Another Summer (24 page)

“We’ll get you the help you need,” Cheryl said. “There are all kinds of–”

“I don’t want help.” She gave Cheryl a pleading look. “I want it to go away. I want my life back. I want everything to be the way it was. I can’t be a mother to this baby. I don’t know how.” She stopped to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. “Where will I live? When Bill and Amy find out, they won’t let me stay with them anymore.”

“You don’t know that for sure. They love you, Deanna. They will want to help.”

“They already told me I have to move out as soon as I graduate. I said I would sleep on the couch if they needed to use my room, but they said that wouldn’t look good to the foster care people.”

There were agencies to help Deanna, ways for her to keep her baby and finish school and get a job that would enable her to provide for them both. But it was going to be a long, slow struggle. “You need to talk to someone who has more answers than I do,” Cheryl said. “As soon as we get back, we’ll get you in to see someone.”

“It’s not fair. I made one mistake. I’m sorry. Why do I have to pay for it the rest of my life? I don’t want a baby. Not now. I’m not ready.”

“What about the father?”

For the first time Deanna showed a glimmer of certainty and strength. “He doesn’t count. If it’s Jake, he would just wind up hurting her the way my mother hurt me. I’ll do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen. I might not want this baby, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love it.”

“What do you mean ‘if’ it’s Jake’s?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Cheryl’s heart broke a little at Deanna’s revelation. “You’ll get through this,” she promised. “I’ll help you every way I can.”

“Do you mean that? Do you
really
mean it, or is it just something you’re saying?”

It wasn’t the time for speeches or details. “Yes, I really meant it,” she said simply, sincerely.

Deanna stared at her for a long time before she said, “Will you adopt my baby?”

  T
HE PHONE RANG, GIVING
C
HERYL A MO
mentary reprieve from answering Deanna. She was so dazed by the question she didn’t think to be concerned over a phone call at four in the morning until she heard Juanita Ramos’s frantic voice on the line.

“Is Maria there? I need to speak to her please. Right away.”

“Of course. I’ll get her for you.”

Cheryl put her hand over the receiver and said to Deanna, “Get Maria. It’s her mother.” When she was gone, Cheryl asked, “Are you all right, Mrs. Ramos?”

“No–yes. It isn’t me, it’s Alma. I don’t know what happened to her. She went to a party and someone brought her here to the hospital. She’s unconscious. The doctor said he thinks it’s drugs, but it can’t be. Alma’s a good girl. She doesn’t do drugs. Ask Maria. She will tell you. Alma is a good girl.”

Maria came into the kitchen, her nightgown askew, her hair disheveled. Blinking against the light, she reached for the phone. “Mama? What’s wrong?” She listened for several seconds. “Don’t cry, Mama. She’s going to be okay. You’re right, Mama, Alma wouldn’t take drugs–someone must have given her something. Who did she go with?” She paused then flinched. “Shit–I told her he was trouble. She
promised
me she wouldn’t go out with him again.”

Maria leaned her forehead against the wall. “He is not a nice boy, Mama. He was the one I told you about who got caught selling roofies at school.”

Cheryl met Deanna’s worried glance. Roofie was the street name for rohypnol, the date rape drug. If he’d given it to Alma, he either gave her too much or she’d had a bad reaction. If she was still alive, chances were she would come out of it in a couple of hours. But she would always wonder what had happened to her while she was unconscious. The wait to find out if she was pregnant or diseased would be horrific.

The possibilities made Cheryl sick to her stomach. She’d been living in Montana when stories about rohypnol first surfaced. Her outrage had been fueled by an astonishing apathy among legislators. Since that time attitudes had changed and drug companies and Congress had finally acted. Roofies were still frighteningly easy to get, but girls weren’t as trusting and vulnerable as they used to be.

She would never understand the kind of man who drugged an unsuspecting woman senseless to have sex with her. It was so far beyond her comprehension that she found it impossible to think of them as fathers or brothers or sons. She recoiled at the idea she might actually know one of them and yet had a morbid curiosity, a desire even, to question someone who could do such a thing, to hear the rationale they gave for their behavior.

Maria looked devastated when she hung up the phone and turned to Cheryl. “I have to go home.”

“Of course.” She turned to Deanna. “Wake up Karen and tell her to get dressed.”

“No–” Maria said. “That’s not fair. You don’t all have to come with me.”

“I can’t leave Deanna and Karen here alone,” Cheryl said.

Maria ran her hand across her forehead as she thought. “Alma’s only thirteen …” When she looked at Cheryl again there were tears in her eyes. “How could he do this to her?” Her breath caught in a sob.
“She’s thirteen years old.”

“I’ll get Karen,” Deanna said.

Maria gave Cheryl a frantic look. As much as she would need her friends for support later, she needed time alone now. “Why don’t I call Andrew?” Cheryl asked. “He can drive you to Oakland.”

Maria took a second to consider the idea. “What about Paul? I know he would take me. Would that be okay with you?”

Cheryl was sure there were at least a dozen reasons she should say no, but she’d deal with them when and if they became a problem later. “I’ll call him. You get ready.”

Maria started to leave, then came back for a quick hug. “Thank you.”

“Alma is going to be all right,” Cheryl told her.

Maria silently nodded.

P
AUL SAT IN A PLASTIC CHAIR AT THE END OF
the hallway. Maria drifted back and forth between sitting with him and maintaining a vigil in Alma’s room. He’d told her he didn’t mind waiting alone, but she continued to come out to check on him as did Juanita, her mother.

He liked Juanita. She was a lot like Maria, and he was long gone on Maria. For a while he’d tried to put his feelings off to the fact she was a challenge, but it was more than that. He thought about her all the time–he nagged her about going to college at UC Santa Cruz, a cover for getting her within dating range.

Now that she was opening up to him, he understood what she meant about leaving her family being complicated. When they’d gone to the house to pick up Enrique, he’d understood why she was worried. If his family lived where they lived, he’d worry about them, too.

He glanced down the hall and saw Maria coming toward him. “How is she?”

She sat next to him. “Starting to wake up. The test they did came back positive. It is rohypnol. A policewoman came by to take a report.”

“Was she …” He couldn’t say the word. It was as if saying it aloud would make it true.

“No. Whoever dropped her off outside the emergency room door must have panicked when she started having trouble breathing.”

“Did anyone see him?”

“It’s supposedly on one of the security cameras.”

He took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. “How’s your mom doing?”

“She’s scared. She’d never heard of roofies before tonight. Now she says Alma and Rosa aren’t going to any more parties–ever. And they can’t go out with any guy she doesn’t know. Like it’s only guys you don’t know who do things like this.”

“Maybe you should move to another neighborhood.” He sensed it was a mistake the minute the words were out. She let go of his hand and folded her arms across her chest.

“Where did you have in mind?” she asked, finding a new target for her anger. “Maybe down the street from you in one of those million-dollar houses that only have one bedroom? How much do you suppose the rent would be for a place like that? How much more ironing would my mother have to take in to pay for it? How many more hours would I have to work at the nursery?” Her voice quavered, and tears welled in her eyes. “Or maybe you were thinking Chris Sadler would let us stay in his house when he wasn’t there. Of course it might be a problem when he did want to use it, but then we could always camp out on the beach until he was gone again.”

“That’s not fair. I’m only trying to help.”

Now she was crying for real. “You can’t. No one can.”

There had to be a way. “If your mother could leave here, would she?”

She looked at him as if he’d asked the question in a foreign language. “Do you think we
want
to live like this?”

Enrique came down the hall and motioned to Maria. “Alma’s awake. She wants to see you.”

Maria stood and started to leave then turned back to Paul. “You don’t have to stay. Go home. I’ll call you later.”

She wasn’t simply sending him away from the hospital, she was dismissing him from her life. “I don’t want to go home,” he said.

“Andrew needs you at work.”

She was right. Losing one of them was bad enough, losing them both would put Andrew in a real bind. “I’ll call him and tell him we’ll come in Sunday.”

A profoundly sad look came into her eyes. “I can’t go back. My mother needs me here.”

He could see it was useless to argue, and selfish. “Okay, I’ll tell him that it’ll just be me,” he said, defeated.

“And that I’m sorry?”

He nodded.

Enrique impatiently shifted from one foot to the other. “Alma’s waiting.”

Maria tried to give Paul a smile but couldn’t pull it off. “Thank you,” she whispered, then turned and followed her brother down the hall.

M
MARIA STAYED WITH
A
LMA, TALKING TO HER,
reassuring her, and crying with her until she was exhausted and fell into a natural sleep. Because she’d developed a fever, the doctor had decided to keep her another day. Juanita took Enrique and Rosa home to feed them and let them sleep in their own beds. She was due back at ten to relieve Maria.

She was curled into an uncomfortable chair beside Alma’s bed, deep into memories of her three weeks at the beach house when she looked up and saw her mother standing in the doorway.

“You look so sad,” Juanita said softly as she crossed the room. “Is Alma all right?”

“She’s fine.” Maria unfolded her legs and stretched. “Her fever’s gone. The doctor said she can go home in the morning.”

Juanita went to the bed and looked closely at her sleeping daughter, touching her fingers to her lips and then to Alma’s forehead. She said a silent prayer and made the sign of the cross, then went to Maria and touched the side of her face. “What is it? Why are you still so troubled?”

Maria came forward and put her arms around her mother’s waist, her head against her chest. “I’m afraid, Mama. Enrique is so angry. He’s convinced he knows who did this to Alma. What if he does something stupid and winds up like Fernando? How are we going to stop him?”

“You think it would be better if we left?”

The question threw Maria. She put her head back to look at her mother. “Where would we go?”

“To Santa Cruz.”

“Why would we do that?”

Juanita frowned. “Because of your friend.”

“What friend?”

“Paul.”

Now she really was confused. “What has Paul got to do with us moving?”

“He didn’t talk to you about this?”

“About what?”

Juanita put her finger to her lips, motioning for Maria to speak softer. “Maybe he should tell you about it himself.”

Maria glanced at the clock. “It’s too late to call him tonight.”

Juanita shook her head. “Why would you call him when he’s right down the hall?”

“Paul’s here? At the hospital?” She stood and ran her hands through her hair. “I told him to go home.”

“He didn’t listen. He said he was waiting for you.”

Her heart did a funny skipping beat. She couldn’t believe he’d stayed. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

She smiled and made a shooing gesture to get Maria out of the room. “Go see him. You’ll think of something.”

Paul was at the window staring at the night sky, his back to Maria. She came up behind him without saying anything. Without turning, he asked, “Have you ever seen the Milky Way?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s amazing. There are so many stars you think you’re looking at a cloud.” He moved to make room for her. “You have to get away from the city to really see it in all its glory, like somewhere deep in the mountains, where there are no lights.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

He took her hand. “Because I want to see it again. With you.”

All her life happiness had been doled out in small, manageable pieces. This was big. Maybe too big. “What did you say to my mother?”

“It was just an idea I had. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” He smiled. “As if you would.”

“What did you do, Paul?”

“I called Andrew.”

“And?”

“Asked him if he needed that house for his office.”

At first she didn’t understand, and then it came to her in a rush. It couldn’t be true. Things like that didn’t happen to people like her. If she didn’t say anything, she could hold on to the fantasy a little longer, but not even that could keep her from asking, “What did he say?”

“The house is yours, if you want it. I told Andrew that your mother might be willing to come to work for him and that you would probably come in a couple of times a week, too.” Before she could say anything he held up his hand to stop her. “I know–it’s none of my business, and I had no right to interfere, but I don’t care. This was too important. I wasn’t going to let you–”

“My mother would be so good with the plants.” Maria didn’t even try to contain her enthusiasm. “She can make anything grow. And she will love the ocean. So will Rosa and Alma. I don’t know about Enrique. He can be so stubborn sometimes.”

“Gee, I wonder where he got that.”

She looked at him wide-eyed. “I’m not stubborn.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Really, I’m not.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“Go out with me.”

“I did go out with you.”

“On a real date, not one where you have to pretend you’re doing me a favor.”

“Pretend?” she teased, happier than she knew how to be.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she said. “And I will.” She came up on her toes to give him a kiss.

When she was little she’d thought
Cinderella
was an especially stupid fairy tale and that any girl who waited around for Prince Charming to rescue her didn’t deserve to be rescued. She was obviously going to have to rethink her position.