Chapter 5
Dawn and I floated in the pool with dark sunglasses and tumblers of ice water all day on Saturday. If my parents suspected anything was wrong, they didn’t let on.
“I think we need more Popsicles.” Dawn groaned, putting a hand to her head.
“That sounds yummy right now. I'll ask Dad for the car keys.” I climbed out of the pool and went searching the house for my parents.
“Hey Dad, can we take the car to go get Popsicles?” I asked, as I entered the living room.
Dad looked up from reading the paper in response to my question. Who still read the print version these days? Why didn’t he just look it up on his computer?
“What’s so special about these Popsicles?” Dad peered over the paper and his reading glasses.
“They are awesome. Do you want me to bring you back one?” I tried to sound enthusiastic, even though my head pounded like a jackhammer.
He started laughing. “No, I’ll trust they’re every bit as ‘awesome’ as you say they are. The keys are on the kitchen counter. Take your mother’s car please.”
“Got it. Thanks, Dad.” I kissed his cheek and called out to Dawn to put on some clothes so we could go.
I pulled on an athletic shirt and running shorts over my swimsuit in anticipation of floating in the pool after our popsicle run, and we took off in Mom’s car. At least, now we knew where to go. Thankfully, we found parking on the street this time. I didn’t want to spend five dollars every time we wanted to go into town. We headed for the grocery, knowing just what we wanted.
After shopping, we headed for the same park bench and sat down to enjoy the creamy dessert. Javier parked right in front of us. My heart skipped a beat and I tried not to look excited to see him. I could feel a bead of sweat run down my neck even though my hair was up in a clip. What was he doing? He couldn’t be here to get Popsicles. He got out of the car and walked over to us.
“Still recovering from last night?” Javier asked, grinning.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.
“Did you have fun at least?”
“Yeah, it was a good time.”
“Are you going again next Friday?”
“Yes.” We hadn’t even talked about if we were going next Friday or not, but at that moment I decided I’d be there.
“I'll look for you.” He grinned at me again, then turned, sauntered down the street and entered one of the shops.
“Wow, Javier Fuentes. Impressive. You know one of the girls we were out with last night said that the Fuentes have an uncle who is a Senator in Mexico and another who is the Governor of Sonora. I guess his dad owns a couple of car lots as well. That’s one of the reasons that nobody messes with him.”
“What are the other reasons?”
“They say he's a drug dealer. That’s the real reason nobody messes with him, Kayla.”
I thought for a minute. I felt disappointed even hearing he was suspected of dealing drugs. Something about him intrigued and excited me. He was mysterious and held an aura of power that would attract any girl, not just me.
“Do you really think that’s true?”
“Who knows?” Dawn shrugged her shoulders. “It’s just what people say.”
~ ~ ~
It was back to school on Monday, another week to tackle. I looked forward to seeing Javier even though he didn’t seem to acknowledge my existence. I made my way to my first class. I sat in the middle of the room waiting to see him come in.
Class started and no Javier. I wondered where he was? Maybe he was sick. He’d looked fine on Friday and Saturday. I noticed that his usual group of friends weren’t around either. Maybe they’d all skipped today.
By the time I got to my interior design class I couldn’t wait for the day to end. At least, Veronica was in the room.
“Hey, girl. How’s it going?” Veronica said, turning around in her seat after I sat down.
“Hi Veronica. I’m fine. It’s only the second week for me and I am looking forward to graduating.”
She laughed and said, “Senioritis is with us all, trust me.”
“Where’s your cousin today? I noticed he didn’t make class.”
She rolled her eyes. “I bet you noticed and so did everybody else. He got suspended for the fight at the pub on Friday night.”
“What? How can the principal suspend him for something that happened off school property?” I started to raise my voice.
“Welcome to Nogales. It’s stupid. The good news is that he doesn’t have to tell his parents because he’s eighteen. The school can’t inform them.”
“So the school can suspend him for something that happened in another country, but they can’t call his parents because he is eighteen? Wow, it’s hard to figure out what all of the rules are.” The topic disgusted me.
“It’s the best they can do. The cops aren’t going to press charges because my tío will just drop them.”
“Your tío the Senator, or your tío the Governor?”
Veronica laughed again. “How did you figure all of that out?”
I felt embarrassed that I’d let on how much I’d heard about her family. “My sister said the girls we were with on Friday night told her that.”
Veronica rolled her eyes for the second time. “Ugh, talk, talk, talk, it’s all those girls do. What else did they say?”
“That Javier’s dad owns a couple of car lots and that he can do whatever he wants because he is a...” I decided to not confess what else had been said.
“A what?” Veronica said defensive. “I swear if they’re calling him a drug dealer again, I’ll throw down with whoever said it. Everyone around here thinks if you have money, then it’s from dealing.” She paused for a moment. “He isn’t a dealer. Trust me. He likes to fight but he isn’t a dealer. It’s true his dad owns two car lots though. That’s where Javier got the souped-up Camaro.” Veronica spun around in her seat as the teacher walked in and class started.
I turned my focus to what the teacher was saying, but I couldn’t keep my thoughts from wandering back to our previous conversation. What was Javier doing? How long would it be before I got to see him again?
I got butterflies in my stomach every time I thought about him. I wanted to run my fingers through his jet-black hair. My mind shifted back to class again. We needed to finish our project, which was looking really good. Class ended and I stood up, grabbing my backpack before lunch.
“Do you want to come to my house Thursday night and we can put the finishing touches on our project?” Veronica asked.
“Yeah, that’d be great. Give me your address.” I handed over my phone with her contact information pulled up onto the screen. She took it and entered the address and handed it back to me. I tucked my phone away. “What time is good?”
“Let’s say seven. My mom insists that we have dinner together as a family, but we should be done by then.”
“Seven it is. See you tomorrow in class.” I turned and walked out of class and to the courtyard.
I met up with Dawn for lunch. “How’s your day going?” I asked her.
“Same old thing. How ‘bout you?”
“Fine. Veronica told me that Javier and his friends got suspended for the fight on Friday night.”
“I heard that too. I guess because they were fighting with other kids from the school, the administration decided it was their business.”
“I still think it’s weird that a school would get involved in something that didn’t even happen here. I mean if I get a parking ticket in town, does that mean I can’t park here as a result?”
“Good point. You’re kind of grumpy about this. Is it jacking up your day to not be able to see Javier in class?” Dawn smirked at me.
“It does jack up my day if you must know.”
“You are hopeless.”
~ ~ ~
Further rumors during the day confirmed the guys fighting with Javier and his friends were members of the school baseball team. I saw one of them with a puffy black eye while walking to class. The story going around was that Martin, the one with the black eye, flirted with Ricardo’s girlfriend.
Ricardo was Javier’s best friend since birth apparently. Martin sat down in her seat at the pub and talked her into sitting on his lap. She did and Ricardo was not impressed. They jumped Martin and his friends as a result and Ricardo broke up with his girlfriend in the aftermath. It all seemed a little extreme to me but that was the story.
When I got home all I could think about was what Javier was doing if he wasn’t at school. How long was he going to be suspended? I hoped he’d still go to the pub on Friday night. I finally decided doing my homework was a better use of my time. I immersed myself in Calculus and Physics for a couple of hours and then surfed the net. I started looking up colleges with interior design programs, definitely the direction I intended to go after high school. I downloaded applications for New York City, San Jose, and Northern Arizona. I’d need to start compiling my portfolio soon.
I snapped my laptop closed and decided to call it a night. My thoughts wandered back to Javier. Would I get lucky? Would he show up at Veronica’s on Thursday?