“You okay, Juju?” Papi came out from behind the workbench with Pancake and a four-way wrench. “You look a little flushed, queridita.”
“I was just . . .” Accidentally imagining Emilio with his shirt off again . . . “Emilio showed me the hornets.”
“It’s old,” Papi said. “They can’t get you now.”
“I know but . . .” I took another step back. “I should go. I need to do . . . something. Else.”
“I thought you were spending time with your sister today?” Papi said. “Why is your hair wet?”
I tugged at my ponytail. No offense to Pancake, but I couldn’t rock the wet dog look like he could. “Pancake and I went to the river. Anyway, um, bye.”
“Wait, querida, listen,” Papi said. “Tomorrow you’re going to Emilio’s house to help with something. Okay? Okay.”
Um . . . What?
I narrowed my eyes, scrutinizing him for signs of another meltdown. “Papi, Emilio works here. Are you sure that’s—”
“Yeah.” Emilio dropped the hornets’ nest and dusted off his hands. “I need a favor. El jefe kind of agreed on your behalf.”
My eyes were still on Papi, and now I tried to make them shoot lasers like that guy on X-Men. “What did you sign me up for, old man?”
“Baking cookies,” he said. “You love baking, Juju.”
“That’s Celi,” I said.
“It’s for my ma.” Emilio ran a hand over his bandanna. “Her school’s doing a fund-raiser for this summer trip thing. She has to bake, like, a thousand cookies. She roped Samuel and me into helping—he never says no to her.”
“I can’t tomorrow,” I said. “I have to stay here with Papi.”
Papi swatted the air. “I’ll stay with Mari. You go with Emilio.”
“His mom doesn’t want a bunch of strangers over,” I said. Especially the ones related to the girl who almost became her daughter-in-law . . .
“Obviously you don’t know Ma,” Emilio said.
I glared at him. Still no luck with those eye lasers. “Was this the favor you mentioned to Mari?”
Emilio was all smiles and dimples again. God. Where was Clint Eastwood, rescue cowboy, when I needed him?
“It’ll be a big help,” he said. “If we get done early, I can still put in time on the bike.”
I sighed loudly through my nose, but Papi kept on grinning like this was the best idea ever.
“You’re really racking up the debt with me,” I said to Emilio. “Picking up the bike lift, baking cookies . . .”
Emilio laughed. “That a yes?”
I nodded, but it was only to buy Emilio more time with Valentina. It had nothing to do with his eyes or his wavy black hair or the thin white scars on his arms or anything else. Just to be clear.
“But now you really owe me,” I said. I gave him my own sexy raised eyebrow, because unlike Emilio, I knew how to do that shit correct, and Papi’s eyes were on Emilio, and that boy couldn’t say one more flirty, charming, inappropriate thing.
Papi turned to me with an approving nod, and I dropped the eyebrow and went strictly business. Cookies, yes. I accept the challenge and promise to deliver on time and under budget.
“Está bien, queridita,” Papi said. “You need to get out of the house once in a while. You’re turning into a hermit.”
“What are you reading?” I fwumped on the couch next to Mari, careful not to mix up the papers that surrounded her. I picked up the closest stack.
“It’s the one I sent you.” She assembled another stack and handed it over, each page scrawled with red notes. “The love interest was totally inspired by Tim Riggins.”
“Why didn’t you say so? I would’ve read it last week!”
Mari smacked my leg with her pen. “Read it tonight if you can. I have a call with the author tomorrow—you can sit in, let her know what you thought.”
I jumped off the couch, scattering half the stack in the process. “Seriously? That would be awesome! I could totally . . .”
All the fun died on my lips. I flopped back onto the couch and closed my eyes. “Papi volunteered me to help Emilio’s mom tomorrow with some bake sale thing.”
Silence flooded the space between us.
I opened my eyes, and Mari was totally catching flies.
“I tried to get out of it,” I said. “You know how Papi is.”
More silence.
“After that we’re coming right back here so he can work on the bike,” I said.
Crickets. Birds. Ticking clock. I swear I heard my own hair growing.
“It’s just cookies,” I said.
Mari returned to her papers, scribbling down some notes. After a few more awkward seconds, she set down her pen. “Question: Why is Tim Riggins so hot?”
I pounced on the subject change. “You’re too old for him.”
“I am not! He’s eighteen. Right? Besides, it’s research. I make my living evaluating the romantic potential of fictional boys.”
“I’m sure the judge will believe you,” I said.
“It’s true.”
“Welcome to cougar town. Population: you.”
“Shut up! I’m not that old!”
“Shh! Let me read.” I flipped the page and we settled down, our bare feet finding their way back to each other on the couch as I tried to lose myself in the fictional hotness.
A few paragraphs in, I was already loving the book, panting as expected over this new Riggins-esque bad boy.
But no matter how cute he was, no matter how infuriatingly sexy, he couldn’t distract me from the spark behind my belly button. The nonfictional hotness that had unexpectedly invaded my summer was getting brighter and harder to ignore.
I peeked at Mari over the top of the manuscript and studied her face, the tiny wrinkles around her eyes. They were clever eyes, smart ones. All my sisters had that look, that we know what’s best, we’re wizened from experience and heartbreak.
Emilio’s stupid dimples broke into my thoughts, and I closed my eyes and allowed myself to consider the possibility that my sisters, crazy as they were, might’ve actually known what they were doing when they made me sign that oath.
“Keep reading,” Mari said, mistaking my sudden cloudiness for a good old book-boy swoon. “Things are about to get seriously hot.”
Chapter 13
Papi had sent me straight into the wolves’ den: Casa de Vargas.
According to Mari, this adorable brick bungalow was the hearth and home of destruction, the birthplace of pure evil. So what if the front walk was edged with pink and white roses. So what if a Puerto Rican flag wind sock swayed proudly in the breeze. So what if there was a stone cherub in the garden, outstretched hands full of birdseed for the magpies.
Evil!
I steeled my nerves and rang the bell, and the youngest member of the Vargas bad boy dynasty opened the door in a lime-green apron with a big white daisy embroidered on the front.
“Is that . . .” I squinted at Emilio’s face. “How did you get cookie dough in your eyebrow?”
Emilio swiped a hand across his forehead. “A better question is, why aren’t you barefoot? You are a girl. And we are workin’ in a kitchen, and—ow!” Emilio ducked away from the dark-haired woman who’d backhanded him.
“Watch your mouth, mijo,” she said. “That’s not how you talk to guests.”
“Just a joke, Ma. Chill.” Emilio kissed her cheek and she smiled, then she swatted him on the butt with a dish towel and shooed him back into the kitchen.
“Pay no attention to him.” She held open the door and ushered me inside. “I’m Susana. You must be Jude.”
Susana didn’t wait for a response; she just embraced me. She planted a kiss on each cheek, then pulled away and looked me over, hands firm on my shoulders. “Ay, corazón de melón, so much like your sister. So beautiful, this family!”
Susana should talk—she was stunning. That was the only word for it. Glossy black hair pulled into a low ponytail, tanned skin, brilli
ant eyes like her son’s. She was probably a hearbreaker too.
Evil!
“Come. We’ll show those boys how it’s done now that I’m not outnumbered.” She took my hand and led me into the kitchen, and though my face was hot with embarrassment, the touch of her soft hand in mine felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“Division of labor,” I was telling Emilio. “Your mom and I mix; you handle the baking and cooling. Samuel can box them up at the end.”
Susana and I had been trying to instill order for twenty minutes, but so far, Emilio was wearing and eating more dough than he was baking, and Samuel was playing a zombie game on his phone.
“Ooh, I like this girl, Emilio.” Susana laughed as she rearranged the kitchen to accommodate the new plan. “She’s smart. Knows you need discipline.”
He flopped into a chair next to Samuel at the kitchen table. Towering stacks of white bakery boxes dwarfed them both. “If you two are doing all the work and we’re sittin’ pretty over here, who’s smarter?”
Samuel high-fived him, but before they finished snickering, Susana was looming over them. “Back to work, charlatánitos. Ahora!” She held up a wooden spoon like a threat, and the two “little clowns” scattered into place.
“Trust me,” Samuel said when we’d finally lined up at our stations. “You gotta add grated chocolate. It’s the secret ingredient.”
“Grated chocolate?” Susana said. “This one thinks he’s high society over here!”
I laughed and dumped a bag of chips into the bowl. “Like we trust a guy wearing a pink Kiss the Cook apron anyway.”
“If it helps get me some sugar, I’ll wear it.” Samuel tugged at the ruffles running along his chest. “Takes a real man to rock pink, mama.”
“He givin’ you his ‘real man’ speech again?” Emilio tossed a pot holder at Samuel’s head. “Takes a real man to shut up and work.”
Eventually we found our groove. Susana had the radio on low, some kind of salsa, and she hummed and shook her hips as she mixed the batter, pausing during commercial breaks to tell me about the fund-raiser.
“My summer school kids don’t get as much opportunity for trips like the kids do during the year,” she said. “So this time I ask the district, if I raise the money, can I take them?”
“Notice she didn’t ask me to go,” Emilio said. “I just got volunteered to do all the work.”
She shot him a mom-glare. “I already said you’re coming with us, mijo.”
“Yeah, to babysit.”
She reached behind me and swatted him with the dish towel again, all without missing a beat at the mixing bowl. “Anyway, if we sell all these cookies, the school will give us the bus and driver. I’m taking them to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. I think it’ll be good for them. For this one, too, spending all day in that garage.” She nodded toward Emilio. “Señor Motocicleta could use some culture in his life, no?”
At that moment Mr. Motorcycle had his mouth open, catching gobs of dough that Samuel flung from the other side of the kitchen.
“Definitely,” I said, but Emilio was too busy goofing around to hear us, and as soon as the music returned, Susana was dancing and humming again.
“Update,” Samuel said through a mouthful of cookies. “Five hundred down, five hundred to go. Uh, not counting the ones I ate.”
“Ay, we’ll be here for three days,” Susana said. “Back to work, niños.”
“What are you guys making? It smells so awesome!”
We’d just started on cleanup when the girl appeared. She must’ve let herself in the front door, and now she flung herself at Emilio with glittery arms around his neck and a big glossy smooch right next to his lips.
“Hola, Rosette.” Susana didn’t make any moves to hug the girl. Instead, she stuck her dry hands back into the soapy sink water.
“We’re baking cookies for Ma’s school,” Emilio said. “Just finished.”
“Ooh, I want one!” She made puppy eyes and opened her mouth seductively. Dios mío. She was already prancing around the kitchen with her ginormous long hair and a handkerchief for a shirt. Now she was panting over our goods?
This girl was a walking health code violation!
Emilio handed her a plate with a few extras. “Help yourself.”
She hopped up on the counter and nibbled on the edges of a cookie, feet dangling and kicking the cupboards underneath. Her eyes finally locked on me. “¿Quién es esta chica?”
“Soy Jude,” I said.
“Esta es la novia de Emilio,” Susana said through a polite smile. She gave me a wink that only I could see, and I knew she’d called me Emilio’s girlfriend on purpose.
Rosette’s eyebrows rose. I’d made an enemy for sure.
She looked me up and down again, then hopped off the counter. “I have to get home,” she told Emilio. “We hanging out tonight?”
He made a noncommittal grunt, but she leaned in for a hug anyway, fake-whispering in his ear. “See you later, chillo.”
Once the dishes were done, I rinsed the soap from my hands and asked Emilio to point me to the restroom.
I made my way down the long hall that joined the living room to the bathroom and back bedrooms. The walls were covered in photos, a monument to the lives of Susana’s sons, babies to teenagers to men.
I’d never really known Johnny or Miguel; I had only vague memories of their comings and goings, picking up my sisters for dates and dropping them off again. It was strange to see them on the wall now, growing up before my eyes: teddy bears, school pictures, fishing the Animas, graduations, dirt bikes, surfing off the coast of what was probably Puerto Rico.
I stopped short when I found a pair of familiar eyes gazing back at me from the past.
Lourdes, smiling in her yellow prom dress. Her arm was linked in Miguel’s.
My throat tightened. A few hours after the photo was taken, Miguel left her on the dance floor, crying and bewildered.
There were no pictures of Celi, and I was grateful. Maybe Susana removed them when she heard I was coming over today. Maybe she removed them five years ago.
Just like at home, there weren’t many pictures of the siblings together. But Emilio looked a lot like his brothers. They all had that same flirty attitude, the dimpled smile that was more like a dare than a greeting. There was no denying their charm.
The bathroom was the last door on the left. There were four other open doors on the way, and I poked my head into the first—Susana’s bedroom. It was immaculate and covered in flowers—on the bedspread, on the curtains, in a vase on the dresser. The walls were yellow and looked recently painted, and I remembered the matching paint splotches on Emilio’s shorts, the ones he’d picked at after our driving lesson. In the far corner, a glass saint candle flickered on a short bookshelf. The rest of the shelves were covered with dried flowers, framed pictures, and toys—cars and planes, LEGO blocks. It looked like a shrine, and suddenly I felt like a trespasser. I moved onto the next room.
It was definitely a boy’s room—two, maybe, because there were bunk beds—but there wasn’t much to it. A few swimsuit models tacked to the walls, textbooks on the shelves. An old computer and cables collected dust on the desk, and a model airplane hung from the ceiling, but that was about it.
The next room was a cache for all the stuff that didn’t have a place anymore: sewing machine table, bolts of fabric, arts and crafts supplies, books, stacks of CDs and videos, tubes of wrapping paper and ribbons, dresses in dry cleaner bags, cardboard boxes of who knows what. It was a lot like our storage barn.
In other words, normal. Homey. Regular, nonevil people stuff.
I inched into the last room, knowing it had to be Emilio’s. My stomach got fizzy at the idea of seeing his personal space, where he slept at night, where he woke each morning. I hoped he hadn’t left anything gross—e.g., Rosette’s lacy underwear—on the floor.
His scent enveloped me—the leather jacket draped over the desk chair, the fabric soft
ener his mother must’ve used on all his clothes. His room was messy but in a totally cute way—blankets thrown haphazardly on the bed, a stack of folded T-shirts toppling sideways from the desk. His shelves held old motorcycle manuals, and the walls—instead of the babes on bikes I’d imagined—were covered with maps. All different colors, different styles, some laminated, some with folds and staples from magazines. The one over his desk had a series of red thumbtacks that stretched from Blackfeather to California, looping in and out of towns and cities from the mountains to the sea.
His road trip route. It had to be.
I crept in for a closer look and imagined what it would be like to ride on the back of his bike, see the road with him. It was a silly fantasy, one that would never leave this room, but for a moment my arms and legs buzzed with anticipation, and I swear I felt the wind in my hair.
Below the map in a silver frame on the desk, a photograph caught my eye. Two boys, both around ten or eleven, maybe. They had their arms around each other, and there was a huge lizard thing—one of them dangled it by the tail. The other one was Emilio—those dimples were a dead giveaway.
They were covered in mud, totally soaked. It reminded me of summers near the river, all the trouble Zoe and I would get into digging for worms and letting the ground squirrels eat our trail mix.
“That’s Emilio and his cousin.”
I jumped at Susana’s voice. “Sorry. I didn’t . . . I was looking for the bathroom and I just . . . I saw the maps and the picture.”
Susana came into the room and took the frame from my hands. She rubbed the glass with her apron and stared at it a moment before she spoke again, her fingers lightly stroking their faces.
“They were supposed to be raking leaves,” she said. “I promised them ten dollars each just so I could have some time alone in the house. Imagine my surprise when they came back with this little dragon. And they look like they got into a mud wrestling match.” She laughed. “¡Ay Bendito! I almost had a heart attack.”
“Did you let them keep it?”
“Only to take the picture. It jumped out of their hands and ran away. I said, good riddance! Did they listen to me? No. They chased it down again. I had to tell them it was poisonous. Just a little white lie, right?”