Hydraulic Level Five (1) (40 page)

Hydraulic Level Five [working title]
Draft 3.18
© Samuel Caulfield Cabral
The Farmer’s Front Porch

H
EAVY
B
LACK
C
LOUDS
obscure the sliver of a Halloween moon as neighborhood children make their way from lighted door to lighted door, crunching over dry leaves. Soon, Bear Creek is awash in witches, mice, superheroes. Caulfield muses how the streets resemble a nostalgic Norman Rockwell painting, glazed in the muted grays of his mountain home. And in the forefront of his Americana portrait is his “girl next door.” Caulfield tucks away her image for his collection, another moment of happiness encapsulated by amber.

Aspen sits on the crumbling front steps of her mother’s farmhouse on the edge of town, a large plastic witch’s cauldron filled with fun-sized candy resting in her lap. They just finished decorating her porch with carved orange pumpkins and spider webs draped between railings. Aspen even procured a pair of old jeans and a work shirt from Mrs. Trilby, stuffing them with hay to make a headless scarecrow. Caulfield hits play on the scary sound effects tape and takes his post next to his friend, “accidentally” brushing his thigh against hers. But the autumn wind is brisk tonight, and Aspen doesn’t seem to mind the extra warmth.

This year, he and Aspen go with pun costumes. She is resplendent in flower leis, grass skirt, and coconut bra (worn over a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans), and he has borrowed Esteban’s boxing gloves.

“A hula girl and a boxer?” A little cowboy scoffs as he holds out his candy bucket.

“No, we’re Hawaiian Punch,” Aspen says matter-of-factly, as if their attempt at humor is the most obvious thing in the world.

The kid sneers. “That’s stupid.”

Aspen digs deep into the bottom of her chocolate pile and tosses a half-crushed packet of Smarties in the kid’s candy stash. She winks at him as he stomps down the stairs, calling out, “you forgot to say trick-or-treat!” to his retreating back. Scaring the piss out of neighborhood children is one of her most beloved Halloween pastimes.

Por Dios
, Caulfield wants to kiss her.

She peels a wrapper from a chocolate bar, splits it, and offers half to Caulfield. He absently pops it in his mouth, watching Aspen’s warm lips close around the chocolate between her fingers, melting it as she drags it into her mouth.

Earlier that afternoon, Caulfield took Aspen on their first date. Only he was too much of a coward to actually inform her it was a date.

“Do you want to grab a bite to eat before the kids make the rounds?” he eagerly asks after school is out for the day. He plans to buy her an early dinner at the Hungry Bear Café because it is always done up like a haunted house to mark the holiday. Her mother won’t see it as a date, will she?
Mierda
, he should have just asked her out the minute she turned fourteen, and they could have doubled with Esteban and Maria to a movie. But taking her on a date date means kissing her goodnight. What if he sucks at it? What if he kisses her and she hates it? What if she just wants to be his friend?

An after-school date, though…

“Um, sure.” She digs into her coin purse for a quarter. “Lemme call my mom and let her know I’m just out with you. She’ll freak out if I don’t.”

Just out with you. As in, just hanging out with my old friend, Caulfield.

He ogles her hips swaying toward the pay phone in the school lobby, ignoring students as they jostle by him in the hallway or high-five him on their way out the door.

She doesn’t know it is a date. He’ll have to be blunt. Now he has to kiss her afterward. He’ll never sleep another night until he does, for all the visions of that soft mouth tearing through his dreams, making him ache with his need to put his lips on hers.

Aspen’s first official date hadn’t been with him, and Caulfield feels like a chicken-shit for letting her first anything not be with him. Yes, it is selfish. The minute Aspen turned fourteen, Esteban’s little brother swooped in like a vulture and whisked her away to a bonfire with his friends. The kid and Aspen shared a blanket at the bonfire. They held hands. She let him buy her ice cream afterward. She never let him buy ice cream for her.

Caulfield has been on dates before, too. Nothing special, a parade of poodle girls with permed hair stiffened by hairspray, hell-bent on scoring quality backseat time. A couple of girls try. One misses and hits her forehead on his car window. He even took Maria’s friend—cherry ChapStick girl—to the Homecoming dance just two weekends ago, but only because Aspen flat-out refused to go with him.

“The upper-classmen make me nervous, especially the Hispanic girls,” she admits. “They call me an ugly gringa.”

“They are ugly for saying that.”

“They don’t like how you hang out with me. Besides, you’re the big man, friends with everyone. You wouldn’t want to spend the evening entertaining a freshman.”

“But I want to spend it with you,” he retorts. “This is your first Homecoming, Firecracker. We don’t have to talk to anybody. We can sit at a table and watch everyone try to dance.”

She rolls her eyes at him and whips her hair into a ponytail, the down of her neck taunting his itchy fingers with its softness.

“I’ll go to the football game, but please don’t make me go to the dance…”

So now Caulfield sits next to hula-girl Aspen on her front steps, agonizing over the best approach when moving in for a kiss. Should he just lean in? Lift her chin? And does he tilt his head to the left or to the right? She pops another chocolate in her warm mouth and catches him staring.

“Do you want a piece?” Aspen asks innocently.

He groans and drops his head into his boxing gloves.

“Caulfield, did I do something wrong? You’ve glared at me half the afternoon. If you didn’t want to do the whole Halloween thing with me this year, you could have just told me no. I had a nice flower-power dress and go-go boots I snagged from my mom.”

He peers at her feet, watching as she tugs slippers around her bony ankles. His own feet bounce with nerves.

“Firecracker, can I ask you a left-field question?” Caulfield props his chin on his gloved hand, eyes searching hers. Rich hazel, with fleck of brown at the center…like the chocolate melting between her fingers. Funny, he always thought they were the color of pond algae—not so rich. He licks his lips.

She frowns. “You can ask, but I’m not sure I’ll answer.”

Caulfield sucks in his breath and blurts it out. “If I kissed you, would you kiss me back?”

Hazel eyes blink once, twice. Her mouth falls open, and Caulfield is fairly certain she is going to slap him. She reaches up and grabs his shirt collar. He grinds his gloved fists into the porch slats, bracing for the sting. But she tugs him closer. So close, her nose touches his.

“Yes,” she breathes, her eyes bright with excitement. Her lips curl, so soft…

He rests a boxing glove on either side of her face, and leans…

It is Halloween night, on the farmer’s front porch, when Caulfield kisses Aspen for the first time.

And the second time.

And the third.

Jaime—who is Caro’s ex, Togsy? See what you can find. Check CU creative writing alums.

I finished texting Jaime Guzman and stuffed my phone in my purse.

Christ the King was an old brick church with stained-glass windows and a creaky balcony. The interior had lately been painted bright white, but the rosy, glass-filtered light and Lyons’ gray day still made the interior seem dingy. Danita had covered the place in tulle and vivid red roses. A stack of programs was placed next to a guest book in the musty church narthex. I picked up one, scanning for my name.

Maid of Honor: Aspen Kaye Trilby, Friend of the Bride.

No question mark.

A sad little smile played on my mouth. I caught Samuel’s eyes on me and he smiled back, putting me at ease.

As it turned out, I didn’t need a Xanax to get me through the wedding rehearsal (though Molly’s stepmother was more than willing to oblige). Our friends kept it light, helping us to forget another wedding which took place in this tiny community church eight years ago. Santiago crossed his eyes at me across the sanctuary. We hummed “The Bridal March” because the organist had another engagement this evening. Molly gifted Danita and Angel with matching bride and groom T-shirts that said, “Game Over.” Angel thought they were hilarious, and immediately stripped off his button-up dress shirt to pull on his tee. Danita shrugged it over her red strapless dress after vowing to burn it later in the fire pit.

I looked over Sam’s shoulder at the small gathering of family and dates (and Caroline) in the audience, tuning out the minister’s droning as he explained the ceremony to Angel and Danita. I had my duties down: hold the bouquet, fluff Danita’s train, give a wedding toast. No stress here, thank you very much.

Once the rehearsal was over, though, my nerves did the conga back into my stomach. I was jittery the minute I slid into Hector’s truck, my knees bobbing against the dash until my friend placed a calming hand on them.

“Ay, Kaye. The last thing this poor truck needs is another dent.”

I pushed his hand from my knees. “Quit trying to grope me, Hector.”

“
Mamacita
, you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘grope.’”

I choked on the Tic Tac I’d been sucking. Hector smirked and I relaxed.

The heady scent of roasting pork and chiles hit my nose before I even left Hector’s truck. Long pine tree shadows stretched across the driveway as we made our way around the Valdez family home to the extensive backyard. Green and yellow Chinese lanterns were strung between canopies and tiki torches. The giant
zacahuil
tamale had just been removed from the clay pit, and six feet of
papatla
steamed and sizzled on a table. Two of Angel’s cousins rolled in kegs from a local brewery while Mr. Valdez rigged up a stereo system to pump out mariachi.

Other guests were just arriving, many I recognized from the Hispanic neighborhood. Angel helped his
abuela
down the hill and settled her into a lawn chair. There were Sofia’s sister Lucia and her husband, Carlos—two quiet people overshadowed by the roisterous Valdez family. A few out-of-town Cabrals milled about, too. Samuel’s great aunt, who’d retired to Baja, California, once Alonso’s mother passed away, and another great aunt and uncle from Ciudad Victoria were there. But the vast majority of guests were Angel’s large extended family. The Valdez clan had established roots long before white settlers came in their wagons, and had farmed west of Lyons well over a hundred years. If locals weren’t related to the Valdez family, they at least went to school with a Valdez. They were a rowdy pack of mainly agricultural workers who told crude jokes and tried to toss each other into St. Vrain Creek. I thought they were fantastic.

“Hungry, Hector?” I shouted over the thumping stereo speakers as my date tugged me toward stacks of fried plantains and pickled things.

“If I’m going to show you a good time tonight, Kaye, I need some fuel.” He winked at me and popped a cheese cube in his mouth. Just beyond him, a brown-haired man stiffened. Ah, Samuel and Caroline beat us to the party.

Caroline was slumming it, couture-wise. She’d finally ditched the heels for more sensible sandals, capris, and a pale green top that showed off her coffee-cream skin. I grimaced as I glanced at my own white forearm, tinged a blotchy pink by the sun.

Hector’s roaming hands were little better at the fiesta than they’d been in the car, and it began to tick me off. At first it was funny, but now I wondered if he was using his status as my “date” to get in a lifetime’s worth of digs at Samuel. Kissing my cheek whenever Samuel watched. Snaking an arm around my shoulders. He even grabbed my tush, which earned him a death glare from both Samuel and me. Enough was enough.

“I thought I told you to quit groping me,” I demanded as we set up our lawn chairs near the gurgling creek. I chucked my sandals at him.

He placed a hand over his heart in mock hurt. “I thought this was what you wanted, Kaye. To piss off Cabral?”

“No! You are supposed to show me a good time, not play the revenge game.”