by Lila Felix
The first thing I saw was a pink hammer.
“I’ve got one in my truck. Give me a minute. By the way, how’s the head?”
She touched a hand to a spot above her temple. “It’s fine. They just took me to the hospital as a precaution. But this beauty…” She turned around and tipped her other hip in my direction, drawing her shorts up a few inches to give me the full view of the worst bruise I’d ever seen.
And with a mom, three aunts and a cousin in derby, I’d seen some whoppers.
“That’s one for the books. Did you ice it?”
“Yeah. It hurts like a bitch, but I don’t have time for pain.”
She didn’t have time for much, yet she was making time to help me.
“Well, I’m doing the work now. So take some pills or something. Don’t just be in agony to prove your bravery.”
She just stared at me, holding that awful toolbox with the pink hammer and tons of other tools she’d probably never need. I went to my truck and grabbed my bag. I’d learned to carry a bag of tools around with me all the time when I was a kid. I accidentally brought a wrench to school one time. After I discovered it, I had the cold sweats all day thinking that someone was going to find it and accuse me of bringing a deadly weapon.
When I got back, she was swigging a bottle of water. “Don’t look so smug. It was killing me.”
“You’re stubborn as hell.”
“Says the boy who waited until he was twenty to learn how to read.” She slapped her hand over her mouth in regret. I could’ve taken offense if it wasn’t so damned funny and true.
So very true.
I laughed and soon she joined me. “I’m sorry.” She said between chuckles.
“No, you’re not. It’s true. We are both stubborn. It’s okay. It’s not like I didn’t know.”
“Good thing you’re not sensitive.”
“Good thing I’m not. You might want to watch those smartass comments with the kids. Puberty is a bitch on the emotions.”
She took my advice under consideration. I could see it on her face.
“Come sit down here. I’ll show you how it’s done and try not to get electrocuted. That would be great for business, huh?”
“You’re not funny.”
It took fixing three receptacles before Beatriz would even touch the voltage meter. I had to guide her hand to the wires.
I also took the opportunity to fake being electrocuted—twice.
She didn’t think it was funny.
With all of them done, we went to the room in the back where all of the maintenance things were. She asked me to point out everything from the water shut-off to the breaker box and everything in between.
There was something about showing her how to be independent that I loved. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it for her; it was that she wanted to be able to do it for herself.
I couldn’t have admired her more.
“See the map on the door.” I nodded in the direction of the map that told which switch belonged to every part of the building.
“Yes. So, the main one is off right now. That’s what YouTube said I had to do first.”
“YouTube.” I shook my head. “Flip it back on and you’re back in business.”
She flipped the switch and everything came back to life. We’d been working off of my flashlight and borrowed sunshine.
“So everything is ready? Can we test it just to be sure? I don’t want my ass handed to me tomorrow.”
“Sure. Let’s go plug something in and test each one.”
They all worked. I knew they would.
“The first time I electrocuted myself, I was two.”
She coughed on the water she was drinking. “What?”
“I was a curious baby, apparently. My dad had used one of the receptacles to plug something in and forgot to replace the plastic protector thing. Somehow I got ahold of a fork and stuck it right into the outlet. Over the years, the story has been bloated. The last time I heard it, there was smoke coming out of my diaper and my hair was fried. The gossiping in our family is ridiculous.”
“You have a great family.” She said. I panicked, thinking she’d figured out who I was. “I mean, it sounds like you have a great family.”
I shoved her shoulder with mine. “You do too. Your dad is great and the way he talks about your mom…”
“How about some dinner? I’m starving.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed her change of subject when talking about her mom.
Maybe they were having an argument. Cybill and Mom were always at each other’s throats.
“Dinner sound good. I haven’t eaten since this morning. Your dad brought in some kind of pineapple cake thing.”
She rolled her eyes. “I swear, that man and his cake. I need to bring him some more. He doesn’t go get it himself. I bring it over there.”
“You’re just too busy for your own good. If you don’t have time to teach me, I understand. You always seem so busy.”
Beatriz jerked her head around to face me. “If something is important to you, you make time, Cyrus. It’s important to me.”
I swallowed, the brunt of my surprise swelling up in my Adam’s apple. Looking at her eyes, the way they shone when she was committed to something—the passion that I could see there stalled me in my tracks. It was that fire that originally drew me to her and blocked my way at the same time.
She didn’t need anyone.
She could do it all on her own.
I was falling for this chick—hard.
“Thank you.” I pushed the doors open for her to exit before me. “Did you have a place in mind?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“I’m driving this time.”
She let out a deep breath. “Thank goodness. I need a break.”
I got in the truck after letting her in and she was smiling again. That stop a heartbeat, slow a freight train, shame the sun smile that blew me away.
“What’s that smile for?”
“Are you complaining?” She taunted me back. God, I loved her feistiness.
“Not at all.”
“You’ve got the manners thing down pat. What did your mom do, send you to manners school?”
“It’s my dad and my uncles.” I shrugged her compliment off. Girls shouldn’t be surprised when men opened doors and showed any amount of chivalry. They should expect it. It should come naturally, no matter the situation. Too bad it was a rarity these days. “I learned by example.”
Remorse ran through my veins. Talking about my family made me miss them more than I’d realized.
“It makes me feel like a girl.” She giggled. I didn’t know Beatriz Morales was capable of giggling.
“You are a girl.” I laughed back and barely stopped myself from reaching over to touch her.
“I am. I think it’s a turn off, you know? A girl who doesn’t need help? So, guys think I don’t ever want help. Sometimes guys forget that just because I don’t need help, doesn’t mean I don’t want help.”
“Peter was an asshole.” I was out of line in saying it, but it was true.
“He never opened a door for me, once. He never picked me up for a date. My dad hated it. I would excuse him time after time.”
She directed me in the way I should go. We ended up in a restaurant I’d never heard of, tucked in between buildings.
Neither of us moved. Rolling my eyes at myself, I was about to do something that might just ruin whatever chances I had with this girl.
It might ruin my chances of ever learning to read.
When I turned to her, she was already looking at me. It was a heady thing, having her eyes on me. A hint of that smile tugged at the corner of her lips. From the corner of my eye, I could see her fingers twitching as mine were, desperate to touch her just once.
I did.
I laced my fingers under hers and she gasped.
Surprising her felt like winning.
“Do me a favor, honey. Don’t ever exc
use me. If I do something wrong—if I offend you—if I say something that rubs you the wrong way—call me on it right then and there. Don’t ever excuse bad behavior—mine or anyone else’s.”
Beatriz looked down at our hands and squeezed my hand back as if formally acknowledging the gesture. “Only if you do the same for me.”
I sobered as best I could, turning my face serious. “Believe me, I already have a list.”
“You’re an ass.”
I winked at her. “And so it begins.”
We laughed together in that small space. “Flirting with the teacher is hot.”
Her cheeks flushed bright red. “Let’s get out of here before flirting turns to something else.”
If I’d realized the potential for something else was available, I would’ve never let her touch the handle of her door.
When we entered the place, a hush fell over the place. There wasn’t one male set of eyes that didn’t gravitate to her. It was her legs.
She had legs that just begged to be paid attention to.
“There’s a table over there. It’s a seat yourself deal.”
We sat at a tiny table, lit with a votive candle in a small jar. There was no menus and no salt and pepper. It was like the owners knew it wouldn’t be needed.
“I’m gonna order.”
“Sounds good since there’s no menu.”
It was then that the influx of people began swarming to the table. One by one, people came to the table and shared Spanish greetings with her. Some hugged her, kissed her cheeks, and asked, I assumed, about me. Her cheeks stayed that gorgeous pink the entire time.
I needed a translator, stat.
Somewhere in between all the love, she must’ve placed her order because minutes later we were served enormous plates of some kind of meat with gravy, beans, rice and something that faintly looked like bananas.
“Plantains. Try them.”
She hadn’t started eating yet, and soon I knew why. The same girl placed a huge basket of steaming tortillas on the table and Beatriz grabbed one before the basket hit the table.
“Eat. You’re offending them.” She canted her head to the side and I followed the movement to see a crowd of people behind the tables watching us. What else could I do, but dig in?
It was delicious—every bite.
I didn’t even look up after that. I was hungrier than I’d thought.
“This is my mom’s family’s restaurant. I was practically raised between here and the shop.” She pointed to a photo on the wall just behind me. I turned to look at it and after a couple of double takes realized that I was looking at a young Beatriz, sitting on the counter of the restaurant with a woman whose face could be Beatriz’s now. “Your mom.”
“Yeah. She was beautiful.”
She propped her face on her palm and stared at the photo.
“You look just like her. Your dad is right.”
“Thank you.” She grabbed my hand across the table.
Another thing I liked about Beatriz—she knew how to take a compliment with class. She didn’t pseudo-refute it or claim she was ugly. She was beautiful, like her mother, and she knew it—plain and simple.
“I hope you’re not full. They’re not going to let you leave until you have flan.”
“Flan?”
“Yes, flan.”
Our waitress must’ve heard her. Our plates were replaced with bowls full of what looked like upside-down pudding with raisins in it, covered with caramel sauce.
It was heaven.
Beatriz watched me eat. She was gauging my reaction.
“It’s really good.”
“It was—is my mother’s recipe.”
“Maybe she can give it to my aunt. She owns a restaurant too.”
“Maybe so. You ready to go now?”
I couldn’t move. My stomach was so full and honestly, I hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks—maybe months.
“I can’t move.” Not only did that bring a loud laugh from Beatriz, I found that we had a small audience who were also getting a kick out of my comment.
They also refused to let me pay for the meal.
“Anything for Beatriz.” The younger woman said before hugging me and kissing my cheek. She was petite with a severe bun. For a minute, she reminded me of Gram and the way everyone she met was immediately part of the family.
“I’m exhausted now.”
“No, Sir. We missed a lesson. Shit. I left all my stuff at my apartment.”
I was so not suggesting that we go to her apartment.
“Can we go to my apartment and then you can drop me back off at my car?”
“If that’s okay with you.”
“I trust you.”
Her apartment wasn’t far from the shop. It gave me a small ounce of satisfaction to know where she lived.
I was a moron.
Above all, I wished I wasn’t going to her apartment to have a reading lesson. I wished I was just another guy, any normal guy, taking her home after a normal date.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Your whole demeanor changed. Whatever you are thinking about, it made you change.”
I didn’t answer for a while.
“I just wish I was a normal guy.”
She laughed. “What part of this isn’t normal?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The part where you’re teaching me to read.”
She fiddled with her hair, pulling that front chunk over the rest. Her knee was going ninety to nothing, bouncing up and down.
“What would you do differently? You know, if you were normal.”
The air in my truck grew warm. I looked over at her, expecting her to be looking at me, waiting for answer. Instead, she was looking out of the window, her chest moving dramatically in and out.
“If I was normal, this would be a date. I’d take you home and walk you to your door.”
“That’s all?”
She was baiting me and I kind of loved it.
“It would depend.”
“On what?”
“On you.”
That answer was sufficient. She had to know how I was beginning to feel about her. She had to. We got to her apartment and it was exactly as I’d pictured it. It was comfortable and lived in. Not too much mess, but not completely spotless. She had dishes in the sink that she didn’t apologize for and a glance into her bedroom revealed a bed that had only half-assed been made. She kicked her shoes off and tucked them under the coffee table with about a thousand other pairs of shoes.
“Make yourself at home.” She pulled some books from a bag. “Have you been practicing?”
“Yeah. I went to the library on Sunday for a little while. I couldn’t get the app on my phone. There were some adult literacy videos.”
“That’s good. Whatever you can get in helps, little by little.”
For the next hour she made me read to her out loud, which was the most humiliating of all. I didn’t understand why she thought she would have trouble helping people. She didn’t flinch when I messed up a word or began to stumble. There was nothing but care and concern on her face as I fought to control my stutter.
She was patient.
Frustration never laced her tone.
Even Scout would get aggravated with me and tended to throw books at the wall.
I was relieved when it was over.
“You did great tonight. We need to work on your compound vowels. But other than that, you are already progressing. You’re a smart man. I knew it wouldn’t take more than a little patience.”
Never in my life had I heard someone call me smart.
Hard worker, intuitive, and handy, yes, but smart never.
“You called me smart.” My stutter had left me, replaced by a humbleness brought on by her sincerity.
“You are smart. Today, I didn’t know how to fix all those electrical things. Did that automatically make me dumb?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
&nbs
p; “Same difference. Want some coffee?”
“If you’re making some. Don’t make some just for me.”
“I have to look over some grant proposals. You’re probably tired. You worked all day and then came to work with me.”
“I’ll be fine with some coffee. I can practice my writing while you work.”
That brought on my smile. It was mine. She saved it only for me.
I could pretend, right?
“Sounds good.”
I washed her dishes and cleaned up her countertops while she set up her coffee pot. The girl had a full cabinet full of nothing but coffee and tea with all the extras. She had her own barista station right there in her kitchen.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“This was my chore. My sister and my mom hate doing the dishes and general kitchen cleaning. I’ve been doing this since I could reach the counters.”
“You love them.” She said.
“Of course I do. You love your family.”
“Of course I do.”
When the coffee pot sputtered, she began rattling off the options for my coffee. I didn’t want any of them, but I let her carry on, loving the sound of her voice more and more with each passing word.
“I take my coffee black, usually.”
“Why’d you let me go on and on?” Her hand met her hip and I wished it was my hand instead.
“It reminded me of S…someone I knew. It was cute.”
“Cute, huh?”
“Yep.” She handed me a cup, the biggest coffee cup I’d ever seen and shooed me into the other room, armed with enough caffeine to kill a horse. I ran out to my truck and grabbed my notebook and spelling book. I kept it in the truck to practice whenever I could.
“Let me see it.”
I handed it over and looked the other way. It was worse than any handwriting I’d ever seen.
“It’s not too bad. It’s getting better.”
“You call that getting better?”
“Look at this first group and compare it to what you did yesterday. You’re getting better already.”
She was right. As I compared the two, I could see the change. The letters weren’t as big anymore and I’d stopped punishing the paper with the weight of my pencil. I felt a grin rise on my face.
It had been a long time since I felt anything close to pride.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile like that. It’s—I like it.”