The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [18]
Scott graduated number one in his law school class, which earned him job offers from every big firm in Dallas. He chose Ford Stevens because they offered him $5,000 more. Eleven years later, Scott Fenney was no longer the poor kid on the block.
Scott entered the house through the back door that led into a mudroom and then into the spacious kitchen, where he found Consuela cooking and the small TV tuned to a Mexican game show.
“Buenas noches, señorita. What’s for dinner?”
Her brown face turned up from the stainless-steel stove, and she smiled. “Enchiladas, Señor Fenney. Especial for you.”
He walked over, put an arm around her, and said, “Consuela, don’t worry. Esteban will be back soon.”
She fought back tears. “Sí. He will come.”
Consuela de la Rosa was twenty-eight, short, and chubby. She lived in the pool cabana out back, just like countless other illegal Mexican maids throughout the Town of Highland Park, which effectively granted them political asylum from the INS. Their presence was certainly no secret; strolling the aisles of the Highland Park gourmet grocery store on a weekday when the maids did the family shopping qualified as a conversational Spanish lesson these days. The real threat to his maid was not the INS but Esteban’s hormones. If her hombre got her pregnant, Consuela would have to leave town per the tacit agreement in Highland Park: Spanish spoken in the grocery store was acceptable; Spanish spoken in the schools was not.
“Mrs. Fenney home?”
“No. Señora, she gone all day. She hit the golf ball.”
“With all the golf lessons she’s taken, she ought to be on the women’s pro tour by now.”
In keeping with his daily routine, Scott climbed the back stairs two steps at a time to the second floor. He walked down the hall and up another set of stairs to the top floor that was his nine-year-old daughter’s domain. Hers was not a kid’s room; there were no posters on the wall of Britney Spears or the Olsen twins. There were books, books on the bookshelves, books on her desk, books on her night table, books on the floor. Even at nine, she was a serious child, thoughtful, smart beyond her breeding. Scott found her at her desk tucked under the dormer, barefooted and wearing overall shorts and a green Dallas Mavericks T-shirt, notwithstanding her mother’s threats to disown her if she didn’t start dressing in designer outfits from Neiman Marcus like the other Highland Park girls her age. But she had steadfastly refused, saying she had her own identity, to which her mother would always retort, “As what, a boy?”
“Hey, Boo.”
Barbara Boo Fenney. She was named after his mother, who had died before Boo was born. Scott’s mother had not lived to see her son’s mansion or her granddaughter. Boo spun around in her swivel chair, her shoulder-length red hair whipping around, and she gave him a smile that shot straight to his heart. Scott loved his wife, but Boo was the love of his life.
“Hey, A. Scott.”
He cupped her face, leaned down, and kissed her forehead.
“Did you have a good day, baby?”
“Oh, I read and played computer games, watched TV, cooked with Consuela, you know, the usual…until Esteban called. Thanks for calming Consuela down—she’d still be crying.”
Scott nodded. “Your mother’s been gone all day?”
She gave him a look. “Duh.”
“It’s summer, she ought to spend more time with you.”
“Well, I’m not on the Cattle Barons’ Ball committee.” She smiled. “How was your day?”
“Okay.”
“Did you do important lawyer stuff?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Like what?”
Scott recalled his day—billing twelve hours for the nine