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forehead, drips of rainwater trickling from their tips as if they were melting.
    If the rain had come earlier, his baseball game would have been canceled. Or at least the last at-bat. Then it wouldn’t have been his fault his team lost.
    He frowned and stretched farther over the wash pan. He stared at himself, swelling his chest and furrowing his brow even more, making his reflection look bigger, tougher, and better at baseball. He craned his head to the right, then the left, studying his reflection out of the corners of his eyes to see if he could look bigger than six, maybe two years younger than Carla instead of five. Carla was eleven, then Gail, Alex, Harold, and Betsy, all in stair-steps in their ages until they reached Magdalena, the oldest. Maybe he wasn’t really so small. Maybe it just seemed that way because they were all so much older.
    He strained farther upward and brought the top of his swollen chest into view at the bottom of the mirror. His toes stung as he perched on their very tips. He danced from one foot to the other, giving his toes a rest. He swelled his chest even more. He craned and studied it until something behind him caught his eye. It moved, it came his way, and he stopped. He dropped flat-footed to the stool, the breath still trapped in his lungs. He watched the shadow as it approached from behind.
    “You about done?”
    The trapped breath exploded in a choppy laugh, high-pitched and childish even for him. “Magdalena…” His sister stepped closer until her face came into the light, the scent of cigarette smoke still strong. Blue shone from her eyelids, red glistened on her lips, and a black line circled her eyes. “You need the mirror, don’t you?”
    “Just for a second.” She smiled. Her smile was nice, maybe not beautiful, like Mr. Morgan had said this afternoon, but nice.
    James hopped off the stool and scooted it out of his sister’s way with his foot. “Pop will be here any second. Go ahead, so you can get your makeup washed off.”
    Magdalena stepped in front of the washstand and leaned forward, pressing her face close to the mirror. The small light heightened the colors on her face, the pastes and powders Pop would scrub off if she didn’t get it done herself.
    “You need to hurry,” James said.
    Magdalena didn’t reply. Her hand rose to her lips, her fingers blocking that part of her face in her reflection. James watched her hand make small circular motions around her mouth in the mirror. She tilted her head back and studied her hand’s movements, peering from the bottom of her eyes. The smell of fresh lipstick filled the air. Her hand dropped, and so did her chin. Her lips were brighter instead of cleaned.
    “Magdalena…” James moved closer. “Pop…”
    “Pop what?” she asked through glistening lips. He watched her press them together, evening out the fresh coat.
    “Pop’ll be here any minute.” He touched his sister’s skirt. It wasn’t worn like Mama’s work dresses, or a hand-me-down, since Magdalena was the oldest.
    Magdalena turned from the mirror and looked down at him. The color on her face was sharp, even with the light behind her. “I’ll be gone before he gets home.”
    “But you’ll miss supper! We’re not supposed to…”
    “You take my plate and silverware off the table before he gets here. And tell Mama I went out.” She turned back to the mirror, but her eyes in her reflection were on James’ face instead of her own. “Tell Pop I got a job tryout, okay?”
    James saw the way she set her face, the look his brothers said was desperate. Her gaze returned to her own reflection. She ran her littlest finger over her eyebrows, then reached up and fluffed her hair. She’d styled it like Mama’s, but it wasn’t the same color. Not as rich. Magdalena had Pop’s fair hair and coloring.
    “Magdalena,” James whispered. “Pop’s gonna be mad.”
    “Yeah?” She turned to James again. “No madder than if he finds out about this