He kissed the tips of her fingers. “I kept my promise. It was just hard to get back to you.”
“From where?” she asked again. Wasn’t he ever going to tell her? “Let me know what happened to you.”
Thunder hammered across the night. The sound made the china vibrate in the cupboards. Jimena drew back and looked over Veto’s shoulder. The curtains weren’t swaying, and the leaves on the plants weren’t bobbing.
“It can’t be an earthquake,” she said, more to herself than to Veto. Then she glanced at Veto. Even in the dim light she could see the look of sudden fear on Veto’s face.
“What is it?” she asked, feeling her own heart race.
“Nothing.” He tried to cover up his fear. He put on his stone cold máscara as he’d always done in the old days when he faced down enemy gangsters, but he couldn’t hide what was in his heart.
“You’ve never been afraid of anything—” she began.
“I’m not afraid—”
“Don’t lie to me. I know you too well. I saw your face.”
He hesitated. “It’s the temblores. Since el Northridge I can’t stand them. They make me crazy.”
She could feel the falseness of his words. “You’re lying to me,” she repeated accusingly. “We never lied to each other before.”
He tried to pull her back to him. “Terremotos have always scared me. You know they have.”
She shook her head. “How come you feel afraid now?”
His hands dropped to his side, defeated. “I know what fear is now.” He spoke the words so softly, she could barely hear them.
“Everyone knows what fear is! You think I’m tonta? Why’d you give me such a stupid answer?”
“I gave you the truth.”
Another roll of thunder broke through the night.
“I gotta go.” His words came out with a staccato quickness and his eyes darted around as if he were expecting someone to appear suddenly.
She clutched his arm tightly.
He looked at her oddly. “I have to leave now.”
“Don’t.” Jimena held on to his arm, but already she could feel him pulling away from her. “Why are you running away just like the other night? Is someone after you?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He turned.
“Wait.” She didn’t want him to leave. She was afraid that if he did, she would never see him again. “I can help you. Tell me.”
“I can’t now. No time.”
“Why don’t you spend the night here?” She was frantically searching for a way to make him stay. Her voice sounded desperate.
He shook his head.
“Then promise me you’ll meet me at school the way you used to meet me at my old school, so I can show you off to my new friends.”
“Where are you going to school now?” His eyes looked distracted and nervous. He kept glancing behind him at the open window. What was he looking for?
“La Brea High.” She grabbed his hand. “Promise you’ll be there.”
“I promise.”
A flood of light from the hallway filled the kitchen. She turned around as her grandmother walked into the room and turned on the overhead light. Jimena blinked and let her eyes adjust to the brightness.
“Jimena, who you talking to so late at night?”
“Veto,” she started to say, but before the word left her mouth she turned back. The kitchen was empty.
Her grandmother walked across the small room and slammed the window, then grabbed a rag from under the sink and began wiping up the puddles on the floor before Jimena could see if there were any footprints in the water other than her own.
“What were you doing up?” Her grandmother’s long braid fell over her shoulder as she worked.
“I guess I was walking in my sleep.” Jimena looked at the window. Did she expect Veto to appear at the window and smile back at her?
She touched the side of her head. It was still wet from his hair. Or had that only been part of a dream?
“Let me fix you some cocoa so you can go back to sleep.” Her grandmother stood and threw the rag under the sink. “I need some, too. Those temblores make me a bundle of nerves.”
“You think the scientists are right?” Jimena sat down slowly, still dizzy from all the thoughts spinning through her head. “It didn’t feel like an earthquake.”
“It didn’t feel right to me either.” Her grandmother shrugged and started heating the water. “But scientists say so and I guess they know.”
Her grandmother set a mug in front of her and one on the opposite side of the table for herself.
“Maybe I shouldn’t go down to San Diego tomorrow?” Her grandmother threw tablets of chocolate into the water and began stirring.
“I’ll be fine,” Jimena answered the look of concern on her grandmother’s face.
“You come with me, m’ija. Your grades are good now. You need time away from Los Angeles and you could help.”
“I can’t,” Jimena lied. “I’ve got too many tests coming up.”
Secretly she was glad her grandmother was going to San Diego. She felt that things with Cassandra and Karyl were going to become dangerous, and she didn’t want to have to worry about her grandmother on top of everything else.
“All right, then.” Her grandmother nodded. “I’ll take the early Greyhound to San Diego tomorrow. I’ve been worrying about what your uncle has been doing to my recipes for a long time now. Better to act, eh? I’ll go down there and see for myself.”
“Better to do something than to worry,” Jimena agreed and started making plans of her own. She’d wait for Veto tomorrow. She needed to know if he was real or not. She rubbed her head. Were her feelings for Veto so strong that she was conjuring up his ghost?
CHAPTER SIX
GEOMETRY CLASS SEEMED to drag on forever. Jimena kept glancing at the clock until Mr. Hall scowled at her. “Do you think you can help the clock move faster by watching it, Jimena?”
“No, sir.” She stifled a yawn and looked at Catty.
Catty drew a chain of entwined roses and hearts across her notebook. Jimena thought she was a talented artist.
Vanessa still took notes, her pencil scratching across the paper at an impossible speed. She eagerly raised her hand to answer Mr. Hall’s questions.
The desk in front of Vanessa was empty. Serena had cut afternoon classes. Jimena wished now she had gone with her. She needed to talk to her about Veto, but she had a suspicious feeling that Serena was meeting Stanton. Jimena felt nervous about it. She worried that whatever Cassandra was planning involved Stanton.
She tried to quiet her apprehension by listening to the steady tap of rain against the windows. The weather forecast said it would clear by this afternoon. She hoped so. She didn’t want to wait in the rain for Veto.
The bell rang and she jumped.
Catty looked up and stretched as slow as a cat.
Vanessa had a satisfied grin and carefully tucked her notes inside her geometry book. “You guys want help with the homework?” Where did she get the energy?
“No,” Catty and Jimena answered together.
Vanessa winked. “All right, but if you change your minds . . .”
“No!” Catty and Jimena shouted and followed Vanessa outside to the hallway.
“Look who’s there.” Catty pointed, then pulled on her yellow slicker and opened an umbrella. “I thought you asked him for breathing room?”
Michael leaned against a bank of lockers. His black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, accenting his strong, angular features. He smiled when he saw Vanessa and his dark eyes seemed to light up. No girl could resist looking at him. Vanessa had liked him since the beginning of the school year when she first met him in Spanish class. Jimena didn’t understand why she suddenly felt like she needed more room. Michael didn’t seem like the smothering kind of guy.
“I was hoping we could talk some more,” he said to Vanessa. Without asking he took her books so that she could pull on her trench
coat, then he put his arm around her and started guiding her away from Catty and Jimena.
“I’ll see you guys later,” Vanessa called over her shoulder.
“Can you believe she’s got such a gorgeous guy and she’s going to throw him away?” Catty opened her locker and put her geometry book inside.
“She’s not throwing him away. She just wants more time for herself.”
Catty nodded. “Still.”
“I know . . .” Jimena agreed and longingly watched Vanessa and Michael walk away. “They look so in love.”
“She’s a dope if she lets him go.” Catty slammed her locker.
“Sounds like you’re a little celosa.”
“A little jealous?” Catty grinned. “I’m crazy jealous. That’s the one thing I want, and I don’t ever think I’m going to get it.” Catty looked down at her watch. “I’m late. I’m watching the shop for my mom this afternoon.”
Catty’s mother owned the Darma Bookstore on Third Street. Business had been slow recently, and Kendra had started teaching extension courses at UCLA. Catty’s mother was a Latin scholar and had even worked once translating medieval manuscripts. She taught Latin and Classics. Jimena had been impressed when she met her. Kendra didn’t seem the type to have done so much studying.
“So, you want to hang out at the store with me?” Catty asked. “We could make some tea and watch videos. It’s never that busy. I think everybody in L.A. has their supply of Buddha beads.” Besides prayer beads, the bookstore also sold candles, incense, crystals, and essential oils.
Jimena slipped into her coat. “No, I have something I have to do.”
They waved good-bye, and Jimena walked out to the edge of campus, carrying a pile of books and an umbrella.
She sat on a cement bench that faced the street. The storm had started to clear, and blue sky peeked between swift moving clouds. A light breeze brought the smells of wet dirt, eucalyptus leaves, and drying cement. She lifted her hair and stretched, enjoying the feel of the clean air.
After an hour had passed, the sky had cleared completely. Jimena had missed one bus already, and when the next one approached she felt a need to run to it. Instead she let it roll by and decided to walk down to Beverly Boulevard and grab a bus there. She gathered her books and started walking.
She had only gone a little way when she felt a car pull up behind her. She turned expectantly, hoping to see Veto’s smiling face, and was immediately let down.
Serena’s brother, Collin, waved from behind the wheel of his utility van. Jimena had really disliked Collin when she first met him. Their constant bickering had upset Serena, but they got along okay now.
She stepped to the van and looked through the passenger-side window.
“I’m looking for Serena. Have you seen her?” His face was sunburned, his nose peeling and his lips still had traces of white zinc oxide. Lines from dried salt water traced around the back of his deeply tanned neck. Wind whipped through the driver’s side window and blew his long white-blond hair into his blue eyes. He looked like something from a kid’s comic book.
“I haven’t seen her,” Jimena answered.
“You haven’t?” He looked surprised.
“Maybe she had a cello lesson,” Jimena offered, even though she knew that wasn’t true. Serena was keeping her relationship with Stanton a secret from Collin. Her brother was overly protective of his little sister, and that meant he tended to scare boyfriends away. Although, Jimena couldn’t imagine anyone frightening Stanton.
“You want a ride then?” Collin leaned over and opened the passenger-side door.
She hesitated. There was still a chance she could meet up with Veto.
“Come on,” he coaxed.
Finally she handed him her books and crawled in.
He smiled broadly and waited for her to hook the seat belt before he pulled away from the curb. His surfboard was in the back of the van wrapped in towels.
“Why aren’t you surfing?” she asked. Collin was a total board-head. Waves were the only thing he ever had on his mind.
“Heavy rains bring pollution.” He shrugged. “They closed the beaches.”
During heavy rains, raw sewage filled with bacteria spilled into the ocean, threatening swimmers with hepatitis. But Jimena knew that not all of the beaches were closed. She had heard kids at school talking about the six-foot swells down at Huntington Beach.
“Too bad, storm surf is awesome.” He mused. “You want to stop at Farmers’ Market?”
“What for?”
“To get something to eat. Aren’t you hungry?” He smiled and turned the wrong way. “Let’s go down to Philippe’s and grab a sandwich.”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I need to get home.” The day felt so over for her. She just wanted to change into her sweats and go over her geometry while huddled in bed.
He continued driving toward downtown.
“You’ll need to turn back,” she reminded him. “I really don’t have time today. Sorry.”
He seemed disappointed. Maybe he hadn’t eaten all day.
“Take this street back to Wilshire.” She pointed and he took a quick right.
When they drove past MacArthur Park, Jimena thought she caught of glimpse of Cassandra.
“Pull over!” she yelled.
“Here?” Collin seemed surprised, but he was already aiming the car to the side of the road. “What’s up?”
“I think I saw someone,” she answered and unhooked her seat belt.
As the car slowed she jumped out and ran through the gridlocked traffic to the park. She hurried around people selling homemade food from large white kettles and darted past vendors’ displays of brightly colored plastic toys, beaded jewelry, and silver watches.
She stopped near a man selling balloons and cotton candy in plastic bags.
Morgan and Karyl sat on a park bench near the lake, watching Cassandra step onto one of the paddleboats.
The wind twisted Cassandra’s frilly lace skirt tightly around her.
Jimena started to go closer to investigate, when a commotion made her turn back. People were spilling from the sidewalks into the street, stopping traffic near Collin’s van.
She glanced back at the water.
Cassandra sat down in the paddleboat, and Karyl and Morgan waved good-bye to her.
A shout made Jimena whip around and look back across the street. A young lanky boy climbed on the hood of Collin’s van. He jumped up and down and waved his arms as if he had just won a soccer game.
She took one last glance at Cassandra. She was pedaling the boat out to the middle of the lake.
Then Jimena turned and sprinted back across the park. When she got to the other side of Wilshire near the van, she shoved through the crowd. She recognized some of the faces of the boys who were bothering Collin. Two lived in her grandmother’s apartment building. They were acting bolder than their years, taunting Collin with lewd hand signs.
Collin leaned against the side of his van, legs crossed in front of him. He didn’t seem worried. He was actually smiling at the boys.
The boys weren’t Ninth Street and that was the problem. She thought they might belong to Wilshire 5. She had seen their graffiti in her grandmother’s basement.
Collin didn’t move. He was making no attempt to get back in his van and drive away. Didn’t he know how dangerous this could be? Their spindly arms and legs might make them look like elementary school boys, but if he pushed them they would have to make a big show of their daring.
“Hey,” she let the word come out hard and severe.
The three boys turned slowly and faced her. Their shaved heads made them look too young for the violence that was on their minds.
“Hey, what?” the lanky one said.
Then all three boys moved as one, close together toward her, emboldened by one another’s bravado.
Jimena shook her head and smiled. “You think the three of you make a vato strong enough to take me on?” She folded her arms
carelessly over her chest.
The fat, dark boy with the long Lakers T-shirt and huge Nikes glared at her.
She knew instinctively that to win she had to act crazy. She let her hand reach inside her coat. She no longer carried a knife or a gun, but her hand remembered the motions of reaching under a shirt, and resting fingers on the cold heavy metal of a gun. That was dangerous. The boys could be strapping. Twelve- and thirteen-year-old kids could buy guns, or steal guns as easily as they could find a way to get a pack of cigarettes.
“Where you from?” The larger boy held his head up in challenge.
She laughed. “Nueve. ¿Y qué? I’m Ninth Street and so what? What do you think the three of you are going to do about it?”
The boys hadn’t expected her to be ganged up. They were too young to remember the time when everyone knew Jimena.
For a moment the boys had a strange look on their faces and they exchanged tense glances. Jimena knew that they saw something menacing and peligroso in her eyes.
The larger boy stepped back. “Come on,” he ordered. “La chica no vale la pena. She’s not worth it.”
The smaller one spit near her shoe before he turned and slowly followed his friend.
“Bitch,” the lanky one mumbled under his breath. He turned and bumped against the people circling the van as he walked away.
Once they were away from Jimena, they sprinted across the street to the park. They stole a soccer ball from a group of younger boys and started to play a hard game to undo the humiliation that a verdadera gang member had just inflicted on them.
She looked at Collin and shook her head.
He was still smiling. Those boys probably couldn’t have driven his car, but the posturing, pretending to be able to do it, was what amused them. Other twelve-year-old kids in her neighborhood were fighting a war. She remembered the helpless feeling of hearing gunshots and seeing the white flashes from the back of cars and diving for cover. That had been in the old days of drive-bys. Now gangsters got their 9-millimeters, walked uninvited into parties, and shot at point-blank range.
She knew what a bullet could do, and she suddenly felt angry that Collin hadn’t gunned the motor and fled.