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small other back. Alice, going to meet her, concluded that the Taylors must be blind not to realize that their housekeeper was pregnant.
    Juanita said nothing as they moved through the hot afternoon to the cottage.
    Alice, filled with dread, chattered aimlessly about how she had started the lamb burrito mix and had put the retried beans in the oven. Then she heard herself ask casually, “Seen Henry?”
    “I seen him.” Juanita pushed open the screen door. Spicy aromas vibrated in the day’s accumulated heat.
    “He came by the house. Said you was giving him the eye, and rubbing up against him.”
    Alice blinked rapidly, not denying the allegation. She wasn’t about to hurt Juanita by telling her that her husband was a liar and an attempted rapist.
    Giving a small shrug, she said, “I’ve been thinking of going to LA,
    getting a job, maybe an education. ” Then held her breath, praying that Juanita would nix the plan.
    Instead, Juanita said, “Sounds like a good idea.”
    Alice’s hands were shaking as she changed to her good outfit, a tight-topped red sun dress with a matching stole, and packed her possessions. Everything fitted in one large brown grocery sack.
    Juanita, who was at the stove, fished a wad of bills from her apron pocket.
    “Here,” she said.
    “Nita, I can’t take that, you’ve been saving it for the baby doctor.”
    The sweat on Juanita’s face highlighted the dark splotches under the eyes as she made a sad smile.
    “A girl that looks like you needs a little cash to stay good in LA.”
    Here was her admission that she knew Henry had lied.
    After a long moment Alice reached for the money, hugging her sister.
    She could feel the hard knot of the unborn infant.
    “Nita, it’s going to be awful without you.”
    “Alice, look, I got something you oughta use.” Reaching to the top shelf she came up with a partially used tube of vaginal foam.
    “Squeeze it into you.”
    Alice was too miserable to explain what actually had transpired. And besides, what if Henry had pushed it in far enough to start a baby?
    She retreated to the bathroom.
    In Los Angeles, Alice tried for waitress jobs. After three days and fourteen turndowns on the justifiable grounds that she had no identification to prove her age was indeed eighteen, she started riding the RTD busses to answer the ads listed under Help Wanted, Domestic.
    Matrons examined her at their front doors, not allowing her across their threshold.
    “Oh, thank you for coming out, but the position’s already filled.”
    The toll calls and fares to fancy suburbs, her slit of a hotel room, the chili dogs and Orange Juliuses that were her meals, rapidly depleted Juanita’s money.
    On the morning that Alice set out to answer the lowest-paying job in the column, she hadn’t eaten in a day. The fumes and heat in the bus giddied and nauseated her. An old black woman wearing a shiny reddish wig plopped down next to her. Opening a paper sack, she said, “Have a donut.”
    “I just ate a huge breakfast, but thanks.”
    “I done did that big breakfast routine myself. But you looks like you’ll pass out. Go ahead.”
    Faced with simple kindness, Alice broke down. Devouring a chocolate donut, she confided her problem.
    “You ain’t going to get no kind of housework, girl. You too pretty.
    And they sees you’s very young. Now, they ain’t so fussy about Mexicans and us colored. ” The kind, bloodshot eyes examined her.
    “Mmm, you is very light. But with all that pretty black hair, you could pass as Mex. Can you speak it?”
    “Sure.” Who couldn’t, in her line of work?
    “But what about my blue eyes?”
    The face wrinkled into a smile.
    “You ain’t got a thing to worry about.
    Talk that to them, and they’ll never look you in the eye. “
    That morning Mrs. Young, mistress of the small, Mediterranean-style house in Brentwood, hired Alicia Lopez. Because of her lack of ingles, Alicia was underpaid and overworked.
    Alicia had been with the Youngs two