She looked away. “The thing with Lottie was she came with the picking crew but she never went out to pick. Despite that she managed to pay rent on a two-room cabin over on Citrus Street.” She hooked a finger. “That’s three blocks over, we used to call it Rind Street ’cause the migrants took the oversoft fruit home to make lemonade and the gutters were full of skin and pulp. Rows of cabins—shacks. Communal bathrooms. That’s where Lottie and Hope lived. Except soon they got upgraded to a double cabin. When Lottie was in town, she tended to stay indoors.”
“Was she gone a lot?”
She shrugged. “She used to take day trips.”
“Where?”
“No car, she used to hitch. Probably up to Bakersfield, maybe all the way to Fresno, ’cause she came back with nice things. Later, she bought herself a car.”
“Nice things,” I said.
The skin around the black eyes tightened. “My second husband was assistant general manager for one of the lemon companies, knew everything about everyone. He said when Lottie hitched, she stood by the side of the road and lifted her skirt way up. . . . She and Hope lived here until Hope was fourteen, then they moved up to Bakersfield. Hope told me it was so she could go to high school close to home.”
“All those years of paying the rent without picking,” I said.
“Like I said, she knew how to walk.”
“Are we talking a steady lover or business?”
She stared at me. “Why does everything nowadays have to be so overt?”
“I’d like to bring back information, not hints, Mrs. Campos.”
“Well, I can’t see how this kind of information can help you—yes, she took money from men. How much? I don’t know. Was it official or did she just lead them to understand they should leave her something under the pillow, I can’t tell you that, either. Because I minded my own business. Sometimes she went away for a few days at a time and came back with lots of new dresses. Was it more than just a shopping trip?” She shrugged. “What I will say is she always brought clothes for Hope, too. Quality things. She liked dressing the child up. Other kids would be running around in jeans and T-shirts and little Hope would have on a pretty starched dress. And Hope took care of her things, too. Never got dirty or mixed in with rough stuff. She tended to stay inside the cabin, reading, practicing her penmanship. She learned to read at five, always loved it.”
“Was there any indication Hope knew what her mother did?”
She shrugged and passed her beer can from one hand to the other.
“Did Hope ever talk to you about it, Mrs. Campos?”
“I wasn’t her psychologist, just her teacher.”
“More kids talk to teachers than to psychologists.”
She put the can down and her arms snapped across her chest like luggage straps. “No, she never talked to me about it but everyone knew, and she wasn’t stupid. I always thought shame was why she kept to herself.”
“Did you see her after she moved to Bakersfield?”
The arms tightened. “A year after, she came back to visit. She’d won an award, wanted to show it to me.”
“What kind of award?”
“Scholastic achievement. Sponsored by a stock-and-feed company, big ceremony at the Kern County Fair. She sent me an invitation but I had the flu, so she came two days later, with photos. She and a boy student—smartest girl, smartest boy. She kept trying to tell me I deserved the award for teaching her so much. Wanted to give me the trophy.”
“Mature sentiment for a teenager.”
“I told you, she was always mature. It was a one-room school and with most of the older kids out working the crop, it was easy to give her lots of personal attention. All I did was keep supplying her with new books. She chewed up information like a combine.”
Springing up, she left the parlor without explanation and disappeared in the back of the house again. I went over to the battered Shih Tzu’s crate and wiggled a finger through the mesh door. The little dog showed me pleading eyes. Its breathing was rapid.