“Yes, I’m sure. And I say we go to the Charcoaler tonight and do some hanging out. I’ll call the girls.”
* * *
Dante was sitting on his front porch when I picked him up. He leapt off the porch and smiled when he saw my mom. “Mrs. Mendoza! You gonna hang with us?” Some days Dante reverted to talking like the hipster he’d never be.
My mom smiled at him. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind? I mean, sometimes you’re a lot more fun than Ari.”
“Keep it up, Dante. Just keep it up.”
* * *
When we drove up to the Charcoaler and ordered, I saw Cassandra and Gina and Susie leaning against Gina’s car and eating onion rings. When our order was ready, I parked next to them—and they were all screaming, “Mrs. Mendoza! Awesome!”
Sometimes I loved them so much. There was something about girls that guys didn’t have—and would never have. They were amazing. Maybe one day, instead of always having to prove they were real men, guys would study women’s behavior and start acting a little more like them. Now, that would be awesome.
Thirteen
SUNDAY MORNING, CASSANDRA AND I went for a run. I felt alive. It was as if Cassandra could read my mind. “I feel alive too.”
* * *
Dante and I drove out to the desert. The desert was always there. Waiting for me. We took a long hike. Sometimes we’d stop and Dante would hold me. It was a wordless day. It was good to be free of words.
When the sun was about to sink, leaving the sky without its light, Dante and I leaned against my truck. I looked at Dante. “Hey,” I said, “we’re alive. So let’s live.”
“Let’s live.”
And I made love to him.
“Let’s live,” I whispered.
Fourteen
DURING LUNCH I TOLD GINA and Susie and Cassandra the story my dad had told me about my mom and the lizards. I found myself crying. I could hear my father’s voice telling me the story. And I guess I was sad. But I was also a little bit happy. He left me stories to tell. Everyone has stories to tell. My dad had them. My mom had them. And I had them. Stories were living inside us. I think we were born to tell our stories. After we died, our stories would survive. Maybe it was our stories that fed the universe the energy it needed to keep on giving life.
Maybe all we were meant to do on this earth was to keep on telling stories. Our stories—and the stories of the people we loved.
Fifteen
THE NEXT WEEK, WE HAD a fire drill during second period. It was a little bit strange, though. It didn’t seem like a normal fire drill. It wasn’t just the usual ten-minute thing. And I could see some of the teachers talking to one another and I saw Mr. Blocker, who was laughing his ass off—and some of the other teachers too, and then another teacher chastised them, but I was too far away to hear the conversation. And somebody said something about crickets. And I thought that was strange. And some people were questioning Javier Dominguez, who was a smart and hip kid everybody liked. But if Javier knew anything, he wasn’t spilling the beans.
After about twenty-five minutes, we were finally led back into our classrooms. And then I thought maybe the day would be a good day and distract me from the hurt I was carrying with me.
* * *
By lunchtime, the news was out. And our personal investigative reporter, Susie, had the scoop. “Someone let out an army of crickets in Mrs. Livermore’s class.”
“What?”
“Hundreds of them. Crickets everywhere. Apparently, Mrs. Livermore ran screaming down the hall and she was on the edge of having a breakdown.”
“Crickets?”
“Hundreds.”
“Now that’s what I call genius,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure Mrs. Livermore mistook them for cockroaches. So she went batshit crazy. And they were just crickets. It’s brilliant, really.”
“But how do you get ahold of so many crickets?”
“You order them.”
“You mean like through a catalog?”
“Yeah. Or you could order them through a pet store.”
“But why would anybody order crickets?”
“They’re food—like for lizards or snakes.”
“Oh, gross.”
“Did the students in her class freak out?”
“I would’ve,” Gina said. “It’s making my skin crawl.”
I found myself smiling at the thought of Mrs. Livermore running out of the classroom. It was nice to smile.
“Oh man,” Susie said, “I would’ve sold my soul to have been there.”
Sixteen
WHEN I DROVE TO SCHOOL on Monday morning, I was singing. Yeah, I was singing. I was up and I was down. And I was up and I was down.
* * *
I was sitting in study hall and I heard Mr. Robertson’s voice on the intercom. “Would the following students please come to my office immediately: Susie Byrd, Jesus Gomez, and Aristotle Mendoza.” We looked at each other. “You think they think we had something to do with the crickets?” Susie looked at me. “I’d confess to that crime even I didn’t do it. I’d be a hero.”
As we walked down the hall, we were laughing. “This is so exciting.”
“Susie, this isn’t my idea of exciting,”
“Yeah, it is,” Chuy said. “It’s awesome. We’re famous.”
My friends were crazy—I mean, they were crazy.
Just as we arrived at Mr. Robertson’s office, the door flung open and two students stomped out. Mr. Robertson looked at his secretary. “Make sure those two are signed in for detention starting today.”
She took out a pad. “For how long?”
“Two weeks.”
“We haven’t had a two-weeker in a while.”
“Is that English, Estella?”
“My version of it,” she said. She spoke English with a Mexican accent—otherwise her English was excellent. She was clearly in a bad mood. I think Mr. Robertson was going to say something, but Estella wasn’t quite finished. “I don’t think you have a right to correct my spoken English—since I have to correct your grammar before I have you sign all the letters you send out.”
She’d been his secretary forever, and she didn’t take any crap. She knew how to handle students, and she knew how to handle her boss. She knew the value of her work. Mr. Robertson didn’t speak any Spanish, and she had to be his translator as needed—which was every day.
“That’s what I pay you for, Estella.”
“That’s what the school district pays me for.”
“Estella, not today. I’m not in the mood.”
“I understand,” she said, “but if Mrs. Livermore calls one more time today, I’m going to forward you the call. She’s called four times, and the last time she said that perhaps there was a language barrier. She calls again, I’m just going to speak Spanish and you can take it from there. And Mrs. Robertson dropped off your high blood pressure medicine.” She handed him his pills. “I think now would be a good time to take one. I’ll get you a cup of water.”