Am I in the middle of some play? I wondered. Do they lie so much to each other that they have learned to accept and to live on them?
“Mother,” Sophia sang, “can Delia and I go to school in her car tomorrow?”
“Oh, I need to practice with it first,” I said quickly. “And I should give my ankle another day or so.”
“Yes, you should,” Sophia agreed. “You know, Mother, it is a very complex automobile. You should hire someone to teach her about the car.”
“I think she has a very good teacher already,” Tía Isabela said. That surprised me as much as it did Sophia. How did she know what Adan had offered to do?
“Who?” Sophia asked.
Tía Isabela smiled at me and nodded to urge me to tell her.
“Adan asked to do it,” I admitted. “He’ll come by one day this week.”
For a moment, Sophia lost her deceptive sweet face but quickly brought it back.
“That’s a good idea. He owns a lot of sports cars, I hear. Doesn’t he?” she asked me.
“I do not know how many cars he owns or what kind of cars they are.”
“I’m sure you will soon,” she muttered. It fell out of her mouth the way water or something she had gulped too much might dribble. She dropped her gaze quickly to her food and began eating again. I looked at Tía Isabela.
She wore an odd expression. She looked troubled more than angry. Was she worried that somehow, some way, Sophia would turn Adan against me?
The remainder of our dinner was passed in the all-too-familiar silence. Afterward, Sophia came to my room with her math book and tried to be attentive as I explained the homework. I could see talking about the homework and making her do the problems herself was like forcing her to take some bitter herb to cure a headache or a stomachache. She listened and successfully completed the problems, but she hated every moment of it.
“How can you care about any of this?” she asked, gazing at the textbook pages with disgust.
“I would never have had such opportunity back in Mexico,” I told her. “Thinking about going to college was like thinking about going to the moon. When I was a little girl, my father always told me never to turn away any knowledge or information, for it has a way of finding a place sometime in your life, often when you least expect it.”
She flashed a smirk and then became a little thoughtful. “How come if your family was so poor and everyone worked so hard, you had so much time to spend with your parents?”
I smiled.
“What’s so funny?” she asked angrily.
“I am not laughing at you. I am laughing at what you would think if you saw a party in my village or parents out on what we call here an evening out. The family is always together. There is no such thing as a babysitter. Most of the homes in the village have only one bedroom. Parents and their children are together much, much more. Some children even go with their parents to work. I worked on the soy farm at a very young age, actually as soon as I could become a pair of fruitful hands, as my grandmother would say.”
As if she realized she was getting interested, she shook her head emphatically and scooped up her books. “Sounds like a terrible life. I would have run away.”
“You’re running away from your life here, aren’t you?” I shot back, perhaps a little too sharply.
She did pause as if she had been slapped. “Huh?”
“You mock your school even though it’s an expensive school with more opportunities for students than the public schools provide. You don’t want even to know about your mother’s businesses. You say you don’t want to go to college. You dislike so many of the other students. You seem bored all the time.”
Her eyes actually became glossy with tears, and I felt guilty. “Well, maybe you’ll rub off on me, and I’ll go pick soybeans and be happy,” she said. “Thanks for helping me with this stupid math.”
She turned and rushed out, closing the door sharply behind her. I couldn’t become close to her even if we were stuck together in the same dress, I thought.
The next morning, she came down to breakfast rather than demand that it be brought up to her. I found out later, however, that Tía Isabela had instructed Inez not to bring Sophia her breakfast. It was part of her punishment. She was told to return directly home from school, too, and Señor Garman would be there at the end of the day to get her. Violate one of the new rules, and she would extend her punishment.
The sword of threats over Sophia’s head worked like a steel cage and at least kept her contained at school. I could see her friends were disappointed in her. They had so wanted to continue the onslaught on my reputation and have fun, or what they considered fun, tormenting me. My picture in the paper with Adan and Fani’s continued friendship with me depressed them as well. It was as if I had been installed in the house of royalty. The girls, including Katelynn, who had helped flame the flames of the nasty stories by reporting me at the restaurant with Edward and Jesse, were now attending to me as if I were the princess and not Fani, or at least as important. Everyone wanted to know about Adan and what it was like going out with an “older man.”
I was flattered but simultaneously depressed about it. Apparently, what Jesse and mi tía Isabela had suggested was true. Having a relationship with Adan, or at least having it appear so, was the best antidote for the poison Sophia, Christian, and their clique of friends had tried pouring into everyone else’s ears. I had the distinct feeling that if I didn’t get along with Adan and continue dating him, the rumors, like some aggressive cancer, would come charging back to destroy me and infuriate Tía Isabela. The trip to Mexico would be forbidden. I would soon be the one in a cage and not Sophia. I felt like a prostitute who couldn’t deny that her client was desirable, for I had yet to discover something distasteful or unpleasant about Adan Bovio. A part of me hoped I would, and a part of me feared I would.
He called that night, and we made plans to meet at my aunt’s house the next day to practice with my car as soon as I returned from school. My ankle had improved enough so that I had barely a limp now. Señor Garman returned the crutches to the emergency care. Sophia continually asked me when Adan would be coming around to help me learn how to drive my new car. I knew that she was hoping Tía Isabela would then give permission for me to drive her to school. Perhaps she harbored the belief that she could talk me into taking her other places as well.