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A high school student finds a grimoire that shows how to make magical disguises. |
Previously: "The Girl at the Drive-Thru Window"  It's complicated. That's what you told Kenzo when he saw your boyfriend making out with another girl in a back booth. And it certainly is. * * * * * You had broken up with Kenzo at the end of last year: he was graduating, but you still had a year in front of you, and both of you thought it might be kind of a strain continuing with one of you in high school and the other out of it, even though it had sort-of worked while you were both in different high schools. (But, you wondered later, maybe he was already interested in getting it on with Daniela, who was a year old than he was and much more worldly and mature.) You drifted over the summer, hanging out with different guys during the hours when you weren't working full-time at McDonald's. One of them was Robert Vargas, one of the guys who befriended you when you moved to Saratoga Falls and to Westside at the start of your junior year. You could tell from the moment you met Robert that he wanted to be more than just a friend to you, but you let Kenzo slide in first. But then, with Kenzo gone, Robert was getting aggressive with you again. Anyway, it was Robert you were with, at a party on one of the rare Saturday nights you had off, when Marcos Rivera first talked to you. You were in the hallway, waiting to use the bathroom, and Robert had wandered off to get refills for you and him, when you felt a presence at your shoulder and turned to find Marcos leaning in close. "What are you doing with that guy?" he asked you with an intense smile. "What?" you said, for the question—and the person asking it—had startled you. "That guy. What are you doing with him? There's a lot better guys you could be with, you know." A thrill of excitement ran through you. Marcos Rivera was on the soccer squad, where he was a star, and he was a name that everyone you knew seemed to be jealous of. He was a dick, he thought he was too good for everyone except his posse, he only hung out with and partied with other jocks; and he was a player. That (you suspected) was what really rankled Robert and Luis Castillo and Daniel Garza, and the others. They didn't seem to mind that Daniel Lujan never talked or hung out with them—but they all thought Daniel Lujan was a ganso. No one ever called Marcos a ganso. "I just came to the party with him," you stammered. "Where you going after the party?" "Um— I don't—" "When you're ready to leave, come find me." He touched your collar bone. Then with one final flash of teeth, he swaggered off. You were addled all the rest of the night, which Robert picked up on. "I'm okay," you told him when he asked why you were shaking. "Just a little cold." You wriggled away when he tried to warm you by putting an arm around you. You went round and round with yourself on what Marcos meant and if he meant anything, and you put off leaving the party even when Robert suggested taking off, in the hope that Marcos would leave first. But whenever you looked around, there was Marcos still, even if he didn't seem to be paying attention to you. It finally put you into something of a temper, and when Robert made one last suggestion about leaving, you told him he could leave if he wanted and you'd get a ride with someone else. That got him mad, and pretty soon you were borderline yelling at each other, and he wound up stalking off. You nursed your hurt feelings—and your bewilderment—with a quick crying jag in the restroom, and when you emerged with eyes that still felt swollen with tears you hurried around the house looking for a friendly face to ask for a ride home. With your face down, you didn't see where you were going, and bumped straight into Marcos. "Hey, you goin' someplace now?" he said. "Um—" "Come on, I'll take you." He handed his beer to a friend and took ahold of your elbow. "I just want to go home," you murmured as he guided you out to his car. "That's no fun, but okay," he said. You tried not to sniffle as you got in the car with him, and you didn't really succeed, but he pretended not to notice. Instead, on the drive he talked casually about the classes you'd shared last year, and how he liked or didn't like them, or how he thought the teachers were stupid, while you listened. Finally, almost like an afterthought, he mentioned how he'd noticed you in all those classes, but never talked to you even though he wanted to. "I heard you were going with some basketball player out at Eastman." "Kenzo wasn't a basketball player." "Someone told me he was. He played for them." "No. I know he plays basketball with some friends." "Oh, maybe that's what it was. Well, I didn't want to get in the middle of it. You know, if you're going with a guy. But I heard you and him broke up." "Yeah." "So is that how come you were at the party with Vargas?" "I guess." You felt, rather than saw him, in the dark of the car, giving you a side-eye. "I told you, you can do better than him." * * * * * You wound up at the river, and you didn't even say anything when he pulled onto the wide dirt track where people were still parked, noses toward the water, and joined them.You got out and sat on the hood of the car and talked while the river gurgled quietly nearby. He asked you about yourself, and you told him how you'd had to move to Saratoga Falls a year before when your mom went to jail for embezzlement and drug possession, and you'd had nowhere to go but with your grandpa—your dad's father—here in Saratoga Falls. How you met Kenzo at a party and how he got you a job working with him at McDonald's, and how you and he started going out after that. (Also, how "Kenzo" is Ken Calhoun's nickname—he's not Japanese, his dad is black and his mother Mexican—and how he doesn't play basketball except with friends, but is mostly a lanky nerd who's into RPGs. Marcos grinned and said he would've tried getting you out to the river a lot sooner if he'd known that.) You were standing at the river's edge, staring across the inky water, when you confessed that you'd gone out with Kenzo because he was nice and he worked at the same place as you, but mostly so you'd have an excuse not to go out with any of the guy friends you'd made at Westside. You weren't sure why you told him that, maybe you were just unburdening yourself of everything all at once. But when you finished, you turned around and bumped into him, who had crept up and was standing directly behind you. Before you could step back, he caught you by the shoulders and kissed you. You didn't fight it. So that was your first date. Your second date was the next night, a Thursday. He came into the McDonald's a little before closing and hung out at a booth close to the register and made funny comments at you, then offered to drive you home so you wouldn't have to take the bus. Again, you wound up at the river. This time you stayed in the back seat and made chit-chat while kissing. Marcos's hands worked lower and lower until they were inside your pants. You didn't fight him, even when he threw himself across you and worked your pants and panties down off your hips. He touched and stroked and slid a long finger upside you while kissing you hard and deep. For your third date—the next afternoon—you let him drive you to the supermarket and help you with the shopping, then let him come home and unload all the groceries. Your grandpa was at work—he works at a sheet metal shop—and wouldn't be home until after six, so you sat on the sofa and let Marcos pull your shorts off and put his face between your thighs. His tongue was long and strong, and he twisted it all about inside you until you came. So you were then in no condition to argue when he lifted you and guided you to your bedroom, where he took off his own clothes and banged you hard. So, one way of looking at it is that you didn't sleep with him until the third date. The other way of looking at it as that you slept with him less than forty-eight hours of first talking to him. * * * * * Saturday and Sunday you never heard from him, and you didn't dare call, and were miserably resigned to having simply been a one-time conquest of his. But on Monday he called and said he'd be by McDonald's to eat that night, and that he'd be back when your shift was over to give you a ride home. That lifted your spirits, but you were mystified when he brought two girls with him. You knew them from school, of course, but only by reputation, because Cristina Ramon and Trina Murillo don't really pay any attention to you or your friends, and your group thinks they're a couple of stuck-up bitches. But you were alarmed, too, to see them with Marcos, because they were the girls he was dating last year. So what was doing there with them? And why did he make a point of calling you over to talk to them when you went on your break? He didn't explain why, then or later when he came back to take you home. Then he had only one thing to say: You made a good impression. La Doña and Mamacita like you. Next: Coming soon! Check back! |
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