"That's amazing," I said. "Your cat ought to be in Ripley's Believe It or Not. Or one of those magazine columns where people write in and tell what cute things their pets do, like parakeets that whistle Dixie or cats that will only sleep on a certain towel with pictures of goldfish on it."

"Oh, I wouldn't want anyone to know about Snowboots, it's too embarrassing. It's just about proof-positive that he's from a broken home, don't you think?"

"What does Pachuco mean?"

"It means like a bad Mexican boy. One that would go around spray-painting walls and join a gang."

Pachuco alias Snowboots was still going at it in the living room. "Seriously," I said, "you should send it in. They'd probably pay good money-it's unbelievable what kinds of things you can get paid for. Or at the very least they'd send you a free case of cat chow."

"I almost won a year of free diapers for Dwayne Ray. Dwayne Ray's my son."

"Oh. What does he do?"

Lou Ann laughed. "Oh, he's normal. The only one in the house, I guess. Do you want some more Pepsi?" She got up to refill our glasses. "So did you drive out here, or fly, or what?"

I told her that driving across the Indian reservation was how I'd ended up with Turtle. "Our paths would never have crossed if it weren't for a bent rocker arm."

"Well, if something had to go wrong, at least you can thank your stars you were in a car and not an airplane," she said, whacking an ice-cube tray on the counter. I felt Turtle flinch on my shoulder.

"I never thought of it that way," I said.

"I could never fly in an airplane. Oh Lord, never! Remember that one winter when a plane went right smack dab into that frozen river in Washington, D.C.? On TV I saw them pulling the bodies out frozen stiff with their knees and arms bent like those little plastic cowboys that are supposed to be riding horses, but then when you lose the horse they're useless. Oh, God, that was so pathetic. I can just hear the stewardess saying, 'Fasten your seat belts, folks,' calm as you please, like 'Don't worry, we just have to say this,' and then next thing you know you're a hunk of ice. Oh, shoot, there's Dwayne Ray just woke up from his nap. Let me go get him."

I did remember that airplane crash. On TV they showed the rescue helicopter dropping down a rope to save the only surviving stewardess from an icy river full of dead people. I remember just how she looked hanging on to that rope. Like Turtle.

In a minute Lou Ann came back with the baby. "Dwayne Ray, here's some nice people I want you to meet. Say hi."

He was teeny, with skin you could practically see through. It reminded me of the Visible Man we'd had in Hughes Walter's biology class. "He's adorable," I said.

"Do you think so, really? I mean, I love him to death of course, but I keep thinking his head's flat."

"They all are. They start out that way, and then after a while their foreheads kind of pop out."

"Really? I never knew that. They never told me that."

"Sure. I used to work in a hospital. I saw a lot of newborns coming and going, and every one of them's head was flat as a shovel."

She made a serious face and fussed with the baby for a while without saying anything.

"So what do you think?" I finally said. "Is it okay if we move in?"

"Sure!" Her wide eyes and the way she held her baby reminded me for a minute of Sandi. The lady downtown could paint either one of them: "Bewildered Madonna with Sunflower Eyes." "Of course you can move in," she said. "I'd love it. I wasn't sure if you'd want to."

"Why wouldn't I want to?"

"Well, my gosh, I mean, here you are, so skinny and smart and cute and everything, and me and Dwayne Ray, well, we're just lumping along here trying to get by. When I put that ad in the paper, I thought, Well, this is sure four dollars down the toilet; who in the world would want to move in here with us?"

"Stop it, would you? Quit making everybody out to be better than you are. I'm just a plain hillbilly from East Jesus Nowhere with this adopted child that everybody keeps on telling me is dumb as a box of rocks. I've got nothing on you, girl. I mean it."

Lou Ann hid her mouth with her hand.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing." I could see perfectly well that she was smiling.

"Come on, what is it?"

"It's been so long," she said. "You talk just like me."

Chapter 6 Valentine's Day