Cryer's Cross (8 page)

A moment later Jacián walks away, not following the coach but going toward the locker room. Kendall watches as he enters, and then exits again with his backpack and his school clothes rolled up under his arm. He walks to the truck.

“Wait,” Kendall says under her breath. He’s her only ride if she doesn’t want to get arrested. What a crazy messed-up world.

She runs to the girls’ locker room and grabs her things. Says a little word of good-bye. This is it for her.

So many good things ending.

She jogs back out, and when she sees that Jacián is still sitting in the truck waiting for her, she slows to a walk. Gets into the truck. They both sit there. Jacián’s face is full of rage, but he doesn’t speak.

“Can you take me to your house, please?” she says in a dull voice. “I told your grandfather I’d come by today to see Marlena.”

Jacián doesn’t acknowledge her. A minute later he starts up the truck and peels out of the dirt lot onto the road, going way too fast. The truck fishtails on the loose gravel. Kendall closes her eyes and grips the door’s armrest. They hit rocket speed before he bottoms out in a few potholes and eases off the gas.

Out of the blue he slams his fist onto the steering wheel. “Fuck!” he yells at the top of his voice.

Kendall startles and slides closer to her door once again.

He slows the truck as he pulls into the ranch’s driveway, and takes a deep breath.

She glances at him. His face is even now. He drives carefully, deliberately.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that,” he says darkly. “The parentals don’t really give a shit that they’ve wrecked my life.”

Kendall regards him. “You know, maybe you should get some help with that. Anger management is a good idea,” she says.

He laughs bitterly. “You think? Now, where would I go for that? The general store, or maybe the Feed and Seed?”

Kendall ignores him. Looks out her window as Hector’s house comes into view. Says quietly, “Why do you have to be such a jerk?”

He pulls the truck into the big barn and doesn’t reply. He goes immediately to the corner of the barn and grabs a mesh net full of soccer balls. Heads out to the makeshift soccer field, not looking back.

Kendall goes to the house and knocks on the door.

Hector opens it wide. “Hello, Miss Kendall! How nice of you to come by again.”

Kendall smiles. “Nice of you to invite me,” she says.

“I am happy to say that Marlena is taking a nap right now. She needs it. But I think you should feel comfortable out here playing soccer, no?”

Kendall looks at him, standing there with his innocent smile. She slumps her shoulders and drops her backpack to the porch. “Seriously, Hector?” Her voice is strained.

“You should call your mother first to let her know you are here, of course.” He steps into the kitchen and returns a moment later with the phone.

Kendall sighs. “Maybe she should just come and pick me up.”

“Oh, please, no! Marlena has been looking forward to your visit all day. She thought you might be coming later, after soccer practice.”

“Yeah, well, there is no soccer practice anymore.”

Hector’s face falls. “Ah, I’m sorry to hear that. It is a shame for you and for Jacián. Marlena feels responsible.”

“It’s not her fault,” Kendall says automatically. She dials her house and leaves a message saying she’s at Hector’s. Indefinitely. “You can pick me up anytime if you need me,” she says. “See you soon.” Trying not to sound desperate.

Hector takes the phone from her and shoos her in the direction of the yard, where Jacián is warming up all over again. “I am going into town to sit with my friend for a bit,” he calls out. “Just let yourself in later.”

Kendall sighs and goes down the porch steps. “Okay,” she says, not wanting to be here. Wishing she could just go hang out with Nico and have everything be okay again.

She walks toward Jacián, waiting for him to reject her. Just what she needs today. Some pompous jerk to tell her to go away. Stupid Hector. He needs to back off.

Jacián sees her coming and doesn’t stop stretching. Kendall walks up to him and stands there, awkwardly.

“Yes?” he asks finally.

“Marlena’s taking a nap. Hector’s going to town.”

Jacián squints up at her. “What are you, the butler?”

Kendall rolls her eyes. “Mind if I play? While I wait for Marlena, I mean?”

He lifts himself up to his feet and messes with the net
bag, opening the cinch and letting the balls loose. “It’s a big yard.” He passes one to her and then dribbles another one up and down the stretch of grass, warming up.

Kendall pulls a ponytail holder from her pocket and whips her hair back into it. She moves out of Jacián’s way and warms up too, as if they are at soccer practice. They work individually.

It’s not long before Kendall’s in the zone. The constant whirring of her thoughts quiets, softens. She counts her steps to one hundred, and then she can stop and really concentrate on the ball. She loves the way it moves over the grass, like a hand on bare skin, seeking out all the nuances. She feels her muscles praise her for the stretch, feels the sweat break out on her forehead. Feels her breath paint a path in front of her.

There is nothing else like it in her world. Nothing else like the bliss of her brain shutting down after seven days of constant whirring. Incredible relief.

She ignores Jacián completely, keeping her distance, and then slowly she begins running some of the plays she used to do with Nico, passing instead to herself, running like hell to catch up and slamming the ball into the net. Retrieving it again and taking it all the way down the side yard, then back and forth, like she’s running suicides with the ball. Then back again for another play with invisible Nico.

It’s funny how the presence of a memory is a comfort here on the field.

By the time Kendall has worked out all her stress, an hour has passed. She and Jacián successfully avoid each other, though once when his ball gets away from him, Kendall plants it back at his feet, and he acknowledges her with a wave.

Hector would be so proud.

When Kendall is dying of thirst, she calls it quits, hoping Marlena is awake. Jacián’s shirt is stuck to his body. Sweat drips off his hair, curled in dark spikes. He’s breathing hard as she walks past. She drops her ball by the mesh ball bag. “Thanks,” she says.

“All right.” He almost smiles.

Impulsively she adds, “You need any water? I’m headed in.”

“No, I’ve got a bottle in my gym bag.”

So civil.

Marlena is awake. Kendall grabs a paper towel, wets it, and wipes her face and the back of her neck with it. She pours a glass of water and walks over to the family room, where Marlena rests in her same spot on the sofa. “Sorry I smell like a skank. How are you today?”

“Pretty sore.”

“Are you able to move around yet?”

“Not without embarrassing or killing myself. I’m working on it.”

“So, home for a few more days, probably?”

“Yeah. Total suck. I’m bored as hell.” Marlena turns gingerly. “So . . . I saw you outside. You’re here early. What did Coach say?”

Kendall takes a long drink of water and then wipes at a drip from her lips. “We’re done. It’s over,” she says. Shrugs. “He called around but couldn’t get anybody to help us. Said we actually did pretty well, with a third of our high school on the team. I guess if you look at it that way, it does seem pretty crazy to think we’d find anybody else.”

Marlena drops her head back onto her pillow. “Ugh. Crap. Jacián’s going to murder me.”

Kendall is quiet.

“Coach was trying to get a scout to show up to one of our games, trying to get him into one of the big soccer schools. He was deciding between UCLA and Stanford. Now I’ve messed up his chances at a scholarship.” Her voice quivers. “Did he seem mad?”

Kendall remembers the scene in the truck and presses her lips together. “Not more than usual,” she says lightly.

“Oh, God. I feel so bad.” Marlena starts crying.

“Aw, shit,” Kendall says, going over to her, sitting on the floor. “Come on, Marlena, it’s not your fault. Nico’s
gone too. We’ve never lost two players at a time, and we were already down one from last year. It’s not just you.”

Jacián comes into the house and heads straight down a hallway, still wearing his cleats. Kendall hears a door shut and then the sound of water rushing through pipes on the other side of the wall as he turns on the shower. Her mind wanders for a minute and she shakes her head, embarrassed.

Marlena stares off out the window, a forlorn look on her face. Kendall laces and unlaces her fingers, holding each position to the count of six. When the phone rings, she stretches to reach it from the coffee table and hands it to Marlena.

“Hello?”

Marlena listens for a second and then says, “He just came in; he’s in the shower. Have him call you back?” She pauses again and says, “Okay. Bye.”

Kendall looks at Marlena, mildly curious.

“His girlfriend,” she says. “Back in Arizona.”

“Ah.” Kendall picks up a magazine and pages through it idly. How Jacián managed to get a girlfriend is beyond her comprehension. “Is he always so ornery?”

“Nah. He just hates it here.”

“So he tries to make everybody else’s life miserable too?”

Marlena sighs. “I guess. But seriously, since we moved
here, nothing has gone right for him. Back in Arizona he had a weekend job at an indoor soccer arena, which he loved. He had a summer job at a soccer camp in the mountains that he had to give up because my parents made him work here on the ranch. He had his girlfriend, and a huge class AA school with a terrific soccer team.

“We finished school there and moved here, and within a week Sheriff Greenwood and the state police were knocking at the door and insinuating all sorts of crappy things. And then Grandpa put Jacián to work chasing down cattle and delivering meat. We didn’t have a clue what we’d be doing here.” She shifts, trying to get more comfortable. “He was pretty happy about the soccer team once he saw you all play, ‘cause most of you are not bad, and it was so cool that Coach was doing so much to get a scout to come out to Bozeman for a game. But now that’s over too.” She sets the phone on the coffee table again. “And he’s fighting with his girlfriend.”

“He’s fighting with everyone,” Kendall says. The water shuts off.

Marlena shrugs. “He’s really not a bad guy. He’s actually got a very sweet side.”

“Well, what about you?” Kendall asks. “What did you leave behind? Do you hate it here too?” Kendall feels a bit of protectiveness bubble up. She knows very well that Cryer’s Cross is an odd kind of town and that things move
a little slower out here than they do in big cities. She knows that riding your horse into town is unheard of in the rest of the country, but here it happens now and then with one of the old-timers.

Marlena smiles. “Me? Oh, I love it out here. It’s so pretty with all the mountains, and the air is so clean, and you can see the stars. I’m glad we got to move here. Living in the hot, dirty city—it just wasn’t my gig.”

“Well, that’s cool. Do you think your parents will stay out here? Like, for a year, or indefinitely?” Kendall hears a door open, and a moment later another door closes.

“I think we’re here forever, as long as my grandfather is. It’s kind of tradition with our culture, you know? It’s very important to my mom that we take care of Grandpa now that he needs help.”

“That’s cool. I like that.” Kendall hugs her knees and rests her chin on them. She likes Marlena. It’s actually not bad having a girl to hang out with now and then.

Kendall’s mother calls. “The car has a dead battery, and Dad’s out in the back forty with the truck. He’ll be out till late. Can you ask Hector to run you home?”

“Sure. He’s not actually here right now.”

“Well, maybe Marlena’s parents or Jacián can do it, then? I’m kind of stuck here. If they can’t, call me back and I’ll walk over and we can walk home together. But the
help are working extra hours for the next few weeks, and I’d like to offer them something to eat.”

“It’s cool, Mom. I’m sure I can get a ride. See you in a bit.”

Kendall hangs up the phone. “So, uh,” she says, “any chance your parents are coming home soon? My mom’s car has a dead battery.”

“Not until dark.” Marlena turns her head and calls, “Jacián!”

“No, that’s okay,” Kendall says. “I can wait for Hector.”

“Jacián!” she yells again, and then she says something in Spanish.

A moment later he comes down the hallway. “I’m going to tell Grandfather you said that,” he says. “What do you want?”

“Kendall’s mother’s car has a dead battery so Kendall needs a ride home. And you also need to cook dinner for me, Mama said. I’m starving for a Whopper and fries or something. When are they going to get a fast-food place around here, huh?”

Kendall glances away. “Sorry, Jacián.”

He’s silent for a moment and she doesn’t want to see the look on his face. “Okay,” he says. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah.” She is painfully conscious of her smelly sweat-damp clothes. She grabs her backpack and soccer bag and
leans down for a quick hug. “Bye, Marlena. Hope you feel better tomorrow.”

“Are you coming again?” Marlena asks, hopeful.

“I—I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I hope you can. Come tomorrow.”

Jacián strides to the door and heads out to the barn. Kendall follows and gets in the truck as he starts it up.

“You reek,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Thanks,” Kendall says.

They travel in silence, Jacián taking much more care with the truck on this ride compared to the previous one.

Kendall thinks ahead to tomorrow’s drive, and her anxiety kicks in. “Can you pick me up a few minutes earlier tomorrow?”

“Why?”

“I just . . . I just like to get to school a bit earlier.”

“I like to get to school when it’s time for school to start.”

Kendall feels the stress building. Her mind starts whirring again, worrying about not getting the room set up the way it needs to be. Worrying about wanting to deal with seeing Nico’s empty desk before the whole class gets there. She bites her lip and looks out the window. “Fine,” she says. She’s going to have to handle it.