Another Kind of Cowboy by Susan Juby Page B

messy. Seriously messy. Alex could have had a 450-pound mother buried somewhere under one of the giant piles of clothes that lay everywhere and no one would ever know. Also, from what I could see beneath all the clothes, the decorating was tragic. Somebody had a major jones for homemade dried-flower arrangements and pictures of sad-eyed clowns.
    â€œDon’t take off your shoes,” said Alex, when Iwent to bend down. “I haven’t had a chance to do the floors.”
    He hadn’t done the floors? I’m not one of those insensitive Paris Hilton types who thinks every family has help, but didn’t his mother do the floors?
    â€œIt’s the girls’ week to do laundry. They haven’t quite gotten around to folding yet,” he said.
    Or picking it up off the floor , I thought.
    I followed him through the living room, and all the sad clown eyes seemed to follow us. The kitchen was airy and bright and even messier than the living room. It was occupied by a woman in her twenties who had the biggest hair I’ve ever seen.
    â€œThis is my aunt Grace. Grace, this is Cleo,” said Alex.
    â€œHave a Samosa,” she said, like she was giving me an order. She seemed to be in the middle of some sort of severe ethnic identity crisis. She wore a bright blue sari with silver trim. A bindi had fallen off her forehead and was stuck in her eyebrow.
    â€œYou made these?” I said, trying to give the impression that I was impressed. Alex’s aunt made his sisters look practically normal. She wasn’t quite as well armed, but her hands—or one hand, anyway—was absolutely filthy, disgustingly, revoltinglydirty—and she was offering me food with it.
    No wonder Alex seems to like cleaning stalls so much. Horses are models of cleanliness compared with his aunt and sisters.
    â€œWell?” Grace asked, impatiently shaking her giant hair so that the three or four shades of noncomplementary highlights shimmered. “Do you like it?”
    I looked around for someplace to hide the Samosa. I considered dropping it down the gaping hole at the front of my shirt, but I knew it would leave a big telltale grease trail.
    â€œI’m a superdomestic person,” said Grace, staring at me. “I love my career as a hairstylist, but I would also jump at the chance to have my own cooking show.” As she spoke the bindi fell out of her eyebrow and landed precariously on her chin.
    I tried to catch Alex’s eye, but he seemed lost in thought as he stared out the window.
    Realizing I was going to be forced to taste the brown lump, I took a deep breath and raised it to my mouth. I was shocked to discover that it actually tasted good. I took a second bite. It had some kind of curry mixture inside. On the third bite something pierced the roof of my mouth.
    â€œOw!” I said, and then tried to cover with an“Mmm.” I began feeling around the roof of my mouth with my tongue.
    â€œCan you taste the rosemary?” asked Grace. “I picked some from one of the flowerpots outside the courthouse when I was paying my parking tickets. At least, I think it was rosemary.”
    â€œI, uh…,” I said. “There’s something…” I opened my mouth and pointed inside.
    â€œOh, damn. Did you get a splinter?”
    I nodded, my mouth still open.
    â€œWould you mind getting it out, Alex?” Grace said, unconcerned that her food had just attacked me. “It took me like half an hour to get that last one out of May’s mouth. In the meantime, I’ve got about a hundred more Samosas to deep-fry.”
    She reached over and grabbed up a pair of tweezers resting on a piece of tinfoil butter wrapper. “Here, use these.”
    I stared at the tweezers. No way was anyone getting near me with those things—not even Alex.
    â€œCome on,” he said, tugging at my dangling peasant sleeve.
    For a moment, I forgot the pain. He touched me! Well, he