Salvation

  And dripped golden paint halfway across the current poster.

  At that moment he appeared, in the doorway.

  Or perhaps he had been standing there watching her, but that was ridiculous. The most popular guy in school had no reason to watch her. Though he was crossing the room now, quick rapid steps over the tiled floor to the base of the stage. He held out his hand and tried to give her her calculator.

  She stared at him. For three reasons. One, her fingers were covered with paint. Two, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d come up to her outside of class. On purpose. And three, he was soaking wet.

  Actually, his hair was soaking. And the rest of him was astoundingly clean for someone who had just gotten out of sports practice. Most guys smelled like sweat and grass-stained football pads when they dragged themselves home at the end of the day. He had showered, obviously. And used cologne.

  “You left that behind in English this morning,” he said.

  Yes, well, she had noticed the calculator was missing during trig. Though in truth, this was the third time in the first two and a half weeks of school, so the loss hadn’t exactly ruined her day. “Thank you.” She motioned for him to set the calculator down.

  Salva gave her a doubtful look, as if to say leaving her stuff lying around was how she lost it. What did he expect? Her to drop everything and run back to her locker on his schedule just because he had chosen to bring her the item now? If he had wanted to be helpful, he could have brought it to her before trig.

  Then again, maybe he was eyeing her because she was still dripping golden paint on the ASB fund-raising poster. Argh!

  His gaze fell to the disastrous sign, and she saw the jolt suddenly run through his body. His index finger traced the base of the crookedly painted words, as though trying to straighten them out. “Isn’t this Nalani’s job?” he asked.

  Beth ventured to explain. “She has yearbook, so I’m helping out.” A lot of help I’m being.

  He reached forward and literally guided her brush to its Styrofoam paint cup. “You’re not in yearbook?”

  She shuddered at the thought of what the scrapbook-oriented members of the yearbook club would have said in response to that.

  “I’m in drama,” she replied, “which doesn’t start till next week. But Ms. Kinsey said I could use the stage tonight while I was waiting for Ni.”

  He scrambled up onto the stage, then cringed as he eyed her work. “Can’t you be in both drama and yearbook?” he asked.

  “I’m pretty busy”—Beth terminated that line of the conversation. “Especially this fall, with college and scholarship applications.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He moved back and forth at the base of her current poster, then crouched down, lifted a thin paintbrush, and dipped it into a cup with blue paint. “So you know where you’re applying yet?”

  “Stanford.”

  He dropped the brush. Well! Gods weren’t perfect either.

  “That’s ambitious.” Salva lifted the brush with care, leaving an almost invisible mark.

  How was that possible?

  He began to outline the letters. Fixing them. “You seem pretty certain about where you want to go,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m trying a bunch of places, but Stanford has the best English program on the West Coast.”

  “According to someone.”

  “According to me.” She smiled. “And I’m the only one who matters.”

  He was silent for a moment, etching a nearly perfect curve around the S in the first Sell. She felt like she was in one of those cheesy sci-fi shows where all the characters wake up in a different dimension. What was he doing here? Helping her with posters after an hour and a half of football practice. He must be wiped. And it wasn’t like any of his friends were in yearbook.

  “Listen,” he said.

  A queasy warning turned in the pit of her stomach. He wanted something from her. People didn’t get to the top of the popularity echelon without knowing how to use others to their advantage.

  “I know you’re really good at English,” he said.

  Yes, that was how things always started. Begin with the compliment, and then move on to hitting me up. That was how Beth had wound up painting posters on the stage, though Nalani was a friend. With friends this kind of thing was mutual.

  But Salva Resendez? He didn’t know Beth existed. Not in the social sphere at least. They had taken a bunch of classes together, though not that many this year since he was into the kill-yourself science and math courses, and she was more into the take-enough-science-and-math-this-year-so-you-don’t-have-to-take-them-next-year mind-set.

  But they were both in cit/gov, career prep, and—

  “Markham says I have no choice but to take AP English.”

  Her paintbrush left a nasty golden streak in the middle of an attempt to repair the earlier damage. Salva had never struck her as the kind of person who quit. “You tried to drop it?” she asked.

  “I didn’t sign up for it in the first place,” he said. “I figured since we took senior English last year, I was done.” He groaned. “But Markham says I have to take four years of high school English in high school to graduate. So I’m stuck.”

  Yeah, he pretty much was, she realized. There had been a couple other English electives offered at Liberty in the past, but they had all either been dumped or switched to after-school programs in order to pump up the number of remedial and AP courses.

  “Sorry,” she said, then knew at once that had been the wrong thing to say, because he was no longer painting a perfect blue outline, but was looking her square in the eye. At least he had the guts to look at her.

  “I got a D on my essay today.”

  She did not say sorry again, though she did think it, this time with more sincerity because she knew Salva never turned in D work. D implied Did Not Try, though the Mercenary was known to ignore that rule.

  “I was hoping you might help me,” he continued. “I really…” The perfect veneer was gone, and for a moment he looked like the scared little kid she remembered from his first week of English immersion in the third grade—the boy who had run crying to the teacher because he’d thought the automatic toilets in the modern bathroom were going to swallow him. “I can’t afford not to pass this class.”

  “You’ll pass,” she said, feeling a sudden urge to comfort him, which was so not safe while she was sitting across from those deep brown eyes. Which belonged to the ASB president, she reminded herself. There was no reason to feel sorry for him. With all the AP courses he took, his GPA would probably be higher than hers even if he did earn a D in English. Which was saying something, since she hadn’t earned less than an A-in her entire high-school career. “The Mercenary is just trying to scare people so she can get better work throughout the course.”

  He did not look comforted. He looked like that pitiful third grader, save for the long, well-defined limbs of a high-school senior. “Please,” he said.

  Please? How could good manners be so devastating? But they were. Really. How many guys at Liberty High ever said, “Please”? Or brought a girl her calculator? Or helped with her work?

  He just wants something. That doesn’t count.

  Or picked her papers up after she spilled them all over the hallway the first day of school?

  This was not good. This was so not good. She knew she had been thinking about that incident too much, and here it had come back to bite her.

  No way am I going to spend this whole year crushing on the most popular guy in school. I have walked that line before, and it is not healthy. Face it. She had cried her eyes out over him back in middle school. And he had never had a clue.

  She had no desire to return to that era.

  Not with one year left before he was out of her life. And she could move on from those dark brown eyes and that gorgeous damp hair.

  “I don’t think tutoring someone after school is going to provide me with more time for applications,” she said.

  He repeate
d: “Please.”

  She bit her lip and painted furiously. This is not a good idea. This is not a good idea. This is not a good idea. The long-term quality of her heart was worth more than the short-term compulsion to do what was right. And make him happy.

  “Just…” he continued, “would you look at my essay from today and maybe tell me what I could have done better? The Mercenary said we could fix our papers, but she didn’t write any comments about what to change.” Beth could hear the panic rising in his voice. “And I don’t know how I’m going to make it better if I don’t know what is wrong.”

  It wasn’t fair. That vulnerability. Combined with the desperation in his voice. And the assertion that he needed her.

  “All right.” Beth winced as tiny golden spots from her paintbrush sprinkled his nose and chin. Then she sighed at the inanity of her ever having had a crush on someone who was able to function without embarrassing himself on a regular basis. “I’ll read it, this one essay. That’s it.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled and wiped the paint spatters off with his thumb and forefinger, until once again he appeared…

  Perfect.

  5

  BRUTAL TRUTHS

  Beth faced the initial consequences of her weakness the next morning when he brought her the essay. At her locker. In full view of the entire senior hall. She could feel the incredulous glances and disapproving stares from snob corner. The likes of Linette Kasing and Char Mendoza.

  Salva didn’t seem to notice, just held out his crisp paper. He could have given it to me last night, Beth thought, though she suspected he had been afraid she would lose the essay overnight. Which, frankly, never would have happened. She still had the Valentine’s Day card he had given her in the third grade.

  But she could not blame him for his fear. She could blame him for the fact that Char was pretending to inspect her fingernails by flicking her middle finger in Beth’s direction.

  Ignore her.

  Beth focused on Salva. Who smelled like mint hair gel. He was reeling off more politeness, this time thanking her for being willing to read his paper.

  Which she took, then buried her head in her locker, giving him the chance to make a getaway.

  Except that he didn’t. Instead, he leaned his back on the neighboring locker, dropped his head in a slight clang against the dented metal, and looked at her. Waiting.

  As if she was going to read his paper right that second.

  “Um…” she said. “I’ll try to return it by the end of the day.”

  He glanced at his watch, a neat black band that made him appear, she thought, a little too prepared for the adult world. “We’ve got ten minutes.”

  Surely he could not be that terrified of her losing the essay? After all, he must have saved the text on the computer. And probably backed up the file twenty times. “Look,” she said, trying not to sound too patronizing, “it might take only ten minutes to read, but then I have to come up with what to say. So unless you want garbage for feedback”—or to have me rip out your guts when I tell you what’s wrong—“then I’ll need more time.”

  “Well.” He rubbed the perfect brown skin on the back of his neck. “After school I’ve got practice. Are you still going to be here when it’s over?”

  She certainly hoped not. Nalani might yet have to approve the posters, but Beth was of the opinion they were done. And technically, she had the ASB president’s word on that, since he had pronounced them finished when he had left the night before.

  “We could talk at lunch.” She threw out the idea, knowing no way was he going to forgo his social ritual at the premier table in order to sit with her.

  “Maybe second half?” His eyes lit up. “We could meet in the hall over by the pop machine.”

  In the out-of-the-way alcove not too far from the cafeteria. “Sure,” she said, uncertain if he knew he had just dissed her by failing to invite her to meet up at his table. One of the annoying things about Salva was the way he could give her all the attention in the world, for a moment, then totally exclude her from his life.

  But he was standing here by her locker.

  “Okay.” He grinned, running his hand through that dark, gelled hair. “I’ll see you at twelve fifteen.”

  He left. Cutting a long diagonal across the crowd to arm-wrestle Pepe Real.

  One of the most annoying guys on the face of the planet.

  Pepe slapped him a high five, smacked a huge wad of gum, and made a rude sexual gesture at a girl in a miniskirt.

  There alone, Beth thought, was reason to be glad she wasn’t cool enough to spend time with Salva Resendez. Her fingers tightened on the essay, and she congratulated herself on not caving to his request to help throughout the entire class. She would just read this one paper and get it over with. Her eyes traced their way over the title. Boring. Did he not understand the purpose of a title?

  She flipped the pages, read the teacher’s comment, and groaned.

  Salva punched the buttons on the pop machine in the rhythm of the fight song. The machine was empty, some law having been passed that teenagers were too stupid to know how much sugar they were putting in their mouths. His fingers slowed, and he let his eyes peruse the valedictorian names on the Academic Wall of Fame. Not a very big wall. Or very large plaques, at least not compared to those on Sports Trophy Row.

  Beth was five minutes late, but that wasn’t a surprise, considering who he was dealing with. It would be a miracle if she arrived at all. He had known he should have made her read the essay right there at her locker this morning.

  She came whipping around the corner. Whoa! He hadn’t seen her move that fast since she’d given up track.

  “In Paradise Lost”—she quoted his thesis—“Milton solidified himself as one of the greatest writers of all time through his brilliant portrayal of man’s fall from grace.” She slapped something that vaguely resembled Salva’s old paper into his hand. “You practically plagiarized the Mercenary.”

  “Yeah, so?” He tried to smooth out the wrinkles. That was the way the game was played. You found out what the teacher thought, and you went along.

  “Give me a break.” She shifted one of the plaques, setting it off its axis. “Can you honestly say you think Milton is one of the greatest authors you’ve ever read?”

  Claro que no. But that didn’t matter. He eyed the bright patch of wall revealed when the plaque had shifted. “The Mercenary thinks he is.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  Sure it is.

  Beth gave a huge sigh. “Look, do you read anything outside of school?”

  Did she think he was an idiot? His name was going to be on this half-ass wall if he could survive AP English. “Of course.”

  “Who are your favorite authors?”

  He shrugged, propping his foot on the bench beneath the plaques, then shifted his weight forward and back. He didn’t have favorite authors.

  “What are you reading right now?” she harped.

  A bio on the president’s life and a history of Chiapas. “I read nonfiction.”

  She reared back as if offended.

  Well, it’s better than romance novels. Though today he had noticed a Stephen King book by her feet.

  “Just tell me what you really think of Milton,” she said, her arms crossed over her chest. She had his back up now. What had been all that yakking about taking the time to provide him with quality feedback?

  “Honestly?” he asked.

  Her chin gave a sharp nod.

  “I think he’s an anti-Catholic, bigoted ass,” Salva replied. Not to mention sexist. He figured there were plenty of things wrong with Catholicism, but he didn’t need to hear about them from a guy who had never been forced to sit through mass on a frigging Wednesday night. And who couldn’t even find a way to couch his raging prejudices in an interesting story. Any book that could put Salva to sleep before nine P.M. twice in one week was just not going into his top ten.

  “Then say that.” Beth snapped her
fingers and pointed at his chest.

  He should have known that someone who read about fatal love chases could not be trusted to give good advice.

  “Look,” she continued, “the Mercenary doesn’t want to hear what she already knows. If you think Milton is a prejudiced ass, then say so—well, don’t swear, but say what you think and then back up your argument. Put in the quotes. Analyze the hell out of it. And prove your point. The teacher might disagree with you in theory, but at least she won’t be bored. That”—Beth waved a hand at his essay—“is a waste of anyone’s time.”

  Salva stared at her blankly.

  “Now an essay about Milton’s prejudices,” she said. “That would be worth reading.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Deadly.”

  He could deal with that. “All right, I’ll bring it to you on Monday.”

  “What?”

  He pushed off the bench. “I’m taking you seriously. I’m trying to ‘go out on the limb and break it off,’ but I don’t have the creative guts to go it alone. And you just said the essay would be worth reading.”

  She was shaking her head, then bit her bottom lip.

  “Please,” he added.

  He had her. He knew it. There was no way she could just allow him to write trash for the rest of the year.

  The bit lip transformed into a slow nod.

  Now the only question was whether her advice was worth anything. Or whether following it would get him lynched.

  Beth berated herself all the way home, the trek longer than normal due to a detour to the grocery store. A milk jug weighed down her left hand, and plastic bags bit into her wrists—a fitting punishment for her failure of will. Why couldn’t she say no to him? Why? It wasn’t the manners, not really. They were just an excuse. And it wasn’t that he’d die without her help. He’d aced every English class he’d had before this one. He would be fine. Not what he was capable of, but fine. Though it burned her to see him hover just below spectacular.

  She kicked a piece of asphalt across the street. Toward the trailer.