From What I Remember (21 page)

“Yeah, that would make sense. That I would know that about my dad.”

“Tell you what: why don’t you guys come to my house. We’re having a late afternoon barbecue, in celebration of St. John the Baptist. It’s probably getting started about now. I’ll take you over there and we’ll show you how we party, Ensenada style. Maybe I can dig up some old pictures from your father’s glory days.”

“We’re getting a ride back to the States in a little while. So we’ll be gone by dinner,” I say, jumping in to save Kylie. I’m thinking there’s no way she wants to go.

And then Kylie looks at Manuel and says, “Thanks. We’d love to come.”

She turns to me. “We can go for a little bit, right? Will won’t be here for at least two or three hours.”

“Yeah, sure.”

This girl is a total mystery.

ad is staring at me as he drinks his second beer. He’s not saying anything and neither am I. I don’t know what to say. I’m not happy. I wish I were. I like being happy. People can get frustrated with me. I don’t do what they expect, and that can make people like Dad mad. I’m not trying to be difficult, it’s just that everything’s wrong and that makes it impossible for me to eat my dinner. “Hey, Jake, eat up, it’s your favorite,” Dad says, pointing to my bowl. “I can’t. It’s not right.”

I haven’t touched the pasta. Dad put my glass of milk on the left side of the place mat, not the right side, where it belongs. He put my fork in the bowl, not next to it, which is where it goes. And he gave me an apple. I don’t eat apples. They aren’t on the list.

“I did everything your mother told me.”

Dad is using that voice, the one he uses before he gets angry and leaves the room. I wonder if he’s going to leave the table and go to the garage, like he usually does.

“I’m trying here, Jake. Are you listening to me?”

Of course I’m listening to him. No one else is talking.

I wish Kylie were here. She would have done it right. She knows what I like. She doesn’t get mad at me.

Kylie hasn’t come home yet. She’s late. Really late. That makes it even harder to be happy. I like seeing Kylie and talking to her about my day. We learned about the Trojan horse in school today. I wanted to tell Kylie about it. It was a big wooden horse that the Greeks built. They hid inside it and entered the city of Troy and won the war. I don’t think Dad would be interested, so I’m not going to say anything to him. I’ll just wait to tell Kylie later. I hope she comes home soon.

When Kylie didn’t come home after school, I told Mom to go to work and leave me alone until Dad got here. It was only ten minutes. At first she didn’t want to do it. She never leaves me alone. I knew I would be okay all by myself for ten minutes. And I was. I took off all my clothes and ran around the house. I went from room to room. It was so quiet, like being underwater. I like the feel of the smooth carpet under my feet and the cool air on my body. It was the first time I’ve ever been alone in the house. It wasn’t scary, it was fun. I think Mom is afraid I’ll do something stupid. I’m not stupid. Kylie knows that.

Mom told me Kylie was still at school. She had to stay late for something. It’s Thursday. She’s usually done with Advanced Chemistry by two forty and then home by four. When Dad came home he didn’t seem very happy to see me. He was angry that I was naked and he made me put my clothes on. I think I make Dad feel sad.

“Why don’t you eat the apple, buddy?” Dad says.

“No, thank you,” I say, remembering how they told me to try to be more polite in school.

I won’t eat the apple. Fear of fruit is called carpophobia. I don’t have that. They don’t scare me, I just don’t eat apples. I don’t like their shape. I will eat watermelon, though, and cherries. Fear of vegetables is lachanophobia. I don’t have that either. Fear of the number 666 is hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, and I definitely don’t have that. I think I have neophobia, the fear of anything new.

“Okay, so what are we going to do about dinner?” Dad asks.

“I’m not hungry. Can I just watch
Star Wars
?”

“You always watch that. Why don’t you do something else tonight?”

“I don’t want to do anything else.”

I’m starting to get mad. I wish Kylie were here.

Dad finishes off the rest of his beer, gets up, tosses the can in the garbage, and grabs another one. He takes a long swallow and looks at me for exactly eleven seconds. Dad doesn’t understand that I watch
Star Wars
at least eight times a week, sometimes twice in a row. He doesn’t understand that I don’t want the apple, and that I want my milk on the other side of the place mat. He doesn’t understand anything. I don’t want to look at Dad anymore. I just want to watch
Star Wars
and wait for Kylie to come home.

“You know what? Watch
Star Wars
. Don’t eat your dinner. I don’t care. I’m going out to the garage.” Dad walks out the back door and he’s gone.

Fine.

our dad and I had some crazy times when we were your age. They called us
Los Buscarruidos
.” “Troublemakers?” I ask. “Yeah, basically.” Manuel laughs. We’re walking away from the harbor and the main part of town. The crowds are thinning, the streets are narrower, quieter. The air feels lighter, fresher. Somehow, it all seems more authentically Mexican. No more tacky souvenir shops, no more bars. Kids are playing soccer in the street, people sit outside on lawn chairs, talking to their neighbors. The houses are pressed close together, with only a sliver of grass between them. They look like little Lego homes that Jake would build, with their bright colors and blocky construction.

“We used to climb out of our windows at night and go to clubs in Tijuana, stay up all night, and sneak back in before our parents got up. We surfed The Killers during a hurricane. We even jumped out of a plane on our last night of high school. Crazy times. We were bad. Don’t try that at home, kids. I probably shouldn’t even be telling you all this. But it’s so long ago, I figure you’ll get a kick out of it.”

I’m getting a lot more than a kick out of it. More like a sucker punch. I’m listening to Manuel and wondering who this guy is that he’s talking about, because it doesn’t sound like my dad. At all.

“We know about getting into trouble on the last day of high school, right, Kylie?” Max asks me, pointedly.

“Yeah…”

I know Max wants me to acknowledge the rich irony here, but I’m too distracted by what Manuel is telling me. Was it Jake that drove Dad so far underground, his mother dying, or something else? I mean, my dad used to have fun, surf, and play professional soccer? It’s all pretty hard to get my mind around.

“I think the last time I saw him was ’97. Before that, I hadn’t seen him in ten years, since he left Ensenada. He came back right after your grandmother moved to the States, to clean out her house. We had a beer and talked about his new baby boy, San Diego, your mom. You were probably only four or five at the time.…”

Max and I follow Manuel up the steps of a bungalow painted a daffodil yellow. There’s music coming from an open window and the smells of something cooking. The house sits atop a gently sloping hill, with views of the bay. Before we enter, Manuel stops and points to the rough blue waters in the distance.

“That’s Estero Beach over there. Your father and I spent most of our youth on that beach. Swimming, fishing, surfing. It’s one of the nicest beaches in Mexico. We call it La Bella Cenicienta del Pacifico.”

“Cinderella of the Pacific? That’s a weird name for a beach,” I say.

“It’s often overlooked for the fancier, newer beaches in Cancún or Puerto Vallarta,” Manuel adds. “But its charms will suck you in. No matter where I go, I always want to come back to Estero.”

I stare out at the jagged blue waves. They do look inviting.

“Ready to go in?” Manuel asks.

“Yep,” I say. Ready or not, here I go.

Manuel opens the door and goes inside.

I start to follow after Manuel, but Max pulls me back. “You good?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’m just sorry you got dragged into this whole thing. Yet another crazy situation I’ve managed to find for us.”

“You’ve got a gift, Flores.”

“I’m really, really sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m digging this.”

“Okay. Thanks. It’s just…weird that you’re here with me.”