched her short hair. "And the clothes I was wearing when Dave found me."

"These clothes look new," Pat said.

"Yes. Dave took me to Wal-Mart..."

"Dave, you sad thing," Pat said. "She needs better than Wal-Mart."

"I'm a guy, Pat. I knew Wal-Mart had what we needed to get by. I will leave it to you to get her properly outfitted."

"You don't have to do that, Dave," Lita said. "This is good. Better than I ever had."

"Oh, Lita," Pat laughed. "Let him spoil you. You need good things. Dave doesn't know. I can help you."

Lita's face brightened. "You would help me also?"

"Of course." She sighed heavily. "I don't imagine that Dave bought you things like shampoo and girl things."

"I need things. My monthly ... In maybe a day. Maybe two."

Pat looked at me. "You're clueless."

"He is a good man. He did not know and I did not say. His money..."

"Money's not his problem, Lita. Would you like to go with me to shop for things?"

"You would take me?" Lita was incredulous.

I wasn't. Pat and I have the same dad and we're both suckers for strays.

"Of course I will, dear," Pat said.

I pulled my wallet and extracted a credit card. "Whatever you two think you need," I said.

"This is too much. I cannot repay..."

"Not a question of you repaying, Lita," I said.

"Let's go, Lita. We can shop, then decide what to do for dinner," Pat said. She turned to me. "Dave, we'll let you know how it's going, okay?"

I caught Lita looking over her shoulder at me as she left with my sister.

I let them go, busying myself around the house, unpacking the detritus from a week on the road, putting on laundry, running the vacuum cleaner, making Lita's bed.

Wait. 'Lita's bed'. Did I really understand what that meant? I mean, I am preparing for a fourteen year old girl to live with me. To be sure, she has a haircut like a boy, but she's still a young girl. Oh well, I can do this. I don't often run around my own house in the nude. I can just make SURE I don't run around my house in the nude.

I fire up my laptop, my personal email account, and check, hoping that some of my forays into the world of undocumented immigrants might yield a result. I can hope. There's ALWAYS hope. However, I don't have high expectations. That's why I wasn't disappointed when nothing showed up but a couple of promises to email me if any information came up.

I knew that one of the priests at the local Catholic church was Hispanic. I considered giving him a call. I desperately need insight into a world I've never had to deal with. I can do power systems and control systems in ways that amaze some people who know what they're doing, but I've never delved into a world that lies right below the surface of society. Searching for Tia Estella was part of that.

I was a couple of chapters deeper into a book when my phone rang. I looked. Pat.

"Yeah, Sis."

"We're headed for that Chinese restaurant," she said. "Meet us there."

"Lita does Chinese?"

"Lita said she would like to try Chinese."

"Is she okay?"

Giggle. "Of course she's okay. I don't abuse children."

"That's not what your students say."

"The process of learning is often painful," Pat said. "Bye!"

I pulled out onto the street in my little personal SUV and headed out to meet the pair of shoppers. I pulled into the restaurant parking lot and spotted Pat's own SUV while I searched for a parking spot. By the time I parked, the pair was out of her car waiting for me.

First thing I noticed was Lita's haircut. No, it was still alarmingly short, but it had obviously been worked over. The result was a short, sassy 'do, maybe something you'd see one of those 'alternative' girls sporting. And she was looking at me expectantly.

I laughed. "New look for my Lita," I said. Immediately I realized that I'd said 'my Lita'. Freudian slip?

Lita caught it,, too, I saw. Her eyes flashed above a grin that increased in intensity by three decibels. To us electrical types, that's just enough to be discernible as a change. In the positive direction.

"The girls at my hair salon did the best they could, Dave," Pat said. "I think it's cute..."

"So do I," I admitted. Caught another flash from Lita.

"Sharissa said that if we kind of keep showing up every month as it grows back out, they can do things with it." Pat smiled. "Trying to let Lita be a girl again."

Lita struck a little pose, hand on hip, one knee bent, head tilted as she smiled.

"Yeah," I said. "It's working." Inside I was thinking that just what I needed was a fourteen year old illegal orphan who not only had fastened herself to my life, but who was also fastening herself to my heart. Was showing alarming levels of cute. And I think she knows it.

We went inside for dinner. I let Pat explain the workings of a Chinese buffet.

"I can have ANYTHING?"

"Yes."

"As much as I want?"

"Yes."

Enjoy it? She did. I paid. I followed the pair back to the house afterward. I couldn't see Lita's head, but I could see Pat's and I could tell that they were talking. I pulled beside my company truck in my driveway and Pat parked behind me.

"Come get Lita's bags, Dave," Pat commanded.

I obeyed. Quite a few bags. The front door unlocked when we approached and Pat pushed it open. She and Lita went inside. I followed.

"I need to put these in my bathroom," Lita announced, bouncing up the hall with a bag from a drugstore.

"She's a doll," Pat said. "So damned bright. And you're right. Her English is better than most of my students'. Just that little accent."

"Told you."

"It's not gonna look good, Dave," she said, voicing what I knew was a truth. Fourteen year old girl – late twenties guy. "I asked her, though. She wants to stay here. She did say that tomorrow night she will stay at my house. Try it on for size, so to speak." Pat's voice was soft. "Might be better..."

I nodded.

Lita came bouncing out. "Dave, what is a 'green card'? I hear about green cards. How to get one. I think that my Tia Estella has a green card. I just remembered."

"That's something we can track," I said. "Monday I will try to see what I can find out."

"And another thing, Dave," Lita said. "You can look for the man who used to run the orphanage. He was from Texas."

"Thirty million people in Texas," I said. "It's nine hundred miles wide."

"I have his name and an address."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"I have it written down," she said. "In my little book."

I'd seen the little book when she transferred her meager belongings to the new backpack. I had no idea that it was anything other than a tiny keepsake from a life before this.

"This ... two days, one night ... it is happening so fast. I have so many thoughts. Now things are slowing down and I am safe and I can think."

Pat and I swapped glances. "Those are two good ones, Dave," Pat said.

"I know."

"Let me get my book," Lita said. She went to her room, came back. Looked at the pile of bags. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I forget my manners. You bought me all these things. Dave, let me show you..." She smiled, took the bags and went back to her room. My eyes followed.

"What an interesting young person," Pat said. "I don't know if I could have survived what she's been through."

"You talked?"

"Yes, we talked. She told me where she came from and how she got here. Brave little girl."

What showed up coming out of the hallway might not have been physically tall, but she pushed the 'little girl' thing pretty hard. Shorts. Bright orange. Cotton blouse. Blue. Both fit well. And those crazy pink athletic shoes we'd bought the day before.