by Bell, Serena
She tried to meet his eyes, to deny it, but she couldn’t make herself do it.
Ricky leaned forward. He put both of his hands on the kitchen table and leaned toward Ana. His face was stern, his jaw set, his eyes slits. “I know you got money in the freezer. You better not be hoarding.”
“Ricky,” Cara said. The kids were like statues, watching. Ana had never seen them so still.
Ricky turned on Cara. “This is about all of us, Cara. The kids, too!”
Ana felt something harden in her, a new resolve. “It’s my money. I’m not hoarding, I’m saving. To take college classes.”
The anger went out of him so suddenly that she knew it had been bluster. His eyes were all apology now. “I know. But, Ana. We have to help each other. You know that.”
He had made it possible for her to finish high school. Without him, she’d be sweeping floors like Cara. “It took me a long time to save that money,” she said, but she could hear the heat dying out of her protest.
“I’ll pay you back, I swear.” He wasn’t commanding now, he was pleading, and it hurt her heart that she was making her big brother beg her for twelve hundred dollars. A proud man, a hard worker, and this was all there was for him. “This business will be good for all of us. I’ll pay you back with interest. You’ll be an investor. But I need your help.”
It panicked her, thinking of how long it had taken to save that money, years and years. It choked off her breath, the vision of him stuffing those tens and twenties into the gaping pocket of his sagging jeans, watching him walk out of the apartment with all her work reduced to scraps of paper a wind’s breath away from disappearing forever.
“Can I—?” Panic suffocated the words.
He looked at her, and his eyes were round and sorrowful now. She knew that hers matched. The two of them, mutually assured destruction or survival. It was mad for six people’s lives to hang on twelve hundred dollars in cash, in a cardboard box in a forty-year-old freezer. God, sometimes she hated this country that she loved so passionately.
“Can I give it to you when you find the car you want to buy?” She wanted to hang on to it as long as she could. To postpone the inevitable.
His eyes got a little sadder, but they stayed right on hers. “That’s good, hermanita,” he said. “That’s fine with me.”
She lay awake that night missing Ethan. She had done the right thing in cutting herself off from him, but now she had the romantic equivalent of phantom-limb pain, an itch of longing in the empty place he’d left behind. She wanted to see him, to kiss him, to touch him. She wanted to lay her head against his chest and feel the warmth of him seep into her. She wanted to tell him everything there was to know about her and her crazy, unlawful life.
He was the only person she could imagine telling about Ricky and the money. She couldn’t even e-mail her best friend, Kay, about it. Kay would tell her she shouldn’t have offered Ricky the money. Kay would write a long, lecture-y response about how it was time for her to stand up to Ricky, to hang on to what was rightfully hers.
But the truth was that Ana was maxed out. Even if she went to college, she’d never be able to get a better job and earn more money, because no legitimate employer would hire her. At this stage of the game, Ricky was simply a better investment than she was. It broke her heart to admit it, but it was the truth.
She wanted Ethan to know that, to know everything. He’d see it, too, the heartbreak and the necessity of giving her money to her brother. He’d see it, and he’d see through it, to her.
She could see him clearly, his gaze on her even, steadying her.
She took a breath that was more like a sob.
“You okay?” Cara asked quietly from her bed.
She made her voice normal. “Fine.”
It was good that she’d broken things off when she had. Another date and her willpower would have slipped away entirely.
“It can’t be that bad,” James said.
Ethan had buried his face in his hands, which meant that he couldn’t see the Dallas vs. Green Bay game, which meant that things were, indeed, bad. He sat slumped on the couch. “It’s that bad. And worse. I’m not even going to tell you about it.”
James paused the game, poured a generous finger of Oban into Ethan’s glass, and handed it to him. “You need to swallow this, and then you need to tell me what happened.”
Ethan obeyed. “It’s criminal to drink Scotch that good that fast.”
James sat beside him with his own drink. “It’s criminal to pause Sunday Night Football. So start talking.”
A gentle muzz descended over Ethan. For the first time since Ana’s phone call on Tuesday evening, he felt more numb than miserable. “I don’t even know where to start,” he admitted.
“Start with the date. Spare me no details.”
Ethan glared.
“I can’t help you if I don’t know where you went wrong.” James poured another generous drink into Ethan’s glass and handed it to his brother. “You kiss her?”
Ethan rested his forehead in the crook of his thumb and forefinger, massaged his temples.
“It’s a yes-or-no question, Eth.”
“Yes,” Ethan said, resigned.
“And she seemed into it.” James poured himself a glass and sat back.
“She was definitely into it.” His body remembered.
“Because I’m a good brother, and a good man, I’m not going to make you tell me more. Although I always give you the juicy details.” James took a sip.
“Much against my will.”
“I know you love it.”
The truth was that Ethan didn’t really mind his brother’s too-much-information habit. It was mildly entertaining. Except for the time when James went down on the dancer—that whole sordid story was something Ethan still wished he could wipe from his memory forever.
But there was no way he was going to dish details about Ana.
James eyed him, considering. “So, she was into it, and then—”
“I saw her on Monday night, too. It was—” He had to stop, couldn’t even let himself think about it.
“Say no more,” James said with a sweep of his hand. “Unless you want to. Because you know I’m always amenable.”
“She was going to come over on Saturday. I was going to arrange for Theo to be elsewhere. Maybe with you, if you could take him. And then she called Tuesday and broke things off. Said she didn’t want to see me anymore.” He looked into his glass as if it might hold the explanation.
“So something happened between Monday and Tuesday.” James sipped his Scotch.
“When I first asked her out, she said her brother wouldn’t approve. Could he have, I don’t know, forbidden her?”
James made a face. “What kind of brother forbids his grown-up sister to date?”
“I don’t know. He’s Dominican. Really traditional, I think. He raised her, basically, so he’s more of a dad than a brother. And I get the strong feeling he wants her to marry someone Dominican.”
“Okay, makes sense. But wouldn’t she have just said that?”
“I don’t know. God, Theo’s going to freak. He’s crazy about her. Apparently he played guitar for her. I didn’t even know he still played guitar. He doesn’t play when I’m around. Did you know he still played?” It stung.
James, who’d been leaning way back on the couch, sat up. “Yeah.” If Ethan hadn’t known him better, he’d have said the expression on James’s face was sheepish.
“Jesus! Have you heard him play?”
“No.”
“So how’d you know?” James got a shifty look.
“Just tell me.”
“Promise you won’t kill me?”
Ethan closed his eyes. If he hadn’t killed James yet, he probably never would. “Promise.”
“I helped him with the money to buy his new guitar.”
If circumstances had been different, Ethan would’ve lit into him, but he didn’t have the energy for all-out battle. He
said, “Don’t do that. Don’t buy him guitars or condoms or anything behind my back. It’s my job to know what’s going on in his life, and it’s my job to decide how much money he has and what he spends it on.”
“I didn’t know you didn’t know, if that helps,” James said. “Well, I kinda suspected.”
“How much was the new guitar?”
“I gave him a couple hundred.”
Ethan took the Lord’s name in vain a few more times. “Just don’t do that again, okay?”
“Okay. Well, so if Theo’s crazy about Ana, then we know he hasn’t been telling her lies about you. What has she told you about why she doesn’t want to go out?”
Ethan gave a brief outline of Ana’s arguments against their going out, concluding with the Tuesday-night phone call.
James wrinkled his nose. “Too many different excuses. She’s grasping at straws. She likes you, but something’s freaking her out. Could she be in trouble with the law? Maybe she’s illegal or something?”
Ethan laughed dryly. “She’s lived here for twenty years. I think they’d have managed to track her down by now if she were.”
James nodded. Tilted his head. “Married?”
That possibility was so horrifying that for a brief moment Ethan thought he might throw up. What if the “brother” who might kill him was actually a cuckolded mate? How well did he know this woman? “I guess anything’s possible.”
“Look,” James said. “The good news is there’s hope. She’s sending mixed messages, so it’s possible she’s really into you, just having some issues.”
“So what do I do?”
James shrugged. “You’ll think of something. Make it good, though. My guess is you’ve got one more chance at most.”
“You’re really comforting.”
“If you wanted comforting, you should have talked to a woman. I just tell it like it is.”
“So no advice at all?”
“Drink more,” James directed, refilling his glass.
Chapter 15
Every time the furnace came on or the house shifted or a car drove by on the street, she started.
“You waiting for my dad?” Theo asked after the third time.
She closed her eyes. Apparently Ethan hadn’t told Theo they were a no-go. Probably that meant she shouldn’t tell him, either. But she felt bad for him, with his hopeful expression. He was obviously rooting for them. He deserved the truth, or what passed for it in her life. “Your dad and I aren’t going to see each other anymore.”
Theo’s expression sagged, and she instantly regretted her decision to go with honesty. “Does he know that?”
“Yes, he knows that. Let’s get back to work.”
They began conjugating irregular verbs, but before they’d even finished another exercise Theo turned to her again and said, “Is he okay with that? Because I think he really likes you.”
Against her will, she felt herself warm at those words.
“I like you, too. Not that way—” he said hastily. “But I like having you around. Why don’t you want to go out with him? You should. He’s a good guy.”
She wished they weren’t having this conversation. She didn’t want to start lecturing Theo about race and socioeconomics and immigration. But she couldn’t say that she wasn’t interested in his father. Aside from its being a patent lie, Theo might repeat it to Ethan, and she couldn’t stand the thought of hurting Ethan’s feelings. Not even to put an end to this crazy conversation.
She heard the garage door.
She began grabbing her stuff and shoving it into her backpack.
“It’s only five fifty. We have ten more minutes.”
Hell. He was right. She removed her notebook, put her backpack on the floor.
“Can we do more vocabulary? The next unit is going to be music.”
“I don’t know a lot of technical terms for musical stuff. But we could talk about musical styles and genres.”
When Ethan came into the kitchen, Theo was singing “Feliz Navidad” in the style of a Brazilian lounge singer.
Ethan closed the door and leaned against it. Ana’s throat felt dry. He was such a presence, those broad shoulders under his stone-colored barn jacket. The muscles of his thighs faintly visible under his dark khakis. She tried hard not to look directly at him, but he drew her gaze. When she peeked at his face, he was staring at her with eyes gone so dark with emotion that she had to look away.
“Rap,” she instructed Theo, and he segued into an improvised hip-hop version of “Feliz Navidad,” complete with dance moves:
“Y Santa Claus sabe
que he sido
un chico malo
muy malo.”
“Next week, deportes,” Ana told Ethan with false cheer.
“Does that mean we get to play soccer?” Theo paused with a leg suspended behind him.
“Sure, if that’s okay with your dad.”
Ethan shrugged. “Fine with me.”
Ana looked at her watch. “Time for me to go.”
She packed up her things, and father and son walked her to the door.
“You have homework, Theo?” Ethan asked.
Theo shook his head.
“You must have something that needs doing upstairs, right?”
Theo’s eyes got very big, and he nodded fiercely. He ran out of the room, and they heard him taking the stairs two at a time.
She felt exposed, alone with Ethan in the foyer. When he spoke, his voice was low and dark. “Whatever it is that’s freaking you out, we will fix it.”
Despite herself, she felt a surge of joy at his words. He sounded so—male. Tough. Certain. She wanted to believe him. Believe that he could make her safe.
“Ana.” He’d crossed the empty space between them, and now his breath was warm on her ear, sending tingles everywhere. “The other night—we need to do that again. I want to kiss you like that again. I want to hear you make that whimpering noise you make when you get turned on.”
Heat flooded her. She couldn’t help herself. She turned her head toward him.
His mouth slid onto hers, trapped her, hot and slick and insistent. Her brain turned to jelly. She heard herself moan softly. Her hand tangled in his soft hair, clutched him down to her.
Ethan broke off the kiss. He scrutinized her, his eyes moving over her face as if he were reading her. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, knew her eyes were bright and her mouth was red from the kiss. She turned away. She was very angry with herself. She was weak and stupid and headed for disaster.
“I can’t be involved with you,” she said softly, and then she fled, pushed past him and out the door, and ran, literally ran, out of the house. She heard the shuttle coming up the street, perfect timing for a rescue, and she didn’t turn around. As far as she could tell, he didn’t call her name or chase after her, and by the time the shuttle reached the bus station she was crying silently, her shoulders shaking, tears running down her face.
When she got to Duarte, she flushed her face with cold water and examined herself in the mirror. Better. Her students wouldn’t notice that anything was wrong. Her quiet sobs had left her with a slight hitch, like a hiccup, in her breathing, but that would go away soon enough. She went back out to the cafeteria and laid her lesson plan on the lectern. She had a lot of time to kill before her class began.
She should be happy. There was no way Ethan would pursue her again after that. He’d declared himself, had kissed her—God, and what a kiss—and she’d run away without looking back. No man had an ego strong enough to withstand that. Things were over between them for good, and even her own weakness, her own overwhelming desire to run back to him and beg him to kiss her again, wouldn’t change that now.
Tears swam again, but she willed herself to be strong and brushed them back. This was what she wanted. This was what she’d been trying to achieve. She’d finally shown him the foolishness of chasing after her. Now all she had to do was get her mind off him. She’d see if Cara had anyon
e to fix her up with. Ricky and Cara had brought home guys on occasion, and once or twice she’d gone out with these fixer-upper dates. They were polite to her and treated her like a fragile knickknack. She didn’t fit into their world any more than she fit into Ethan’s. But she’d have to find a way to. This whole incident had shown her that.
She taught the two classes through a daze of fatigue, the students’ faces a blur. In her first class, she forgot that she was teaching beginners and started hurling instructions at them in rapid-fire English. During the second, she forgot that she was teaching advanced students, and they stared at her with exasperated befuddlement as she slowly ticked through the steps of their homework assignment. There was extra time at the end of the class, which meant that her pacing had been off, and she let them start their homework while she stared at the cinder-block walls of the cafeteria and tried not to think about Ethan, or his kisses, or his words.
When the students finally, finally filed out, she gathered up her things, reassembled her pack. She shut off the lights and pulled out her keys. She followed the last two students, who were chatting amiably in Mandarin, out the door. She locked the door behind her and turned to start her cold walk home.
He was there, at the edge of where the security spotlights cast their glow, sitting in his car, waiting for her.
She’d frozen at the sight of the car, but now she started toward it. He lowered the window on her side as she approached. “What are you doing here?” Her breath made a puff of white.
He leaned toward her, smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Beautiful. “I figured you’d need a ride home.”
She smiled back. She couldn’t help it. He hadn’t given up on her. “How long have you been here?”
“A while. I didn’t know what time you got out.”
He’d sat here for God knows how long in the cold, waiting for her. Warmth spread in her chest, became heat in her stomach and thighs.
“Are you going to get in?”
She opened the door and slid in. The car smelled like him, his deodorant and his musky male sweat. She pulled the door shut.