Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  I park the Squeegeemobile and show my press pass to the people at the front gate. I tell them I’m covering the race for my school paper, and they tell us we better hurry, because the race is about to start. We rush toward the stands, and I see Chris already here with Tyler. He waves and shows that he’s saved a spot for me. Haley and I join them. I remind Haley to warn Jessica again, but she’s busy flirting with Tyler. Tyler says hello to me and apologizes for Andrew Van Dyke’s bad behavior at the party. “I’m sorry about all that,” he says.

  Down on the track, I can see Jessica in her lavender racing outfit and the white helmet with the yellow rose. The announcer says this is the qualifying round for the upcoming regionals and that Jessica’s team has an excellent chance to take it to nationals. Jessica waves to the crowd, and they cheer. I have a sick feeling. A sick feeling that is going to do its best not to let me think the warning was enough. I have an overpowering urge to get up and rush back down the bleachers toward the track myself. As I take off, Haley calls out, “Where are you going?” I don’t have time to answer the normal girl. We non-normal girls don’t have time to explain as we look even more bizarre in our erratic behavior. I don’t want to feel like I have to get to Jessica, but I have to get to her. Simple, really. I have to tell her. Why didn’t I just insist before?

  I’m too late. Before I reach the track, the starting gun sounds and the race begins. The buzz of motors is deafening. I stand frozen, unable to move. I have seen it all before. The way the girl in the brown charges out front. The way Jessica hops the first hill like nothing, her body rising up off the bike like she’s weightless. The grace of her as she rounds the first turn, then the second.

  I want to cover my eyes as she nears the third, because I know what’s about to come. I can’t stop looking, though. And then, exactly as it has happened every time I’ve visualized it, Jessica hops the mogul, twists apart from her bike as the tires slip on the landing, and then, wham, she’s on the ground and the motorcycle lands on top of her. It happens almost too fast to comprehend. She lies motionless on the packed wet dirt as the other riders hop the same hill and swerve to avoid her body. Sirens sound. Flags are waved. Medics rush the track. The race continues as they drag her limp body to the sidelines.

  I stand and start to cry. I could have stopped this. I didn’t try hard enough. I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I’m vaguely aware that it’s Chris. Haley, too. I can hear them saying something.

  “Holy crap. Oh my God, Paski, you were right.” But I’m not really listening. I’m too numb. I am furious at the universe for giving me this curse of sight. I don’t want to know these things. All I want to know is how to shop and go to the beach. I want to know what it feels like to have a big house in Orange County. I don’t want this responsibility or guilt. It isn’t fair. This would have happened no matter what, I tell myself. But why am I the only person in the world who knew about it?

  I turn and run from the stands to the parking lot, and collapse across the ugly mural on the hood of the car. I can’t take this. Jessica might have tried to kill me, but I, without trying, am so afraid I failed to stop her from dying.

  “Paski, are you okay?” Chris reaches out to me from the side of the car.

  “No,” I say. “I think I just killed Jessica Nguyen.”

  32

  "She’s not dead, thank God,” Haley’s in the driver’s seat of the Squeegeemobile, with her cell phone against her ear. We’re still in the lot at the racetrack. She’s on the phone with Jessica’s mother. Chris is with me in the backseat, holding me. I can’t stop shaking. He tries to calm me down by clicking his tongue the way mothers do with babies, and even though I am in a panic, I recognize how utterly sweet this is of him.

  “Is Jessica okay?” Chris barks at Haley.

  She holds up her hand to keep us quiet for another second while she listens. “Okay,” she nods into the phone. “Thank you. Yes, I know. I will. Okay. Bye.”

  Haley turns to face us with tears in her eyes. All around us, fans from the stands are streaming to their cars in a concerned hush, muttering about what’s happened. Clearly no one can believe it. Haley tells Chris about the vision thing, and he listens without saying anything.

  “It’s all my fault,” I moan.

  Chris kisses the top of my head and squeezes my hand. “It’s not your fault. She wouldn’t have believed you even if she had listened.”

  “Jessica’s in the hospital,” Haley says, her lower lip trembling. “Her mom said she broke her legs and one arm, and she has a concussion because her helmet wasn’t tight enough.”

  “Oh my God,” I choke.

  “Poor Jess.” Tears roll down Haley’s cheeks. “I should have told her about your vision, Paski. I’m so sorry.”

  “No,” I stop her “It’s my fault. I didn’t do all I could to warn her because I was scared of her. Because she was mean to me. That’s what happened. It’s all my fault.”

  “It’s no one’s fault,” says Chris. He hugs me. “This is awful.”

  Haley’s lower lip continues to tremble. “I can’t believe it actually happened. How did you know this would happen, Paski? It’s freaky. No, I’m serious. It’s totally freaking me out.”

  “I just know things.” I say mechanically. “It freaks me out, too. Believe me. I don’t want to know them, but I do anyway. I hate it.”

  Haley shrugs and looks tormented. “I didn’t know. The whole thing with the visions and the psychic stuff. I’m not really into that.”

  “It’s okay. I totally understand. Trust me, if some girl I didn’t know came up to me and was all ‘I have visions, you have to help me,’ I would have reacted just like you did.”

  “I mean, I wasn’t before. But now I totally believe you. It’s impossible, but it happened. Beyond freaky.”

  Chris squeezes my hand again. “Both of you stop blaming yourselves, and let’s just do what we can to support Jessica.”

  “I know,” says Haley. She is now full-on crying. “I want to go to the hospital, you guys. I want to see Jessica. Is that okay with you?”

  “I don’t have a problem with it, though I doubt she wants to see me.” Chris looks at me. “Or you. Now that, you know, there’s a me-and-you kind of thing.”

  “I know,” I say. Yet I am overcome with a sense that I should be at the hospital. A psychic “ability” kind of sense. I don’t tell Haley this, however, even though she said she believes me. “We should go, though,” I say, like I don’t care all that much. Grandma has long told me that to exist in the world with my ability, I am going to have to learn how to act. Mostly how to act disinterested. To protect myself. So I shrug and add, “Because Haley should be with her friend, and right now we’re Haley’s ride.” On the way to the hospital, with Haley driving because I’m still too shaken up to handle the Squeegeemobile, I try to sit up, but a piece of my hair is tangled in a gold chain around Chris’s neck. “Ow?” I say.

  He helps me untangle it. “Sorry,” he says. “I almost never wear this thing. I just felt like it today.”

  All of a sudden, it hits me. The amulet. I haven’t bothered to wear it. I’ve been too afraid. Or too ashamed. If I had worn it today, maybe none of this would have ever happened. I think of what Grandma told me when she gave me the necklace and how the universe rewards you . . . or not. I tell Haley we have to stop at my apartment before going to the hospital. I have to get it and I need to wear it, no matter how dorky Haley or anyone else thinks I look. It will guide me. It will tell me what to do. I know, I know, my dad will freak when he sees Chris. But I don’t care. I am falling in love with this guy, and my dad is just going to have to deal with it. Besides, there are more important issues at hand. Spirit issues. Gift issues. Mine.

  33

  The tires of the Squeegeemobile rip across the asphalt of the parking lot at my apartment complex. Haley hurls the beast of a car into a parking spot, and only then do I notice that my dad is out on the upstairs balcony with Melanie and the twins, sitting in lawn c
hairs, all crowded together, playing cards. He looks right at us, and I don’t think he’s happy at all about the way his beloved car is being driven. I’m not too happy, either. I don’t know why the sight of my dad hanging out with other teenagers makes me feel weird, but it does. They look like a family. It makes me a little jealous.

  Dad scowls down at us in that angry-owl way he has, intending to make me feel guilty and horrible. I half expect him to screech like something out of a Harry Potter movie. He’s that scary. But I don’t care. Right now, I’m worried about Jessica.

  “Wait here,” I tell my friends.

  I run up the cement steps, each making a hollow pinging noise when my foot lands on it, and my dad meets me as I open the door. His arms are folded, like Mr. Clean, across the National Council of La Raza decal on the faded red T-shirt he’s got on. He wears jeans, too, the big, baggy FUBU ones that make him look like the world’s oldest, tackiest teenager. I hesitate before looking at his feet and regret it as soon as I do it. The gigantic basketball shoes he has taken to calling “kicks.” Unlaced.

  “What is that girl doing driving my car?” he demands. Yup. Still scowling. In my mind, I wonder how he thinks he can be both the world’s oldest teenager and a stern dad. Does. Not. Compute.

  “That girl is my friend, and her name is Haley,” I say. I push past him and charge up the stairs to my room. As I dig through my jewelry box for the amulet, my dad appears in the doorway, arms still folded. Chin still jutted out. Lips still tightly frowning. He closes the door behind him. He’s boiling mad. He never would have shut the door if he wasn’t.

  “Pasquala,” he says. He sighs. I hate that sigh. It provokes instant guilt in me. Even when I didn’t do anything wrong. And he’s doing the extra-deep-voice thing, to get more respect or something.

  I find the amulet and put it around my neck. Instantly, it grows warm and emits a low sort of drone that I can feel but not hear in my bones. Like the universe is vibrating inside of me. I get a rush to my head the way you do when you sniff something with menthol in it, like Vicks VapoRub.

  “Pasquala,” he repeats. “Look at me.”

  I do, but with a rushed, annoyed look on my face, thinking that it would be a whole lot easier to look at him if he weren’t trying to dress like Bow Wow. “I have to go.” The urge I had earlier to go to the hospital is much, much stronger with the amulet on. It’s like an order from God, only I don’t like saying it that way because then I start to sound like a lunatic. I just know that I have to get there. Now.

  Dad holds up his hand. “Whoa. Wait a second there, Chinita. You are not the one who decides whether or not you have to go. I decide whether or not you can.”

  “But Dad!”

  Dad sizes me up, like he realizes that I’m almost as tall as he is. Like he realizes exactly how much harder it’s getting to boss me around now that I’m almost a grown-up myself. Like he realizes that if we were to, like, I don’t know, get into a fistfight or something — which, for the record, would never happen — that I might actually be able to take him down. He says, “Fine. You can go. But first I have some questions that you need to answer before you’re going anywhere. Understand?” He stands against my door with his arms crossed. He means business.

  “Fine.”

  Dad uncrosses his arms and sits on the bed. He doesn’t look so scary anymore. Now he just looks sort of saggy. I feel sorry for him but realize at the same time that this is what he wants. For me to pity him, like it’s the last defense of a manipulative parent. He pats the bed next to him. “Sit,” he says. What, I’m a dog now? Like a dog, I obey. Good girl. “First, why is that girl — why is Haley driving my car? You still haven’t answered me.”

  In a voice that moves too quickly and shakes and quivers, I tell him about the accident at the racetrack and about how I had seen it but hadn’t able to tell Jessica. I tell him how I asked Haley to tell her, but she didn’t believe me. I tell him I was too upset to drive. I tell him I need to get to the hospital to make peace with Jessica.

  “That explains that,” Dad says, making a new face to let me know he thinks we’ve made progress in our communication, but that it hasn’t been as easy as it could have been because of me. “But it doesn’t explain what that boy from the party is doing in the car with you. I told you, I don’t want you hanging around him.”

  “You don’t understand. Chris is a really good guy.”

  Dad looks doubtful. Then he sighs through his nose but nods. “You’re right. I have to trust you. You remind me so much of my mom, it’s scary, actually.” He’s losing the will to fight with me. He always does. “So, where are you going again?”

  “I have to go to the hospital to see Jessica.”

  “Why? I know she had an accident, Paski, but that girl is bad news.”

  “I don’t know.” My hand reaches instinctively for the amulet. “I think she’s not that bad. I think she’s okay. I have this urge to make up with her, to apologize or something. Just let me do it, Dad. Please.”

  “You can’t go around telling people about your visions, Pasquala. You know that. Most people won’t believe you. Haley didn’t believe you. And now I think you really better keep it to yourself with Jessica. She doesn’t need to know about any of this stuff. What’s happened has happened.”

  “That is the exact opposite of what Grandma would tell me to do,” I say.

  “Your grandma isn’t always right about things,” says Dad, solemnly.

  “Actually, she kind of is,” I say.

  Dad seems to think about this. “Oh, Chinita,” he says with another sigh. “I just don’t want you around the wrong kind of kids anymore. I think this Jessica is the wrong kind of kid. Chris, too. And maybe even Haley. You have to be careful who you hang out with.”

  “God, Dad, if it was up to you, I wouldn’t have any friends at all except you! It’s sick!”

  “Just be careful. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

  “I know, but it’s too late now, okay? I have to go there and talk to them.”

  “Okay, Paski. But promise me two things.”

  “What?”

  “That you’ll drive the Squeegeemobile instead of Haley, because you’re on my insurance plan and she isn’t.”

  “Okay.”

  “And that you’ll be careful.”

  “Yes. Can I go now?”

  Dad shakes his head like he doesn’t know what to think of all this, but he stands up, opens the door, and, to my horror, follows me down the stairs all the way to the garage. Chris sees him and looks like he wants to run.

  “You,” my dad says, pointing at him. “I just want to tell you right here that if anything, and I mean anything, bad happens to my daughter because of you, you’ll have me to deal with.”

  Chris stares fearfully at him and for a moment says nothing. But then he does something that surprises me and makes my heart soar. With his voice quaking, he says, “Mr. Archuleta, nothing bad is going to happen to Paski. Sir, with all due respect, you should know one thing about me. I like your daughter a lot, and unlike the boys you appear to have me confused with, I fully understand that liking a girl means respect. My mother taught me that.”

  34

  We arrive at the hospital and see television crews stationed outside from all the local networks and the national sports cable channels. “Oh my God, do you think this is for Jessica?” asks Haley.

  “Pretty sure it is,” says Chris.

  “She’s famous,” I say as I turn in to a parking lot and find a space. I turn off the engine and open my door. Haley opens her door, too. In the backseat, Chris doesn’t budge.

  “Aren’t you coming?” asks Haley.

  “I actually think I’d rather wait here.” He looks at me and says, “You should maybe wait here, too.”

  On my neck, the amulet begins to heat up. I focus on what it might be trying to tell me.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Chris. “I have to go in.”

  He shrugs and moves to get out o
f the car. “In that case, I’ll come, too.”

  We walk past the TV vans and into the hospital lobby. We follow signs to the emergency room area. Chris whistles a little. I think he’s got mixed feelings about the whole Jessica situation. I can tell that he’s really worried about her, but he doesn’t want me to think he still likes her like that.

  We get to the dreary waiting area, and Haley approaches the bored-looking fat woman behind the reception desk.

  “We’re here to see Jessica Nguyen. We’re her friends. She’s one of my best friends, actually.”

  The woman shakes her head. “No visitors.”

  “But she’s my friend,” Haley protests.

  “Sorry.”

  “This is so unfair,” wails Haley.

  “Jessica Nguyen is under tight security,” says the fat lady. “Not my decision.”

  Haley pulls me over to a bank of lime-green plastic chairs and pushes me down into one of the seats. She sits, too, and pulls out her cell phone. In the corner a television blasts the FOX News channel, and a bunch of unhappy-looking people sit around watching it. Chris joins us, picking up a copy of a golfing magazine from one of the cheap-looking end tables.

  “This isn’t fair,” Haley repeats. “She needs us.”

  “Maybe she’s not well enough to see anyone,” suggests Chris. We consider this and share looks of guilt, fear, and sadness.

  “Well, let’s find out.” Haley punches a number into her cell phone with a furious, determined look.

  “Mrs. Nguyen?” She plugs her free ear with a finger to better hear. “It’s me, Haley. We’re here at the hospital, but they won’t let us come up to see her.” She pauses and listens. Then she says, “We’re in the lobby of the emergency room. Oh. Okay. Thanks. That’s fine. See you then.” Haley disconnects and looks at us. “She’s on her way down.”