Salvation, Page 2

  Salva wasn’t interested in switching schools. He had friends here. And only one year left to spend with them. But he wasn’t hanging around afterward to run a gas pump. He’d seen plenty of guys who did that, and most of them ended up in prison for dealing.

  “Luka was there,” Salva said, as if to validate his own part in the travesty that was AP lit.

  “He would be,” Pepe groaned.

  Tosa stole another handful of fries.

  “Luka’s all right,” Salva said.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Pepe shrugged.

  “You’re just jealous ’cause he’s the only guy in this school who dominates a football field more than you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, quarterback?”

  Salva dismissed the comment. He had a good head on his shoulders—could choose a play and run it. Strong enough for Liberty, but he wasn’t of the same caliber as the guys who played his position in college. And in truth, he didn’t want to be. He didn’t want to be crushed three million times before he got out of his twenties.

  “Nalani Villetti was there, too.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Pepe had clearly lost interest, his eyes on something else. “Don’t look now, but guess who’s headed our way.”

  Salva didn’t have to guess. He could tell by the heat in Pepe’s voice that Char was coming. And she wasn’t wearing a turtleneck.

  She wasn’t alone either.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” Tosa greeted the long-legged blonde at Char’s side. He grinned as if he was joking, but no one was fooled.

  “Hi, sweetheart.” Linette flipped her golden hair over one shoulder, propped herself on the outside of the bench, and leaned her hip against Tosa’s waist. Whether or not she was joking was harder to tell.

  Char, whose tight shirt and tighter jeans battled with the dress code, stood waiting next to Salva, despite the fact that there was no space beside him on the bench.

  He hated that—how she’d just stand there waiting for him to read her mind whenever she wanted something.

  Pepe moved over, and Salva reminded himself to give his best friend a lecture on loyalty. Char slid in between them.

  “Listen, guys.” Linette set her chin on Tosa’s shoulder. “My parents are water-skiing this weekend. You wanna come over while they’re gone for a little back-to-school action?” She popped her tropical-orange lips. “Saturday ’bout two?”

  “I’m working,” Salva said. Scut every weekend at the onion-processing plant. His father’s idea.

  “Ah, man!” Pepe frowned. “You’re not serious.”

  Salva shrugged. Sorting onions wasn’t his view of a career path, but whatever. His older brother and sister had done their part to pay his way, so Salva owed it to his two younger sisters to do the same. Plus, he could work around his football schedule.

  “Can’t you talk your way out of it?” Linette asked.

  Char’s fingers brushed his arm.

  “No,” he replied.

  The fingers retreated, slightly.

  “Well, I’m in,” Pepe stated.

  Tosa laughed. “Oh, we knew you wouldn’t give up your Saturday for cash.” Of all of them, Pepe was the most flush. Not that his mom had money. Ms. Hart, who had ditched her husband’s last name of Real after he’d split when her son was twelve, had raised Pepe on a middle-school secretary’s salary. But his grandparents spoiled him rotten.

  “And you, Ricardo?” Linette eased her long leg inside the bench so her right knee fell in front of Tosa and her left one rested behind. “Are you coming?”

  Like that was gonna get a no.

  “Prob’ly.” Tosa turned as orange as his polished-off Tabasco. “I’ll have to ask at the machine shop, but the boss owes me hours.”

  “Good.” She slid back.

  “Aren’t you chicas eating?” asked Tosa as he bit into his well-doctored burger. Juice from the tomatoes ran down his chin.

  Both girls dismissed his question. Always dieting, one of the things that had driven Salva crazy when he was dating Char. What were you supposed to do with a girlfriend who wouldn’t eat?

  “So you’re coming this weekend, aren’t you, Char?” Pepe prodded.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied.

  “What?!” he reacted as if the sagging ceiling had fallen in. “The worth-it factor goes down by half if you’re not there.”

  Char lowered her eyes. She’d used glitter eye shadow, not much, but still a little creepy. “My mother would have to give permission.”

  That’s not gonna happen. Char’s mother was the queen of overprotection. No cheerleading. No R-rated movies. No overnight field trips. Nothing that would leave her daughter exposed to the hazards of, well, a guy like Pepe.

  “I thought maybe if I could tell her someone would be there”—Char raised the sparkling eyelids to look straight at Salva—“someone she trusts…”

  Right. She wanted his name for an alibi. He’d been playing her chaperone since they were kids. She could ride the bus to summer school if he rode with her. She could go to the music concert if he was also going. She could attend the dance if he escorted her.

  Pepe wheedled, “Come on, man, if you can’t come, that’s cool; but you’re not gonna leave her sittin’ home, are you? Just because you’re makin’ love to some onions.”

  And you’re gonna take over as chaperone, huh? Salva felt a twinge prick his conscience. Charla was a little like a sister to him—he had known her so long. He wouldn’t have advised one of his real sisters to date Pepe.

  Char leaned closer, her arm against Salva’s, her knee pressing his. There was nothing sisterly in that gaze.

  So much for his conscience.

  “All right,” Salva said, “use my name.”

  2

  A GRAVEYARD BUTTERFLY

  Beth savored the silence of the emptied-out school hallway that afternoon and devoured the final pages of Wuthering Heights. She could no longer feel the oppressive late summer heat or the hard metal of the locker at her back. Gone were the crumpled papers, broken pencils, and discarded candy wrappers on the tiled floor. She was on the cold English moors with the wind blowing around her and the whistle of death in the air.

  A trio of voices suddenly invaded the end of the hall. Beth rushed through the last page. A banging locker emphasized the drama of the final line, and she looked up, just in time to see El Perfecto sprinting past, no doubt in a rush to get to football practice. Apparently, tardiness was a new thing for him.

  Nalani came up at a much more relaxed pace, her pink canvas book bag slung over one shoulder.

  “So what was the meeting about?” Beth asked her best friend.

  “Who knows?” Nalani’s eyes shone as she rolled them. She glanced over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “Just Markham on a power trip. I’ll tell you on the walk home.”

  Beth stuffed Wuthering Heights back into her locker, not wanting to lose the book again and owe a fine to the library as she had back in June. Then she gathered her supplies and hefted her backpack.

  Nalani was already halfway to the back exit, which led, naturally, to the football field. Beth hurried after her.

  The team had stretched out in lines, five rows of testosterone-filled tight pants and loose jerseys hopping up and down in jumping jacks. The compact blond with the number 12 plastered on his front wasted no time sending Nalani a wave, even though he was leading the entire team—minus El Perfecto, who must not have made it out of the locker room yet—in the warm-ups. The team mimicked the wave.

  Nalani pretended not to notice.

  Which was fine because Beth didn’t want to hear the one-sided conversation about all the things Luka had done that day.

  Heat radiated off the black asphalt path as the girls curved their way along the field, back toward the front of the building. Beth realized she had forgotten her sunscreen, but it didn’t matter much. Far too late to worry about freckles. By August, she was always a mess.

  The three thousand pounds of football player
s, now jogging in place, disappeared behind her.

  “Okay, we’re outside,” she said. “Now, what was your surprise ASB meeting about?”

  Nalani groaned. “Markham wanted to go over all the responsibilities of our new positions. He said Salva has to do the announcements at the assemblies. I only fill in when he’s gone. Kaitlyn has to take the notes. We have to elect a new parliamentarian to fill her old spot. Which is all fine, of course, except Salva didn’t want to be there because he was anxious to get to practice. He and Markham got into an argument about who should be able to schedule meetings and how it’s not fair to hold them without advance notice. Of course, Markham just blew him off.”

  Beth tried to fix the uneven shoulder straps on her backpack as she listened.

  “It’s a good thing I have such an excellent best friend who’s willing to wait,” Nalani added, smiling at her.

  Beth smiled back.

  Her best friend kept talking. “But I mean, really, what did Markham expect? It isn’t like he didn’t know Salva is booked after school in the fall; but oh, no one else could become president. I mean Salva didn’t want the job. I don’t see why Markham wouldn’t even discuss the idea of me taking Julie’s spot.”

  The slide toggles on Beth’s backpack straps refused to adjust. “Did you want it?”

  Nalani shrugged.

  “I’m sorry, Ni,” Beth said softly, trying to protect her best friend’s feelings. “But maybe this is a good thing. You’re already so busy…” What Beth didn’t say was that Nalani had a habit of volunteering for too much and only following through on about half of it.

  “Well, we could have discussed it.” Nalani took the backpack away from Beth, smoothed out the puckers on each of the straps, and corrected the length. The two girls turned the corner, taking a route that led first to Nalani’s, then to Beth’s. Ni returned the pack, raising her voice over a barking hound dog and a whining air conditioner. “It just doesn’t seem fair that Markham thinks Salva is the only one who can do the job.”

  Beth nodded in sympathy, though the principal had a point. After all, if Salva had decided to run for president in the first place, no one doubted he would have won.

  Ni climbed onto the curb. “I mean, he’s not perfect.”

  Beth’s head shot up at that, and a warm blush spread over her cheeks before she could control it.

  Her best friend must have noticed. “Sorry…” Ni trailed off.

  Was Beth never going to escape the repercussions of one silly junior-high crush? Everyone has had a crush on him. It’s not like I own the embarrassment. She cringed to think of herself in the eighth grade: naïve, suffering from the bombardment of braces, two bouts of head lice, and the illusion that Salvador Resendez would one day magically look across the freshman-lit classroom and realize that she, Beth, was perfect for him.

  “There’s nothing—” Beth tried to say, but her friend ended the discussion.

  “We won’t talk about him.”

  It wasn’t him, Beth told herself. It was just an image. Middle schoolers fall in love with image all the time. Though she couldn’t quite push away the image of him today, picking up all her papers before he went on to class.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Nalani said.

  Beth startled, having failed to realize they had reached the plastic fence around her best friend’s lawn.

  “Unless you want to come in for dinner,” Ni added.

  “No…thank you.” Beth looked up at the freshly painted house with the barrage of sunflower stickies in the window. Better to save her invitations for when she needed them.

  Besides, she wanted to talk to her grandmother.

  Nalani gave her friend a quick shoulder squeeze, then traipsed through the arched garden trellis, pausing to adjust the hose caught on the back of the stone deer decorating the path.

  Beth fled, not wanting to regret her choice to turn down supper.

  She smiled as she reached the graveyard. “Morbid,” her mother would have said about her daughter’s desire to visit the cemetery, but Beth kicked off her sandals and waded through the fresh-cut grass. The cool strands tickled her ankles, and the sweet scent of late roses clung to the air. Pale yellow, blue, and pink tombstones scattered the green in a pastel palate.

  A squirrel rushed across the grass and scurried up an old oak tree, the fluffy gray tail disappearing among the branches. Beth approached, watching to see if it would emerge again, but when it did not, she swung off her backpack and slid to the ground beneath the tree’s outstretched shadow. And beside the slender pink stone with the name GLORIA MAY COURANT etched in the center.

  “Hello, Grandma,” said Beth. “I’m sorry I’m late.” She explained about Nalani’s meeting. “You know she always has something happening. I’m sure you aren’t surprised.” It felt right to be here. Grandma had always expected Beth to share about the first day of school, a ritual that Beth hadn’t wanted to stop now.

  “It was a pretty good day,” Beth went on, “for the first, you know. I’m not sure I’ll survive trigonometry; but I thought the same thing about algebra II, and it turned out all right. All the answers are still in the back of the book, so I’ll know when to ask Nalani for help.” She knew Grandma would remind her that Beth’s final math scores had outpaced Ni’s all the way through school. But grades, and confidence in math, were two different things.

  A robin hopped down onto the grass about twenty feet from the pink tombstone. Beth stopped talking so that she wouldn’t frighten him. He pecked his way closer, hopping four or five inches at a time and up onto the mound of turned earth. The grass there had not quite grown in yet. The robin preened, raising his chest and showing off, then disappeared in a sudden rush of wings.

  Beth’s head swam with the questions her grandmother had always asked. Do you like your teachers? Did you make any new friends? Were you on time for everything?

  Obediently, Beth answered the questions, though she skimmed through her problems with being late. She told herself the aversion had nothing to do with crashing into Salva Resendez, though Grandma would have wanted to hear about him so she could repeat the story, for the hundredth time, about how she had dropped her cupcake during her granddaughter’s third-grade Valentine’s Day party, and Salva had given her his.

  The sun continued to shine as Beth talked. And talked and talked, letting her tongue flow as easily as her pencil when inspiration struck. She kept talking even when her throat grew dry and she had to clear it every few seconds. But then her stomach began to growl, and she realized it must be dinnertime. She’d forgotten her watch, of course. It seemed silly to wear a watch in a building where every room had a clock timed down to the exact second.

  Reluctantly, Beth reached for her backpack. “I should probably go. I’m on my own for supper tonight. Mom’s taking classes after work and attending meetings.”

  Grandma would be happy with that, though she wouldn’t have said. She didn’t like to encourage false hope. Still, she would want to know.

  “Love you ever.” Beth stood, then wound her way once around the oak tree, her eyes peering up to check for the long-lost squirrel. No tail flashed so she turned her attention down, slid back into her sandals, and headed for home.

  The weeds had grown clear up to the trailer. She should mow them, but it seemed a waste now that no one stayed here during the day; and soon it would be fall, the season defined by nature’s refuse. She picked her way along the path of flattened cheatgrass and tugged on the screen door.

  It stuck. She rattled the latch and jerked harder, until the door swung free with a bang.

  The trailer smelled of sour milk from cereal bowls. Beth sighed, letting her backpack obey gravity, then she stepped from the worn carpet on the right half of the room and crossed to the peeling linoleum on the left.

  The sink was disgusting. She forced herself to reach into the scum-covered water to retrieve a frying pan and wooden spoon, then turned over the dishpan and watched the cold li
quid disappear down the drain. Beth flipped on the faucet, letting it run while the hot water decided whether to work.

  She detoured to the fridge and yanked open the freezer, too fast because a paper slid off the door. Eagerly, she reached into the open Popsicle box. One left. She grinned and tugged out the treat.

  The clear wrapper peeled away, and she tossed it into the garbage can, along with the box.

  Back to the sink to test the water. Hot. She slid the dishpan under the faucet, poured in the soap, then tasted the Popsicle. It was red, the flavor a bit like children’s medicine, but at least the treat was cold.

  Suds in the dishpan threatened the rim, and she turned off the water, then caught sight again of the fridge. And frowned. Her eyes swooped to the floor, where they spotted the fallen paper sticking out from beneath the stove. Quickly she scooped up the sheet, held it straight against the freezer door so the paper would be easy for her mother to read, then secured the Alcoholics Anonymous pledge with a bright pink-and-green butterfly magnet, Grandma’s favorite.

  3

  AND A GENTLEMAN

  The hot evening air blasted Salva in the face as he swung out of the school’s main doors and stepped into the parking lot. His chest felt numb and his arms and legs like they had been drained. That happened after ten extra laps.

  Dios, ayúdame.

  Salva’s father was in the parking lot. There was no mistaking that battered green pickup with its strips of duct tape along the lower half of the cab.

  His father’s words rang out the open window. “You are late.”

  Salva let his head fall back and his eyes rest on the still brilliant blue sky. Would this day never end?

  He hauled his backpack and sweaty football clothes across the lot and up to the driver’s side door, then waited for the inevitable question of why he was the only football player still here.

  It didn’t come.