Perfectly Ridiculous (11 page)

“After dinner? That's hours from now. I haven't even served lunch! What if you need someone to back up your story? You don't want them to think you kidnapped him.”

“If I kidnapped him, I wouldn't have brought him to a clinic, where the police would be called, would I? Go back and fix lunch so that Libby is none the wiser. That's the most sensible thing you can do for all of us.”

“Maybe your Spanish isn't as good as you think it is. Maybe you told them something that gave rise to suspicion.”

J.C. grins and grabs my knee, making me giggle instantly. “I'm sorry, I'm ticklish.”

He squeezes my knee again, which gives rise to uncontrollable laughter. “Stop it.” I look at all the faces staring at me. “People are watching. Stop it.”

He does it again, and Pablo pops up from his near-sleep and laughs.

“Now look what you did!”

“It was worth it. From the first moment I met you, the only time I've ever seen you let down your guard and not worry is when you wolfed down half my sandwich. Since then you've been a bundle of nerves. Quit worrying! God says we can't add an hour to our life by worrying.”

“I know, but it's what I do best. I'm good at worrying.”

He shakes his head. “No, what you do best is giggle. Well, you make a mean peanut butter celery stalk too.”

“What about you? Your arm has to be hurting from being in that position for so long, and that's not even mentioning your swollen foot.”

“
No bonita
—pretty—when you nag,” he says.

“I want to stay,” I tell him truthfully.

“Only because you're not thinking about Libby's reaction at this very moment.”

“No. I'm thinking I want to be here to support you.”

“Libby will call your parents,” he says.

I bound out of my chair. “Point taken. I'm going.”

J.C. moves out from under Pablo and stands alongside me. He looks like he had to be very popular in high school, which immediately makes me want to forget every tingly feeling I'm having. If we were not thrust together under the eyes of Libby the scary missionary, he wouldn't have given me a second's notice.

“I might never get another chance to do this, and I promised myself I was not going to let shyness stop me on this trip. I am going to be the new and improved J.C. Wiggs.”

“Do what?” He's so close to me that I can feel his soft breath against my lips. The room is filled with people, but it's as if we're time traveling and there's no one in the space but J.C. and me.

“I wanted to kiss you from the moment you stole my sandwich.” He presses his lips against mine and stares at me. I can't think of anything to say, and he does it again. There are a few whistles and catcalls around us, but this doesn't thwart him either. He kisses me a third time. “Go back and cover for me,” he whispers. He nods in satisfaction. “It was a good kiss.”

I nod, unable to say anything.

“I should have asked to kiss you,” he says in front of everyone, and I hope to high heaven no one understands English. “Is it all right that I kissed you?”

I feel myself nod again like an overanimated bobble head, but I don't even have the presence of mind to worry. I'm too busy floating.

 11 

My Life: Stop—July 8

Factoid: A kiss is just a kiss. Except it's not when it's in a foreign country and with someone I actually want to kiss me. It takes on a romantic hue. Even in a sterile doctor's environment.

I sit here on Claire's cot in utter amazement. I can't believe we got away with our deceitful yet honorable plan. I never get away with anything! Not even when I'm innocent in the matter have I ever gotten away with something. I'm almost afraid I'm going to lead a life of crime after this because I feel giddy that I didn't get caught and astonished that Libby knows nothing about it whatsoever. I came home expecting to find her waiting for me, tapping her toe, but nothing. The room was silent, the snacks were gone, and lunch was about to be served.

Now, if you add in the fact that J.C. kissed me on this stealth mission, it's almost like I'm invisible. In a good way, though. Like a superhero way. A kiss—the one thing that Libby warned us would get us thrown out of the mission and we wouldn't get our scholarships and our lives would be virtually ruined. But that didn't happen. Nothing happened. I just told Libby the story about J.C. going back to the medical clinic, and she believed it and that was the end of it. I served lunch. I served dinner. I cleaned up dinner, and . . . nothing happened!

Pablo's stepfather did come searching for him again, and this time the man was really frantic. No doubt Pablo's mother was due home soon and he'd have some explaining to do. Libby was worried too and offered to call the police for him, but Pablo's stepfather turned her down. She sent the guys out looking for the boy, and it really took all my willpower not to spill everything. Knowing the guys were out looking for someone they'd never find filled me with guilt, but the truth is, I worried about J.C. more, so I kept my mouth clamped shut.

My throat was so constricted the whole time, I worried I'd been bitten by some rare and venomous snake without knowing it and the venom had taken over my vocal cords. Knowing J.C. might be in danger, I stayed quiet and let the guys go out looking rather than save them the trouble.

I focused my thoughts on Pablo's bruised thigh and his small size for his age. I tried to calculate in my head if the man had it in him to beat a child, but who knows what a monster looks like? They look like you and me, right? So how would I know? I decided it was better to leave it to the police. In a way, I hoped his stepfather was innocent. I mean, he looked exactly like I'd imagine a child abuser would look, and that seemed so very obvious.

“What are you writing?” Claire climbs up the ladder just as I slam my journal shut. “About the hot kisses you and J.C. shared while we were all in the classroom?”

I shrug. “What? No. Just what's happening here at the mission.”

“So does that mean there were hot kisses?” Claire giggles at her joke.

“We couldn't keep our hands off each other,” I tell her, and we both giggle.

“Seriously, what is happening? What are you writing in there?” She sits on the cot and curls her legs up underneath her. “Is there romance? Maybe a small spark of romance?”

“Not unless I want to lose my scholarship, there isn't.”

It's not lying exactly. It's omitting the truth so that I don't hold Claire liable for knowing a thing. That way she's in no danger with Libby and I'm in no danger for her being unable to keep her mouth shut.

The phone rings and I startle at the unfamiliar sound.

“What is up with you? You're as jumpy as a frog in Angels Camp.”

“Shh!” I hiss, trying to overhear Libby on the phone. She's making sounds of agreement as if she's listening to a litany of details. I find myself praying for J.C. and hoping that Pablo is safe and hasn't been sent home if the house is unsafe. In a way, I hope J.C. was wrong and it's all a giant misunderstanding, and that Pablo is home safe and cuddled into a warm bed.

“
Sí. Gracias. Muchas gracias
.” Libby hangs up the phone. “Daisy!” she shouts.

“Yes,” I purr as innocently as possible.

“Go pick up J.C. He's done at the clinic.” I look down over the wooden rail. There's nothing on her face that gives any sign she knows a thing other than I'm to go pick up J.C.

“I'll go,” Hank says, slamming a book shut. “I don't want her out by herself at night.”

“She volunteered herself to be in this situation, she can go. You're tired from the day's work. She'll be fine.”

Hank meekly opens his book again, and I scramble to get my shoes on.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Claire asks.

“No,” I say too quickly, because the ride back is all J.C. and I will have to get our story straight. “J.C. will be embarrassed to have you see him hurting. He's used to me seeing him all groggy from the meds this morning. You just stay here and get ready for the morning. I imagine Queen Esther's part will be even bigger tomorrow. Wouldn't want you to forget your lines.”

She holds up a script. “Totally. It's really challenging my inner actor to speak in another language. It's like doing Shakespeare.”

“Except Shakespeare's in English.”

“Yeah, but ye olde English. Hardly the same thing.”

“Right,” I say, sliding into my sweater.

Claire stands beside me and whispers in my ear, “You may be able to fool Libby, but I know you're up to something. You're a terrible liar.”

I swallow the huge lump in my throat. “The less you know, the better. Believe that.”

“I'm certain that's true, which is why I'm not asking you.”

I grin at her and grab her wrist. “See ya soon.”

I clamber down the ladder and meet Libby's suspicious glare. “If I find out you know anything about Pablo, you're done here.”

“Who?”

Libby purses her lips. “There's just something I don't trust about you, Daisy Crispin. You have that same glint in your eye that your father always had, and I never trusted him either.”

“Then there's nothing I can do that will disappoint you or, in effect, please you, right? I can't win here, and what's different about me this time is that I'm not even going to try. Not because I don't respect you, but because I'm a good worker and I'll do my best regardless. You're very good at what you do, Libby. Someday maybe you'll realize others do it just as well, but differently.”

“I doubt that.”

So did I, but it felt satisfying saying what I thought anyway. Libby didn't seem like the sort to ever change her thinking, no matter how much evidence there was to the contrary. Some people were married to their ignorance and I chalk Libby up to that category. I wonder if people ever think,
I hope heaven is big enough for the two of us.
Because Libby makes me think that way. I hope she's on the upper east side and I'm on the lower west side, or however it works. I hope she's in another wing. Which I know cannot be garnering me any more jewels in my crown, but neither can lying about my feelings.

I grab the keys and rush to the vehicle as if I'm an escaped convict, and in many ways I suppose I am. I turn on the radio, because let's face it, there's nothing cheerier than a little Latino music when you're frantic and fearing a foreign penal system, is there? I'm thinking not.

When I get to the medical clinic, I drive up to the darkened building and there's not a soul in sight. Truthfully, it looks like a scene out of a horror movie—not that my mom's ever let me see one, but I've seen the commercials. I start to get out of the car, then think better of it. J.C. is nowhere in sight. I press all the locks down on the car doors and pray for some sort of divine guidance. “God, what do I do now?”

There's silence. Silence and crickets.

“I don't know what to do,” I say aloud. “God, J.C. didn't tell me what to do if this didn't work out, and if I come back without him, Libby will know for certain we were up to something.”

More crickets. It slowly dawns on me that I can actually smell myself sitting in this car. The most gorgeous guy I've ever met kissed me today, and I smell like a dirty puppy because water is so scarce here. Like fire and compassion are. I'm disgusting. Maybe J.C.'s nose didn't work right after he got hit, or maybe we both smelled so ripe that we didn't notice the stench of the other. Maybe it's like caveman love or something virtually unknown to those of us from America.

There's a rap on my window, and I scream as my imagination runs wild. I look up and see a policeman showing me his badge. Lord forgive me, but I've seen too many bad
Lifetime
movies and I don't want to roll down the window. He knocks again.

“Daisy,” he says. “Daisy Crispin?” He rolls the
r
in my name, and it's like Antonio Banderas in my mind's eye.

I roll the window down a crack.

“
Tu amigo?
J.C.?”

“
Sí? Mi español es muy mal
,” I tell him, as if I need to. He can hear I'm not really speaking his language, can he not?

He motions for me to follow him in his cruiser. I toss up another set of desperate prayers and wait for him to start up his car. He slowly rolls onto the road and I follow at a safe pace behind him. I have the most irritating thought: would I have trusted J.C. so easily if he didn't look like he did? What if this is all part of a deep, international kidnapping scheme where I am taken and sold into a . . . I shudder, not wanting to finish the thought. What if J.C. were a complete troll with a white man fro and a scruffy beard? Would I have said, “Oh yes, J.C., I'll help you kidnap this child because of a preconceived notion you have in your head after being raised by a mother who could star on
Intervention
”? Yes, another heaping helping of boy-crazy, inane decisions for me. Please. The police officer is in a police car, but aren't foreign cops on the take? Seriously, isn't that the crux of every major thriller?

A brightly lit building is up ahead, and I've never been so grateful to see civilization. There are small stores, still open, a petrol station, and a very modern building that appears to be a full-sized hospital. The policeman gets out of his vehicle and saunters over to my car. Why do all cops walk that way? Is it in the code book or something?

I step out of my car and he hands me a strip of paper with English writing on it. It's signed by J.C.

“Thank you.” I wave the paper. “
Gracias
.”

I enter the building and ask for directions. “
Cuatro once?
”

The nurse, all dressed in white, points me to the elevators, which don't exactly look like they're up to American code, so I ask for the stairs. She points in the other direction, and I climb up four flights of stairs until I match the numbers on the outside of the rooms to the one on my strip of paper. I peek into the room and gasp in horror. J.C.'s one eye peers out from behind strips of bandages.

“What happened to your gorgeous face?” I run to the bedside.

“Hopefully it's still under the bandages.” He smiles with a cut lip. “You think my face is gorgeous, Daisy?”

I touch his bruised face as gently as I can around the bandages, but he still flinches. “Don't pretend you've never looked into a mirror, J.C. You know what you look like. I shouldn't have to spell it out for you. Who did this to you?”

He grins. “Yes, spell it out for me. It rushes the healing.”

“J.C.” My body tightens at the sight of him, and I wish I could take some of his pain from him. I try to make light of the situation to improve his spirits. “You look like you should be answering to the name of Lucky about now. Have you always had this kind of luck, or is it just my entrance into your life?”

“Don't make me laugh. It hurts.” He grabs his stomach with his good arm. “You should see the other guy.”

“Does he look worse than you?”

“He doesn't even have a scratch, but in my defense, I didn't see him coming. He came up all ninja on me from behind and I didn't get one good punch in. I hope you don't need me to defend your honor because I'm not all that good in a fight. In my head I was Superman until it came time to prove it.”