Double-Crossed (2 page)

If Eddie is this handsome, I can't wait to meet his brother. After all, doesn't two of a good thing make it doubly good?

I didn't have long to wait. Oscar soon appeared, his gorgeous black hair blowing in the ocean breeze. He was wearing a supersize black T-shirt with a yellow Batman logo on the front. He had the same sparkling teeth as his brother, the same adorable smile, but there was one major difference. Something was wrong with his leg. And I don't mean a
little
something, but a
big
something.

He was limping badly as he walked over to us, so badly that it looked like he might lose his balance and fall down with every step. The foot on his left leg was all twisted around, almost facing backward, and he seemed to be walking on his ankle rather than on the bottom of his foot. I had never seen anything like that.

Okay, Sammie, do not stare at his leg. Look into his eyes.

“This is my other nephew, Oscar,” Candido said proudly as Oscar stopped to catch his breath.

“Does he speak English?” I whispered to Alicia.

“
Sí
, I do,” Oscar answered.

“Our uncle and cousin teach us every summer when they come to visit our country,” Eddie explained. “Oscar, he is smart and learns very well.”

“My leg is not so good.” Oscar chuckled. “But my brain is fast like a bolt of lightning.”

All of a sudden, he puffed up his chest and, raising his arms above his head, pretended like he was hurling something into the air and across the sky.

“Um . . . let me guess,” I said. “You're throwing a javelin?”

“No, I am hurling a bolt of lightning,” he said. “Like superheroes do in the movies.”

“Oscar is a major movie fan,” Alicia explained. “If it's on a screen and flies or wears a cape, count him in.”

Oscar held his hands out in front of him and flexed his muscles like the Incredible Hulk, but with no shirt-ripping involved. It was really cute, even though it was not at all what I was expecting. I don't want to sound mean here, but the guy could barely stand up, and there he was, pretending to be the Hulk or another one of the Avengers or someone.

“That's quite a move you have there,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, doing it again.

Alicia and Eddie laughed, but I wasn't sure what to do. If Oscar had been regular, without that messed- up leg, I would have joined in and laughed, too. I mean, he was funny. But I didn't feel right laughing at him. What if he thought I was laughing because he was disabled? So I just kind of stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

Luckily, GoGo knew exactly what to do. She picked up the tray of salsa and chips and carried it to the kitchen breakfast nook where we eat most of our meals. She placed the tray on the table and gestured to Oscar and Eddie.

“Why don't you boys have a seat and help yourselves to some chips and dip,” she said. “It's our way of saying
bienvenidos
.”

That's GoGo for you. Why say welcome in English if you can say it in Spanish?

Eddie slid into the booth and dug right in. It took a little longer for Oscar to get there. As he limped the few feet across the room, I just stood there, trying not to stare at his leg. I was trying so hard to make him feel normal that I made myself feel completely uncomfortable.

“How long are you boys going to be visiting here?” GoGo asked.

“About three weeks,” Eddie said.

“Oh, that's a nice long vacation.”

“It's not exactly a vacation,” Alicia said. “Oscar is going to have an operation on his foot. There is a doctor at Children's Hospital who specializes in fixing what he has. It's called a clubfoot.”

Charlie came bouncing into the kitchen just as Alicia was finishing her sentence. She was all put-together in white jeans and a black-and-white tank top that I recognized as Lauren's.

That's right; Charlie and Lauren wear the same size. And that's right; I don't.

“Somebody say something about a club?” Charlie asked Alicia with a big smile. “Whatever it is, I want to join. I love clubs.”

Ouch.

“Alicia was just explaining that her cousin Oscar has come to America to have his clubfoot corrected,” GoGo said, in a voice that was unusually stern for her.

Charlie turned around and looked at the two guys sitting in our kitchen booth. Immediately, her eyes fell on Oscar's foot.

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.” She shrugged and quickly looked away.

“When you boys are finished eating, maybe Charlie and Sammie can walk you out to the beach and show you around the Sporty Forty,” GoGo said. “Do you like the ocean?”

“They're both good swimmers,” Candido said.

“Especially Oscar,” Eddie added. “He swims like a fish.”

“No, I swim like Aquaman,” Oscar said, making a funny fish face like he was blowing bubbles. Everyone laughed but Charlie.

“Come on, guys,” I said. “Follow me. I'll introduce you to my favorite ocean.”

I headed outside, with Alicia and Eddie right behind me, and Oscar trailing behind. I walked out onto the beach and waited for them to join me. It made me happy to see the expressions on their faces when they looked out at the sand and the sparkling water beyond. It really is beautiful where I live.

Charlie stood on the deck, calling my name. But just as I ran back to see what she had to say, she was interrupted by another voice. It was Lauren Wadsworth, bursting in from the parking lot in her adorable flowered turquoise sundress, her arms filled with clothes still on hangers.

“Charlie! We're here!” she called. “And wait until you see all the different outfits we brought.”

Lauren was followed by three more of the Sporty Forty girls—Brooke Addison, the gorgeous one, Jillian Kendall, the other gorgeous one, and Lily March, the other gorgeous one.

Oh, did I mention that all the SF2 girls are gorgeous?

“I just got a text from the photographer,” Lauren chattered on, unaware—or not caring—that there were other people there besides herself and her friends. “He's coming in from Malibu and he'll be here in ten minutes, but he said for us to get ready. He wants to be shooting by four o'clock, which he calls the golden hour. That's when the light is best.”

“And we'll all look like we have golden hair and tans,” Brooke added. Apparently, she hadn't gotten the news that she already had golden hair and the world's most perfect golden tan.

“Hi, everyone,” Alicia spoke up. I noticed that her tone of voice was kind of aggressive, as if to say, I'm here, too, and the least you could do is say hello.

“Oh, nice to see you, Alicia,” Lauren said unconvincingly. “By the way, how long are you going to be here?”

“Not long,” Charlie said quickly. “They just stopped by for a minute.”

“Who's ‘they'?” Jillian asked, flopping her armload of clothes down on one of the deck chairs.

“Us,” came the answer. Eddie walked over from the sand and waved at the girls. “I'm Eddie Bermudez, Alicia's cousin.”

Brooke and Lily each gave Eddie a pretty deluxe smile.

“And this is my brother, Oscar,” Eddie said as Oscar hobbled across the deck and joined him.

All three girls tried not to stare at his foot, but not Lauren. Her big blue eyes traveled down his body, taking in every detail, including the bootlike shoe he wore on his left foot which was completely worn down on the outside from walking on his ankle. She didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

“We're having a photo shoot here,” she whispered to Charlie. “A
glamorous
photo shoot.”

“Don't worry. I'll handle this,” Charlie whispered back.

Without another word, Charlie grabbed me by the arm and yanked me into the house. I didn't know exactly what she was going to say, but I knew one thing: I wasn't going to like it.

Cool Oscar

Chapter 2

“This is all your fault,” Charlie said, slamming the door behind us so no one outside could hear.

“First of all,” I shot back, “I don't even know what ‘this' is. And second of all, how come everything is always
all
my fault? And third of all, your eye is doing that twitchy thing it does, which makes it very hard to concentrate on anything you're saying.”

“My eye twitches when I'm mad, Sammie, you know that. And I'm really mad, so expect to see a whole lot more twitching where this is coming from.”

“Here's a radical idea,” I said. “Maybe you could try to make a little sense. Just a suggestion, of course.”

Charlie took a deep breath. When she finally spoke, it was with a combination of annoyance and authority.

“I told you, Sammie. My friends and I are using the deck and the beach. We don't want anyone else there. I'm really upset that these new guys are interfering with our plans, and I think I have a right to be.”

“You don't own the beach,” I said to her. “Besides, those guys seem very nice and they're just hanging out and eating some chips. I don't get how that disrupts your glamorous photo shoot.”

“We're not doing a chips commercial, Sammie. We all want to be models, and being a model has nothing to do with taco chips, or salsa, or boys with weird feet.”

Charlie kind of winced when she said that. I waited for her to take it back, but she didn't.

“That's harsh, Charlie,” I said at last. “And by the way, in case you didn't notice, only one of them has a weird foot.”

“Whatever.” Charlie sighed. “You know what I mean.”

Actually, I did know what she meant, and I didn't like it one bit. I knew she didn't want Oscar there because she felt it didn't look good to her new friends. Charlie wasn't totally accepted into the SF2s yet; she was still in the auditioning phase. And hanging out with a poor kid from El Salvador with a backward foot probably wasn't the cool image she was hoping to impress her friends with. That was the hard, cold truth. I didn't say anything to Charlie, just looked her deep in the eyes. This was not the way we had been raised and she knew it.

“I know what you're thinking, Sammie,” she said. “I'm sure Oscar and Eddie are really nice guys. But you have to see it my way, too. Alicia and her cousins just don't belong here right now. Did you see Lauren? She looked so annoyed that they were here. I mean, really, Sams, we've got the photographer coming, and then afterward we're going to barbecue, and Jared is even going to make a bonfire on the beach.”

“Not to be a party pooper or anything,” I interrupted, “but bonfires on the beach are illegal, not to mention dangerous and stupid.”

“Okay, okay, we won't do that. But the point is, we have this great night planned and I want everything to go right.”

“Listen to me, Charlie. Did you ever think that maybe you don't have to make everything right for the SF2 kids? Maybe they should just like you the way you are, even if you can't always be perfect for them.”

“I don't need a lecture now, Sams. I just need you to understand that this is important to me.”

“What do you want me to do, Charlie? Kick Eddie and Oscar out?”

“When you say it that way, it makes it sound so terrible. Just take them somewhere else. Go for a ride with Candido in his truck and show them the Venice boardwalk or the skateboard park or something. They'll like that. Please.”

I agreed, reluctantly. I didn't like what Charlie was doing, and to be honest I didn't like the SF2s much either, especially after they made her cheat and steal to protect Lauren. That's not what real friends do. But she was my sister and had helped me out of a lot of jams. This was the same sister who had pretended to be me during the chicken-dance contest in the first-grade talent show when I got stage fright and peed in my pants. Not to mention the time last year when she pretended to be me, called that eighth-grade creep Ronald Gruntin, and told him if he didn't stop bullying me she would report him to the principal. He backed off immediately. If she could save my butt, I guess I could save hers. Besides, I realized that if Eddie and Oscar stayed at the beach, the girls would just ignore them and make them feel bad, so what was the point of insisting that they stay?

And have I mentioned that there's this sausage stand on the Venice boardwalk that has the best homemade french fries ever? A predinner snack didn't sound half bad to me.

Charlie and I went back outside. She was all smiles as she raced over to Lauren and started browsing through the clothes she'd brought. Brooke and Jillian were busy picking out what they were going to wear, but Lily was perched on the redwood picnic table, with her feet on the bench, talking to Eddie and Oscar. Well, mostly she was talking to Eddie, but Oscar was listening and nodding.

“So where are you guys from?” she asked Eddie, twirling a strand of her curly hair around her finger to make a dreadlock that flopped down onto her forehead. On anyone else, that might have looked silly, but on Lily it looked unique and fashionable, just like everything else she wore.

“San Francisco,” Eddie answered, flashing her that irresistible smile of his. “It's not as beautiful as here, but it's my town.”

“Not beautiful? Are you kidding me?” Lily answered. “San Francisco is the best. I could ride on the cable cars all day. And those fresh crab cocktails at Fisherman's Wharf are to die for.”

“What is a cable car?” Eddie asked, looking confused.

Lily gave him a look like his brain had turned to mashed potatoes right in front of her.

“You're from San Francisco and you don't know what a cable car is?” she asked incredulously. “That's like being from Malibu and not knowing what a surfboard is!”

Alicia laughed out loud, and Lily looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“I don't see what's so funny,” Lily said.

“You have the wrong San Francisco,” Alicia explained, still giggling. “Eddie and Oscar are from San Francisco Gotera, a town in the mountains of El Salvador. No cable cars there, that's for sure. Barely any real cars. And there aren't any fresh crab cocktails either, but my Aunt Maria owns a
pupusería
, and her
pupusas
are to die for.”

“Like anyone here is supposed to know what a
pupusa
is?” Lauren called out. “Sounds like something that should be in a diaper!”

Jillian and Brooke howled with laughter, and Lauren looked really pleased with herself. Personally, I haven't made a diaper joke since I was in kindergarten, and even then it was considered immature.

“It's a handmade tortilla stuffed with cheese or beans or pork,” I said, feeling my face flush with anger. “Esperanza makes them for us all the time. They're delicious, especially if—”

Charlie obviously wasn't pleased with the
pupusa
turn the conversation had taken and she cut me off before I even got to describe the yummy melted cheese center of Espie's
pupusas
.

“Sammie has to go,” she said. “She's taking Oscar and Eddie on a little tour of the neighborhood.”

“Be sure to go to the Santa Monica mall,” Jillian said. Then turning to Eddie, she explained, “There's this store called Kicks that has the most amazing vintage-style sneakers.”

“I already have a pair of sneakers,” Eddie said.

Jillian glanced down at the basic white sneakers Eddie was wearing.

“Oh, those,” she said, and frowned. “Trust me, you need to get a pair of retro ones. It will blow your friends away when you go to your next party—”

“I hate to break this up,” Charlie interrupted, “but you guys better get going. We have to get started here if we want to catch the golden hour.”

She took me by the arm and practically shoved me in the direction of the parking lot.

“Follow me, group,” I said to the boys and Alicia. “I will lead you to french fries.”

Candido got the keys to his truck, and we all headed to the parking lot. Eddie and Alicia were directly behind him and bringing up the rear was Oscar, doing the best he could to keep up on his bad foot.

Just as we reached Candido's beat-up red truck, a silver convertible sports car turned in from Pacific Coast Highway and screeched to a stop next to us. It was so sleek and low to the ground that it looked more like a rocket than a car. The driver was about thirty years old, with gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses sitting on his bleached-blond hair. A scarf with black skulls all over it was knotted around his neck. It didn't take much to guess who he was.

“You're the photographer, right?” I said.

“Tyler Frank,” he answered, getting out of the front seat and showing off his big-time designer jeans and tattooed arms. “Are you Chip Wadsworth's daughter?”

Maybe this guy should get a prescription for those aviator glasses, because if there's one thing I don't look like, it's Chip Wadsworth's daughter.
Lauren Wadsworth wouldn't be caught dead in cutoff sweats and a baggy T-shirt.

“Nope. She's inside with the other glamour girls,” I said. “We're the nonglam group.”

“I wouldn't be so hard on yourself,” Tyler said, popping open the trunk and pulling out his camera bag. “True glamour comes in all shapes and styles.”

Oscar and Eddie were gaping at Tyler's car. You don't see a car like that even in Malibu much, but for two kids from San Francisco Gotera, his Ferrari must have seemed like it was from the future.

“Is this Batman's car?” Oscar asked him.

Tyler laughed in a real friendly way.

“Nah, his is black and flies,” he said. “This baby stays firmly on the ground.”

“Can I look under the baby's hood?” Oscar asked.

“That's not the first question most people ask.” Tyler smiled. “But hey, why not?” He popped open the hood to reveal the shiny, powerful engine inside.

“My brother, he loves cars,” Eddie explained. “Our father owns a garage in El Salvador and Oscar helps him a lot.”

“El Salvador, huh?” Tyler said. “I was there once.
Sports Illustrated
sent me to shoot a soccer match.”

“I play soccer,” Eddie said proudly.

“In our town, he is a star,” Oscar added just before he dove headlong under the hood of the car.

“It's a beautiful country . . . nice people,” Tyler said.

As he went on to describe how he hiked to the top of the Santa Ana Volcano, Oscar poked around in the engine. I think the kid would have camped out for a week under the hood if he could have. He got his face right down in there and looked at every hose and spark plug. (Okay, I have no idea what a spark plug is, but I'm just going to assume there were a couple somewhere in there.) Tyler watched him with curiosity, taking in everything about Oscar with a photographer's eye—his good looks, his intelligent dark eyes, and of course, his badly deformed leg. When Oscar looked up, Tyler just nodded and said, “You're a brave little dude.”

“I am not a little dude,” Oscar answered, pulling himself up to his full height. “But I am brave, just like the Avengers.”

“The Avengers, huh?” Tyler said with a laugh. “I'm a fan, too. But listen, bro, I'm going to have to cut this conversation short. I've got to make Chip Wadsworth's little girl look good if I want to get paid for this gig.”

“That won't be hard,” I said. “Lauren Wadsworth always looks good. Even when she looks bad she looks good.”

“Yes,
very
good,” Eddie said. “Those girls at the club are so beautiful.”

“Well, thanks a whole lot,” Alicia said, giving him a punch in the arm. “And what are we? Chopped olives?”

“I think you mean chopped liver!” Tyler hooted. “And no, you're not! All you kids are great looking. It's just that Chip's not paying me to shoot you, so I've got to go.
Adios, muchachos
.”

He slammed down the hood of his car, slung his camera bag over his shoulder, and headed off to golden hour at the beach. As for us, we climbed into Candido's beat-up red truck and headed a couple miles down the coast to the Venice boardwalk.

The boardwalk is a totally awesome place. All kinds of people hang out there on the weekends—Rollerbladers, muscle beach bums, tourists, magicians, earring sellers. There's even a guy who juggles chain saws. No kidding. People walk along and check out the scene, eat french fries and drink smoothies, and soak up the ocean air.

We joined the throngs of people on the boardwalk. Oscar and Eddie couldn't believe the amazing sight. They took in everything, barely blinking. I knew the feeling—it was the way I felt the first time I went to Disneyland and saw a life-size Minnie Mouse walking around. I was so blown away that I actually fainted, and Minnie Mouse had to revive me. Lucky for me, she's not just another mouse who looks good in a red polka-dot dress.