Someone Like Summer (9 page)

“Y
OU LOOK
muy bella
, Anna!” He was standing in the moonlight by the garage, wearing his Canul Jr. Number Two: the yellow
guayabera
with the four pockets. It had the shine of a few hundred washes, but he had told me a
guayabera
could be worn anywhere, even to a formal dance. The writer Ernest Hemingway had worn
guayaberas
, he had told me proudly. He had his gold holy medal under it, and he had on cargo shorts. I loved his little butt and his long, thin legs, unusual for a
short guy. He was grinning.

“I am late because I could not call you. I had to work late, and buses weren't running. Then your line was busy for a long time. I lent my car to Dario, and so I hitched here.”

I had to laugh at myself, chiding Dad for agonizing over what to wear to Larkin's when I'd spent a long time trying things on for a date with Esteban. We weren't even going anywhere.

I'd gotten a good tan, mostly during lunch hours, when I'd walk down to Main Beach, swim, sun, and eat my lunch there.

I'd chosen white short shorts, a yellow tank top, and my boxing sneakers. Yellow because he had told me once that it was my color. I had on big hoop earrings, and I let my long blond hair hang.

Esteban came up and put his arms around me, smelling of something sweet.

“Are you wearing cologne, E.E.?” No men in our family ever wore it.

“I put on some the pastor had. Lavanda Puig eau de cologne. He said the women like it.”

“It's sweet, like you, E.E.”

He had to stand on tiptoe to kiss me. He whispered, “I missed you.”

“I called you and got Gioconda.”

“She read the address here and said it was a trap.”

“Doesn't she know I would never hurt you, that I love you?”

“Was she nasty, Anna?”

“Of course not! Gioconda? She was her old, sweet self.”

“You make fun with me.”

I could tell he was in a loving mood, and he was getting me in one too. We couldn't keep our hands off each other.

“Hey,” I said. “Don't you think we should go upstairs?”

“Are you sure there are no policemen sent from Dr. Annan?” He laughed and I punched his arm. And we kissed. And we kissed.

I said, “Are your toes tired?” The minute I said it, I was afraid he might be offended because I'd referred to his height, but he was so
easy, so ready to smile and laugh and hold me.

He said, “
Sí
. My
dedos del pies
need rest. You know what I love, Anna?”

“What?”

“That you make no fuss because I have no papers. I thought you would maybe tell me
adiós
when you found that out. It has happened to my homies more than once. Nobody likes you when you have no papers.”

“Come on,” I said. “Follow me.”

 

We walked hand in hand to the back door of the garage. He was telling me it took him a long time to get a ride there. Dario had borrowed the Pontiac to pick up some of the homies still hiding in the woods.

Esteban's hands were as rough as his face, and his shoulders and arms were soft. Next time I would bring my Nivea cream and massage his fingers and palms.

We climbed the outside stairs, my heart pounding, his too, I bet, and we were laughing a little at nothing, at being with each other.
Besides the Lavanda Puig there was the aroma of dog from the kennels, one I liked, but I asked Esteban, “Does the dog perfume clash with your cologne?”

He giggled and said, “
Un poco
.”

Then I said, “What's wrong with this door?”

“I'll try it, Anna.”

“You won't get in, I'm afraid.”

I had locked us out. The keys were inside.

“What have you done?” he said, and we began to laugh again, at my stupidity, at the two of us champing at the bit to be somewhere with our arms and legs around each other, standing instead on the stairs.

“Of all times to be without my car,” Esteban said. “I cannot even take us somewhere away.”

“Let's go downstairs, sit on the bench out front, and think about this.”

“Maybe we should hitch to Main Beach,” he said.

I didn't want to believe we were locked out, and I remembered Kenyon's penchant for hiding keys to his room in college. He had one of those
tiny black magnet boxes, and he would attach it to the sides of stairs, to the overhead on his door, anywhere and everywhere. Maybe he did the same thing here. Even though he'd given me my own key, he might have kept a secret key for himself, in case he got locked out.

The night sky was filled with stars and an enormous moon.

“The beach?” Esteban said. We were always there. It was okay because he brought along his boom box and we danced on the boardwalk. He was teaching me the neotango. But there were always kids from school chilling there, and I didn't like them talking about me. One look at Esteban and me, and they knew we were in love. I imagined them whispering behind their hands. There were a few other girls dating Latinos, but the ones from my class were dating Latinos from school, not ones who were just here to work. I'd been telling myself that once Dad got past his thing against Esteban, I wouldn't care who saw us or what anyone said. But it wasn't that easy, particularly now that I knew he was undocumented.
There was a different feeling about the workers. I was always the good girl, admiring the ones who were rebels but never tempted to go Goth or run with the cutters or the loose gooses.

“Let me go back up there and take one last look, E.E. I have an idea he might have hidden a key.”

“Look, Anna.” He pointed up at the moon. “
La luna nueva
. Do you know it brings luck?”

“I hope so! I'll be right back,” I said. “Don't go away.”

I had this giddy, high feeling that seemed to be there whenever Esteban was. I remember Mom saying she had a chemistry with Dad, that if
that
wasn't there nothing could make it appear: not money, not looks, not occupation; it was just this
thing
you had with only one person. It happened right away, she said,
bang!
Kenyon was taking French at Seaview High then. He said the French called it
coup de foudre
. A thunderbolt, a gunshot: That was what it was first time I laid eyes on E.E.:
Bang!

I didn't hear anyone drive up, but from the
top of the stairs, outside Kenyon's door, I heard a man shouting down in the yard, and soon after the sounds of fighting.

I went down the stairs as fast as I could and collided at the bottom with Dr. Annan.

He was out of breath, holding his hand over his chin as he reached inside the garage and turned on the overhead light.

Esteban was nowhere in sight.

“Someone was just trying to break in. Did you hear anything?” he asked me.

“I was taking a look at Kenyon's apartment when I heard something that sounded like a fight.”

“I got a punch thrown at me. I saw this kid when I drove up, Latino kid hanging around here. I called out, ‘What the hell do you want here?' I even left my car lights on while I tried to get him, but he got me first.”

“I didn't see anyone,” I said. It was then that I noticed he had the Santa Cecilia medal in his hand, the gold chain broken.

Dr. Annan said, “I'm glad for your sake I had
to come by. Who knows what that spic wanted around here?”

“Are you sure he was a Latino?”

“Could have been one of them from Ridge Road, getting even. Little guy. Big fist.”

Charlie Annan had on jeans and a black T-shirt that read
WE CARE FOR YOUR CRITTERS
. He was a tall, good-looking man, a redhead with blue eyes and freckles, boyish looking, but I knew he was about ten years younger than my father. While he opened his car door and turned off the lights, he kept rubbing his chin where Esteban must have hit him.

“Good thing there was this emergency, Annabel,” Charlie said.

“What emergency, Doctor?”

“Dalí was run over in front of Larkin's. They called me, and I told them to meet me here.” I saw him shove Esteban's medal into his jeans.

“Well, they've arrived,” I said, watching Dad's truck turn in.

I was surprised that Esteban had been able to reach Charlie Annan's chin, and glad he got away.

T
HE ONE PLACE
I knew I could find Esteban was at the Accabonac School sports field, Wednesday nights at six thirty. That was the same time the library gave computer lessons. E.E. said as much as he wanted to learn how to do all that, he couldn't give up soccer. He said it was the only time he really felt like himself.

By the time I got there, the soccer game was in progress, but Esteban's face lit up when he saw me. He had someone on the sidelines take his place.

He hugged me hard. Gioconda's old red Toyota was nowhere in sight, so I knew he felt loving and safe doing it. I saw the softness in his brown eyes.

“Are you all right? Does your father know it was me?” he asked. “You know, I was right there listening to the doctor, just the other side of the garage.”

“When I came down the stairs, I should have told him you were with me, but everything happened so fast.”

“That would have made things worse, Anna. Then your father would know about us.”

“He has to know someday.”

“Not as a surprise. He would not like to find out that way. Besides, the dog doctor was looking for a fight. He jumped out of his car and came at me. He was not ready to listen, so I ran, but he caught me.”

“Did he hurt you, E.E.?”

“I think I did the hurting. But he took my holy medal, the gift from
mi madre
. It's my lucky piece!”

“I'll find a way to get your medal back. I know it was lucky for you.”

“Like the new moon, huh? Some luck, Anna. Well, is Dalí okay? I prayed to San Antonio for him. San Antonio de Padua. He cares for sick family members and distressed animals.”

I was always surprised when Esteban spoke of praying. Even though I knew my father and Kenyon probably prayed, I never thought of them that way unless they were in church.

“Dalí's wearing a cast. The doctor's really not a bad man, Esteban.”

“I'm really not a spic, either.”

“My father sometimes uses that language, too,” I told him, “but he doesn't mean to offend anyone. He's just from the old school. They don't know how offensive it is.”

Esteban said, “They know better, the same way they know to hire men who'll work for nothing. They claim we do work no white man will do, but that is a lie! What is truth is no white man will work for what we are paid!” He pulled me close to him and said, “I don't hold you
responsible for what your father or Charlie Annan do. We're our own society. You. Me.”

I thought of that preacher at Casa Pentecostal saying, “We are God.”

The soccer players were calling his name.

“They don't need me,” he said.

“Play,” I said. “You need them.”

He held me away from himself for a second and smiled. He looked at me as though I was this wise, wise babe, knowing him better than he knew himself. All I really had to know was that soccer was part of our society. Esteban. Me. Soccer.

That was all right with me.

I'd watch.

When it got dark, the cars turned their headlights on and parked circling the field, so the teams could finish the match. Esteban told me to go home, that after the game he would not have time to be with me anyway. He had to try and find Chino, who was still missing after the eviction. Rumors were he was camping on an ocean beach, terrified because years ago the INS had
sent his brother home where living conditions were dangerous. Some Colombians were simply disappearing forever.

I went home to find Dad waiting for me, sitting in the screening room watching some old baseball game on TV. He was wearing shorts, which he never wore around Larkin, and a T-shirt saying
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS
. Dad never wore that around Larkin either. Larkin had been against the Iraq war before it started, and when Dad said he was, too, but he supported our boys, Larkin would get angry. She'd say if he was
for
them, he'd get them out of there before they were all dead. It was a subject both of them avoided after one shouting match that sent Larkin into the night crying.

My father said, “What are you pulling, Annabel? If you're not coming home for dinner, how about calling?”

“I didn't think we were back having dinner every night at seven,” I said. “Half the time you go to Larkin's.”

“And I let you know. Ahead of time.”

“Yes, you do. It's hard when I don't have a cell phone.”

“All right, you can have it back. I'm trusting you've come to your senses about Pedro.”

“Esteban.”

Dad shrugged. “Whatever. He was living there in that Ridge Road rat house, you know.”

“How would I know that?”

“I'm telling you. That was the address I had for Dario.
And
Ramón. When I went down there that Saturday morning to find your
friend
” (he said the word with as much sarcasm as he could manage), “they all came out like cockroaches in the light.”

“Maybe with what they get paid, they can't afford our big rents.”

Dad picked up the remote control and turned the set off.

“Annabel, they were all paying some landlord from Montauk $300 each a month. So their landlord was getting about $9000 a month in rent. Why don't those boys put their Juan Does on a mortgage? Why don't they
buy
a place?”

“I don't know why, Dad.” I knew why. I think Dad did, too. How could they go through bank inspections and all the legal entanglements without papers?

I had made up my mind that soon I would talk with Dad about Esteban. I would ask him to let me make dinner for us, with Larkin there. If Dad could just get to know Esteban, I believed, he would not be so dead set against him.

I wanted to plan it. I had to be sure of the timing. It couldn't be an evening like this one, with Larkin worried about Dalí and refusing to leave his side. That didn't go over very big with Dad, who never fancied anything on four legs being featured over him, even if one of the legs was in a cast.

I had an idea that Larkin would help me, too, at the right time. She was a romantic, for sure. I think that really appealed to Dad. Mom and he had become like old shoes, used to each other for years and years. Loving, yes, chemistry, I suppose…but no visible sparks.

I couldn't remember Mom ever really flirting
with Dad. Larkin was always on around him, touching him, calling him her pet names (Kenny was inevitable, I suppose, but Dear Ears? Tootsie Roll? Beauty Guy?). It was a nice gift for Dad, this vamp landing in his life suddenly, making him worry about wearing the wrong shirt or pants.

“I suppose a lot of them are illegals. Of course
I
hire illegals,” Dad continued. “Sure,
some
are illegal, but I don't ask.”

“You're not supposed to.” I remembered that from Current Events class. Employers couldn't ask about race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, pregnancy status, or disability.

“I wouldn't ask anyway,” Dad said. “I'm only interested in having them work and stick around. It's business, that's all it is. Business is business.”

“Well, the landlord from Montauk is in business, too.” I was sorry I said it. Dad was ready for an argument. I knew that the second he told me Larkin couldn't see him that night because Dalí needed her. Dad had now turned his back on the
TV. He was headed toward the refrigerator, dropping an empty beer bottle into the garbage can by the stove.

He said, “Annabel, I wouldn't be in that kind of business—taking advantage of people. I pay my
muchachos
a decent salary. Some of them are raising families on what I pay them, sending money home with some left over. But I'll tell you something, Annabel, people who are taken advantage of are often people who take advantage, if you know what I mean.”
Pop!
Another beer bottle top hit the dust.

I said, “I'm beat, Dad. I'm going up to bed and watch a
Seinfeld
rerun.”

“
I
like
Seinfeld
,” he said.

“I want to be in bed when I watch it.”

I knew he was going to make me feel guilty, leaving him alone that way.

I knew he knew it, and he'd make a joke so I wouldn't feel bad.

“Leave your old man to cry in his beer,” he said.

Thank heaven the phone rang. It was Larkin,
because after Dad said Hello, he gave me a wave and then carried the phone down the length of the room, to the couch.

I couldn't help remembering being on that couch with Esteban under me, calling him Swan Man, smelling his sweat and his sweet breath, neither of us at that moment knowing there were nails in our future, too.

“I was just watching
Masterplace Theater
,” I heard Dad say. How was he supposed to know it was
Master
piece
Theater
, that it was never on in summer, and that it was too late to be on, anyway?