Delia's Heart

  “That’s it. It was not exactly the right situation for our festivities,” she said, giggling.

  “So? Where were you?” Sophia asked. “Huh?”

  “I had some chores,” I said.

  “Chores?” She looked at her girlfriends, who were all smiling. “It couldn’t have been the chore of being with Adan Bovio, could it?”

  I had no hesitation about lying to Sophia, and she had, after all, given me a good excuse.

  “Yes, it could.”

  “That’s bull crap!” she screamed, her hands on her hips now. “Adan Bovio called here for you just a half hour ago. I heard your phone ringing and answered it.”

  I just stared at her. Even lying to her caused more problems. Lies never work for long. Some die the instant they’re born.

  “You didn’t just happen to go and meet another boy, did you? One of your Mexican boyfriends, maybe?” She glanced impishly at her girlfriends, who drew closer to her as if to add their support. They all wore the same look of self-satisfaction.

  “What I do and where I go are not your business,” I said.

  “Ha!” She swayed. The vodka was settling into her brain. “What did I tell you, girls? The Latina Cinderella has found another Latino prince. Who is he? How’s Adan going to feel about it? Where did you meet him? It’s no one from our school, is it? Well?”

  “Your mother will not be happy to hear about this after-school party,” I replied, focusing sharply on her. I took a step toward her. “She might very well add on to your punishment.”

  “She won’t be happy about you going off to be with other boys, your whoring around.”

  “Get out of my room! All of you!” I said, pointing at the door.

  “I guess I touched a sensitive spot.” She nodded and held her cold smile on her lips.

  “Yeah, her G-spot,” Trudy said, and they all laughed.

  “You know what that is, Delia?” Alisha asked.

  “She knows,” Sophia said. “Bradley Whitfield showed her.”

  Something broke inside me. It was as if a dam holding back the heat in my blood burst and all of it rushed into my head. I spun around, seized the footstool at the base of my bed, and turned on them with the stool’s legs forward. They screamed when I charged at them. Trudy dropped her cup, and they all ran out of my room. I slammed the door closed.

  I would ask Tía Isabela to install a lock on the door, I thought, gasping and fuming. I heard them close Sophia’s door, too, after Sophia screamed about me being dangerously crazy.

  It took me awhile to calm down, but after I did, I actually laughed at how I had frightened them. They were nothing to fear after all.

  Adan called again about a half hour later. I expected that he would ask where I had been, but he didn’t. Instead, we talked about the weekend, Friday night’s dinner, and the schedule we would follow on Saturday. I actually listened much more than I spoke. He realized that I was unusually quiet and he asked if everything was all right.

  “It’s my cousin Sophia,” I said.

  “What is she doing now?”

  “It’s better just to ignore her. Ella cocinará en su propio jugo.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “She’ll cook in her own juice,” I said.

  “I’m going to need your help with some of those great Spanish sayings. I’m helping my father with his speeches.”

  “It’s not a great saying. I make up my own sometimes. I’m like my grandmother in that way.”

  “It’s great to me. What works works. I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said. “I have the number for animal control if you need it for your cousin.”

  “Maybe I will,” I said, laughing.

  I heard Sophia’s friends leave, and then I showered and changed to go down to dinner. Sophia came to the table timidly but gathered her courage after Señora Rosario and Inez had brought in the food and left.

  “If you don’t say anything about me, I won’t say anything about you,” she offered.

  “I don’t have to make any bargains. I have nothing about which I am ashamed.”

  “Still, it’s better we don’t go ratting on each other to my mother. Deal?”

  “Stay out of my room, and never answer my phone again,” I said firmly. “If you don’t—”

  “Okay, okay. Who cares what you do in your room or who you see, anyway?”

  She pouted and picked at her food, leaving most of it on the plate.

  “My mother better get me my own car soon,” she muttered. “Or she’s going to be sorry when my trust kicks in. If I have anything to do with any of these properties and businesses…I’m going to hire my own attorney to look at all the documents my father left.”

  I said nothing to encourage her or discourage her.

  “I don’t want any dessert,” she told Inez, and rose from her seat. She walked to the doorway and turned. “I’m not going to school with you tomorrow. Christian Taylor is picking me up and will bring me home.”

  “You keep saying you don’t think much of him, but you do things with him,” I reminded her.

  “We have things to discuss. You can dislike someone and still have things in common, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head and smiling at her.

  “That’s right,” she said, her eyes small and cold. “You don’t. You don’t know everything, Delia.”

  She stomped out and up the stairs.

  Later, Edward called me. “I waited as long as I could,” he said. “How’s the new world going?”

  “Sophia is not really changing,” I told him. “But I can handle her. Don’t worry, Edward.”

  “No one can handle her, Delia. I do worry. And Adan Bovio? How are things with the possible new senator’s son?”

  I told him of Adan’s invitations and the things we were planning to do.

  “I’m happy for you if you’re happy, Delia. I saw my mother today, by the way. She actually stopped by while she was in Los Angeles and took Jesse and me for coffee. She’s really buying into your relationship with Adan, so if you end it, let her down slowly. That’s the only advice I’ll give you about it. I’m no expert when it comes to these sort of things.”

  “Thank you. Have you thought more about Mexico?”

  “You still want to go with us?” he asked with surprise.

  “Oh, yes, very much, Edward. Yes!” I said. My enthusiasm made him laugh.

  “I just thought you might be spending that time with Adan Bovio, but if you’re sure…”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Okay, then. We’ll leave the day after you get out. Jesse says it would take too long to drive our own car, so he suggested we fly to Mexico City and rent a car. We can get to your village that night or the next day or so, depending on what we do along the way.”

  “I’d rather we get there quickly and stop to see other things on the way home,” I said.

  “Yes, that sounds like a plan.”

  “I have some people I’d like to tell we are coming, some of my grandmother’s friends.”

  He turned to Jesse to explain, and then Jesse got on the phone.

  “You can tell them we’ll be there by the Sunday following your last day of class,” he said. “I’ve plotted it out with the computer. What is this hotel like, this Hotel Los Jardines Hermosos?”

  I laughed. “That is the hotel in the village. It has maybe six rooms and a patch of land with some cactus flowers, but the owners are nice people, and the rooms will be clean. It’s just a place to sleep,” I said. “Don’t expect any more.”

  “Six rooms? I had better make reservations, then,” he said.

  “They will be shocked to hear the request.”

  “I’ll use your name.”

  “Yes, use my name,” I said, smiling to myself at how they would react. “Thank you, Jesse.”

  Edward came back on the phone to tell me he would book our tickets and advised me again to watch out for Sophia and be careful. He wished me a good
time on the weekend, too.

  It was hard to get to sleep afterward. My anticipation of this trip to my village was overwhelming. I couldn’t wait to write down the details and get them to Ignacio. For me to send them so soon after I had told him of the possibility would be wonderful for him.

  And for me, I thought.

  For a while, I completely forgot about Adan and our upcoming weekend. The only name on my lips and the only face in my dreams and thoughts were Ignacio’s. It helped me to have a good, restful sleep.

  Tía Isabela was at the breakfast table before either Sophia or I was the following morning. If Señora Rosario had told her anything about our dinner the night before, she did not reveal it when Sophia greeted her. I was already at the table, and we were talking about my upcoming trip to Newport Beach with Adan. She was telling me about the time she and her husband had owned a boat she described as a small yacht. They had kept it at Newport Beach and had even traveled to some ports in Mexico. She said it slept eight people, and they often had guests, business associates and their wives, with them on their trips. It sounded as if they rarely had taken Edward and Sophia, and she did reveal that most of the time on the boat was before the two of them were old enough to enjoy it.

  “After my husband got sick, we sold the boat,” she explained.

  “What about the boat?” Sophia asked as she entered.

  “Well, I’m glad you got up, dressed, and down to breakfast before it was time to leave,” Tía Isabela said.

  Sophia plopped into her seat. “It would be great if we still had that boat, not that I remember it much,” she said. “Why are you talking about it now?”

  I realized she didn’t know about my plans for Saturday with Adan.

  “We were talking about Delia’s excursion with Adan on Saturday,” Tía Isabela said.

  “Excursion?”

  “They’re going on the Bovio yacht.”

  “You are?” she asked me. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “Why does she have to tell you?” Tía Isabela asked.

  Sophia looked at her mother with such hate I felt my heart stop and start.

  “You’re treating her more like she’s your daughter and not just your niece.”

  “When you show me you respect your family, respect me, I’ll have an easier time thinking of you as my daughter,” Tía Isabela replied.

  “I’m doing what you want,” Sophia whined. “I got an eighty-five on the math quiz and an eighty on the social studies quiz, didn’t I, Delia?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. Keep it up,” Tía Isabela said.

  “We’ve come right home every day and started our homework, too,” Sophia added, glancing at me.

  “That’s perfect.”

  “I told Christian he could pick me up for school today,” Sophia inserted. “I’m just going to school and back.”

  “You should have asked permission first,” Tía Isabela said.

  “Why? I would go with Delia otherwise. It’s just a ride to school, Mother.”

  “Be careful, Sophia. I know when I’m being deceived.”

  “I’m not deceiving you! Damn.”

  “Watch your language at the table.”

  Sophia looked down at her plate.

  “You can go with Christian, but I don’t want to hear anything about speeding or side trips or anything else, understand?”

  “Yes, Mother,” she said.

  Sophia looked satisfied, which only made me worry more.

  Tía Isabela returned to her reminiscing about happier days with her husband, but some warning was buzzing in the back of my mind. It would be with me all day. I tried to think about anything but my schoolwork, and when I had the opportunity, I wrote the additional letter to be given to Ignacio.

  When the school day ended, I hurried out to my car. Fani, who had her own car, too, was already in the parking lot.

  “You want to come over to my house for a while?” she asked. “We can discuss you-know-who a little more.”

  “Thank you, Fani, but I have an important chore I must do.”

  She bristled. No one turned down an invitation from Estefani Cordova.

  “Can I come over right after I do the chore?” I quickly added.

  “Well, how long will you be?”

  “Not more than an hour,” I said. She wasn’t happy, but my quick thinking saved me.

  “If you’re much longer, just don’t come,” she told me, and got into her own car.

  I hurried to mine. All of the students were leaving the school now, and I caught sight of Sophia and Christian walking quickly to his car. I sped up and nearly got a speeding ticket, because a policeman who was following me pulled up alongside and wagged a warning finger at me. I smiled, nodded, and slowed down. He drove on.

  Ignacio’s brother, Santos, was out front when I arrived. I was surprised to see him. If he was finished with school, he would usually go to work with his father’s crew. I noticed he was carrying some tools. He paused when I drove into the driveway.

  “Where did you get that car?” he asked immediately.

  “My cousin.”

  “You’re really rich now, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not. Mi tía is. What are you doing?”

  “I’m repairing these steps,” he said, nodding at the front steps.

  “Your mother is inside?”

  He nodded. “Can I look at your car?”

  “Sí,” I said. I handed him the keys, and his eyes filled with excitement.

  Then I went in and found Señora Davila folding towels she had just washed.

  “Back again so soon? Is something wrong?”

  “No, something is right, Señora Davila. Did you get the letter off to Ignacio?”

  “This morning,” she said, nodding.

  “I need now to get this to him,” I said, handing her the additional letter and information. “It will tell him about my trip.”

  “So, you are really going?”

  “Sí.”

  “You will come back before?”

  “If you like.”

  “I have some things I would like you to bring him,” she said.

  “Then I will be back. I have to rush off now,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  She took the letter, and we hugged. I hurried out. Santos was sitting in the car, dreaming of driving it. He got out quickly, surprised at how short my visit was.

  “It is a beautiful car,” he said. He handed the keys back to me.

  “Maybe next time I come, I will have time to take you for a little ride in it.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  I got in and started the engine

  “The top goes down?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

  I lowered the top, and his eyes widened with appreciation.

  “When you take me for a ride, I’d like the top down, too.”

  “Okay. I will see you soon,” I said, and backed out. I was very excited about everything and had to remind myself to keep my attention on my driving.

  When I turned and started away, I checked my rearview mirror.

  My heart sank.

  There, parked on the street, watching me, were Christian and Sophia in Christian’s car.

  They had followed me.

  That was why she had asked him to pick her up and why the alarm was going off inside me. Instinctively, like a wild animal in the desert, I sensed the danger. I should have listened to the alarm and anticipated something like this.

  I slowed down to see if they would follow me again. When I reached the corner, I stopped and watched them. Christian started his car and drove up to the Davilas’ house. I saw Santos turn with surprise when Sophia got out of the car. She walked toward him.

  A car had come up behind me, and the driver leaned on his horn, making me jump in my seat. I accelerated quickly and drove on, my heart pounding harder than the engine, all the way to Fani’s house.

  12

  Blackmail
>
  I knew Santos would not intentionally reveal his family’s great secret, but I was afraid of what Sophia would say or ask. She was the most conniving, sly person I had ever met, and there was no doubt in my mind that she hungered with all her being for some way to ruin me. At a minimum, she could go to her mother now and tell her I was continuing my relationship with the Davila family. She knew her mother had forbidden me to have anything to do with them.

  But I feared more. I feared that somehow she would figure out what was going on with Ignacio.

  “Nadie reconoce el engaño asi como alguien que engaña” my grandmother would say. No one recognizes deception as well as one who deceives.

  “It takes one to know one,” I had heard other students at the school say. It was never truer for anyone than it was for Sophia. I was playing on her playground, and she was far better at the game of lying than I was, for she had been doing it all her life.

  My nerves were on fire. I was shaking so much I thought I might make a mistake driving. Every few minutes, I checked my rearview mirror to see if they were still following me, but I did not see them. Where were they? Why were they remaining so long at the Davilas’ home? What trouble would Sophia cause for them? Had Ignacio’s father returned to find them there? Did Sophia have the nerve to knock on the door and question Señora Davila? What would Ignacio’s mother think? She would surely wonder why had I brought these people to their house. What new danger had I created for the family?

  My own imagined questions and concerns brought tears to my eyes. I was actually sobbing by the time I reached Fani’s front entrance. I stopped to wipe the tears from my face and catch my breath. If Fani saw me like this, she would want to know why, too. For a moment, I wondered if I could trust her with the truth. She would surely tell it to Adan, though, I thought. The secret must remain tightly locked in my heart.

  I had to buzz in through the intercom at the gate. The house manager opened it, and I drove up to the house. Fani’s parents had more full-time servants than Tía Isabela. A woman younger than Señora Rosario was in charge inside and greeted me at the door. Fani came out quickly to meet me.

  “You’re here in less than an hour,” she said, leading me back to her room.

  “I nearly got a speeding ticket,” I told her, and described the policeman wagging his finger.