Accidental Love

by Gary Soto

  "And not fossils like me." Mr. Carver chuckled. He was an old man with rivulets of lines around his eyes and mouth. He walked with a stooped shuffle as if he were ready to spin a bowling ball down a polished alley.

  Marisa and Mr. Carver ventured into storage. While he stepped among the shelves of books, Marisa noticed a chalkboard on wheels. There was a poorly drawn heart at its center and within the heart a name: Samantha. Taped to the edges of the chalkboard were wilted flowers and balloons deflated with age. Someone had written, We'll miss you.

  "Who's Samantha?" Marisa asked. She had a deep feeling that this girl Samantha was dead and her memory no more than a crooked heart. A shiver rose from her lower back and blossomed in her shoulders.

  "Who?" Mr. Carver asked from behind a wall of books.

  "Never mind."

  Marisa shivered when she touched the chalkboard. She examined the chalk on her finger, chalk as white as bone. She remembered playing dead with her cousin Pilar when they were little, and thinking that it wasn't really all that bad. She couldn't move, but she still had her thoughts.

  "What?" Mr. Carver called. He reappeared from behind the wall with a stack of books in his hands.

  "Who's Samantha?"

  He set the books on the cart and approached the chalkboard, spanking dust from his hands. "I don't recall," he answered.

  "I think she died," Marisa said.

  Mr. Carver nodded. He peeled one of the cards from the chalkboard and remarked, "Maybe she died of a broken heart. I don't remember her."

  Marisa thought of Priscilla. After Aaron left the park, Priscilla had collapsed against Marisa's shoulder to cry. Marisa had patted her on the back and let her new friend sob. "He's no good," Marisa said, and Priscilla had agreed through clenched teeth, "I know, I know." For a second she imagined Priscilla collapsing to the ground, brokenhearted, all because of a conceited boy.

  Marisa helped Mr. Carver stack books on the cart. She looked back and wondered how long Samantha's name would remain on the chalkboard before someone—a janitor, a student, or a teacher as ancient as Mr. Carver—would erase her name for good.

  Chapter 13

  Marisa stepped out of the shower, felt a bump on her hip, and asked herself, "What the heck is this?" For one frightening moment she thought that it might be a cancerous tumor. She dressed and ran to her mother, who was at the kitchen table about to bite into a jelly doughnut. After her mother felt around Marisa's body, she offered an unprofessional conclusion: It was a hip bone.

  "See, you have a shape," her mother praised. Then she raised the doughnut to her mouth, nibbling it delicately with a napkin under her chin in anticipation of the oozing jelly. She swallowed and cleared her throat. "You're turning into a lady. How about we get you a new dress?"

  Marisa wasn't quite ready for that much change yet. She declined the dress but did ask for three dollars—it was her turn to treat Rene to one of those fruity drinks at the school snack shop.

  For years Marisa had been chubby—una gordita— but now she could see that beneath that wobbly fat breathed a shapely young woman. That thought made her sparkle and skip down the hallway at school.

  "Guess what?" Marisa asked Rene after she gave him a hug, planning to tell him about her unfounded cancer scare.

  "Not now." Rene shushed her by pressing a finger across her mouth and tugged her away from streams of students kicking down the hallway. They fled to the empty baseball diamond, where he unzipped his backpack and pulled out a tabby kitten whose eyes were half shut. The cat yawned and its tiny legs pedaled in the air.

  "Qué linda," Marisa cooed.

  Rene had to agree. He told her that he had found the kitten on the way to school.

  "What are you going to do with her?"

  "Keep her."

  "But, I mean, we're in school."

  Rene pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and checked the time. It was 8:12 and first period didn't start until 8:35.

  "I'll keep her in my backpack," Rene said, but then decided that was probably an unwise move. Not all the teachers were old and deaf, so surely one of them would pick up the sound of meowing. They opted to hide the kitten on campus. "But we're going to need some food. She's, like, starving."

  Marisa suggested the 7-Eleven on Fruit Avenue, and they were off, the cat meowing and Marisa meowing back. She had had a cat when she was very young, but the cat, a homebody who slept on an army blanket on the back porch, disappeared one day. She had made her dad drive around the block, her head hanging out the car window and crying, "Princess, Princess, where are you?" She remembered the rain and the reflection of her teary face, distorted in the wet car window. It didn't help that her father had quipped, "It's going to rain cats and dogs, and you'll get another cat—you'll see."

  "Don't worry, baby kitty-kitty," Marisa sang as she let go of that sorrowful memory. "We're going to save you, kitty-witty." Then, patting her hip, she said, "Feel this."

  Rene touched her hip—politely, as if he were a doctor.

  "What do you feel?"

  "It's your hip bone," he said, unmoved. "What about it?"

  "When I got out of the shower this morning, I thought this bumpy bone was cancer. I'd never noticed it before. But I'm okay!" She hugged Rene and petted his backpack. "We're going to save you, kitty-witty."

  They bought a can of cat food. Outside the store Marisa pulled back the tab, and the can opened with a sigh. She stuck her finger into the food and forked out a glob.

  "Here's some grub." Marisa beckoned. She wiggled her finger at the kitten, which Rene had set on the curb. The cat, dazed by sunlight and freedom, staggered, stumbled, and rose to sniff a dandelion.

  "It's comida time," Marisa crowed as she set the kitten on her lap.

  The kitten poked at her finger and licked it, then began to suckle it.

  "It's so hungry," Marisa whined pitifully. She dipped her finger into the cat food for a second helping.

  They fed the kitten, returned it to the backpack, and started back to school in a hurry—they were late. On the way they faced a problem larger than if the vice principal had called them into the office.

  "It's my mom!" Rene cried, and stepped away from Marisa.

  His mother's car had just turned a corner, slowed, and braked in the middle of the road, its taillights red as sin. She whipped her head around, and her eyes locked on them. The car window rolled down.

  "What are you two up to?" she yelled.

  They turned and hurried through the broken fence at the corner of the campus. Marisa was miffed at Rene for having stepped away from her. She was aware that he wasn't brave, but wasn't she his girlfriend? Was he that scared of his mother?

  "I'm sorry I did that," Rene apologized. He had picked up on her disappointment. He tried to put his hand around her waist, but she shrugged him off.

  They walked in silence, ignoring the cat's meowing. When they began to cross the baseball field, Marisa asked, "What are we going to do with the cat?"

  Rene suggested the dugout by the baseball diamond. "She won't go anywhere," he said. He set the can of cat food on the floor of the dugout, and the kitten licked it.

  "She's so cute," Marisa said in a brighter mood as she took Rene's hand in hers. She didn't want to stay grumpy. It wasn't his fault his mother's second vehicle was a broom. She rested her head against his shoulder and scanned the school grounds—a landlocked seagull, wing raised, was pecking at its feathers. "I wish we could go far away."

  "Like where?" Rene asked.

  "To the ocean. Or maybe to somewhere it snows."

  Rene embraced and kissed Marisa. "That would be okay with me."

  "Wouldn't it be cool if that seagull got really, really big so that we could sit on it and fly away?" Marisa became dreamy as she envisioned both of them clinging to the neck of the seagull and flapping along at cloud level.

  "It's possible," Rene said. "One day it's going to happen."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Gene research. In a decade scie
ntists are going to be able to increase the size of animals. You just watch."

  "Maybe you'll be one of the scientists."

  Marisa expanded on the dream of flying away on the back of a seagull. They would live on an island, drink coconut milk, and skewer fish on sticks and roast them over an open fire. She told Rene that when their clothes shredded to nothing, they could weave themselves hula skirts and make sandals out of tree bark. And if they got sick, they could lie on the beach and let the sun heal them.

  "What about the kitten?" Rene asked.

  "We'll take her with us." Marisa tickled the kitten's chin. "Huh, silly? You'll go with us to a faraway island. There will be a boy kitty waiting for you."

  "What should we name her?" Rene asked.

  Marisa was quick with an answer. She liked the name Sammy, short for Samantha, but didn't explain that she had seen the name with a heart drawn on the chalkboard in the storage room. She didn't divulge the story about the girl who had died and was forgotten.

  They were late for their first classes and walked hand in hand, as if they were handcuffed, into the principal's office.

  But the principal had no time for them. The secretary presented them with tardy slips and shooed them out the door. There was an emergency. One of the students in art class had sliced his wrist and showered blood all over the classroom. By first break everyone was talking about Cody, the boy who had taken a shard of glass and raked it over his wrist.

  "Do you know him?" Marisa asked as they hurried across the field toward the baseball diamond.

  "Not really," Rene answered. "I just remember him from fourth grade. He put a crayon up his nose, and they had to call the fire department to get it out."

  "Nah!"

  "I'm serious. They had to call the fire department."

  Marisa pictured a red crayon sticking out of the kid's nose. She couldn't help but think that had been a sign of worse things yet to come—red nose, red wrist.

  They found the kitten asleep on the bench in the dugout.

  "Sammy!" Marisa called. She bent down and picked up the cross-eyed cat—it had been sleeping and was still groggy. She cradled the kitten in her arms but handed it to Rene when her cell phone rang.

  "Yeah," Marisa said. It was Priscilla calling from somewhere on campus.

  Marisa was excited to share the secret about the kitten. But Priscilla had a secret of her own. She said that a boy—a good-looking one, too—was shadowing her. Their faces had almost touched when they bent down at the water fountain at the same time. And he had been two places behind her when she was in line to get a churro. Didn't that mean something?

  "You go, girl!" Marisa exclaimed. "The stars are aligned and coming together. You were meant to be a couple!" When Marisa was younger, she had followed her horoscope closely and believed that the moon and the stars had an effect on mankind. (She was a whimsical Sagittarius, given to flights of fancy and temper tantrums.) She had never, however, read, "A nerd will come into your life." Some events were inexplicable, like the discovery of the kitten, which was now on top of Rene's shoes throwing jabs at the laces. Neither could Marisa explain why Priscilla had already forgotten Aaron, but she was glad about it.

  "Even the cat doesn't like my shoes," Rene joked.

  "They are ugly, muy feos," Marisa agreed. "It would be better if you went barefoot."

  "I almost am." He stood storklike and lifted one leg to present with pride the bottom of one of his shoes—there was a small worn hole in the sole.

  When the bell rang, Marisa stroked the kitten good-bye and promised to return. She and Rene hurried across the baseball field but slowed to a stop when they heard Adam and Brittany, Romeo and Juliet in the play, arguing viciously. Adam was calling Brittany self-centered and Brittany, her face just inches from his, was calling Adam a thoughtless brat for not remembering her birthday.

  Marisa had not known that they were a couple. It was one more surprise for the day—a kitten that belonged to them and then a spat between boyfriend and girlfriend. She could tell right there, in center field where many a baseball had been caught and dropped, that this Romeo wouldn't die for his Juliet—not a chance. As for Juliet, she wouldn't chug down any poison for this lover boy. Life was too precious.

  They sped off when Juliet started to jab a fingernail into Romeo's shoulder. She was making a point that Marisa didn't care to know.

  It was enchilada night at home, and after dinner it was Marisa's duty to bust the suds on the pile of greasy plates and pans. She loved her enchiladas, especially red cheesy ones, but also hated those evenings. She often changed the water twice to get the plates to come clean.

  It had been a heartbreaking day, too. When she and Rene returned after school to claim the kitten, it was gone. Marisa's eyes had become moist, and her lower lip trembled for Sammy. The seagull was gone as well. For a moment as they walked across the baseball field, hand in hand with their heads bowed from their loss, Marisa had imagined that the kitten was on the back of the seagull and headed somewhere nice.

  "Mom," Marisa called softly.

  Her mother was searching the pantry for a can of tuna for the next day's lunch. She came out with a can of SPAM. "What?" she asked.

  "Are you going to come to see Romeo and Juliet?"

  "Claro. I'll be seated right up front." She nudged her daughter away from the sink to rinse the top of the can. She dried the can on her apron and asked, "Who's this boy you like? He comes over here to play chess, but you never talk about him."

  Marisa's face reddened, not from the steamy dishwater but from her mother's direct question. Had she dropped clues about having a boyfriend? Maybe her mom had guessed from Marisa's sudden weight loss. With nowhere to turn in their small kitchen, Marisa had provided her mother with the truth: Yes, she had a boyfriend and, yes, it was that boy who had come over—Rene, the certified nerd.

  Her mother gazed at her daughter, measuring the truth.

  "You're not going to do anything serious with him, right?" she finally asked.

  The directness of the question shamed Marisa. "No!" She liked holding hands and hugging and taking his breath away with kisses. But she was not ready for anything riskier.

  Marisa's mother studied her for a minute, then turned away without offering a lecture about boys and girls. She mumbled something about misplaced black olives as she began to look in the refrigerator.

  "Is Dad coming, too?" Marisa was eager to change the subject.

  "¿Cómo?" her father called from the living room. He was seated in his recliner for the evening, a hand on the remote in order to mute the volume when a commercial began to blabber.

  "Dad!" she screamed. "Do you want to see me in Romeo and Juliet?" She had set the last pan on the dish rack.

  "¿Cómo?" he brayed.

  Marisa finished by wiping the counter, and she and her mother joined her father in the living room. Monday Night Football was on, and her father was resting his bones while the players on the screen were throwing themselves at each other viciously.

  "The play's this week. I don't have a speaking part, but I'm in the chorus."

  "You're in a play?" her father asked in disbelief.

  Marisa remained patient. "In Romeo and Juliet. Remember? I told you over dinner, and you said you had a girlfriend, before Mom, named Julieta?"

  Her father turned in confusion to Marisa's mother, who said, " Viejo, you're going to a play. And you never had a novia except me."

  Her father smiled and said, "Oh, that's right." He had the recliner leaned back like a dentist chair but worked a lever on the side that brought him sitting straight up.

  "You gonna be in a play?" he repeated after a while. "I can't believe it—an actress." He drummed his fingers on the arm of the recliner.

  By the goofy smile on his face, Marisa could see that he was proud of her. She had sat down with her mother on the couch but suddenly stood and announced, "I'm going to sing my part for you." She positioned herself in front of the television, muted for her perfo
rmance, and began to sing as her father once again reclined, eyes shut, feet moving left and right to the rhythm of the song. There was a smile on his weary face, and every now and then he would open his eyes—she realized that he couldn't help it—to take a peek at the game. "He's a good father," she told herself. She sang the chorus part and then moved aside a few inches. One of her daughterly duties was to not get in the way of a father and his football game.

  Chapter 14

  "My mom pinched me right here." Rene stopped their hand-in-hand trek across the baseball field to unbutton his long-sleeved shirt so Marisa could see the bruise. Eventually it would fade, but then it stood out dark and sore. It was early morning before first period. They were on their way to do one more search for Sammy.

  "Mom said again that she doesn't want me to see you." Rene confirmed her suspicions—his mother feared that she would drag her son down. Marisa presumed that in Rene's mother's eyes she was nothing but a low-class chola.

  "I'm not a bad person," Marisa insisted. As she began to fill with meanness, she checked herself and defused her anger against Rene's mother. Yes, she thought it was unfair. Rene's mother didn't know anything about her. How did she know Marisa would get in the way of her son's progress? He might go to Harvard or Stanford, but she might tag along with her own stupendous grades and test scores.

  "Do you want to break up with me?" Marisa asked. Her eyes flooded. She had to wonder if they would remain flooded through first period and beyond. The night before, in bed, she had cried about the loss of Sammy and, for comfort, had brought out from her bottom drawer her old stuffed unicorn with the bent horn.

  "No," he answered. "If I did, who would tell me what kind of pants to wear?"

  She latched her arms around his waist and kissed him, her very own personal nerd. For her he was superior to a cholo boy any day. Before she had come to Hamilton Magnet, her anger would have flashed like a struck match and she would have closed her hands into fists. Now she felt not anger but a sadness that was deep as a river. She couldn't explain why Rene was the way he was, including that honking laugh of his. She would take him with his awful-looking clothes, his nerdy friends, his schemes of tutoring others in search of money. But she had to wonder if maybe he would be bolder if his father had been a part of his life. She conjured up the vatos at her old school parading their badness. Rene, she concluded, needed a little of their juice, a little of their bravado.