Rosa didn’t catch herself in time. She blushed.

“I mean, that’s interesting, right, guys?”

The young men were staring at her. They didn’t seem to find it that interesting. Rosa hoped they would just move inside so Juan could handle them. She didn’t want to talk any more.

“We’re not here for your dirty buns,” the smallest one said.

The others snickered. The one with the longhorn tattoo high-fived the small one. Rosa kept her mouth closed. She tugged her skirt down to make sure it was reaching to her calf.

“You feel like you’re sitting pretty, doncha?” the one with the curly blond hair asked her.

His tattoo was a tractor with angel wings, on a part of his chest she could see because he was wearing a tank top.

“Everything’s lookin’ pretty good for you from there, ain’t it? You got yourself a regular catbird seat.”

“What’s a catbird seat?” the one with the longhorn tattoo asked.

The blond-haired man ignored him, so he turned to the small one.

“Seriously, what is it?” he asked in a low voice.

The small guy shook his head in a way meant to convey that his friend was an idiot for asking, as well as suggest that he knew the answer, when he actually didn’t. Rosa was able to discern all of this even as she sat perfectly still in fear, wondering when Juan would come out to check on her.

“Didja hear me, Mex?” the one with curly blond hair asked.

Rosa pretended this was a friendly nickname. She didn’t smile, but she looked alert.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said softly.

“Gittup,” the small guy suddenly bellowed. “Gittup-offa-those.”

Rosa wasn’t sure what he was saying, he was speaking too quickly and loudly. She understood English perfectly well, but she couldn’t comprehend this kind of quick rage. He took a step toward her.

“What’s going on?” Juan called from the porch.

Rosa felt a surge of gratitude. She knew the danger hadn’t passed, but simply having Juan with her made things better. And at least there would be a witness.

“Those chairs don’t belong to you,” the one with blond hair said to Juan.

“Rosa, why don’t you come inside,” Juan said quietly.

Rosa hurried to her feet and skirted around the men. She climbed the porch and touched Juan’s arm as she passed him. Juan was taller than the small one, but he wasn’t a large man. Rosa heard him close the porch door behind her, and she murmured prayers in rapid Spanish as she ran to their baby, tortured by the suspicion that they were utterly on their own.

Grady was wiping down his counter and thinking about a news show that had informed him that most people’s kitchen sinks were sixty times dirtier than their toilets when the bell on the diner door jingled.

“Sorry, closed until tomorrow,” he said without looking up.

“Just wanted to let you know we got the Brayer chairs back.”

It was Roy’s grandson saying this from the doorway. The curly blond-headed one named Randy who used to shoot spitballs out of straws when he’d come to eat at the Grill. Grady had spent a lot of time cleaning up after him. He’d grown up, but not too much.

“That so,” Grady answered.

He stopped wiping and walked outside. The chairs were there all right, in the back of Randy’s truck, standing straight up like they were arranged for a traveling dinner party.

Grady reprimanded him. “You gotta lay ’em down so they don’t get blown over.”

He wondered why some people didn’t have more natural sense. He felt it was a generational deficiency. These younger boys weren’t skilled at manual labor and seemed incapable of the simplest tasks. They might be better with computers and cell phones, but they were lesser men. Grady had made his own kids learn how to change tires and locks, how to build and fix. Just basic skills that were dying out, it seemed to him. Grown-up kids these days thought they could hire someone else to handle such things, but they weren’t spending their saved time in any kind of productive, worthwhile way. It was a shame.

Whether or not Grady realized it, his annoyance actually sprang from the fact that the sight of the chairs in the truck meant they’d been forcibly taken from outside Tortillas, and this upset him. He’d gone along with the plan because it had been the only thing to do, but he’d secretly hoped that it wouldn’t be enacted. He felt guilty for having been the initiating force to begin with, and he’d been hoping that everyone would get distracted by something else for long enough to just forget about the chairs. He recognized the delusional aspect of this thinking, and it only served to aggravate him further.

Grady watched Roy’s grandson struggle to rearrange the chairs, before stepping in to show him how to do it. A couple of the other boys climbed out of the truck cab to assist.

So basic. Grady shuddered to contemplate what else they were screwing up. He cleared his throat.

“Was there any trouble getting these?” he asked.

Randy grinned in a way that made Grady’s stomach turn.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” he answered.

Still, Grady hoped it was just big talk. He nodded.

“Good to hear.”

Only when the truck was driving away did Grady see Juan standing, stopped in his tracks, staring. How long he’d been there, Grady didn’t know, though it seemed evident by his expression that it had at least been long enough to register that Grady was friendly with the gang of men who’d obviously caused him trouble. Juan’s clothes were dirty and his lip bloodied. Grady’s heart sank.

“Juan,” he said.

They’d talked about how “Juan” was Spanish for “John,” which was Grady’s son’s name. Grady had shown him Christmas cards, and the spot on the map where John lived. Juan had mentioned that he had relatives in California, too.

Juan didn’t respond to Grady. He stood there, holding his hand to his split lip, for another long moment.

“I didn’t know they were gonna do that, Juan,” Grady said.

He heard how unconvincing he sounded. He was aware that even he didn’t believe himself. Juan turned and walked away.

“I’m sorry,” Grady called to his back.

Back at his sink, later, Grady stared at the sponge in his hand. He imagined he could feel bacteria oozing out of it, covering him like flies on a carcass.

One of Willa’s least favorite chores was a weekly necessity. She didn’t mind collecting the trash from her own home and bagging it all up for disposal. But mixing it in with the refuse of the larger town was another matter altogether. The smell of the dump overwhelmed her, particularly on hot summer days. Since Jiminy arrived, Willa had tasked her with taking the garbage there, feeling only mildly guilty that she was subjecting her granddaughter to the ordeal. She reminded herself that Jiminy was young and hardy. She could take it.

Jiminy didn’t love the assignment, but she did it without complaint. Standing beside the open trunk of Willa’s car, she tossed three bulging bags of garbage one by one, up and over the Dumpster’s high metal wall. As she listened to the thuds of their landings, she was suddenly struck by how hollow she felt with Bo gone from her life. But she was filling up with other things, she told herself. It was important that she keep moving.

She turned to slam the trunk shut and felt something brush against her leg. The perpetrator, a gray kitten with two different colored eyes, doubled back for more contact. Jiminy’s grandmother had warned her that people used the dump to dispose of unwanted animals, and Jiminy had previously encountered the pack of feral dogs that roamed the nearby fields. She assumed this kitten had to be a recent arrival based on the fact that it was still alive.

One of the kitten’s eyes was brown, the other blue. The effect was disconcerting. Looking into its face, Jiminy felt for a second that she was being hypnotized. Later, she decided this might have been the reason she scooped up the kitten and put it in the seat next to her before driving off. She couldn’t account for it otherwise. She knew her grandmother wouldn’t allow her to keep it.