Double-Crossed (6 page)

Under the threat of being grounded and stripped of all my privileges, I did play the match. I figured my dad could make me play, but he couldn't make me play well. Every time the ball came to me, I'd hit it right to Anna, who then powered up and slammed it down our throats.

“What's wrong with you?” Charlie said after we lost the first three games in a row. “You can't keep lobbing her soft balls like that. She's killing us.”

“I don't care,” I said.

“Well I do, Sammie. All my friends are watching. You're making me look bad.”

That's just fine
, I thought. Just like the people at the club had made Alicia and Oscar and Eddie look bad. I had no desire to win. All I wanted to do was leave the Sand and Surf Club and never come back again. The quickest way to do that was to lose.

Which we did. Six–love. Six–love.

That's right. We never even won one game.

You Can't Ground Me!

Chapter 7

“To say I'm disappointed in you, Sammie, would be the understatement of the century,” my dad fumed as we drove home after the match.

Smoke was practically coming out of his ears. He was in the middle of a long lecture that lasted all the way home and continued right on into dinner and even after. He didn't really wind down until he fell asleep on the couch watching the nightly news. Even GoGo couldn't get him to put a cork in it. He left no cliché unturned. I'm sure you can imagine the basic thrust of the lecture. Some of the highlights (which if you ask me, were actually lowlights) included:

 

(1) I let him and my sister down.

(2) I was part of a team.

(3) There is no “
I
” in team.

(4) Winners do their best at all times.

(5) Losing is for losers.

 

As the cherry on top of his marathon lecture, he told me I was grounded for the following week. That meant I couldn't go to any after-school activities. This was especially devastating because the Truth Tellers were going to be rehearsing every day for the performance on Saturday night. When my mom called from Boston, which she does every Sunday night to see how the week went, I told her about my punishment, hoping she would talk Dad out of it. She was very sympathetic, and agreed that what the Sand and Surf Club did was wrong, but she said she couldn't go against Dad's rules. They always back each other up, my parents, which Charlie, Ryan, and I find really annoying.

I tried calling Alicia all night, but she didn't pick up. She doesn't have a cell phone, so I just kept leaving messages on her family's voice mail. I was worried that she was mad or hurt or both, and I was desperate to talk to her—to explain, to apologize, to hear that things were okay between us.

The next morning, I left for school early and walked really fast to the bus stop at Third and Arizona, where Alicia always gets off. When the bus pulled up, she wasn't on it. I waited for the next one, but she wasn't on that one, either. Finally, I had to leave for school and found myself walking right in front of two of the SF2 boys, saggy Jared and the General.

“Hey, I hear somebody choked at her tennis match yesterday,” Jared said, holding his throat and making a noise like he was choking.

Really? Don't these guys have anything better to think about than my tennis game?

Apparently not, because his remark was followed by the General's.

“Charlie says you were freaked out because your friends from Guatemala got busted,” he said.

“They are from El Salvador,” I said.

“Same difference,” he answered.

I stopped walking and turned to look him square in the face.

“Since you seem to be a general in some unknown armed forces, you might want to take a geography lesson and learn the countries of Central America, our neighbors to the south.”

“Whoa,” he said, smirking at Jared. “Somebody's in a touchy mood. You should chill out and be more like your sister.”

Before I could answer, his phone beeped and he reached into the pocket of his camouflage cargo pants and pulled it out.

“Text from Brooke,” he said. “She's here.”

We had just walked up to the front steps of Beachside, our school, and Brooke was getting out of her dad's car, holding her phone. She looked around, and when she saw the General walking toward the steps, she waved and squealed all at once. There should be a word for that . . . I know, a squave. That's it. She squaved at the General.

“Hey,” she said, running up to him. “How come you're walking with Sammie?”

“Are you jealous?” he asked.

“Oh right. Like, so jealous,” she said with a laugh.

That stung. Not that I was interested in the General even the tiniest smidgeon of a bit, but still, it hurt not even to be considered good enough for a minute of his attention. All I was to them was a joke.

I was never so grateful to hear the five-minute warning bell ring. I left them and dashed up the stairs to the office. Mrs. Humphrey, who runs the attendance office, was in her usual foul mood, but I didn't care. I asked her if Alicia had called in sick. She just frowned at me over her steel-rimmed glasses and told me she was not at liberty to give out that information, like it was some big security breech or something.

At lunch, I went to Ms. Carew's classroom. Most of the time, she eats lunch at her desk and leaves her door open for anyone who wants to come in and hang out. The kids in Truth Tellers all love Ms. Carew, and usually, there are four or five kids in her room or on her patio, talking and eating. When I went in, she was working with Etta and Bernard, helping them refine their ideas for a monologue for our Saturday-night performance.

“Have you seen Alicia today?” I asked. “I really need to talk to her. I think she's mad at me.”

“I haven't seen her,” Ms. Carew answered, “but you two are such good friends, I'm sure you can talk through your feelings.”

I told her what happened at the club. She listened and sighed deeply.

“Exclusion is a terrible thing,” she said, “especially when you're excluded for no other reason than being yourself.”

She went over to the intercom and buzzed Mrs. Humphrey.

“Can you tell me why Alicia Bermudez is out today?” she asked.

“Why does everyone want to know?” Mrs. Humphrey barked. “You'd think I have nothing else to do with my time than take attendance.”

That was a weird thing to say. Since she does run the attendance office, I would think taking attendance is one of the main things she has to do. I could hear her typing on her computer, and I could feel the annoyance as she punched the keyboard hard.

“Here it is,” she grumbled. “Her father called her in absent at seven forty-two this morning. He said it was a family issue.”

That worried me. Was Alicia staying out of school because she was too embarrassed about what had happened at the club? Or because she was furious with me for going on with the match? Or because something bad had happened in the family? I had to talk to her. I tried calling a few more times in between classes that afternoon, but all I kept getting was voice mail.

As soon as the bell rang, I walked out the main door and headed for the bus stop at Third and Arizona. As I passed Starbucks, I saw Charlie hanging out there with Lauren, putting her backpack down on one of the outside tables.

“Sammie,” Charlie called. “Where are you going?”

“I've got to do something.” I stopped reluctantly at their table for just a minute. I didn't want to miss the bus.

“Um, are you forgetting that you're grounded?”

“Um, no, I'm not.”

“Well, not to bother you with little details, but don't you think Dad's going to notice that you're not home like you're supposed to be?”

“Could I talk to you in private a second?” I whispered to her.

“You can say whatever you have to say in front of Lauren,” she answered. “We're best friends and she'll keep any secret I ask her to. Right, Lauren?”

“Totally.” Lauren nodded.

I didn't like saying anything about Alicia in front of Lauren, but I had no choice. I needed Charlie to help cover for me.

“Well, all I know is that Alicia wasn't in school today and I have to find out what's going on.”

“Just call her on her cell phone and ask her,” Lauren said.

“She doesn't have one.”

“You've got to be kidding!” Lauren gasped. “How does a person survive without a cell phone? I know I couldn't.”

“You don't think anything happened to Alicia, do you?” Charlie asked. She sounded concerned, and I was glad to hear it. Not that I wanted her to be worried, but it was good to see her acting like a real human without considering what Lauren would think.

“I don't know, I'm going to her house to check.”

“What am I supposed to tell Dad?”

“Figure something out. I'll call you when I know what's happening.”

As I turned to go, I nearly bumped into Brooke and the General, who were approaching the table.

“Well, look who's decided to join the human race and get a Starbucks,” the General said to me. “It's about time.”

Brooke laughed like he had said the cleverest thing in the world.

“Since when is drinking a Frappuccino a qualification to be in the human race?” I snapped at him.

Charlie put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a little shove.

“Just go,” she whispered. “Now.”

She didn't have to ask twice. I took off for the bus stop, and luckily, the Number 86 was pulling up just as I got there. I climbed aboard and took the only seat left, next to a man in a straw cowboy hat who was sound asleep with his earbuds in. I could hear the music leaking out of them. Someone was singing in Spanish, a really lively upbeat song with lots of trumpets in the background. It was the kind of music Candido always listened to when he did the gardening at the Sporty Forty. He told me once that music and pineapple made his
corazón
happy. Of course, then he had to explain to me that
corazón
means heart in Spanish. After that, I noticed that whenever he spoke to Esperanza, he called her
mi corazón.
You have to admit, that's pretty romantic, for grown-up married people.

I transferred to the 187 bus and rode it all the way to Palms, where Alicia lives. I got off at Walpole Street and hurried down the block to her apartment. I ran up to the second floor, and knocked on the door of apartment number 206. There was a loud cry from inside, and then the door flew open. Ramon, Alicia's four-year-old brother, was standing there in his underpants and a blue cape.

“I'm Spider-Man,” he screamed. “And I'm going to get you.”

Then he pounced on my leg and started making buzzing noises around my ankles. Ramon's only four, so I assumed it was okay that he didn't know that bees buzz and spiders don't. I decided to pass on the science lesson.

“Ramon,” Alicia's grandmother said, coming to the door. “
Basta!
”

She doesn't speak much English, but she's really nice. She beckoned for me to come in—there didn't seem to be anyone else home.

“Where's Alicia?” I asked her.

“She's been captured by Spider-Man,” Ramon yelled. “He's stinging her in the butt!”

“Hey,
niño
, watch your words,” said a voice from the bedroom doorway. It was Eddie, shuffling out. He looked like he had been napping. Once he was in the living room, he grabbed Ramon in his arms and wrestled him to the floor in a really playful way. Ramon giggled at the top of his lungs.

“You can tell Ramon has been around Oscar too much,” Eddie said while Ramon rolled around on the floor laughing. “All he talks about now is superheroes.”

“Is Alicia here?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “She's with Oscar. At the hospital.”

“The hospital? Is he okay? Is she okay? I mean, is everybody okay?”

“Oscar is seeing the doctors. About his leg. They took Alicia because she speaks good English. And I got to stay here to nap!”

Of course, that made perfect sense. I started to feel some relief—maybe she wasn't as mad as I'd thought. Maybe she hadn't called because she was just busy. Still, I wanted to talk to her and make sure.

“You can wait for her here,” Eddie said. I sat down on the couch and Alicia's grandmother brought me a sugar cookie she had just baked. Ramon grabbed it and licked all the sugar off the top, then told me I could have the rest.

Call me picky, but I have a policy against eating food that has already been licked by someone else.

“No, thanks,” I told him.

Eddie sat down next to me. Then he got up quickly and pulled out a piece of paper that was crunched up in the space between the cushions.

“Oscar is always leaving his drawings around,” he complained.

“Can I see it?”

He handed me the sheet of paper. It was a great drawing of Captain America, his red-white-and-blue costume looking just like it did in the movie. He was running across a bridge that was on fire, carrying a blond girl in his arms. The caption under it said, “He saves Sammie from the flames.”

I studied the girl in the drawing to see if she really looked like me.

“Oscar came back from your party the other night and started drawing pictures of you,” Eddie said. “But he is not happy with them.”

“Why?”

“He says he cannot draw a girl as pretty as you are,” Eddie said.

Ramon made a sound like he was throwing up. “Eeuuwww,” he gagged. “Mushy stuff makes me sick.”

He continued to fake gag until I thought he actually might barf. Eddie decided it was best to change the subject, and I was all for it. The last thing I wanted was for Ramon to get any ideas about Oscar and me. Besides, nothing was going on between us anyway.

At least, I don't think anything is going on. But then, I wouldn't really know what it would feel like if something was going on. Or would I?

“Tell me about Lily,” Eddie said, much to my relief.

“What do you want to know about her?”

Ramon stopped gagging and returned to buzzing around my ankle. He's usually pretty wild, or as Alicia likes to say, energetic . . . but when he's had sugar, there's no stopping him. I ignored his buzzing the best I could.

“Everything,” Eddie answered.

“Well, she's more Charlie's friend than mine, so I can't tell you much about her. I know that her full name is Lily March. She modeled for the Gap catalog a couple of times. She loves to sew. Her dad is African American and he's a big-time record producer. Her mom is from Hawaii and designs bathing suits. Let's see. She's got a half-decent forehand, but no backhand whatsoever. What else do you want to know?”