I open the box and find inside a huge, heart-shaped diamond sparkling in the silver-white moonlight. Javier laughs and places a hand under my chin to close my gaping mouth. I take the ring out of the box and inspect it closer. An engraving on the inside reads:
J & E, Amor Por Siempre y Siempre.
Love forever and always. I’m momentarily rendered speechless as my mind races with the possibilities of the gift’s significance.
“Is it—” I start, unable to take my eyes off the inscription.
“No, Corazón.” He tilts my chin up, holding my eyes with his. “It’s a promise ring. A symbol of a vow I’m making to you tonight.” He takes the ring and places it on my right-hand ring finger. By some miracle, the fit is perfect.
“What promise is that?” I ask with a smile.
“I promise to always love you, Eva. I will always keep you in my heart, no matter what happens, no matter the distance between us.” He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the ring on my finger. “This ring represents my heart, and you will always have my heart, for as long as you want it.”
To say I melt is an understatement. I jump into his arms, and he falls back on the blanket. I straddle him in an instant, planting kisses all over his handsome face. He raises his shoulders up off the blanket, catching my lips with his. I savor his sweet taste, a mix of salt and peppermint. He wraps his arms around my waist, moving his hands under my shirt and up my back. He pulls my chest down flush with his. My entire body delights at the sensation of his hands on the bare skin of my back. The impossibly thick mess of curls attached to my head whip furiously in the wind around us, and he laughs as he tries to push my hair aside. Finally, our eyes meet.
“Eres la más bonita chica en el mundo,” he says, tucking strands of hair behind my ears. He knows how much speaking to me in Spanish turns me inside out. It’s not so much the language itself, as it is the way it sounds coming out of his mouth, the way his lips move. That’s why I watch those lips so intently when he speaks.
We spend a few seconds in silence as I contemplate the consequences of what I’m about to do. “Let’s get out of here,” I say.
“Are you sure?” He looks up at me through thick, black lashes, eyes full of surprise. A wicked grin slowly spreads across his face, which is all the confirmation I need to justify my own intentions. There’s only one thing I can do to prove my love for him, and I’m ready to do it.
“I’ve never been so sure about anything in my entire life,” I say, my heart beating so fast I think it might explode through my chest. “Now, let’s go.”
CHAPTER 2
“I can’t believe you snuck out again with him last night, Evie!” Coralea tosses her head to the side in her usual display of disbelief and judgment. Cora may be my best friend, but she’s also my biggest critic. She’s half Filipino and half Irish, but she’s inherited the better part of her physical characteristics from her Filipino mother. As for her height, she’s “one pair of stilettos” shy of five feet tall, although she always insists she’s five-two. She has coarse, black hair that falls in ringlets to the middle of her back, fleshy cheekbones, and a protruding belly that doesn’t discourage her from wearing the more revealing clothing popular during the humid Spanish summers.
“Now what would’ve happened if your dad had caught you scurrying back up the trellis like some kind of freaky, overgrown, red-headed, woodland creature? You might’ve gotten shot!”
“Well, I didn’t,” I sigh. Her drama is near unbearable, and I’m starting to regret even telling her about my little unplanned adventure.
“Thank the sweet baby Jesus.” She makes a big production of signing the cross over herself, which makes me laugh under my breath. Cora takes her Catholicism seriously, and she probably is the most pious teenager I know. But her arsenal of non-swear swear words would make a nun blush—or lob an eraser at her head. “Now what the Mary and Joseph were you doing out after midnight with the hot Spaniard, anyway? My mom always says nothing good ever goes on after midnight—especially between teenagers.”
“We went back to his place in Cádiz.” I flash a wicked grin at her. “And trust me, it was good—”
“Stop!” she wails, clamping her hands over her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. “I don’t know if I wanna hear this. Oh, sweet Mary, my virgin ears!”
“Coralea, be quiet! Your mom might hear!” I hiss, pulling her arms down. Cora’s family lives in a two-bedroom condo with paper-thin walls on the northern border of Rota. Her mom is in the kitchen listening to the Beatles’ Revolver and making lumpia for us. “Don’t worry, your sainthood will remain intact. We only made out and talked a lot. My God, who do you think I am?”
“Well, I wouldn’t think that, if I didn’t know how crazy you are about him.”
I glare at her, but I don’t argue. There is truth in her statement. “I want to show you something,” I tell her.
“What?” she asks, raising her right eyebrow and taking a step back.
I cross the tiny room in a few steps and lock the door. I turn back to Cora, whose face is pinched in a look of uncertainty.
“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like this,” she says in a sing-song voice.
“Cora, just keep your voice down, okay?”
“Fine.” She folds her arms across her chest.
I pull my sweatpants down on my right hip and carefully remove the white bandage from my painfully swollen skin, grimacing with each tug at the tape. Cora gasps, eyes wide, and smacks her right hand over her mouth. Her gaze flicks from my hip, to my face, then back to my hip. After a few moments of silence, she lowers her hand from her mouth.
“Cora, I—”
“Holy Mary Mother of God! What on earth were you thinking?” Her voice is three octaves above a scream, and her eyes are wide with disbelief.
“Sssh!” I plead, putting a finger to her mouth. “Cora, please, let me explain.”
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! Your dad is gonna kill you!” she says, panicking. “Then when my dad finds out, he’s gonna kill me for having such a skank for a friend!”
“Cora!” I shake her by the shoulders, rather roughly, because I’m beyond exasperated with her. “You’re going to hyperventilate.”
She has passed out from anxiety attacks twice before, once in the middle of a Spanish oral exam—not a pretty sight. She had a goose egg on her forehead for a month from smacking her head on the desk when she face-planted. Plus, she had to go to the hospital for a head CT scan, because she was knocked out for a few minutes and they feared a concussion.
“Oh, sorry, no offense, Evie, but I’m just sayin’,” she stammers, calming down for a moment. “I mean, are you insane? You do realize it’s permanent, right?”
I turn and look in the mirror hanging over her dresser. The strawberry-sized, red heart encircling the black Old English letter J stands out against my pale skin like a knotted-up bruise, halfway between my hip and my belly button. I’m definitely not going to be able to wear a bikini around my family for the rest of the summer. I turn and sit down on the bed, a flash of pain shooting up my side as the waistband of my pants rubs against the still-raw tattoo.
“Where did you even get that tat done? You’re not eighteen yet.”
“There’s no minimum age law here,” I shrug. “Besides, we went to Javier’s friend’s parlor. He had a matching one done.”
“He got a tattoo of a J on a heart?” By the dumbfounded look on her face, I realize she’s serious.
“Um, no. An E, Cora.” I sigh, with a roll of my eyes. “You know, E for Evie. And it’s over his heart, on his chest.”
“Well, how should I know?” She throws her hands up in the air. They land back down on her hips as she takes her familiar authoritative stance—weight on the right hip, left foot extended out. “How are you gonna explain that to Nash?”
“I’m not going to explain anything to him,” I say and give her a warning look. “And neither are you, Coralea.”
“Please, Evie
, like I would ever rat you out to your dad,” she says with an offended frown.
“I would hope not.”
“What did you do when you went to his condo? Something must’ve happened to make you think getting his initial stamped permanently on your body was a good idea.”
“Something happened before we went to the condo.” I reach into my pants pocket and pull out the diamond ring I’ve been hiding from my family. I place it back on my right ring finger and hold it up to Cora’s face. Her round jaw drops immediately, eyes bugging out of her tiny face.
“Oh my God! You’re engaged!” She slaps her hand over her mouth as disbelief crosses her face. She drops her hand and a curious expression takes over her mocha colored features. “Wait, you’re engaged? You’re too young!”
“No, it’s not an engagement ring. It’s a promise ring.”
“I’ve never seen a two-carat promise ring before,” she says, tugging my hand up for a closer inspection. “Yep, that’s an engagement ring.”
“Cora, he did not ask me to marry him.” I jerk my hand away from her.
“Okay, whatever.” She plops down on the bed next to me.
“Getting the tattoo done was the only way I could show him how much I love him.” I add with a sigh, “I realize it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do now, but it was all I had. He wouldn’t let me, you know, give myself to him, so—”
“Hold it right there! You offered to do the dirty deed, and he didn’t want to?” She sounds skeptical. “He is straight, right? I mean, what guy says no to a hot chick? That’s just weird.”
I shrug. “He’s just that way, Cora. He’s a gentleman.”
“Yeah, right. He’s probably one of those guys who will only marry a virgin.” Her eyes widen. “That’s what it is! He wants to keep you pure so he can marry a virgin!”
“Okay,” I respond, summoning all the patience I have left in my sleep-deprived body, “first of all, stop talking about marriage. That was not discussed.”
Really, I just want her to shut up about marriage, so I can deny to myself that it’s what I want for us. I need to banish that thought from my mind completely—for now anyway.
“Second of all,” I say, “I’m underage, so—”
“Oh right, that makes more sense.” She slowly nods her head, as if it’s all finally coming together for her. “What are you going to do about Javier now that you have to move back to the States?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to do with him?”
“Well, let me spell it out for you: six-foot tall, black hair, black eyes, eight-pack abs, sharp cheekbones, and a killer smile. You must know that other girls are gonna be all over him.” She shrugs nonchalantly. “You don’t really think that a tattoo of some girl’s initial is going to keep them off him, do you?”
I can’t say anything for a few minutes. Instead, I sit facing her, jaw slacked, eyes wide. She’s knocked the wind out of me with that question. No, I hadn’t thought about that. What am I going to do?
“I don’t know what to say to that, Cora,” I finally answer with a little more bite in my voice than what I wanted to convey. I want her to think I’m completely confident in Javier; but the truth is, she’s right. Girls can’t help but find him irresistible, and with me out of the picture, two thousand miles away and probably out of mind, why couldn’t something, or someone, come between us? “I guess I’m just going to have to trust him,” I conclude, as if saying the words aloud would somehow make him trustworthy.
“Wow,” she says, shaking her head and giving me a “you’re pathetic” face. She’s infamous for making people feel two-feet tall with that face.
“That’s the best I can do.” I shrug, but I’m not feeling convinced —at all. “We’re going to talk often, and he said he’ll come visit me in DC as much as he can.”
“You know what I think, Evie?”
“Well, no; and I don’t think I really care what you think, Cora. But I’m pretty sure I’m going to hear it anyway.”
“Well, you’re right about that. I think you should just break up with him. Just make a clean break.” She makes a ridiculous karate-chop motion with her hands for emphasis.
“What? Why?” I am stunned. Where is she going with this absurdity?
“So you don’t get hurt, Evie. I don’t want you to get hurt. I have a really bad feeling about all this, and you know we Filipinos are psychic, for the most part.”
“I know you Filipinos are superstitious!” I say. Cora nods and shrugs with a you got me there expression. “Jesus Christ, Cora, you’re not making me feel any better about moving, and I am not breaking up with Javier. Nothing you say could ever make me think that breaking up is the answer to what is happening to us.” My voice cracks with the emotion I’m failing to hide. Dammit.
“Okay, okay!” she sighs, swiping her hands over her face in a display of exasperation that I often see from her mother after she receives Cora’s grades. “Sorry. I guess I’ll just have to be your eyes and ears here in Spain. I’ll keep you updated on what’s going on with him.”
I give her my no way in hell look.
“Yes, I insist, Evangeline Sweeney!” Her voice is uncharacteristically authoritative, and I know I’ll not win this argument.
“Fine,” I concede, mostly out of self-preservation. My ears cannot take much more of her screeching. “But there’s a condition: absolutely no spying on him or stalking him. If you happen to see him out and about, then fine. But I don’t want you following him around and actively trying to dig up incriminating stuff on him. Got it?”
“Why do you have to be such a buzz-kill?” she frowns. “I have very few talents in this life. One of them is singing, as you well know. The other is snooping, as you may or may not know. You are denying me the basic human right to express my God-given gifts, which I’m sure is some form of Cardinal Sin when you consider how amazing said gifts are.”
“I mean it, Cora!” I try to be severe, but it’s a difficult task with her. She looks like an Asian cherub with her baby-soft face and round belly, but then she opens her mouth and destroys all illusions. “If you’re going to stalk Javier, then I won’t take your calls. It’s as simple as that.”
“What? You’d do that?”
“Yes, you better believe I would.”
“Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“Fine, I won’t spy on him or do any snooping. Okay? Satisfied?” she says, sticking out her lower lip in a bratty pout that only shows itself when she’s feeling particularly put-upon.
“Yes, thank you,” I smile and wrap an arm around her. “We should be planning out the last month we have to spend together instead of fighting.”
“I’m probably going to have to share you with the Spaniard, right?” she asks with an even more pronounced scowl.
“Stop with the pout, Cora. It only works on your parents and love-struck underclassmen. Okay?” I laugh.
“True that,” Cora shrugs, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. She does have her fair share of freshmen admirers.
“Besides, we have the rest of the week to spend together. Javi’s in Italy visiting his mother.”
“For how long?” She gives me one of those expressions that she typically reserves for the algebraic linear equations Mr. Smelts likes to spring on us at eight a.m. I know I’m in for it.
“Until next Monday. Why?” I ask, guarded.
“It’s odd, is all,” Cora says, but I can see the wheels turning in her perplexed little head.
“Why?”
“Because he knows he only has a few short weeks left with you. Instead of spending every minute possible together, he jets off to Italy to vacay with his mother?” She furrows her brow. “There’s just something wrong with that. I mean, he can visit her anytime he wants.”
“He was planning to visit when we met last fall, but kept putting it off to spend time with me. I don’t think it’s a big deal, Cora.” But I lie. I’m more than a little hurt by his d
ecision. I mean, why does he just have to visit his mom now? He’s been putting it off for months—what are a few more weeks?
Suddenly, there’s a rattling noise at the door as Cora’s mother, Ludi, attempts to enter the room.
“Cor-wah-lee! Eee-bee! Wha yew do derh? Yew whan da loom-pee-ah?” she screeches in her pixie voice from the other side of the door. Cora and I look at each other and snicker under our breath at Ludi’s thick accent. There’s no doubt in my mind where Cora gets her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice.
“Mom, we’ll be right there!” Cora hollers back, although I think she could’ve used her normal voice and been heard just fine through the hollow door. She turns back to me and says, “Let’s go, I’m starving. We can talk about this later.” She swings her legs over the bed.
“There’s nothing left to discuss, other than what we’re going to be doing over the next four weeks,” I say, cutting off any further dissection of my love life. It’s really starting to become uncomfortable because I feel as though I’m betraying Javier’s trust.
“Whatever you say, Evie.” Cora’s weak smile indicates that she’s simply placating me. She adds, inhaling a deep breath, “Banana lumpia is calling me, anyway.”
I follow her out the door into the wafting aroma of fried bananas, which is enticing enough to make me forget my troubles—for the moment, anyway.
***
After the longest week in the history of weeks, I’m finally getting to see Javier. We meet at Las Flores Café, and immediately I notice something different about him. His hair is cropped down close to his scalp in the traditional jar-head Marine cut. He’s still handsome as ever . . . he just looks so darn grown up and official.
“I thought I’d never see you again, stranger,” I say, giving him a peck on the cheek as I take a seat at our usual table by the café window.
“I know. I’m sorry I didn’t call you, Corazón.” He takes my hand and rubs my palm with his, an act I find incredibly intimate. “I was busy dealing with family business there. My grandfather is not doing well. He is very sick and on dialysis in the hospital.”
The Saints of the Cross Page 3
