The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil (19 page)

Then it was over, as quickly as it had begun, and
Coronado Prep parents and fans were on their feet, screaming. I saw
my friends, my mom, Demetrio, Logan, everyone united in their
support. The score was announced, and, as we expected, we were now
in the lead. We strutted off the floor, back to our spots in the
bleachers, high-fiving and whooping. Then we settled down to watch
the rest of the competition.

Logan used the brief break between performances to
stalk across the gym, away from Demetrio and the wall, toward me,
his previously loving expression tainted with a touch of confused
jealousy now. He hugged me, kissed me, then hugged and greeted my
mom, who could not have been happier to see him if he’d been her
own boyfriend. She loved him. Of course she did. His father was one
of her staunchest campaign supporters and donors.

Logan squeezed onto the bench next to me, dumped the
flowers in my lap, and put his arm around me a bit roughly, pulling
my ear in toward his mouth as the announcer introduced the next
school.

He spoke through a clenched jaw. “What. The hell. Is
that lowlife. Doing. Here.”

“I don’t know. I told him about the competition when
I crashed. We made a lot of small talk.”

“You’re going to end up in trouble if you’re not
more careful, babe.”

“He’s not that bad. Don’t judge a book by its
cover.”

He released me and stared balefully at me. I ignored
him, turned my eyes to the team on the floor. There was no way they
were going to beat us. Unable to stop myself, I glanced at
Demetrio, who was staring hard at Logan with a calm authority and
intelligence.

“What’s the deal, huh?” Logan asked me, in close,
aggressively close.

“He’s a
friend
,” I replied. “You have a
problem with that?”

“Yeah, I have a
problem
with that,” he
said, as though I was crazy. “And so will everyone you know. Guys
like that are never out to be friends with girls like you. Are you
crazy or just stupid?”

“How do you know he doesn’t want to be my
friend?”

“It’s ridiculous. Look at him! He’s a common thug.
What’s really going on here? You have something with him? Did he
touch you after the crash? Is he blackmailing you? What is it
you’re not telling me? I’ll kill him if he touched you.”

I felt my phone vibrate with a text message, and
looked at it. Unknown number.

Demetrio: u ok?

I stuffed the phone back into my jacket pocket, and
felt tears well up in my eyes. This wasn’t how my life was supposed
to go. Kelsey watched with worry, and tapped me on the arm.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she shouted at me,
over Logan. “Come with me?” To Logan, she added, “You know us
girls, we can never go to the bathroom alone!”

I agreed, and together we walked out, past Demetrio,
who gave me a look as if to ask if everything was okay. I shook my
head and smiled for him not to worry, even as a tear spilled over
and ran down my cheek. Kelsey and I found the girls locker room and
decided Logan was completely out of line.

“What is Logan’s deal?” she asked me.

“I don’t know. I guess he’s just jealous.”

“No, he’s
controlling
. No one treats you like
that! No one!”

“I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Did you see how he just grabbed you like you were
his property?”

“See it? I
felt
it.”

“God! I hate him! Do you believe me now? Can you
finally see what an idiot he is?”

The tears came hot and fast now, and I dabbed them
away from my mascara with a bit of wadded-up toilet paper.

“I don’t understand why this is happening to me,” I
whined.

“It’s a blessing.” Kelsey put her arms around me.
“The sooner you get away from Logan, the better. I have never
trusted that guy.”

“Why didn’t I see it?”

“Because he’s hot, and popular, and your mom loves
him. You care too much about what your mom thinks.”

“I know.”

A few minutes later, once I’d composed myself, we
returned to the gymnasium just as the team from one of the most
impoverished schools in the city - a school that was 98 percent
Hispanic and 100 percent laughing stock at my school - took the
floor. Not wanting to interrupt, Kelsey and I stood against the
wall, near Demetrio. Amazingly, I could feel his heat and electric
energy, even though he was a good ten feet away. I felt safe around
him. At ease. Like nothing could go wrong, even as everything was
going wrong.

The team from South Valley High had boys and girls
in it, about half and half, and they were all dressed much as
Demetrio dressed, but in a more theatrical way. They looked like a
scary gang, and their opening formation had each of them striking a
very violent or intimidating pose.

“Ladies and gentleman,” said the announcer, “this
year the South Valley High team will be performing to the song
‘From Heads Unworthy’ by Rise Against, with choreography by new
coach Miranda Ulibarri, a graduate of South Valley High who
recently returned to Albuquerque after graduating from Julliard and
performing with the Metropolitan Ballet of Philadelphia for five
years. Put your hands together.”

Kelsey and I exchanged a look of total surprise.
Julliard? Metropolitan Ballet? What on earth would drive a woman
with that kind of success to come back to Albuquerque to teach at
the most ghetto of all the schools? I didn’t wonder about this for
long, however, as the opening strains of the punk rock song
revealed her intentions.

We are the children you reject and disregard

These aching cries come from the bottom of our
hearts

You can’t disown us now, we are your own flesh and
blood

And we won’t disappear just because your eyes are
shut

In stark contrast to the hardcore
punk-rock music and the gangster gear, the team performed a
stunning mixture of perfect classical ballet punctuated with
mind-bogglingly furious tumbling and gymnastics. The juxtaposition
of these disciplines, plus the ghetto clothes, was wholly
unexpected. Thomas’s word came back to me:
Verstehen
.

I gasped, and held my breath. They
were
amazing
. The
message - that looks can be deceiving, that kids like them are
underestimated - was so clear, and so
exactly
what I needed to hear right
now, that all I could do watching them dance was quietly start to
cry again. Kelsey must have felt something similar because she
reached out and looped her arm through mine, her mouth hanging open
in awe. I scanned the crowd and saw that almost everyone was having
the same ashamed, shocked, emotional response I’d had - as though
we all wondered how kids like - from
there
- that could
dance
like this.
Everyone, that is, except my mother and Logan, who were too busy
talking to one another, and looking at me shaking their heads in
disappointment, to notice what happened on the floor.

As the song went on, Demetrio
inched along the wall until he stood next to me. We looked at one
another, smiled, and did not need to speak to communicate the
attraction and rightness of what we felt. We just
knew
. I could
tell.

This happens almost never, but it happened once to
me

And things will never be the same

I’m not after fame and fortune, I’m after you

When I’ve served my time, I swear I’ll come back for
you

“This was supposed to happen, right?” I asked him
then. He smiled peacefully, and squeezed my hand.

“God’s way of staying anonymous,” he said with a
wink. “Like I said.”

“Speaking of religion, we saw your cross,” I told
him.

“Oh?” he asked, taken aback, shifting uncomfortably
and averting his eyes.

“Is it true? You, you had an accident there? You’re
- you know. For a year. That’s what it said.” It felt foolish to
ask a living, breathing, warm-blooded human being if he were dead
as he stood next to you and smiled at you.

“Let’s talk about this later, mamita. This ain’t the
right time.”

“Are you - is that your name on it? I mean, is that
supposed to be for you?”

“It’s complicated. But yes. Basically, yes. Please
don’t freak. It’s not what you think.”

“No, no. I totally understand! I figured it out last
night.” I dropped my voice to a whisper and moved toward his ear.
He smelled like earth and sunshine, healthy. “I know it’s your way
out of the gang. It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone you faked your own,
you know. Your secret is safe with me.”

Demetrio backed off with a
confused grin. “Wow, Maria. You Prep girls
are
smart; in fact, you think too
much for your own good.” He tousled my hair affectionately. “But I
like the way you be thinking.” He winked, and I mentally
congratulated myself for being an excellent detective.

The South Valley High team’s routine ended, and the
crowd rose to their feet for the day’s first and only standing
ovation.

“I gotta jet, mami,” he told me gently, his eyes
betraying a certain amusement and patience. He turned toward the
door. “If you need me, call me. I’m around.”

“You don’t have to go, do you? You should come with
us. We’re going to Dion’s for a pizza party with the team, to
celebrate.”

“Bet your boy Logan there
would
love
if I
was there,” he said sarcastically. “And that lady he’s talking to.
She’d crap her pants for joy.”

“That’s my mom.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think she digs me, mamita. She
keeps looking at me like she wants to throw a ninja star at me or
somethin’.”

I hesitated a moment before saying, “You’re right.
They don’t like you. And - and I think I’m done caring what they
think. I am. I’m done caring. I like you. That’s all that matters.”
It felt good to say it; good, and scary. I felt taller, lighter,
but more exposed, somehow.

He watched me for a long moment, with a small grin
lifting the edge of his mouth.

“That’s cool, Maria. I appreciate
that.”

“So are you coming?”

He shook his head. “Thing is,
Maria, I gotta work today. Otherwise, hanging out with you and your
friends and family sounds cool to me.”

“You have a job?” I asked.

He scoffed. “Uhm, yeah. Is that so hard to believe,
mamita?”

“No. I just, you never talked about it before. What
do you do?”

“Search and rescue.” He quickly changed the subject
before I had time to probe for details. “You did good today, by the
way. I’m proud of you. You can really shake that thang, girl!”

Demetrio did a little shimmy of his own that
indicated he probably had a good sense of rhythm. With a jolt in
the center of my belly, I longed to dance with him, powerfully
desired it, wondered what it would feel like. I remembered Winter
Ball, coming up next month, and wondered if I could get out of
going with Logan, and take Demetrio instead.

“Can we hang out this week?” I asked. “On your
terms.”

“You sure about that?” He seemed shocked.

“Yeah.”

“I’d like that, girl. I’ll text or
call. Soon. Real soon, mamita. Be careful with Logan. Dude seems
volatile. Let him down easy - I mean,
if
that’s what you’re gonna
do.”

“It’s what I
need
to do. Because of you, and
those South Valley girls, and this thing called
verstehen
that my friend Thomas told
me about today, I realized Logan’s different than I thought he was.
The word means basically to see something from someone else’s point
of view. Max Weber, German sociologist.”

He grinned. “I’m liking that dude Thomas. Cool
peeps.” He grinned, and messed up my hair again before turning to
leave. “Much cooler than Logan.”

As I watched him pimp-walk away, the announcer read
the scores for the South Valley High team. In a stunning upset that
would make the front page of the local sports section the next day,
the barrio school had beaten us. Judging from the somber faces of
my teammates and all of our parents and friends, I should have been
depressed about this, but my loyalties were suddenly, beautifully
torn; secretly, I wanted to cheer.

SECOND THIRD

tercio de varas

{
whereby
the matador torments the bull with lances, to impress the
crowd
}