Barbara Samuel Read Online Free PDF

on, he looked like a professor, somebody who’d be teaching ethnic studies or American Indian literature at UNM. For reasons she didn’t examine,they made him seem more approachable. She could look directly at him as she took the paper.
    It was a face both more and less than she’d thought from a distance. Unmistakably Indian, long and raw-boned, dominated by uncompromising cheekbones and a wide mouth. It was hard to decide what nation he belonged to—she didn’t think it was Taos or even Pueblo, but one of the Plains nations—Cheyenne, maybe, or Lakota. His long dark eyes were somehow sad, but maybe that was something she added because of the lonely grocery items.
    Stop mooning, will you?
    Right. Luna took the piece of paper he held out to her and the air changed, like the barometric pressure had dropped all at once. It made her want to yawn to pop her ears. His aggressive nose had a glow of sunburn on it, and he smelled like something she couldn’t quite name.
    Suddenly, she wanted a cigarette.
    Life was good. Life was excellent, as a matter of fact. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said, edging away from him. “See you around.”
    He raised his head. Stood there holding his glasses, with his mouth turned down a little at the corners, and something in his expression made Luna realize that she wasn’t alone in her attraction, that while she’d been thinking about that hair, he’d been noticing things about her, maybe lips or eyes or breasts, whatever his thing was. It gave her a pang, made her want all kinds of things she’d told herself she could live without.
    Thomas inclined his head, and she waited for what might come next, but he said only, “Let me know if you have any trouble with that arm.”
    “Hope your grandma’s okay.”
    He nodded, his eyes serious on her face.
    There was nothing else to do, so she turned back toward her house and tried not to think about him looking at her backside. She couldn’t help wishing, as she tried to walk normally, that she had a nice flow of waterlike hair to swish around, or nice long legs, or something else to watch, something really good.
    Joy would be arriving in Santa Fe at two. Since she had a little time, Luna ducked into an AA meeting, just to be safe. The thoughts of tequila and wine had been quite powerful the night before, and maybe the cigarette struggle was bringing up some of those old demons. It was a good move. She emerged an hour later fortified and stronger.
    She walked to her mother’s house from the church basement where the meeting was held. It was still and quiet on the hill as she approached the house. This neighborhood, too, was built low, the dun-colored adobe blending into the landscape.
    But these adobe villas ran to the millions of dollars. Cottonwoods and discreet plantings of native shrubs cushioned any noise that might offend, and hid the windows of the super-rich and even celebrity sorts who retreated here. Far below, children cried out in some game, and an airplane droned above the cloud cover.
    As Luna approached the gate of the graceful courtyard and let herself in, she noticed a handful of leaves on the cottonwood were edged with gold, the first sign of autumn. It seemed too early, as if time was rushing too fast, and she fingered the leaves as she waited for her mother to answer the door.
    “Luna!” her mother said. “You’re early!”
    She’s the only one who called Luna by her real name. Everyone else just called her Lu. It was such an odd name, Luna as paired with McGraw. Luna came fromher father, who was charmed by her white skin and pale hair. Her mother was charmed by her father, so she did not protest. It suggested a certain magic to her, a child named for the moon. And if Jesse Esquivel had not disappeared when Luna was seven and her sister five, she would have been Luna Esquivel, which made some sense.
    With a stab of surprise, Luna felt her demons from the night before suddenly rise up and start to howl.
    She put