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                “Skin you alive, more like it!” Juanita Cruz stepped from the doorway; a brilliant white smile igniting her dark face.

                Diana had been dreading this reunion because her history with this couple had been less than cordial. She first met Bobby during a hostile encounter through a plate glass window at the Iredell County Jail, where Bobby was being held on suspicion of murdering his own father. And one time Juanita, spitting threats in both English and Spanish, had attacked Diana with a pair of lethal stylist’s scissors, at the salon where Juanita used to work.

                But today Bobby slipped his arm around Juanita’s waist, and then gestured at the old house, where ladders and a rickety painter’s scaffold lean against the wall. “It don’t look like much now, but soon it’ll be pretty as a pictures in a magazine.”

                “Good job, Bobby.” Matthew squinted at the fresh white paint glistening on the gingerbread trim around the porch. “I knew you were a tolerable gardener, but you’re an artist with that paintbrush.”

                “Artist?” Juanita scoffed. “Look close and you’ll see all the drips.”

                Diana was truly impressed. Jed’s bungalow had been given a total facelift, but the biggest transformation involved its two new occupants. Both Bobby and Juanita had shed a few pounds. Their faces were tan and healthy, so it seemed hard work and fresh air agreed with them.

                Bobby rocked on his heels, his snaggle-toothed grin full of pride. “I thought y’all came here to work, so cut the jawin’ and get on with it. You girls stay on the ground and paint the steps, while Trout and me climb the ladders.”

                “Are you loco?” Juanita’s speech patterns were a weird combination of Spanish red pepper and Carolina barbeque. “Mrs. Rittenhouse and I will work inside. It’s too damned hot out here in the sun. She’ll help me paint the kitchen cabinets.”

                Bobby shrugged, while Matthew glanced at Diana, a hint of regret in his eyes. She too, had hoped to work close alongside Matthew, but she followed Juanita into the cool bungalow. “Please call me Diana.”

                “Okay, if you call me Nita.”

                They eyed one another, two humans with absolutely nothing in common. “When did you start calling yourself Nita?”

                “Ever since I came to the States. But youpeople keep calling me Juanita, like you don’t want me to forget where I came from.”

                Clearly the woman wasn’t keen on her roots. Diana watched as Juanita opened a cabinet and removed two plastic glasses. Juanita was clad in a scanty red halter that emphasized her ample bosom, and her sleek, raven black hair fell straight to the waistband of her tight black shorts. Red plastic clogs and hoop earrings completed the ensemble.

                “When didyou move to the States?” Diana asked as Juanita poured iced tea and tore open a bag of pretzels.

                “My family in Mexico is too big. Right after I finished high school, they shipped me and my little sister up to live with our aunt in San Jose.”

                As Juanita dumped sugar into her tea, Diana estimated her hostess was about thirty years old. Diana’s own memories of California dated back to a road trip with her parents. They took her to Disney World as a treat, before she entered kindergarten. Those were the days of hippies and flower power, before Juanita was born.

                “Did you live in California long?”

                “Too damned long.” Juanita sighed as she stirred the sugar.

                “Is that where you learned to cut hair?”

                Juanita nodded. “It wasn’t my idea, though. I was wild in those days. California offered boys, booze, and drugs---everything my little village had lacked.” She flashed her jet back eyes. “I got into trouble with drugs, big time. The judge gave me a choice: deportation, jail, or trade school. I chose Beauty College.”

                As Diana listened, Juanita filled in the blanks. She could well imagine the kaleidoscope of troubles Juanita was capable of spinning, and she wondered which misstep had caused her to move to Mooresville, North Carolina, of all places. “How’d you meet Bobby?”

                Juanita choked on a pretzel, gulped some tea, and then rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Believe it or not, he was working with a Mexican lawn crew, a bunch of guys I hung with when I first came here. Me and Bobby got to drinking together, and before I knew it, he was coming around my salon for haircuts. The man has good hair, I’ll give him that…”

                From her wry, offhand explanation, Juanita could have been describing her relationship with a stray cat instead of her feelings for a man she had chosen to live with for two years. “So things are working out for you two?” Diana asked.

                “All this shit?” Juanita’s dismissive gesture included the whole of the cozy little room. “Do I look like the domestic type? Hey, I’m glad Bobby inherited this dump, because it sure beats the ratty trailer where we lived before…” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “But this is temporary, understand? He enjoys playing house, but when something better comes along, I’m outta here.”

                Diana averted her eyes and considered. For a woman who claimed to hate her life, Juanita had certainly added some heart-felt feminine touches to the sorry old place. There were fresh-cut flowers, including Diana’s violets, which Juanita had placed in a souvenir mug from Niagara Falls. Lace curtains, still creased from their Martha Stewart packaging, fluttered at sparkling clean windows. And along with paint fumes, the scent of cinnamon hung in the air.

                If Juanita had reservations, they didn’t include this house, which had fallen into her lap like manna from Heaven. Her complaints weren’t about money, because Jedidiah Porter had willed his son, Bobby, a lifetime guaranteed salary as groundskeeper of the new state park.

                “Bobby’s on a roll right now,” Juanita continued. “But if he expects me to give up my job, clean his house, and cook his meals like a good little wife and mommy…”

                Diana couldn’t understand Juanita’s attitude. According to Matthew, Juanita still worked at the salon. Bobby wouldn’t administer any white glove tests, nor would he expect gourmet meals. Bobby and Juanita weren’t married, had no children, so what was with this mommy business? Unless Matthew’s joke
about a surprise coming nine months later wasn’t a joke, after all?

                Impulsively, Diana reached across the table and took Juanita’s hand. “What’s wrong, Nita.”

                “Nada, nothing!” She jerked her hand away.

                As Diana tried to determine the cause of her companion’s misery, she noticed several items which seem out of place--- a plate of Oreos with the cream centers licked out, a stack of Pokeman cards scattered on the sofa, and an abandoned baseball mitt in the corner.

                At the same moment, an explosive staccato of barking erupted in the yard and traveled to the screen door. Ursie burst in first, nearly bringing the door down as she bounded into the room, her eyes wide with panic. A little boy followed close on her heels, shouting and waving a dart gun in his small brown fist.

                Ursie toppled an end table, but it was the boy who tripped on the lamp cord, bringing everything down.

                “Jesus Christ!” Juanita screamed, catching the child by the seat of his pants.

                “What?” The kid plopped backwards onto the rug as the dog escaped, still yelping, through the back door.

                “What did you do to that animal?” Juanita shrieked as she gave the boy’s shoulder a rough shove.

                “Nothing.” He spread his hands, his gorgeous eyes wide and innocent.

                Diana caught her breath and stared. The child was beautiful, with silken black hair and skin the color of cocoa. She judged he was eight years old, a little Latin replica of the red-faced woman scolding him, except that his eyes were as blue as Diana’s---the color of sky through ice. He reminded Diana of her son, Robbie.

                “Who’s she?” The kid pointed a stubby finger at Diana.

                Juanita yanked him to his feet. “Mind your manners! This is Mrs. Rittenhouse. What do you say…?”

                The child wriggled free and studied Diana with open curiosity, quickly replaced with defiance. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he drawled sullenly.

                “Tell Mrs. Rittenhouse your name,” Juanita prompted.

                The boy stared at the floor.

                “He is Juan McCord.” Juanita spit out each syllable. “And he’s sorry he’s acting like a spoiled little prick.”

                The child stomped his foot and bolted for the door. Before he escaped, he turned to Diana and pounded his chest. “My name’s not Juan, lady. It’s Johnny!”

   

   

   

               

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  THREE

   

   

                A sad story…

   

               

                Juanita was telling Diana little bits about the boy when Matthew loped into the house and pulled Diana into the back yard. “Time for a break,” he announced. “Let’s take a hike.”

                Bobby called from the roof: “Hey, if you see the kid anywhere, bring him home for his supper.”

                “Will do!” Matthew shouted over his shoulder, then turned to Diana. “Whew… if your afternoon was anything like mine, you’ll agree these folks have some issues.”

                “No kidding.” She squeezed his arm.

                “The boy is Juanita’s nephew,” Matthew began. “His mother was Juanita’s sister, Maria, who got killed in a car wreck. Am I right so far?”

                Diana nodded. Juanita had revealed that much, but no more. Whenever Diana broached the subject of the child’s parents, Juanita retreated on the verge of tears. So they spent the afternoon mostly in silence, elbow-deep in paint and turpentine, inverted beneath counters with dripping brushes. Under those circumstances, their conversation had been severely limited.

                “Bobby wants to keep the boy,” Matthew said as they climbed towards the pecan grove. “He loves that kid. Claims he’s gonna be a baseball star. Believes the boy’s a good luck charm, even better than the house and salary. Bobby thinks Juan is a sign from God that the three of them are supposed to live happily ever after as a family.”

                Then God better send a miracle, Diana thought as they reached the top of the rise and beheld the scene before them. Instead of the tangled brush forest she remembered, which once fell away to a rugged, eroding shoreline, she saw acres of freshly seeded lawn. All the large trees---ancient oaks, maples, and sycamores---had been lovingly spared. Jed’s decaying old dock had vanished, and now curves of new stone rip-rap neatly caught the waves.

                “Can you believe it?” Diana asked.

                Matthew scanned the horizon. “They call this progress, but I’m not so sure.”

                Like most natives, Matthew resented the whirlwind of change that was rapidly blowing away the old culture and a proud way of life. When Duke Power dammed the Catawba River and created Lake Norman, with five hundred miles of pristine shoreline, this part of the Piedmont, with booming Charlotte at its hub, became a magnet. It now attracted everyone from young entrepreneurs to retirees from the four corners of the nation. It had lured Diana, hadn’t it?

                As a real estate broker, she’d been drawn by the hot economy and the wealth it promised. As a human being, she’d reacted quite differently. Day by day, developers raped the lovely forests and farmlands, successfully transforming them to condominiums, golf courses, and shopping malls. Diana had lived here only a little over a year, but she wanted the development to slow down. She wanted it to stop.

                “Could be worse,” she mused aloud. “At least they saved the trees.”

             &
nbsp;  “I expect Bobby’s responsible for that,” Matthew said. “He has his faults, but he loves nature. I’ll bet he’s been guarding these trees like a mama mockingbird at nesting time.”

                They wandered into a field, which had once been a stand of tobacco. Here the red earth had been scraped flat. A yellow backhoe was parked at the perimeter, its great claw curled up in repose for the weekend.

                Diana recognized the configuration immediately. “Look, Matthew, they’re building a pair of tennis courts!”  Suddenly she was nostalgic for her teenage years on the Main Line, near Philadelphia, where she’d spent many happy hours on the clay courts. “The view of the lake is beautiful from here.”

                “You’re right, it could be worse,” Matthew conceded. “People will enjoy this park. It’s a great place for a little boy to grow up, for that matter.”

                “But how can they keep Juan?” she demanded. “Even if Juanita wanted the boy, which she doesn’t, he must have other family? I know Juan’s father was also killed in the accident, but what about his grandparents? Don’t they want him?”

                Matthew sat down on a log, and Diana joined him.

                “It’s a sad story…” He stared out at the water. “Bobby says Juanita is all torn up about her sister’s death. The boy is a constant reminder, and he makes her feel guilty.”

                “But why?”

                “Juan’s mother, Maria, was the younger sister. She was steady, but Juanita was wild. Both gals eventually got their citizenship while they were living with their aunt in San Jose, but somehow Juanita lost her way. She got mixed up with a rough crowd and left Maria to fend for herself…