Accidental Love

by Gary Soto

  But neither went trick-or-treating. Rene had to hand out candy at his house, and Aunt Sara asked Marisa to do the same at her place. Aunt Sara was working the night shift at the hospital and didn't want to leave her house empty on a night when not only goblins and spirits but downright nasty thieves broke into homes. She left Marisa with a pizza and three bags of candy to hand out.

  "I shouldn't," she told herself as she pulled a cheesy slice of pizza toward her mouth. "I really shouldn't." But her tongue rolled out, and she bit into the slice. Her eyes fluttered closed. It was too delicious. She took a second and third bite and then wiped her fingers on a paper napkin when she heard the shuffling of little feet at the front door. When the doorbell rang, she snatched a bag of candy from the coffee table.

  "Trick or treat!" screamed three girls, all princesses.

  Marisa rained big chunky candies into their bags, and showered more into the bags of the next herd of trick-or-treaters.

  She was kept busy. When the hordes finally stopped coming, she returned to the kitchen with her mouth watering for her half-eaten slice of pizza. It had grown cold and gooey, so she popped it in the microwave and returned to the front door when the bell rang.

  "Trick or treat," a crew of three guys croaked, their deep voices sounding like frogs.

  "Hey," one of them said after he grabbed three fistfuls of candy. "Ain't you Marisa?"

  They're from Washington, she guessed.

  "Yeah. Who are you?"

  The guy stripped off his mask. It was a screaming face, modeled after a painting that had been popular since he was a baby. But he was no longer little, though his pants were riding low. He had a faint mustache and his teeth were yellowish from cigarette smoke.

  "Joel," Marisa said. "Aren't you too old for trick-or-treating?"

  "¡Chale! I could do it two more years." He threw two fingers up like a pitchfork. "After that I'll give it a rest, and then when I get my kids, I'll push them in the stroller."

  "¡Qué gacho, carnal!" one of the friends cried with laughter.

  Joel's friends stripped off their masks. Marisa recognized one of them, and the other was someone she had never met and would rather not know—a chain of bluish tattooed tears fell from the corner of his right eye.

  "You moved, qué no? Is this your crib?" Joel asked as he leaned around Marisa and peered in. "I like the couch. Es muy firme for, tú sabes, a little action."

  "It's my aunt's place."

  "Your tía home?"

  "Yeah, she's home." Marisa's heart began to thump. Joel wasn't the worst guy in the world, but he wasn't an altar boy, either.

  "Too bad," Joel crowed as he wiggled his hips and threw his arms into the air. "We coulda partied. You feel me?" He brought a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit up. "Hey, how come you moved to that gabacho school? Don't you like us losers?"

  Marisa thought fast and conjured up a lie. "My mom made me. She said I was messing up."

  "I'm messing up, but my mom don't move me." Joel giggled. "But that's smart of your mom, caring about you and everything." He sucked on his cigarette and let out a wafer of smoke. "The word is you're all stuck-up, too good for us." Joel's face became slick with meanness, his teeth like rows of corn. He turned his face slightly and spit out a flake of tobacco.

  "People spew all kinds of nasty rumors," Marisa said with a sneer that had no feeling behind it. She was praying for a group of trick-or-treaters to come up the walk, but none did.

  "I heard about you and Roberto. You two threw some pleitos and you messed him up good. He's a weak pendejo, but you're tight, girl." He turned to his friends. "She's tight, huh?"

  The friends nodded like those toy Chihuahuas in the back windows of cars. One took the cigarette from Joel and used it to light his own. The tip of the cigarette caught and glowed red as sin.

  Marisa couldn't think of a smooth escape. She looked back into the living room and said, "My aunt wants me."

  "You all right, girl," Joel slurred. He turned to his friends. "She's all right, huh?"

  Their heads did the toy-Chihuahua nod.

  They left tripping down the walk and unwrapping candy bars, their masks sitting on top of their heads. They don't need masks, Marisa thought. They're already scary.

  "You're tight, girl!" All the next day the phrase played in Marisa's mind and made her hate Joel and his low-life Mends. "You're tight, girl!" echoed again like a refrain and made her hate the world. You want to be happy; she thought, and then a weasel-neck like Joel shows up to make you feel bad. To make you think nothing has changed at all.

  When Rene and Marisa went to rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet, Marisa felt out of place. Everyone was so cheerful, hugging one another and clasping hands. They were so touchy-feely.

  "They're a bunch of fakes," Marisa muttered. She had just watched the scene when Juliet discovers Romeo dead—Marisa could see the dead Romeo's eyes fluttering. And he had crossed his legs. A dead person crossing his legs? Even their love for each other seemed fake.

  "No, they're not. They're as genuine as you or me." Rene pouted with his head down, as if he were mad at his shoes. He asked, "What's wrong with you? How come you're so negative?"

  Marisa was hurt. She could take a punch from Roberto, or a slap from a girl with a bad attitude. She could take her mother's scolding voice about her not cleaning up her bedroom. But the questions from Rene hurt. So he thought she had a bad attitude?

  "Nothing's wrong with me." Her back stiffened with anger.

  "I know that you went to a bad high school—"

  Marisa cut Rene off with a bitter stare. She got up and left the auditorium, her backpack feeling like it carried something heavier than books.

  "These Hamilton kids don't know the real world," she muttered as she stood in the autumn sunlight, the wind flicking her hair about her. She took out her cell phone and checked the time: 4:17 P.M. Her mother was going to pick her up at 5:00 in front of the school. Marisa turned, faced the auditorium door where she had exited, and waited for Rene to come out, apologizing on his knees. But the door didn't swing open. She made out laughter coming from inside. Were they laughing at her?

  Marisa was sensitive to criticism and she knew that at times she imagined things—a mere glance from someone on the street caused her to roll her hands into fists. Is it me? she often thought, and she thought it at that moment: Is it me? Or is it this new school? Her mood was dark. She wanted to kick something.

  "Maybe I am negative," she muttered. "But I don't care. I don't belong here."

  Marisa walked down a hallway plastered with signs for the school clubs—science, vegan, bisexual, poets for the world, thespians, Latinos in business. She sneered at the posters. At her old school the walls were tagged with graffiti.

  "I know they're fakes," Marisa said. She boiled with anger and ventured into the restroom. With a fingernail, she dabbed at something in her eye, which could have been dust, an eyelash, a windblown speck from a tree. She blinked, but her eye still felt scratchy. She closed her eyes and reconstructed the image of Rene asking her, "What's wrong with you?" She could have asked him the same, "What's wrong with you?" Sure, she thought, he's changed his socks and pants, but not that stupid laugh of his.

  A girl entered the restroom, observed Marisa, and went into a stall, where she started crying. Marisa was going to tease her hair, but she put her brush back. She listened as the crying eventually subsided into a sob, then tiptoed to the stall, knocked, and asked, "You okay? What's wrong?"

  There was silence before the girl replied, "Everything."

  "What do you mean?" Marisa asked after a long minute.

  The girl unlocked the stall and came out. Her eyes were runny with tears and her nose was red.

  "This boy I like...," the girl began softly. "He walks past me like he doesn't see me." Tears began to leak down her cheeks.

  "Boys!" Marisa growled. "They ain't nowhere like us girls."

  Marisa opened her arms and the girl took baby steps into Marisa's
embrace. Marisa let her sob on her shoulder and began to think that maybe this touchy-feely approach of her classmates could be real.

  "What's your name?" Marisa asked when the crying slowed down.

  "Priscilla," the girl sobbed.

  "Mine's Marisa," she volunteered, and released the girl from her embrace. She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and handed it to Priscilla, who blew long and hard and tossed the wadded-up paper towel at the garbage can. She missed by a foot.

  They left the restroom, arm in arm, and Marisa couldn't believe the change in herself. Less than an hour before she had been brooding about the actors and their fake expressions of love. Now she could see how she might have been wrong.

  "Boys...," Marisa grumbled. "We just got to depend on ourselves."

  Whatever had been in her eye was gone. She could see clearly in the late afternoon sun. She realized that it was okay to hug. There was nothing fake about it if it felt right.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning Marisa spotted Rene slurping from a water faucet. She was shocked to see that he was back to wearing white socks and high-water pants. His hair was uncombed. His large watch was like a handcuff on his skinny wrist. He was carrying a small briefcase that Marisa knew held his chessboard and pieces. He stood up, wiping droplets from his mouth, and turned away.

  Marisa was hurt. How could he so cruelly ignore her?

  "So what if he thinks he's better than me?" she muttered as she bumped along a crowded hallway, like a fish swimming against the current. "I don't care about no stupid boy."

  But she did care. In history her mind floated over battle scenes from the American Civil War. In biology she peered into a microscope and attempted to sketch the cells of dead leaves. In English she scrawled on her binder and studied her classmates, some of whom were listening to the teacher discuss a Robert Frost poem about walking through snow. What did she know about snow? She had seen it in calendars, but had never scooped it up and patted it into a ball. She wanted to return to her old school.

  But her doubts left her when at lunchtime she saw Priscilla seated alone at a rickety wooden table. When she plopped down opposite Priscilla, she noticed the table was scarred with names of couples: Terry & Jason, Seth & Brittany, Laura & Rafael, Ryan & Derek.

  "How do you feel?" Marisa asked when her gaze lifted from the table.

  Priscilla was eating a large sugar doughnut. She offered half to Marisa.

  "Better," Priscilla answered. She nibbled her doughnut and asked Marisa if she was new to the school.

  "Yeah, I am. I got tired of all the jargon at my old school." Marisa told her that she had transferred two weeks before because her old school was messed up. She recounted the story of Alicia and Roberto, the accident, the photo that popped out of the glove compartment, and Alicia's broken leg. But she didn't describe the two fights with Roberto—Marisa didn't want to come off as a hothead. She told Priscilla that she moved to the new school to get away from trouble and to get better grades and—she slowly peeled a sliver from the wooden table—because she wanted to be with her new boyfriend.

  "Who's he?" Priscilla asked.

  Marisa hesitated, swallowing twice as she debated whether to describe Rene, a confirmed nerd. She held the sliver of wood between her thumb and index finger, and slowly applied pressure until a spark of pain ignited against her skin. "It's a guy named Rene."

  "Rene Carey?" Priscilla asked.

  "No, Rene Torres," Marisa answered without looking at Priscilla. She wanted to give Priscilla time to wince, smirk, or throw up at the mention of Rene the nerd. But she didn't spew to Priscilla that they had just broken up.

  Priscilla remained silent. A sparrow landed near their feet in search of crumbs. The bird pecked at something on the ground and flew away.

  "He's nice," Priscilla said.

  She's so polite, Marisa thought, and laughed. "It's funny how we met." Here Marisa became honest. "You know how I mentioned Alicia and Roberto?"

  Priscilla nodded.

  "Well, I got in a fight with Roberto."

  "You mean like—" Priscilla lifted up her two dainty fists.

  "Yeah, like that." She told Priscilla how the cell phones had been mixed up in the scuffle.

  "Life's weird, huh?" Priscilla remarked. "But how did Roberto know Rene? They go to different schools."

  "Rene was tutoring Roberto in math. Roberto has to be better at it to get into the army." Marisa peeled another sliver from the tabletop. "Then we got together to get our cell phones back. I could see that he was a nerd."

  "Yeah, he is."

  "But he was sort of sweet."

  "Sweet matters. That's what I found out when I liked this other boy who turned out to be mean."

  "And that's how we started. That's why I'm here." Talking about Rene made Marisa realize that she missed him.

  Priscilla and Marissa punched each other's number into their cell phones. The bell rang, and lunch was over for them but just beginning for the sparrows. The birds swooped down from the bare trees to feast on the crumbs students had dropped thoughtlessly to the ground.

  ***

  "Rene!" Marisa yelled as she pushed through a crowd at the end of the school day. He was hurrying away from her. "I'm going to get real mad if you don't stop. Rene! Rene! Do you hear me?"

  Rene stopped, turned, and asked, "What?" One of his pants cuffs was hooked on his sock.

  With long scissoring steps, Marisa closed in on him and pulled up within inches of his face.

  "How come you're cold to me? Just because I said those people were fake?" She pointed in the direction of the auditorium.

  "It's complicated," Rene answered vaguely.

  "Complicated!" She breathed in and out like a prizefighter. "Listen, Rene, I was wrong. I was stupid, you know. But it doesn't mean you have to dump me."

  "I'm not dumping you." He let his backpack slide from his arm. "It's just that my mom found out about you. And she doesn't want me to see you." His lower lip dropped, as if he couldn't believe what he had just admitted.

  "Your mom! What does she have to do with us?" If Marisa were a dragon, smoke would have billowed from her nostrils. "Aren't you a man?"

  "No, not yet."

  ¡Chihuahua! Marisa thought. Of course he wasn't—but still! Then she remembered his mother's unpleasant voice on the telephone. Maybe she was mean as a snake. She risked asking, "You got issues with your mom, huh?"

  Head bowed, he answered, "Sometimes."

  Marisa's lips rolled and puckered, opened and closed, as anger brewed inside her. When she sighed, some of the anger escaped. She felt sorry for Rene. He had been trying to change, with his clothes and by lifting weights.

  "Listen, I have to go," said Rene. He cut a glance at the student parking lot jammed with cars.

  "You didn't bring your bike?" Marisa asked. "No, your mom's picking you up. Rene, you're like a little kid!"

  Rene squeaked a good-bye, turned, and hurried to the parking lot, where he got into a white Toyota.

  "He's not going to just drop me like that!" Marisa ran after the Toyota creeping through the parking lot. Other cars were slowly exiting, turning right because if they went left, a motorcycle cop parked at the corner would twitch his mustache and get them.

  "Hey!" She knocked on the window. "Rene, roll down your window."

  Rene glanced at her briefly and then stared straight ahead. His hands were fidgeting on his lap. His mother, Marisa guessed, was a control freak.

  "Come on—roll it down, Rene." The Toyota slowly advanced toward the exit—the parking lot was crowded with cars trying to get out at the same time—and Marisa kept pace as she considered the dramatic action of leaping onto the hood. But she didn't have to. The window slid down noiselessly.

  "My mom says what do you want?" Rene asked meekly.

  "What! Rene, you're talking to me—your girlfriend!" Marisa cut her attention to Rene's mother, who was a little older than her own mom. Her hair was stiff with hair spray, and her small
mouth held back large white teeth. The dress was too short for a woman her age—the hemline revealed two knobby knees.

  "Your what?" Rene's mother barked. She braked the car, an action that made Rene's head sway forward and his arms rise up against the dash.

  "Mi novio! You know, like we hold hands," Marissa blurted out. Her temper flared. What was the big deal for Rene to have a girlfriend?

  "He is no way your novio He's my son!" She bared a set of shark's teeth.

  "Wow, girl," Marisa sang. "Don't get so blown up. We're not getting married or anything."

  "I'm not a girl, as you say!" She snarled something in Spanish that Marisa couldn't make out. Nor could Marisa make out a phrase shaped on Rene's lips—I love you? I like you? Or was it I leave you?

  It must have been the last phrase, because when the Toyota pulled away with a screech, Rene, apparently loyal to his mother, didn't turn back like a little boy for even one last look.

  Marisa rode the city bus home that day. At red lights she peered out the window, greasy with fingerprints, and observed the drivers, men and women, some adolescents a year or two older than she, all going somewhere, all with their own cargo of problems, and maybe joys that brought light to their eyes. Marisa wished she could write a song to explain her feelings—a nerdy boyfriend gone, a new school, a new friend named Priscilla with her own issues.

  "Is there anything wrong?" an elderly woman asked. Her eyes seemed moist.

  "No, not really," Marisa answered. She could sense the woman had been watching her, a kind woman with her coat buttoned all the way up. Her grayish hair was tidy, and the cat pin on her lapel sparkled every time the bus hit a pothole. She was squeezing a sheer silk handkerchief. Marisa recognized that the woman was trying to be nice.

  Marisa got off the bus two stops early and kicked through the leaves. When she arrived home, tired and heavy at heart, she discovered Alicia waiting on the porch. Her crutches were leaning on the rail. Two cold sodas, both unopened, stood sweaty at her feet.