Salvation (2 page)

Salva snagged the revised schedule, then freed himself from the Pen and made a beeline for his locker. By the time he’d retrieved his notebook, the hall had cleared. He allowed himself to lengthen his strides and pick up speed. The walls flashed past, a blur of peeled paint and dented steel. He swept around the corner—

And ran headlong into the walking disaster area.

Beth could have killed him. All the time he spent oblivious to her and he chose
this
moment to intersect her path. She was already late, and she’d been trying desperately to unwrap her remaining school supplies so that the second-period teacher wouldn’t glare at her the way the homeroom instructor had. Papers flew out of Beth’s arms, across the floor, and under the slice of space beneath the lockers. Her open backpack fell, emptying its contents into the pile. Devastation.

She dropped to her knees.

He
had the audacity to sigh. As if ramming his way around the corner was her fault. Frantically, she started to scramble, cramming pencils, folders, notebooks, erasers, and books into her backpack.

The bell rang.

She reached for a binder, and his hand stopped her.

He pulled the object toward him and snapped open the rings. “You know,” he said, “if you put the paper in here, it won’t make such a mess.”

She glared at his slicked hair and spotless T-shirt. Why did organized people act so patronizing? But it was hard to argue with him when she realized he’d picked up every stray piece of lined paper. “We’re late,” she muttered as her only form of revenge.

In the nine years she’d known him, she couldn’t remember
El Perfecto
ever being tardy.

He just nodded, handing back the filled binder, then stood, straightened his shoulders, and walked into AP English.

Salva scanned the stark classroom. The seniors sat so frozen in their seats you’d have thought the air-conditioning was working. Every chair at the back of the room was already filled. With nerds.

Luka was in the front row. Salva liked Luka. If it weren’t for his phenomenal speed as a running back, nobody at Liberty High would be headed for the state football championship. But sometimes the white guy was just strange.

What sane person would sit in the front row before the Mercenary? Her scowling expression curled Salva’s stomach. The pointed toe of her shoe tapped out a funeral dirge, and she wielded a bright red marker as if she might stab him with it.

Salva cut his losses and sat down behind Luka.

The walking disaster area came in next. But she didn’t know when to hide. Instead, she stood there, stuttering her apologies, trying to untangle the strap of her backpack from her frizzy brown hair, and dropping things, first her pencil, then an eraser, while the entire class waited for her to just sit down.

“What are you doing here, man?” Luka whispered to Salva.

Markham,
Salva mouthed. Enough said.

Luka rolled his eyes in response.

What are
you
doing here? Salva wanted to ask, but a second glance around the room revealed the presence of Nalani Villetti, the girl whom Luka had been following around like a puppy for the past six months. Sooner or later, he’d wake up to the fact that she was letting him follow her.

But Salva didn’t have time to clarify that point just now.

The Mercenary had headed his way with a stapled form that was already in everyone else’s possession. Her hand slammed down on his desk, leaving a synopsis of the three million hours of work she expected this quarter. “Welcome to AP English,” she told the class.

Yeah, friggin’ welcome.

Somehow Salva made it through the rest of that torture session. He cruised through finance and survived the first-day lecture for AP calc. Mostly due to the promise of lunch.

He conquered the food line by piling his tray with as much protein as he could and snatching an extra milk, then touched
down on the prime spot in the cafeteria, Table Numero Uno, bequeathed to him by last year’s seniors and now solely the possession of Salva and his friends.

“What the H, man? I thought you were takin’ PE. You know I had to run relay with Tosa here?” Pepe elbowed Ricardo Tosa, whom Salva liked almost as much as his best friend. Tosa was
huge.
Maybe six-three. Despite his extra height, he mostly just warmed the bench, but his goofy, lighthearted personality was the heart of the football team. Everybody loved him. Even Pepe, who was all about the win.

“D’you lose?” Salva asked, sitting down on the bench beside his best friend.

“No, of course not,” Pepe replied. “The class is mostly just sophomores. I had to talk Gregson into letting us in, you know. I thought you were comin’ with.”

“Markham,” Salva said.

Pepe just stared, French fries in his hand. Not as quick on the uptake as Luka.

“He stuck me in AP English,” Salva explained.

The fries dropped to the table.

Tosa picked them up, dipped them in Tabasco, and swallowed them before his friend had recovered.

“You aren’t serious,” Pepe said.

“As a playoff game,” replied Salva.

“F-it. Tell Markham to go for a dunk. I bet he never took an AP course in his life. You don’t wind up in a sinkhole like this with a high-powered degree.”

Pepe had a point, but it wouldn’t do any good to go on hating Markham. It was a little late to undo the decision to take freshman lit in the eighth grade. Salva explained the logistics.

“You see.” Tosa grinned. “It pays to be an underachiever.”

No way.
Salva’s gut rebelled against the statement. The cost for that mind-set was
far
too steep. He glanced around the sunken cafeteria. Salva knew the life story of probably 90 percent of the kids filling the room. Despite the open campus, almost the entire student body was here for free and reduced lunch. The one thing that made you stick out at Liberty High like nothing else was money. No one had it.

If they did, they switched to somewhere out of the district, like Julie Tri-Ang. Not that Julie really had money. She just had the grades for a prep-school scholarship. And a set of parents who weren’t afraid to have their daughter board two hundred miles away.

Salva wasn’t interested in switching schools. He had friends here. And only one year left to spend with them. But he wasn’t hanging around afterward to run a gas pump. He’d seen plenty of guys who did that, and most of them ended up in prison for dealing.

“Luka was there,” Salva said, as if to validate his own part in the travesty that was AP lit.

“He would be,” Pepe groaned.

Tosa stole another handful of fries.

“Luka’s all right,” Salva said.

“Yeah, I guess.” Pepe shrugged.

“You’re just jealous ’cause he’s the only guy in this school who dominates a football field more than you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,
quarterback
?”

Salva dismissed the comment. He had a good head on his shoulders—could choose a play and run it. Strong enough for Liberty, but he wasn’t of the same caliber as the guys who played his position in college. And in truth, he didn’t want to be. He didn’t want to be crushed three million times before he got out of his twenties.

“Nalani Villetti was there, too.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Pepe had clearly lost interest, his eyes on something else. “Don’t look now, but guess who’s headed our way.”

Salva didn’t have to guess. He could tell by the heat in Pepe’s voice that Char was coming. And she wasn’t wearing a turtleneck.

She wasn’t alone either.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Tosa greeted the long-legged blonde at Char’s side. He grinned as if he was joking, but no one was fooled.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Linette flipped her golden hair over one shoulder, propped herself on the outside of the bench, and leaned her hip against Tosa’s waist. Whether or not
she
was joking was harder to tell.

Char, whose tight shirt and tighter jeans battled with the dress code, stood waiting next to Salva, despite the fact that there was no space beside him on the bench.

He hated that—how she’d just stand there waiting for him to read her mind whenever she wanted something.

Pepe moved over, and Salva reminded himself to give his best friend a lecture on loyalty. Char slid in between them.

“Listen, guys.” Linette set her chin on Tosa’s shoulder. “My parents are water-skiing this weekend. You wanna come over while they’re gone for a little back-to-school action?” She popped her tropical-orange lips. “Saturday ’bout two?”

“I’m working,” Salva said. Scut every weekend at the onion-processing plant. His father’s idea.

“Ah, man!” Pepe frowned. “You’re not serious.”

Salva shrugged. Sorting onions wasn’t his view of a career path, but whatever. His older brother and sister had done their part to pay his way, so Salva owed it to his two younger sisters to do the same. Plus, he could work around his football schedule.

“Can’t you talk your way out of it?” Linette asked.

Char’s fingers brushed his arm.

“No,” he replied.

The fingers retreated, slightly.

“Well, I’m in,” Pepe stated.

Tosa laughed. “Oh, we knew
you
wouldn’t give up your Saturday for cash.” Of all of them, Pepe was the most flush. Not that his mom had money. Ms. Hart, who had ditched her husband’s last name of Real after he’d split when her son was twelve, had raised Pepe on a middle-school secretary’s salary. But his grandparents spoiled him rotten.

“And you, Ricardo?” Linette eased her long leg inside the bench so her right knee fell in front of Tosa and her left one rested behind. “Are you coming?”

Like that was gonna get a no.

“Prob’ly.” Tosa turned as orange as his polished-off Tabasco. “I’ll have to ask at the machine shop, but the boss owes me hours.”

“Good.” She slid back.

“Aren’t you
chicas
eating?” asked Tosa as he bit into his well-doctored burger. Juice from the tomatoes ran down his chin.

Both girls dismissed his question. Always dieting, one of the things that had driven Salva crazy when he was dating Char. What were you supposed to do with a girlfriend who wouldn’t eat?

“So
you’re
coming this weekend, aren’t you, Char?” Pepe prodded.

“I’m not sure,” she replied.

“What?!” he reacted as if the sagging ceiling had fallen in. “The worth-it factor goes down by half if you’re not there.”

Char lowered her eyes. She’d used glitter eye shadow, not much, but still a little creepy. “My mother would have to give permission.”

That’s not gonna happen.
Char’s mother was the
queen
of overprotection. No cheerleading. No R-rated movies. No overnight field trips. Nothing that would leave her daughter exposed to the hazards of, well, a guy like Pepe.

“I thought maybe if I could tell her someone would be there”—Char raised the sparkling eyelids to look straight at Salva—“someone she trusts…”

Right.
She wanted his name for an alibi. He’d been playing her chaperone since they were kids. She could ride the bus to summer school
if
he rode with her. She could go to the music concert
if
he was also going. She could attend the dance
if
he escorted her.

Pepe wheedled, “Come on, man, if you can’t come, that’s cool; but you’re not gonna leave her sittin’ home, are you? Just because you’re makin’ love to some onions.”

And you’re gonna take over as chaperone, huh?
Salva felt a twinge prick his conscience. Charla
was
a little like a sister to him—he had known her so long. He wouldn’t have advised one of his real sisters to date Pepe.

Char leaned closer, her arm against Salva’s, her knee pressing his. There was nothing
sisterly
in that gaze.

So much for his conscience.

“All right,” Salva said, “use my name.”

Beth savored the silence of the emptied-out school hallway that afternoon and devoured the final pages of
Wuthering Heights.
She could no longer feel the oppressive late summer heat or the hard metal of the locker at her back. Gone were the crumpled papers, broken pencils, and discarded candy wrappers on the tiled floor. She was on the cold English moors with the wind blowing around her and the whistle of death in the air.

A trio of voices suddenly invaded the end of the hall. Beth rushed through the last page. A banging locker emphasized the drama of the final line, and she looked up, just in time to see
El Perfecto
sprinting past, no doubt in a rush to get to football practice. Apparently, tardiness was a new thing for him.

Nalani came up at a much more relaxed pace, her pink canvas book bag slung over one shoulder.

“So what was the meeting about?” Beth asked her best friend.

“Who knows?” Nalani’s eyes shone as she rolled them.
She glanced over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “Just Markham on a power trip. I’ll tell you on the walk home.”

Beth stuffed
Wuthering Heights
back into her locker, not wanting to lose the book again and owe a fine to the library as she had back in June. Then she gathered her supplies and hefted her backpack.

Nalani was already halfway to the back exit, which led, naturally, to the football field. Beth hurried after her.

The team had stretched out in lines, five rows of testosterone-filled tight pants and loose jerseys hopping up and down in jumping jacks. The compact blond with the number 12 plastered on his front wasted no time sending Nalani a wave, even though he was leading the entire team—minus
El Perfecto,
who must not have made it out of the locker room yet—in the warm-ups. The team mimicked the wave.

Nalani pretended not to notice.

Which was fine because Beth didn’t want to hear the one-sided conversation about all the things Luka had done that day.

Heat radiated off the black asphalt path as the girls curved their way along the field, back toward the front of the building. Beth realized she had forgotten her sunscreen, but it didn’t matter much. Far too late to worry about freckles. By August, she was always a mess.