to cross the street. With her luck, she didn’t want to risk getting arrested for jaywalking. Even that would be enough to make her the top story in the evening news.
The café itself was a neat, white-painted room lined with red-leatherette booths, the center filled with small tables with blue-checked tablecloths and ladder-backed chairs.
“Can I help you?” an older woman with twin long gray braids, a white apron over overalls and T-shirt asked when Marisol stopped in the entrance.
“I’d like to apply for a job,” Marisol said.
The woman gave her a curious look, and Marisol braced herself for comments about the trial, or Lamar, or even her infamous past in Cedar Switch. Instead, the woman said, “You’re prettier than most we get in here. You ever waitressed before?”
Marisol shook her head. “But I’m very good with people.”
“Can you carry a tray full of blue plate specials, that’s the question.”
“Yes, I can. I’m sure I can.”
“All right.” The woman opened a drawer and pulled out a single sheet of paper. “Fill that out.”
Marisol completed the brief questionnaire, writing in the number and street of her mother’s old house in the space for address. Even after twenty years, she could recall it easily. Staring at the address on the paper, she felt a sense of disorientation—the same feeling she’d had each morning in jail when she’d first awakened, as if at any minute she’d discover she’d only been dreaming. Lamar wasn’t dead. She wasn’t accused of killing him. Everything was all right again.
The woman returned, took the paper and glanced at it. “The pay is five dollars an hour plus tips,” the woman said. “6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Can you start tomorrow?”
Marisol blinked. “You mean I’m hired?”
“If you want the job and you can do the work, yeah.”
“Yes. I mean, thank you. I’ll be here tomorrow.” She’d meant to spend tomorrow getting Toni enrolled in school, but there would be time to do that in the afternoon. Toni would have to get herself up and onto the school bus each day, but the responsibility would be good for her.
“Thank you,” Marisol said again, unable to keep back a smile. “Thank you.” Then she hurried away, before the woman could change her mind. She had a job. A real job. She looked around, wishing she had someone she could tell. Some friend.
But the women she’d thought of as friends—other players’ wives, women in her neighborhood and those with whom she’d served on the boards of various charities—had ceased to be friends the night Marisol was arrested. Not one of them had visited or written to her during her trial or in the long days leading up to it. She was no longer one of them.
That had been one more hurt, on top of losing her husband and learning the truth about all he’d done behind her back. One more thing to harden herself against. She straightened and walked toward her car. She’d celebrate tonight with Toni. As long as she had her daughter, she didn’t need friends.
S COTT PULLED HIS CAR to the curb and studied the modest white brick house with a critical eye. This sort of place wasn’t as attractive to buyers from Houston as the Victorians near the square, but given enough time he was sure he could find a buyer. He hoped Marisol wasn’t disappointed in the price he thought he could get; to a woman used to living in a River Oaks mansion, the going rate for small-town residences probably seemed like pocket change.
He shut off the engine and glanced at his reflection in his rearview mirror, wondering why he was bothering. Marisol Luna wasn’t going to be impressed by the likes of him. Besides, he had a girlfriend. Tiffany Ballieu, the blue-eyed blond sweetheart of his high school days, had sought him out last year, letting him know she was newly divorced and more than willing to pick up where they’d left off. Tiffany was sweet, respectable and exactly the sort of woman he needed in his life.
Carrying the folder with the comparables he’d pulled and a blank listing agreement, he made his way up the walk and rang the doorbell. He waited, and was about to ring a second time when the door creaked open a scant two inches and one bright brown eye studied him through the crack. “Hello?” said a soft female voice.
“I’m Scott Redmond,” he said. “Here to see Marisol Luna.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to any reporters.” The door started to close.
“I’m not a reporter,” Scott said. “I’m a real estate agent. She talked to me yesterday about selling this house.”
The door opened a little wider, and Scott saw half of a pretty, young face. “Mama went downtown to look for a job,” the girl said. “I can’t let you in.”
A job? Did this mean Marisol planned to stay in Cedar Switch? Maybe she’d changed her mind about selling the house. “Do you think she’ll be back soon?” he asked. “Could I wait out here for her?”
“I think she’ll be back soon.” The door opened wider still. The girl had a beautiful, oval face, long braids and long, thin arms and legs. “You can wait if you want.”
“Thanks.” He moved over to a green metal chair at one end of the porch.
The door closed, and he heard the rattle of a chain being moved. Then it opened again and the girl came out. “My name’s Toni,” she said, and leaned against the closed door, as if ready to retreat inside at any minute.
“Hi, Toni. What do you think of Cedar Switch?”
“Not much.”
“Yeah. I guess it’s not that impressive to someone from the city.”
“Have you lived here a long time?”
“All my life.” He glanced at her. She was taller and thinner than Marisol had been, but he could see her mother in her. “I knew your mother when she was about your age. We went to school together.”
“Really?” She turned toward him, her expression eager. “What was she like then?”
How to explain the Marisol who had awed him so? “She was pretty, like you. And daring. She did things no one else would try.”
“Really? What kind of things?”
He frowned. In addition to diving naked off the bridge, when assigned to write a paper on an important historical figure Marisol had reported on Sally Rand, the infamous fan dancer and stripper. Half the football team claimed to have slept with her, but Scott couldn’t recall having seen Marisol in the company of any of them, so he suspected wishful thinking on their part. What was true was that she was frequently in trouble for mouthing off to teachers and was a familiar figure in detention hall her final year at Cedar Switch High School.
None of this was the sort of thing he could share with her daughter. “Your mother was very independent,” he said. “The kind of person others looked up to and wanted to be like.” At least, he’d felt that way.
“She never talks about growing up here,” Toni said. “It’s like it’s some big secret or something.”
“She probably
