Delia's Heart (17 page)

They had followed me.

That was why she had asked him to pick her up and why the alarm was going off inside me. Instinctively, like a wild animal in the desert, I sensed the danger. I should have listened to the alarm and anticipated something like this.

I slowed down to see if they would follow me again. When I reached the corner, I stopped and watched them. Christian started his car and drove up to the Davilas’ house. I saw Santos turn with surprise when Sophia got out of the car. She walked toward him.

A car had come up behind me, and the driver leaned on his horn, making me jump in my seat. I accelerated quickly and drove on, my heart pounding harder than the engine, all the way to Fani’s house.

I
knew Santos would not intentionally reveal his family’s great secret, but I was afraid of what Sophia would say or ask. She was the most conniving, sly person I had ever met, and there was no doubt in my mind that she hungered with all her being for some way to ruin me. At a minimum, she could go to her mother now and tell her I was continuing my relationship with the Davila family. She knew her mother had forbidden me to have anything to do with them.

But I feared more. I feared that somehow she would figure out what was going on with Ignacio.

“
Nadie reconoce el engaño asi como alguien que engaña
” my grandmother would say. No one recognizes deception as well as one who deceives.

“It takes one to know one,” I had heard other students at the school say. It was never truer for anyone than it was for Sophia. I was playing on her play
ground, and she was far better at the game of lying than I was, for she had been doing it all her life.

My nerves were on fire. I was shaking so much I thought I might make a mistake driving. Every few minutes, I checked my rearview mirror to see if they were still following me, but I did not see them. Where were they? Why were they remaining so long at the Davilas’ home? What trouble would Sophia cause for them? Had Ignacio’s father returned to find them there? Did Sophia have the nerve to knock on the door and question Señora Davila? What would Ignacio’s mother think? She would surely wonder why had I brought these people to their house. What new danger had I created for the family?

My own imagined questions and concerns brought tears to my eyes. I was actually sobbing by the time I reached Fani’s front entrance. I stopped to wipe the tears from my face and catch my breath. If Fani saw me like this, she would want to know why, too. For a moment, I wondered if I could trust her with the truth. She would surely tell it to Adan, though, I thought. The secret must remain tightly locked in my heart.

I had to buzz in through the intercom at the gate. The house manager opened it, and I drove up to the house. Fani’s parents had more full-time servants than Tía Isabela. A woman younger than Señora Rosario was in charge inside and greeted me at the door. Fani came out quickly to meet me.

“You’re here in less than an hour,” she said, leading me back to her room.

“I nearly got a speeding ticket,” I told her, and described the policeman wagging his finger.

“You’re lucky. He was in a charitable mood. My fa
ther probably could have fixed the ticket for you, anyway,” she said smugly. “He has fixed a few for me.”

“A few?”

“Policemen love giving tickets to beautiful women in fancy, expensive cars, Delia. Expect it,” she said. “So, what was this important chore?”

It seemed impossible to avoid lies in this world, I thought. If you were always honest, you were often in great danger, or someone you loved was. However, whether the lie was to protect someone else or to avoid hurting someone you loved, it was still a deception, and it still required you to be accomplished enough to convince the listener.

And then, of course, there were those who were experts at lying to themselves.
Mi tía
Isabela was the best one at doing this, I thought.

I had learned well from Sophia. The best liar was one who used part of the truth and first won the listener’s faith in what was being said, and the best way to do that was to pretend to be giving the listener some secret.

We went into Fani’s bedroom and to her sitting area. She sat first and waited for my response.

“It is something that would not please
mi tía
Isabela,” I said. “In fact, she has forbidden it, but I can’t help but do what I think is right.”

“What is it?”

I sat across from her. “Visiting the Davila family,” I said.

“The family of the boy who died?”

“Yes. I am very fond of Ignacio’s mother, and I was always saddened and troubled by what had happened.”

“So?”

“Today is Ignacio’s birthday, or what would have been,” I said.

Her eyes widened as she sat back. “Really? So you went to see her?”

“Yes, I have just come from there. They live up in Indio.” This was another part of the truth I could reveal.

“Well, it’s a very nice thing to do. I’m sorry I put so much pressure on you and rushed your visit, but if you would have told me right away…”

“I am so afraid, and now I have more reason to be,” I added.

“Why now?”

“I was followed to the Davila home.”

She stared and then brightened. “Your bitch cousin?”

“And Christian Taylor.”

“What did they say?”

“I didn’t speak with them. When I came out of the house, I saw they were there and they had followed. When I started away, I saw Sophia get out to talk to Ignacio’s brother, Santos. I’m sure she’ll run home to tell
mi tía
.”

“You did well to confide in me, Delia,” Fani said after a moment. “I can help you.”

“You can? How?”

She smiled, stood up, and went to a closet. I waited as she opened a box on the floor and sifted through some files. She pulled out something and returned to hand me a picture.

“This should help,” she said.

I looked at the picture. It was Sophia, maybe a year or so younger, naked on someone’s sofa with a boy named Gregory Potter. He was in our class, but I
didn’t see him spend any time with Sophia or give any attention to her.

“How did you get such a picture?”

“It was about a year and a half ago, a wild party. Another boy in our class, Danny Rosen, has all this equipment. He took secret pictures. I found out and bought some from him.”

“Why?”

“First for my own amusement and then to have something on Sophia as well as some other girls.”

“Do they know?”

“Some suspect, but Sophia doesn’t. I haven’t had any reason to tell her yet, but now there’s a reason. She tells on you, you’ll tell on her, and what’s worse for her is that you can prove it. If Isabela Dallas thinks people can get pictures of her daughter in such a compromising way, she’ll not only be furious, she’ll have a nervous breakdown and probably ship Sophia off to some behavioral modification camp, maybe as far away as Europe or South America.”

“What is this camp?”

“A behavioral modification camp is one of these places they send very, very bad children, children whose parents can’t control them, and the children are basically imprisoned with no way out and no way to contact anyone. There was a boy in our school, Philip Deutch. He ended up in one of those places.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I never heard, and he’s never been back. His family acts as if he never existed. I’m sure that would be the way Isabela would feel or want to feel. You have a lot of power there, Delia,” Fani said, nodding at the photograph in my hand. “Sophia
doesn’t know if there are other pictures or where the negative is for that picture. It was actually taken with a digital camera, and it’s on a computer file. I don’t have the file, but I could get it for a price, I’m sure.”

“Is this why so many of the girls in our class are afraid of you, Fani?”

“Some. Others are just…frightened rabbits. Go ‘boo,’ and they’ll jump out of their shoes.” She sat.

I looked at the picture again and shook my head. “How terrible.”

“Disgusting, isn’t it? She’s a good fifteen pounds overweight, and the boy she’s with is a zero. Put it in your purse, Delia. As soon as you get home, you confront her. She might try to confront you first with a threat or some blackmail, I’m sure. Then you whip that out and tell her to fade into the woodwork, or else you’ll show the picture immediately to your aunt. If she wants to know where you got it, you can tell her it was from me. That will be more convincing and make her even more afraid, because she knows I don’t like her. It might be the end of all your troubles with her.”

I shook my head sadly and looked again at the picture. Tía Isabela would definitely have this nervous breakdown Fani described.

“It’s sad to have to live with your own cousin like this,” I said.

“How about living like this with your own daughter? If Sophia could blackmail her mother, do you think she would hesitate?”

I looked again at the picture. How could Sophia be caught this way? She was surely
borracha
, probably from vodka.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You’ll know you can do it the minute she threatens you. You want to protect the Davila family, too, don’t you? Stop being so weak. Put it away. Forget it for now. Let’s talk about Adan,” she said, pulling her legs up and under her. “He is a handsome man and quite a catch. I’ve played with the idea myself from time to time. We’re only third cousins or something, but he’s not for me.”

“Why not? Who is for you?” I asked, putting the picture into my purse.

“I’ll know when the time comes, when I’m ready. Let’s talk about you, not me. Do you like him a lot?”

“He’s very nice, yes. We’re going to dinner tonight,” I said, glancing at the clock.

“I know, and on his yacht tomorrow. He’s taking you to Catalina. You’re getting the full treatment. Adan doesn’t spend his full treatments on just anyone. I told you he liked you very much. This is becoming a real romance.”

She thought a moment. I thought she was studying me too closely, and it made me look away.

“Aside from this terrible experience you had, have you ever been intimate with a boy or a man, Delia? What about the Davila boy, the one who died?”

“I am embarrassed by such a discussion, Fani.”

“Get over it. You’re here now. You see the way the other girls are. No one has any bashfulness anymore.”

“What about you, Fani? Do you talk about your romances?”

She smiled. “I see. We’re going to play that ‘I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me’ game, huh?”

“No, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to play
such games, but can’t we be friends and still keep some things private, Fani?”

She stared at me very intensely again and then nodded to herself. “You know something, Delia Yebarra,” she said, “you might just be different and authentic enough to win the heart of Adan Bovio. Okay.” She stood. “Go on home and get ready for your hot date. If you want to confide any more in me, I’m here for you. And use that picture. If you’re too nice to do it, she’ll grind you into sawdust right at your aunt’s feet, and Adan Bovio or anyone like him will be a distant dream.”

“Thank you, Fani,” I said, rising. “I am indebted to you.”

“I know,” she said. “One day, I’ll ask you for a favor, I’m sure, and you can repay me.”

I couldn’t imagine having or doing anything Fani Cordova might need.

She walked me out to my car.

“Call me on Sunday,” she said, “unless you have the confrontation before you go to dinner tonight. I want to hear about it in detail.”

“I will.”

I got into my car and drove off, looking at her in my rearview mirror. She stood there watching me, and I wondered what her life was really like, this girl who had everything but seemed disinterested in her own life and more interested in manipulating the lives of other people, as if we were all pieces on a chess board. She was the one stuck in a castle living through fantasies, not me. I turned out of her gate to head home.

What would face me there?

The house was deceptively quiet when I entered.
My heart was still thumping in expectation. I had half expected and feared that Sophia had gotten home already and gone right to
mi tía
Isabela. Both of them would confront me the moment I stepped into the entryway, but there were no signs of anyone, not even Señora Rosario or Inez. I moved quietly to and up the stairway. Walking down the hallway, I saw that Sophia’s door was shut. I hadn’t seen Christian Taylor’s car, so there was the possibility he had dropped her off and gone or that they were still not back.

I had my head down and was in deep thought about it all when I entered my bedroom, so I didn’t see Sophia there at first. I put my purse down and started to think about what I would wear to dinner. That was when she spoke up.

“Who else did you visit today?” she asked. I turned sharply and saw her lying on my bed, my pillows up behind her head. She wore a deep, self-satisfied smirk.

“What do you want?”

“You didn’t come right home, so who else did you visit? What, were you making the rounds, seeing all the families of your Mexican boyfriends?”

I didn’t answer.

“What I’d like to know,” she continued, “is how you got up there to visit the Davila family so often before you had the car. That bus ride has got to be close to an hour and a half with all the stops it makes. Don’t try to deny you’ve been visiting them, either. Ignacio’s simple-minded brother revealed it. I had the feeling he’s not all that crazy about you. Well? I want some answers, and fast. My mother is not going to be very pleased when she finds out you’re still so friendly with those Mexicans.”

Fani was right, I thought. Sophia was capable of driving me down to places so dark inside myself that I did not realize or believe they were there. I wanted to do more than show her the picture and counter her threats with threats of my own. I wanted to wring her neck, to toss her out of the window and out of my life. She put a hot poker into my heart and set me afire. Seizing my purse, I stepped toward her. The look on my face actually frightened her.

“You’d better not swing any footstools or anything at me, Delia, and you’d better not put any of your Mexican curses on me, either. I mean it,” she said, but pulled herself back into a defensive posture.

“I won’t throw any stools, and you put curses on yourself. You don’t need me to do it. I need not tell you anything, and you will do nothing to hurt or displease me,” I said.

That sent a smile rippling through her face, curling the corners of her mouth. “Or else what, Delia?”

“Or else your mother will see more of this, as well as other students at school and who knows who else,” I said, plucking the picture out of my purse and tossing it onto the bed. It fell facedown at her knees.

She studied me a moment and then slowly picked it up and looked at it, her face collapsing in defeat and fear.