Dream Things True (2 page)

Ra
ú
l jumped into the passenger seat and looked back at her, grinning wickedly.

“Jesus, Alma,” he said. “If you're gonna hook up in front of the entire family, you should at least pick a guy who's willing to throw a punch at your brother.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Alma replied.

“That guy was a loser,” Ra
ú
l said. “And you, my little
hermanita
, are in deep shit.”

No one endured the killing floors for long, but Mario's move was quietly expedited by
T
í
a
Dolores. He was long gone by now, probably working construction in another state.

For years, Alma had dreamed that her first kiss would unlock the meaning of that weird English word “swoon.” Instead, it resulted in constant mocking from her big brother, several brutal days of nonstop chores, and the need to avoid cinnamon-flavored anything for life. To this day, Alma couldn't stand the smell of Big Red.

Here's the miracle, though—the unexpected outcome: After Alma's dad caught Mario kissing her, he was terrified that she would start clandestinely dating the eighteen-year-old. So he called Mrs. King. Within a week, Alma was packing her bags for Atlanta.

Now, two years later, Alma was back, riding in her dad's crappy work truck through this crappy town and facing, five days from now, the start of her junior year at Gilberton High School, home of the Fighting Red Elephants. How appropriate. Alma's misery at this return was the big red elephant in the room that her father refused to acknowledge.

She was going to make her dad see things her way.

“OK, Dad, listen…”

Her dad sent a fierce glare in her direction.

She tried again. “
Papi
, it's just not fair that I have to be the one to fix all of this. Things were going so well for me,
Papi
, and now I have to come back to Gilberton and probably ruin my chances to get into college, all so that I can take care of my cousins.”

Her father opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed on. “Wait,
Papi
, please let me finish. I just wish you'd work with me to make this situation better for
me
. If I can take classes at the community college, I just might keep from losing my mind at that lame excuse for a high school.”

Her dad jerked to a stop and killed the ignition. He turned to face her squarely, and deep creases took shape across his forehead.

“Alma Julia Garcia-Menendez, I have heard enough from you,” he growled angrily. Then he switched into rapid-fire Spanish. “You think I haven't done everything I possibly can to make your life better? You think Gilberton is a ‘lame excuse' for a high school? Try growing corn on your dad's small plot of land for prices that have plummeted so far you might as well give it away while your father spends every week in the city struggling to earn enough money to put some kind of food on the table.”

He stopped to catch his breath, but Alma didn't dare say a word.

Her father shook his head slowly and squeezed his eyes shut. “Not once did I complain to my father. Not once did I grumble about making
my
life better.”

He pressed his hand against his forehead, rubbing at the deep creases.

“Where have I gone wrong, Alma? Tell me, what have I done to give you the impression that this life is all about
you
?”

Alma said nothing. She just hugged her knees tighter, wanting to disappear.

Her dad took in a long breath and closed his eyes.

“You, Alma, are not a child,” he said softly. “You are a sixteen-year-old woman, and you need to start acting like one. You
will
come directly home from school every afternoon to take care of your cousins. End of discussion.”

He restarted the truck, and they drove in heavy silence.

He turned off the four-lane highway into the manicured Lakeshore Heights neighborhood. They pulled into a steep driveway leading to a stately colonial home. He lightly touched her arm, pulled the machete from behind her seat, and stepped out of the truck.

“I'll get started on the lawn,” he said. “Why don't you take a few minutes to finish your coffee and then prune the roses here in the front?”

Maybe for a couple of years, she had been lucky. But her luck had run out.

 

 

Damn, it was hot.

Running in Georgia in August was brutal. It sort of felt like running through the steam room at the club, but without a cold water dispenser nearby.

Sprinting toward his house, heart pounding and legs aching, Evan fixed his focus on the crest of the hill. When he reached the top, he lengthened his gait and shifted into an easy jog. A vaguely familiar red pickup truck was parked in his driveway, with two lean, tanned legs dangling from the open passenger window. They wore black Chuck Taylor high-tops that swung to a slow rhythm, but no music was coming from the truck.

Evan wanted to meet the girl attached to those legs.

He heard the sound of metal crunching against metal and then saw that the truck was beginning to roll backward, toward the street. The legs flailed, and he heard the girl calling out as she clamored over to the driver's seat.

“
¡Pinche troca!
”

Against his better judgment, Evan ran toward the truck, which was slowly gaining speed.

He saw the girl balancing a coffee mug precariously with one hand as she banged the other against the steering wheel.

“
¡Es mierda!
You are such a useless piece of crap!”

The truck began to move fast.

“Pull the emergency break!” Evan yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth.

She swung around to look at him and gasped.

“Where is it?”

How was he supposed to know? He'd never even been inside a Ford truck.

“Just push the foot break!” he called out.

“I can't find it!”

The truck had almost reached the street. Its momentum would slow on the level road, but it would soon hit a steep downhill slope and head directly toward the Crawfords' house, with the girl still inside.

Evan ran faster.

“Open the door,” he yelled.

“No!” she replied. “Are you nuts?”

“Let me in.”

When the truck hit the street, the door swung open and Evan flung himself toward it. Grasping the window frame, he slid into the seat. His foot found the emergency break and pressed down. The movement felt familiar, just like sliding into a goal, except that he had landed on a girl and knocked the coffee out of her hand.

The truck came to an abrupt stop, and Evan jumped out. The girl bolted out behind him, escaping just before the coffee made it to the edge of her shorts. She whipped around, swiping at her rear.

Evan watched, feeling both annoyed and, he had to admit, entertained by the jerky motions of her coffee-avoidance dance.

Her cheeks flushed a deep red as her dark eyes met his.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don't drive.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “I figured that out.”

She had to be at least sixteen. Trying not to let himself look at the parts of her body that gave it away, Evan stepped closer and held her gaze.

“You're not too young to drive, are you?”

“No,” she said. “I'm almost seventeen. I just never learned.”

Evan grinned. “You prefer to be chauffeured?”

“Yeah,” she replied, nodding toward the beat-up landscaping truck. “It's all part of my glamorous lifestyle.”

This girl had no shortage of sarcasm, but he could keep up.

“So,” he asked, bowing slightly, “might I offer my services and maneuver this fine vehicle back into the driveway?”

“I guess,” she said, grabbing an old towel from the bed of the truck. “Just let me clean the seat for you.”

He watched her wipe the towel across the seat to sop up spilled coffee. Her silky hair was pulled into a ponytail that fell to the middle of her back and he felt the urge to touch it, to let his hands trail all the way down her body.

She turned around and caught him staring at her legs.

“It's all yours,” she told him, arching her eyebrows into a murderous glance.

Busted.

Evan climbed in sheepishly, mashed on the clutch, and turned the key in the ignition. The truck was stick-shift, and very old. This had the potential to be bad.

The girl hopped into the passenger seat.

“Well, Jeeves?” she asked. “What are you waiting for?”

Evan forced the car into first and slowly released the clutch. The truck eased forward, up the driveway.

“This a good spot?” he asked.

“Yeah, thanks,” she replied. “I'm Julia, by the way.”

Julia was a weird name for her. Or maybe it was the way she said it—sort of tossing it out like it didn't matter.

“Sorry I interrupted your run,” she said.

“I was done,” Evan replied. “I'm just trying to get back in shape after a long, lazy summer.”

Evan saw a wry smile curl onto her lips.

“Right,” she said. “A long, lazy summer. Sounds nice.”

He wasn't sure how to reply, so he just shrugged. She probably was here to work, which was strange. She didn't look like a landscaper. Plus, it was the last week of summer. It would suck to be working, Evan thought, especially in this insane heat.

“So, do you play a sport or something?”

“Yeah, soccer,” he said, “at Gilberton High. It's kind of my obsession.”

“You play soccer at Gilberton? I bet you know my brother. Ra
ú
l Garcia?”

“
Hell, yeah,
I know Ra
ú
l!”

Ra
ú
l Garcia was a scoring machine. He'd never met anyone in his thirteen years of playing soccer who drilled balls into a goal the way Ra
ú
l did.

“You're Ra
ú
l's sister?” he asked, not trying to mask his surprise. “You don't go to Gilberton, do you?”

He would have remembered seeing this girl.

“No—well, yeah. I'll be starting this year, as a junior. I was at school in Atlanta, but I'm back.”

“So what happened with Ra
ú
l?” Evan asked. “I heard he was still around.”

“His scholarship offers fell through,” she said. Thin creases formed across her forehead as she spoke, and she lifted her hand to rub them. “He's here, going to the community college and working for my dad,” she said. “He plays soccer over at Grant Park.”

It made no sense that Ra
ú
l was playing on the torn-up city fields. He was a Division I soccer recruit. He wanted to ask her more, but something about the expression on her face let him know that she didn't want to talk about it. What he really wanted to do was reach out and touch her forehead, to make it smooth again. But he didn't. He just shrugged and said, “That sucks.”

“It's not a big deal,” she said, forcing a fake smile across. “It doesn't stop him from acting like he's the next Ronaldo—God's special gift to the
f
ú
tbol
universe.”

“Yeah, that sounds about like Ra
ú
l,” Evan said, smiling. Ra
ú
l
was
sort of a cocky bastard when he played for GHS, but he deserved to be.

“He's leading my dad's team to overwhelming victory in the Liga Latina,” she said, sarcasm creeping into her voice again. “You know, where all the Mexicans and Central Americans play to bring their hometowns to glory?”

Evan didn't know. He'd never heard of the Liga Latina.

“Alma,” a man's stern voice interrupted them.

Evan jumped and stood awkwardly by the truck as Mr. Garcia, the landscaper, came around the corner with a machete in his hand.

The girl threw a nervous glance at Evan and then stepped out of the truck. He felt like a kid caught playing spin the bottle. Not good, considering the man who'd caught them was wielding a very sharp weapon.

“My dad,” she said, nodding toward Mr. Garcia.

She and her dad spoke in rapid-fire Spanish. Evan found himself concentrating intently, wishing that he studied Spanish in school instead of French. His friend Conway had convinced him to take French. Before they started at Gilberton High, Conway's older cousin Bo told him the teacher was hot. Madame Jones
was
hot, at first. But then she got pregnant and her ankles went all spongy. When she had the baby, she disappeared. Now he had to suffer through Madame Gillespie.

Yeah, he should have taken Spanish.

He watched as Mr. Garcia turned to walk away and she started to rummage in the bed of the truck.

“So what's that word mean?” he asked, moving close to her again. “The one your dad kept saying? Something that started with ‘all'?”

“‘
Alma.
' It means ‘soul,” she replied, matter of fact.

“You and your dad were having some pretty deep conversation,” he said.

The girl laughed. “Alma is my name.”

“Didn't you say your name was Julia?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied slowly.

Then she started talking fast.

“OK, so here's the deal. My name is Alma Julia Garcia-Menendez.”

This time, the Julia sounded different. It sounded like “hoo-lia.”

“Most everyone calls me Alma, but in school or whenever I meet, well, a gringo like you”—she smiled—“I just use the name Julia, pronounced the English way.”

“Why,” asked Evan, “if it's not your name?”

“It
is
my name, sort of. It started in elementary school, when my teachers would look at the class roster, try to say Alma, and butcher it. Well, maybe not butcher it, but I couldn't stand the way they made it sound—like a character from
The Flintstones
.”