Getting It (6 page)

“I doubt it. Next we've got to tackle your clothes. You'll need to get some more money.”

Oh, great,
Carlos thought.
Money from where?

As they crossed the living room, Sal waved. “Good-bye, Mrs. Amoroso.”

“Bye!” She glanced up from her sewing and gave him a big smile. “Come back anytime!”

Carlos didn't get why females were so charmed by gay guys, but he was glad his ma liked Sal. And as he returned to his room to pack his overnight bag for his pa's, he found himself kind of wishing he could've spent more time with Sal.

A
S USUAL,
C
ARLOS'S
pa arrived late. And, as always, he cell-phoned from the parking lot, to avoid coming upstairs. It annoyed Carlos how his pa and ma had gotten so weird about each other.

Carlos said good-bye to his ma and carried his overnight bag down to the car. Lupita sat in front arguing with his pa about Henry's binky bottle. Henry was strapped into a kid seat in back, crying. Carlos climbed in beside him and put his music player headphones on.

Like every Saturday they drove to McDonald's. Over lunch, Carlos told his pa and Lupita, “A friend helped me paint an accent wall in my room.”

“What's an accent wall?” his pa asked.

It surprised Carlos that his pa, a construction foreman, didn't know “It's when you paint one wall a different color.”

His pa raised an eyebrow. “Only one wall?”

“That sounds pretty,” Lupita commented, and fed Henry a French fry.

“It looks cool,” Carlos said. “Then we painted a headboard onto the wall.”

“That's clever!” Lupita beamed.

His pa frowned. “Where did your mother get the money for a headboard?”

“She
didn't”
Carlos muttered. “I said, my friend and I
painted
it on.”

Carlos didn't say any more after that, not mentioning the framed praying mantis or the bamboo stalks.

After lunch, they went to the park, where his pa and Lupita played
with Henry. Carlos sat on a bench, bored, and wondered why he'd even bothered to come along.

After the park, they went to the mall to buy new clothes and shoes for Henry.

“He's growing so fast!” Lupita exclaimed, fitting Henry into a new pair of pants.

“Yeah, too fast,” his pa griped.

“I need some new stuff too,” Carlos told his pa. “Can I have some money?”

His pa pressed his lips together, unsmiling. “Look,
mi'jo,
at the rate Henry is going through clothes, I can't right now. Why don't you ask your ma? I already sent her the check for this month.”

Carlos turned away from his pa, his face burning. He understood Henry needed clothes, but what about
him?
“I'm going to the car,” he announced and walked out.

On the way home, they stopped for a DVD rental. Carlos wanted an action movie, but instead his pa got a crappy “family” film that Henry could watch.

For the rest of the evening, Carlos kept to himself, bored out of his mind. When it came time to sleep, he lay restless on the bed beside Henry's crib. The nightlight illuminated the gazillion brightly colored toys that filled Henry's room. It wasn't fair that Henry should get so much stuff while Carlos couldn't even get some clothes money.

Next morning, he slept late and woke up feeling too cranky to say much.

His pa watched him warily. When he dropped Carlos off at home, he handed him a ten-dollar bill. “Here. I'm sorry it can't be more.”

Wow, ten whole dollars?
Carlos thought sarcastically.
Big whoop.
But he took the money anyway.

When he got to his room, he went to his computer, eager to catch up with his friends and take his mind off his turdy life.

C
ARLOS KNEW
his friends were still pissed at him for not telling them what was going on with Sal. Although they'd stopped hassling Sal, they still gave Carlos crap, telling him, “Hey, there goes your Hoover,” or, “I think you're starting to lithp.”

Although the comments irritated Carlos, he also felt a little guilty for not being honest about what he was doing. Sunday afternoon he invited the group over to hang out. When they reached his bedroom doorway, the boys gazed in awe around the clean, redecorated room.

“Holy crap!” Playboy gasped. “What happened?”

“I decided to fix it up.”

“How come you painted only one wall?” Pulga asked. “You run out of paint?”

“It looks cool,” Toro said. “Can you help me paint my room like this?”

“Sure.” Carlos smiled. “That's called an accent wall, to match the faux headboard.”

His three friends stared at him as if he were an alien.

As the boys hung out, the discussion turned to Playboy and the Internet profile he'd set up—which so far hadn't turned out so good. He'd placed it on Hot-or-Snot.com, a teen hookup site where your photo could be rated on a scale of one to ten by anyone who saw it. Anything over five meant you were hot. But under five, you may as well crawl beneath a rock and die.

Since Playboy had posted his photo/profile, his rating had slipped
steadily from its opening to 8.5, and the only e-mail response he'd received was from a hugely overweight woman in her late thirties who lived fifty miles away—but she was willing to travel.

“Dude, look at her!” Playboy showed Carlos her J-peg. “She looks ready to give birth to a Sumo wrestler.”

Pulga countered. “Maybe she is a Sumo wrestler.”

“Let me see your profile,” Carlos said to Playboy.

All the boys leaned over the computer as Playboy clicked to his profile. Below his face pic it read:

USER NAME:
HornyBoy0001.

DESCRIPTION:
Male, 16 …

Toro remarked, “You're not sixteen yet.”

“I will be in a year.” Playboy grinned as Carlos kept reading in a low voice: “… six feet tall…”

Playboy wasn't actually that tall, either. He was about an inch shorter than Carlos.

“… sexy, VGL …” Carlos asked, “What's VGL mean?”

Toro replied, “Volunteers to get laid?”

“That too.” Playboy grinned. “It means ‘Very Good-Looking.'”

“Better take your photo down,” Pulga remarked. “Or they'll see you're lying.”

Playboy punched his arm. Carlos continued reading: “… hot bod … great personality … into music (hip hop, house, Los Lonely Boys) …”

“You should put that you're a good dancer,” Carlos told him.

“You think so?” Playboy said, then decided, “Nah, that's too gay.”

Beneath the description, Carlos read the heading
LIKES:
“Chicks who've got a sexy bod … I mean seriously hot! … who can get wild and are willing to go out of their way for me.”

“Sumo mama is willing to go out of her way,” Pulga commented.

“Shut up,” Playboy ordered. “She obviously didn't read my ‘dislikes.'”

Under the heading
DISLIKES,
Carlos read: “Fatties and/or freakishly tall chicks (no offense, Pulga) …”

“You jerk!” Pulga socked Playboy's shoulder.

Carlos continued reading: “… uglies (don't pretend you're not) … stinky chicks … stuck-up bitches … Internet sluts … prudes … girls who won't shut up … and needy twits.”

Carlos finished reading the profile and said, “Hmm.”

“What do you mean, ‘hmm'?” Playboy asked. “What's wrong with it? Why aren't the hot babes answering?”

“Maybe you should change your picture,” Toro suggested.

Playboy frowned, leaning closer to examine his photo. “I look needy, don't I?”

“You look like you need to take a dump,” Pulga told him.

“Yeah,
on you!”
Playboy swung out to punch him again, but Pulga ducked.

“Maybe you should use a pic showing your abs,” Toro suggested. “That's what a lot of guys do.”

He quickly clicked through other boy profiles. About half the guys either had their shirts off or at least pulled up to show their abs.

“You think I should?” Playboy asked Carlos.

“Sure, why not?” Carlos shrugged. “We can use my camera.” The digital had been a Christmas present from his ma.

“Here, stand like in this guy's pic.” Toro posed Playboy with his shirt lifted up, and his jeans and boxers pulled down to the edge of his pubes.

“You sure this doesn't look gay?” Playboy protested. “I don't want fags e-mailing me.”

Carlos peered through the camera screen and recalled Sal scolding him. He now told Playboy, “You shouldn't use the word ‘fag.'”

“Oh, that's right,” Playboy said sarcastically. “I forgot you're now bi.”

“You're bi?” Toro asked. “For real?”

“Shut up,” Carlos told Playboy “I'm not bi.”

“Whatever.” Playboy rolled his eyes,” Just take the picture,
pendejo.”

Carlos took a couple of shots and everyone crowded around to look at them.

“You don't think I look too skinny?” Playboy asked.

“Maybe that'll discourage any more hippos,” Pulga suggested.

That idea seemed to satisfy Playboy. After uploading his new photo onto the site, the boys searched through the girl profiles and Playboy e-mailed three chicks he thought were hot.

Carlos felt great spending time with his buds, in spite of the jabs about his turning gay. They'd always teased each other like that anyway. Except now there was a difference: He actually had a gay friend.

C
ARLOS WAITED TILL
Friday, his ma's payday, to tell her, “I need some money for clothes.”

She'd just come home from food shopping and he'd quickly offered to put the groceries away.

“I just bought you those sneakers,” she replied. “What more clothes do you need?”

Carlos resented having to justify what he wanted money for. It made him feel like one of those needy kids on a “Save the Children” ad. But he recalled how his ma liked Sal, so he told her, “Sals helping me with my image.”

“Your …
image?”
His ma smiled at Carlos, her eyes sparkling with interest. “This boy is having quite an influence on you. First your room, now your clothes …”

“Yeah,” Carlos agreed. Although he'd originally planned to ask his ma for a hundred dollars, her obvious approval of Sal now emboldened him. “I probably need about two hundred bucks.”

His ma's eyes suddenly lost their sparkle. “Oh, really? Well, let me just turn the faucet on and see how much money comes out.”

That was one of her most annoying expressions.

“I can give you fifty,” she countered.

“Fifty?”
Carlos stopped putting away groceries. “You can hardly buy a pair of underwear for fifty.” Besides, Carlos still had to pay Sal his hourly rate and the eighteen dollars he owed him.

“Sorry.” His ma resumed putting away groceries.

Carlos reverted to his original target. “Okay, how about a hundred?”

But his ma wouldn't budge. “Fifty.”

“Ma, stop being so stingy,” Carlos insisted. “How about eighty?”

“I'm not being stingy. I told you what we can afford: fifty.”

“Seventy?” Carlos pleaded, helping store a box of macaroni on the top shelf.

“No.” His ma's tone grew irritated. “I told you fifty.”

Carlos wrapped his arms around her. “Sixty, Ma. Come on,
please?”

He felt her body relax beneath his embrace. “Okay. Sixty.”

Carlos let his arms drop and finished putting away the groceries. Although he'd gotten less money than he'd wanted, at least it was more than his drive-by pa had given him.

S
ATURDAY MORNING,
Sal arrived at eight, but this time Carlos had remembered to set his alarm. In the kitchen over coffee, Sal flirted with Carlos's ma, telling her, “That blouse looks really good on you. It totally highlights your eyes.”

“Gracias.”
Mrs. Amoroso beamed. “It's one of my own creations.”

“No way!” Sal exclaimed. “You made that? You're really good.”

Carlos felt a little weird watching Sal interact with his ma. It didn't give him the creeps like the time Playboy stared at his ma's butt as she bent over the dishwasher. And his ma's liking Sal didn't feel like she was betraying Carlos's pa, like when she got cozy with Raúl. But it did make Carlos feel a little insecure. Was his ma starting to like Sal better than him? Even though Carlos felt silly thinking that, it made him eager to get going that morning.

“Come on,” he told Sal as he finished wolfing down his cereal. “Let's go!”

“Your mom's really nice,” Sal commented, following Carlos downstairs from the apartment. “So why did your parents split up?”

Carlos gave an evasive shrug. The only people whom he'd told about the reason for the divorce were his buds.

But Sal persisted. “You don't know why your parents broke up?”

Carlos ignored the question, continuing to resist Sal's intrusion. Why did Sal always have to try prying him open?
As soon as this makeover is over,
Carlos thought,
it's really over.

“Hey, lookit!” Sal stopped walking. “If you want girls to like you,
you're going to have to learn to open up and trust people.”

Carlos folded his arms, balking. He saw that Sal's face had the same stern look as when Carlos hadn't wanted to reveal his crush on Roxy. If Carlos didn't open up now, Sal would probably threaten to bail again.

Carlos glanced down at the sidewalk and said in a low voice, “My pa … got involved with someone else … his secretary … and they had a kid.” He lifted his eyes to gaze defiantly at Sal. “Now you know. Satisfied?”