Titanium Texicans (15 page)

Everyone on ship had a pair of high-topped pointed-toe boots. Well, everyone had those cowboy boots except Tasso. Everyone, including Tasso, wore lace-up ship boots when working. Tasso had black laces matching his boots, but many of the women and most of the kids wore colored laces, some with colors defying description.

All the time he kept his an eye on the door for male customers, but he didn’t see any. He spoke to the female customers as they browsed around the store. He spoke to most of the women who stopped to watch him operating the extruder. Cherry and Ain were busy, but he wasn’t sure if he could help most of the women other than being pleasant.

One elderly woman stood watching him spin the color dials. She reminded him of his grandmother. She didn’t look like her, but she had the look of a grandmother. Her blouse was a dull, orangish red with hints of yellow flecks. It made him think of the sunrise on the rock walls of his valley. He worked the dials, quickly finding a color match to her blouse. He made a spool of honey colored ribbon with flecks of Tuscan sun. The woman gasped as it shot out of the machine. She reached out to touch the ribbon, but pulled her hand back. Tasso extruded another two feet of ribbon. He handed it to the woman.

“
Regalo, Abuela
,” Tasso said. He knew his Spanish accent was horrible and he was diligently trying not to become a Texican, but with this woman, it seemed right.

“What?” The woman blurted, obviously confused.

“I said this is a gift, honored grandmother.”

The woman looked at him in exactly the same way Grandpa always did when Tasso told him something he already knew. “I know what you said, but why would you give me a gift? You don’t know me.”

Tasso said, “I don’t know you, Abuela. You remind me of someone I loved and I ….” Before he could stop, his eyes welled up with tears. His heart ached for his grandmother. Suddenly, her loss was more than he could take. The tears began streaming down his face. He wanted to turn and run away, but without realizing it, he’d become surrounded by a block of female shoppers. He was trapped, crying his eyes out in front a crowd of strangers.

CHAPTER 14

THE WOMAN GRABBED him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Tasso hugged her back like he would his grandmother if he could. He didn’t care if his tears soaked her blouse. She whispered in his ear, “It’ll be okay, mi nieto, my grandson. It’ll be okay.”

Tasso took a deep breath and sighed. “Thank you, Abuela. I guess crying like this is not very manly of me.”

“Nonsense, most of us women would be much happier if our men would—”

Tasso glanced up and quit listening. Standing in the store’s doorway was Anisa, watching him bawl like a little baby for his lost grandmother. He wiped his eyes with his coverall sleeve.

“Please, Grandmother,” he said, “accept my gift. I made this color to match your shirt and I thought it would match your hair and eyes.”

“
Gracias
. What’s your name,
mi nieto
?”

He started to choke up again, but Cherry rescued him. “Ladies, this is Tasso Menzies. He’s a new addition to our little shop and an artist with a bodacious color sense. If you need a special ribbon, a hatband, or a belt, you step up and let him help you.”

Tasso smiled. “We can also do chokers, watchbands, lanyards, laces, and any kind of strap, strip, or string. Custom orders made while you shop.”

Cherry put her arm around his shoulders. She whispered in his ear. “Are you okay?”

Tasso nodded. “Yes. I was acting a bit girlie for a moment, but I’m okay now.”

“Good. Can you make another roll of plain yellow?”

Tasso shook his head, “I can’t make it, but I can have the machine extrude you a roll. What happened to the first yellow I extruded?”

Cherry laughed. “Sold it, silly. That’s what we do here.”

Tasso laughed. It felt good to laugh. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed easier to laugh than it did a moment ago. He turned to the machine and extruded another roll of primary yellow. The extruder’s product log said it matched the exact color of the first roll of yellow. He decided to extrude a few other yellows. He found a listing and ran spools of gold, mustard, ochre, wheat, saffron, and something called electric-yellow. When he stopped on the color amber, it reminded him again of his little valley at sunrise. Instead of making him sad, he ran a series of ribbons based on the colors of his Saronno valley. He was only vaguely aware how each new color brought an ‘o-o-o-h’ or an ‘a-a-a-a-h’ from the crowd around him. He was completely unaware of the excitement as groups of women wrapped and twisted groups of colored ribbons together.

He was oblivious to the fact that the other goods were flying off the shelves and every sale included strands of ribbons. Shoppers snapped up his bootlaces before Cherry put them on a shelf. He scanned through the extruder’s manual at every spare opportunity. Once it began a production run, he could flip to the manual for a little light reading while the machine chugged away. He began shifting the width of his products, a little thinner on this one and wider on that one. One belt he made thicker, one version he made with six strands, and one he made thinner with fourteen strands of different colors in a flat weave until it looked like a sunset sky over a green field. It startled him when a finger tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, expecting to see Cherry, but Anisa stood there.

“Hi, Tasso,” she said.

“Hi again,” he smiled. He wanted to be nonchalant, but his face refused to listen to his mind.

“Sorry I wasn’t much help earlier back in the corridor. How’s your arm?”

Tasso grunted. “Huh. I forgot all about it. It feels fine. Thank you for helping me. I’m sure you’d have done fine even if Otto hadn’t shown up.”

Anisa shook her head. “I don’t know about that. There was a lot of blood.”

“Not so much. I owe you for trying to help, anyway.”

Anisa smiled, “We’re even. I hear you’re responsible for finding Tio Gabe. He’s my great-uncle and I sure wouldn’t want him hurt and wandering around.”

Tasso was surprised. He knew Tio Gabe was the captain’s uncle, but he hadn’t put together other family connections. He was going to have to diagram who was who.

“What can I help you with, Anisa. I’m not real familiar with much of the stock in the store, but I’m getting pretty good with this extruder.”

“I’m the head cheerleader for our football team. We aren’t going to win next Friday. It seems that some of our best players got hurt and won’t be able to play. So, we want to do some special cheers and really do some special things to keep everyone’s spirits up.”

“I’ll do what I can to help you.”

Anisa held out a small medallion. “Our team’s colors are here on the ship’s coat of arms. We wanted to get ribbons to match these colors. The cheerleaders could make pins for people to wear in support of the team. You know, one short red ribbon and one with this gold color. Can you match these colors?”

“I’m sure I can match the color. Can I see the medal thing you have? This is the Escorpión Rojo’s coat of arms? Huh! I’ve seen this around but I didn’t know what it was for.” He put the medallion face down on a recessed input screen and dropped the lid down over it. “The extruder can automatically match the colors for us. Let’s see, if I push this and let the extruder …” His voice dwindled away.

He realized he’d sounded like he was talking to himself more than talking with Anisa. He wanted to talk to her but he didn’t know how. He wanted to look at her, to study her face, to smell her hair, to kiss— Tasso shook his head. He tried to bring his mind back to what he was doing, but Anisa was still standing too close. He hoped what he was doing would work the first time because he didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of her. She’d already seen him spit out his food, be hauled off to medical, stand bleeding in the corridor, and bawl like a baby in wet diapers. He was sure she’d seen every video of him on the net. It seemed that everyone else had. He really wanted to get one thing right.

The extruder flashed ready. He punched the activate switch and extruded a foot of red ribbon. He looked at it and it looked right. He handed Anisa the ribbon and retrieved the medallion from the machine. He turned to give the coat of arms back to Anisa, but she was gone. She was surrounded by a cluster of her friends all surrounding Cherry. She was waving the ribbon, passing it around and yanking it back.

Tasso wasn’t familiar with how girls acted. He wasn’t sure if the ribbon was the right color or what. He really didn’t know if the squealing meant they were happy or if they were complaining to his new boss. Well, in for a penny in for a pound. He shook his head, someday he was going to have to look that saying up. It sounded like Tio Gabe’s, but the quote was something Grandpa said more than once. How could a monetary unit compare with a unit of weight?

He twisted a knob on the machine and punched the activate switch again. He got a foot of the gold ribbon. He spun the dial again and generated a foot of white ribbon. It only took a moment to generate a few strands of additional specialty ribbons. He waded into the crowd of girls and handed the new ribbons to Cherry along with the medallion.

He shrugged. “I figured out how to extrude the ribbon with this coat of arms imprinted on it. I did the coat of arms in gold on the red ribbon. On the gold ribbon, I used a red picture. Plus, I did the exact red and gold coat of arms on white ribbon for contrast. Is that okay?”

Cherry looked wide-eyed at him. “Okay? Is it okay? Ain, look at this. Tasso asks if it’s okay?” She spun on him and fixed him with a cold stare. Suddenly she grabbed him in a hug and squeezed him tight. “Tasso, you’re a genius. I guess the only thing to do is to give you the shop and make you the boss.”

Tasso laughed and tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him go. He saw Ain grinning at him and before he could say a word, Ain was gone. “Okay. Thanks for the offer, but don’t joke about giving me your store. I might take you up on it.”

Cherry smiled over his shoulder. “Someone will be with you shortly, sir.”

Tasso turned, saw one of the mechanics from earlier standing in the doorway and he smiled and waved. Gordo smiled back and waved, but looked like he didn’t know what to do or how to do it.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Gordo,” Tasso said.

Cherry said, “Gordo? He doesn’t look like a
gordo
to me.”

Tasso shook his head in confusion. “He doesn’t what? No, never mind.” He turned to see Anisa staring at him. “Miss Anisa, I know this wasn’t exactly what you wanted. I can do these without the picture on them if you don’t like it.”

The other girls grabbed the gold and white ribbons from Cherry and started mixing and matching the three, passing them back and forth. They were giggling and pushing. Tasso still didn’t know what to make of them. He really didn’t know what to do with Anisa. She was standing there ignoring her friends, staring at him.

Tasso shrugged. “Okay? Do you want it plain or with the pictures?”

Anisa said, “Oh, sorry. Yes. They’re okay. I guess, with the coat of arms on it. They’re probably much more expensive than the plain ribbon, but they’re so pretty. How much is it by the foot? I think I have the credits to get some of each.”

Tasso shook his head. “Cherry, if this is for the football team, I want to donate it. Would you charge this against my pay?”

Cherry looked from Anisa to Tasso and back. “Well, Señor, it might take a while for you to work off enough ribbon to make these young ladies happy. Keep track of how much you give them and we’ll let you donate it to the football team.”

Anisa said, “I do have the credits to pay.”

Tasso smiled and looked at his feet. “I’m sure you do, but I’ve caused you trouble more than once and I’d like to do this as a gesture of ….” His voice trailed off when he failed to come up with the proper words to finish his thought.

Cherry suggested, “Good will?”

Tasso nodded and said, “Good will.” He looked over his shoulder. Gordo was standing by the doorway. He’d moved over to let some customers out, but remained standing patiently. Tasso could see the man’s eyes never left Cherry. “If you ladies will excuse me, I have to go rescue Gordo. And,” he looked up at Anisa, “I have some more ribbons to make.”

He collected Gordo, shook hands with him, and stepped back to his machine. “It’s really good to see a guy in here. I’ve been surrounded by nothing but women for a couple of hours.”

“And you’re complaining?” Gordo laughed. The mechanic took his eyes off Cherry and glanced down at the extruder. “It is true. Word is that you have an extruder up here. Roberto’s wife said she saw you making shoelaces in here. This isn’t just any extruder. Where’d you get a Thurmand?”

Tasso smiled. “I found it in the attic. Hey, can you give me a second? I have to run some special ribbons for a customer.” He started the machine, spooling a hundred feet of red ribbon with the gold coat of arms.

“That is beautiful.”

Tasso nodded. “I thought it was pretty, the gold and red match quite well.”

Gordo shook his head, “No, Tasso. I mean the Thurmand extruder. This is spitting it out like its insides are on fire.”

Tasso laughed. “Cherry has had me at this since I got here and this extruder hasn’t hiccupped once.”

“Cherry? She’s the owner, her, you know, over there, the um … the pretty one?”

“Yes. She’s the boss. Do you really think she’s just pretty?” The extruder spit out the gold ribbon.

Gordo shook his head, “She’s pretty in the way a perfect rose is pretty. She’s pretty the way a dragonfly’s wings in the sun are pretty. She’s pretty in the way—”

“I got it,” Tasso smiled. “I think so, too.” The extruder spit out a hundred feet of white ribbon with the coat of arms on it. Tasso ran a second roll of white ribbon with the coat of arms for Cherry to sell. He didn’t run extra of the red and gold ribbons. He logged those designs into the system for the cheerleader’s use only.

“Gordo, can I ask you a personal question?”

Gordo laughed. “If I can stand here and watch your boss, you can ask me any question that comes to your pea-pickin’ brain.”

Tasso wasn’t sure what a pea-pickin’ was, but he asked anyway, “When you came in, Cherry asked who you were and—”

“She asked about me?” Gordo interrupted.

Tasso shrugged, “Yeah. I guess. Anyway, I said you were Gordo and she said you didn’t look like a Gordo to her. I don’t know what she meant.”

Gordo laughed. “Gordo is a nickname. My real name is Stephano, Stephan, or just plain Steve.”

“Really, but what does gordo mean?”

Gordo laughed harder. “It means the fat man.” He slapped his flat stomach. “When I was a young pup, I was a tad bit heavy. The other kids called me Gordo and the name stuck. I work out some now, but I don’t mind the nickname. It’s sort of like calling a big man Tiny. But she …” Gordo pointed behind Tasso.

Tasso turned around. Anisa was standing right behind him.

“Oh, I am sorry, Anisa. Where are my manners. Anisa, this is Stephano. Gordo, this is Anisa Rojo-Graham.” He handed the spools of ribbon to her. “I made you a hundred feet of each of the three colors. Is that enough to start with, or do you need more?”

Anisa smiled, “A hundred feet of each color? That’s too much.”

Tasso smiled back, “You can save the leftovers for next time. Did you have enough pins or do you need more?”