"Nothing But Blue Skies"...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Someone had told Elsa that squeezing the bottom of her right foot with her fingers and thumb would settle her nerves. It didn't. Not those nerves.

Frayed was the word for what her whatevers were up to, like up noggin way. Still, she worked her tired foot over at bedtime, as had been suggested, and, well, it did soothe something or another.

Perhaps the unglamourous foot nerves, Elsa threw out with a smile. Life was a freakin' mangrove swamp. The day job at the fruit market was killing her. Lifting wet bushel baskets of pears and apples was rough, tough work.

It did pay the bills, but she was pretty sure the nerve mess would soon segue into back pain. Hector was gone. He'd said something about wanting to cruise the "scenic" Pacific Coast Highway out west at least once before he died, so there he and his spiffy convertible had gone, leaving girlfriend Elsa to fend for herself.

Dad had died seven years earlier and poor Mom was now in her second year at the nursing home. Joke-a-minute Dad had left his aging dog with Elsa, done left "Killer" with instructions on what and when to feed him ("No Alpo & never after 8:00 P.M.!!!")

Her older brother Juan was working on dam construction in Peru, and he'd asked that Elsa regularly water the yard and plants around his house. She did that just enough, although not on Sam's schedule.

When her foot started hurting, she thought it surely must have been the result of stepping on that large, still-green cucumber at the market. The awkward misstep had caused her to lose her balance and she'd gone tumbling crazily head-first into the grapes and plums display.

Here, as another long, boring night alone at home began to move toward midnight, Elsa again sat on the edge of the saggy bed and rubbed the bottom of her aching foot...

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