The weekend flew by in a flurry of homework and lounging around in my room reading a trashy vampire romance novel I had accidentally gotten attached to. I got an instant message from my sort-of-friend Sarah back in St. Paul on Sunday, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it, much less respond. I didn’t want to reopen the wound of leaving yet another life behind. Instead, I found myself perfectly content to bask in the fact that, for the first time in my life, the transition seemed to be going well. Not great, seeing as the filthy rich and particularly nasty Student Body President had started a personal vendetta against me, but it wasn’t the worst. I had a quiet place to hide out and eat my lunch, a couple of people I talked to without feeling horribly awkward, and something at least semi-interesting to look forward to after the school bell rang each day.477Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRsuhETobu0
On Monday morning, Oliver was missing from history class yet again. I was beginning to wonder how he ever expected to pass the class if he refused to do any work in it. I’ve never been a straight A student, but my dad’s praise and my mom’s criticism motivated me to at least do the best I could. Both of my parents would be equal parts furious and disappointed if I were to get caught cutting class. I thought about saying something, but C.C.’s advice on the car ride home immediately made me scrap that thought; I definitely needed to keep some things to myself.
When Lunch time rolled around, I made my way to the theater, expecting to find Oliver tinkering on some kind of equipment or going over set designs, as seemed to be the norm, but I instead found the space empty. I took a seat in the front row, turned on some music, and popped open my chemistry textbook so I could make a dent in the thirty problems out especially evil teacher had assigned us for that evening.
I hadn’t been working for more than ten minutes before I heard the doors crash open behind me and C.C. came storming down the steps, releasing a hurricane of swear words with each step. I looked up at her wide eyed, wondering what on earth could have put her in this mood, when I saw that her entire upper half appeared to be covered in bright pink goo. As she drew closer the scent of strawberries assaulted my nostrils and I realized that it was yogurt.
“Those… those… smug, disgusting fuck faces think they can pull this shit on me?” She growled through gritted teeth. She halted abruptly in the middle of yet another stream of curses when she saw me gaping up at her. “Someone ratted me out for the assembly thing,” was all she said, throwing up her arms and sending yogurt splattering everywhere.
“Do you, um, want help?” I asked, shutting off my music and getting to my feet. “I could wipe off your backpack, or something.”
“Actually, that would be great,” she said with a grimace. She peeled off her green canvas knapsack and tossed it to me and, of course, got yogurt all over me in the process. I followed her into the shop where she turned on the sink and stuck her head unceremoniously under the faucet. I hunted down a roll of paper towels and began wiping down her backpack just in time to see her strip down to her bra and begin scrubbing her plaid button-up off on the sink as well. Apparently not really one for modesty, she went about her business until she was satisfied that all the gooey stuff had been rinsed out before hanging it up on a peg.
“I’m guessing this was Stephanie’s doing?” I said, trying to give C.C. some privacy while she hunted around in the costume closet for something to wear for the rest of the day. She finally reemerged sporting a flowy white shirt that looked like it was meant for both a man and probably the sixteenth century.
“No, unfortunately that skank is too smart to be the hitman, especially ‘cause everyone knows she hates me,” she said matter-of-factly as she tied her towel-dried hair back with a rubber band she found in a drawer. “She got some underclassman prick to do it from the second floor as I was coming down the stairs… ugh, I am so going to kill her for this!”
“Does Oliver know about it?” I asked, handing her the freshly-cleaned backpack after washing my own hands off in the sink.
“Nah, I haven’t seen him all day. But, mark my words, kid, he will be helping my exact my revenge, and it will be brutal!” she declared, slinging her knapsack over her shoulder. “Hey, you wanna go get lunch?”
“Like, off campus?” The school had an “open campus” policy for upperclassmen where we were allowed to leave during off periods and lunch time without being hassled by the portly and aging security guard, Mr. Burberry. I had never intended on going off campus, so I had never paid much thought to it. Before I could make up an excuse about there not being much time left or something like that, C.C. had grabbed me by the sleeve and was leading me out of the dock doors and across the parking lot to her car.
As much as the battered old station wagon probably belonged in a junkyard instead of on the streets, C.C. seemed inexplicably attached to her vehicle, which she had proudly dubbed “Myrtle.”
“You know, ‘cause she’s an ugly old hag, but she’s damn reliable!” she answered with a laugh when I asked why that name. She maneuvered out of the parking lot, past several BMW’s and other luxury cars that Stephanie’s crowd drove, and turned us on to main street. “God, I’m so tired of those spoiled, entitled brats,” she said, jerking her head at yet another Lexus turning past us as we cruised up the street into town. “Just cause they have daddy’s money being thrown at them twenty-four hours a day, they think they can treat the rest of us like garbage.”
I thought immediately of the modest allowance my parents gave me for getting decent grades and doing my part to keep the house in order while they were busy working all the time. That doesn’t count, I told myself as confidently as I could. It’s not that much money, and I don’t really spend any of it anyway. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit guilty. It only took one look at C.C.’s car or her choice of clothes, to realize her family probably didn’t have much extra floating around.
“So, what do you think of green chile?” C.C. was asking as she turned into the tiny parking lot of one of the two Mexican restaurants in town called La Rosa.
“I’ve, uh, never had it,” I admitted, unbuckling and letting myself out of car. C.C. stopped mid-stride and gaped at me.
“What? You live in New Mexico and you’ve never had green chile?” She gave gave me a look of complete mortification.
“I’ve only been here a month,” I reminded her, feeling self-conscious all of the sudden.
“Green chile is the only hope of redemption this craphole of a state has!” C.C. declared, throwing open the door of La Rosa and striding confidently inside. “Luckily for you, it just so happens that Maria makes the best green chile in the world.”
“Cassandra!” An older Hispanic gentleman wearing a full suit and tie greeted C.C. as we passed the second set of doors in the foyer. “Ees been awhile, no? Como estás, amiga?”
“Muy bien, Hector, as usual,” she said, shooting him a wide smile. “We’ll take seats at the bar, por favor.”
“Of course, right thees way, señoritas.” He grabbed two menus and led us past the host’s stand to a huge, beautiful wooden bar that ran the length of the back wall. The restaurant was much better than it looked on the outside with a good amount of tables and even a water feature bubbling merrily away in the corner. “So, who ees thees new amiga, hmm?” Hector miled and nodded to me.
“This is Harper,” C.C. said, parking herself on a barstool and flipping open her menu. “Harper has never had green chile in her life before, and that needs to change.”
“Dios Mio!” Hector exclaimed, looking at me with a shocked face under his bushy white mustache. “You haf never had chile verde before? Oh, señorita Harper, you haf not leeved yet!” I felt myself blush a little and I couldn’t help a grin spreading across my face. Hector seemed like that fun, silly uncle everyone wished they had. crossed into the bar area through a little wooden door and began polishing glasses while he laughed and joked with us. Five minutes later, the famous Maria appeared out of the kitchen with two huge bowls of a thick, steaming stew-like substance topped with cheese and cilantro.
“Cassandra, Ees so good to see you, niño!” Maria was rotund, fiery, and extremely affectionate. She hugged me as soon as C.C. introduced me, declaring that “Any amiga of her hija was her amiga tambien!” I didn’t speak a single word of Spanish, but I assumed it was a good thing. I also assumed I would be learning the language eventually, because, after tasting one bite of Maria’s green chile, I had fallen head over heels in love with her cooking. “You like, no?” Maria asked with a huge smile when she noticed I was shovelling it down.
“Mhm,” I tried to respond around a mouthful. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted!”
“Bien, bien!” She cried, clapping her hands. “For our new amiga who like buena comida, the chile ees, how you say, ‘on thee house’ today!”
“Oh, no, Maria, let me pay you!” C.C. insisted, shaking her head. “I swear, you guys will run this place in the ground if you keep giving us free food.”
“Ees no problema, none,” Hector insisted as Maria disappeared back into the kitchen. He waved his hand dismissively. “Say, where ees Oliver today? For how come he ees not with you?”
“We couldn’t find him when we were hungry, so we left without him,” C.C. said, attacking her own bowl of green chile with vigor. “He snoozes, he loses!” A very peculiar look came over her face for a moment, but an instant later, it had disappeared.
“Tell heem he has to come back soon, eh niño?” Hector filled a basket with warm, handmade tortilla chips from warming bin behind the bar. “He ees not steel hafing problems de la salud, ees he?”
C.C. gave me a sideways glance before taking a few chips and dunking them in her chile; I followed suit and found that the crunchy chips paired with the thick chile was a match made in heaven. “Oliver is a tough guy, he’ll be fine. He’s getting better.” I immediately wanted to ask what they were talking about, but decided it would be best just to stay out of personal matters. C.C. began telling Hector about the yogurt thing that had happened earlier and his kind face visibly darkened.
“Those leetle mierdas blancos sound like too much trouble to me,” he said, shaking his head. “Tell me you will do the theeng like you tell me last year, the theeng with the watermelon, huh?” He started laughing so hard he had to set down the glass he had in his hands so that he could steady himself on the bar. C.C. grinned down into her chip and chile and I remembered what the principal, Mr. Tart, had said at the infamous assembly about a “watermelon incident” and I couldn’t help but crack a smile myself, imagining what kind of legendary thing the mischievous pair could have pulled off. Hector excused himself so he could wipe down tables, which left C.C. and I alone at the bar.
“So, what do you think?” She asked, throwing up her arms as if presenting the place.
“It’s awesome,” I said with a grin. “I’ll definitely be coming here more often. My dad would love this place!” C.C. shifted a little in her seat and looked down at her watch. “Well, we better get you back to school, huh? Little miss sunshine can’t be late for class, huh?” She winked at me and fished a battered camouflage wallet out of her jeans pocket. “I’m gonna leave money anyway, it's a wonder how those two keep this place floating with everything they just give away. I saw her frown as she looked in her wallet and I was sitting at just the right angle that I could see that it was actually empty. Making a split second decision, I fished a twenty dollar bill out of my own wallet and dropped it down on the bar.
“I got this,” I said casually, making like I hadn’t seen anything. “It’s the least I can do for them, that chile was awesome and they’re so nice.”
C.C. frowned at me and I could practically see the wheels turning in her head. Finally, she swept her hair out of her eyes and gave me a tight smile and a “Thanks.” We headed back out to the car after saying our goodbyes to Hector, who replied with “See you tomorrow, yes?” and a smile. Myrtle sputtered to life and C.C. pulled back on to main street and pointed us in the direction of the school.
“You said you hadn’t seen him in your class this morning, right?” She asked when we stopped at a traffic light. When I looked at her puzzled, she continued, “Oliver, I mean. You guys have history or something together, right?”
“Oh, yeah, no, he wasn’t there,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s actually not there kind of often, really.”
C.C. wasn’t really paying attention. She pulled out her cellphone--one of those slide-phone ones that had been outdated about five years ago, and dialed a number. The light turned green, and we started driving again. She pulled the phone away from her ear with a frown a few seconds later and dialed again. And again. And again. On the fifth try, it finally seemed as if whomever was on the other end had finally picked up.
“Hey, Ollie, where the hell are you? You didn’t tell me you were ditching today!” I could hear a low voice on the other end speaking but I couldn’t make out any words. As I watched C.C.’s expression, though, I immediately picked up that something wasn’t right. “Wait, are you serious?” she was saying as the turn-in for the school parking lot come and went. “Godammit, Oliver, you were supposed to call me!” I opened my mouth to say something about the fact that we appeared to be driving past the school and not to it, but I just let it happen. Something about the urgency in her voice didn’t sit right with me. “Alright… okay… no, absolutely not! I don’t care! Whatever, it doesn’t matter anyway. We’ll be there in ten minutes.” C.C. snapped her phone shut and, without warning, whipped the wheel to the left and made a screeching u-turn in the middle of the two lane road and stomped on the accelerator.
“Is everything okay?” I asked through gritted teeth, gripping my seat with both hands for dear life and wondering how I was going to explain missing class to my parents, who had a knack for finding things out.
“No, not really!” C.C. cried, throwing up her hands in exasperation. She brought them down just in time to avoid an oncoming car coming around the curve. “Oliver is in the hospital--again.” 477Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGR27ywyc7Y
and then Add to home screen.