“Just trying to help.”
“No more helping,” I said. But he had helped, in his own sick little way, and I decided I kind of liked him, as far as boys went, but he was obviously here for the bike, and fangirl hour was over. I led him into the barn, back to Emilio’s space.
“Valentina, ooh.” He gave an impressed whistle. “This girl is hot. No wonder E loves working on her.”
“Yep. Loves it sooo much that he bailed in the homestretch.”
“What?” Samuel shook his head. “Has that boy ever bailed on you before?”
“No. But—”
“He didn’t bail, you drama llama. He’s in Santa Fe with his mom for that school thing. I’m just here for the lift.”
“Santa Fe . . . the cookie project thing?” My face went hot. I’d forgotten about their field trip once I’d polished off the last of the cookies, like, ages ago.
“Look at your face,” Samuel said. “Jesus, I seen him mopin’ around all night, and now you. . . . Oh, you two got it bad. It’s kinda sick. Cute, but sick.”
“I don’t . . . wait. He was moping? Like, all night? How long was he moping? What was he doing exactly?”
Samuel held up his hands. “Sorry, I have to get to work. I’m sure you can find a shrink in the phone book, happy to listen to all your problems.”
“You okay, queridita?” Papi strolled into the barn with Pancake and another Celi mug from the stash I’d found, this one with pink and silver hearts raining out of blue clouds. He was all happy-go-lucky-good-mornin’ casual, and when he saw Samuel, he smiled. “You’re from Duchess, right? You work with Emilio?”
My eyes stung at the mention of Emilio’s name again, but I blinked it away and introduced them.
“¿Quieres un café?” Papi asked Samuel.
“No, gracias,” he said. “I need to get this lift back to Duchess. We got two hogs comin’ in today and we’re short.”
Papi set down his mug to help Samuel with the lift, and after they’d loaded it into the Jeep and Samuel took off, Papi found me right where he’d left me: sitting on the workbench in a puddle of sulk like the big fat drama llama I was.
Papi sat next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into him, soaked up the familiar strength, and my heart ached as I recalled a hundred scraped knees, all the forgotten lines onstage, the unexpected tumbles, monsters under the bed. Papi had chased them all away, comforted me after every pain, and now I closed my eyes and let myself pretend—just for a minute—that he’d get strong again. That he’d be there to dry my tears, to hang the moon and the stars when they fell down. That he’d always be the smart one, the one with all the right words and promises. That we’d never have to switch places on this bench.
But we would. In so many ways we already had. And no matter how close the inevitable got, I could never be ready for it, not in a year or five or ten or a hundred. So when he squeezed my arm and asked me what happened, why I looked so sad, I confessed as if it would always be this way between us. Old helping young. Wisdom guiding inexperience. Father loving daughter.
“Emilio and I got into a fight the other day,” I said.
“Another one?” Papi said, an octave higher than normal. Even Pancake lifted his head at that one, like, Jude, can’t you keep your crazy shit together for five minutes? You have the attention span of a—look! Ohmigod! BUNNIES!
Pancake shuffled off toward the yard, and I nodded. “Emilio’s never talking to me again.”
“Que? I doubt that. Why do you think?”
“I kind of flipped out on him. And then I told him to get out.”
“Ah.” Papi reached for his coffee and took a sip, his other arm still strong over my shoulder. “That happens sometimes, querida. Especially with Hernandez women. Believe me, I know.”
“Not helping, viejito.”
“No?” Papi smiled. “I’m sorry, Juju. Tell me exactly what happened.”
I took a shaky breath, trying to ignore the flashes of Papi lying on the road, Emilio’s face after I’d pushed him away. “Basically, he said I should listen to Mari about not letting you ride, because it’s dangerous and he’s worried, and he doesn’t want me to feel guilty if something happened . . . not that it would, but . . . he’s wrong, Papi.”
“He’s not wrong about the risks. Motorcycles are dangerous, querida. But it’s not his call—I made my decision. Emilio will finish the bike soon. Then I ride.” Papi’s sigh was heavy, but then he smiled again and tugged on my hair. “So you defended this viejito, eh?”
“I told him to get out. I mean, he kept going on and on . . . Forget it. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
I closed my mouth, suddenly feeling like I’d betrayed Emilio, ratted him out. But Papi just sipped his coffee like he wasn’t surprised or mad or anything at all. I waited for him to dismiss it with a wave, to tell me I was being silly and promise it would all blow over. Instead, he rose from the bench, set down the mug, and held out his hand.
“Let’s walk,” he said. “I told Mari I’d make at least two trips to the river this week.”
Mari had ducked out at dawn this morning, first to Denver, then on to meet her author in New York. She’d left a note under my door with strict orders, underlined three times, not to let Papi ride.
“How well do you know Emilio?” Papi asked as we made our way to the river, trailed as always by Pancake. He’d never miss out on a chance to spook those fish.
“Not super well or anything. We’re . . . friends.” My cheeks burned, but Papi was asking about history, not about how I’d been spending my summer, my forbidden dreams, the truth in my heart that remained, despite our argument. “He was ahead of me at BHS, and then he left early, so . . . just from this summer. Not a lot.” The memories from that night in the woods by the Bowl, the motorcycle ride, the taste of his lips, the hurt in his eyes yesterday . . . all of them rose and fell.
“Did he tell you why he dropped out of Blackfeather High?” Papi asked.
“No. I asked him once, but I got a weird vibe. Like, he didn’t want to talk about it. It’s funny with him, Papi. When he’s not cracking jokes or talking about motorcycles, he doesn’t say too much. He’s like that about his family, too. It’s like deep down, he really doesn’t want to talk.”
But you don’t ask me stuff that matters. Who I am or where I been. What I see when I look at you. What I want . . .
Echoes. Words from that night in my driveway after Alice in Wonderland. They lingered like smoke, and I yanked them from the sky and shoved them down deep with memories of all the good things.
We followed the path though the trees—ponderosa pines, I now knew—that led down to the Animas. The water was slow and lazy today, the opposite of everything inside me that churned and roiled, and we found a dry spot on the bank and took off our shoes and dipped our toes.
Papi kicked the water, watched the ripples float away. “A couple years ago, a boy got into a motorcycle accident on Phantom Canyon Road. There was fog on the mountain that night, low visibility. They figured he lost sight of the pavement and hit the shoulder, then lost control trying to swing back onto the road.”
I shivered. People wrecked on bikes, I knew that, but hearing about it now, I couldn’t help but picture Emilio. It hit me sharp and fast, cut even deeper than when I’d pictured Papi the other day because Emilio still rode his bike. All the time, everywhere.
Did he go out on Phantom Canyon Road at night? Had he heard this story? My heart sped up, and I held my breath as Papi continued.
“He hit a tree, got tangled in the wreckage . . . nineteen years old, like Emilio.”
Pancake paced the shore, sniffing out flowers and bugs and other living things, stepping over Papi’s feet when he needed to.
“I read about it when it happened.” Papi leaned forward to scoop some rocks from the bank. “Obviously we knew of the family because of your sister . . . ay, Dios.” He poured his rocks from one hand to the other, back and forth, and when he fi
nally looked at me, his eyes were glassy. “It was his cousin, querida. They were very, very close. He told me about him, a little.”
Another shiver, cold and icy, ran from my skull to my toes. Papi didn’t have to say whose cousin. I knew in my bones he was talking about Danny, and my heart sank as some of the pieces clicked into place. The picture in Emilio’s bedroom, two boys splattered with mud. Susana’s toys-and-candle shrine. All the time Emilio and Papi had spent alone in the barn, the bond they shared.
Papi tossed the rocks into the water and turned to face me. His eyes were wet with tears, but he didn’t blink them away or cough like it was a tickle in his throat, a sneeze that didn’t escape.
“Juju, Emilio was there. This Danny . . . he was ahead of him on the road about a half mile. Emilio didn’t see the accident happen, but he heard it. When he got around the bend, he saw the wreck. He skidded to a stop and basically dropped his bike. . . .” Papi pinched the bridge of his nose, and when he spoke again the words were muffled by his hand.
“He dove at the tree, trying to haul the bike off Danny, but it was too heavy and mangled. All that twisted metal . . . Everything was sharp and hot. . . . Ay, what a mess. He hurt himself pretty bad trying to pull Danny out. But there wasn’t . . . It was too late.”
I buried my face against my knees as the rest of the pieces clicked together, the horrifying puzzle complete.
They were always wild, those boys. . . . dragged Danny around everywhere he went . . .
Ain’t seen him in two years. I miss him. Hell yeah, I miss him.
His mother basically hates me. . . .
Emilio had said Danny was in Puerto Rico, but he wasn’t. He was gone. Was his death the tragedy that tore apart Emilio’s family? Or was it because Emilio chose to keep riding, to keep building the machines that killed his cousin? Did they blame him for that Phantom Canyon Road ride? Did they wish it were Emilio instead? Did they blame him for not being able to save—
“The scars.” The words were so soft I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken or thought them. I closed my eyes, remembering again the thin lines on Emilio’s arms, the bone-white evidence of some long ago hurt seared across his abdomen. Though I’d finally touched them, I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask. I knew there had to be a dark story, maybe a bike-related thing.
But not like this.
Pancake lumbered over with some treasure he’d unearthed, a bundle of sticks and stones caked in river mud. He dropped it on the ground and buried his head in my lap as if he knew that’s exactly what I needed.
“Emilio Vargas is a good kid.” Papi’s voice was thick with emotion. “He’s not his brothers any more than you’re Araceli or Mariposa or Lourdes. He’s been through a lot. He’s still a boy and he’s already had his heart broken more than we can even imagine.”
I sucked in a sharp breath as the final realization dawned. “You knew he was a Vargas?”
Papi’s forehead was wrinkled with sadness, but he smiled at my question. “You girls think I’m already senile. I’m telling you, you can’t sneak anything past me.”
“The whole time?”
“No, no. Only since that day your sister met him. I kept thinking, what the hell got Mari so worked up? Every time I got close, this junker conked out.” He knocked on his head. “But then I woke up in the middle of the night and it finally clicked. Emilio Vargas! Yes! Ah, what can you do?”
“Does Mom know?”
“Sure, she knows. I told her as soon as I figured it out. Querida, you’re making a big deal for nothing.”
“But . . . you guys weren’t mad about the wedding and stuff?”
He shrugged. “That has nothing to do with Emilio, and nothing to do with you.”
“But his family—”
“His family is lots of different people. Some of them made mistakes. Some of them are still making mistakes. But you can’t judge everyone by their relatives. Look where that would get you.” He tapped his head again and winked.
I laughed because he did, and because I was grateful for the momentary lightness, but laughing at his Alzheimer’s jokes had the same effect on me as the disease did on him—it consumed a little piece of me every time, one I’d never get back.
Papi leaned over to scratch Pancake’s ears. “Look in your heart, querida. Give it a chance.”
When we got back to the house, Papi kissed me on the forehead and went inside, and I sat on the back porch with Pancake for the rest of the day. We watched the sun sink behind the Needles, and then it was gone, and Pancake put his head in my lap and we both sighed. Dogs knew the real deal.
Sometimes, a sigh was all the fight you had left.
Chapter 27
“Have you kids seen my big shovel?” Papi barreled into the barn in dust-covered jeans, work gloves black with dirt. He’d insisted on gardening this morning to give me and Emilio a chance to talk, even though he’d interrupted us five times already, searching for potting soil and trowels and tools. “Your mother had it out a few weeks ago.”
I couldn’t remember Mom ever doing yard work, and I wasn’t even sure we had a big shovel, but Papi finally located it in the corner with the rakes. He dragged it back out into the yard, Pancake waddling behind him.
Emilio leaned against the workbench with his arms crossed over his chest. It was his first day back since the Santa Fe trip, and his eyes were dark and dim, red like he hadn’t slept. I’d been trying to say the words in my heart all morning—how much I hated fighting with him. How much I missed his arms around me. How sorry I was about Danny, how I understood why he had to leave, why he was always chasing the next amazing thing. I even understood why he’d said those things about Papi and the kind of knife-edged guilt that never leaves you.
I knew why he didn’t want to see me go through it. I hated seeing him carry it too.
I’m sorry about your broken heart.
All of it sounded right in my head, but I couldn’t find my voice.
Emilio spoke instead. “I’m sorry for what I said. About your pops and the bike . . . I got pissed. I didn’t mean it.”
I nodded, waiting for him to continue. My cousin died. I never got to say good-bye. I still feel guilty . . .
But that was all he had, and he gave me a long sigh and got back to work. As he rummaged through a mason jar full of screws, I pretended to dig into a box of old Halloween costumes, fairies and frogs and clowns and Darth Vader, but my eyes lingered on his arms. I’d come to know his scars as mysterious but permanent, as much a part of him as his wavy black hair and soft brown eyes. But through my father’s story, in an instant, they’d changed. Everything about Emilio had changed since I’d last seen him. It felt like years.
“Do you want a drink?” I chucked a yellow-blond Miss Piggy wig into the trash and headed toward the doors, but I nearly crashed into Papi. His face was twisted with panic, knuckles white around the shovel handle.
“I can’t find it, Juju. I looked all over and it’s not there.”
“Papi. It’s okay. You already found it. With the rakes, remember?”
He shook his head. “Someone stole it. They stole it, Juju. We should’ve been more careful!”
“You’re holding it. Look.” I reached for the shovel, but he snatched it away and ran back out to the yard.
It was obvious Papi was no longer talking about gardening. The familiar dread pooled in my stomach, and I counted to ten and waited for it to pass, to usher in the no-nonsense calm that would let me march outside and set things right, like I had at Uncle Fuzzy’s.
But this time my nerves stayed tangled. My arms and legs felt old, the bones weak and stiff. Instead of calm, my body filled with utter exhaustion.
All I’d wanted to do today was fix the mess with Emilio, find a way back to the moments before our argument. But out in the yard, Papi was ranting again, louder by the second, and finally Emilio set down his tools to go investigate.
“I got this.” He squeezed my shoulder as he passed, and a knot tightened my throat.
I sagged against the barn’s warped wood, wished on Celi’s old fairy wand for all of it to stop.
“Jude,” Emilio called from the yard. Through the wall, his voice was distorted but urgent, edged with panic. “Get out here.”
“Papi, what . . . what did you do?” I stared openmouthed at the disaster formerly known as our yard. It was hacked apart, cratered with a dozen holes and corresponding mounds of grass and dirt.
“Help me find it, Juju!” Papi gave up the shovel, but when I laid it in the grass at my feet, he snatched it up and started another hole. “The treasure, querida.”
Emilio tried to distract him with an update on Valentina, but Papi was undeterred. My so-called angelic singing voice bombed out too—“Thoroughly Modern Millie” fell on deaf ears. Mari was still in New York. Mom was at work. I was out of ideas.
“It’s buried next to the grave,” Papi said. “I know it is—he told me. But I can’t find it. Someone must’ve moved it.”
“Papi.” I kept my voice low and steady, but inside the panic rose, pushing high into my throat. “There’s no treasure. I promise.”
He shook his head, wouldn’t look at me as he jumped on the shovel head and speared the earth. “There are two kinds of people in this world.”
I watched him closely, desperate for that punch line, the joke that would explain everything. “What are they?”
“Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. I dig.”
“Papi, it’s not—”
“He said it was buried under the grave of Arch—no, next to the grave of Arch Stanton. That’s it. Help me find the headstone.”
Realization pierced my heart. Arch Stanton. The treasure. It was a scene out of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He was looking at me with frantic eyes, desperate for that treasure, convinced it existed in our yard, that the characters existed in his life.
He thought it was real.
“No, the treasure was from your movie, remember?” I said. “With Tuco? Two kinds of people in this world?”
“Tuco wants the money for himself!” Papi wagged a finger in my face. “You better not be on his side. Are you working for Angel Eyes?” He squinted at me, scrutinized my face. Even Pancake was spooked, barking and barking despite Emilio trying to calm him, probably wondering how Papi could get away with this kind of property destruction when he always got sent to his doggy bed.