"How long have you been back?" Maria adds.
"Not long. I wanted to come see you, but…"
Luz's voice trails off.
"You didn't want me to get involved with your gang," Maria finishes for her.
"You know about that?"
Maria nods. "I saw you guys break into that house today."
A big smile spreads across Luz's face.
"
You're
the hot tamale that Jack's been going on about?" she says.
For a moment Maria allows herself to be distracted. "He called me a hot tamale?"
"He hasn't stopped talking about you. He says you're his missing half." She bumps a fist against Maria's shoulder. "And that's after only one glance."
Maria tilts her head toward the center. "I was just talking to him inside," she says.
Luz studies her for a moment and the big smile comes back. "
Ai yi yi
. You like him, too!"
Maria feels a hot flush rising up her neck.
"What are you doing?" she says to change the subject. "How can you have joined a gang? We always hated the bandas."
"I didn't join a gang," Luz says. "I
started
one. And we're doing this to even the playing field between the haves and have-nots."
"By stealing?"
Luz sighs. "Remember the pebble and what Abuela told me about it?"
Maria nods.
"I used it to bring a spirit to me."
"A spirit."
Maria tries to keep the disbelief from her voice. Luz doesn't seem to notice.
"I was trying for someone like Joaquin Murrieta," Luz says, "or even El Zorro. You know, take from the rich and give to the poor?"
"You're really doing that?"
"Of course. I'm not a thief—at least I'm not robbing anyone for my own benefit. I knew I couldn't rally the people to my cause—I mean, who's Lucia Chaidez? I needed a figurehead that they could recognize. But when I called for the kind of spirit I wanted, who I got was Robin Hood."
"Robin Hood."
Luz nods. "Except he calls himself Jack Green."
Maria glances back to the center. "You mean Jack, in there..?"
She wants to think her friend has gone a little loco since she went away. Because how can such a thing be possible? But this is Luz, and Luz could always make the improbable happen.
"And it's not just Jack," Luz says. "He brought his crew with him."
"He wants to go for a drink later," Maria finds herself saying. "I'm here with Connie and Veronica."
"The same Veronica who goes out with Pablo?"
Maria nods. "Except they broke up and now she's my roommate. And Connie's a friend from work."
"What do they know?" Luz asks.
"About what you…do? Nothing."
"Then we should all go for that drink."
"You know the police are looking for you, right?"
"They're looking for Los Murrietas," Luz says. "Not us. They don't know who we are."
"The cops came by to question me because I was working next door. They wanted to know if I'd seen anything."
"What did you tell them?"
"What do we ever tell them?"
"Good for you."
"But you need to be careful," Maria says. "They seem pretty determined to catch you guys."
"That's why we wear the hoods. They can't identify us. And even if they got a face, they couldn't match it to anything. The boys are all spirits."
Maria's still not exactly sure what that means. Everything about Jack seemed very real to her. His eyes, his warmth.
"But
you're
real," she says.
"This is true. I'll just have to be careful. And you should be, too. Jack can be a lot of fun, but you have to remember he's just an archetype. It's not like he's a real boy."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. Never mind. We'll just have some fun. Let's go back inside. I think the next bout is starting up."
Everybody hits it off. Connie and Veronica are as delighted with Ti Jean and Will as the boys are with them. Jack is full of good humour and more attentive to Maria than any guy she's been with before. The Glimmer Twins are content with each other. And if Luz feels like the odd woman out, she doesn't show it.
Los Vampiros clean up in the last period, but there was never any doubt that The VVers were going to lose tonight. They played their hardest ever, but they didn't stand a chance with Baby Luna so in the zone.
Maria, Luz, Maria's girls and their new friends whoop and cheer, then go to the taquería around the corner to continue the party. Maria and the girls have to work tomorrow, but they're having too much fun to call it a night. This won't be the first time they go in tired and a little hungover.
The boys can drink, but it doesn't seem to affect them. They seem particularly fond of hard liquor—tequila, Scotch and Irish whiskey being the favourites. At one point Jack holds a shot of tequila up to the light and peers through the clear liquid before downing it.
"Veritably," he says, "this is the nectar of the gods."
Maria and her girls exchange glances, then laugh. Who talks like that?
He motions to the bartender for another. Maria doesn't even try to keep up with him.
They all end up back at Maria and Veronica's apartment. Because of the visit the cops paid her earlier in the day, Maria worries that they might be watching their building, but she doesn't see anything suspicious.
Veronica's laptop is hooked up to a sound system in the living room. She picks a playlist, turns the volume down low, and a moment later one of Malo Malo's quieter songs comes out of the speakers. She's been watching Jack all night, trying to figure out what Luz means about him not being real. Maria decides to stop worrying. She takes Jack by the hand and leads him through the kitchen and out the back door to the fire escape.
He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses the back of it, then turns it over and kisses her palm. Oh yes, he's real enough. The gentle warmth of his lips stirs her more than any groping embrace could. She puts her hand behind his head and their lips finally meet in a soft kiss. Then his hand is up the back of her shirt, making tingly circles on the bare skin of her back. She reluctantly pulls away when it begins to edge around to her front.
"Not when we haven't even had a proper date," she says, smiling at him.
They both know that sooner or later they'll end up in bed together, but Maria doesn't want to come across as some loose
chica
who would put out on a first date—especially since they haven't even
had
a date yet. And this isn't the right time or setting. She knows she's too tipsy. Jack is definitely drunk—or he should be, considering how much he consumed this evening. Her apartment is full of people, many of them wanted by the police.
But Jack is so damned handsome.
They gaze at each other—Maria can literally feel the air spark between them—then Jack smiles.
"Fair enough," he says. "I can wait."
She leans back into his shoulder. It feels good. It feels like they fit together, as though this is meant to be.
"This is such a strange world," he says.
She pulls back and looks up at him, not quite sure what he means or how to respond.
"There's so much noise," he goes on. "It never stops. Cars and voices and TVs. I can even hear the electricity in the wires. The humming is constant."
"You should go out into the desert," she says. "Get out far enough and all you can hear is the wildlife and the wind."
"I've been. Lucia took us when we first got here. And that was strange in another way. She said she was bringing us to a forest, but there was no green wood like at home. It was all giant cacti."
"It's a saguaro forest," she tells him. She waits a beat, then adds, "Where's your home?"
"Farther away than you could ever imagine."
He hasn't answered her question and Maria doesn't press him. There's a wistful note in his voice. She finds herself thinking again about magic pebbles and spirits, and Luz saying Jack wasn't a real boy.
She leans into his shoulder once more and closes her eyes. If this isn't real, she doesn't know what is.
When she opens her eyes again she's lying on top of her bedspread, still fully dressed. It's morning. The apartment is quiet.
Last night feels like a dream.
She looks at the clock beside her bed.
"Oh crap," she says.
She's going to be late for work. She taps on the door to Veronica's room on her way to take a shower. It isn't until she's back in her own room getting dressed that she notices the note on the night table.
See you tonight for a real date? 8 pm at the taquería?
Veronica laughs when she comes home that night to find Maria preening in front of the mirror.
"Look at you," she says. "Somebody's got a hot date. Anybody I know?"
"Jack."
"At least he called you. Ti Jean said he would, but he never did."
"I'm sorry."
Veronica shrugs, then cocks her head to one side. "You wearing that?"
Maria's heart sinks. She looks in the mirror at the short, tight green dress she's trying on. The heels that hurt her feet. She chose the green for Jack, like she's wearing his gang colours.
"Too much?" she asks, knowing the answer.
"Depends. It's okay if you're going somewhere fancy, but if you're just hanging out, it's not really
you
. You look pretty, but a little too chi-chi. He might as well know right off the bat that you're edgier than that."
Maria nods and gives Veronica a quick hug. She kicks off the heels, adds black leggings and floral patterned Doc Marten boots.
"Now
there's
my girl," Veronica says, beaming with satisfaction. "Those Docs were worth saving up for. You look great."
This time of year the night comes early. The rains usually arrive in October or November, but the skies have been clear for days. The days have been warm, the nights cool.
By the time Maria arrives at the taquería, the shadows are lengthening. The sun has almost dropped below the horizon. Jack is waiting for her outside the restaurant. He leans with his back against a patio railing, his skateboard on the ground by his feet. He gives her an appreciative smile as she approaches, but her own smile dies when the pleasure in his eyes turns to steel.
"The cops have Lucia," he says.
Maria feels as though she's been punched in the chest.
"What…how did they find her?" Maria asks.
"We were casing a way into Silver Canyon."
Silver Canyon. Another gated community. Open to anyone who can afford the starting prices of three million.
"Did they get any of the others?" Maria asks.
He shakes his head. "Just Lucia. She was doing a walk-by while we were waiting in the brush across from the gatehouse. The guard must have gotten suspicious and called the cops." He puts a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry, Maria. We should have been more careful."
"They can't hold her for nothing! When is she being arraigned? Does she have a lawyer?"
"You know they'll hold her as long as they can."
Maria shakes her head. "They can't do that. She has rights."
"No, she doesn't. None of us do. We're not rich enough."
Maria just stares at him.
"Come on," he says. "How do you think the D.A. and sheriff got elected? It's the rich who fund their war chests, and if the people we robbed want someone in jail, that's what the sheriff's going to give them."
Maria thinks of something Luz once said to her.
If you're rich and white, you can do whatever you want. You're always in the right. It's the brown-skinned girls like us who are always wrong
.
"Then what can we do?" she says.
"Ti Jean wants to break her out of county."
"Can we do that?"
Jack raises an eyebrow at her use of 'we,' but all he says is, "Sure. If we had an army and guns and enough explosives to blow our way in."
"Don't make fun of me."
"I'm not. I want her out as much as you do."
Maria studies him for a moment.
"But you've got magic," she says.
He shakes his head. "No, I don't."
"Luz told me you were spirits—that she called you up—and spirits have magic."
"Maybe they do. But we're not spirits. We're…" He sighs. "I'm not sure what we are. I only know we used to live in a green wood and something brought us here. To this life."
"You mean Luz."
"I don't know who or what brought us here," Jack says. "Half of me remembers growing up in the north of England with Will, and then moving to South London where we hooked up with Ti Jean. We met the Glimmer Twins in Venice Beach. Then we found Lucia, or she found us.
"But at the same time, we all remember another life in the green wood. Or maybe it's merely a dream we all share because a lot of it doesn't make sense. The trees were more than shelter. I think we slept inside them and our…vitality rose and fell with the passing of the seasons."
Maria doesn't like the lost look in his eyes.
"Luz said you're an archetype," she finds herself saying.
"Huh." He considers that for a moment before he asks, "What do you think?"
"I don't know what to think. I'm not even sure I know what that means."
"Well, I can tell you this much. If there's any magic around, it belongs to Lucia." He waits a beat, then adds, "And maybe to you."
"To
me
?"
Jack nods. "That's what Lucia says."
"How would she know something like that? Luz hasn't seen me in years."
"Yet here you are, willing to drop everything to help her."
"She's still my friend," Maria says. "She was my best friend."
"I admire loyalty in a person. In the end, our integrity is the only thing of value that no one can take from us. It's the reason we support Lucia's cause."
"Which seems really complicated."
"Actually, it's not," Jack says. "It's simple, really. A banker uses deceit to rob you and he gets rewarded with a bailout from the government and a bonus from his shareholders. You or me? We go to jail. Since the law isn't on our side, we have to take matters into our own hands. It's up to us to balance the wealth."