Part 2 (1/2)

”Good. They're almost here. I, I have to go before they land. I'm sorry, Maria.”

”Why don't you let them give you a ride back to town? You're a good five miles away. It's terrible out. You can't be out walking around in this mess.”

”Nah, man. That's cool,” he said, backing away nervously, all false bravado. ”They need to get you to the city and make sure you're good. I got this.”

”You sure?”

Demetrio seemed to gather his courage, inched forward, and gingerly took my hand. His was warm, in spite of the snow and wind. As our hands touched, and as we looked at each other, I felt a pleasant thrill pulse through me, almost a mild snap of electricity. He looked at me rea.s.suringly, peacefully. It confused me to see such an expression on a gang member's face.

”Look, mamita. Don't worry about me, okay? I can handle myself.”

”Okay,” I said, overcome with an urge to kiss him.

”I bet you look amazing all cleaned up,” he said. ”I probably shouldn't say this, but I'd like to see that sometime. You know, I don't know if you're down for that, but, you know.”

”Yeah, uhm,” I said absently. My hand went instinctively to my neck, where I usually wore the Tiffany necklace my boyfriend Logan had given me for Valentine's Day last year. It had a pendant shaped like a heart, with pink diamond inlays. My neck was bare. The necklace must have fallen off during the accident.

Demetrio watched my hand, and seemed to understand my hesitation.

”But only if you want,” he said, casting his eyes downward and biting his lip for a moment. ”I mean, you don't have to see me again. No pressure or nothin' like that.”

”Do you have a last name?” I tried to change the subject. My cheeks flamed with the awkwardness of the situation. I wanted to see him again. I liked being around him. But I knew it was inappropriate in every possible way. I wasn't a sickeningly good girl or anything like that, but I did tend to color inside the lines most of the time.

Demetrio nervously peered west over his shoulder once more as the helicopter came into view, circling the area as the searchlight scanned the area for me.

”Vigil.” His eyes locked onto mine, and he grinned slightly. ”But, what's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

I smiled to let him know I got the reference, and respected him for it.

”Shakespeare. Nice.”

”I like d.i.c.kens, too,” he said. ”My favorite book's 'A Tale of Two Cities,' about a guy who's been in prison and gets out for a second chance. Returned to life, that's the chapter.”

”I never read it,” I said. ”But my last name's Ochoa, in case you were wondering.”

Demetrio blinked his dark eyes, slowly, once, before focusing his gaze upon me again, tortured and impatient. I got the feeling he didn't have many friends.

”Well, miss Maria Ochoa. You probably got you a man at Coronado Prep,” he said.

”Sort of. Yeah.” I cringed because I hated to make him feel rejected, and also because Logan and I had been arguing a lot lately, and spending less and less time together.

”Gotcha,” he said, backing up, his face fallen as though he thought he'd made a stupid mistake. He watched the helicopter, and pulled his cap down lower over his eyes, as though he were hiding from view. He touched his chest just above his heart, and used two fingers to point at me, blus.h.i.+ng the way a tough guy does when he lets down his guard. He looked beautiful, and sad, and terribly alone in the storm.

”I'm sorry,” I said - and I was.

”Nah, we cool. Do me a favor,” he said, starting to back away from me. ”If anyone asks, say you don't know who called 911. Just some guy. Cool?”

My heart raced, and I felt scared and sorry for him. ”Are you in some kind of trouble or something?”

He looked at me without speaking for a long moment, swallowed hard and said, in a calmer voice now, ”Yeah. You could say that.” He backed up a little more.

”Did you kill someone?” I blurted. Sometimes I failed to think before I spoke. Actually, I often failed to think before I spoke. It came from rebellion; my mother was a politician who planned every word like a battle map.

He watched me, and gulped. I'd said it as a joke, but something in his eyes told me I had come very close to the truth about him. Too close. Not good.

”I gotta jet, Maria. Catch you later. Good luck with your dance thing. You'll be alright. I promise.”

With a tortured look on his face, Demetrio Vigil pulled up his collar, turned his back, and stalked off into the gloomy emptiness, as quietly as he had come.

By the following Friday, my life was essentially back to normal - at least on the surface of things. All my medical tests had come back clean, meaning I didn't have any lasting or serious injuries much to everyone's surprise, given how grandly smashed beyond repair the car was. I had walked away with only cuts and bruises - albeit pretty bad cuts and bruises - and a sprained ankle. Buddy, however, had a couple of fractured ribs and a broken ankle, but was expected to recover just fine. Because he insisted on licking the sore bits of himself, we'd corralled his head in a hideous white plastic cone, tied up indecorously about his neck with a strip of gauze fas.h.i.+oned into a decidedly un-macho bow.

My mom was back at work downtown, after recalcitrantly taking a couple of days off to both nurse me and to hold a tearful press conference about my accident because, hey, every life event is a chance for publicity when you're hoping to be the next mayor and, eventually, congresswoman and, eventually after that, something important at a national level in a cabinet and perhaps even President. Best of all, my dad had gotten me a new car not all that hard to do, considering that he had five years ago given up on being married to my ambitious mother and now relaxedly owned a luxury car dealers.h.i.+p in Santa Fe. The new car I drove around was a big black Land Rover with a creamy beige interior and all the bells and whistles. I didn't love Land Rovers, as a rule; I thought they looked like narrow, square-headed men with large foreheads. But after being masticated and regurgitated by Highway 14 and narrowly surviving, the Land Rover felt like a big and strong narrow headed man with a large forehead - and big and strong felt just right.

So it was that I found myself, on a bl.u.s.tery, gloomy morning exactly seven days after my accident, driving the new Land Rover from my mom's house at the base of the mountain, to the Einstein Bros. Bagels near my school, feeling very high up off the road, almost as though I were perched atop a stagecoach, and somewhat invincible. I couldn't wait to show my boyfriend Logan Torero the car. He was a car kind of guy, grunty and manly, and I knew he'd love it. Maybe the car would inspire him to start spending more time with me again, because, let's face it, we'd seen very little of each other since he got way too drunk at a Halloween party couple months back, and sort of embarra.s.sed himself and me with some off-color comments about female body parts that shall not be repeated here. But that was another story for another time, and, as my mother often told me, grudges never hurt the people you held them against, but took precious minutes off one's own life from stress. My mother also often reminded me that boys will be boys, and to keep one, you pretty much had to accept the male norms of behavior that were so often unpleasant to be around. As such, I forgave him. We were moving forward. He was a great guy, who acted stupid when he drank. What man wasn't?

It was snowing again. A cold wind whipped the valley, agitating the skeletal arms of leafless trees along the median of Academy Boulevard. Large snowflakes spun toward the asphalt, and stuck. To its credit, the Land Rover infiltrated the storm, churning solidly almost calmly over the road.

If the storm had begun any earlier in the day, school would probably have been canceled, or at least delayed. I was glad cla.s.ses were still on, and not just because we were reviewing for our final exams next week - and Lord knows I needed that review. I was also far too anxious to sit at home with Buddy, cute though he was, b.u.mping about in his little plastic cone and miniature leg cast. No, it was more than that; ever since the crash, I'd felt unsettled, on edge, as though any little thing could flip my adrenaline switch. It was completely beyond my control, as though someone else were driving the machinery of my nervous system. I stupidly felt that something, or someone, was watching me, every time I left the house - even though of course I knew this was not the case. Maybe it was because we lived in the foothills, where coyotes were abundant; I had never really thought much about them before. Now I had a fear of them. I didn't tell my mom about this new fear. She worried a lot if anything was imperfect - especially me - and had a tendency to overreact in her efforts to fix everything. I didn't want her to send me back for more tests at the hospital. I just wanted to return to my regular life and forget about the crash altogether.

I parked the Land Rover, dropped the 1000 feet or so from the driver's seat to the ground, and dashed through the snow toward the bagel shop, grateful as the snow pelted my face that I'd worn contacts instead of gla.s.ses, which would be better-designed, in my opinion, if they came equipped with miniature winds.h.i.+eld wipers. My best friend Kelsey looked up as I entered the warm, balmy cafe. She waved, smiling from a back table where she sat with another friend, Victoria and Victoria's new boyfriend, Thomas. Kelsey and Victoria were both effortlessly pretty, Kelsey with wavy blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, Victoria with kinky ebony hair and large, dark eyes. Kelsey wore all black, training for when she finally moved back to New York City, where she'd been born; Victoria wore jeans with a blazer and turtleneck, and riding boots that were likely native to her original hometown of Houston. Thomas, a local kid like me, was a typical, somewhat messy, hot guy who had been on Coronado Prep's science team with me last year, and had been smitten by my pal since then.

I waved at them, and made a beeline for the counter to order my large coffee and plain power bagel. The cafe bustled with people retirees who lived in the country club area; a Bible study group from the nearby church, a few other kids from my school. The s.p.a.ce was cozy, steeped with the toasted, dark scent of freshly brewed coffee. Everywhere should be as rea.s.suring as a bagel shop on a snowy day, I thought. The world would be a much less frightening place that way.

Breakfast in hand, I joined my friends, draping my red pea coat over the back of the wooden chair next to Kelsey. I sat, in my jeans and striped pink and white sweater, and savored the first delicious sip of my drink. It heartened me, but only slightly. I still had the creepy sense I was being followed - and enough common sense to know I was being paranoid and ought therefore to keep such imprudent thoughts to myself.

Victoria, always a good read of body language, regarded me the way you might look at a hungry puppy scratch for crumbs. ”You okay, Maria?”

”Fine,” I a.s.sured her, trying to shake it off.

”Did you have that nightmare again?” Kelsey asked me.

”Nah,” I lied.

In truth, I'd indeed had the spine-chilling dream last night with the gang of bloodthirsty coyotes loping out of the storm to rip into my freezing naked flesh with their fangs just as I'd had it every night since the crash. The dream never varied, as dreams usually do. It was exactly the same, night after night, as predictable as though it were a DVD I popped into my subconscious before slumber. I had told my friends about it a couple of times now, and figured it was inconsiderate to keep talking about it. My mother had taught me that being a good friend and a good leader, in her stellar case wasn't always about the things we shared with people; more often than not, it was about the things we chose not to reveal. Discretion was the handmaid of friends.h.i.+p, or something to that effect. For her part, my mother thought the recurring nightmares meant I had some form of traumatic stress disorder because of the accident; she wanted me to see a therapist about it, and get medicated - she swore by the anti-anxiety drug she currently downed each morning - while I just sort of hoped the weirdness I was experiencing would go away on its own, like a traveling salesman you refuse to answer the door for.

”My dad brought me my new car yesterday.” I pointed out the Land Rover through the window. My friends all looked at it, with great interest. Kelsey and Victoria agreed it was gorgeous, though sort of boat like and soccer-mom-ish, but much safer than a sedan; Thomas thought it was sort of cool, ”if you're the type to actively detest polar bears and so on.” I had to crack a grin at his words; Thomas was always thinking, and as such was perhaps the most consistently moral friend I had - which, I might add, could be a real buzz kill sometimes. Like now.

”What does Logan think?” Kelsey asked me, sipping her own hot drink. She said my boyfriend's name derisively, in a tone dripping with resentment. She and Logan had never gotten along. She said it was because he was an outdoorsman and she was a vegetarian, which was valid, but I thought it was due to the fact that he was my first real serious boyfriend and as such was the first person to come between me and Kelsey since we'd become inseparable best friends in the third grade.

”He hasn't seen it yet,” I said. ”He's been in Texas for that US Shotgun Junior Olympic thing. He just got back last night.” My friends met this with awkward silence, so I said, ”He made the team by the way. Thanks for asking.”

”Oh, goody,” said Maria sarcastically. ”Your boyfriend can shoot innocent creatures better than everyone else our age. How nice. You must feel so proud.”

”Is he joining us this morning?” asked Victoria, who often tried to smooth things over among our group - and particularly between me and my best friend.

”Yeah. He's on his way.”

”Yay,” said Kelsey with sarcasm.