Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco by Judith Robbins Rose Page B

themselves.
    Our “garden-level apartment” was just a basement.
    Miss glanced around, her face growing red. In three steps she reached a window and slid it open sideways.
A door to the backyard!
    “Guys, get in here.”
    I heard her boys laughing. Ethan bounded in, like a big shaggy dog. “Hi, J.J.”
    He meant me — Jacinta Juárez! I’d never had a nickname before.
    “You wanna play in the hammock?” he asked.
    I didn’t know what he meant. I’d never heard of a hammock, but I didn’t want him to laugh at me again. Fortunately Miss interrupted.
    “Ethan, what are you supposed to be doing?”
Nag-O-Matic
.
    He rolled his eyes. Cody followed him into the kitchen, where they started loading the dishwasher.
    Miss nodded. “Your psychic powers are truly remarkable.”
    Our family never used the dishwashers in our apartments, even though Rosa and I begged Mamá to try it. She said people who wouldn’t wash a dish were lazy.
    I went to join the boys in the kitchen.
    I stopped.
    A cake with colored sprinkles. Curly letters spelled
Happy Birthday Jacinta
in pink icing. “You made this for me?”
    She snorted. “If
I’d
made it, it’d be inedible. Cody’s the chef.”
    I stared at him.
Cooking and cleaning?
I’d never thought of marrying a white boy. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.
    But if Cody was in love with me, it didn’t show on his pale little face. He shrugged. “It’s from a mix.”
    “Let the guys work, Jacinta.” Miss led me through the glass door to the backyard. “Explain again why Rosa didn’t come.”
    I was irritated that Miss kept asking. It was
my
birthday. Miss was
my
Amiga. So the truth slipped out. I kinda let it slip. “Papi saw her making out.”
    Miss stopped halfway across the covered patio. “With a
boy
?”
    “He touched her”— I stopped, but it was too late —“T-shirt.”
    Miss’s lips pressed together. I got mad at myself for telling on Rosa, but I was also glad, because Miss would know that
I
was the good one.
    Then I forgot about Rosa. I was too busy staring. Miss’s yard looked like someone had dumped a truckload of flower seeds, then left them where they fell.
    “I love the pink ones! How did you plant so many?”
    “I didn’t. We can’t afford a gardener anymore, so the Mexican primroses are taking over.”
    “You don’t like them?”
    She studied my face, then smiled. “Actually, I do. They can survive anything. The others are too much trouble.”
    “Why don’t you pull them out?”
    She shrugged. “Once you take on something, you feel obligated.”
    A thought came to me. If I’d known the word, I’d have said it was a
premonition
. A hint of a time when I might be too much trouble, and Miss would still feel
obligated
.
    Then she said, “The only flowers worth the time are roses.”
    Roses?
I thought of my sister Rosa. The green beast hissed. “
I’m
named after a flower, too.”
    “I know. I love hyacinths. I have tons of them.”
    I stopped again. Mamá always said her girls were a flower garden. Suelita’s name meant “little lily.” I’d seen lilies in church at Easter. But I’d never seen a hyacinth. “Where are they?”
    “They’re not in bloom right now.”
    “Can you show me anyway?”
    So she showed me the shriveled brown stems.
    “Oh.”
    “I told you, they already bloomed this year.”
    My chance to see a hyacinth. And I was late.
    Miss went to take a shower, saying she needed to get the TV makeup off her face or she’d break out like Mount Vesuvius.
    The boys joined me in the backyard. Ethan ran to get into the hammock, stretched between two trees.
Oh!
A
hamaca
. Abuelita had one on her veranda in Mexico, where I used to take my naps as a little kid. I didn’t understand how you could play in one. But that was before I’d met the Dahl boys.
    “Let J.J. go first,” said Cody. “It’s her birthday.”
    So Ethan got out, and I climbed in. He said, “Grab the sides and wrap it around you. Cover your face.”
    Cover my