“Yeah, but I stay here if Rocky wants me to work early.” He sat back in the chair and stretched his shoulders, and his biceps bulged. “There’s a room behind the kitchen.”
“Would you like your own place?”
He straightened, rolled his shoulders. “It’s not important. I’m never home much.”
“He runs with the boys…the gang—”
“I don’t!” Manny’s eyes snapped in anger. “They’re just guys, not a gang.”
He went to get up. Dena put her sandwich down and reached over, touched his arm. “Sit,” she said softly, and smiled. “We can talk for a bit. I might be able to help.”
“She doesn’t get it,” Manny said grumpily. “Just because the cops have tried to blame a rape on one of the guys in my group, she thinks they’re all bad.”
A flush crept up the golden skin of his neck and into his cheeks. “Sorry, um, Zeke told me about your friend.”
Dena waved his comment away. “Tell me about your friend.”
“He’s innocent. I know he is. But the cops can’t find who did it, and he was at the same club as we were.” He glanced away.
She sensed the frustration at the justice system that raged across his young face.
“He doesn’t have an alibi, and they need a scapegoat.” He thrust both hands angrily into the air. “Latinos, we get blamed for everything that gets fu…that goes wrong in the desert.”
Hurt and frustration filled his voice, and Dena wanted to help in any way she could. “Does your father understand? Does he talk to you about these things?”
“He go back to Mexico,” Irma said.
“They’re divorced,” Manny explained, and toyed with his soda can. “I have Zeke to talk with. He helps me.”
She turned back to her lunch. Manny waited. She could see the expectant expression on his young face.
“To just earn money isn’t the answer,” Dena said. “But, if you can find what makes you happy, what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work, then perhaps, college isn’t important.”
Manny straightened his appearance less glum.
“You have to be able to support yourself, though. That’s the key.” Dena took another drink.
“I like art,” Manny said, in earnest. “Isabella told me I’m talented. For money I deliver pizza, or work in the fields—”
“Twelve dollars an hour seems fine when you’re young and still living at home,” Dena said. Her heart raced with excitement, she couldn’t believe her luck. He’d known Zeke’s mother.
“Twelve dollars! I can’t find work for ten dollars an hour.”
Dena grimaced. He was right on that, the farmhands made very little money. “So, did Isabella coach you in art?”
“Yeah. She’d let me set up an easel at the casita. I’d been doing that since I was a kid. She said it was good for me, it kept me off the streets and out of trouble.” His smile broadened into a grin. “I sure miss her.”
Dena poured a little more soda into the glass and watched it fizz. “Five years down the road, when you want independence, your art won’t cut it as your primary source of income.”
Manny frowned, and then he lowered his eyes.
“I don’t want to discourage you. I hate being a pessimist. Art is wonderful, but it’s good to have a back-up.”
“A day job,” Manny said, and nodded a couple of times.
He’d heard this before, and most likely from Zeke. “One day you’ll meet a nice girl and think about marriage and babies.”
Irma smiled. “See, I tell you—”
“Yeah, when I’m thirty.” Manny rolled his eyes.
“You know, I have some ideas to help Zeke,” Dena said. “I haven’t discussed them with him yet. If he agrees, I’d pay you to help me, and I’d train you.”
“What kind of work?” Manny moved forward.
“Work where you can use your artistic abilities, and get air conditioning too.” She grinned and picked up the second half of her sandwich.
His black eyes shone. “How much would you pay?”
“Twelve dollars an hour to start, then we’d negotiate.”
Manny whistled, and then grinned up at his mother. Irma grabbed the chip package and shook another pile onto Dena’s plate.
“So, tell me a little of the history of this place.” Dena eased back in the chair and crunched a chip.
“Zeke’s grandfather and his brother, and Zeke’s father, they started the farm,” Manny said. “That’s why it’s called Three C’s…three Cabrera men.”
“What about Zeke’s mother?” Dena asked. “He doesn’t like to talk about her.”
Irma shook her head. “Mucho problemas—”
“She had cancer, but she never told anyone,” Manny said. “She didn’t see the doctor until it was too