Delia's Heart

  “In your eyes, in your smile. The secrets in your heart can be revealed very quickly. Be careful,” she said, and then told me a saying her mother had. “Mujer que no tiene tacha chapalea el agua no se moja.” It meant, a woman who’s innocent can splash around in the water and not get wet.

  “Be careful where you splash,” she added with a twinkle in her eyes.

  So, although I felt a smile trying to come out to answer Christian Taylor’s smile, I recalled my mother’s advice and looked away quickly. I concentrated on my French to avoid thinking about him, and not once during the remainder of the class did I look his way.

  However, now I really was caught in a paradox. Seemingly, no matter what I did, Christian saw it as encouraging. It continued. The more I ignored him, the more he pursued. Perhaps it had become a matter of pride for him. After all, what other girl in this school would turn down his attention?

  Tía Isabela wasn’t wrong about the friends I had made and the friends Sophia already had. At lunchtime, we sat far apart from each other in the cafeteria. Otherwise, it would truly be like trying to mix oil and water. I had quickly learned that in one way or another over the years, Sophia had alienated, insulted, or somehow embarrassed most of the girls I found as friends. They were all somewhat suspicious of me in the beginning, because Sophia was my cousin, and I lived in her hacienda, but eventually it was easy for them to see how different we were. Also, the fact that Sophia was so obvious about her dislike and jealousy of me pleased them.

  Sophia did little to help me adjust when I first entered the private school. I didn’t know it at the time, but that turned out to be a blessing. When Edward and Jesse arranged for me to return from Mexico, he and my aunt, with Sophia sitting in and sulking, discussed why I should now attend the private school. They were worried about my continuous exposure to other Mexican teenagers at the public school who knew about Ignacio and his friends and my involvement with them. Edward thought some would blame me, and in the end, it would only bring more trouble to the family. My aunt, to my surprise, agreed quickly and was willing to spend the thousands of dollars for my private-school tuition. Of course, Sophia was not happy about it.

  The private school had a far better language tutor than Mr. Baker could ever have been, and with my previous experience in the public school’s ESL class, I made very quick progress. There were a few other Mexican students, one being the daughter of a family who owned a chain of Mexican restaurants. I didn’t immediately make friends with her. I could sense she was being snobby. She spoke fluent Spanish but usually avoided it. I thought she had begun to see me as some sort of competition. Her name was Estefani, but she insisted on being called just Fani. She was tall, nearly five-eleven, with a runway model’s figure. Her father was from a wealthy Mexican family in Houston, Texas, and her family was very close to the family of the most influential Indian families in the desert.

  The Indians here owned a great deal of land and made money on the land leases. They also ran casinos and were very wealthy. All of the politicians courted their favor, so Fani was at grand events and parties and often had her picture in the local paper and magazines. The friendliest thing she said to me that first year was, “Maybe I can get you a job as a waitress at our Palm Desert restaurant. We’re always looking for authentic Mexicans.”

  “What’s an authentic Mexican?” I asked. She just smiled. I knew what she meant was someone not as fluent in English and dirt poor.

  I avoided her, which pleased Sophia, because Fani’s friendship was something most of the girls craved, even Sophia. With Fani, Sophia could admit to her mother being Mexican without feeling inferior.

  “We’re alike,” she would tell Fani. “We come from aristocratic Mexican family lines.”

  Sophia concocted some fantastic tale about her mother’s family being descendants of wealthy Mexican businessmen and politicians. I was the only poor relative they had.

  If the girls she told these things to could see where my aunt really had lived, the house she had lived in, they would probably laugh in Sophia’s face, but because no one knew the truth about Tía Isabela, Sophia could make up anything she liked. As long as I didn’t contradict her, of course.

  That first year, she was quick to lay down that rule. She did it as we walked into the building, seizing my wrist and tugging me back.

  “Don’t you dare tell these girls how poor my mother’s family was. Whatever I say, you just nod, and if you’re not sure, you don’t say anything, understand? I’m warning you,” she threatened. “I don’t like you being here, and I don’t want you to embarrass me.”

  I pulled my wrist out of her grip, but said nothing.

  Those early days were very difficult for me, and on more than one occasion, I considered quitting, but gradually, I made more friends and became more and more comfortable, especially with my teachers. Before the first year ended, I was on the honor roll and cited at a school function as the transfer student who had made the most improvement of anyone with language disadvantages. They meant in the history of the school, too. My aunt accepted the congratulations as if it had all been her idea. Sophia was burning up with so much jealousy one of my friends, Parker Morgan, suggested we spray her with one of the school’s fire extinguishers.

  On this particular day, Parker, Katelynn Nickles, Colleen McDermott, and I had just begun eating our lunch and talking excitedly about Danielle Johnson’s party, when Christian approached with his tray of food and asked if he could sit with us. Since he had not shown interest in any of the other three, they all looked at me as if it was to be my decision. Whether I liked it or not, I had to be the one to say yes or no.

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “Only you will be bored. We were just talking about dresses and shoes.”

  “Oh, I’m very interested in dresses and shoes,” he said, slipping into the seat beside me. “I’m something of an expert on them. Just ask me anything.”

  He smiled at me and started to eat.

  “Oh? What do you think of kimono-sleeve dresses?” I asked, looking at the other girls.

  He pretended to give it serious thought, which only titillated the other three.

  “Well…if I were a girl,” he said, “I’d worry about the elbows. Most girls don’t know it,” he continued, leaning in as if he were going to impart a great secret, “but boys get turned on by elbows.”

  Everyone laughed. I couldn’t help being amused, either. He turned those devastatingly beautiful eyes on me. I felt like someone trying to climb out of a grease pit. The more effort I made to ignore and avoid him, the more I went in the opposite direction.

  “Anything you wear is going to look good on you, Delia. Don’t worry about it.”

  I saw how my girlfriends’ eyes widened with surprise and jealousy. They exchanged quick glances. I blushed and ate my sandwich. Across the cafeteria, Sophia stared with a look of absolute amazement on her face. She whispered something to Alisha, and then all of them turned our way.

  Edward hadn’t been wrong about why I should attend the private school instead of public school when I had returned from running away. Although the students here knew what had happened to Bradley and what had happened to Edward, of course, they didn’t know much about my involvement and certainly nothing about my flight through the desert with Ignacio. One of the conditions my aunt had set down for my attending the private school was that I was never, ever to talk about the events with anyone at the school.

  Of course, Sophia was warned as well, but her friends knew it all, and keeping them silent about it was not as easy. Up until now, Sophia had managed to keep them in tow, but I was always worried that one day, someone like Fani or Fani herself would step up beside me in the hallway and say, “So, I just heard you were raped, and that was what started all the trouble.”

  It wasn’t any different here from anywhere else. The victim never stopped being a victim and never lost the stain on her image. That was another irony I didn’t understand. Boys would easily go out with girls
who were loose with their own bodies but would hesitate about going out with a girl who was raped. I had seen that in Mexico and knew the same was true here.

  Wasn’t it enough that I carried the dark memory forever? Why did they have to add to the tragedy?

  When the bell rang to go back to our classes, Christian walked with me.

  “Any chance you might want to go to a movie with me this weekend?” he asked before we entered our social studies class.

  He wasn’t the first boy to ask me out on a date. Most of the time, I said something that discouraged them. I did go to a movie with a boy who was a senior last year, Stevie Towers. It turned out to do me good, because he came away from the date believing I was too proper and religious to be any fun and spread the word. Few boys bothered to ask me out after that, which pleased Sophia. She did not know why it pleased me, but she thought she was annoying me whenever she flaunted her dates. She even went on a date with Stevie Towers herself and then spent the whole next day telling me how much fun they had. When he didn’t ask her out again, I asked her why, and she told me she had decided he was too immature.

  “But I thought you said it was fun to be with him,” I reminded her.

  “Only as a distraction,” she quipped. “I would never go steady. I can’t imagine anything as boring as being with the same boy every weekend.”

  “How do you expect to get married, then?” I asked her.

  “I don’t,” she said. “Well, maybe when I’m tired of playing the field and just want someone to take care of me, someone who worships me.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “It might be a long time before you get married.”

  She didn’t understand what I meant, that no one would ever worship her. She just nodded as if I had agreed with her philosophy of love.

  Although I should have anticipated it, Christian’s invitation threw me. I couldn’t think of a good excuse not to go out. Edward and Jesse weren’t coming, and there was no other event taking place to compete with a date.

  “What movie?” I asked, to delay my response, hoping I could think of something.

  “Whatever you like,” he said. “I’m not just going to a movie. I’m going to a movie with you,” he added.

  The late bell was going to ring any moment. Other students walked by, every girl and even some of the boys looking at us with interest.

  “Can I tell you tomorrow?” I asked.

  “How about tonight? I’ll call you,” he pursued.

  “Okay.” I started into the classroom, and he grabbed my arm.

  Laughing, he asked for my telephone number. I smiled and gave it to him.

  Across the room, I could see Sophia glaring at us, her face twisted and as sour-looking as an overly ripe lemon. I slipped into my seat just as the bell rang. Christian sat two seats behind me in the row to my left. It took all of my self-control to keep from turning around, but I could feel his eyes on me. My heart was being challenged. It would be dishonest for me to say I was absolutely not interested in him. Every time his face, his smile, those eyes flashed in my mind, I drew up my memory of Ignacio’s face to stop it, especially the way he’d looked as the bus pulled away from the station in Mexico City and he stood there waving. It would surely break his heart to know I had even looked at another boy with such romantic interest.

  When the class ended, I anticipated Christian waiting for me again, but this time he just looked at me, smiled, and went on to his physical education class. I couldn’t help but think that everything he did, every move, every look and word, was calculated. I tried to think of that as false so I could turn my heart against him, but it wasn’t working.

  Sophia came up beside me as I walked out.

  “What’s with you and Christian Taylor?” she asked—demanded was more like it. “Everyone’s buzzing.”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Don’t lie to me, Delia. You’re not good at it, so don’t try. And you shouldn’t be keeping secrets from me. Well?”

  “He asked me to go with him to the movies this weekend,” I admitted. I was also curious about how she would react to the news.

  “And what did you say?”

  “I told him to call me. I would think about it.”

  She smirked. “He’s poison on a stick,” she said. “There isn’t a girl here he hasn’t tried to ruin or ruined.”

  I smiled.

  “And don’t give me that fable about the fox and the grapes he called sour because he couldn’t reach them, either. It’s not sour grapes. I’ve been with Christian, and it’s no big deal,” she added.

  “Oh?”

  “Now that I think of it,” she continued, smiling herself, “in your case, it’s not a big problem. You should go out with him.”

  “And why is it not a problem, Sophia?”

  She leaned in to whisper. “You’ve already been ruined, remember?” she said, and walked on ahead of me to join Alisha. She whispered something, and the two of them laughed extra loudly.

  All sorts of curses slipped out of my tight lips as I watched them and then, maybe looking for the excuse I needed, I hurried down the hallway and reached Christian before he stepped into the boys’ locker room. He turned, surprised.

  “You don’t have to call me,” I said. “I cannot go to the movies with you.”

  “Why not?” he asked, his shoulders rising with indignation.

  “I’ve decided not to date anyone yet. I have too much to learn. I’m not ready.”

  “Huh? You’ve been out on dates. I know for a fact that you once went on a date with Stevie Towers.”

  “And it was not successful. For either of us. Thank you for the invitation,” I added.

  “What are you going to be, a nun?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  He suddenly widened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. I could see he believed me.

  “You’re making a big mistake if you do,” he said, and went into the locker room.

  I looked in the direction Sophia and her friends had gone. The fire burning inside me died down, and now I chastised myself for my Latin temper. “La cólera es el mejor amigo del diablo.” Anger is the devil’s best friend, my grandmother would say.

  I was sorry about being impulsive and doing exactly what would surely please Sophia. I considered calling Christian later and telling him I had changed my mind, but now I thought I would look foolish. It wasn’t a good idea. He would ask why I had changed my mind, and I would have no answer.

  Either Christian was too proud to tell other boys he had been turned down for a date, or there simply was no time for him to discuss it with anyone, but at the end of the school day, Sophia apparently still did not know what I had done. I enjoyed watching her brood about it in the car while Señor Garman drove us home.

  When she got out, she turned to me, however, and asked what I intended to say to Christian when he called.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I told her. Why not let her turn and twist in the agony of her jealousy for a while longer?

  She marched into the house ahead of me.

  While I was up in my room changing my clothes and organizing my homework, she went down to see Tía Isabela and give her the latest gossip. Contrary to what she had anticipated, however, Tía Isabela wasn’t disturbed or worried about it. She brought it up at our dinner table.

  “Sophia tells me Christian Taylor has asked you out on a date for Friday,” she said.

  Although she hadn’t set down any rules about it, I always told Tía Isabela about any activity I was doing and any place I was going, except, of course, my visits to the Davilas’ home. Usually, she acted indifferent.

  “Yes, he has asked me,” I admitted.

  “Really? Christian Taylor. His father is a cardiologist at the Eisenhower Heart Institute. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “What do you know about him?” she asked.

  “He’s a good athlete,” I said. “And a good student. He plays an instrument in the band, too.
Trumpet.”

  “That’s what you know about him?”

  “He just asked me today, Tía Isabela. I didn’t have time to learn a great deal.”

  Sophia and she both laughed at me.

  “No time to learn a great deal? You’ve been at the school almost a year and a half, Delia.”

  I shrugged. How was I to explain my deliberate indifference to boys while Ignacio remained in my heart and mind?

  “Maybe you aren’t as sophisticated as I thought,” she said. “I don’t know why I ever thought it, now that I consider what has happened to you when it comes to men.”

  “That’s for sure,” Sophia said.

  “I wouldn’t pat myself on the back just yet, Sophia,” Tía Isabela snapped at her. “Your relationships with boys have been nothing to brag about. Do I have to remind you about some of the situations you got yourself into, situations that could have been very embarrassing for me?”

  “It’s always you, isn’t it, Mother?”

  “If you had half a brain, you’d realize it’s both of us, Sophia. You can’t live in a bubble.”

  “I’m not the one living in a bubble, Mother. I’m not trying to be eighteen again.”

  “That’s enough,” Tía Isabela said sharply. She glared at Sophia who just calmly continued to eat. “Disregard any advice she gives you,” she told me.

  “She doesn’t listen to my advice,” Sophia complained. “She’s a big expert when it comes to boys now. Haven’t you heard?”

  Tía Isabela thought for a moment. “Maybe she is,” she said. “Christian Taylor’s father was my husband’s heart doctor. Finally, you’re socializing with the right sort of people,” she told me. “Don’t do anything to embarrass me.”

  “I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass you or myself.”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  I said nothing more. As usual, we finished our dinner in silence, the air so thick with tension around us it could be cut with a knife.

  To my surprise, a little after nine o’clock, my phone rang. It was Christian.

  “I’m just calling to see if you rethought your decision,” he said. He made it sound like a business decision. “Girls can be impetuous. Maybe you were just in the wrong mood.”