The Princess of Las Pulgas (15 page)

“I know them,” I tell
him.

“Show me,” he says. This
time he takes my hand and doesn’t let go. “‘This hand is moist, my
lady.’”

“‘
It yet [has] felt no age
or known no . . . sorrow.’” Only the first half of that is
true.

“You do know them.” He
laughs, but stops when he looks at me. “So what’s gone
down?”

No way am I sharing my
feelings with Juan Pacheco. Eyes track me. I douse conversations in
the halls. When I pass, whispers follow me like stinging insects,
and now my grumpy lab partner growls at me
before
I screw up in chemistry lab.
Who knows what Chico and K.T. are planning to do to me? Whenever I
go to the apartment I have watch out for snarly Anthony, who just
might push me over the balcony railing. I give Juan a condensed
version. “Chico’s close to stabbing me and K.T.’s getting ready to
write a rap eulogy in my honor.”

Juan hasn’t released my
hand. I’m about to yank free, tell him to get away and stay away
when he moves closer and his smell of spicy aftershave and
laundry-clean clothes compete with the tuna I’ve just
swallowed.

“I talked to Chico,” he
says. “He’s a hothead when it comes to his reputation, and that’s
all about how fast he is on the track. He’s mad about what your
brother sprayed in the gym, but my dad knows his dad, so he’s not
going to do anything to you. And K.T.? She’s a royal pain, but
she’s got serious trouble at home. She acts tough to get through a
lot of bad stuff.”

I’m not sure I believe
that, and my expression says so.

“Her mom killed herself
last year, so she lives with her grandmother now.”

Killed herself.
Those are such ugly words. “That’s
horrible.”

“Yeah. She hung herself,
and K.T. was the one who found her.”

The hanging woman! That
hideous drawing and the way K.T. lunged at that girl, ripping off
her clothes—now it all makes sense.
And
now I understand why everybody cuts her so much slack—her rappy
Desdemona, her brawls—everything. Mr. Smith, the principal, even
most of the other kids put up with her in-your-face
attitude.

“She's always been bossy,
so she’s made a few enemies. Some are mean enough to use what
happened to her mom to get back at her.”

“The fight when she broke
her leg . . . was it about her mom, too?”

He nods. “Some kids at Las
Pulgas are trouble, but most aren’t.” He turns my hand palm up as
if he plans to read it. “My dad graduated from here. After college
he came back because he thought it was a good place to
live.”

His dad went to college?

He looks as if I’ve asked
him that question out loud.

“Mexicans go to
college.”

“I didn’t mean—” Yanking my
hand away, I slam my script on the steps. “I hate to disagree with
your dad, but you’re choosing the wrong adjective again.
Good
and
Las Pulgas
do not go
together.”

He leans toward me until I
feel his breath on my cheek. “Maybe it’ll grow on you.”

“Ah, my two leading
actors.”

Juan move back and I turn
quickly to met our English teacher’s dark, smiling eyes.

“Rehearsing?” Mr. Smith
asks.

“Just helping Desdemona
with a few lines.” Juan’s smug voice almost gags me. How did I let
him worm his way into my confidence like that? The only difference
between him and Chico is he’s a make-love-not-war hood, but he’s
still trouble.

My face has to be as red
because I feel the heat in my cheeks, but Juan doesn’t look one bit
concerned about being caught pressed so close to me.

“She’s almost got it
right,” he tells Mr. Smith.

I’d love to punch him out,
but he’s already gotten up and is halfway down the sidewalk,
leaving me to face Mr. Smith alone.

My teacher sits next to me
in Juan’s place on the auditorium step. “I’m pleased to see you
took my advice, Miss Edmund.”

“
Advice?”

“It was about coming to
like your classmates, but you probably didn’t need me to say that.
You’re doing just fine.”

I remember and now my face
grows even hotter. I want to tell him it isn’t that I gave Juan a
chance, but that he, well, he—

I’m scrambling to think of
something to say that will shift his attention away from that
too-friendly moment with Juan when he says, “I’m sorry about your
brother’s trouble.”

“That’s the first time he’s
ever done anything wrong. Well, not wrong, but bad.”

“I’m sure of it.” He gazes
at the chain link fence that separates school property from the
sidewalk. “I know how difficult it is to make the adjustment
between Channing and Las Pulgas.”

How can he know anything about the
“adjustment” Keith and I have to make?

“It has taken me over five
years,” he says.

“What?” I don’t try to hide
the shock in my voice.

“I stopped teaching at
Channing a few years before you started.”

I’m glad he’s not looking
my direction because I have time to close my mouth.

“I’d spent a great deal of
my youthful energy getting into trouble, but I stayed out of jail
from the time I was fourteen—”

“Jail . . .” I bite down on
my lower lip to shut myself up.

“Luckily someone saw a
flicker of intelligence in me, and even a speck of moral decency
buried behind some purely bad behavior.”

If Mr. Smith had socked me
in the stomach, I wouldn’t have been struck this dumb.

“I started studying, made
it through college with a good man’s help and graduated with
honors. I felt fortunate to find a position at Channing.” He
smiles, but it’s at a memory, not at me. “Now I’m here. It’s been
an interesting journey.”

If my vocal cords weren’t
paralyzed, I’d ask him why. Why not Channing? Why Las
Pulgas?

“I’m glad I could persuade
you to take on K.T’s role,” he says, getting to his feet. I was
concerned that we might have to cancel this year’s junior play when
she broke her leg.”

I don’t look at him for
fear he’ll read my thoughts about K.T.

“She’s assertive, so in the
end I believe her accident gave us the strong stage manager we
needed.”

People around here choose very strange
adjectives. Assertive? K.T. is a bitchy tyrant.

His eyes are on me and I’m
sure he’s reading my mind. “It also gave us a very fine Desdemona.
I have papers to grade before lunch period ends. I will see you
tonight at rehearsal, Miss Edmund. Remember, we’ll begin practicing
on the auditorium stage from now on.”

He’s gone before I think to
tell him he has to change that scene in Act II. I’m
not
kissing Juan
Pacheco.

Chapter 27

After an early dinner, Mom
puts the dishes into the sink and sets the leftover soup in the
refrigerator. “Keith, you take care of the clean up. Carlie has
rehearsal.” She walks with me to the front door and asks, “What
time are you through?”

“Mr. Smith said by
nine.”

“Maybe I should drive you.
I worry about those front tires.”

“I’ll be fine.” The tension
between us has eased since Monday. My guess is Mom and Keith have
talked, but I don’t care why. I just care that Mom has stopped
biting down on her words as if she’s severing small heads. At
dinner even Keith grunted at the right places to show he was
listening.

“My next paycheck I’m
getting two tires and our cell phones back. I want to be in touch
with you when you’re out at night.”

I have my keys in my hand
and start across the pool area toward the gate when two guys I
recognize from the halls of Las Pulgas come through the gate and
cross toward me. I circle around one of the tables in hopes they're
on their way somewhere and not interested in me. No such luck. They
block my path.

“Where you going in such a
hurry?” The one closest to me smells of locker room.

“Play practice.” I try to
sound calm—but I don't.

“Didn't know you lived in
this place,” he says again, looking around the complex. I know that
tactic. Pretend not to be interested in the prey, then pounce when
they’re off guard. “We got a friend here. You know
Anthony?”

“Not really.” I shake my
head for emphasis.

“You will,” the one
standing behind his friend says. His eyes are close set and when he
talks he squints as if he's bringing me into focus “You and your
brother will get to know him real good.”

“We don't want any
trouble.”

“Too late for that.” He
pushes his friend aside and shoves his face inches from mine. “You
already got a
pile
of trouble. Channing people should stay where they belong.
That ain't Las Pulgas. You got that?”

I have nothing to say and
if I did I couldn't get the words out because I’ve clamped of my
mouth shut to keep my chin from quivering. I'm also not able to
move—the pool is behind me and they're in front, blocking me.
Screaming is out of the question because nobody here would pay any
attention to it. Even my family’s immune to the loud voices we hear
that always sound like cries for help but aren’t.

The gate into the pool area
clangs and the woman from Apartment 147 swaggers toward us. “Any of
you got change for a buck? I gotta do some laundry and I need
quarters.”

They ignore her and head
toward the stairs.

“Bullies. Hate bullies.”
She lights a cigarette. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Better get yourself some
mace, honey. Around here a girl needs protection.” She returns
through the gate and goes into the laundry room at the end of the
carport.

The loud neighbor with a
vocabulary that would fill a dictionary of banned language has just
rescued me. Her mace suggestion is a good one. A bulky bodyguard is
a better idea.

It takes me a minute to
make my legs move, and then I run for the Tercel and lock myself
inside, where I sit shaking until I can steady my hand enough to
start the car.

I back the car out slowly,
as if I can take the Tercel and sneak out from the carport without
being seen or heard.

I’ve memorized my Act I
lines, but that’s because I don’t say very much. While I don’t have
many lines in Act II either, I do have that sticky scene about
Desdemona’s dad. I hate that I have to say any of those words, but
I
totally
can’t
stand that I have to say them with Chico and put up with his Iago
glares. Every time I rehearse, my throat dries up and I choke, even
when I’m practicing alone in front of the mirror.

And in Acts III and IV
Desdemona never shuts up.

It’s after six and I run
from the student parking lot across from the auditorium. The front
door is unlocked and I hurry into the entrance hall. There are only
night lights on and they cast eerie shadows. I was jumpy enough
already. Now I’m really freaked.

As I rush into the
auditorium Mr. Smith is on stage. Next to him is Anthony, who
tracks me as I come towards them. Then, without taking his eyes
from me, he says something to Chico, who licks his lips.

“Come up, Miss Edmund. I
know some of us still need scripts, but it’s time we practice
moving and interacting with the other characters. I am going to be
“blocking”—by that I mean telling you where to stand and when to
move. This act may be a bit rough, but let’s see what we can do
with it. Desdemona, I’d like you to use this prop.” Mr. Smith hands
me a small white handkerchief.

He places a metal chair at
the front of the stage. A folding table in the wings has water
bottles, candlesticks and fake daggers. Off stage to the left,
there’s a light panel where Jamal and K.T. huddle around switches
that control the curtain and all the lights.

Once we’ve started, Chico
stumbles on every other line, so it’s hard to believe Iago could
trick anyone into believing Desdemona and Cassio are an item, but
he’s definitely been typecast. The evilest Las Pulgas male is
playing the evilest Shakespearean villain. When it comes to the
scene between Juan and me, I can’t concentrate. I avoid looking
directly at him, which is exactly what Mr. Smith keeps directing me
to do.

“Even
I don’t believe Desdemona is innocent,” Mr. Smith calls from
his seat down stage. “She has to look Othello in the
eye.”

Easier said than done.
First, I keep losing my place in the script. Then I keep
remembering the feel of Juan’s hand around mine and his closeness
on the steps earlier today. I fidget so much with my handkerchief
that I drop it twice before the stage directions even call for
it.

K.T. shakes her head and,
in a stage whisper that everyone can hear, says, “Better get us an
understudy ready.” When I look at her, she glares back. She may
seem not so tough to Juan, but I’ve seen her fight, so I don’t like
turning my back on her, even with witnesses.