Florida was so… Hmm… "Sticky."
"Sticky? You mean humid?"
"You know what, Shay, humidity is stickiness. Every time I bend my arm it feels sticky. What is… Sticky."
"Leena, it's hot there." the woman on the phone whined.
"It's hot in Arizona, too." Leena laughed, wiping her forehead. She finally walked into the Miami-Dade crime lab for the first time. Its cool air greeted her, and she was thankful for it. She had spent the last two weeks sweating. She'd only been in Florida for that long, which had been spent moving into her new apartment in Mystic Pointe. It had been hard work moving all her things into the abode... Now to think of it, she didn't have many things yet. She had yet to shop for furniture or anything. She barely had food in her fridge.
She had gotten a one bedroom apartment there. It was the cheapest she could find for two-hundred thousand dollars. Her parents had agreed to help her out, money-wise, only for a while.
"Well, all I asked was how's the whether." Shay, Leena's best friend in Arizona, scoffed.
Leena sighed and looked around. She spotted what she wanted." Shay, I gotta go. I'm in the building now."
"Good luck."
"Like I'll need it." Leena stated and hung up. She walked over to the front desk and gave the woman a large smile.
"Can I help you?" The woman asked, and couldn't help herself but to beam back at the girl in front of her. Leena's smiles seemed contagious.
"Yes, I have a meeting with Horatio Caine."
"Alright. I think he's up in his office. I'll have him come down."
"Thanks you very much." Leena said, and went to sit down on a bench. Two men and a woman passed her. One of the men had light skin and light brown hair, and beautiful, big brown puppy eyes. The other had darker skin and smoldering black eyes, while the woman was blonde with green eyes. They looked at her as they passed, and got her smile as well.
"Who was that girl?" Calleigh asked as they walked away, still grinning.
"I liked her smile." Ryan shrugged, his smile also still on his face, "She looked happy."
"It's infectious." Eric noted. He was the same as his two friends.
"Hey, Horatio." Calleigh greeted the red head.
"Where you going, H?" Eric asked.
"I have a meeting. We'll be getting a new team member soon." he said and walked toward the young girl on the bench. "Hello, Lenmana Martinez?"
"Yes, that's me. But you should call me Leena, please." she jumped up and shook his hand, "It's great to meet you, sir."
"Call me Horatio, Leena." he said. He smiled at her as she smiled brightly back. "Come with me to my office."
"Okay." she said. He led them down the hallway to his office, and they sat down.
"So, you want a job here?"
"Yes, sir-Err, Horatio." she smiled and nodded.
"I called you previous crime lab in Phoenix, and the supervisor said you were a fast learner, an excellent worker. I think you will be a great asset to our team. I've looked at your résumé and I think that you could offer a new eye to the team. And we did have a meeting previously over the phone, which turned out to be your job interview. I enjoyed every bit of it."
"So, yes?" she asked.
"Yes. You have a job."
Her smile got wider than humanely possible. But it happened. "Thank you, thank you so much, Horatio! I promise, I won't let you down."
"Can you start tomorrow?"
"Of course." she nodded vigorously.
"Excellent. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning."
"I'll see you then." she said, and hurried out of his office. While she walked, she dialed her phone, "Shay, I got it!"
"I knew you would." her friend said, "Want me to tell your parents?"
"I'll call them. How's the reservation doing?"
"Your mom actually looks Hopi. It's insane."
"It's from being in the sun so much, huh? Well, not every single person who works there is Hopi." Leena shrugged, and walked out the doors.
"You were." Shay stated.
"I am not Hopi because I worked there. I literally worked there because I'm Hopi. My dad made me."
"Your dad is only half Hopi, though. I don't get it." Shay said as her friend on the other line got into her car.
"Do you see a Hispanic reservation in Flagstaff? I don't think so." Leena asked, annoyed. She had to explain this to Shay nearly very time.
"Well, I don't see a Chinese reservation for your mom, either." Shay always said that, too, when this was brought up.
"She's not Chinese. Korean, Japanese. Other. That's what she is, but not Chinese."
"Chinese, Asian, it's all the same."
"Tell mom and dad to send some art to me." Leena quickly changed the subject.
"Tell them yourself."
"Might I remind you they are still in the process of getting a phone."
"Oh yeah… Those hippies."
"Hippies?"
"All artsy and free-spirited and such. Against technology. And real hard work. Like you. You're all eccentric and all that. And arty."
"None of us are against hard work. My dad has four jobs. Mom is the manager of the reservation, where I worked for nine, ten years maybe."
"Whatever. The rest is true."
"They had no use or reason for a phone till now. They didn't have the money, either."
"Still don't." Shay said.
Leena sighed and fumbled with her keys. In the process, she dropped her phone. She yelled out to Shay, "Well, they wanna talk to me when I'm across the country."
Knowing that she dropped her phone, Shay yelled, "How come you couldn't stay in Phoenix?"
"Because this is a better job. Plus, Florida's beautiful."
"More beautiful than Arizona?"
"I grew up there, in Flagstaff. Phoenix is the city, and you can't see stars."
"Same with Miami!" Shay screamed just as Leena put the phone to her ear.
"Ow…" Leena muttered, then activated the speaker phone so she could drive. "The point is I'm free spirited, eccentric, rebellious if you wanna call it that, but I am also intelligent, workable… Uhh, I can follow orders, I can be professional, I can be-"
"Boring!" Shay interrupted, "You can be boring. But you can also be fun, then you go and move to Miami and you make me mad."
"Deal with it, Shay." Leena said, "It's like my new life here."
"You've got your old life here, in Arizona. Your artsy, free life. Your nice life, with the mountains and the valleys. Think, Painted Desert, Juniper Mountains, Grand Canyon."
"All wonderful. I'm exploring new things, like the oceans and such here. I'll send my paintings of the sea to you. My apartment overlooks the water. I have done some sketched already. You'll love them."
"I'm sure I will… But I won't admit it." Shay laughed. Leena did, too.
"Hey, I'm driving and I gotta go."
"Bye."
"I'll call you later. Bye." Leena said, and hung up. When she got home, she looked at all her artwork hanging on the walls. The many pictures were the only things that made her house, her home. She had grown up in Flagstaff, Arizona in a cultural, free spirited (loosely Catholic) household. She had several brothers and a sister, and they were all raised to appreciate art and dancing. They did Indian traditions with their father. They excelled in art. They were all free spirits. They would be called rebellious by someone who didn't understand. Their family encouraged partying and mellowness.
Leena's mother taught her about Korean and Japanese art. Leena could do very detailed things. She drew many animals with paint. Big brushstrokes made beautiful pictures. Her father, on the other hand, taught her to make a different kind of artwork. He taught her how to make adobe pottery and paint it. He taught her to make jewelry. And how to paint bright pictures of nature. How to make traditional Hopi Indian art and Hispanic art. It was a mix of bright colors and wonderful scenes. It was incredible.
Leena went to bed that night extremely anxious for her job on the morning. But for the first time since she got there, she got decent sleep. For the first time, she wasn't homesick.