Authors: Carmen Rodrigues
in driver’s ed, there are six people to every squad, and
although the coach swears that the squads were chosen randomly, I think there must have been some divine intervention at work because about two-thirds of my squad is of equal social and intellectual atomic structure. But there are differences, too. My squad consists of:
In this group I do okay. I guess you could say that besides Jessica, everyone’s nice. That’s really more than I had hoped for.
Right now, I’m waiting for my turn to park in reverse and spending every second of it hoping that José, our assigned squad captain, will get me through the experience. See, José’s like a driver’s ed superstar. He can change lanes, parallel park, stop on a dime—whatever. Our driver’s ed coach eats him up—red eyes and all—because there’s no limit to his driving ability.
After José finishes, Jessica slides into the driver’s seat and takes off with a screech. She’s a crazy driver, and I don’t know how she got to be co-captain, but I bet it has something to do with her teeny-tiny skirts, minuscule thighs, and glossy black hair.
“You look worried.” Every now and then Tamara likes to take time from writing in her student government notebook to talk to me.
“A little,” I admit. Jessica skids to a stop. From across the lot, the coach shoots her a thumbs-up.
“Yeah, me, too,” Tamara says. And I’m taken aback because in the ten years that I’ve known Tamara, I’ve never once heard her admit to being nervous.
“You’re nervous?”
“Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t operate in reverse. I get all discombobulated. Ya know?” She shakes her head.
I sigh in agreement.
“So,” she says. “I hear you’re tutoring Danny Diaz.”
“Who told you?” It’s not like I’ve told anyone besides Marisol. And I can’t imagine that Danny Diaz feels the need to broadcast his academic ineptitude to anyone.
“Oh, you know, somebody…”
Somebody, I wonder. Or half the library?
“So…” Tamara smiles, and I notice what straight, white teeth she has. Tamara isn’t conventionally pretty, but when she smiles or talks about things that are interesting to her, you just can’t help but get sucked in. I guess that makes her an unusually attractive person. “Do you know if he has a girlfriend?” she asks rather lightly.
“What?” I didn’t even know that she knew Danny, let alone liked him.
“Well…?” Tamara flashes me her
aren’t I brilliant
smile.
“I don’t know. We don’t talk about anything besides English.” And barely that. With three meetings behind us (two of them filled with my emotional instability), Danny and I had barely had time to discuss
The Scarlet Letter,
let alone his relationship status.
“Hey”—she cocks her head to the side—“do you think you could ask? If you don’t mind…” Again, she smiles.
“Well, I don’t really think that would be appropriate. You know,” I explain lamely, “a violation of the student/tutor relationship.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but…it’s not like you’re getting paid. I mean the position is totally volunteer, right? And asking personal questions is how you get to know someone better, which is important to a working relationship.” Tamara closes the deal like a true politician.
I paste on a stiff smile and debate whether I feel queasy because Jessica has just thrown the car into park or because the idea of Danny with thousand-watt Tamara is nauseating?
“Susie,” José screams, his body halfway out the car window, “you’re holding up the line!”
Which seems to always be my problem,
I think. “I have to go.” I leap to my feet and take five grateful steps forward before Tamara calls out to me.
“Susie,” she says, “please.”
It’s sad, really, because that’s all it takes. One simple
please
and I freeze.
“Please,” she repeats again.
I crumble. “Fine, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Oh!” Tamara rushes forward and gives me a forceful hug. “Thanks, like a million times. I mean it.”
“You’re welcome,” I say. And despite myself, I can’t believe how nice it feels to hear those words—
thanks
and
please
—from someone other than Marisol. It’s like—
“Susie, c’mon!” Jose waves me in like an air traffic controller.
It’s like…driving in reverse with your eyes closed.
after failing my driver’s ed exam, getting a c on my trig
test, and debating for the thousandth time whether Tamara and Danny might possibly have a future together, I come to one and only one conclusion: I never want to leave my bed. Ever.
That is, until my dad decides to attack my bedroom door with the raw force of his writer’s knuckles. Then, I want to get out of bed for the sole purpose of killing.
“Come on, Susie.” My dad says, followed by two sharp raps on the buckling pressboard. “Susie, get up.”
Question: if your daughter’s light is out, her door is closed, and other than for the fart that she let rip (and I mean rip) half an hour ago, you haven’t heard a peep out of her for the LAST FIVE HOURS, what do you think she might be doing?
Answer: SLEEPING. I’M SLEEPING.
Isn’t it obvious?
“Susie?” There is a knuckle scrape, followed by an irritating
pound, pound.
Apparently not.
“Dad,” I moan, “I’m tired!”
“Susie,” my dad growls, “I’m on a call. You have a visitor.” His tone is short, which is surprising because I never knew that automatic-pilot dads come preprogrammed with two settings.
“Fine.” I fight to focus on the light slipping underneath the cracks of my bedroom door. “I’m awake.”
“Good.” I hear him retreat down the hall to the study.
I glance at Mr. Swims-A-Lot, the neon-green goldfish clock that my mom bought me for my ninth birthday. It’s eight forty-five p.m. School ended at two-thirty, and only now is Marisol responding to my S.O.S. cry for help (one e-mail, two voice mails, and a dire handwritten note scribbled in purple highlighter).
“Marisol,” I mutter, stopping at my father’s study to listen to his important phone call.
“Yeah,” I hear him murmur. “Uh-huh. That’s a very good idea. I understand, Leslie.”
His important phone call is Leslie? Marisol’s mom, Leslie?
“Marisol,” I say, popping a breath mint into my mouth as I walk through our U-shaped house and step around the corner of the family room and into the foyer, “why is your mom talking to my dad on the pho—”
“It’s not Marisol.”
The sight of Danny Diaz standing in my foyer, coupled with the overwhelming smell of his cologne, stops me from talking, walking, or doing anything else.
“Danny?” I step back into a bookcase. “What are you doing here? I rub my eyes roughly, believing that if I rub hard enough he’ll disappear. “How do you know where I live?”
“Tamara,” he says simply.
“Tamara?”
“Tamara, um, Cruz. We have sixth period SAT prep together…”
I give him a blank look so he continues.
“You used to ride the same private bus in junior high…. Her dad teaches at UM with your dad…. You have the same—”
“Driver’s ed class together. Yeah…I know.” But how did he know? Was he talking to Tamara about me?
“I asked her where you live because I wanted to come here. I wanted to talk to you.”
I move slowly toward the living room sofa, keeping my eyes on him at all times. The ceiling fan whirls above us, spreading the aroma of Danny everywhere and filling my ears with a buzzing noise. I shiver. My pajamas—a pair of boxers and a white wifebeater, sans bra—suddenly seem transparent. It’s like I’m standing naked in front of Danny. I burrow my body into the corner of the sofa, hiding my chest behind an oversized throw pillow.
“You asked Tamara where I live?” I clarify. Danny nods his head, a hesitant smile threatening the corners of his lips. “But why?” I ask, which is a good question.
Why?
“Um…” Danny sits opposite me on the love seat. “I wanted to…um…you…” He stops abruptly and rubs the side of his mouth. “You’ve got some…”
“What?” I stare at him blankly.
He rubs the side of his mouth again, shakes his head, and licks his thumb. He leans forward, cups my chin, and rubs his thumb lightly over my skin.
“Drool,” he says, chuckling.
Ten thousand butterflies. When Danny’s finger connects with my chin, ten thousand butterflies explode in my belly. I mean, here he is: Danny, with his face six inches from mine, and all I can wonder is: is my breath mint working?
“You came here to wipe drool from my cheek?” I try hard to speak without opening my mouth.
“No.” He leans back and looks at me with those penny eyes.
“I came to say that I’m sorry for the other day. For the library.”
“Oh…oh…” My eyes pop open and I can practically feel the eye crud falling out. “That’s why you’re here? Now. In my house? Here.” I’d keep rambling till the end of time, but something, somewhere deep inside me tells me to shut up.
“Yeah,” he says, shaking his head.
So this is it? I feel relieved, and I feel something else. Let down? Disappointed?
“It’s just that sometimes I say what I’m thinking but I don’t think. I just open my mouth and, you know, speak.”
“Sure.” I shrug my shoulders.
“I’m not trying to be…” His voice trails off.
How could I have ever thought he could hit me?
“Sometimes, I just talk and stupid things happen. Like yesterday, I was telling Dalia about the library—”
“You told your sister about yesterday?” My heart pops like a firecracker. The catch. This was the catch. Danny Diaz would never hit a girl. He has his sister for that.
“Well”—he takes off his baseball cap—“it was kind of hard to hide this at the dinner table.” He leans forward to show me the quarter-sized knot on the top of his head.
“Dinner?” I say. “Like with the entire family?”
“Yeah…” Danny gives me a strange look.
Question: is it more shocking to find out that you’ve maimed one of the hottest boys in your school? Or that the hot boy sits down to have dinner with his family?
Answer: I wasn’t sure.
“Wow. I did that.” Without thinking, I touch the knot and feel terribly guilty (and slightly satisfied) when Danny flinches.
“Yeah, did you have to choose the unabridged dictionary? Couldn’t you just have used your pocket Webster?”
“Ah, you’re a funny guy,” I whisper.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” Danny reenacts the hit in slow motion. I can’t help but laugh.
“I guess so.” His dimples appear. I want to rub my finger in the indent.
“You’re lucky. I actually considered using the
Encyclopedia Britannica.
” I pause. “Letters A–G.”
He runs his hand protectively over his skull. “That would have hurt.”
“What did you tell your sister?” I am curious. I’ve never had my name pass between the lips of the socially elite.
“I told her about what happened. What you said, and what I said, and well”—Danny looks down at his hands before speaking—“I don’t know. I just told her some stuff.”
“Oh.”
“So why did you throw the book at me?”
Good question. Too bad I didn’t have one good, rational answer to give to him.
“I don’t know. You really smelled, and you were mimicking me, and you were there with this
I don’t care that I’m late
attitude. I just wanted to…” I trail off. It’s obvious from the knot on his head what I wanted to do.
“Well, I couldn’t help stinking. The showers really weren’t working. And being late…sometimes the coach keeps us late. And, I was a jerk mimicking you like that, but I was just playing.”
At this point, he could tell me that he likes green eggs and ham. I don’t care. I’m stuck somewhere between understanding that our knees are touching and that he, too, washes his face with Neutrogena. I can smell it on him.
“So…” he says.
“So…”
“I’m sorry.” He looks me straight in the eye. “I’m going to try to do better. I’m going to try to be prepared and not stink.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I mutter, looking away.
“What?” He leans in closer.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat in a clearer yet equally low tone.
“Hey, no problem. Just, if you don’t mind, stand over there,” he points at the wall and grabs a book off the coffee table, “while I throw this at you.”
I smile and he smiles back—penny eyes, dimple indents, bright white teeth and all. He smiles back, and I feel ridiculous because never, in my entire life, has it felt so good to see someone smile.
Which might explain why I suddenly blurt out, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
He tilts his head to the side and considers me. Even though I am holding my breath, I tell myself that I really am asking this question for Tamara.
“No. Why?” His eyes seem to challenge me to admit that I like him.
“Um…”
Tell the truth,
something deep inside whispers. “Um, because Tamara wants to know.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. Why did I just point out that Tamara likes him? Who wouldn’t like thousand-watt Tamara over ten-watt me?
“Tamara?” He doesn’t seem surprised. “So, we’re cool?”
“We’re cool,” I reply, watching him walk to the door.
“So, I’ll see you in school tomorrow?” His hand pauses on the doorknob.
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“Cool,” I repeat.
After he leaves, I flick off the living room light and sit in the dark. I watch the shadows dance as random car lights flood the room. In the dark, everything changes. Just like me.