Later, over leftover tamales and coleslaw, I tell Liddy how I feel about going out with Angel, and how I kind of wish I’d said no instead. Amused, she makes her patented get-a-clue face at me. “It’s easier to say no,” she chirps. “Much safer.”
“What do you mean by ‘safer’?”
She chews on her lip. After a few seconds, she sighs like I asked her to explain the meaning of life in Pig Latin. “I mean, I imagine you’re not gunning to put yourself out there right now. And I can’t say I blame you. It’s been a hard year.”
Liddy always makes sense, even when I don’t want her to. “But you think I should go?”
“I think you should, yes. If you’re not ready to date you’re not ready, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. You’re allowed to move on. Go out and live your life, Ruby.”
My gut says she’s right. There isn’t any good reason not to go into Santa Fe with Angel. I mean, I went to Pecos with Ezra and we had fun. And Angel is a hundred times easier to be around. Not to mention better looking.
I promise Liddy I’ll go. End of story. But by the next morning, the prospect of spending an evening alone with Angel, excites me about as much as Mr. Peterson’s first-period ode to Lord Byron. I’m one-quarter interested, and three-quarters mortified.
Doubt creeps back on plodding feet. My only saving grace is Racine, who insists on coming over after school to help me get ready. A lifesaver to the infinite degree, she’s seriously better than any stupid boyfriend.
Rifling through my clothes after school, Racine squeals, “Ruby, some of these dresses are amazing!” She pokes an arm out of my closet and holds up a long, sequined gown.
“Thanks,” I sigh. “They were my mother’s. But it’s not like I have a lot of places to wear them.” My closet is stuffed with dresses, skirts, and tops I coveted while Mom was alive, the kind of clothes people wear in movies or high-fashion magazines.
“Shit, Ruby, she has really good taste.”
“Yeah,” I say. “She did.”
“Did?”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh.” Racine looks up at me with wide eyes. “Oh, Ruby, I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“When you said you lived with your aunt, I assumed your mom traveled or something. Or, like, that you didn’t get along. I wish you’d told me.”
“I don’t like talking about it.”
“Did it happen recently?”
“Last November. Right after Thanksgiving.”
“God. What about your dad?”
I shake my head. “No one knows who he is.”
“Really?” Racine scrunches her face into a ball.
“Mom wouldn’t tell us. Truthfully, I’m not even sure she knew. She was kind of liberated. At least that’s what she’d say.”
Racine looks at the dress and absently shuffles through the rest hanging in my closet. I can tell she isn’t sure what to say, and that she wonders whether or not it’s all right to ask me questions. But I wait out her silence. I don’t want to encourage the conversation.
After a few moments, she pulls out one of the last things my mom bought before she died and holds it up for me. “How about this? It’ll look awesome on you.”
Racine waves a silky emerald dress that cinches at the waist in my face. It’s a little clingier than I like and definitely low-cut. Mom wasn’t flat, but she wasn’t curvy like I am. And she had, like seven inches on me.
“I don’t know …” I start before Racine cuts me off.
“Try it,” she insists.
Grimacing, I pull off my jeans and T-shirt and yank the dress over my head, then let Racine zip it up in the back. It’s a little too long, falling past my knees rather than above, and the bust is too tight.
“Wow.” I look down at my cleavage. “It looks like someone squashed a melon into an eggcup.”
“Wait.” Racine walks behind me and unhooks my bra. “Now take it off.”
“It’s not going to look any better with a strapless.”
“Ruby, just take the stupid thing off, okay?”
I pull my bra straps down, sneaking out of it without taking off the dress. When I drop it on the ground, Racine comes around and starts pulling at my bustline. She adjusts the dress’s straps in back and tells me to bend over. “Just maneuver up a little. The dress will take care of the rest.”
When I’m through “maneuvering” and upright, Racine whistles through her teeth.
“Bad?” I grimace.
“You won’t be able to keep him off you.”
“Racine.” I blush.
“You do know how pretty you are?”
“That’s gracious coming from you,” I joke, meaning it with all my fiber.
“And you’re not at all stuck up about it.” She smiles.
Racine brushes my hair and straightens it with the flat iron she brought over. The way she acts, futzing over me like a mother hen, you’d think she was sending me out on my first date. Though truth be told, there haven’t been many others.
When Racine finishes, I grab my purse and a cardigan and head down the hall to dig for a pair of Liddy’s heels. Foot size is about the only physical attribute we have in common.
“Wait!” Racine calls, racing down the hall after me. “You didn’t even look in the mirror.”
“You’re a genius, Ray. I trust you.”
“Okay,” she answers hesitantly, giving me one of those who-are-you-really looks.
She helps me choose a pair of scarlet high heels. Given Liddy’s arsenal of shoes, it figures Racine would go straight for red. They’re kind of flashy. But I also like how confident they make me feel.
“Perfect!” Racine exclaims on her way downstairs. “You look like a million dollars.” She grabs her bag off the couch and heads for the front door. “Just don’t do anything to mess up your makeup in the next ten minutes, hear me?”
“I’ll stand here in the hall. I won’t even breathe. I promise.”
Racine laughs. She crosses her eyes and blows me a kiss. “Remember to use protection!” she calls on her way out.
“As if!” I yell back. I agreed to a date but given my body’s sociable response to Angel, and its tendency to go all anarchistic around him, I plan on keeping a polite distance.
Angel pulls up the driveway at six, sharp. Since Liddy is still at the university, I quickly jot down a note and leave it on the table. Then I run outside. When Angel sees me, he stops dead in the driveway and fixes his eyes on my dress, embarrassing the heck out of my already awkward self.
“Ruby,” he draws out, “you look beautiful.”
“You don’t look too shabby yourself.” I blush.
He doesn’t. Against his loose white button up and dark blue jeans, his chocolate hair and caramel skin glow. He looks flawless, and edible, and not at all like someone I should be alone with.
Angel walks around to the passenger door and holds it open. He takes my hand as I step up into the Bronco and buckles the seatbelt across my lap. The gesture is a little old-fashioned, but then Mom taught me to always appreciate a true gentleman.
We talk nonstop during the drive into Santa Fe. As the land changes from densely foliaged mountains to scrubbier hills and rocky mesas, Angel describes his deputy’s duties. He delights in the details, like how his colleague Chuck never shows up on time and how he’s always pulling cats out of overgrown cholla gardens and dogs out of the Pecos River. In a way, Angel is a maverick. He subscribes to these textbook ideals and believes in justice to a hilt, but also likes doing things his way, even if it means breaking the rules. Listening to him talk, I realize I like knowing there’s some rebel beneath his glossy exterior.
In Santa Fe, we drive to his mother’s restaurant off Cerrillos Road and park outside a small adobe café named, Rojo. Inside the café, Angel pulls me into the kitchen, calling out in Spanish. Near the stove, a tall, commanding woman turns toward us, holding a dishtowel and knife. She waves the knife in the air and yells, “Angel,
mi corazon, viene beso su mami!”
“Sí, sí, Mama,” Angel mutters fondly. “Patience.” He pulls the knife from her hand and hugs her tightly, picking her up off the ground. “Mama, this is Ruby.” He smiles, waving his hand toward me. “Ruby, this is my mom, Viviane.”
“Hello,” she says warmly. “Please, make yourself at home. I’m so happy to meet you.”
“Thank you, Ms. Ruiz.” I almost curtsy. She has so much presence, she’s almost majestic.
“Ruby. Please. Call me Viviane,” she insists.
Viviane walks us around the kitchen. She’s chatty, and sort of quirky, and not at all like Angel, who seems more levelheaded. Over the next half hour, she also repeatedly tries to feed me. The café smells wonderful, but Angel keeps refusing her, giving me the eye whenever I try shaking my head yes.
“Don’t encourage her,” he whispers in my ear. “We’ll never get out of here.”
Rojo is packed so staying for dinner seems like a really good idea. But since Angel is adamant about eating downtown, I smile and decline every time Viviane asks, covertly shooting him the evil eye when he isn’t looking. When Angel announces it’s time to go, Viviane walks us to the front of the crowded dining room and gives me a hug. “Hasta próximo tiempo,” she whispers in my ear. “Please, come back, anytime.”
“I will. I swear,” I promise. “I’ll bring my aunt.”
We say our goodbyes and head for downtown Santa Fe, stopping for dinner at a fancier restaurant Angel picked near the Plaza.
“So, what’s wrong with your mom’s place?” I rib him when our food comes, staring over the balcony at the people walking below us on the street. “Don’t you feel like a traitor?”
He laughs. “She would have hovered all night, trust me.”
“What’s wrong with that? I like her.”
“You don’t know my mom. One dish would have turned into fifty. We’d be there ’til closing time.”
“You guys seem close.”
“We are. Very. But she’s nosy.”
“She’s also really sweet. You’re lucky.”
“I am,” he nods.
“My mom traveled a lot.” I try to sound indifferent. “She’d take off for days. We weren’t even sure where she was half the time. I never saw her.”
“That must have sucked.”
“Even when she was home, she was kind of a stranger. Anyway,” I shake my head, mad at myself for bringing her up, “what was Viviane like when you were a kid?”
Angel nods sympathetically, reaching across the table to squeeze my fingers. The gesture makes my stomach roil, and I gently pull my hand away. I hate it when people feel sorry for me.
“My mom was always there,” he says. “I barely knew my dad. He took off a lot. And he left for good when I was about four, so mostly, Mom and Torrance raised me.”
“Torrance is pretty cool,” I tell him.
“What about Liddy? I take it she was more like your mom then?”
“Can we change the subject?” I ask.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about me, Angel.”
“Then tell me about Los Angeles.”
“I don’t want to talk about Los Angeles either,” I insist. “Tell me more about your family.”
Angel drops his eyes for a moment, then sits back in his chair. “I will if you tell me why you moved to New Mexico.”
Except for the fact that Liddy bought the house in La Luna without telling us a couple of months before Mom died, I’m not sure myself. Until Liddy decided we should move, I wouldn’t have guessed she even knew where La Luna was on a map.
“Liddy found an ad for the house sitting on the table one day. Mom had been going on about getting out of LA for so long, Liddy figured it was her way of finally manning up. She assumed Mom left the listing for a reason, so she went out and bought it. She was going to surprise her.”
Mom often protested living in the land of silicon and smog and traffic so dense you could practically lean out your car window and kiss another car’s bumper. She loved to wax on about packing it up and riding out of town with the sunset. But honestly, Mom was always more talk than action.
“Just like that?” he asks.
“She really wanted Mom to be happy. But when Liddy finally told us she bought the house, Mom was pissed. She was capricious about everything though, so it wasn’t surprising. Still, Liddy was angry. She almost sold it. She was looking for an agent here in New Mexico when Mom died. Afterward, I guess Liddy just thought it was a good place to start over.”
Angel’s small smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. “I really wasn’t trying to get you to talk about her. I swear.”
“I sound angry, don’t I?”
“A little bit.”
Angel’s eyes are so friendly. They stay locked on mine, encouraging me to go on. I’m comfortable around him, it’s just that Mom isn’t a comfortable subject.
“I really don’t like talking about her.” I sniff, then smile, trying to soften my tone. “So, I’ve been wondering,” I say, purposely redirecting the conversation, “What do you think happened to Ezra?”
He frowns, dismissing the question with a wave.
“You never wonder?”
“Not anymore.”
“If you had to guess?” I prod.
“What’s up with you?” he asks.
“Now you sound mad.”
“I’m not. I just don’t understand why you’re interested in Ezra.”
“I guess I feel bad for him.”
“You shouldn’t. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“How well do you know him?” I ask, feeling defensive for no good reason.
Angel cocks his head curiously and crosses his arms against his chest, sitting back in the tan patio chair. “Better than you do.”
“He’s really not that bad, Angel.”
He sits very still, as if waiting out a small, impudent child. “People don’t like him. I don’t like him. And for good reason. It’s fair to say I don’t understand why you want to hang out with him.”
Instinctively, I pull back against my seat, putting a few more inches between us. “It really sucks to be alone. I know that.”
“Has it occurred to you,” he answers, “that maybe he’s alone for a reason?”
“People change.”
“Do they?” He shakes his head. “Maybe they do. But far as I can tell, Ezra hasn’t.”
I stare at him, almost angry.
Angel looks off at the twinkling lights hanging from the trees over the sidewalk on the Plaza, avoiding my eyes. “He’s a user. It’s his MO, Ruby. He’ll gain your trust, get what he wants, then kick you to the curb when he’s done. That’s what he does, did with every girl unfortunate to fall for him.”
“I guess I’m safe then. Because I’m not planning on falling for him.”
He exhales, clearly exasperated. Sighing, he leans forward over the table. “I’m not kidding when I say old-timers still talk about his family.”
“Maybe, but Ezra’s not his family.”
“If he takes advantage of you, I swear I’ll arrest him.”
“You’ll arrest him?” I cover my mouth, stifling a laugh.
“If he hurts you, yes.”
“Angel.” I lean closer. “You’re very sweet. But you barely know me. Don’t you think you’re being a little overprotective?”
“You act like it’s a bad thing. You’re my friend. I take care of my friends.”
“I’m just … I just don’t understand why you think I can’t take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you can take care of yourself. But you don’t know Ezra.”
“I’m not two!” I snap. “I resent people treating me like I am.”
“Look, I’m just saying, you’re not taking me seriously enough when I tell you the boy’s got issues. Ezra’s not someone you want to be blind around.”
“I’m not blind,” I insist. “Maybe everyone else is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that most people don’t bother to look beneath the surface.” I meet his eyes defiantly, silently accusing him of being ‘most people.’ “I shouldn’t have to explain myself for wanting to give Ezra a chance. And I really don’t want to sit here and listen to a speech about my judgment. I mean, you don’t really know me either.”
Angel stares at me like I grew three more heads. He glances around, as if embarrassed by my outburst. “I didn’t know it meant that much to you,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”
I inhale deeply and close my eyes. Right or wrong, Angel doesn’t deserve a lashing in the middle of some fancy restaurant during a date he planned to impress the lame girl he likes. Reeling myself in a little, I bat my eyes, showing all my teeth for effect. “I just hate knowing that something like looks matters so much to people. You can blame my mom for that.”
Angel stares down at the table. “How was your food?”
“It was good, why?”
He shrugs. “Maybe we should call it a night.”
Slick as ever, I’ve managed to alienate Angel in just a couple of hours. I want to stay longer and try to salvage things, but I nod instead, assuming he wouldn’t have mentioned leaving if he wanted to be with me any longer.
Angel pays the bill and takes the stairs down to the Plaza before me, walking a few steps ahead until we reach the street. Neither of us speak on the way back to the parking lot, and the wind whistling down the narrow porticos connecting the Plaza accentuates the silence.
“You okay?” Angel finally asks when we stop at his truck.
I shiver and shrug. “I’m fine.”
He opens the passenger door, waiting for me to climb in, then takes off his coat and hands it to me. “Ruby, I know you’ve been through a lot. I have no business pushing you. But I really like you. And no matter how it plays out between us, and no matter how strong you are, I’ll still worry. It’s the way I’m built.”
He shuts the door and walks around to the driver’s side before I can answer.
On the way back to La Luna, I lay my cheek against the leather headrest and focus on his profile, hoping he’ll glance at me and give me the opening I need. But he doesn’t. So, I speak to the side of him instead. “I’m really sorry, Angel.”
Between Wild and Ruin Page 9