There were half a dozen people in the kitchen. Selena recognized Jenny and waved tentatively to the mayor, postmaster, and chief of police.Is she the fire department too? I think she said she is.
Jenny waved back. “Selena!” she shouted over the noise of the kitchen. “How’s Jackrabbit Hole House treating you?”
“It’s very nice,” said Selena, which was an acceptable thing to say, even if it didn’t come anywhere near describing the relief and the strangeness in equal measures.
“Come sit here,” said Jenny. “We’ll wrap those potatoes up in foil and let ’em bake for a while. The solars still working? Well didn’t go dry?”
“They’re working fine,” said Selena. She sat obediently next to Jenny. Nobody seemed to care that Copper lay down under her chair, which was a relief.
The mayor scrubbed each potato and handed it over for wrapping. The tinfoil looked as if it had been used several times, but still crinkled in her hands.
“No trouble with spiders?” Jenny asked as she scrubbed.
“Grandma Billy helped me look for them.” She seemed genuinely interested, so Selena added, “There was a scorpion, though.”
“Oh yeah, those’ll come right in. Big or little?”
“Big.”
Jenny nodded. “Easy to see, then. No worse than a beesting if it gets you, though it isn’t much fun. You or your dog get stung by a little one, though, come back into town and we’ll have Rosa patch you up.”
“Rosa?”
“Sure, Lupé’s sister. She mostly takes care of sheep and goats, but she’s good with people in a pinch. Good enough for the little stuff, and we’ll call in the doctor for the big stuff.”
Selena cringed at the thought of having to call in a doctor for anything. God only knew how much that would cost, and they probably wouldn’t take credit from the general store. Still, if Copper got hurt, that was another matter.
She dropped her hand down, and under her chair, the dog thumped her tail in acknowledgment.
She concentrated on wrapping foil over potatoes, and the small talk went on over and around her, without making any demands. She smiled at obvious jokes, and Jenny asked her only easy questions about the house, not hard ones about why she’d left the city or what she was going to do next.
And she was good at being in kitchens. Selena understood kitchens. The deli had mostly made cold salads and hot soups out of bags, butit was still a familiar space. Maybe all kitchens were the same, when you got down to it, little fragments of some ur-kitchen, where the first grandmothers had cooked on flat rocks and turned mammoth bones into soup.
She was introduced to everybody, but some of the names went by in a blur, too fast for Selena to catch—the small, round-faced Latina woman in cotton skirts was Lupé, and the tall, stooped man with wispy hair was Gordon, but there were four other people at the table, and all Selena could do was smile and nod and hope that there wouldn’t be a quiz.
When the meal was ready, Grandma Billy sat down by the head of the table and hooked her foot around a chair, pulling it out for Selena. Selena settled and Copper oozed under the table, watching hopefully for tidbits.
Father Aguirre sat at the head of the table. When he asked everyone to bow their heads while he said grace, Selena did, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. Then Grandma Billy elbowed her and she had to fight back a grin, feeling like a teenager again.
“... Amen,” said the priest. “Dig in, all. Grandma Billy, if you don’t quit fidgeting, I’ll make you say grace next time.”
“No, you won’t,” said Grandma, digging her spoon into a casserole dish. “Unless you want ‘rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub.’”
Father Aguirre sighed. “You are a positive heathen.”
“Damn straight. Always positive, that’s me.” She passed the serving spoon over to Selena. “Get some of those beans before they’re gone. They’re good, even if the father does make them himself.”
Selena met Father Aguirre’s eyes over Grandma Billy’s head. The priest smiled and shook his head ruefully, and Selena smiled back.
It was easy. It was easier than anything had been since her mother’s funeral, and that had been hedged about with rituals and scripts to make it as easy as possible on everyone.
When it was all over, she helped wash up. It was never terribly fun, to put your hands in scalding water and rub your fingers over the slimyforks, but Selena was glad to be able to do something that meant that she was contributing, not merely showing up at someone else’s table.
But no one had treated her like a poor relation. There was even a bottle of wine passed around, and Father Aguirre poured her a little bit before it occurred to her to put her hand over the glass and demur.
“That’s fine,” she said instead, and he stopped pouring.
“You sure?”
