Chapter 8

She's safe here. Hasn't been a week and this girl seems to have insinuated herself into my life.

In bed together like a couple of kids, totally chaste. As for myself, I relish the warmth and comfort of having her there. Little times during the night, I feel a hand reach over and touch me – my back, my arm, my shoulder, as if she's reassuring herself that I'm real.

I find myself waking up with her pulled back against me is comforting, like I'm absorbing some kind of calming, soothing energy from her placid form.

Of course, people move around in their sleep.

I woke up to the sound of the alarm on the nightstand. Instant erection. During the night Lita has slid down in the bed. She was still cuddled up, her arm over me, but her face was resting on my belly right above my pubic mound.

The alarm's insistent tone woke her as well. In the dim light of the room she saw where she was. I don't know what I expected, maybe for her to recoil in horror or something. Instead she hugged me harder, nestling her face into my belly.

"I do not like you having to go, Dave."

"Me, neither. You can stay in bed. I am used to getting up by myself."

"One more hug." And she did it again. I KNOW she knows where she is. She finally scooted up, kissed my cheek. "Thank you. I slept well." She bounced out of bed. I eased out, watching her walk up the hall toward her room. I hit the bathroom, was getting dressed when she showed back up. I was tucking my shirt into my pants. She watched.

"I am going to miss you today," she said.

"I will miss you as well, Carlita," I said. Here's where I was supposed to stop. I didn't. "I have gotten used to having you around."

"Five days. Five very good days, Dave," she said. "I hope Brother Bob can help us."

"Me, too."

"Let us have breakfast," she said. "Show me how to help."

"Coffee," I said. "And cereal."

"You fix the coffee. I would like some coffee. I will fix cereal."

My coffee is a ritual. By the time I had it working, I turned and she had two bowls on the breakfast table. I sat down across the table from my Lita. She smiled. "Last banana. We need more. Can we go shop after you come home?"

"Yes. We need bananas and you need a swimsuit."

"Why do I need a swimsuit?"

"If we go on the boat this weekend, we may wish to swim."

"I do not know how to swim."

"I will teach you."

She smiled at me. "I saw those other people swimming. I wanted to ... but I never..."

"It's easy."

We finished our cereal. I poured the coffee, a cup for her, my travel mug for me. I started to leave.

"No," she said softly. "Sit for just a minute and drink coffee with me ... It is a thing we should do."

"Okay," I said. I looked at those brown eyes, the softly rounded, softly smiling face across the table from me.

"This is what I shall do today," she said, and she laid out her plans.

"You're not my slave, Lita. Do not work so hard."

"I am your partner, and I will work as I see fit." She gave me a determined look, and my mind is doing backflips over the 'I am your partner' comment.

Carlita's turn:

I am in a place I never knew I would be. I once knew I would be in America. Many times during my trip I thought maybe I would not. I acted like a young boy. Young girls did not fare well.

I found Dave when he found me. Here I am. One day I will tell more of my story. Today, though, I have been with Dave since last Thursday. It is Tuesday, not a whole week since I met him.

He is going to work. I am staying home. Home. His house that he has told me to use as my own for as long as I want to be here. Poor Dave. Where else would I want to be?

I fix him breakfast while he makes coffee. He is going to give me a cup of coffee and run out the door. I make him sit with me for a few minutes. It is early morning, a time when people think differently than they do later in the day.

I can tell that he is anxious to leave for work, but I make him talk with me. There is something in his eyes this morning that is different.

I think I know what it is. We have been sleeping in the same bed. Dave worries. He explains to me about American laws about men and young girls. I am fourteen. I will be fifteen in two months. I have grown breasts, but they are not big like some girls. My father, he was not Guatemalan. I think I got some of that from him. But I am a girl.

The first night we were together in a hotel room in Texas, he put me in my own bed, a huge bed such as I had never imagined I would sleep in. And in the middle of the night, the bed was too big, so I got in bed with HIM. I think it scared him.

He tried. Dave, apparently, is one who tries to be good and proper. He tried to get me to stay with his sister. She lives right up the street. She is not married. She has the room in her house. It was very nice, as nice as Dave's. I don't know why I started crying that night, but I asked for Dave.

I'm sorry, Pat. I don't know why I find Dave necessary. He came over in the middle of the night and got me and tried to put me in my own bed. I talked him into letting me into his, just to be close to somebody who would not hurt me. I have heard stories.

Dave is not the man in those stories. He is not one of the loud young men on the trip, who bragged about their ways with women and their experiences. There is a macho image, and then there is real. Dave is real.

This morning, I woke up in a different place. The alarm clock makes noise and wakes Dave up. It wakes me up, too, and I find that I am holding onto Dave and my cheek is on his stomach. It is soft and firm and warm and comforting and I snuggle into him and make him stay in bed just a little long.

Dave thinks I am completely innocent. I am, but I am not stupid. We do breakfast and I make him sit with me for coffee, and he gets up and is going out of the house to go to work and I know from American television that there is something I need to do.

He is headed to the door.

"Stop," I said.

He stopped, looked at me like he was going to ask me why.

I moved. Stretched up, and kissed him on the cheek. He looked surprised.

"When the man leaves for work, the woman kisses him. I have watched American TV."

"The woman is his wife, Lita."

It is my turn to smile. Not much. I do not want to scare him. "Come back home, Dave. I will be here."

I return to the kitchen. There is a dishwasher machine, but I do not know how to use it, and I know about water and soap. I do the dishes. If it is going to be my home, I will be the one who takes care of it.

Dave says that all the books and all the disks of video and the TV are mine to use. And a computer. I know he stuck an old cellphone in his pocket before he left. He says it will be mine.

I am not being nosy. It is a poor farmer who does not know his fields. I walk through the house, opening doors, peeking at cabinets and closets, then out into the garage, and into the back yard. There is a patio. A device to cook ... His brother prepared meat on one yesterday. I want to work with Dave to use ours.

The yard is small but private. There are trees. It is cool in the morning. I know about the heat later.

All these things are running through my head. I am learning so many things and there are so many more things I need to learn.

Dave says 'relax and read or watch TV or whatever'. I need to read but I need to know things. That means the computer. Dave showed me a little bit, so I propped up in HIS chair, he says 'recliner', with the computer, and I start looking at things I need to know. When I lay my head back, I can smell Dave. It is a good smell.

The keyboard. All the letters in the wrong places. Dave says one finger touches the same letter every time and that I need to use ALL my fingers, so Lita has to force herself to LEARN.

I look at the computer until the middle of the morning. I have another plan. I open my notebook and look for the phone number for Brother Bob. I got a nice lady who gave me another number. I called it. I recognized the voice, even though it was far away.

"Brother Bob, this is Carlita..."

"Mia Carlita, mi Corazon," he said. He sounded happy to hear me. "I see a phone number in America."

"I am in America. Did you talk to a man about me?"

"Yes, I did. Carlita, are you okay? Not in trouble?"

"I am very okay. I am not legal. I need to be legal."

"I am working on that, Carlita. Your friend..."

"Dave," I said softly. Why do I feel warm when I say his name?

"Yes, Dave ... Carlita, will Dave be able to pay some money... mordida?"

"Brother Bob, Dave owes me nothing. He found me behind the seat of his truck, and he has done nothing but take care of me since then. He has spent money on me."

"He may be asked to spend more. The people who do this thing, they are good at it because they are inside the government of Guatemala, but they are doing something illegal as well. They want money."

"I know. I tried that. I did not have that much money."

"It can be done. If there is money."

"I will pray that there is money, Brother Bob. Dave is a good man."

"So everything is okay, then."

"Yes. I have a place to BE. Not just stay, but BE."

"Carlita, I always marvel at your English."

"You taught me, Brother Bob."

"No, I started to teach you. You kept going."

"Dave had books in his house. There is a ... library I can walk to. Dave's sister teaches high school. I will become educated."

"You are educated, Lita."

"I will become MORE educated."

"I called people yesterday about your needs, Lita."

"They make these ... documents, correct? The documents are not real?"

"Yes, that is true. The person you become is not you. You will still be Carlita, but you will have a new birth certificate and a passport..."

"And student visa?"

"Normally you are too young for a student visa."

"Then make me eighteen." There. I said it. If I was going to be a new, official, Carlita, then I would be a Carlita who is old enough to do things, make decisions on her own in America.

"Carlita, you do not look..."

"Brother Bob, we both see so many people. Young people. Old people. It is very hard to look at people and know how old they are. You did not look seventy..."

"I do now, I'm afraid," he said.

"And I look young, but nobody can look at me and say for certain I am fourteen or eighteen. So eighteen, please?"

"I will call them. I will call your Dave this evening and talk about money."