Lone Star Legend Read Online Free

you could
     go red. This Elvira thing you have…. Men like to see a little color, you know?”
    The Elvira thing to which she referred was another old movie reference, this time to Sandy’s natural dark hair and to the
     fact that she preferred dark clothing. Sandy wore a lot of dark colors, in general, because it was easier that way. She was
     petite, so pastels had the tendency to make her look too girly. And she needed to be taken seriously if she was going to give
     this writing thing a serious shot. When she wasn’t at LatinoNow—Nacho Papi now, she reminded herself—she was at software and
     engineering companies interviewing serious men about serious products, then turning their scientific explanations into words
     that normal people could understand. Serious as a heart attack, at triple minimum wage per hour.
    “And when are you going to get rid of those glasses, m’ija? Jesus Mother Mary, those glasses!”
    Her mom made a move as if to reach for said glasses, and Sandy shielded them protectively. She needed her glasses—not only
     to see, but to look professional. No matter how many times she’d explained it, her mother had refused to understand.
    Mrs. Saavedra had the same naturally dark hair and the same nearsighted eyes, and the same petite frame, plus about twenty
     pounds that she swore Sandy was responsible for, since Sandy had come out of her via C-section. But their personal style philosophies
     couldn’t have been more different.
    Sandy’s mother always wore bright pink or purple or orange, preferably all at once, along with some kind of animal print.
     And she’d been covering her gray with golden blond and sporting long, razored-to-hell layers for years and years, before Sandy
     had begged her to cut off all her split ends and assume a blunt bob like a normal mother.
    “Mom. Please. I’ve already told you. I’m not going to change my hair, my clothes, or my anything. Daniel’s just fine with
     the way I look.”
    She pouted a little, but Sandy could tell her mom had gotten the message and wasn’t going to risk driving Sandy out of the
     house by saying anything more on the subject. Instead she switched to mining info on Sandy’s job.
    “So, how was work today, m’ija? Your new boss is there now, right? The fancy lady from New York?”
    “Yes. I met with her yesterday.” Sandy left it at that. There was no use telling her mom that the fancy lady from New York
     hadn’t even decided to keep Sandy on as a staff writer yet. Sandy had until Sunday night to get her audition samples done,
     and she needed to concentrate on that without any maternal distractions. She’d had a hard enough time convincing her mother
     that writing for a Web Site was a real job, in the same way that sitting in her apartment typing software manuals for faceless
     employers was also a real job that paid Sandy real money. Her mom knew what a freelance writer did, in theory, but Sandy suspected
     that she preferred to imagine her daughter crafting paperback romances under a pen name.
    “So, your old boss, what happened to him again? Did he get fired?”
    Sandy reflected, not for the first time, that her mother should have been a journalist herself. She was always trying to sniff
     out a scandal.
    “No, he didn’t get fired. He got transferred to another media entity. He moved to San Antonio.”
    “And so they brought this lady in from New York? Sounds like a demotion for her. I wonder what she did.”
    “I don’t think it’s a demotion,” Sandy said, hurrying to explain before her mother got carried away and started up rumors.
     “She was in charge of putting
Mujer
magazine online, and she was really successful at it. So, LatinoNow’s new owners hired her away from them.”
    “Oh-h-h!” breathed her mother. “You didn’t tell me she ran
Mujer
! That’s my favorite! I always look at their Web page at work.”
    Sandy nodded. She’d seen the
Mujer
site, of course. She’d looked it up the moment she