Chapter Thirty-Seven
Axe resumed watching Leanna. He had a great excuse now, in the form of Soledad. Every morning, he picked up his daughter and took her to breakfast before dropping her off at the bakery. He’d swing around at lunchtime to bring her a treat and helped her close up the bakery in the evening.
Slowly, Soledad was adjusting to him. For starters, she would speak to him longer than a single sentence, and soon, he got to know the places she’d lived—all over Mexico, and her friends at each stop.
It was a sunny Saturday in July, and Axe walked with Soledad through the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown to pick up roast ducks for the Bumblebee Splash into Summer Charity Pool Party. The Bad Boys for Hire decided to man the barbecues and give the ladies a break since they were busy preparing for the sundress and swimsuit competition.
“Can we buy a souvenir for Gabriel?” Soledad asked when they walked by a shop selling trinkets.
“Sure, what would you like to get him? How is he doing?”
They stepped into a narrow store beneath a lucky red-and-gold banner with a Chinese word for fortune upside down, or at least that was what Soledad told him. The girl was learning a lot from Denton and had made friends with his younger sister, Winnie.
“I’m thinking a T-shirt, at least,” Soledad said. “One with a cat on it.”
“Guess you miss Panchito, too.” Axe thumbed through a rack of T-shirts.
“He’s too fat to leave Mexico,” Soledad said. “And I didn’t want Gabriel to be lonely. When can we go see him?”
“Maybe later this summer,” Axe said.
“Why didn’t he want to come with us?” Soledad picked out a shirt with a picture of a huge, gray-striped Kliban cat sitting astride the Golden Gate Bridge.
“He didn’t want to be illegal,” Axe repeated what he’d heard from Leanna’s relatives.
“Am I illegal?” Soledad put the T-shirt in front of her. “Like this one?”
“I think it looks just like Panchito,” he replied. “And no, you’re not illegal. Your mother had you here in San Francisco.”
“What happened to her? Why didn’t she want me?” Soledad’s eyes were huge and watery.
Axe put his hand over her back, and she leaned into him, resting her face against his chest.
“She did want you, but she was running with some bad people. She owed them money, and she had to run away.”
“Do you know where she went?”
Axe gave his daughter a hug, now that she permitted it. “No, that’s part of running away. Making sure no one knows where she went.”
“Do you think that’s why Gabriel stayed in Mexico? He didn’t want to run away?”
Axe patted her back, proud that she was coming to her own conclusions. “Yes, he’s a good kid. He wants to study hard and come here for college. Stay out of trouble with the gangs. We should go see him before school starts.”
Soledad jumped back and bounced on her heels. “Can Carmelita come with us? Leanna, too?”
“We’ll have to ask Leanna, won’t we?” Axe took the T-shirt to the cash register.
“Can you make Leanna say ‘yes’?” Soledad looked expectantly at her father as if he had superpowers. “Maybe we can buy her a gift, too.”
“Leanna loves you. You won’t need to make her do anything.” He bent down and looked her in the eye. “As for gifts, I have something that I can’t buy.”
“What’s that?”
He pointed to his chest. “I’m giving her my heart.”
* * *
Leanna propped her foot on the shower ledge and shaved her thigh all the way to the bikini area, and then she decided to shave it all off. Why not? She was going to win the Sundress and Swimsuit competition. She ticked off her competitors and compared her assets to them.
