The Heartbreak Messenger (6 page)

I trudged up the sidewalk and headed for the soccer field, hoping to score better in the second half.

 

Chapter 8

An image came to mind as I sat in the bleachers at the high school soccer field with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of carnations. It was from an animal documentary on TV about the Serengeti in Africa. This group of hyenas had come across a dead wildebeest and started chowing down. One hyena decided he wasn't getting his fair share, so he laid into another hyena to get him to move. The other hyena didn't like that, and they started to fight. Before you knew it, the entire clan of hyenas was in one massive brawl with teeth, claws, and tails flying. In the end, one of the hyenas got killed and they made lunch out of him instead of the wildebeest. I guess everyone likes their food fresh.

I was watching the girls' soccer team play a scrimmage game against their second-string lineup and it looked just like that scene with the hyenas—except the grass was greener and the girls wore jerseys. I'd heard rumors that this team had the regional record for the most red cards pulled on them in a season, and by watching for just a few minutes, I could see why. There was enough shoving, slide tackling, and angry shouting to fill a WWE arena.

I searched the field for number sixteen. I found her just in time to see her drop a shoulder and plow into a player wearing a white jersey. She pointed two fingers in a victory sign as her opponent fell to the ground. That was Carmen Mendoza.

I wondered if she would take the message as coolly as Melissa had.

The game went on for a while. The white jerseys were getting creamed, although there were plenty of elbows thrown on both sides. To keep my mind off the injuries Carmen was passing around, I pulled out the notes I'd jotted down on what I was going to say to her.

Jared sent me to break up with you for him. He wants me to give you these flowers and chocolates as a parting gift. Thank you and good luck.

On the field, Carmen was yelling at a teammate. With Melissa everything had gone so smoothly that I really hadn't put much thought into how this would work with someone else. My hands were sweating.

I looked at my notes again. I needed something better for a high-pressure situation like this. Like a movie script. Movies are always full of people that know exactly what to say. Even when people in movies say something dumb, it still sounds good. What I needed was a cool one-liner.

Then I remembered the fortune cookies Rob and I had scarfed the day before. I dug into my backpack and found a few slips of paper scattered at the bottom. I unfolded the first one.

A misstep will bring you great pain.
I glanced up in time to see Carmen body check an opponent. I ripped the fortune in half and pulled out another.

Love asks me no questions and gives me endless support.
Nice thought, but I figured Carmen would probably have a few questions to ask Jared when this was through.

Next.
You will be invited to a karaoke party
. Good to know.

I unfolded the last paper fortune.
Saying good-bye brings such great sorrow.
Well, it wasn't exactly Oscar-winning dialogue, but given the options, I decided it would have to do.

I repeated the phrase over and over again in my mind until I had it down. I needed to be confident, yet sympathetic. Bold, yet understanding.

When the coach finally looked up from the paperback he was reading and blew hard on his whistle, I was ready. The girls grabbed their equipment and water bottles and moved toward the locker-room entrance. I maneuvered down the bleachers and trotted across the field to head them off. When I was close enough, I called, “Carmen!”

Flanked by two of her teammates, Carmen glanced in my direction, but then kept walking. I put on a little more speed and came up right in front of her. I paused a moment to catch my breath. She stared at me with hard, dark eyes. “What do you want, punk?”

“I need to talk with you,” I said. Her teammates giggled, looking at the flowers and the chocolates. “Alone.”

She didn't blink. The other girls stayed beside her, laughing a little more. Carmen's forehead glistened with sweat. A droplet hung from her nose, somehow making her seem even more savage. “What do you want, little boy?”

I spoke as forcefully as I could, mostly just to keep my voice from cracking. “I have a message for you. From Jared.”

That made her blink. But just once. “Well?”

I cleared my throat and held out the flowers, resisting like heck the urge to turn and run. “Saying good-bye brings such great sorrow.”

Carmen batted the flowers aside and took a step closer to me. “I'm getting tired of you already, little punk. Now tell me what this is about.”

I cleared my throat again and forced myself to look into her eyes.
I'm a professional
.
I'm a professional.
“Jared sent me to tell you that he's breaking up with you.”

Carmen's dark skin flushed red, and the hard lines faded away. Her friends weren't laughing anymore. She spoke quietly. “You wanna say that to me one more time?”

Not really
. I cleared my throat again. “Jared asked me to come tell you that, um, he's breaking up with you.”
Steady, man.
I looked down at the items in my hands. “He wanted me to give you these as a token of his…”

And that's when it hit me. I don't know for sure what it was. Probably Carmen's fist, although it felt more like a rock, or maybe a can of beef stew. I went from staring at the white flowers of death to staring at a bright flash of stars to finally staring at the blue sky peppered with clouds. I found myself flat on my back in the grass, and my head was throbbing.

It was kind of a surreal moment, like the exact instant when an ordinary guy in the comic books turns into a superhero. It was as though my sense of hearing was enhanced beyond normal human abilities. I could hear the cars idling at the traffic light on the other side of the field. I could hear the feet of the cross-country team making their way around the circuit. I could hear the doors of the girls' locker room open and slam and open and slam. And, though I couldn't really be sure, I thought I heard, maybe, the sound of Carmen crying.

And that's when I passed out.

 

Chapter 9

I don't think I was unconscious on the soccer field for very long. When I came to, I found myself staring up at a bunch of cheerleaders who wanted me to get off the field so they could practice. They were really polite about it, though. One of the guy cheerleaders even offered to pick me up and carry me off, if I needed help.

The carnations still seemed to be in pretty good shape. They had been knocked around a little, but all the petals were still intact. And, unlike me, the box of chocolates had also made it through the incident unharmed. I took them home and actually considered myself lucky. Carmen had obviously refused the gifts—boy, had she refused the gifts—and so I had no problem with saving the merchandise for a future job. Assuming there would be another job. There were apparently some risks I'd have to think through first. Death, for example.

I pulled out a glass vase from under the sink for the flowers and put them in my room. I placed them next to the window and then piled up a big mound of clothes and junk in front of them so they didn't look so obvious. I didn't really want Mom to suddenly see a vase of flowers in her son's bedroom. She might wonder about me. I resisted the temptation to eat the chocolates by stuffing the box in my underwear drawer.

Then I dug out a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and wrapped it in a dish towel. As I held it up to the left side of my face, I had to admit that Carmen's reaction had completely taken me by surprise. I mean, I could understand her getting upset with the jerk-wad that broke up with her. But didn't she know that you don't shoot the messenger? I was sure I'd heard that in a movie. Somewhere.

The icy towel began to sting my skin, soothing and hurting at the same time. I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I gently lifted the towel to reveal four different colors spreading out along my swollen cheek.

It was a shiner to be proud of.

That thought made me stand up a little straighter. I had been clobbered by the star player of the (girls') soccer team. Someone so fierce that she left a trail of broken bones and red cards in her wake. And yet I had stood up to her without flinching. Carmen Mendoza may have been tough, but the Heartbreak Messenger was a force to be reckoned with, too.

I glanced at the clock, then back at my multicolored face. Maybe Mom wouldn't notice.

*   *   *

At three minutes apiece, it didn't take long for me to have our microwaveable TV dinners hot and ready to go on the table at Mick's. Making dinner is so easy. I don't know why people complain about having to cook. Mom washed at the sink and sat down. She glanced at me, then down at the dinner tray, and inhaled. “Mmmm. Chicken-fried steak and creamed corn.” She smiled. So far so good.

I grabbed my plastic fork and dug in. “Your turn, Mom,” I said between the first and second bites.

“Let's see. How about … fighting at school?”

I looked up at her, trying to keep my face as straight as possible, which took some serious effort under the scrutiny of mom-eyes. “Fighting at school? I'm against it. One hundred percent. It seems to me that only a dipstick couldn't figure out a solution to a problem without resorting to throwing punches.” I hoped that Carmen wasn't within earshot.

“Oh, I don't know about that,” Mom said. “I suppose even intelligent guys realize that sometimes they have to fight to get what they want, or to do what's right, or to defend themselves. The difference between an intelligent guy and a bonehead is that the bonehead fights first and thinks later. The other guy thinks it through, looks at the options, and then decides that fighting's the best choice he's got.”

I stopped chewing, my mouth hanging half-open. Moms aren't supposed to talk that way, even my mom, the grease monkey. Somehow, though, what she said made a lot of sense. I finally nodded my head and finished chewing. Despite her words of wisdom, I knew there was no hiding it. “Does my eye look that bad?”

“It ain't pretty.”

I finished off my mini portion of cherry cobbler before saying anything else. “Well, it wasn't a fight. More of a misunderstanding. There was this guy that broke up with his girlfriend, and I happened to be standing nearby when it happened. The girl just went totally ballistic and started hitting things, including my eye.”

She tried hard, but there was no way for Mom to hide a smile when it was so plain on her face. “A girl did that?”

“She was a … tough girl. A soccer player.”

By then she was laughing. Hands-over-her-mouth laughing.

It was just my mom, but I could feel my ears turning pink. “I'm serious, Mom. They give her red cards like they're lunch tickets.”

She kept going. Soon her eyes were watering.

“Mom, you're not doing much for my sense of manliness.”

She forced herself to grab a breath. “I'm sorry, Quentin.” She closed her eyes and took another deep breath. “Did this happen at school? Do I need to talk to the principal about it?”

My eyes got wide, including the purple one. “Are you kidding? As far as the rest of the world knows, I hit my head on the bathroom sink when I bent down to tie my shoe.”

Mom reached across the table and ruffled my hair. “My poor baby.”

I pulled back and grinned. “No, it's too late for that. You keep your fake pity to yourself.”

As I walked home after dinner, my thoughts wandered back to the fifth grade. That year Rob got into a fight on the playground with a fourth-grader who was picking on him. To Rob's credit, it was Stubs Thompson, the biggest kid in the school who had been held back a grade—twice. But still, a fourth-grader. No one really got hurt, but they both got in plenty of trouble. I remember Rob telling me about the long talk he'd had with his dad the night after it happened. His dad had been totally cool about it. He'd shared a few stories about fights from his school days, talked about when it was okay to stand up for yourself and when to let it go, and how to hold up your left fist in front as a guard. I think he even took Rob out for ice cream or something.

I'm pretty level-headed and hadn't ever been in a fight. (Rob throwing sand in my face in the second grade didn't count.) Carmen Mendoza's fist was the first time I'd even come halfway close. Since Rob's experience, though, I'd wondered on occasion what would happen if I got into a fight. I mean, I couldn't have asked for a better reaction from my mom for that black eye. But still, talking about something so personal and manly as your first shiner—it really ought to come from a father, you know? I suppose I wasn't the first single-parent kid to feel cheated out of stuff.

Mom always says that you shouldn't waste any time feeling sorry for yourself. But as I turned down our street in the blue evening light, I reached up and gently touched the swollen skin around my left eye, and winced.

 

Chapter 10

Carmen Mendoza had hammered into me the idea that this Heartbreak Messenger business might be a little risky. I figured Carmen was probably an extreme case—I really hoped she was an extreme case—but it was enough to make me argue with myself about whether I should keep the business going. The seventy dollars I'd pulled in was amazingly persuasive, however, and it didn't take long for the money to win the argument. If I was going to risk my life, at least I stood to make some good money doing it.

But that presented another problem: If this gig was going to work, there had to be a steady stream of clients. Advertising was out of the question—just in case Carmen
wasn't
an extreme case. I needed a way to drum up business without announcing to the world that I was the Heartbreak Messenger and you could find me in apartment 326T.