Salvation (15 page)

Salva envied their escape as he tried to deliver the plate.

Char arched her shaped eyebrows and shook her head at the food. “I’m not eating,” she said.

He turned around.

“What?” Señor Resendez had abandoned his post at the grill. He put a hand on Salva’s shoulder and rotated his son back toward Char. “How can you come to a barbecue and not eat? You have to eat.”

“I’m going over to Linette’s house for dinner at four,” she replied.

“Is only one o’clock now,” said
Papá
. “Lots of time to be hungry again.” He waved his spatula as if that was the end of the topic, then turned to make a comment in Spanish to her mother.

Salva set the plate down at Char’s feet. She’d be better off if she just picked at the food. It would save her the exhausting experience of arguing with his father. “Would you like a drink?” Salva asked.

“A gentleman, your son,” Señora Mendoza said in careful English. “I wish more boys in this town were like him.
Sí
, Charla?”

Which would have been a great time for Char to mention Pepe, though he didn’t exactly come off as the gentleman type. Still, if things were moving as fast as he
claimed,
it was about time Char had the guts to acknowledge her relationship with Salva’s best friend.

“I’ll have a Diet Coke,” she said.

The cooler had only Diet Pepsi, but Salva didn’t stick around to clarify details.

Unfortunately, the drinks weren’t far enough away to avoid the conversation. “Where you go to college, Charla?” Señor Resendez glanced at Señora Mendoza, who nodded back.

Char didn’t answer.

“You have to make a decision soon, no?” he kept after her. “I ask my son, and he say he waits to hear back from more colleges. But you have to know kind of already.”

Char shot a glance across the striped back of her chair at Salva.

Like he was going to rescue her? No way.
At least not as long as she kept holding out about his best friend. Salva picked up a Pepsi for himself, then plunged his hand into the ice for Char’s drink.

She finally answered, “I guess maybe I’ll take some classes at the job center.”

Both her mother and Señor Resendez frowned. “That’s not
going to college,”
Papá
replied. “That’s just basic skills. You don’t want a basic job.”

Salva cringed.

Just because Char didn’t have a father didn’t mean that
Papá
had to act the part.
Papá
had never really understood how hard school was for her. And there was the whole illegal thing. How did he think she was going to get around that?

“You apply for Lucia’s school?” Señor Resendez continued. “You could be her roommate.”

“¡Papá!”
Lucia said. “I’m going to graduate this year!”

“We’ll see.” His tone was not convinced.

She abandoned her emptied plate and marched off in a huff, across the very well-turned garden.

Señor Resendez kept talking to Char. “Maybe Salva could help you fill out the applications.”

Oh God. No more.
No more driving lessons or extra tutoring or delivering plates.

Salva dropped off the Diet Pepsi at Char’s side, then followed Lucia.

She was leaning, her spine against the high scalloped boards of the backyard fence. “He doesn’t get it,” she said, banging her knuckles on the wooden surface. “Like Friday. No one in college waits until five
P.M.
on Friday to begin their vacation. They just take their last class and go.”

“At least he’s not trying to hook you up.” Salva leaned his back against the nearby gate.

Lucia’s grimace turned into a smirk. “So…this girl who played Juliet…”

Well, that hadn’t taken long. He wondered which of her friends had gabbed on him. Salva shook up his pop can and cracked the lid, letting the liquid shoot in his sister’s direction.

Lucia dodged the spray. “She’s the one who was helping you study this winter, right?”

Was his sister’s mind hardwired to this stuff?
He took a drink and rotated, leaning his arms over the chest-high gate.

“What’s her name?” she asked.

“Beth.” Salva exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath since Friday.

“Mmm-hmm. Is she pretty?”

He shrugged. “She’s okay.” From an unbiased viewpoint that was honest, wasn’t it? He hadn’t realized she was beautiful until he’d gotten to know her. Well, he’d known her a long time, but he hadn’t really—

“Uh-huh. So you aren’t dating yet. You know you should probably tell
Papá
you’re interested. Give him a little time to get used to the idea.”

Right.
The only thing his father would hear was the fact that she wasn’t
mexicana.
“Beth doesn’t deserve to be treated like she’s second-class,” Salva found himself saying. “She’s a much nicer girl than the
chica
Papá
thinks I ought to be going out with.”

Lucia shot a glance toward the patio. “Yeah, well, that’s because he doesn’t know what
la chica
is up to. But I didn’t ask
about Char.” She poached the Pepsi. “I asked about Beth.”

“All right, she’s pretty,” he admitted.

“And smart?”

“And smart.”

“Good,” Lucia said. “It’s about time you found somebody who was.”

Was it? He changed the subject. “I’ve had enough
familia
this weekend, you know.” He pricked himself on the wire holding the gate.

She laughed. “You were working at the plant yesterday.”

“Yeah, with
Papá
. And he got me signed up for all of spring break.” Salva knew the hours weren’t part of his punishment, but it felt like they were. “Nice of him, isn’t it?”

Lucia took a drink from the pop can, then flipped it over and shook out the final drops. “I don’t know, Salva. I don’t know whether it’s better to be you, with too much
familia
, or me, with not enough.”

He started fiddling with the twisted wire. “You really think you’re gonna finish school this year?” The answer was more important than he wanted to admit.

“Yes. I might need to retake a course during the summer, but then I’m coming home. And help take care of Talia and Casandra.”

“You really want that?”

“Sí,”
she said, and set the pop can down on one of the fence posts.

He knew his desire to believe her was selfish—that he wanted her to stay. To alleviate the guilt he was going to feel at leaving his younger sisters. But Salva also wanted to believe—somehow—that he wasn’t robbing Lucia of her future in order to live his own. “You could apply to go to nursing school,” he said, “instead of just working at the retirement home.”

She wrinkled her nose. “With my grades? You go be the doctor in the family.”

No.
He’d seen enough of doctors when he was thirteen—doctors who couldn’t offer his mother anything but bills. And guilt, about the fact that she hadn’t come to the hospital earlier.

Salva blocked the memory, pricking himself again on the wire. At least
Papá
hadn’t been hammering away on the topic of what his son was going to do with his life. Though Salva was sure if he returned to the patio, the subject was waiting for him. But he wasn’t going back for that. If he slipped through the gate, he could be out of hearing distance before his father even realized he was short one child to pressure.

Salva unwound the wire.

Lucia was eyeing him. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to push
Papá
?”

“He’s busy chatting up Señora Mendoza. I don’t know why
he
doesn’t just marry
her.
”

His sister blinked. “Because he’s still in love with our mother.”

Salva shoved open the gate. The dirt road behind the house was overgrown with weeds—the next job on his list of chores,
no doubt. But this was Sunday. He’d sowed the frigging garden and then had to work at the plant yesterday. Plus, he had to work all this week. Today was
his
afternoon. And he was taking it.

He launched into a jog, down the dirt alley, and within moments was sprinting on pavement. He didn’t care where he was headed, just away. Maybe Tosa’s. Maybe Pepe’s. He and his best friend did need to talk.

Salva slowed his pace as he neared Main Street. His shoes were falling apart. He’d spent his fall shoe money on extracurricular fees, and now the rubber on the back of his left Nike was peeling away. Meanwhile, he had all of five dollars in his pocket. Everything else this month had gone into
El Banco de la Familia
.

Which was fine. He only had nine weeks left of high school anyway. Then nobody would be looking at his shoes.

Nine weeks. Was that possible? Two months with Pepe and Tosa and Char. Man, it seemed like he’d known them forever. Only two more months with—

Beth.
She was standing across the street alone at the drive-in window. Barefoot, her sandals in her left hand.

For the first time all day, he appreciated the sun.

Salva scanned the area. It looked like she was really alone.

He crossed the road in his lousy shoes and walked up behind her. She was staring at the list of hard ice cream flavors. “Hey,” he said,
hey
being the internationally recognized greeting for
someone whose reputation you have just massacred along with your own. To his knowledge, Beth had never even been called into the principal’s office before yesterday, much less spent an afternoon in a Cell.

She jumped about a foot in the air. Good thing she hadn’t ordered yet.

“I suggest the chocolate,” he said, “though Rocky Road is pretty good if you like nuts.”

She gave him a defensive glare.

This was going to call for more than an apology.

The window opened with a grunt from the owner, who was balding, had a potbelly, and looked about fifty years old.
If I’m running a place like this when I’m fifty, please shoot me.

Beth said, “A single scoop of bubblegum on a sugar cone, please.”

That made Salva grin. Most teenage girls thought they were too mature for bubblegum. “I’ll have chocolate,” he said, “on a plain cone.”

She squinted at him in the sunlight. “I was here first.”

“I’m buying.”

“I-I have the money,” she stammered.

He guessed she didn’t have enough experience sponging off guys. Char would have tried to make something out of the offer. Beth just stared at him like a deer in headlights, though a very pretty deer.

Two cones appeared in the window. She took hers, then
reached forward to pay. Salva intercepted, snagging her wrist. He dug his five dollars out of his pocket, paid, and collected the change. Then he picked up two napkins, wrapped one around his own cone, and offered her the extra. “Walk with me,” he said, “down to the river.”

She disdained the napkin.

“We should talk,” he added. “Don’t you think?”

Her eyes zipped around as if searching for a hidden audience, then slowed and finally settled on him. “I suppose.” She bit into her brilliant blue ice cream speckled with pinks and greens.

He walked beside her. Close. About as close as he thought he could get away with. It was four blocks down to the river, the best four blocks of town. The trees were actually planted to provide shade along the sidewalks here, and the sidewalks were flat and kept up by the city, no cement tilting at a thirty-five-degree angle.

She didn’t look like she was enjoying the atmosphere. Her shoulders were stiff, and despite the sandals in her hand, she kept plucking at her shorts as if trying to make them longer. He’d messed things up back at school, between the two of them. He ought to put it right. Come out with it, in the open. He swallowed the last bite of his cone. “Look, about what happened on Friday, I didn’t mean…That is, I’m—”

“Don’t.” She picked up her pace. Her cone was vibrating.

Was she so angry she wouldn’t let him apologize?

He had to lengthen his strides to keep up with her. “I just wanted to—”

“You’re going to say you’re sorry.”

“I never meant—”

“I know you never meant it. Just don’t say any more.” She sped up again. He tried to grasp what was happening. Something didn’t make any sense. She was running away, and his instincts told him that if he let her go—if he let her brush off the apology and refuse to talk about what had happened, then
everything
would be ruined.

He ditched his napkin in a painted garbage can and ran after her. “Wait.” He took her elbow. “What is it you think I never meant?”

She was standing at the edge of the park, a great wide expanse of sloping grass and scattered trees. Neglected ice cream dripped down her fingers. “You don’t have to worry,” she said, her voice so soft he could barely hear. “I know you didn’t mean for me to make anything out of the kiss.”

The kiss? She thought he was trying to back out of his decision to kiss her? And the strange thing was, the idea had never occurred to him. It wasn’t the kind of action he could back out of, kissing someone in front of the entire student body. He stepped closer. “I meant to apologize,” he said gently, “for getting you into trouble. I wasn’t going to apologize for the kiss.”

“You weren’t?” Her head came up, and those doe eyes looked straight into him.

“I didn’t plan it.” He shrugged. “It just kind of…happened.”

She nodded as if this made any kind of sense, but then she turned away and headed across the park.

He tried to plan as he stripped off his shoes and socks, then sank his feet into the cool grass; but the attempt at strategy was impossible. She had no respect for anything less than solid truth. When he caught up with her, the remnants of her cone were gone. “Was your mother very angry?” he asked. They ought to get that out of the way—clear up exactly how much groveling he should be doing.

“No.” Beth weaved around a giant maple. “She understood it was just a scene in a play.”

What was that supposed to mean? That it was just acting? It hadn’t just been acting on his part. The rest of it, yeah, but the kiss—well, he thought maybe he’d finally stopped acting. He’d been acting around Beth for months now, and he supposed he’d reached the point where it needed to stop.