Chapter 5

During our walk back to my house, I tried to assure that Margarita understood the things that we three adult English-speakers had decided for her, and why. I explained that she would be staying with me only because I had more room to accommodate her.

"And you are not required to stay here," I said. "You are not a prisoner. You can leave here at any time. But it would be difficult, Margarita, for you to make it, without help."

"I do not wish to leave," she said. "If you are willing to continue helping me, I would like to stay here, with you. And I will try to do what I can, to help you, in return. I can cook, a little. I can clean your house."

"Sure, you can help. But there's not that much to do. I'm a decent housekeeper, for a man. But sure, you can help. Perhaps you can help Carol, too. With the care of her children."

"Yes. I would like to do that."

"Tomorrow, Carol will go with us, shopping for clothes and other supplies, for you."

"But. I don't know how I will repay you for all this."

"It isn't going to be anything elaborate," I said. "You don't have to worry about repayment."

Margarita laughed. "I am not much like a wetback," she said.

"What?"

"Isn't that what we are called? The Mexicans who come across the river, sneaking into the United States? The wetback?"

"Yes, that's what they are sometimes called."

"But I come across the border sleeping in an air-conditioned truck, with its own big bed! And I have dinner with an American family that evening, here, in the United States. And now, in the morning, Americans are going to take me shopping."

"Yes," I said, smiling. "I see what you mean. You have been more fortunate than many of your countrymen."

"There are many who would have paid you thousands of dollars for such treatment," she said.

"Well, I'm not in the business for profit," I said, laughing. "Your -- circumstances -- were unique."

"If you had been someone else," Margarita said, "I would have just been a naked girl on a bed, to be fucked."

I was shocked at her choice of words -- even if she had spoken it in Spanish. It was the first time Margarita had spoken to me in this manner. "I don't know," I said. "I think many men would have reacted as I did, to your -- captivity."

"Some would, yes. Some others, I'm not so certain."

"It doesn't matter. You are safe now. We must look to your future. One of the things Carol emphasized tonight, and I agree, is that you must learn English, right away! Carol and Earl suggested you travel with me, on some of my trips in the rig, and learn to speak English that way."

"I would like that," she said immediately.

"Yes, it's a good idea. But also, I would like it if you would take classes. They have classes called 'English as a Second Language, ' that you could go to, evenings."

"I will do whatever you say," she said.

"Well, we'll need some papers for you," I told her. "Some identification. For now, I guess enrolling you in a formal class might be tricky."

Back at my house, I showed Margarita the guest bedroom, found an old t-shirt for her to wear as bedclothes, and told her I was going to go to bed early, as it had been a long two days on the road.

"Meester Prescott," she said in English, standing at the guest room doorway, "Theese no eez necessary."

The accents were heavy, but her English wasn't all that bad.

"What is not necessary?" I asked.

"You are, you are -- " she decided to lapse back into Spanish, in the name of more comfortable communication: "You are treating me as a guest, and, from me, you are getting nothing. It isn't necessary."

"I don't understand," I said. And I didn't.

She decided to speak directly. "If you want me to sleep in your bed, I will not object."

"You are trying, again, to pay me, with your body, for helping you?"

"You have been very kind to me, and you have asked me for nothing," she said. "But it is not necessary that you get -- nothing."

"You are not a whore," I said. "You do not need to pay, with your body, for anything that I have provided."

"But -- what if I do not object?" she said.

"No."

"You do not consider me attractive?" she said.

"Don't be foolish," I said. I wanted to tell her not to be coy, but I didn't know how to convey the idea of 'coy' in Spanish. "We both know that I consider you very attractive. You are a beautiful young woman. But you are too young, for me."

"Soon, I will be 18.

"Yes, and I will soon be 34."

"Not so old," Margarita said, smiling shyly.

"Twice as old as you."

"But, in the USA, is it not, at 18, legal?"

"I think so," I told her, "but the question, for me, hasn't come up. My woman friends have all been well over 18 -- at least, they have been, since I was myself well over 18."

"I will be 18, on the sixth day of August," she said.

"Three months from today."

She smiled. "Yes. In three months. But if you don't want to wait until then, I am all grown up, even now." She pointed her lush little chest at me, in demonstration of how all-grown-up she was.

I returned her smile. "Yes, I can see that you are all -- grown up. But you are my guest, here. And that is all."

"But in Ciudad Juarez," Margarita said, "when you came to the house. When you gave the boy your $20..."