And the pain. The pain from his mother’s last days in the hospital. The winces she had made when she had thought he wasn’t looking. And the resignation—that awful resignation he had begged God to remove from her face.
Salva had been so angry. At God. At Papá for not taking her to the doctor sooner. At the doctors for failing to save her. And most of all with his mother. For leaving. For her denials those final months, claiming that nothing was wrong; her refusals to seek help; her hushed arguments with Papá about the cost.
But it was Salva who had committed the ultimate betrayal. “Lo siento, Mamá,” he apologized. For refusing to think about her.
Or remember her.
Or say good-bye.
Arms pulled him from the darkness. Gently. Then Beth’s voice. Unbroken. “Tell me about her.”
He couldn’t answer.
The arms around him tightened. “Please.”
Why was she asking this of him? Why did she keep asking? Beth didn’t need to know about death. She already knew. She had written about it.
But then he realized she hadn’t meant death. “Tell me about her,” she had said.
And this time he peeled past the anger and the pain. To find…
A song—the memory of his mother in church, her voice raised in melody, lyrics spilling from her throat, even though she couldn’t read the hymnals. “She liked to sing,” he whispered. Suddenly, he could see her in the fields, tilting her head back and singing beneath the sun. And in the garden, singing while pulling dandelions and buttonweeds. He could see her in the flower beds as she planted the lilies.
“She could make anything grow,” he murmured, “especially her flowers.”
Beth dropped her embrace and crossed her legs on the grass. “Her flowers?”
“Azucena.” He reached toward the etchings in the tombstone. “They’re white lilies.” The stone was cold. He jerked away, trying not to think how the real flowers by the single wide had turned brown and sickly after his mother’s death.
Beth covered his hand with her own. “What else?”
His heart scrambled for more details—for a way to explain who his mother had really been. “She could fix things,” he blurted.
“What things?”
The kitchen sink: his mother had unclogged the pipes. And the bathroom cupboard: she had sanded the paint on the cupboard door so it would close. But those weren’t the type of things Salva had meant. “People,” he whispered, thinking of the time Lucia had cried after getting her wisdom teeth pulled. And when Miguel had had to give up the stray dog that had followed him home. And whenever Salva had been afraid, his mother had always been there.
“She just…” He closed his eyes and remembered. She had never tried to tell him what to do. Had never pushed. Or let him escape his own responsibilities for making a decision. “She knew how to listen.”
Fingers threaded through his own.
Beth wasn’t like his mother, Salva thought. Beth always pushed.
But as he opened his mouth to describe Mamá’s patience, the words died on his lips. Because when it came to the important things—to her children’s future—Mamá had been less than patient. She was the reason they were all here—Miguel, Lucia, Salva, Talia, and Casandra. And Mamá was the one who had made Papá promise that all her children would get an education.
She would have taken Beth’s side of the scholarship argument. Would have expected her son to have the strength to tell his father the truth. Hijo, she had always said, you have to make your own choices.
Dusk had arrived by the time Salva opened the green door and entered the Shrine. His father was waiting, facing the altar. The girls were nowhere in sight. Lucia must have taken Talia and Casandra to the celebration. Salva knew the mariachi band had arrived downtown. Every note and word of “Cielito Lindo” could be heard clearly, echoing down the streets.
He shut out the music, then faced the photo above the mantel. For the first time in four years, he allowed himself to seek help in his mother’s eyes. “Papá,” he said, “I can’t take that scholarship.”
His father didn’t even turn. “It’s that girl, isn’t it?”
What? And then Salva remembered the kiss in the street.
“These privileged girls”—Señor Resendez removed a spent candle from its holder—“they don’t know what hard work is.”
Privileged?
“They mess with your mind,” Papá continued, “wreck your life, then blame you for their problems.”
Salva had known his announcement wouldn’t go over well. But these accusations?
Papá was so off base.
“Beth isn’t like that.” Salva banged his shoulder on a lampshade, knocking the tin object to the floor.
Now his father turned, the candle still in his hand. “Did she celebrate your scholarship?”
Dammit. This conversation wasn’t supposed to be about Beth. “I don’t want to be an engineer.”
“Saturday you reach your dream, and now she pulls you down. That’s how these girls work, Salva.”
Papá had no right—none—to say that. Mr. Take-That-Plate-to-Charla. “You want everything your way.” Salva crossed the room to the central barrier of a cedar chest. “You want me to grow up and get an American education and an American job, but raise a nice Mexican family with Mexican values and Mexican children. You can’t have it both ways! I’m an American. I’ve lived here half my life. I want more! I want to study the subjects I’m interested in! I want a career that means something! I want to date the person who understands that!”
“There are plenty of nice girls—”
“Like Char? She’s sleeping with Pepe.” It was a major betrayal, but Salva had had enough.
For once his father didn’t have a response.
“Beth is different! She’s so smart she’s going to Stanford, and she wouldn’t blow that on me if I crawled across the floor and begged her. She’s been tutoring me all year in AP English, and if I get the valedictorian slot, she’s the reason.”
“And what good is that?” His father clenched his hand, crushing the candle stub. “If you throw it away?”
“I’m going to college!” Salva yelled at the top of his lungs. “I’m just not going to be an engineer.”
“You can’t afford to throw away an opportunity like that.”
Of course. Of course that was what his father would say. Salva buried his head in his hands. Maybe this was the problem with having parents who wanted you to do better than they had. You weren’t satisfied with what they wanted. He released his head and looked back at the portrait, then at his father. Salva lowered his voice. “I’m not going to wind up working at the onion plant, Papá. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? That I’ll spend my entire life like you working for someone else. But I won’t.”
His father tossed the candle into the trash can beside the fake hearth. “You change your mind in one week. You’re too young to know what you want.”
“I can’t lock myself into a career that means nothing to me.”
“How do you know it has no meaning if you haven’t tried it?”
Salva stepped back to retrieve the fallen lampshade. It refused to reattach. He gave up and tossed it onto the couch. Might as well admit the entire truth now, though he knew his father didn’t trust anything having to do with the government. “I think…” he stuttered, “I think maybe I’m going to study law.”
Papá’s hand closed on the rosary beads on the altar. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I’m not like you. I can’t just ignore the world around me.” Salva hadn’t meant the words to come out as an accusation, but they did. “I can’t stay silent in the line at the grocery store while people gripe about the language I’m speaking or tell me how worthless the immigrants who work for them are. I can’t watch my coworkers being rounded up or see the people I love jump every time the phone rings.”
A brittle edge entered his father’s voice. “You think
it would be better if I argued with la migra and convinced them to throw me in jail? So that my family goes hungry while la policía decide whether or not to deport me?”
“They can’t—”
“They can do anything, Salva.” The beads rattled. “If not to me, then to someone else. You know what happens if I lose my job for arguing with the police? Then the people who work under me, like Señora Mendoza, get deported because they don’t have the correct paperwork. You think it’s easy? Doing nothing. But sometimes that’s the only way to protect the people around you, especially the ones you care about.”
“Is that what you want from me?” Salva gripped the barren lamp stand. Hard. He couldn’t do nothing—couldn’t live by that mantra. If that was the way the world worked, he couldn’t live with it. “You want me to live here in this culture, in this country, seeing the people I grew up with maligned, and say nothing? So I can benefit from the citizenship you earned me. Until when? Until I forget where I’m from? Or everything you and Mamá and Lucia and Miguel did for me? Because that’s what would happen. That’s what would happen if I took a job I didn’t care anything about except for being successful. I can’t do that, Papá! I’m not you!” The Shrine blurred before his eyes, and Salva whirled.
Then slammed his way out of the house.
21
GASOLINE
Beth was lost, amid the throbbing pulse that was Cinco de Mayo: the racing guitars and high dancing trumpets of the mariachi band; the vibrant reds, greens, blues, and yellows of the swirling folk dancers; the steaming aromas of everything from shredded pork to chicken fajitas to teriyaki shish kabobs. The streetlights gleamed overhead, holding the night at bay.
She closed her mouth on her straw and inhaled a long sip of blueberry lemonade.
The prospect of trying to find Ni in this crowd was overwhelming.
Everywhere there were lines: at the dunk tank, shooting stalls, baseball targets, even to throw Ping-Pong balls at the jars of goldfish. And all the lines merged, bumping and twining their way into the center of Main Street, where they had to compete with the picnic tables, benches, lawn chairs, and undefined dance space.
A little girl in a spray-painted cowboy hat trekked up to Beth. “Can you fix my shoe?” she asked, holding out a small leather-encased foot, barely visible beneath the hulking pink teddy in the child’s arms. Beth bent down and closed the Velcro strip. “Better?”
A candy-smeared grin offered up thanks.
“Mari, what are you doing? Come on!” A husky woman toting a diaper bag yanked the girl away.
Beth watched them go, then returned her gaze to the perimeter of the street. Somewhere there has to be a giant strawberry.
The mariachi trumpets wailed the final notes of their current number, and a whoop went up from the crowd.
There! Across from the dance space.
Boom! A paper firecracker landed at Beth’s feet. She jumped, clapping her hand to the top of her drink. The lid stayed on. A gang of unfamiliar tweens laughed nearby. Beth skirted around them. The aura of the night was far too spectacular to waste her energy scolding. And besides, she had seen the strawberry.
Moments later, she reached the shortcake booth, a wide rectangular stall with an eager throng enveloping three of the four sides. Beth circled around, forcing herself to look at faces rather than the enticing servings of berries and cream. No Ni. The plan had been to meet here. At five thirty P.M.
Beth knew she was beyond late.
Salva had needed her.
Nalani could be anywhere. There was really no point in continuing the search.
A trio of young girls waltzed by bearing bowls of the delectable dessert. Beth joined a line.
The band had picked up again, strings and brass flirting with syncopation. Two more songs passed as she waited, sipping her drink slowly. She adored flavored lemonade.
And shortcake. She reached the side of the booth. A man in a red apron lifted a ladle and drenched a rectangle of vanilla cake in thick syrupy berries, then sprayed the top with swirling mountains of whipped cream. Beth devoured the view. She swept the last of her summer money onto the outstretched counter. And accepted the mouthwatering confection. Then she grabbed a fork, ducked under the counter, zipped her way to the corner of the stall, and escaped the shortcake crowd.
To crash right into Salva.
Whipped cream everywhere! He was drenched in lemonade. There were cake and berries on his shirt; syrup dripping down his arms. The bowl and cup at his feet. His face was turning purple.
“Oh, I didn’t mean…” She spun to the counter and hunted for a napkin, snagged a wrinkled one, and whirled back. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” A strange note tinged his voice as he flicked berries from his shirt.
“I’m so sorry!” She tried to wipe syrup off his skin.
He jerked away. “For this?” Still that strange tone. “You’re sorry for this?”
What did that mean?
“This is nothing.” He turned away from her and started back into the crowd.
If it was nothing, then why was he leaving? And why was he here? When they’d left the cemetery, she’d asked if he wanted to come to the celebration, and he’d said no—that he needed to talk with his father.
She hurried after him. “Salva?”
He ignored her, pulling ahead and blitzing his way across the street. Not stopping. Not pausing for anyone. He thwacked a kid with his elbow and didn’t even apologize. Just kept walking.
Something is wrong, Beth thought as she tried to keep up.
He shoved his way past benches, barking dogs, and another batch of kids throwing noisemakers. Just when she thought she would never catch him, a screaming firework spun into the rare stretch of open pavement in front of his feet. He jumped away, and the screamer exploded in a harsh flare of white light.
She hurried to his side. The firework had gone out. Whoever had set it off had split. “Are you hurt?” she asked.
He shook his head, his eyes closed, his chest heaving.
She reached for him, but he rejected her touch.
“Then what is it?” she questioned. “I thought you weren’t coming tonight. That you and your father were going to talk.”
Salva’s eyes flew open. “We talked!” He gestured abruptly at the shirt covered in strawberry stains. “And unlike this, that disaster is not exactly going to wash out!”
What had happened? If she could just understand—
“It was awful, all right?!” His hands clenched his head. “It was all about you.”
What? What had been about her? The discussion with his father? But—
He kicked a charred remnant of the firework. “I told him I wanted to reject the scholarship.”
“You…you did?”
“And you know what, Beth? It wasn’t okay. I knew it wasn’t going to be okay!” The night began to implode around her. Had she been wrong to try to talk Salva out of the scholarship? There was a whole side to him that she didn’t know—his family, the side of him that had never let her in. But his father cared—she knew that much.
Unlike her mother. Beth had tried, and failed, to explain that difference earlier. That despite the fact that her mother had made an effort recently to keep the fridge stocked and attend her AA meetings, sooner or later she was bound to implode. And Beth hadn’t been willing to risk her relationship with Salva on someone that dubious.
But Señor Resendez loved his son.
And Salva was so brilliant. Plus, it was the wrong scholarship. “Salva, you’re so gifted—”
“Oh, shut up, Beth!” His words slammed into her stomach. “Life isn’t a dream.”
She reeled backward. She had been dreaming. All month.
He kept talking. “It doesn’t matter if we’re gifted. We’re still just two kids from the backside of nowhere.”
She reached for him again, unable to help it.
He flung her hands away. “We might as well face it, Beth. This isn’t going to
last. None of it is going to last!” The trumpets were screeching. She felt like she’d stepped into their blare. The smell of the street had switched to smoke, and her pulse pounded beneath her temples.
His eyes had darkened. He shook as he continued: “We might as well end it now.”
What? Was he breaking up with her? This afternoon he trusted you, the voice in the back of her mind argued. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
The music had died.
“Hey, Resendez!” A familiar shout broke through the lull. “You wanta blow this joint?”
Salva’s head turned.
A flash of silver ripped through the air. And he caught the blur. Keys.
He started to leave. She had always known he would leave. Since September. But that hadn’t stopped her. Had never stopped her from falling in love with him.
Why did she have to accept this now? When she had lost the ability to move. Or breathe.
He’d reached the cones that divided the street from the side traffic.
And there, just outside the cones, sat Pepe Real in his yellow convertible. One arm raised over the front passenger’s-side door in a parting salute toward a blond woman who stood in a food line. His mother, gesturing at her son to move into the driver’s seat. He just waved her off.
Salva reached the vehicle.
Wait! Beth wanted to shout, but fear had drowned her voice. What would she do if he did stop? Would she run? Plead? Rip the keys from his hand and fight?
He slid behind the wheel.
Tell him she loved him?
The door slammed. And without a backward glance, he drove away.
Headlights swept around the car, burning into the darkness. Salva couldn’t see. Anger seared the backs of his eyeballs, his mind, all the way into his skull. It had to be past one A.M., but there were still too many friggin’ people on the highway.
Honk!
“Yeah, f-you!” Pepe shouted out into the night from the direction of the passenger’s seat.
The air blasted through the windows. Cold. Salva wanted the cold. Anything to numb the anger.
It hadn’t worked—the night, the car, the speed. He still couldn’t annihilate the memories of earlier that evening. He had maligned his father. Broken Papá’s dream into pieces, then attacked him as if the loss was his fault. Disrespected the one person who had believed in him longer than anyone else.