The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

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The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 72manage, he asked her what she was reading. He was pleased with the question. It was theconversational opening he had planned, and his voice shook hardly at all.Eudora seemed pleased to find that Jose could actually speak. She held up a book on thestructure of human bones and immediately began to relate to Jose how fascinating the subject of thebody was to her. It was, in fact, so interesting that she launched straight off into asking Jose about hislimp and whether it was due to any sort of traumatic bone injury or gross defect that he might have.Jose felt he was on the edge of losing his nascent mastery of the situation; his injury was not inany of his imagined conversations. Once Eudora learned that his limp was the result of a combatinjury, however, she seemed even more interested in learning all the details: Where did the bullet enterand exit? How big was the scar? Did it still hurt a lot? She hung on each answer, and Jose started tofeel more in control of himself. He decided to throw out all of his mental scripts and just let theconversation go wherever it would.Relating the brief events of the battle in which he had been shot, Jose tried not to be distractedby Eudora licking her lips and nodding at each detail. He left out La Catrina and her visitation as helay bleeding in the ditch under the truck – a detail which he would never surrender to anyone, andespecially not to Eudora. In any case, those events seemed dream-like and distant at the moment; thepresent, here with Eudora, seemed like the only moment in his life that he had ever really lived.Eudora seemed fascinated with Jose, but her next question again caught him off guard. Why hespoke with an accent was also a subject that Jose had not covered in his mental rehearsals for thismeeting, but he did not let the question rattle him. He had in fact been practicing the answer ever sincehe had bought his identity as an American: That he was Mexican by heritage, and had grown up in NewMexico surrounded by that culture. It was just the way people talked where he was from. He did notlike having to lie, and mentally apologized to his father. He would eventually tell Eudora the truthabout his background, but that night was to be years into the future.
The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 73Eudora was both surprised and delighted with his answer. She had always mentally equatedMexican with Indian, and Jose's relatively light skin tone had not led her to place him in that culture.Her surprise was not the least bit surprising to Jose, who was well aware of the story handed downthrough generations of his family that they sprung from the loins of an especially pale Spaniard and hisparticularly pale wife, and who was used to looking not quite like most of the people that he knew.Still, his skin tone was darker than hers, and Eudora had in fact begun to guess that he was possiblyItalian. Trying to cover her surprise, she asked Jose if he was, then, a fiery Latin, which made themboth laugh and drew a sharp stare from the library attendant.They continued their conversation in lower tones. Jose learned that Eudora's home was barelyfifty miles away in a small village named Rockville, where her father was both the postmaster and theoperator of the town's only store. When America had finally joined the war in April she had felt apatriotic urge to do something. She couldn't join the Army proper, of course, but the Army NursingCorps seemed the next best thing. She was immediately captivated by the subject matter – bodiesinterested her – even if still a little disappointed that she wouldn't get to shoot rifles. She claimed to bea crack shot, and when Jose informed her what he was assigned to do at the Camp the pair foundanother topic to easily keep the conversation going.Eventually the time came for the library to close, and just as he had on Sunday Jose foundhimself being rousted by an assistant eager to close up and go home. His disappointment quicklyended, however, when Eudora suggested that he escort her back to the women's quarters. He was onlytoo delighted to do so, and the two happily wandered along the dimly-lit streets, talking and laughinguntil they reached the building where the nursing students were housed. Jose didn't want this time withEudora to end, but here it was. Claiming harsh penalties if she was not inside by curfew, Eudoraquickly stood on her toes and gave Jose a kiss on the cheek. Saying she hoped to see him nextWednesday, she hurried inside. Once again Jose found he had no words he could muster. He would
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The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

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