Dream Things True (20 page)

“Just take it, Alma,” he said, thrusting the paper cup toward her. “It's cherry. Yum.”

She watched him slowly lick his lips, and her heart started to race. She had to get out of this hallway.

She took the cup and gulped down the glob of red gelatin.

“Thanks,” she said as he dropped his arm from the wall and she slid past him.

She needed fresh air.

Alma rushed through the French doors and collapsed onto the edge of a pool chair. She held her head in her hands and breathed in the cool March air.

A pair of arms wrapped around her.

It was Evan.
Thank God.

“You all right?” he asked.

“I am now,” Alma replied, leaning into his chest. She suddenly felt warm and light-headed. “Where have you been?”

“My cousin was puking blood. I had to take him to the hospital. Annabeth stayed with him.”

“Do we need to go back?” Alma asked.

“Definitely not,” Evan said. “This shit just happens with Whit. He'll get over it. Are you having fun?”

“Not really,” she said, nodding toward the guest house. “It's sort of weird in there.”

He tugged her gently from the chair and she stood unsteadily.

“Were you drinking?” Evan asked, looking at her with concern in his eyes. He knew she didn't drink.

“A couple of beers,” she said, shrugging.

How many beers did she drink? Her mind felt hazy and she couldn't concentrate.

“OK.” He pulled her close and whispered into her ear, “If you don't wanna go back to the party, then let's go take care of those feet.”

Wrapping his arm tight around her waist, he led her toward the main house. He fumbled with the key and she clung to him, feeling the charge of his body against hers. The door flew open and they tumbled through, tripping over each other as they made their way up the stairs and into his room.

Alma's head hit the shimmering mound of pillows, and her hands found the buttons of Evan's white tuxedo shirt. He shrugged out of it and then paused, hovering above her. Their movements slowed. Her fingers traced the ridges of his chest, ribs, and abdomen, searching down toward the black line of his waistband. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and pulled him toward her.

He pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, and her chin. His hands searched her body, tentatively, over the heavy black satin. When he discovered the cell phone tucked inside her bra, they both laughed, breaking the intensity for a moment.

Evan tossed the phone to the floor and her bare feet entwined with his. Alma realized that the sting had left them, and with it had gone all her childish preoccupations and worries.

Maybe she was ready, after all.

FOURTEEN

The Clock Is Wrong

The high-pitched noise reverberated through Alma's head, careening through the space between her ears, persistent and pestering. She opened her eyes to the darkness. Her tongue felt swollen and distorted, pressing its pasty thickness against the roof of her mouth. Her stomach gurgled and lurched. She needed water.

She sat slowly, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, her mind struggling in the silence to shake off confusion. The shrill noise resumed. Alma closed her eyes, registering a faint recognition. This terrible sound was the unrelenting ring of her phone.

As she leapt from the bed and reached toward the vibrating object, Alma's mind came into focus. She recalled where she was. She remembered Evan's hands searching her body, their bold laughter as he had grasped the phone from her bra and tossed it aside. The queasiness swept through her again, settling in the pit of her stomach.

She remembered nothing more.

Alma looked at the screen.

Saturday, March 15. 6:02 a.m. HOME.

 

 

The sound of footfalls above him coaxed Evan from a dreamy half sleep. He opened his eyes and tossed onto his side, gazing toward the lake. Morning light drew a line across the horizon.

The grandfather clock churned loudly and then chimed twice. Looking at the gray horizon, Evan's mind faintly registered that the clock was wrong.

Footsteps continued above him, faster. Someone was opening and closing doors, one after the other, in the upstairs hallway. Glancing across the pool, past the crumpled cover toward the guest house, where several lights were still on, he realized that Alma was the only other person in the house.

Evan set out toward the back stairwell.

He saw her standing in the doorway of his parents' room, wearing his baggy white undershirt. Evan's heart filled with warmth and his body with subtle desire. At least this morning the desire was mild—not the overpowering, consuming feeling that he had struggled so hard to control the night before. He knew she must be looking for him, but why the urgency? Was she embarrassed, ashamed?

Her slim silhouette, outlined by the frame of the door and the light from his parents' room, suddenly folded in on itself. Evan rushed toward her crumpled body. As he stretched his arms to hold her, she stayed perfectly still and let out a deep, quiet sob.

“I need you to take me home. I need some clothes.”

“OK, Alma,” Evan replied gently, “I can take you home, but please tell me what's wrong.”

Alma leaned against the door frame.

“My dad and my brother. They're in trouble.” She let her head fall to her knees. “I should have been there. I should have been with them.” Alma released another dry sob. “I shouldn't be here.”

“What kind of trouble?” he asked. “Where are they?”

“Jail.”

Jail? Evan couldn't imagine Mr. Garcia and Ra
ú
l doing anything that would send them to jail. And what in the world had landed them both there on the same night? DUI? He knew that Ra
ú
l drank a few beers occasionally but never excessively, and he had never seen Alma's dad drinking. Maybe a fight at the party they went to? Manny and his loser friends causing trouble again?

Alma's phone, clutched tightly in her hand, began to ring. She walked away from him, but he could hear her speaking quietly in Spanish. Evan waited, hesitant, at the doorway. Should he follow her?

He went into his mother's closet to find some clothes for her. Her own clothes were next door at Mary Catherine's, where she had planned to spend the night.

 

 

Alma grabbed a towel from the neatly folded stack beside the sink and brought it to her eyes. The crisp scent of fabric softener filled her nostrils, temporarily assuaging the nausea. She carried the towel with her to the bench where Evan had laid his mother's clothes. She sat down unsteadily and pulled his white undershirt over her head, recognizing his spicy odor. Taking in his scent induced another intense wave of nausea. She slumped to the floor and lifted the white towel to her face.

She wanted to make sense of the void left where her memory should have been. Did she drink enough beer to feel so cloudy? She tried to count back: one, maybe two beers, and then the horrible sweet-salty Jell-O shot. It didn't make sense. Alma tried to tell herself that it didn't matter. She had more important issues to deal with.

She struggled into a padded sports bra, slipped on a pair of stretchy yoga pants, and shrugged on the chocolate-brown T-shirt. The snug, fitted T-shirt was the type she often saw on rich women who were running errands in their workout clothes. This one had “tough cookie” written in cursive, under a drawing of a broken chocolate-chip cookie.

Something about being in this over-the-top bathroom and wearing the silly T-shirt brought another sob tearing through her chest.

She wanted out of here.

“Alma, can I come in?” Evan asked, tapping gently on the door.

“I'm ready,” she said. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stepped out to face Evan.

 

 

Evan drove in silence as Alma tuned the radio to a Spanish pop station that he knew she didn't like. When the music stopped, she turned up the volume and listened intently to the booming voice of the male announcer. Then the radio cut to a commercial.

“He said it was road blocks. My dad and Ra
ú
l probably got stopped at the one on Athens Highway.”

“Who?”

“The radio announcer.”

“How would the radio announcer on VIVA 101.5 know about roadblocks in Gilberton?”

“I don't know. I guess people call in. There's never been one here, but down in Shale County…”

Alma's voice trailed off. She looked down at her hands and studied the lines on her left palm. He wanted to take her hand, but something prevented him. She was building a wall around herself, a fortress.

“Was it for DUI's? Were they doing Breathalyzers?”

“I don't know. My dad wouldn't get a DUI.”

Evan started to ask about Ra
ú
l, but then the announcer's voice came back. She brought her finger to her lips and leaned in toward the radio, concentrating hard.

“More than two hundred people taken in since midnight.”

Alma's phone rang. She picked up and listened silently. She said a few words and hung up.

Evan glanced over to see her squeeze her eyelids shut. She kept them closed for a few moments and then turned directly to Evan.

“We can't find my dad's brother or his wife. My grandmother and Isa even tried tracking Manny down to see if he'd go, but he's in South Carolina, working or something.”

She looked down at her hands, and Evan focused his attention forward as the car sped across a bridge and the lake opened out below them.

“We need your help, Evan. We need you to go to the county jail to post bail.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Evan replied without hesitation. “I can do that.”

He had no idea how to post bail.

“I'm sorry, Evan. I didn't want to drag you into this, but we don't have anyone else who's, you know, legal.”

Alma started to cry quietly.

Evan's frantically sought the right thing to say.

“It's OK, Alma. I'll figure it out. Maybe your dad just left his wallet at the party, or maybe his insurance expired or something. I'm sure it's no big deal.”

Alma looked up at Evan, not even trying to hide the tears streaming down her face.

“Ra
ú
l doesn't even have a license, Evan.”

She went silent.

“Yeah,” Evan said. It would cost a lot of money to get Ra
ú
l out of jail if he was the one driving. Peavey got caught driving without a license when they were fifteen and his parents had to pay a thousand dollars.

“But my dad … it doesn't make sense. I wish I had been at home when they called. My grandmother was so confused…”

Her face fell into her hands.

“I'm sorry, Alma,” Evan said.

“I should have been with them.”

The sun rose, revealing one of those too-bright March mornings with crystal-blue sky and crisp, cold air.

She had him drop her off in a neighborhood near the jail, in the circular drive of Maplewood Elementary School. Evan had never seen the small school tucked into this modest neighborhood. He'd never had a reason to be here.

They got out, stepping under a bright yellow banner that read, “Welcome/
Bienvenidos
.” He took off his parka and wrapped it around her. She held up her phone.

“Text me as soon as you know something.”

He nodded. He wanted to hold her, to stand with her and comfort her. But she seemed so distant. He knew, as she'd made it clear all morning, that she didn't want to be touched. He was worried that something had changed for her last night, that they had crossed some threshold. He wondered whether they would ever get back to their easy intimacy.

He wanted to be back there.

 

 

Alma stepped under the banner, frozen in the entryway she had passed through hundreds of times as a child. She saw herself and her brother, Maritza, and Magda, hunched from the weight of their backpacks, walking to school from the apartment complex across the street where they'd grown up. She heard their laughter and teasing, the plans they made for after school, with hours of free time stretched out before them. She saw Maritza and Magda tumbling down the hill, sweaty and giggling, with bits of green grass sticking to their bare arms and legs. She felt the loud thump of Ra
ú
l kicking a soccer ball, over and over, against the building's brick siding.

She walked slowly along the road that led from their apartments to the Boys and Girls Club. She imagined that it was summer—that she was no longer shuffling under the weight of Evan's oversized parka. Instead she was running, fast and light, in her favorite turquoise bathing suit with the lime-green piping, racing Maritza to the pool behind the Boys and Girls Club.

As the building came into view, she saw the familiar words painted on its side: “The ideal place for kids to grow up/
El lugar ideal para los ni
ñ
os crecer
.”

Back then, it
had
felt ideal. It had felt just right. Maplewood Elementary, Terrace Trace Apartments, the Boys and Girls Club—they all welcomed Alma and her family. In their bilingual signs and their encouraging mottos, in their friendly staff and their pleasant grounds, they took in Alma—and so many others. No one questioned whether they were supposed to be here, whether they were allowed to stay.

It was simply their home, their place.

And then she remembered middle school, and how everything had changed. She remembered going with her father to visit Mrs. King after the incident with Mario, when her dad finally broke down and let her move to Atlanta. She recalled Mrs. King's house, a yellow bungalow down the road from the Boys and Girls Club. Alma wondered whether Mrs. King still lived there, and whether Mrs. King would let her in if she showed up at the door again. Alma tried not to think about the scholarship applications she hadn't finished or the college brochures she'd set aside. She tried not to think about the unanswered calls from Mrs. King. The lies to her father. The party …