Then, while all the earnest scholarship people stared at her in shock and disbelief, she would ask—no, she would scream, at the top of her lungs:
Have I earned it? Have I earned it now?
TWENTY-FOUR
Sweet Georgia Rain
“You have got to stop sulking,” Whit proclaimed. “It’s so tedious.”
Alma knew he was right. She needed to move on, but she had no idea how.
“And I need your help, desperately.” He plopped a stack of yearbooks onto the kitchen table. “Look through these and find the Latina girls for me, OK?”
Alma grimaced. She should have been offended, but she knew why he was obsessing over the yearbooks. He was on his fifth step, and the time had come for him to make amends with the girl, the one from the night with Conway. The problem was that he still wasn’t sure who she was, or where she might be. The Gilberton High yearbooks seemed a good place to start.
“Whit,” Alma said, “thirty-two percent of the school is Latino. Any chance you could give me something more specific to look for?”
“I told you: curly hair,” he said. Then, looking at the floor in an unusual display of shame, he continued, “Young. We should start with the freshmen.”
Alma silently opened a yearbook as Mrs. King came and joined them at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in her hand. She was meeting with the real estate agent in an hour to put their house up for sale.
“Are you children up to trouble again?” she asked.
The beautiful thing was that they were up to no trouble, and she knew it. Whit had been sober for sixty days, and he’d just been given a small gold chip to memorialize it.
“I’m trying to find a girl to make amends, Mrs. King,” Whit said. “But it’s not proving to be easy.”
“Amends,” Mrs. King said, nodding her head slowly. “Well, that sounds like a fine idea.” She looked directly at Alma. “How ’bout you give it a try, Alma?”
“It wouldn’t do any good, Mrs. King,” Alma said. “How can I apologize when he won’t talk to me? He doesn’t even look at me.”
Alma glanced over at the stack of boxes lining the walls of the living room. In two weeks, she would be leaving this town—and Evan—forever.
“Did you talk with Ms. Chen yesterday?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And she told you about the academy in Mexico City?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s this all about?” Whit asked.
“There’s an excellent academy in Mexico. Ms. Chen spoke with the admissions office at her alma mater and they suggested that Alma try to enroll there. Alma sent her transcripts down, and the academy is willing to accept her for next year.”
“That’s great, Alma,” Whit said. “Now you’re sure to get into Princeton.”
“Yeah, Whit,” Alma said sarcastically. “It’s, like, a done deal.”
“It’s a wonderful opportunity, Alma.” Mrs. King said. “You should feel grateful.”
Alma was grateful, but none of it seemed real. She was in, and she had distant cousins whom she could live with in a town near Mexico City, but she didn’t have the money to pay tuition. Ms. Chen and Mrs. King had assured her they would find a donor. But even if they found tuition money, she would have to scrape together enough to pay bus fare to and from the city, to buy books and uniforms. And before going to an elite school in Mexico, she would need much practice reading and writing Spanish.
“When will you speak with the academic adviser?”
“About Spanish? I talked to her yesterday. There are some classes I can take in Oaxaca this summer, at a language institute in the city.”
“You’re taking Spanish classes?” Whit asked. “What the hell?”
“Watch your language, young man,” Mrs. King commanded.
“Uh, yeah, Whit. I’ve never actually studied Spanish. It’s an international school, so I will take classes in English, but some of my academic work will be in Spanish—obviously.”
Alma could kick herself for having taken Latin all these years. She thought it was what the smart kids did. So stupid. Here she was, a perfectly fluent Spanish speaker, and she didn’t even always know where to put an accent mark. The Spanish classes were going to cost money, too. Money their family didn’t have.
“I’ll help!” Whit said, jumping to his feet. “I’ll give you lessons—starting tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe this is my life,” Alma said under her breath. Then, reluctantly, she looked up at Whit. “Thanks,” she said. “I could use a head start.”
“And I could use a project. So the benefits abound,” Whit said. “But there’s one condition,” he said, leaning in toward her. “You must stop sulking. Now.”
He shoved another yearbook in her face.
Alma’s phone vibrated on the table. Whit looked at the screen and smiled.
“See,” he said, thrusting the phone toward her. “Maritza agrees with me.”
Alma read the text from Maritza.
Stop feeling sorry 4 yourself
Help us figure out a way 2 get 2 Atlanta 4 the game
Last chance 4 u 2 c a bunch of Latinos kick private school boys’ asses without getting thrown in jail
Lol
“Go brush your hair and change out of those pathetic pajama pants. I’m taking you and your friends to the event of the season,” Whit said.
Mrs. King stood up, hand on her hip. “And what might that be, young man? Because you are not going to any parties on my watch.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mrs. King,” Whit replied. “Alma and I are going to a completely dry state championship soccer match. GHS head-to-head with Wolford Academy in Atlanta—it should be priceless. A ragtag bunch of immigrants, mixed in with a Southern boy or two, facing off with Atlanta’s best and brightest.”
“¿Qué pasó?” Abuela Lupe called in through the kitchen door. “¿Adónde van?”
She was separating dollars into neat stacks on the coffee table, surrounded by a few boxes of still unsold shoes.
“Un partido de fútbol, Abuelita,” Alma said. “Pero no quiero ir.”
“Oh, yes, you want to go, Alma,” Whit said. “Just admit it.”
“That sounds like a real nice time,” Mrs. King said, faking an innocent voice.
“I can’t go, Whit,” she replied. “Seriously, I can’t.”
Abuela Lupe walked toward the kitchen door, nodding and shooing her along with her hand. “Véte, mi corazòn. Véte. En el nombre de Dios, no puedes quedarte llorando aquí todos los días. Te vas a enfermar, m’hija.”
Abuela Lupe insisted that Alma go, said she was going to make herself sick if she just hung around and cried all day, but her grandmother had no idea how sick Alma felt at the thought of seeing him.
“It will do you a world of good to get out of this house,” Mrs. King interjected.
“Just pretend he’s not there,” Whit said.
It would be impossible not to notice Evan on the field. When he was playing well, his energy and intensity drew the attention of every spectator. Alma had heard he was playing better than ever.
“How am I supposed to do that, Whit?” Alma asked.
“Lesson one about popular sporting events,” Whit said. “One does not attend to watch the game. That’s simply tedious. One attends to see—and be seen by—the spectators.” He pulled her from her chair and pushed her toward Raúl’s room—her room now. “So hurry along my little señorita,” he said. “Go get cute and meet me at the car in twenty minutes.”
It was useless for her to protest.
* * *
“We’re both free men, Evan.”
Logan stepped out of Conway’s Hummer into Evan’s driveway. “Caroline and I ended it—for real this time.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Evan said dryly.
A free man.
Six weeks
Forty-two days.
One thousand and nine hours.
But who was
counting any longer?
“Why are you driving Conway’s Hummer?” Evan asked.
“Mine’s in the shop. Can I leave it here? He said he’d come get it after the game.”
“I guess so,” Evan said.
Evan and Conway hadn’t spoken since the morning after Lake Rabun, but he still hadn’t told Logan the whole story. He didn’t have the energy for it, and he wasn’t really sure the story was his to tell.
“I mean it, Evan,” Logan said as they climbed into Evan’s car. “You and I are going to have an amazing summer. We’ll call it the summer of no strings attached. We’ll be floating free in a universe of beautiful women.”
Evan thought of Ingrid, the tattooed girl from the hotel, and of the cruel “freedom” that he had earned against his will.
As promised, Ingrid had been waiting for him at the service entrance, still dressed in her black work clothes and combat boots, her auburn hair hanging in messy waves around her shoulders. She was wearing black eyeliner and a deep-red lipstick that made her face look almost translucent. Ingrid was attractive in a sort of harsh way, unlike any girl he knew.
Maybe that was her beauty. She reminded him of nothing and no one he had ever encountered.
They headed to her apartment in a complex next to the highway, not far from the hotel. On the walk there she pulled a half-full bottle of vodka from her giant purse, and took a deep swig as they crossed the empty parking lot. Then she passed the bottle to Evan. They crossed diagonally through two gas stations and the drive-through of a McDonald’s. She told him it was a shortcut. The landscape followed the contours of the interstate, carving spaces at each exit that were, really, no place at all—just pauses on the way to somewhere else.
She was hungry, so they went into a convenience store, where she bought a huge Coke and chocolate Ho Hos—she liked the white, creamy swirls in the middle.
When she kissed him on the concrete slab outside the convenience store, her mouth tasted like processed sugar.
He tasted the kiss, but he didn’t feel it.
Evan looked back at Logan who was climbing into the passenger seat of his car. “All I can say is this, Logan: before you start ‘floating free in a universe of women,’ you’d better play some wicked defense,” he replied.
* * *
Alma was growing very anxious, but not because they were headed toward Evan at eighty miles an hour. It was Whit. More specifically, it was Whit’s bizarre silence. At first he had joked around with them, but around the time that Magda squeezed into the backseat Whit fell completely silent. It was getting creepy.
They pulled off the interstate, and within a few minutes, they were turning into the leafy green campus of Wolford Academy. Beautiful brick buildings stood in orderly rows at the edge of broad, impeccably manicured lawns.
“Is this a high school?” Monica asked.
“Technically, it’s a day school,” Whit answered. “Pre-K through twelve. It’s almost impossible to escape a place like this.”
Alma wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but she was glad to hear his voice.
Waves of heat shimmered off the black asphalt of the parking lot. It was May, but it already felt like midsummer. As they got out of the car, Alma looked up at the hazy sky to see storm clouds gathering.
Whit grasped her arm. “Alma, wait.”
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I think that’s her—your friend. I think she’s the one from that night.”
“What? Which one?”
“The one with the curly hair. Magda,” he said.
“No way,” Alma said. “That’s impossible.”
“She looks so familiar.”
Alma shook her head. “What? So now all curly-haired Latinas look like the girl. Get over it, Whit. Racial profiling doesn’t suit you.”
“I know,” he said. “It sounds absurd, but I think it’s her.”
“You’re wrong,” Alma said. “She was acting totally normal. She wouldn’t have been acting normal, Whit.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Plus, I’m pretty sure she’s a virgin.” She paused. “I mean, I don’t think she’d lie about that.”
“OK,” Whit said. “Just forget I said anything.”
They walked toward the packed stadium. In Gilberton it would be impossible to draw a crowd like this to anything but a football game.
Apparently Wolford Academy was for elites of many backgrounds, and even though there didn’t seem to be many Latinos at the school, there were enough Asian, Indian, and black students that no one seemed to think twice about an obviously rich white kid heading toward the bleachers with a group of Latinas. Alma felt transported back to North Atlanta High, but with more designer labels.
She felt it before she saw it—Evan’s presence on the field. She wanted not to look, but she did. He wore a black leather strap, a homemade necklace with some sort of bead in the center.
The opposing team kicked the ball into play, and then Evan easily took control, the necklace pulled taut against his neck. Alma refused to let herself wonder where it had come from. Already, it pained her to watch his fierce beauty, to see his intensity unleashed, literally airborne.
The Red Elephants were on fire, and Evan was the one who kept stoking the flame.
* * *
Evan’s entire body buzzed with adrenaline. He was fully present on the field, entirely aware of how his teammates were arranged in space. They were playing possession football at their absolute best. If he had to make a prediction at that moment, he would say that their best was good enough to beat this team—but he was too superstitious to let himself think about the outcome. He just played his heart out, and it felt fantastic.
When the buzzer sounded, there were still eleven minutes left in the second half, and the Red Elephants were up 3-0. Evan hadn’t noticed the gathering clouds, the distant thunder coming closer. Rain delay. He jogged off the field reluctantly and followed the rest of the team back to the locker room.
He saw her standing under an overhang, pressed against a brick wall, looking up at the sky. Sheets of rain separated them. It was amazing, and infuriating, how quickly she could drag him away, how relentlessly present she was in his head. Alma was the image he saw when Ingrid had tried to kiss him again on the tattered couch at her apartment, her roommates playing video games on the floor in front of them. And then he saw Alma again, in the kitchen, when he’d gone to pull another beer from the refrigerator. He had wanted alcohol to numb him, or maybe to blur his vision of her in his mind.
He’d wanted to want Ingrid, but he didn’t. And each time she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her lips against his, Evan saw Alma just as she looked standing here—her eyes distant and face serene.
Evan should have been thinking about the final minutes of the championship game. He should have been entirely focused on strategy, but as he passed by her, trying not to look, he remembered standing in the middle of Ingrid’s kitchen in tears, a can of beer gripped tightly in his hand.
He told Ingrid his sad story, and she cried, too. She led him into her living room, and they sat on the dumpy couch, drinking and playing video games until they both passed out. The next morning Ingrid wove him a necklace out of thick straps of leather, with a golden citrine stone knotted into the center. She tied it tightly around his neck and told him that citrine had healing properties—that it worked well for depression.
Evan insisted that he wasn’t depressed, but Ingrid gave him a look and insisted otherwise.
Fingering the smooth stone at his neck, Evan followed his teammates to the locker room and the air-conditioning rushed out to hit him. Something about that jolt of cold air made him realize it: He had to turn around. She was leaving, and he had to say good-bye. Maybe if he told her good-bye, she would get the hell out of his head.
Evan jogged through the rain toward Alma. She watched as he came nearer but showed no expression. And then they were nearly face-to-face.
&nbs
p; He needed to say something, but he couldn’t find words. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but his body wouldn’t let him.
“You’re amazing out there, Evan,” Alma said. “The best I’ve ever seen you play.”
“Thanks,” he replied, holding her gaze. His chest ached.
“Cal will be so lucky to have you,” she said.
“I can’t wait to get there,” he replied, dragging his gaze from her eyes to his feet.
“I miss you,” she said.
His chest collapsed and his head started to spin. This was a mistake. He should be in the locker room, focused on the last few minutes of the championship game, not out here in the rain letting his heart break open again.
“Be safe getting down there,” he said, forcing himself to look up.
And then, because it hurt too much to look at her, and because he wanted to change the subject, he told her, “When you get there, say hi to your brother for me. Tell him to keep playing.”
“He’s like you, Evan,” she said. “He can’t stop.”
She was right. Evan couldn’t stop, especially not now. He had to get back into the locker room—back to the one thing that would protect him from this pain.
“I’ve gotta…”
“I know,” she said, “Focus. Go out there and crush them, OK?”
Evan didn’t reply. He turned away and jogged back through the rain to the locker room. As soon as he got there, he thrust earbuds in and listened intently to the last song in his pregame mix. He had to focus. He would force every fiber of his being into the game.
When the rain delay ended, Evan led his team back onto the pitch. With the Red Elephant mascot revving the crowd, they took to the field, and they dominated. It felt awesome.
Evan heard the buzzer and then felt the crush of bodies against him. Fans mobbed the field, chanting and yelling. Evan’s team had shut out their opponents, with a final score of 5-0. Evan scored two of those goals, but only with perfectly executed assists from his teammates. Only three of the guys on his team had access to prestigious soccer academies, and no doubt the Wolford players had trained at these kinds of places since they left diapers. Still, the Red Elephants dominated. Evan was so proud that he screamed at the top of his lungs while his teammates lifted him into the air.
Dream Things True Page 27