Accidental Love (6 page)

The auditorium was dark and the students were half lit in the stage lights. Marisa's stomach turned nervously. She reviewed the students—one she recognized from her English class—and then the director who had his eyeglasses sitting on his forehead. His shirt cuffs were rolled up. His belly bounced when he took a long step, demonstrating an action.

"I don't know," Marisa said nervously. Her feet seemed to stick to the floor.

"Come on," Rene begged, and hooked his arm into hers.

They read for parts, and they were assigned to be in the chorus. The director, Mr. Mitchell, soothed
them by saying they were stupendous actors but singing voices were also needed.

"But I can't sing," Marisa whined to Rene.

"You can try whisper-singing," Rene suggested. "And there's so many of us that if we sound really bad no one will notice." He took Marisa's hand into his. "You were great up there. They should have given you a speaking part."

"Get out of here!" Giggling, Marisa unlaced her fingers from his hand. "I was terrible and you know it!" She had been asked to read lines—she was playing Juliet's mother—and she fumbled the ancient words, finally slapping the book against her thigh and saying to the drama coach, "People don't talk like this!" Holding her book up to her face to hide her embarrassed laughter, Marisa moved stage left while the director countered, "Oh, no, you did very, very well."

"No, really, we can practice singing. I'm going to practice in the shower." Rene then asked, "So how did I carry myself?"

So how did I carry myself?
she pondered. For a moment Marisa assumed that he was quoting Shakespeare because he sounded—what was that word?—
theatrical.
He sounded English.

"What do you mean?"

"In my audition!"

Rene had read the part of Mercutio.

"You were tight."

"I was tight? I was that good?" Rene beamed and scratched his knee absently. "I have something to confess, Marisa."

Marisa snuggled up to him. "What, buddy boy?" She could smell his breath flavored with chewing gum.

"Well, you may not believe this, but I'm not really what you think I am." He flirted by blinking his eyelashes.

"What?" Marisa wanted to know everything about her first boyfriend, to delve into his secrets. He was gangly and smart, and had an odd laugh. But what wheels turned inside his head?

"I'm not really a nerd."

Marisa covered her mouth with her hand, laughing. She slapped his shoulder. "Yeah, you are."

"No, really! I'm very Shakespearean, very manly!"

Marisa laughed. Rene bent over and, through the fingers covering his mouth, honked out a funny ducklike laugh.

But Marisa was convinced that he was a nerd when he rode his bike to the car wash sponsored by her old high school that weekend. It was midmorning
and the car wash was going poorly—only three cars had been washed and vacuumed. And the principal's car, a large Buick, was nasty with fingerprints all over the window and the ashtray filled with cigarette butts. He hadn't bothered to clean it up even a little bit.

Rene was holding his hand over his nose as he rode up.

"What happened?" Marisa first thought that he was going to pull his hand away from his face and reveal a fake nose and possibly a set of vampire teeth. But when he did she saw a rivulet of blood.

"I fell off my bike," he explained as he rolled his bicycle toward the chain-link fence near the tennis courts.

"Someone jumped you, huh?" She scanned the street.

One of the girls from Washington approached them. "Who's he?"

Without answering, Marisa led Rene to the curb, where he sat, head back, the blood staining his throat. A coin of blood fell and splashed onto his wrist.

"How did it happen?" she asked again, this time sternly.

Rene shrugged.

Marisa had got into fights and had won some and lost others—one of the losses showed in a faint jagged scar under her chin, which at night in bed she would trace with her finger. She'd bloodied noses and had her own nose blossom with blood from roundhouse punches. It didn't matter to her—life, as she had discovered so far, was mostly knocks and punches. But she felt rudely offended that her boyfriend—he
was
her boyfriend, wasn't he?—would be smacked around. He was so sweet. Who would hurt him?

Right then Roberto showed up, driving his parents' car. Marisa watched him emerge from the car, hugging friends and giving peace signs to those who were too cool to step forward. He jumped when someone sprayed him with the hose.

"Wait here," she instructed Rene. She got up and approached Roberto.

"Hey, girl," Roberto greeted.

"Hey yourself. She's not here."

Roberto slammed the car door.

"Who?" he asked, owl-like.

"You know who." She stared at him until he looked over her shoulder and sneered at Rene, who was standing up. "I'm going to have to smack that swanson again," he said.

Marisa bristled. "So it was you who hurt Rene?"

Roberto gave a ratlike smile. "Ah, I was just playing with him."

"You mean like this?" Marisa hauled off a punch to his shaved temple and a second punch that brought a flow of blood from his mouth. Even though he was an eleventh grader, Roberto wasn't that big—a little taller than she—and she had arm wrestled him before and knew what he could do.

"I don't want to hurt you!" He backed up, holding his lip. "You're a girl."

Some girls, wet from being sprayed with the hose by boys, pulled Marisa away.

"I had to do it because he didn't want to tutor me no more."

"You're hella freaky! So what!"

He backpedaled when Marisa, like a bull, started toward him. He shoved her with a straight arm and struck her in the face with the heel of his palm.

"You ain't gonna hurt me!" she bellowed. But she sensed by the taste of blood that he had cut her lip.

More girls pulled Marisa away, a loop of blood flying from her face. She stood breathing hard and hands shaking from the rush of adrenaline. By then Rene was at her side, pulling on her arm and begging, "Come on—let's go." To Roberto he yelled, "You better not hit her again."

They left the high school car wash, walking up the street, both feeling their injuries.

"He's the swanson, not you," Marisa growled. "My ex-school's stupid. You should have seen the principal's car—nasty!"

"Violence doesn't get you anywhere," Rene commented.

Marisa mumbled for him to be quiet.

"If he touches you like that again, I'm going to hit him back," Rene blubbered.

"You just said you're against violence."

"That's because I usually get beat up. But I don't care anymore."

Marisa hooked her arm in his. "We're messed up. Your nose is all red."

They continued down the street, kicking through the fall leaves. Rene stopped and patted the bar of his bicycle. "Get on."

Marisa hopped onto the bar and Rene straddled the bike, gripping the handlebars tightly. He kicked off, straining as he tried to pick up speed. He was pedaling for his girl, and Marisa was touched by his courage. With the two of them, the bicycle could crash to the asphalt street and rough them up even more. Could they stand two embarrassments in a span of ten minutes?

Marisa fabricated a story of how she had hit her face on the shower nozzle—her uncle Pedro, a small man no taller than a boy, had done the remodeling on the bathroom several years before and assumed everyone was his height. The nozzle was positioned low.

Marisa vowed to stop fighting. She would stand by her nerdy boyfriend and learn to play chess, Rene's favorite pastime. She would come clean about her new life and learn chess in the presence of her mother and father. Rene, only slightly scared of meeting her parents, biked over on Sunday afternoon with the chessboard and pieces rattling in his backpack.

Marisa's mother had been ready to go shopping
when she opened the door to a young man who, she would later tell Marisa, resembled a clean-cut, young religious type going door-to-door handing out pamphlets.

"Mrs. Rodriguez, I'm Rene Torres, a classmate of Marisa's." He extended a hand and asked permission to leave his bike on the porch.

"Of course," she remarked without looking at the bike leaning on the rail. She let Rene pass, holding the door open for him. "Who is this skinny boy?" her face was asking. Marisa's father muted the television just as the Raiders, down three points, were attempting a forty-eight-yard field goal. He stood up to shake hands with Rene.

"Don't let us disturb you, sir," Rene said. "We're going to play chess."

Her father and mother gawked. Was this boy here to court their daughter? Why did the boy have a red nose? Did it have anything to do with their daughter's cut lip?

"Mom!" Marisa called, embarrassed by her mother's jaw hanging open.

"What?" she asked.

"You're staring."

Her mother's gawk reshaped itself into a smile. "I guess I am." Her mother clipped away into the kitchen, where, Marisa figured, she was leaning
against the sink and pondering the meaning of a boy showing up at their door.

They played on the table in the den. Marisa's mother brought them cookies and milk, and her father, hiking up his pants, would enter the den periodically to report on the score between the Raiders and the Broncos.

"I can't believe my dad," Marisa muttered. Her father had left the television muted so that he could hear them—he'd given up his Sunday football to eavesdrop. Marisa could make out her mother tiptoeing from room to room—she, too, was trying to listen.

"They're concerned for your safety," Rene said. He moved a bishop and took a pawn from Marisa. "I might maul you any second."

Marisa wagged her head. "No way, homeboy."

"That was the first fight in my entire life." Rene moved his queen. "How did I do?"

"That wasn't your first fight—you lie!" Marisa exclaimed. She remembered fighting in kindergarten, when she had had an argument over a red crayon. "You must have had another one."

"I explained I'm against violence. And why's that, you might ask?"

Marisa remembered very clearly. "Because you
usually get beat up." Her hand crept over Rene's like a tarantula. She told him that her parents were funny, the way they were worrying about her. She giggled and moved her bishop two spaces.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"I can do what I want. This is my house."

Rene slid his rook six spaces and took her queen. Marisa surveyed her lost pieces. Then she counted the pieces she had taken: one pawn. Even with Rene coaching her on her moves, she was headed to defeat. "I'm better at Candy Land."

"Candy Land!"

"I would slaughter you, buddy boy." Her smile hurt her cut lip and forced her to emit a faint "Ouch."

"Does it hurt a lot?" Rene asked.

"Only when you say something silly. And how's your nose?"

"Sore," he answered. Rene pushed Marisa's pieces back to her side and said, "Let's play again."

They played six games, and each one got easier for Marisa, who suspected that Rene was losing his pieces on purpose.

They were going to start a seventh game when Marisa's father stepped into the den, smiling. "Raiders won in overtime, 21–19." He hiked up his pants
and asked, "Who's winning here?" Her mother then appeared from behind her father, "You want to stay for dinner? I'm defrosting some tamales."

"That's very nice," Rene replied. "But my mom expects me home for dinner."

Marisa turned and saw that it was still daylight. Sunlight spilled in from the window.

"What's your last name again, Rene?" her father asked.

"Torres."

He pinched his chin. "Torres, Torres. I used to know a Manuel Torres from high school. Is that your father?"

"No, he's Ben Torres."

Marisa's father lowered his head and had the appearance of someone thinking deeply on a game show. "No, I don't know any Ben Torres."

"I know a Rebecca Torres," her mother cut in. She had brushed her hair and reddened her mouth with lipstick.

Marisa thought,
This is enough! We got to bounce out of here.
"We're going to go for a walk," she said.

Rene looked puzzled.

Marisa raked the chess pieces into his backpack and fit the board in carefully—she peeked in and noticed a dog-eared copy of
Romeo and Juliet.

"Don't be long," Marisa's mother sang sweetly.

The two stood on the porch. Although sunlight still flickered off what leaves remained on the sycamore tree in the yard, Marisa shivered from the cold. But she hesitated over going back inside. Her parents would press her against the wall and begin to interrogate her. Just who was this
chavalo?

Rene rolled his bike off the porch and Marisa jumped down the stairs. She was sure that her parents were peeking from the front window—she turned and caught sight of them ducking behind the curtains.

"They're nice," Rene said.

Marisa said nothing.

"You get on." She took the bike from Rene's grip.

"Me?" He stabbed a finger at his chest.

"Yes, you!"

When Rene hopped onto the bar, the bike nearly tipped over. But Marisa gripped the handlebars, kicked a leg over the seat, and pushed off, wobbly at first, then straightening and picking up speed as their shadow pursued them along the black asphalt.

"My, you're strong," Rene said.

Marisa had to laugh inside:
My, you're strong.
She had a boyfriend, and so what if he was a nerd?

They rode to the public playground, which was gated closed on Sunday, and sat on the grass.

"Watch this." Rene got into push-up position and did twenty-five shaky push-ups.

"You're gonna have some serious swolles in a month." She clapped her hands and pulled off a piece of grass stuck to his chin.

"I liked your parents," Rene said after he caught his breath. "They seemed so compatible."

Marisa didn't want to discuss her parents. No, she wanted to hear about his secrets—anything!

"I have no secrets. I'm an open book." With the word
book,
he rifled through his backpack and brought out his copy of
Romeo and Juliet.