The Painted Boy

  “Yeah, and it didn’t sound promising. If he wanted to talk to us, he’d have come by already and that hasn’t happened. Considering how harsh I’ve been, I don’t blame him.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. At least he didn’t bite your head off the last time you saw him.”

  “What was up with that?” Anna asked. “You guys were always so tight.”

  “It’s got something to do with Maria.”

  Anna shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why does he care? He hardly knew her. And how were we supposed to guess that she was planning something like that? What kid our age spends a couple of years going deep undercover? If I saw it in a movie, I’d never buy it.”

  Rosalie remembered what Lupita had said just after Jay disappeared with Maria’s body.

  It’s not my story to tell.

  “No, it was more than that,” she said. “I wonder if we’ll get to ask just what.”

  “Well, heads up,” Anna said. “Looks like you might get that chance.”

  Rosalie looked ahead to where Anna was pointing. The dogs had all run to the front entrance of the mall, where they sat in that patient half circle they only did around Jay, but he wasn’t there. The girls looked at each other and quickened their pace. They’d almost reached the dogs when there was motion in the mall entrance, and Jay stepped outside.

  Rosalie stopped when she reached Oswaldo’s side. Jay didn’t look any different than he had when he’d still been working at La Maravilla and living with Tío, nothing like the scary guy she’d seen him become in front of El Conquistador. But where she could have once fallen into an easy conversation with him, now it felt as though they barely knew each other.

  That morning at the pool hall lay between them, punctuated by the terse dismissal he’d given her just before he’d disappeared. The only thing that gave her hope was that she could tell by the way he stood and the look in his eyes that he felt the same way.

  It took Anna to break the awkward silence.

  “I owe you an apology,” she told him. “Big time.”

  Rosalie glanced at her. Anna was dressed in jeans and sneakers with a yellow shirt tied at the midriff, her red-streaked black hair tied back in a ponytail. It was a casual look, but Rosalie had sat in her bedroom for twenty-five minutes until Anna had achieved it. She remembered wanting to tell her not to lead Jay on, but she’d stopped herself, not quite knowing why. But now she understood, and she was glad she hadn’t said anything.

  Jay’s gaze locked on to Anna’s.

  “No, you don’t,” he said. “You were totally right. I should never have cut a deal with Flores. I could have stopped it all long before anybody got killed.”

  “Except you didn’t know you could,” Anna told him. “I get it. I know that now. I just had my mind made up and couldn’t stop carrying on like some bitchy drama queen, as your friend Lupita never gets tired of telling me.”

  That brought the hint of a smile. He walked over to one of the dead saguaro and sat on the ledge of the container that had once held the giant cactus. He snapped his fingers and the dogs all flowed over to where he sat, flopping on the ground around his feet, except for Pepito, who jumped up onto his lap.

  “Things really got messed up, didn’t they?” he said, scratching Pepito behind the ears. “I wanted to come see you guys, but I didn’t know what kind of a welcome I’d get. I sort of still don’t know.”

  Anna nodded. “Yeah, life should come with some kind of freakin’ instruction manual. But knowing us, we probably wouldn’t read it, anyway. Well, Rosalie would, but she’s our resident saint.”

  That got another smile. Anna closed the distance and sat down beside him. After a moment, Rosalie did the same.

  “I’d ask how you were all doing,” Jay said, “but I already know.”

  Anna lifted an eyebrow and he tapped his head with an index finger.

  “I’m connected to everything now,” he explained. “I can tell where anybody and anything is, what they’re doing.”

  “Even what they’re thinking?” Rosalie asked.

  He shook his head.

  Rosalie tried to imagine what that would feel like, but she couldn’t.

  “Is it weird?” she asked.

  “Not really—at least not anymore. But when all those thousands of connections first came rushing in, I didn’t think I’d ever get back to myself again. I thought I was going to drown in them.” He turned his gaze to Anna. “It was your guitar . . . hearing the band’s music that brought me back.”

  “I’m glad we could help,” Anna said. “But it wasn’t our idea. Rita told us to play and then she conducted us like we were an orchestra.”

  “It still worked.”

  “Yeah.” She studied him for a moment. “So we’re good?”

  Jay nodded.

  They fell silent, none of them sure of where to look or what to say next. It wasn’t as awkward as when Rosalie and Anna had first arrived, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence, the way it had been when they used to just hang out together.

  “Tío’s still got your room waiting,” Rosalie finally said. “And your job at the restaurant. I keep telling him that you’ve got no reason to come back but . . .” She paused. “What can I say? It’s Tío. Maybe if you get a chance you could drop by and tell him. I think he needs to hear it from you.”

  “How would you feel if I did come back?” Jay asked. “Would it bother you?”

  Rosalie could only look at him.

  “Why would you even want to?” Anna asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, you’re some big-deal dragon guy now, aren’t you?”

  Jay couldn’t seem to look at them. He focused his attention on the scruffy little dog on his lap.

  “Knowing you guys,” he said. “Working in the restaurant with Tío and Rosalie, hanging out with the band . . . that was the first time I felt like a normal person since I was eleven years old.” He held up a hand before either of them could speak. “I know, I know. I’m not normal. But I can’t tell you how good it felt pretending that it was real.”

  “But it was real,” Rosalie said. “I don’t know exactly what it is you are now—you know, in this other life of yours—but you’re still just Jay, too. This guy from Chicago who’s funny and fun and we all really like. I’d love it if you came back.” She waited a beat, then added, “Even if it does mean I’ll have to listen to Tío telling me ‘I told you so’ for the next couple of weeks.”

  “She’s right,” Anna said. “Can’t you be both?” She poked him with a finger, grinning when he looked up at her. “It’d be like having this secret identity—just like a superhero.”

  He had to smile.

  “Except it’s not very secret,” Rosalie put in.

  “Well, no,” Anna agreed. “Everybody’s heard the stories.” She paused for a moment, then asked, “Did you really take out a whole army of cartel soldiers in this big gunfight south of the city?”

  “No, I—is that what they’re saying?”

  Anna leaned closer to him. “Well,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “you tell us, Mr. Connected-to-Everything.”

  There was a moment when Rosalie thought it could go either way. But Jay laughed, the good humor lighting up his whole face the way she remembered it used to. And then they were all laughing, and all the distances between them seemed to go away, just like that.

  “I’ve really missed you guys,” he said when they’d all caught their breath.

  “Me too,” Rosalie said.

  Anna nodded. “I just wish I hadn’t been such a—”

  Jay put a finger against her lips.

  “We’re starting over again,” he said. “Or at least putting aside the last couple of weeks.”

  Anna nodded. “Maybe,” she said, her voice serious, “we could go back a little further than that. You know, to before I started giving you the cold shoulder.”

  He studied her for a long moment and Rosalie wished that she could do
his vanishing trick and just be somewhere else so that they could be alone.

  “I . . .” He had to clear his throat. “Yeah, I could do that.”

  Anna bumped her shoulder against his. “Look at you, Mr. Cool.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Joking,” she told him. “You are cool.”

  He gave a slow nod. Rosalie couldn’t figure out if he was agreeing, or just trying to work out whether or not she was teasing him again.

  “Just to be clear here,” he said, “and it’s the last time I’ll bring it up because we’re all starting over and everything, but what changed your mind? Is it because the bandas are gone now?”

  “God, no,” Anna told him. “I mean, it’s great that they are, but this is . . . I don’t know. I guess I was following the movie in my own head instead of the one that was playing out in the real world. It was totally unfair.”

  “You read my journal, didn’t you?” he said.

  Anna ducked her head, a flush creeping up her neck.

  “Only because I made her,” Rosalie said. “But I was just so worried about you and I thought there might be a clue or something in it that would help me find you.”

  Jay nodded, but his gaze stayed on Anna.

  “So I guess you know how I feel about you,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Anna said. “But we’re all into the starting over thing, so who knows how you feel now. I mean, if that’s the way you want it to be.”

  “You know it’s not.”

  “I guess. But I’m going to be honest with you. I’m not a hundred percent sure I know how I feel. But I can promise that this time I’ll . . . you know . . . be a little more open-minded about everything. God, I wish I had a guitar. Everything makes more sense when I’ve got one in my hands.”

  Jay smiled. “Rock goddess.”

  “Superhero.”

  They grinned at each other.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Rosalie asked. “Are you coming back with us?”

  Jay nodded. “And I’m thinking of going back to school. Here, I mean. In Santo del Vado Viejo.”

  This was a day of surprises, Rosalie thought.

  “Really?” she said.

  Jay nodded. “Señora Elena thinks I should, and I guess she’s right.”

  “That name sounds familiar. . . .”

  “She’s the real heart and spirit of the barrio—at least south of your fake river. El Tigre took the medicine from her and I gave it back.”

  “So you’re not the big boss?” Anna said.

  Jay laughed. “No, I’m just the muscle.”

  “You’ve missed a lot of your year,” Rosalie said, ever practical, “but I can help you catch up.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “Are you kidding?” Anna said before Rosalie could respond. “She lives for this kind of thing.”

  Rosalie punched her arm.

  “Some protection here!” Anna cried.

  Laughing, they gathered the dogs and headed back to Tío’s house.

  Later that night Jay walked down to the Vulture Ridge trailhead. The night had cooled, but it was even cooler in el entre. Following a thread on the medicine wheel, he took the trail up into the mountains, heading for the canyon and the big slab of rock where Lupita had taken him the first time. When he got there, she was sitting cross-legged at the very edge of the rock, looking out at the desert. She didn’t turn around, but he was sure she knew he was there.

  “Hey, Lupita,” he said. “It’s been a while.”

  “Oh, listen,” she said without turning around. “Some big cousin is talking to the little jackalope joke.”

  “Okay, I deserve that. And I keep telling you: not a joke.”

  She still wouldn’t look at him.

  “I’m sorry,” Jay told her. “I’m as sorry as the whole world and the sky above and the stars beyond and the galaxies beyond them.”

  “That’s pretty sorry,” she said, finally facing him.

  “Well, I am. I shouldn’t have been ignoring you. It’s just that the last time I saw you I got the feeling you didn’t really want me to be there.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” she said. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m the one who got you to go off into the mountains where you could have been killed.”

  “What are you talking about? I seem to remember you suggesting I take off for some other desert where no one could ever find me.”

  “That was just me being clever.”

  Jay smiled. “You mean like reverse psychology?”

  “I guess. But I should never have done it. The thunders could have killed you.”

  “So why did you?”

  “Rita kind of talked me into it. And I knew you couldn’t face El Tigre without getting some help at being a dragon. So I decided she was right.”

  “Makes sense to me.” Jay waited a moment, then added, “I didn’t meet any thunders.”

  “Then how did you learn to become such a fierce dragon?”

  “I met some other guy who called himself Abuelo.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really? Ay-yi-yi. The mother cousins use him to scare their kids into being good.”

  Jay shrugged. “He seemed nice enough to me. A little distant, but if it hadn’t been for him I’d have been even more untogether when the medicine wheel came into my head.”

  “That must have been so weird.”

  “Big-time.”

  “But you gave it back to Señora Elena, didn’t you?”

  Jay laughed. “You cousins really are a bunch of gossips, aren’t you? But yeah, I did. Or I sort of did. We share it now. She’s back to what she was before El Tigre showed up and I’m her backup—the one who makes sure that the things that are supposed to get done actually get done. Like getting rid of the bandas and keeping them away.”

  Lupita’s features hadn’t brightened, but now she grew serious again.

  “I’m sorry about your friend Maria,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Did you tell Rosalie why she joined the Kings?” she asked.

  “No. I made Maria a promise and I’m going to keep it.”

  “Do you still have to keep a promise when the person you made it to is dead?”

  “I think so. And really, what good would it do if I did tell Rosalie? All it would do is really upset her.”

  “She might surprise you,” Lupita said. “That girl’s like the old bones of stone holding up the mountains. I think she deserves to know the sacrifice her friend made. If she never does, how can she properly mourn her?”

  “I don’t know. I promised Maria. . . .”

  “Then promise me you’ll at least think of it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good.” She clapped her hands. “So do you want to go tease the javelina boys?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Not tonight. I have to get up early tomorrow.”

  “Oh, pooh. You’re no fun.”

  “What can I say?”

  “You could say yes. You could sing ‘Ai-yi-yi!’ with me and then suggest we go dance with the aunts and uncles and twirl under the stars.”

  She gave him a hopeful look.

  He shook his head.

  “Well, you could at least walk me home,” she said.

  “That I can do.”

  Anna picked Rosalie and Jay up on Jay’s first day at school. The girls sat in the front of the Valiant while he lounged across the backseat. He listened to them chatter for a couple of blocks, then sat up.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

  “You’re not wearing your seat belt,” Anna said.

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “We don’t have a subject yet except for you not wearing your seat belt. I don’t want to get a ticket.”

  “Okay, I’ll put on my seat belt,” Jay told her.

  “What’s your idea?” Rosalie asked.

  “We should have a big street party—a real fiesta,”
Jay said. “It’ll be to celebrate the bandas being gone and we’ll invite anybody who ever had to deal with their crap.”

  “That’ll be everybody in the barrio,” Anna said.

  “Kind of my point.”

  Anna nodded, keeping her gaze on the street ahead. “That could be fun.”

  “And Malo Malo should totally be the headline band,” Jay said.

  “We’re not playing anymore,” Anna said. “Ramon says the band is done.”

  “Because of Margarita.”

  She nodded.

  “But maybe this’d be the perfect opportunity for him to see how wrong he is in this,” Rosalie said. “You guys sounded great with Chaco sitting in. It wasn’t the same, but it was pretty amazing. Imagine how good it would sound if the rest of you actually had the chance to practice with him before a gig.”

  Anna nodded. “I really miss playing.”

  “So it’s decided,” Jay said. “When should it be?”

  “You have to convince Ramon first,” Anna said.

  “No problem.” Jay sat back. “Putting on my seat belt now.”

  Anna laughed. “Yeah, just as we’re pulling into the school parking lot.”

  Everybody knew who he was. No one came up to Jay, but from collecting his schedule at the office to walking to his first class, whispers followed in his wake. It was so different from his old school, where he’d worked so hard to disappear into the woodwork. He wasn’t sure he liked being the center of all this attention.

  He had worried about having to vanish from class if some problem came up, but the morning passed without incident. No ’banger tried to sneak into the barrios to sell dope, jack a car, or throw up a few signs on newly cleaned walls. But at lunchtime the medicine wheel drew him to a few kids standing under a big old mesquite tree on the far side of the school yard. He looked around. He was waiting for Anna and Rosalie, but they hadn’t come back from putting books in their lockers yet. No one was watching him.

  He stepped into el entre, stepping out again right beside the kids.

  “Jesus!” one said.

  “No, my name’s Jay.”

  The biggest of them stepped up. “What’s your problem, man? You looking for trouble?”