“I’m just telling you the truth. You’re always lecturing me about facing the truth.”
“Right. Forget it.”
“Bradley’s laughing at you,” she told him, and glanced at me. “He’s not a bit sorry about what happened.”
Edward was silent, but his face hardened.
“He’s going around school telling everyone you were just plain stupid believing what a Mexican girl told you. He’s making up other stories about you, too.”
“What other stories?”
“Telling everyone you have a thing for Delia, that she told him you were sleeping with her and you were simply jealous.”
“That bastard.”
“Exactly. And what has mother done about all this? Zip. She hasn’t even complained to the Whitfields.”
“Don’t worry. I’m down now, but I’m not through with him,” Edward said. “When I get back on my feet…”
“Good,” Sophia said.
Edward smirked. “What bothers you more, Sophia, what happened to
me or what he did with Delia?”
“Both bother me the same,” she said.
“At least she’s honest,” Edward said to me.
I wasn’t sure if I understood it all, but I could see Sophia was pleased.
“If you need me to do anything for you, let me know,” she told him.
“Is that really you being nice and considerate?” Edward asked her, and she laughed.
“See, Delia?” Sophia said to me. “I can’t be nice to my brother, either, without being doubted. You’re the only friend I have in this house now.”
Edward stopped smiling. “What are you up to, Sophia? How come you gave her your bracelet? You never took it off from the moment you were given it, and you flashed it so much you could have worked for the jewelry store.”
“I’m trying to change my selfish ways, Edward. I had a wake-up call,” she told him.
Wake-up call? I wondered. How does that change you?
He just laughed. “I’ll believe it when I see it, and that will be a while,” he told her.
“Whatever,” she said. She started out. “I have to get to my homework.”
“Huh? You worried about homework? You really are on some drug.”
“Very funny. I’ll see you later,” she told him, and paused next to me to whisper. “Come into my room later. I have exactly the dress you’ll want to wear to the fiesta. You just have to take it in a bit like you did with my other things. This isn’t old, either. It will just look better on you than it does on me, and I don’t wear it. Understand?”
“Yes,” I said, “but Tía Isabela is taking me to buy clothes this weekend.”
“What? My mother is taking you to buy new clothes?”
I nodded.
“I can’t remember the last time she went shopping with me. What’s got into her?” she wondered aloud. She looked very suspicious for a moment, suspicious enough to set my heart in a pitter-patter, especially when she looked a little harder and longer at me. Then she shrugged it off. “She’s probably just feeling guilty about it all,” she decided. “Still, I have a dress she would certainly not buy for you. It cost eight hundred dollars.”