had wanted to explore the town on her own. Marisol had refused to consider the idea, which had led to a shouting match, ending with Toni declaring, “I hate you!” and retreating to Marisol’s old room, where she’d plugged in her iPod and refused to budge, even to eat.
How many times had Marisol acted out a similar scene with her own mother? If anything, she had been more unruly than Toni, sneaking out of the house at all hours of the day and night, purposely doing things she knew would enrage Harlan. Only now, from the perspective of an adult and a parent herself, could she understand how much her rebelliousness must have also hurt her mother.
She forced herself out of bed, made coffee, then knocked on her daughter’s door. Toni had insisted on moving into Marisol’s bedroom. “Toni, are you up? I need to go out for a while.”
“I’m up.”
“There’s cereal and bread in the kitchen. Fix yourself something to eat.”
“I will.”
She would have liked to see her daughter’s face this morning, to have hugged her and to have drawn strength from the sight of her. The last thing Marisol wanted to do was to go out and beg for a job in a town she’d always hated—from people she’d always felt hated her. But for Toni, she would do it.
She went first to the courthouse. At one time, the county and the school district were the town’s largest employers. She wasn’t qualified to be a teacher, but surely she could handle work as a clerk in one of the county offices.
The woman behind the counter’s eyes widened when she saw Marisol. “You’re Lamar Dixon’s wife,” she said. “I mean widow.”
“I’m Marisol Luna. I’d like to apply for a job.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Doing what?”
“Anything.” Marisol forced herself to meet the woman’s critical gaze. “What openings do you have?”
The woman shook her head emphatically. “You couldn’t work here.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t have a criminal record and work for the county government.”
Marisol stiffened. “I don’t have a criminal record,” she said. “I was acquitted. That means I was found not guilty.”
“I know what it means.” The woman’s lips were a thin, straight line in her stern face. “I don’t think anyone would want to hire you. It wouldn’t look good.”
Marisol ground her teeth together, battling the urge to tell this woman exactly what she thought of her. “May I fill out an application?” she asked evenly.
“Fill it out all you want.” The woman pulled a sheet of paper from a cubbyhole and sailed it across the counter, then turned away, muttering about people who “weren’t any better than they should be.”
Marisol fared little better at the other places she tried. The office supply owner asked why a woman “whose husband made all that money” would need to work.
Marisol chafed at explaining Lamar had gambled away most of his income, and she had spent the rest fighting for her life in court. “Trust me, I need the job,” she said instead. She didn’t mention she only planned to stay in town a few months at the most; no sense giving anyone another reason not to hire her.
“Can’t help you. I already got a high school girl who works part-time and that’s all I need.”
The librarian was more sympathetic. “I wish I could help you, I really do,” she said. “But the county cut our budget this year and we had to let one of our librarians go. We’re getting by with volunteers. But if you’d like to volunteer…”
The florist squinted at Marisol behind thick spectacles. “I know you,” he said.
Who doesn’t? she wanted to reply, but kept quiet and waited for him to say something about the trial. Instead, he startled her by saying, “You’re Marisol Luna. I knew you in high school.” His grin was more of a leer. “I remember when you jumped off the highway bridge. Stark naked.” He chuckled. “That was really something.”
She wanted to slap the grin right off his face, but, thinking of Toni, she repressed the impulse. “Do you have any job openings?” she asked.
He leaned across the counter toward her, his tone confiding. “I’d love to hire you, hon, but my wife would have a conniption if she thought the two of us were working together. So I’d better not. Though if you’d like to come back after I close up, maybe we could have a drink for old time’s sake.”
She moved on. Her feet hurt, and her mouth, neck and shoulders strained from holding her head high and smiling. Sweat pooled in the small of her back and she worried her anti-perspirant had given up. She was also hungry and had a pounding headache. She tried to distract herself by looking at her surroundings. As she’d told Toni, the whole town looked better than it had when she’d left, with new awnings, fresh paint and flowers around the square. She recalled seeing an article in the travel section of the Houston Chronicle last year, which had touted Cedar Switch as a popular destination for weekend getaways, with a newly revitalized downtown, an abundance of bed-and-breakfast inns and restaurants and shops that catered to tourists.
The whole square now looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting—except for the hulking brown building two blocks west of the courthouse. Once a masterpiece of Victorian architecture, with elaborate wedding-cake trim, soaring columns and a stained-glass cupola, the Palace Hotel had been the social center of town when Marisol was a girl. Countless senior proms, wedding receptions and formal balls had been held in the upstairs ballroom.
Now the paint was faded and flaking, the windows broken or boarded up. Overgrown rose vines spilled across the front steps, bright pink petals scattered down the walk, as if left over from a long-ago wedding reception. A red-and-white metal For Sale sign was planted near the sidewalk.
Marisol stared at the once-grand building with a knot in her throat. When she looked back on her life in Cedar Switch, almost all of the good times were associated with the Palace Hotel. Seeing it so neglected and rundown made her doubt the reliability of her memories. Maybe her recollections of the past were as flawed as her judgment about Lamar.
She turned away, and hurried back to the square, mentally reviewing her employment options. She was running out of places to look for work. The bank, hardware store and Cherie’s boutique had all turned her down, some more politely than others. Everyone had stared. Some had asked rude questions. No one had offered her a job, or any clue as to where she might find employment.
There was the grocery store out near the highway—though the thought of dragging dripping chickens and twelve packs of beer across the scanner made her recoil in revulsion. She stopped and studied the square for anything she might have missed. Her gaze rested on a white storefront in the middle of the block on the east side of the courthouse. The Bluebonnet Café.
There had been a café in that location when Marisol was a girl, though then it had been the Courthouse Café. Open for breakfast and lunch, it had done a good business, catering to downtown workers and shoppers and those who had dealings at the courthouse.
Restaurants almost always needed help, didn’t they? And no special skills were needed for waitressing beyond a good memory,
