Avra's God (23 page)

Jesse glared at the girls.

They stood open-mouthed beside the water
heater.

“What are you looking at?”

Grabbing the guitar, Jesse stormed out the
side door into the yard. The cool, orange-blossom-scented air did
little to soften his mood. Tromping across Zig’s dandelion lawn
toward the street, Jesse jammed his thumb down on Cisco’s speed
dial number.

He spewed for several minutes between Cisco’s
grunts. He grabbed a deep breath.

“Jesse, this isn’t about tempo or A flats and
you know it. Go run the high school track
t
ill you quit wanting to kill something.”

Jesse curled his lip. “Like h—”

“Do it. You wanna have to buy a new stinkin’
guitar? Trust my mamá, you’re gonna feel better. Then we’re gonna
talk about what’s got you so hot—whether you like it or not. Go
on.” Cisco’s phone clicked off.

Jesse’s eyes narrowed and he tossed his capo
onto the air several times. He turned and hurled it as far as he
could toward US 1 two blocks away.

Cisco took a deep breath and speed-dialed
Avra for the first time since before she broke up with him.
Don’t let her be P.O.’d.

“Pray for me?”

“Uh, sure.” Avra’s voice was tentative.

So far so good. “Jesse’s headed this way
steamed to the gills. He’s gotta get whatever it is off his chest.
I want to help—not screw it up.”

“Okay.”

He needed to hear the words. “On the
phone?”

Avra’s prayer filtered through the phone and
washed over him.

I’m ready for you, Jess. Bring it on.
“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He thought he heard a smile
in her voice, but he could have imagined it.

Jesse stared at the triangle of sweat on the
chest of his T-shirt in front of the car bays at Stuart’s Car Care
Center forty-five minutes after Cisco ordered him to run the track
around the football field. He was too wiped to know whether Cisco’s
prescription had helped.

Cisco pulled his head out from under the hood
of a Ford Windstar. “I wondered if you’d show. Feel better?”

Jesse shrugged, wiped sweat from his face
with the crook of his arm.

“Almost done here.” Cisco stuck his head back
under the hood.

He paced the cement at the mouth of the
garage till Cisco walked him around the side of the building.

Cisco folded his arms and leaned against the
door of his Geo. “Spit it out.”

Jesse stared across Washington Street at the
back end of Fisher’s Body Shop.

“Come on, man; we been through everything
together since we were, what, four?”

He leaned his palms on Cisco’s car and hung
his head “I saw Tía get into Kyle O’Brien’s car.”

Cisco whistled. “Two thousand nine royal blue
Mustang.”

“Right. She should have just fired a
twenty-two through my liver.” He barked a laugh. “Now I sound like
Kallie. I just want to go through one day not angry. It’s been
weeks since she ditched me. I’m stuck here—and sick to death of
feeling like this.”

“And you’re mad because?”

“Uh, hello? Because she ditched me.”

“And ...” Cisco made a rolling motion with
his arm.

He grabbed the back of his neck. “I was too
short, too dictatorial. My family doesn’t like her. I’m gone with
the band too much ... She hurt my pride, I guess. It’s weird,
because when we were together, I
had n
ever
felt better about myself. I was, like, her savior, always rescuing
her from some emotional meltdown. And she’d look at me with those
big adoring eyes. I guess it was all a lie.”

“You love her?”

Jesse leaned against the Geo’s hood. “Who
knows? I obsessed about when I could touch her.”

“You gotta forgive her, man, or this thing is
gonna eat you alive.”

“She doesn’t deserve it.”

“Do I deserve Avra’s forgiveness? She needs
to forgive me so
she’s
not whacked.” Cisco hooked his hands
in his pockets and looked at Jesse. “You’re not going to get the
anger off your back till you forgive the chick.”

Jesse smiled. “Like Mom used to put me and
Cal on either end of the piano bench till we forgave each
other.”

“Exactly.”

Jesse glanced at a seagull soaring in the
blue overhead. “Avra forgave you?”

“She’s working on it.”

He pushed off the hood and reached his
knuckles toward Cisco. “Thanks, Bro. Tell Avra she’s giving me a
lot to think about.” He climbed into his car.

“Done.”

Jesse pulled onto Dixie Freeway. “Lord.” The
word sounded foreign on his lips. He cleared his throat. He hadn’t
talked to God in a long time. He hated going to him when he needed
something. But he was desperate. “What do You say? Will You give me
the—whatever it is I need—to forgive? And give it to Avra,
too.”

Royal blue metal whizzed across Dixie in his
rearview mirror. He cut down Ronnoc Lane.

“I choose to forgive you, Tía, for Kyle
O’Brien’s car, the things you said to me that day, for cutting me
off.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. The
haze of his obsession with Tía faded like a stream of jet fuel
disappearing in the sky. His left brain yawned and woke. He could
think
again.

He slowed to a stop as the railroad-crossing
arm blocked the street. The train blasted by, making him think of
Kallie.

She’d given him perfect silence since
Neon
Green
. She hadn’t flicked an evergreen eye in his direction.
And the song hadn’t worked—he’d never gotten her completely out of
his head.

Tía’s knowing him happened accidentally, like
tripping on the way across a room. But Kallie mined every song for
clues to what was going on inside him. The fog that was Tía had
blown away, but Kallie still sat in the middle of his life like a
train wreck he’d caused.

Avra rolled over to the red glow of the
numbers on her clock. Three a.m. and she hadn’t slept yet. Cisco’s
call for prayer had been their only conversation this week. If she
kept a tally, it would be in the plus column.

Listening to Cisco retell his time with
Isabel had been excruciating—even worse than she’d imagined. But
she had to know it all. Minus column. Way.

He didn’t love Isabel. Plus. He cheated
anyway. Minus times three.

He knew better than to say he still loved
her, but he was acting like it
.
Plus, plus.

Did she still love him? She was light-years
from an answer to that question. Her anger had subsided, but hurt
still permeated every pore. If she could just not feel, that would
be good enough.

She had Cisco’s remorse. She had personal
closure. Why couldn’t she forgive him and close this chapter of her
life? She sat up and bunched her pillow in her arms. It smashed
flat against her ribs, making her arms ache for Cisco.

He’d show up on her porch at seven. The
question was, would she? If she didn’t meet him in four hours, he’d
leave her alone. She’d never have to talk to him again. He’d
understand.

Avra’s front door creaked open behind
Cisco.

Pure hot springs of relief washed through his
body. He twisted around on the front step to look at Avra. “I’m
surprised you came out again.”

She bundled the quilt more securely around
her. “Me too.”

He searched her face, hungry for some clue of
what was going on inside. Dark smudges shone through the
translucent skin under her eyes. “You didn’t sleep.”

Her fluffy slippers and the bottom half of
her jeans shuffled to the swing. “Same as last Friday night.” She
settled on the swing.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter whether
she slept or not. She pulled a black spiral notebook from under the
quilt and handed it to him. “It’s a journal I wrote about my
feelings going through this.”

He thumbed through the pages. “You wrote a
book.”

“I don’t react quickly to stuff.” She tucked
a leg under her on the swing. “I have to go home, think about it,
write it out. I have four other journals—different subjects,
different colors.”

Realization hit him. “That’s why you’re so
calm all the time. You get your emotions out in private.”

“Not so private since I’m sharing them with
you.”

He bent over the notebook. Avra’s words fired
at him like buckshot. He felt her eyes on him and glanced up. “You
weren’t a fool for trusting me. You expected the best from me. I
don’t know if anyone else has ever done that. You were gutsy to
give a loser like me a chance.”

A dry laugh burst out of her. “Let’s be
honest here. You were one of the most popular, hottest guys on
campus. You spoke to me and my entire body and brain melted into a
puddle on the floor.”

“You’re serious?”

“Maybe we’ll talk about it another
Saturday.”

“Sign me up for
that
Saturday.” He
returned to the journal, tossing her pain like lead fishing sinkers
into the pack on his back. “This was not your fault. This was all
about my taking something God wants me to go on wanting. This is
about
my
sin.” He read another page. “No, you should
not
have given me sex.”

Avra shifted and the swing creaked. “You
never pressured me, never asked me outright. I appreciate that. In
a way, you protected me.”

“No, I just whined and complained, trying to
wear you down. But you’re right. I couldn’t ask you. It was like
‘the princess loves me.’ I couldn’t bring you down to my
level.”

He read on, page after page, his lips moving
with the words.
I trusted Cisco completely and he betrayed
me—shattered me in a billion pieces.
He shut the notebook and
stared at the black cover. His eyes felt wet.

He tossed the notebook onto the swing beside
Avra and stood. His hands dug into his pockets as he searched her
face to see if there was anything else she needed to tell him. He
reached for her hands. “Avra, I never want to cause you to write
another page in that book.” Her fingers squeezed his, and they
peered into each other’s eyes until the revving of the garbage
truck disturbed them.

Cisco eyed his sister from where he hunched
over a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. “Archie—”

“Don’t call me that!” She shot a glare over
her shoulder and went back to the pan of bacon sputtering on the
stove. “You
know
I hate it.”

“Fine, Arjelia.”

“Ari.”

“Whatever.”

“You’re such a jerk. Mamá should have kicked
you out with Pop—”

His spoon slipped from his hand and clattered
in his bowl.
“¡Ciate!”
He scraped his chair back. “Mamá
kicked Pops out?”

Arjelia turned toward him, spatula in hand.
“You didn’t know?”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

She set the spatula on the counter and
clicked the burner off. “If you ever hung out at home you’d
sabe
the family dirt.
¿Sí?”
She leaned on the counter
as the bacon quieted. “
Hermano
, what difference does it
make?” Her voice gentled.

He stared at the broken eggshells lying on
the counter, stunned.

“They’re split; they’re never getting back
together.” There was compassion in her tone, something that hadn’t
passed between them in a long time.

Arjelia stood over him, gripping the soft
flesh of her upper arms, her eyes fixed on his Coco Puffs floating
in milk.

He’d been angry with Pops for two years for
something he didn’t do. This was one thing he could fix. He
breathed deeply, stood, and gave his sister a quick hug.

Her eyes popped wide.

He pushed through the back screen door,
letting it smack against the doorjamb behind him.

Two hours later, he sat kicking the seawall
with the heels of his flip-flops. His eyes scanned the Indian River
for the hundredth time and stopped on a yawl sailing through the
gap in the drawbridge. Pops.

Pops zipped around the deck dropping sail,
tossing plastic fenders over the gunwale, pushing the bungee corded
tiller with his foot until
Freedom’s Call
nosed toward
shore. His face registered surprise, then delight, when he spotted
Cisco. Pops heaved the coiled stern mooring line across the water
into Cisco’s chest. He scooped up the bowline, and leapt ashore.
Father and son threw their weight against the lines, slowing
Freedom’s Call
to a smooth stop beside the seawall.

“Thanks, Francisco. Docking this barge ’bout
turns my hair gray.” He looped the fore line over a piling. Cisco
bent and cleated the stern line. “I got a couple fresh grouper to
fry up. Have some lunch?”

“Why didn’t you
tell
me Mamá kicked
you out?”

“It wasn’t your business.”

“It’s my
life
we’re talking
about.”

Pops exhaled loudly through his nose, a sound
Cisco had heard his whole life when Pops was annoyed. “It was
between me and your mother. This doesn’t concern you kids.”

He jutted his chin at his father. “I’ve spent
the last two years hating your guts for walking out on us. I’ve
blamed you for Mamá working like an illegal. The girls have
reverted to their natural state. We’re living in the freakin’
projects.”

Pops squinted at him in the sunlight. “It’s
still not your stuff to get into. Your mamá and I love you. Period.
That’s all you need to know.”

“I’m already neck-deep into your stuff. I’ve
spent the last two years making stupid choices. Maybe I wouldn’t
have made ‘em. Hell, I don’t know. But I’ve messed up Avra’s life
too. She doesn’t deserve this kind of grief—” His throat tightened
and he swallowed hard. He stared at his father through eyes slitted
against the sun.

Pops stepped onto the deck of
Freedom’s
Call
as if he wanted water between him and Cisco’s anger. “Your
mamá is a fine woman. We had some good years. It was the
Cubano–Florida Cracker thing that killed us in the end. The last
ten years, we were just existing in the same house. Yeah, she
pulled the plug, but there was no water in the tank by then.”