Nineteen pairs of blank, mostly pale-blue eyes looked back at me. You could have heard a cigarette drop.

"Okay," I said. "Chapter one: Matter, Energy, Organization and Life."

"I don't know if I'm going to live through this," I told Emelina, collapsing in her kitchen. Her kitchen chairs were equipales that took you in like a hug, which I needed. My first day had gone as smoothly as anybody could reasonably hope-no revolts, no crises major or minor. Still, I couldn't put a finger on what it was, but standing in front of a roomful of high-school students seemed to use up a ferocious amount of energy. It made me think of those dancers in white boots and miniskirts who used to work bars in the sixties, trying desperately to entertain, flailing around like there was no tomorrow.

Emelina, Mason, the baby, and I were all exiled to the kitchen; Viola had taken over the living room with her friends for a special afternoon meeting of the Stitch and Bitch Club. They were preparing for their annual fundraising bazaar, and as a backdrop to our own conversation we could overhear the exchange of presumably vital information:

"Last year the Hospital Equipment Committee didn't make fifteen cents on them sachet cushions."

"Well, it's no wonder. They stunk."

"Lalo saw in a magazine where you can make airplanes out of cut beer cans. The propellers go around."

Emelina set a cup of tea in front of me. I picked it up and let the steam touch my eyelids, realizing that what I needed most at that moment was to lie in bed with someone who was fond of every inch of my skin.

"It must be weird, going back to that school," she said.

"Oh, sure. It is. I didn't let myself think too much about that part of the job. Till today."

Mason was on the floor, coloring, and Emelina was moving around the kitchen in an effortless frenzy, closing drawers with her hip, cooking dinner, and feeding the baby at the same time.

"Let me do that," I said, scooting myself over to the high chair and taking the cereal bowl from Emelina.

"Here, he makes a pretty fair mess, let me give you Grammy's apron," she said, tying around me a splendid example of Stitch and Bitch enterprise. The baby snapped up cereal as fast as I could spoon it in, wasting little on mess as far as I could see.

"You're having dinner with us tonight, right?"

"No, thanks," I said.

"Honestly, Codi, if you think one more mouth to feed is any trouble you're out of your mind. If I woke up one day and had six more kids I don't think I'd notice."

"No, Em, thanks, but I feel like resting in peace."

"You're not dead yet, hon."

From the living room we heard Viola raising her voice now in Spanish, saying something about peacocks: pavones. The other women answered in Spanish, and I could follow just enough to know that they'd moved rapidly onto the subject of fruit trees. Dona Althea sounded agitated. Her high-pitched voice was easy to recognize, exactly what you'd expect from a very small, strong-willed woman. Emelina raised her eyebrows as she looked under a pot lid. "Do you know the boys won't even speak Spanish to their Grammy?" she asked in a subdued voice.

I glanced at Mason, who was absorbed in his coloring book, though probably listening. "Is that a problem?"

"Oh, yeah. Viola's big on all the traditional stuff. She's real tight with Dona Althea. She wants us to raise the boys puro, speaking Spanish and knowing all the stories. Seems like it might be easier with girls, but these guys..." She shrugged her shoulders. "My parents were always so modern, you remember how Mom is, electric can openers all the way. I always felt like she wanted me to grow up blonde, you know? My dad told me she actually wanted to name me Gidget!"

I laughed. "No. He was pulling your leg."

"No, he wasn't. And poor Tucker was named after a car."

Tucker was a younger brother who'd died in infancy, before I ever knew the family. To tell the truth, I'd forgotten him, in spite of his name passed on to Emelina's first son.

The baby was sitting with his mouth opened unbelievably wide, waiting for my attention to return to his dinner. I poked in the next bite. A scattering of loud laughter like a rainstorm came from the other room, and all of us in the kitchen were quiet. This gang of old women staked out such a presence, we felt almost crowded out of the house. Mason actually gathered up his papers and started to go outside.

Emelina called him back. "Wait a minute, Mason, before you run off, come show Codi your hand. Codi, could you take a look at his hand? There's some kind of bump on it. Do you mind?"