“Aren’t you late?” I said.
“Oh!” Mom’s eyes bugged out. “Yes! Bear, let’s go! ¡Vamos! ¡Vamos!” She kissed me and made me promise to take the ensalada rusa from last night’s dinner on our picnic. “Have fun today, querida. Enough for all of us.”
Back in the house, the only sounds were Pancake’s nails on the linoleum and the endless ticking of the grandfather clock.
I dumped my cheddar popcorn into a turquoise bowl on the island counter between us and dug in. “Sorry if Mom got your hopes up, but I’m going into town. You’re on your own today.”
Emilio leaned across the counter, elbows resting on the white tile. “What about our picnic?”
“Have some popcorn.” I opened the fridge to scope out the beverage situation. Top shelf, COLD DRINKS AND YOGURT. “Want a Coke?”
“Nope.”
I felt him right behind me suddenly, and I turned to face him, holding two sodas like a double-fisted barrier at my chest.
He took the cans and put them back in the fridge. Shut the door. Leaned against it. His gaze swept my face and finally settled on my eyes. “Wanna get out of here for a while?”
He didn’t blink or look away, and the footprint of his words lingered in my ears, pressed pictures into my mind. I’ll climb on the back of that black motorcycle and slide my arms around you, and you can take me away, over the mountain passes, through eons of rock and tree and all the ancient places, and the wheels will kick up red dust, and the wind will blow it from my hair, and we’ll outrun our yesterdays and tomorrows and I’ll never ever look back. . . .
“I don’t . . . Where?” I backed into the counter. He followed, keeping just enough space between us to confuse me. Was he hitting on me? Were we friends? Did friends flirt like this? Was he just looking for a way to pass the time, to get out of work today? “What about—”
“You’d be doing me a huge favor,” he said. “I need a bike lift from Duchess. Samuel was gonna bring it up in his truck later, but if you took me down there now, we’d save a bunch of time.”
A favor. Of course.
“Besides,” he continued, “what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t take you out?” Emilio’s eyes locked on mine, like, Target acquired! Prepare to launch! “We ain’t even had our first date, our first kiss. . . . I’m strikin’ out.”
“Surprising, considering how romantic you are, bringing a girl to the motorcycle garage. And making her drive. Nice first date.”
“You want me to drive, princesa? Take you for a spin on the bike?” He twirled the Puerto Rico key chain around his pinkie and smirked. Everything he did seemed like a dare, an invitation to some secret place where time didn’t exist and boredom didn’t stand a chance.
“I’ll pass,” I said.
“Thought we had something special, you and me.”
“Yeah. My father’s paying you to be here. Super special.”
He made a face like a wounded puppy, and I abandoned the popcorn bowl and most of my good judgment.
“I’ll take you,” I said. “But I only have an hour. And this isn’t a date; it’s a favor. Which means you owe me.”
“Any other conditions?” He raised an eyebrow. Only he still hadn’t quite mastered the trick, so it came out less charming and more menacing.
“You practice that eyebrow thing in your bedroom mirror, don’t you?”
That rascally eyebrow dropped, and I swear his face turned pink, but with the stubble it was hard to tell.
“That mean you’re stalking me? You been at my house? Maybe you snuck in my room?” He took a step closer, invading my space with his fabric softener scent, and for a second I imagined his room, how it must’ve looked when he woke up this morning . . . gray T-shirt tossed over the edge of the bed. Wild hair rumpled and crazy. His morning face, that deep sleep-scratchy voice, my fingers tracing the scars on his shoulder, his abdomen . . .
“Hey,” he whispered. “You don’t have to sneak around. I’d let you in.”
I almost choked. Was that a popcorn kernel? Those things could be pretty dangerous.
“Does that stuff actually work on other girls?” I asked. “I bet you practice all your favorite lines in the mirror, huh?”
Emilio shook his head. “Don’t need a mirror. I know how I look.”
“Yeah, like an idiot.” I called for Pancake and walked outside, Emilio trailing behind. Fresh air, that’s what the situation called for. Nothing a little sunshine couldn’t cure.
“Sure you don’t want a ride?” Emilio jerked his thumb toward the motorcycle.
“Positive.”
“Your pops was this trailblazer, right? And you won’t ride anything that ain’t got four wheels. You really his kid?”
I laughed, but the mention of Papi and his old life clawed my insides. I wish he’d wear his Arañas jacket to the doctor appointments instead of stuffy corporate shirts. He looked pretty hard core in the jacket, even all these years later. Maybe then the old A-heimer’s would get the memo and run the other way, like, Oh, we’d better not mess with this muchacho!
“I roll with Pancake,” I said, “and he doesn’t do motorcycles. Right, boy?” Pancake totally agreed, evidenced by all the tongue lolling and tail wagging as I got him situated in the truck’s backseat.
Emilio and I climbed in front. As soon as he clicked his seat belt, he noticed the shifter on the floor between us. “You drive stick?”
I pressed down the clutch, started her up, and revved the engine. Like, three times.
“Ay, Dios mío, this girl.” Emilio rolled his eyes and I shrugged, like, Hells yeah! Motorcycle restoration, driving standard . . . nothing this girl can’t rock!
I caught my reflection in the rearview as I backed out of the driveway.
Pretty ridiculous.
The lift was a massive orange ramp with an adjustable platform, presumably for the motorcycle, and through the window I watched Emilio and Samuel haul it to the truck. Emilio caught me scoping him out, but instead of making a big show of it, he smiled, soft and sweet. I was the first to look away.
Moments later the big softy reappeared at the service counter where I’d been updating Duke on the restore progress. “All set,” Emilio said, and after we’d said good-bye to Duke, he led me and Pancake out the front door, his hand warm on my lower back.
The truck bumped down Fifth Street and past Old Town limits, but Emilio hadn’t spoken. He was fidgety, tapping his fingers on his thigh, bouncing his knee. He rolled the window down and back up again. Twice.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Good.” Tap-tap-tap.
“You sure?”
“Yep.” Tap-tap.
“You know you’re acting weird, right?”
Emilio looked out the window, fingers tracing the row of ponderosa pine that lined the road. “I’m not weird. I just . . . I dunnohajurivesterd.”
“What?”
He groaned and turned toward me, jaw clenched. “I don’t. Know how. To drive. A standard.”
“Give it more gas. Now slowly release the clutch and . . . nope. Back to clutch. Clutch. Clutch!”
We bucked into a stall—the fiftieth? The hundredth? I’d lost count after twenty. Even Pancake looked a little green under his golden-blond coat. I tried not to think about the damage the lift was probably causing the pickup bed, everything clanging around like the apocalypse. At least there wasn’t any traffic.
Emilio started her up again, bucked a few more times, stalled. He pressed his forehead against the steering wheel and groaned.
“Get out,” I said. “I have an idea.”
We switched places, and I directed him to grab the shifter and close his eyes.
“I’ll shift for you,” I said. “Pay attention to how it feels and what the engine sounds like when I do it.”
His face was tight and serious. When I set my hand on top of his on the shifter, he flinched, but his eyes stayed closed.
“Relax,” I said. “Whenever I shift, I’m pre
ssing the clutch down. I’ll tell you which gear we’re hitting. We’ll start in first.” I started the engine, stepped on the clutch, and shifted to the top left, hoping my hand wasn’t sweaty as we cruised down the desolate road.
“Second.” I pulled the shifter straight back, our speed steadily climbing. “Third.”
I caught his excited smile and pushed us all the way to fifth. We were only going fifty, and the truck growled at the high gear, but the windows were down, and Pancake had his head out, tongue lapping up the breeze, and the sun toasted my arms and Emilio was laughing and the wind rustled my hair and I thought, for just this one time, just this one minute, Fuck yeah. This is what it’s all about.
And then I remembered it wasn’t, and I downshifted and piloted us to the shoulder.
“Standard one-oh-one.” I slid my hand off his.
Emilio opened his eyes. “Lesson’s over already? I was just getting it down.”
A pair of magpies swooped in front of the windshield and disappeared into the ponderosas.
“We should probably get back to Valentina before you’re too tired to work,” I said.
“I don’t get tired,” Emilio said. “Two words for you: Hard. Core.”
“Yeah? All that ‘hard core’ talk means a lot coming from a muchacho who can’t drive stick.”
Emilio faked a tough guy look, lips curling into a mock sneer for an instant before he cracked up. The sun glinted in his eyes and his grin stretched wide, dimples lingering.
It was like a sunset, the brilliant red ones over the canyon, and in the temporary silence he reached over and grabbed my hand, held it on the seat between us.
I waited for an explanation, a punch line, a dare, but he wasn’t revealing anything. His lips looked so soft and utterly kissable and his gaze drifted lazily to my mouth and for one nanoparticle of a nanosecond I felt myself leaning toward him. . . .
No. My parents were at the doctor’s and Papi was probably getting poked with needles and I was teetering on the edge of a fantasy with a notorious heartbreaker of a boy I wasn’t even supposed to acknowledge, one breath away. . . .
I slipped my hand from his and steered us back onto the road.
“Damn,” he said. “Shortest date ever.”
“I told you this wasn’t a date.” I tried to arrange my face into a sarcastic smirk. Chances are it looked more like I was second-guessing this morning’s waffles, but it had the desired effect, because a flash of disappointment shot through Emilio’s eyes and he looked away.
We rode home in silence, my mind replaying the driving lesson, the feel of his fingers beneath mine on the shifter, his touch as he squeezed my hand, and about twenty-seven other highly inappropriate thoughts involving—
“—nuts?” Emilio was saying as we coasted into the driveway.
“I’m . . . um . . . what?”
“Did el jefe find those missing flange nuts?”
I coughed. “Flange nuts. Not sure. I’ll ask when they get back from the doctor.”
Emilio picked at a dried patch of yellow paint on his shorts, but he didn’t move to get out of the truck. I opened the driver’s side door and Pancake rocketed out from behind me into the backyard after a little gray rabbit, like, Thank God we’re finally home! Because . . . bunnies!
The engine ticked and sighed, and Emilio stopped messing with his shorts and looked at me.
“Jude, is your pops . . . Why does he . . .” He ran his fingers through his hair, not finishing his question but waiting for an answer nevertheless.
Pancake zigzagged through the grass like a total spaz, and I stared out at the old barn, the bristlecones that seemed to be consuming the north side of it, the broken-tooth Needle range in the distance, the jewel-blue sky sparkling overhead. Papi’d been patching up that barn forever, adding a new board here, nailing down a loose one there, but the trees kept sneaking up on us anyway. The mountains loomed heavy and huge, and I felt it now more than I ever had before—that cosmic insignificance, the terrible, comforting knowledge that if you stood too long in the same place, the dirt would gather at your feet, and the earth would swallow you one cell at a time, and in a hundred years you’d still be standing there admiring the scenery when the final speck of dust covered your eye.
“He gets worn out sometimes,” I said, all the old excuses gathering on my lips like a summer storm. “He works really hard. We’re always telling him to slow down.”
“I thought he retired,” Emilio said.
“I mean here, the stuff he does around the house.” I emptied myself out onto the driveway and unlatched the pickup gate so Emilio could get his lift.
“Hey, Jude?”
A tiny silver-green hummingbird zipped overhead, and I tracked it and hoped he wouldn’t ask any more questions about Papi, why he drifted off, why he wandered, why the doctors kept insisting he’d one day forget any of this had ever happened.
“Thanks for the driving lesson,” Emilio said. “I think I’m pretty good, right? Not bad for my first time, anyway.” He mimed the act of steering and shifting, brow deeply furrowed, and I couldn’t fight my smile.
“Much smoother on the ground than on the road.” I rubbed my neck and rolled my shoulders. “Feels like I lost a rodeo.”
He laughed, and then the silence drifted between us again.
“So I kind of need some help with this,” he finally said, gesturing toward the lift.
“Too heavy for you?”
“No. Just awkward.”
“Like you.” I smirked as I grabbed one end of it, and the two of us penguin-walked it into the barn.
“Don’t let this go to your head,” he said when we’d finally dropped the thing, “but today was pretty fun for a nondate. Next time I’m getting a nonkiss.” He winked and walked backward toward Valentina, those maddening dimples daring me all the way there to disagree.
Chapter 9
Sorry abt rehearsal. Call me?
Zoe had ignored my texts all afternoon, sent my calls straight into voice mail. Not that I blamed her. Like so many things now, all I had were a bunch of lame apologies. Sorry I lost track of time and missed your rehearsal. Sorry my father freaked out at the class picnic and scared everyone away. Sorry I’m spending my summer thinking about motorcycles and medications and that stupid Transitions brochure. Sorry I didn’t tell you about Emilio. . . .
All our years together in drama club, in summer theater, crushing on the boys from the private schools in the valley, taking bets on who’d get the lead roles, the kissing scenes . . . it felt like a lifetime ago, and now I was floating in another world a million years from normal. If things were normal, I would’ve called Zoe the moment I’d recognized Emilio at Duchess, spilled out all the gory details. And if things were normal, she’d make a list of pros and cons with a line right down the middle, with the oath on the con side. Dimples, hair, eyes, body, smile, scars, motorcycles, sense of humor, and other general adorableness? All pros.
“Nine against one,” she’d say. “Choice is obvious.”
Only it wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t even a choice. It was strictly business, an agreement with a defined end point. It was ridiculous to give that half-second kissing fantasy another thought. . . .
The phone buzzed in my hand, and I jerked so hard I almost flung Zoe across the room.
Only it wasn’t Zoe. It was Mari.
“I just talked to Mom,” she said. “Papi did all the tests, but now they’re waiting to meet with another dementia specialist to see if he’s gotten worse.” Mari took a breath and let it out slowly. “How you holding up?”
“Fine. Hanging in.”
“Mom said that cute boy was at the house again today. What’s the deal? You holding out on me, sister?”
“As usual, you’re all getting lost in the translation,” I said. “There’s no deal. He’s helping us fix up Papi’s motorcycle.”
“Mom thinks you like him.”
“Mom watches too many soaps.”
“What? She ne
ver watches TV.”
“At the nurses’ station she does. They all do.” I said this with all kinds of authority even though my extensive knowledge of nurses’ station activities came almost entirely from the soap operas Zoe and I used to watch in middle school. The irony was not lost on me.
A few seconds passed, Mari clicking away on her keyboard. She was probably looking up the nurse’s station thing. Mari liked to be in the know.
“So here’s the big news,” she finally said. “I’m coming home for a few weeks.”
“Seriously?” I bolted up in bed, instantly light. I hadn’t seen Mari since graduation more than a month ago, and the visit was sad and strained because after the picnic stuff, Mom wouldn’t risk taking Papi to the ceremony.
Mari’s announcement floated into my heart. I was already picturing lunches together, walks to the river, book talks . . . but then I remembered that whole never, ever, under any circumstances business and my heart plummeted. She’d figure out who Emilio was and it would be, as they said on the mean streets, which I’d never been on but had seen on TV, on and poppin’.
The oath had been Mari’s idea. She was especially proud of the blood part.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I couldn’t believe what I was about to say to my favorite sister. My flesh and blood, the girl who’d taught me how to do French braids and make Mom’s empanadas and memorize the answers to Mrs. Fisk’s freshman history tests because, year after year, they’d never changed.
Yes, Hell? This is Jude Hernandez. Just phoning in my reservation. Table for one, near the fireplace if you’ve got it . . .
“Cool if you want to visit,” I said. “But you don’t have to stay that long. We’re fine.”
“It’s too much for you, Juju. Look what happened at the drugstore. What if that happens again?”
I twisted my legs into the fleece blanket on my bed. “Papi has episodes sometimes. Like, one or two times. The doctors said that would happen.”
Mari sighed a whole tornado into the phone. “You can’t do this by yourself. Mom shouldn’t expect—”