Salvation (6 page)

Salva punched the buttons on the pop machine in the rhythm of the fight song. The machine was empty, some law having been passed that teenagers were too stupid to know how much sugar they were putting in their mouths. His fingers slowed, and he let his eyes peruse the valedictorian names on the Academic Wall of Fame. Not a very big wall. Or very large plaques, at least not compared to those on Sports Trophy Row.

Beth was five minutes late, but that wasn’t a surprise, considering who he was dealing with. It would be a miracle if she arrived at all. He had known he should have made her read the essay right there at her locker this morning.

She came whipping around the corner.
Whoa!
He hadn’t seen her move that fast since she’d given up track.

“In
Paradise Lost
”—she quoted his thesis—“Milton solidified himself as one of the greatest writers of all time through his brilliant portrayal of man’s fall from grace.” She slapped something that vaguely resembled Salva’s old paper into his hand. “You practically plagiarized the Mercenary.”

“Yeah, so?” He tried to smooth out the wrinkles. That was the way the game was played. You found out what the teacher thought, and you went along.

“Give me a break.” She shifted one of the plaques, setting it off its axis. “Can you honestly say you think Milton is one of the greatest authors you’ve ever read?”

Claro que no.
But that didn’t matter. He eyed the bright patch of wall revealed when the plaque had shifted. “The Mercenary thinks he is.”

“That’s not the point.”

Sure it is.

Beth gave a huge sigh. “Look, do you read anything outside of school?”

Did she think he was an idiot? His name was going to be on this half-ass wall if he could survive AP English. “Of course.”

“Who are your favorite authors?”

He shrugged, propping his foot on the bench beneath the plaques, then shifted his weight forward and back. He didn’t have favorite authors.

“What are you reading right now?” she harped.

A bio on the president’s life
and a history of Chiapas.
“I read nonfiction.”

She reared back as if offended.

Well, it’s better than romance novels.
Though today he had noticed a Stephen King book by her feet.

“Just tell me what you really think of Milton,” she said, her arms crossed over her chest. She had his back up now. What had been all that yakking about taking the time to provide him with quality feedback?

“Honestly?” he asked.

Her chin gave a sharp nod.

“I think he’s an anti-Catholic, bigoted ass,” Salva replied.
Not
to mention sexist.
He figured there were plenty of things wrong with Catholicism, but he didn’t need to hear about them from a guy who had never been forced to sit through mass on a frigging Wednesday night. And who couldn’t even find a way to couch his raging prejudices in an interesting story. Any book that could put Salva to sleep before nine
P.M.
twice in one week was just not going into his top ten.

“Then
say
that.” Beth snapped her fingers and pointed at his chest.

He should have known that someone who read about fatal love chases could not be trusted to give good advice.

“Look,” she continued, “the Mercenary doesn’t want to hear what she already knows. If you think Milton is a prejudiced ass, then say so—well, don’t swear, but say what you think and then back up your argument. Put in the quotes. Analyze the hell out of it. And prove your point. The teacher might disagree with you in theory, but at least she won’t be bored.
That
”
—
Beth waved a hand at his essay—“is a waste of anyone’s time.”

Salva stared at her blankly.

“Now an essay about Milton’s prejudices,” she said. “That would be worth reading.”

“You’re serious?”

“Deadly.”

He could deal with that. “All right, I’ll bring it to you on Monday.”

“What?”

He pushed off the bench. “I’m taking you seriously. I’m trying to ‘go out on the limb and break it off,’ but I don’t have the creative guts to go it alone. And you just said the essay would be worth reading.”

She was shaking her head, then bit her bottom lip.

“Please,” he added.

He had her. He knew it. There was no way she could just allow him to write trash for the rest of the year.

The bit lip transformed into a slow nod.

Now the only question was whether her advice was worth anything. Or whether following it would get him lynched.

Beth berated herself all the way home, the trek longer than normal due to a detour to the grocery store. A milk jug weighed down her left hand, and plastic bags bit into her wrists—a fitting punishment for her failure of will. Why couldn’t she say no to him?
Why?
It wasn’t the manners, not really. They were just an excuse. And it wasn’t that he’d die without her help. He’d aced every English class he’d had before this one. He would be fine. Not what he was capable of, but fine. Though it burned her to see him hover just below spectacular.

She kicked a piece of asphalt across the street. Toward the trailer.

The screen door was open. Beth froze, staring at it, trying to remember if she’d turned the lock that morning.
There’s nothing inside. At least nothing worth a payoff for a thief or a meth addict.

Then she noticed the beaten-up, orange Oldsmobile parked almost on the curb. Her mother was home. For the first time before eleven
P.M.
all week.

Beth crossed the street and stepped through the doorway.

“Where have you been?” Ms. Courant looked up from the open fridge. Her drab brown hair was pulled back in a flat tail, and she’d exchanged her uniform for a shirt with a rip in the hem. Crow’s-feet marred her eyes, the lines on her face deep for a woman only in her mid-thirties. “And what are you carrying?”

Beth’s heart sank as she realized her mother had also gone shopping. There were two milk jugs and four grocery bags already on the counter. Beth had known it was a risk to go herself. But she’d had little choice. With the dearth of food in the trailer, it had been either that or invite herself over to Nalani’s for dinner a second night in a row.

Her mother wrestled with one of the fridge drawers, then slammed it shut. “Just what are we supposed to do with three gallons of milk?”

Which meant Beth wasn’t getting reimbursed.

“I…I didn’t know if you—”

“If I noticed there wasn’t milk for cereal this morning? You might have picked some up yesterday. If you were concerned.”

The whistle on the kettle began to scream.

“I used my summer’s work money,” Beth said.

“Good.” Her mother left the fridge and hustled across the linoleum to lift the kettle. “It’s about time you pitched in.” She
snagged the plastic coffee funnel and began rummaging in a drawer.

Beth moved up to the cupboards, dug into one of her sacks, pulled out a box of coffee filters, and slid it across the counter, then began putting away groceries from both sets of bags. She shelved three jars of the same marinara sauce, four sacks of the same pasta, and two bags of the same generic cereal. At least she hadn’t wasted what she’d spent on fruit. Her mother never splurged on fresh produce.

The sound of dripping from the coffee filter derailed Beth’s focus. “Look, honey”—Ms. Courant used the term
honey
only as a diminutive—“don’t you think you could at least pick up around here? I spend all day cleaning at that high-priced hotel. I really don’t have time to clean for you, too.” She chucked the coffee funnel into the sink: paper, grounds, and all.

Don’t argue,
Beth told herself.
She’ll just use it against you.
At least her mother hadn’t been drinking—not since the funeral. But she was never home. And when she was, she was always tired. Or stressed because there wasn’t enough money.

Beth shoved a couple sacks of frozen vegetables into the freezer, then flicked on the radio.

Fuzz blared.

“It’s broken,” her mother said.

It had worked yesterday. Beth reached for the antennae.

“Not now.” Her mother toted the coffee cup out of the kitchen zone and slumped down on the sagging couch. She kicked off
her shoes without untying them. “I have homework,” she said, making no move to retrieve any supplies. “Don’t
you
have any?”

“I have an application.”
But I thought you wanted me to clean.

“An application for what?”

“Regional college.” Beth opened the cupboard door and retrieved the garbage can. The smell was noxious.

Her mother’s hand tightened on the back of her own neck. “Well, that would be a waste of your grandfather’s savings.”

Dammit.
Beth took out the garbage.

It wasn’t her fault: the college trust—the fund no one could get their hands on except to pay for Beth’s education.

Her grandfather had had money. At one time.

He’d owned a big cattle ranch outside of town and run most of it into the ground, but he’d set aside enough in a trust for Beth to use
if
she went to college. It was her mother’s money, really—had belonged to her mother for a whole first semester at Notre Dame. Until she had come home pregnant.

And Beth’s grandfather had sealed off every cent.

She isn’t angry at you,
Grandma would have said.
She’s angry at him.

Beth lifted the lid on the outside trash container, dumped in the odorous garbage, and shut the top. Then forced herself to breathe.

I didn’t ask for the money. And I’m
not
going to feel sorry about it.
She hauled the emptied can back through the screen door. Might as well get this discussion out of the way now. She spoke:
“Regional is my safety school. I’m going to Stanford.”

“Oh.” Her mother’s laugh was bitter. “Of course.”

Stanford was Beth’s grandfather’s alma mater. He’d wanted his daughter to go there, but she hadn’t wanted any part of it. Beth didn’t know why. She figured it had something to do with wishing you would not become your parents.

Or parent, in her own case.

But her mother’s battles weren’t Beth’s.

Family connections meant something at expensive schools. And it didn’t matter if the connection was someone your mother hated. Beth shoved the trash container into its cupboard, then plucked the plastic filter from the sink, dumped out the paper and coffee grounds, and turned on the faucet, letting the sound drown out the silence behind her.

Maybe it wasn’t fair: attending a school that would cost twenty times what it would cost to put both her mother and her through community college. But Beth hadn’t made the rules. And she hadn’t broken them. She hadn’t been the one to throw away her chance at an education in exchange for an ill-fated relationship with some guy who had never forfeited anything. And she wasn’t going to allow her mother’s bitterness to ruin her own dreams.

After all, Beth’s mother would eventually be glad when her daughter left the trailer. At least then there’d be a drop in the grocery bill. And one less person to remind Ms. Courant of the mistake that had wrecked her entire existence.

Death, death, death.

The poems were all about death. Salva flipped through the ten-ton
Norton Anthology,
the practiced walls of his mind faltering in their attempt to shut out the humid space, cramped quarters, and banging clatter of the Laundromat. A nearby infant girl in her mother’s arms started to scream. Salva frowned. He’d spent enough Tuesday nights here, completing the family chore, that he could usually block out everything.

“Dickinson or Frost,” his study partner had suggested yesterday at their second session. “Keep your hands off Whitman. He’s mine.”

As if I’d argue over the rights to some dead poet.
Salva had earned a B on his Milton revision. Enough to convince him the walking disaster area’s advice was worth heeding as he faced the Mercenary’s current mode of torture—an analysis of any poem by any poet from any era. He
hated
assignments without clear parameters. Which was why he’d asked Beth for advice.

And he’d
intended
to follow it.

Before he began to read. And flip. And read.

His stomach rumbled, and he pressed his left hand to the football-practice-induced ache at the back of his neck.

This wasn’t working. This wasn’t going to work.

Even the poems with the happy titles. “After Apple-Picking”—what right did that have to be about death?

He didn’t like Frost.

“Salva!” Talia’s voice rang out. His name was followed by the double banging of his younger sisters coming through the Laundromat door.

He shot a glance at his watch: 6:30
P.M.
They weren’t supposed to be here. Char was supposed to keep them until eight o’clock on Monday and Tuesday nights. Salva had sibling duty on Wednesdays and Thursdays. That was the deal
los padres
had made after getting their new shift schedules.

Casandra reached him first. A compact, passionate bundle of nine-year-old drama. “Today was the most awful day!” she declared, plowing into his stomach and sweeping her arms around his neck.

He dropped the anthology on the bench and endeavored to follow her words as she outlined the nuances of fourth-grade social structure—something about a friendship bracelet she had spent hours slaving away over for the new girl in class.

“And then”—Talia arrived to take over the account—“I found it in the trash!” She stood, shoulders back, arms crossed over her chest. A slightly taller, more intense version of her ten-month-older
sister. He had no doubt, based on their tone, that throwing away a friendship bracelet was the ultimate betrayal in nine-year-old-girl speak.

Salva let them talk for the duration of a laundry cycle. He did his best to empathize over the bracelet thing, asked about their Girl Scout meeting, and checked over Talia’s homework.

Which reminded him he had a paper to write. And if he didn’t start, he was going to wind up screwed. He had only an hour in the computer lab this week for typing up the revision, and he couldn’t go in early for extra access since he had to drop the girls off at their bus. Unless he called Char and asked her to take them. Which—no kidding—she owed him after shorting his time tonight.