by Robin Talley
“But that’s what we’re doing here,” Sofía said. “We already support helping other countries.”
“This is for the US government to support it, though,” I said. “To send aid and stuff. For health care.”
“But a lot of people don’t even have decent health care back home,” Rodney said. “My aunt and uncle went bankrupt because they couldn’t afford the bills when my cousin got sick.”
“This is still important, though.” I was getting frustrated. Why wouldn’t Rodney look at what I’d written? I’d explained it all so carefully. “You signed the gay marriage petition, didn’t you?”
“That was a completely different issue.” Rodney passed the petition back to me, unsigned. “I already knew I supported that. I don’t get this one.”
Rosa and Sofía had both turned away, too. Eric looked as though he was thinking about reaching for the pen, but after a moment he followed the others.
Before I could figure out what to say, Guadalupe came running in.
“¡Ah-ki!” she grabbed my hand. “¡Vamanos!”
I looked at my phone. I was five minutes late for jewelry class.
“Did Lori send you to get me?”
Guadalupe nodded. I sighed and followed her.
The girls were lined up neatly outside, sitting in their jeans and T-shirts with their legs crossed, twisting the wires Lori had set up. She gave me her usual death glare as I sat down. I leaned in to show one of the younger girls how to bend her wire in an S-shape so she could slide the beads on.
“¿Dónde está Juana?” I asked. Juana had never missed a class yet, but she wasn’t sitting on our pile of blankets today.
Guadalupe pointed to a grove of trees outside the fence. Juana was hunched over, her face in her hands.
“Is she all right?” I asked Lori. She shrugged.
I wondered if things would be this way between us forever. I still found myself wanting to tell her things, and feeling that ache in my gut every time I realized I couldn’t.
But I should check on Juana, so I climbed to my feet. There was something in her lap. As I got closer, I could see it was a piece of wood.
“¿Juana? ¿Qué pasa?”
Juana looked up at me, her face a mess of tears. Without a word, she held out the wood. I took it from her hands.
It was a broken piece of the guitar. Her father’s guitar, the beautiful old twelve-string she’d played at vespers on Saturday. The edges were jagged where the piece had been snapped off.
It was from the front of the guitar, where a triangular design had been painted around the sound hole in its center. Up close, I could see the intricacy of the design, worn smooth over the decades.
There was no way this could’ve been an accident. The whole guitar must have been destroyed.
Horrified, I turned back to Juana. She was crying even harder now. Tears were pricking at my own eyes, too.
That’s when I saw the rest of the guitar’s remains, scattered around her on the ground. The neck was still in one piece, but it had been ripped off the body of the instrument, loose strings still dangling.
“What the hell happened, Juana? Who did this?” She stared at me. I swallowed, trying to think of the words in Spanish. “¿Quién?”
Juana leaned over to touch the neck of the guitar, stroking the strings.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember. The last time I’d seen that guitar was Saturday night when Juana played for us. And later that night, before Christa and I went into the guest house, I’d seen Nick and the guys tossing something around. I’d assumed it was beer, but it could definitely have been a guitar.
What the hell?
Those guys were complete losers. They were nothing but a bunch of drunk jerks who didn’t even care about a little girl who loved music. Not to mention getting in trouble for destroying an amazing antique.
And what did I do? Nothing. I saw it happen, and I’d ignored them so I could go hook up with my not-girlfriend.
I looked down at Juana. I didn’t know the words for what I wanted to say to her. In English or Spanish. She stared back at me silently, tears still rolling down her cheeks.
I held out my hand. “Vamanos, Juana.”
She climbed to her feet, still holding the guitar neck. I stooped down to pick up the rest of the pieces, carefully cradling them in my arms, and motioned for her to follow me.
It didn’t take long to find Dad. He was outside the work site’s front door with a bunch of the other chaperones, packing up paint supplies.
“Daddy?” That got his attention fast. I didn’t call him Daddy much. “Can we talk to you?”
He wiped his hands, looking back and forth between Juana and me, his forehead creased. “What’s going on, Aki?”
“Something happened to Juana’s guitar.” I held out the broken pieces for him to see.
“I know.” He drew Juana and me aside and carefully took the fragments out of my hands. “Reverend Perez found it in the hills behind his house this morning. It looked as if the pieces had been there for a few days. Such a shame. It belonged to Señor Suarez’s grandfather.”
I closed my eyes. I felt sick. “Do they know what happened?”
“No.” Dad glanced at Juana. I could see him choosing his words carefully to make sure she wouldn’t understand. “Unfortunately, it sounds as though in her excitement about performing for everyone, his daughter left it outside the Perezes’ house on Saturday night. The next time anyone saw it, it was in pieces. There’s no way to know who’s responsible.”
Poor Juana. She’d been so excited to play for us. She must feel so guilty.
“I know who did it.” I reached down to squeeze Juana’s shoulder. “I saw some guys that night after vespers. Will, Tyler, Nick and a couple of others. They were tossing something around. I couldn’t see what it was at first, but now I’m positive it was the guitar.”
Dad’s face clouded. “Sweetheart, I’m sure none of the kids from this group would’ve done something so cruel. They’re good Christians, every one of them.”
I glanced at Juana again, but she wasn’t paying attention to us. She’d taken the neck back from Dad and was trying to straighten out the guitar strings.
“They were drunk,” I said. “Maybe they were horsing around and they didn’t mean to break it. Either way, I’m positive it was them.”
Dad stood up straight, his right hand clenching into a fist. “They were drinking? How do you know?”
“They were drunk at vespers. I could smell it on their breath. They buy beer in town all the time and drink outside at night.”
“Aki.” Dad shook his head. He had that frazzled look again. “This is a very serious accusation to make.”
“It’s the truth. Those guys are jerks. They should get in trouble for what they did.”
“All right. Thank you for telling me. I’ll look into this more. Now you two should both run along back to your jewelry lesson.” Dad softly laid his hand on Juana’s head. “Lo siento, pequeña senorita.”
Juana gave a tiny nod.
Dad went to go talk to Señor Suarez, so I took Juana’s hand and led her back to where Lori was finishing up the jewelry class. She glared at me when I sat down, but I ignored her and started cleaning up the supplies. Today I had a good reason to be somewhere else, even if Lori didn’t know it.
The girls got up to leave, playing with their new bracelets. Guadalupe had made an extra bracelet for Juana, and my heart nearly broke in half when I saw Juana’s small smile as she slipped it onto her wrist.
Lori folded the blanket and packed it away without looking at me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the petition.
“Hey,” I said. Lori jerked up, surprise on her face. “Do you want to sign it?”
Lori took the paper out of my han
d. I watched her eyes move over the sentences I’d written, then Jake’s signature and mine below. She silently held her hand out for the pen. I passed it to her and she scribbled her name.
“This doesn’t change anything between us,” she said as she thrust the paper back toward me. “For the record.”
“I know. Thanks for signing it, though. And by the way, I haven’t said anything to anyone about, you know.”
Lori stared at me. “What, do you want a medal?”
“No. Jeez. Anyway, I still think you should talk to someone about it. If you want, I could mention it to my Dad anonymously, without giving your name, I mean, and I really think he’d understand, he—”
“No! God!” Lori whipped her head around, her eyes blazing. “Wow, you don’t get it at all. Do you want me going to your dad ‘anonymously’ and telling him about my ‘anonymous’ friend who’s secretly hooking up with an ‘anonymous’ lesbian?”
I definitely did not want that. “Okay, okay.”
“You’ve gotten so obsessed with that girl you’ve forgotten how the rest of the world works. Well, news flash—the people you left behind are still living their lives, too. And the sooner you tune in to what’s really going on, the better off you’ll be.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. But I was so tired of fighting with Lori. I wanted things back the way they used to be.
But, I realized as I watched her walk away, there was no such thing as going backward.
* * *
After the day I’d had, it was glorious to escape into the dark guest house.
We went straight from vespers. I tried to forget about Juana and Lori, about everything that was going wrong, and focus on Christa. How she felt. How she moved. How awesome it would be tomorrow, in Texas, when we’d have an entire night to ourselves.
At first, it was easy to forget that other people so much as existed. We kissed, and we did more than kiss, and more still. Every movement, every sensation, every breath was all ours.
After, we watched the shadows play on the wall as the candle flickered down to nothing. We were quiet at first. Then we started talking. We talked about nothing, and everything, the way we’d done every night since we found this place. We talked about our families, our friends. Music, games, movies. Tonight we talked about Harry Potter.
“I always had the biggest crush on Draco,” I admitted. “When I was a kid my whole room was covered in pictures of him. One time my brother said he was going to be Draco for Halloween. He found a doofy blond wig at CVS and stole the wand I got online and started going around calling people Mudbloods. He was acting so dumb I burst into tears, because I was only, like, eight. Then he took the wig off and said he was joking and actually he was dressing up as the stupid Falcon. He pulled this bag out from under the bed and showed me how Mom had already gotten him the wings and the goggles and everything. He’s lucky I didn’t clock him across the head.”
Christa was laughing so hard by the time I finished that story I got worried someone would hear. I tried to shhh her but it was hard because I was laughing, too.
“I was into Ron when I was a kid,” she said. “I think it was because everyone else fawned over Draco and I wanted to be different. But when I got older I decided I liked Cho Chang.”
“Wow.” I was impressed. “I don’t think it would’ve occurred to me to like a girl character back then. Now that I think about it, though, maybe I kind of had a thing for Fleur in the movies. I was really into the wedding scene in the second to last one. I watched the dance she and Bill did over and over.”
“God, I love that movie.”
“Me, too. My favorite thing about that one, though, is the soundtrack. Have you listened to it? They took the score from the earlier movies, when it was all kid stuff, and really messed with it to make it darker. It’s awesome mood music to listen to, even apart from the movie.”
“You really do like every kind of music, don’t you?”
“Mostly. The only thing I don’t listen to is Christian contemporary, just because I’ve never heard any that I really got into. But regular church music is pretty fun most of the time. As long as we aren’t having to sing ‘If I Had a Hammer’ for the forty thousandth time.”
Christa laughed. “You never have told me what your favorite song is, by the way.”
I shifted. “It’s like I said. I don’t have one favorite.”
“But if you did. If you had to pick one.”
“For real, I can’t.” I didn’t know why, but I still couldn’t tell her. It didn’t feel right. “I love too many different songs.”
“Then sing something for me.” She rolled over and grinned, locking her eyes on mine. “Anything. I want to hear this amazing voice everyone raves about.”
“No.” I shifted again. Why did she always want to talk about this? “They’d hear us in the house.”
“Sing quietly, then.” Her voice was teasing, but it only made me more anxious.
“I don’t know how to sing quietly. They don’t teach you that in choir.” Then the words started to spill out, and the next thing I knew, I was telling her what I was really thinking. “Look, singing isn’t very much fun for me anymore. Not the way it used to be.”
I regretted it as soon as I’d said it. Christa was obsessed with artists, and musicians in particular. That was why she’d liked me in the first place.
She didn’t pull back right away. Her eyes widened, though. “Why? What happened?”
“I—”I couldn’t tell her about the audition. I’d have to admit I’d lied to her. It would ruin everything. “I don’t know. I used to sing, or play my guitar, and I’d disappear into the music. But then I started taking it more seriously, and focusing on technique and writing my own songs, and suddenly instead of playing I was performing. It wasn’t the same.”
Christa was watching me closely, but she didn’t look upset. In fact, her eyes crinkled, and she nodded a small nod. As if she...understood, sort of.
I flushed. “Can we please go back to talking about Harry Potter?”
She nodded that little nod again, with a tiny smile to go with it.
“I wish we could get online,” she said. “Talking about those movies always makes me want to watch them again. I really want to see that wedding scene now.”
“Me, too.” I was so relieved she’d let me change the subject, I could’ve talked about nothing but Harry Potter for the rest of the night. “I loved Fleur’s wedding dress so much.”
“Was it her you liked or her dress?”
“Huh. I don’t know.” I frowned. “How do you tell the difference?”
“You got me.”
My head was on Christa’s shoulder, so I felt her shrug. I reached down to where her arm rested on my waist and slipped my hand into hers. Three weeks ago I never would’ve dreamed of doing that so casually.
Christa wound her fingers through mine and squeezed. “Oh, hey, did you hear what happened to Nick and Paul and those guys?”
I twisted around to look at her. “What?”
“Somebody found out they’d been drinking since we’ve been down here, and they’re in big trouble. Their parents got called at home—that level of trouble. They’re permanently grounded for the rest of the trip. They have to do private Bible study every single night after vespers, and in Texas they’re going to have to share rooms with the chaperones so they can’t sneak out.”
“Whoa.” Telling Dad had worked. “So did they admit it? About the guitar?”
Christa frowned. “What guitar?”
“Juana’s guitar. I mean, Señor Suarez’s. Remember, we saw them tossing it around Saturday night, and then this morning it turned up in pieces. I told my dad they broke it.”
“You told your dad?” Christa’s frown deepened. “Wait, how do you know they did it?
We were too far away to see what they were throwing around that night. It could’ve been anything.”
“Come on, it had to be the guitar. Juana left it right outside the house. They probably picked it up on their way to get even drunker.”
“I can’t believe you’re the one who told on them.” Christa shook her head. “Come on, they’re good guys. Sure, they drink, but I don’t think they’d break a little kid’s guitar.”
“I never said they did it on purpose. I bet they were just so drunk they threw it into a tree trunk or something.”
“Still. I don’t think I would’ve told on them.”
I pulled back. “How good of friends are you with them, anyway? Do you hang out with them back home? Is Steven part of their little posse?”
“No.” Christa sighed. “Steven doesn’t even know them. He doesn’t go to our church.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, that night at vespers Will and Tyler called me a—something really mean. So I don’t really care if they get in trouble, to be honest.”
Christa softened. “What did they call you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it.”
My eyes traced the edges of the curtains. A tiny sliver of sky was visible between them. Dozens of stars gazed down on us.
Tomorrow night, Christa and I would be in a dorm room. Alone. For the whole night. Before that, I needed to find my way to the college health center so I could get the stuff I’d read about.
Everything was happening so fast. And yet...not everything.
I hated that I was afraid to tell Christa what the guys had called me. I hated that I couldn’t say anything back to them that night, because talking back would’ve meant being honest about who I was.
I hated lying. I hated that I kept lying to Christa.
I didn’t want to be like Lori, lying to everyone because she knew what she was doing was wrong. What Christa and I were doing wasn’t wrong.
“I just can’t believe you told your dad we saw them,” Christa said. “It’s as if you tell your family everything.”