Chapter 18- NIck

“Hello, Nick,” Maria said. “How’s your head.”

“My head? It’s OK.”

She put down her sack. It appeared packed with oranges, nothing else. He felt as if he had an orange stuck between his ears. He couldn’t remember what Bubba had told him to say first. “The swelling looks like it’s gone down?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. “Would you like an orange?”

Nick accepted the fruit. “You have a lot of them.”

“My dad brings them home.”

Her dad probably worked in the orchards. The possibility reinforced his suspicion that she had not been in the country more than a year, two at the outside, that her father was working for slave wages picking the fruit. Bubba had told him to bring up the movies. “You can’t get oranges like these at the movies.”

Maria blinked. “They don’t sell them there.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.” He put his hand on the nearby wall for support. Unfortunately, he used the hand that held the orange and crushed it. A squirt of juice hit Maria right in the eyes. “Damnit, I’m sorry!” he cried, dropping the offending fruit. She calmly reached for a handkerchief in her bag.

“You got a ripe one,” she said.

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It must hurt.”

She looked at him, her face serious. “If I ever did get hurt, I don’t think I could take it like you did last Friday.”

“That was nothing.”

“Someone told me this morning that you got thrown into a mirror.”

Nick scratched his head. “Well, yeah, I didn’t walk into it.” She liked that. She smiled. She was the kind of girl who needed to smile more often. So solemn.

“Would you like another orange?” she asked.

He waved it away, feeling a sudden surge of confidence. She admired how he fought! She wasn’t afraid of him. “Would you like to go to the movies Saturday night?”

She nodded. “Could you pick me up at the library? I’ll be there studying.”

“I could, yeah.” He would have to ask Michael where the library was. “What time would be good?”

“Six. That’s when the library closes.”

That Bubba was a genius. “I’ll see you then.”