He looked up just before taking a bite of his wing, his eyebrows raised. “What?”
She pointed over his shoulder. “In the mural. I see you!”
He set down his wing and looked where she was pointing. “Yeah, Sofia included all of us in the painting.”
Espy rose as he talked and headed toward the colorful mural of a Mexican market place, couples dancing, including Javi and Poppy, a man and a little girl leaning against a column watching the others dance. She reached up to touch Javi’s face in the painting then turned back to look at him. “I can’t imagine having this kind of talent. I mean, I can barely draw a straight line.” She looked closely at the brush strokes and the blending of colors. Someone so talented, and she chose to live here in this place.
Espy hoped she wasn’t romanticizing small town life too much. If she didn’t like living here, she could always move back with Angelica. She was willing to take a chance, but she wasn’t ready to discuss her thoughts with Javi, not yet. She didn’t want to make him think she was expecting too much from him. She was only curious to see where this connection might lead, and she couldn’t do that from Oklahoma.
She was used to taking risks. She was ready to take this one, after the season was over.
She sat across from him, arms folded on the table. He was about halfway done with his wings and gestured to offer her one. She shook her head. “So you didn’t leave. Even though you were bullied, you stayed. Why?”
The lines between his eyebrows deepened. “My mom was here.”
“She could have left, too, right? It was just the two of you.”
He turned his attention to separating his wings from the discarded bones. “Yeah, but…I guess she wanted to stay here in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case my dad came back.”
Espy winced. She hadn’t wanted to bring up bad memories. “Where is he?”
“He went to Mexico to see his mom when I was seven. He never came back. Never heard from him again, or any of his family, to be honest. I figured he just stayed. Mom worried something happened to him, you know, that he went through the wrong town, crossed the wrong people. She was sure he would have come back if he could have.”
“You don’t think so?”
He shook his head. “He wasn’t really crazy about being a family man. I think maybe he did go to see his mom, but when he came back from Mexico, well, he just moved on.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He lifted a wing to his mouth. “Doesn’t bother me anymore. Only that he hurt my mom. That’s the only regret I have.”
“I get that,” she said, and she really did. Now she knew why he wouldn’t leave his mom behind, not even to live at college. And his decision only reinforced in her mind what a good guy he was.
“And I stayed for my friends. I have really good friends.”
She appreciated his attempt to turn the subject away from painful memories. “You do. And they all work so hard.” She didn’t want to tell him they were part of the reason she was thinking of moving here.
Javi wadded up his napkin and sat back in the chair. “I really feel bad I’m having to work, and am not able to help with clean-up.”
“It’s not like you don’t help people all the time with your job. I am a first-hand witness.” She lifted her arms out to her sides and grinned.
“I guess. Not the same though.”
She got what he was saying. Contributing to the clean-up really did give a sense of community, something else she loved about this town. And he was missing out on that.
She filled him in on some of the activities she’d been part of today, but dialed it back when he turned admiring eyes to her. She wasn’t telling him this in order to brag. She just wanted him to know what was going on in his town.
He rose then, and picked up his mess to toss into a nearby garbage can. “I hate to say good night, but I have an early shift tomorrow.”
She hopped to her feet, too, ignoring the alarm bells her sore muscles sent to her brain. “Will you get off early, then?” Maybe she could see him before she left town, depending on when Tommy finished the van.
“No, not until six again. Do you think the van will be done tomorrow?”
Espy nodded. “And we’ll have to head out as soon as possible.”
