No More Us for You (15 page)

On Sunday, the day after the opening, I took the “Risk of Death” chart from my purse and tossed it in the trash. It had been silly of me to carry it around to begin with. Who needs to be reminded of all the ways you could die? I carried another clipping now, a small story I cut out of the
Press-Telegram
. The headline read: “Museum Guards Stop Art Vandal.”

It was one in the afternoon when I pulled into the museum parking lot. There was a news van parked along the curb, its satellite dish angled toward a cloudless blue
sky. Carlos wasn't even supposed to be working, but Ms. Otto wanted him to come in and be interviewed by the news media. Despite what had happened, she said it was excellent publicity for the museum.

When I stepped into the museum, the girl behind the counter held her finger to her lips. She motioned with her head and I looked across the room. A newswoman with poofy hair was interviewing Leonard and Carlos while a man pointed a video camera over her shoulder. Leonard was dressed in his museum guard uniform, but Carlos wore a plaid button-up shirt, faded jeans, and tennis shoes. The newswoman brought the microphone to her mouth and then to Leonard's mouth, then over to Carlos's, like the three of them were sharing an ice-cream cone.

“You heard what happened?” the girl behind the counter whispered.

“I was here,” I whispered back. “I saw everything.”

I passed the time by looking at the large photographs in the west wing of the museum, five to each wall. My favorite one was of an Asian girl in a yellow sundress and sandals. She was laughing, holding her red balloon up to
her face, the air rushing out and pushing up her bangs.

The news crew left with their cords trailing behind them. I walked up to Carlos. He was beaming. “You're famous,” I said.

“I didn't do anything,” he said. “It was all Leonard.”

Right when he said that, Leonard patted Carlos's back on his way over to the east wing. “Ms. Otto should give us a bonus.”

“No kidding,” Carlos said, chuckling.

“You held that guy's legs,” I reminded him. “You stopped him from popping more balloons.”

“Yeah, I guess I did,” he said.

Ms. Otto came up to us and Carlos introduced me. We shook hands. Ms. Otto thanked Carlos for coming in on his day off. “And for last night too,” she said. “You're a brave young man.”

Carlos blushed.

Before Ms. Otto headed back to her office, I noticed she had a hickey above the collar of her blouse that she had tried to cover up with foundation.

“Have you had lunch yet?” Carlos asked.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Let's grab something to eat.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let me do something first.”

I walked up to the table, plucked a balloon from the crystal bowl, and filled it with my breath. The balloon stretched in front of my face, its red skin getting tighter and tighter. When I finished blowing into it, I gave the balloon to Carlos so he could tie it. I uncapped a pen and grabbed one of the cards and started to fill it out.

Carlos handed my balloon back to me and I attached the card to it.

“What did you write?” he asked.

“I'm not telling.” I walked up to the Plexiglas wall and tossed my balloon in with the others. It bounced
on top of another balloon and settled on the hardwood floor.

“That's okay,” Carlos said. “I'll find it when I come in tomorrow.”

“Don't you dare.” I poked his chest playfully.

“I'm just teasing.”

“Why don't you do one?” I asked.

“I already did this morning,” he said, and looked at the throng of balloons. “It's in there somewhere.”

“We should do one together,” I suggested.

“Yeah, okay.”

Then we were back at the table. Carlos pulled a balloon from the bowl. I grabbed a card and pen.

“Hey,” he said. “Who should blow up the balloon, me or you?”

“We both will,” I said. “Just blow into it a little and then I'll do the rest.”

“Good idea.”

“Are you seventeen too?” I asked.

Carlos nodded as he blew into the balloon, his cheeks all puffed out.

Carlos held the balloon toward me, the navel pinched closed between his fingers. I grabbed it from his hand, careful not to let any of his air seep out, and then blew into it. I thought of my breath and Carlos's breath in the balloon, swirling around each other like two different colors of glitter inside a shaken snow globe. I passed the balloon back to Carlos and he tied the end.

“Okay, now what's our wish?” I held the pen over the card.

“Let me think,” he said, facing the entrance of the museum, eyeing the sky.

And I thought,
I wish Snake wakes up soon.

And I thought,
I wish there's a heaven and Vanessa is there with Gabriel.

I wish Suji is doing all right, I wish Will doesn't get anyone else pregnant.

I wish Heidi finds someone who's good to her, preferably not Matt Hawkins and his billboard-size forehead.

I wish Mira doesn't think I'm the biggest jerk at Millikan.

I wish I live to be a hundred.

I wish I have a happy life.

I wish Carlos ends up being my boyfriend.

I wish I don't screw things up with Isabel.

“Well?” I asked him. “What's our wish?”

Carlos turned to me and smiled, the balloon between his hands, holding our breath.

DAVID HERNANDEZ
is a web designer and a poet whose collections include
ALWAYS DANGER
, winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, and
A HOUSE WAITING FOR MUSIC
. He also wrote the novel
SUCKERPUNCH
. He lives in Long Beach, California, with his wife, the writer Lisa Glatt.
NO MORE US FOR YOU
is his second novel. You can visit him online at www.davidahernandez.com.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Jacket photo © 2009 by Howard Huang

Jacket design by Sasha Illingworth