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I grabbedrooainstthe shirt

"Yep"

We got into her truck and drove don

"Do youone of the other servers for a ride home?" Mrs Carpenter asked as she parallel parked in front of the restaurant "I have ht and sooes pretty late"

"Yeah No proble your house key?"

I patted my pocket

"Good" The wrinkles between her white eyebrows deepened "On second thought, maybe I should pick you up I called anis, but they didn’t find a trace of ’eot out of the truck and waved as Mrs Carpenter pulled away

The Navajo Mexican had only four custo with the soft dru played over the speaker syste an order She sdalena!" a voice called I ju his hands on a rag "Magdalena You’re right on tidalena? I looked at Yana She shrugged

I followed José into the kitchen andonions faster than I could see He paused and looked over his shoulder Our eyes met and he set the knife down

"Yana told me what happened at school," he said My face started to burn Naalyehe reached into his pocket and pulled so out "This is for you Yo-ih It means ‘beads’ " He held a bracelet up It was er, brown beads "Those," Naalyehe said, touching the brown, "are cedar berries They will keep you safe"

I reached out to take the bracelet, but before I could, Naalyehe hooked it ontoI couldn’t understand

"Thanks," I said, wondering if he had aonions

José handed me a white apron, which I tied aroundthe letter on the front of my shirt

"I’m sorry This is the only black shirt I own," I said

"It’s fine," José said "You can have anything except profanity on your shirt, as long as the shirt itself is black I was just wondering if you bought it that way or made the A yourself Es interesante"

"That ,’ " Naalyehe said over his shoulder

I looked down at the scarlet letter, at the spattered spray paint Maybe it was sort of interesting

"Are you ready to work?" José handed

I stared at it blankly "This isn’t dalena When a …" José’s voice trailed off and he carefully pinned the na over my heart

"Nervous?" he asked

"Very"

He smiled "Well, just do your best and hustle Even if your serving isn’t too good, your pretty face and the food will make up for it You’ll do fine"

With a pad of paper and a pen, I went out into the dining room For thirty minutes Yana showed me how to seat people, where the menus were, how to use the poptables was easy It was actually really hard And even though the restaurant wasn’t very busy, I ran the floor alone after Yana left Midway through my shift I was sticky with sweat andtips Not a lot--five dollars here, a few ones there And people actually talked to me, unlike at school At the restaurant I wasn’t invisible, and I wasn’t the main attraction I was just me

A little after nine o’clock, afterroon to CLOSED

"Magdalena," he said, "good work Why don’t you take the trash out, then coht, boss," I said, wipingtrash bags through the kitchen Naalyehe held the back door open forlot to the Dumpster

"Thanks," I said as I walked back into the kitchen

He nodded and locked the door