Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 02 - Hasta la Vista, Lola!, Page 2

  The corner of his mouth crept up wickedly, and his hand moved to my hip. “Sweet-talk my way into what?”

  My skirt. My heart. My…

  Dios mío. His chest felt amazing under my hand—all hard and muscled and—What was I mad about again?

  He bent his head and brushed his lips against my neck, trailing them to my collarbone.

  “Mmm.” The moan slipped out. Reality or not, his charm was second to none.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he echoed.

  I jumped when my cell phone belted out the chorus of “La Bamba.” Reality came flooding back into my brain. He’d left without so much as an adiós, that’s what I was mad about.

  Grabbing the phone from my bag, I flipped it open. Holding it to my ear, I tried to ignore how close Jack was to me, how the minuscule amount of air between our bodies sizzled with heat. “H-hello?” My voice croaked and my eyes fluttered closed. I dropped my purse on the ground.

  The line was dead. Thank God, a misdial. My grip on the phone became limp. The camera I still held by the strap dangled loosely from my other hand. I was putty.

  The heat from Jack’s mouth radiated through my body. I gasped as his hands slid up my sides and his fingers spread wide on my rib cage. His lips sought out my mouth. I wanted him. Right here. Right now. I just hoped no one was lurking around a corner taking digital photos of us.

  I was going to have to go to confession for this. Maybe twice. Those Benedictine Sisters would never have me now.

  “You taste like heaven,” he said.

  “Mmm—” I broke off when my phone rang again. My eyelids flew open.

  “Hold that thought,” I said, and I flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

  No one spoke. Chaos echoed on the other end of the line. I tried to make out a sound. Something identifiable. Jack’s mouth settled in against my neck again, but a cry that sounded like an injured animal, followed by a primal scream, assaulted my eardrums. My nerves crackled. “Who is this?” I demanded.

  The connection cut out. I pushed the END button with my thumb, then pressed another button to check the phone number. I froze.

  Jack’s blue bedroom eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  Panic lodged in my throat. “My parents. Somebody was crying and screaming.”

  I hit REDIAL, but the line beeped incessantly with a busy signal.

  I snatched my purse from the ground and fumbled inside. “I have to go.” My hands shook and I couldn’t grab hold of anything. “Where the hell are my keys?”

  Jack grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward his car. “I’ll drive.”

  There was no point arguing; I didn’t think I could maneuver a vehicle in a straight line with the panic that was seizing my insides. With runway model balance on my wedge heels, I jumped into Jack’s supercool Volvo.

  He gunned it out of the parking lot and raced down H Street toward my parents’ Midtown house.

  “I’m sure they’re okay,” I muttered. Shooing away my anxiety, I murmured a quick prayer. All that racket was probably nothing—just a crazy old Spanish movie on TV, or something. I made myself focus on Jack. Distraction. “So spill it. What was the big”—I made air quotes—“ ‘emergency’?”

  The looming traffic light turned red. He braked hard. My seat belt locked, the strap stopping me from flying through the windshield.

  I expected him to evade the question, but he didn’t. “I had to see an—” He paused slightly. “—old friend.”

  Aha! “By old friend, you mean a girlfriend?”

  He stared straight ahead, and when he spoke, his voice was tense and short. “Old is the operative word.”

  My anxiety over whatever was going on at my parents’ house spilled onto Jack and his friend. I turned in my seat to face him. “Let me get this straight. You left without a word or a phone call to me so you could go see an old girlfriend? Are you serious?”

  “Lola, I can’t talk about it. Can you just trust me? Please?”

  I wanted to, but my heart wouldn’t let me. I slammed my palm against my chest, feeling a rant coming on. “You know about my past, Callaghan but you don’t want to talk about yours. Or your present, which apparently includes some other woman. That doesn’t instill a lot of trust.”

  The light turned green. Jack rammed his foot against the accelerator and the car jolted forward. “Where is this coming from? I’m not dating another woman, Lola. And I’m not sleeping with anyone”—he sent me a frustrated look—“including you.”

  That frustrated me, too, more than he knew. “If you were around more,” I said, “we could do something about that.”

  He took my hand, the warmth from his touch reassuring. “That sounds promising.”

  My mouth took over again. “I just don’t want your past between us, that’s all.”

  His fingers loosened, and a second later he brought his hand back to the steering wheel. “If I can deal with Sergio, you should be able to deal with Sarah.”

  Sarah. He dropped the name so casually. I cupped my hand at my forehead. Sweet Sarah. Oh, boy.

  “When I think about what you’ve done with him,” Jack was saying. “That he’s touched…” His jaw pulsed. He rounded a corner, barely slowing down. “I don’t want to know the details.” He looked at me and spoke slowly and with venom. “I don’t trust him, I hate that you were ever with him, and I’d be happy if I never saw him again.” The look he gave me barely concealed the rage that seemed to bubble in him. “Why the hell would you want to feel those things about someone I was with?”

  I decided he had a point. Ignorance could be bliss. “Entonces bien.”

  He nodded slightly. “Great.”

  We drove in silence for a few blocks. Try as I might, I couldn’t quite leave well enough alone. “Just for the record, though,” I said, “Sergio’s not a secret.” I made a face. “A mistake, yes, but not a secret.”

  Jack cracked a wry smile. “A mistake. Boy is that an understatement.”

  “No need to get snide,” I said. But of course he was right.

  He sighed, resigned. “You’re not going to drop it, are you?”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  A weighty silence filled the car. Finally, he said, “Okay, look. Here’s the abbreviated version. I was with her for four years.”

  I sputtered. “Four years?”

  “We broke up. I took the job at the Sacramento Bee, I moved back here, and she didn’t. End of story.”

  Seriously abbreviated, yes. End of story, not even close. He’d dropped everything, including me, because of some emergency that—in my gut I knew—had to do with Sarah.

  There was a hell of a lot more to that story. Four years was a let’s make plans for the future kind of relationship, not I’m killing time until I hook up with my best friend from high school’s sister kind of relationship. What was he not telling me?

  We turned onto my parents’ street—my street, too, since I shared the converted upstairs flat with my brother, Antonio. My emotions surged again as I stared out the window. Jack and his girlfriend shot to a compartment in the back of my mind as we slid past bumper-to-bumper cars parked along the sidewalk. Forty-second Street was never this busy. Something was definitely going on. My voice caught in my throat as I pushed his thigh. “Hurry up, Jack.”

  I held on to the door handle as he took the corner on what felt like only two wheels. He maneuvered the front end of the Volvo into the only available space—on the sidewalk at the driveway. Before he’d fully braked, I jumped out and took off. I shoved open the gate. My boxer, Salsa, stood just outside the back door. She whipped her head around and our eyes locked. One of her floppy ears perked up. She yelped and charged up to me, whimpering and pawing at my leg. Her stub of a tail wagged.

  Jack was by my side. “What’s going on?”

  Good question. I quickly scratched Salsa’s head, skirted around her, and rushed across the grass and to the patio. Yanking open the back door released a barrage of distraught and hysterical voices
into the quiet yard.

  I stopped short inside the kitchen. It looked like every single family member I had was here in Mami’s kitchen.

  And every last one of them looked like they were in agony. Jack’s hand lay protectively on my lower back. I pushed through the throng of Falcón and Cruz relatives, and he never lost contact with me. Small as the gesture was, I was comforted by it.

  People belted out my name. “Dolores!” Hands clawed at me. Pulled at the fabric of my dress. I yanked back, trying to keep my bodice in place.

  My heart clenched when I saw my mother wrapped up in my father’s arms. She sobbed and gasped for air, her hands clutching at his shirt as she wailed. He wiped at his eyes. ¡Ay, Dios mío! I knew it. Someone was dead.

  Batting hands away, I quickly scanned the people, checking them off on a mental list that materialized in my mind. My grandparents stood off to one side, looking lost and agonized. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. One, two, three, four, five… I raced through the count. Thirty-five. It looked like all my primos were here.

  Who was missing?

  “Dolores.” My family was so relieved to see me, they kept repeating my name. The crowd closed, blocking my parents from my view. I smiled and nodded at my relatives as I peered through the crowd. Where were my brothers and sister? A rushing sound went through my head and I felt dizzy. Not Gracie! Dios mío, not Antonio. I started to shake. And Roberto? My oldest brother was away on his third tour of duty in Iraq. I murmured a quick prayer. Oh, God. Not Roberto.

  “¡Quiubo!” I shouted above the racket. “Hey! ¡Escuchame! What’s going on?”

  The clawing stopped. A collective gasp went through the room followed by complete silence. We could have heard a pinto bean bounce on my mother’s spotless linoleum floor.

  The crowed parted again, and Abuela gaped and crossed herself. She clutched her rosary to her lips, a flurry of Spanish prayers spewing from her mouth. She looked at me in horror, her eyes bulging. “¡Es la fantasma de Dolores!” she hissed.

  I felt light-headed. Jack’s hand pressing against my back steadied me. Had he understood? “Abuela, what are you talking about? I’m not a ghost.” I took a step toward her but stopped dead in my tracks as my grandfather held his cane out toward my stomach like a sword. My grandmother started muttering Hail Marys. I gaped at them. Son locos.

  Jack wrapped his arm around my waist. “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  I shrugged, braced myself, and braved another step forward. “What. Happened?” I repeated. “Where’s Roberto?” The image of a flag-covered coffin floated before my eyes. I blinked it away. “Is he okay?”

  “Roberto’s fine,” a small voice said from deep in the crowd. I peered, but I couldn’t tell who’d spoken.

  I looked around, still searching for Gracie, heaving a sigh when I saw her huddled in the corner held tightly in her husband’s arms. Her eyes bugged just like our grandmother’s, enormous tears frozen on her cheeks.

  The way they all stared at me, I felt like I’d suddenly sprouted horns and a forked tail.

  I turned toward my father as the dam broke and tears burst from his eyes. An anguished howl came from his core. “Mi Dolores.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, opening them again three seconds later. “¡Gracias a Dios!” he shouted when he looked at me again. He fell to his knees, clasped his hands, and rocked back and forth. “¡Gracias a Dios!”

  Like the Red Sea parting, my relatives separated into two halves. Antonio rushed through the center, sweeping me up in his arms and nearly crushing my ribs. My brother Antonio? Affectionate? I looked around, waiting for the explosion of laughter. Ha! We got you, Lola. Psyche!

  Over my brother’s shoulder, my mother’s eyes met mine. “¡Tu vives!” she sobbed, a handkerchief clutched to her mouth.

  “Of course I’m alive.” I gasped, wriggling myself out of Antonio’s death grip. “Will somebody tell me what’s going on? Por favor,” I added sternly.

  Mami opened her mouth and made a gurgling sound. The color drained from her face like water spiraling out of a sink. Her eyes rolled back and her jaw hung open. I rushed forward, but her legs gave way before I reached her. She went down with a thunk like a sack of wet masa.

  “Mami! ¿Qué está pasando?” I crouched next to her, her hip-length crocheted white vest fanned out around her. Out cold.

  Antonio appeared at her side with a cup of water. He waved a paper plate in front of Mami’s face while I flicked beads of liquid onto her cheeks. The whispering voices around me turned into white noise as I waited for her to wake up.

  It felt like an eternity, but finally her eyelids fluttered open. The whites were bloodshot, her pupils glazed and vacant. Antonio slid his arm under her shoulders and grunted as he hauled her upright.

  I held the cup of water for her to sip, but she shook her head, knocking it away. The water splashed over me, soaking my thin dress. “I called your phone just to hear your voice again, pero I”—she fanned her face with her hand—“I cannot believe you are standing here.”

  No one spoke as Antonio and Papi settled her in a chair at the kitchen table. Abuela was still muttering prayers, and everyone else lined up to embrace me and welcome me back to the land of the living. Which I hadn’t known I’d apparently left for a while. I knew all the cars and hysteria had meant someone was dead. But since I was still breathing, it hadn’t occurred to me that I was the corpse.

  “No entiendo,” I finally managed to say between my family’s tears and hugs.

  My father swiped away a tear from his ruddy cheek. “It was on the news, mi’ja. They said you were”—he sucked in a breath and whispered hoarsely—“muerta.”

  I spat out a shaky laugh. “That’s crazy. Why would they say that?”

  “They said you had a—” Papi broke off as he held me by the shoulder with one hand and examined my head. “¿Cómo se dice? A fatal injury to the head.” His lip rolled up. “Sola en un callejón,” he muttered.

  I was dumbstruck. Dead? Alone in an alley? “Are you sure they said my name?” I spun around to see everyone in the room nodding. My gaze zeroed in on Jack’s frowning, suddenly pale face. He’d backed against the laundry room door, his arms folded over his chest, his jaw tight.

  “Dolores,” Tía Marina said. “¡Mi ahijada!”

  Sure. Now that I was back from the dead, I was her goddaughter. Usually I was “the bad influence” on her daughter, Chely. Forget that I was a glowing example of a confident, independent woman who had a fabulous career. Chely wanted to grow up and do something daring and adventurous with her life—just like me. I was so proud of her.

  Tía Marina maneuvered next to my father, wrapping her arms around us both. Chely wailed, her high-pitched cry like a siren.

  “They said you were dead,” my cousin Zac said. I’d never seen him look dumbfounded before. Not a pretty sight on a five-foot-nine-inch man with sun-scorched skin and tired eyes.

  “It’s obviously some other Dolores Cruz,” his wife, Lucy, bellowed. Then she wrapped me up in a bear hug.

  Wooziness washed over me—too much shock for one day. I reached for the counter to steady myself.

  “Give her some space,” Antonio instructed as he pushed people away.

  “Tell me exactly what they said,” I demanded. I swung my head around, searching for someone—anyone—to give me answers.

  Chely, my fifteen-year-old fashionista niece, stumbled to the front of the Falcón–Cruz family. In her Old Navy T-shirt and low-rise pants, she could easily transition from the grief-fest to the mall. Her wailing had subsided to sniffles. She held out a tentative hand, acting as though her fingers might pass right through my arm, and she touched me. Then, apparently convinced that I wasn’t a ghost, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the front room. She nodded to her brother Miguel. He picked up the TV remote and pressed a series of buttons. “It’s on the news,” Chely said.

  Ah. No day was complete for my father until he’d watched every second of the news. Problem wa
s, he was usually at the restaurant when the broadcast came on. But the DVR had changed all that. Antonio had set up a series recording for our parents which meant the report of my death on the local news was saved on the cable box.

  The television screen blinked and came to life. The chattering voices behind me grew silent as a perfectly coiffed anchorwoman delivered her news briefs in an unemotional tone. A chill radiated through my body when she got to my story. “Local private investigator Dolores Cruz,” she said, “was found dead in an alley behind the old Florin Mall. Cruz, a Sacramento native, was the daughter of Mexican immigrants who own a popular local eatery called Abuelita’s. At this time, no motive has been determined. Cruz, who started as an intern at PI firm Camacho and Associates, was a licensed investigator. Police are looking into the death.”

  Miquel stopped the DVR, and like pack animals, we all drifted back into the kitchen. Chely clung to my arm, her lips quivering. “It was y-you.” She started sobbing again. “Y-you were d-dead.”

  “It was a mistake, Chely. I’m here.” I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed her back. Her breathing steadied and her crying stopped. A minute later, I pushed her back and held her by the shoulders. “I’m right here. Okay?”

  She ran the back of her hand under her nose and nodded.

  “Estoy bien,” I repeated. Letting her go, I straightened my still-damp dress, taking time to organize my thoughts. “I need to call Manny,” I said after a minute.

  Jack was next to me in a flash. “The hell you do.”

  “He knows people.” The PI in me had kicked in. I had to get to the bottom of this.

  Jack clutched the back of my arm protectively. “Call the police. They need to know someone else is dead… that it’s not you.”

  My grandmother crossed herself again, taking a step forward and laying a shaky hand on my arm.

  “¡Yo no soy un fantasma, Abuela!” God, couldn’t she tell I wasn’t wispy and ghostlike? I grabbed hold of her hands and pressed them against my cheeks. “See? Flesh and blood.”