Beau and Bett

by Kathryn Berla

  It was strange the way she wanted to stick around. Maybe she was making sure I wouldn’t goof off, but she already said she didn’t want me to work. So maybe she was bored. Or lonely. Or just plain weird. When I looked over at her after I’d hosed down the Range Rover and filled the bucket with soapy water, she was lying flat on her back in the bed of my truck—one knee propped up, her floppy hat covering her face.

  I attacked the car wash with the same energy I’d used to clean the pool—in other words, at a snail’s pace. Bettina didn’t seem to care; in fact, once again I wasn’t even sure she was awake. And why rush when I still had hours to kill? I took a look at her car. Sure enough, the dent was still there and now that I got a good look at it, I could see it was barely a dent at all. Maman’s car had definitely gotten the worse end of that run-in.

  I never minded washing a car. It’s a relaxing thing to do on a warm day. Usually, you’d get the satisfaction of seeing a car go from dirty to shining clean, which wasn’t the case with the Range Rover since it was already clean. But it was mindless work, like everything else around that place, so it gave me a chance to think. I even forgot that Bettina was there for a while.

  I started thinking about Masie again and wondering if she really could be interested in someone like me, or if maybe she just had to do something that day after school and needed a ride. She hadn’t said anything about hanging out when I saw her at the locker on Friday. She was nice enough, though. Told me she heard Angie was getting married to that “really cute” Jason and asking me all about the wedding, which was basically going to be more or less a glorified family picnic. Papa got some license online that allowed him to perform the ceremony, and then they’d have to go make it legit the next day at City Hall.

  Angie was a senior when Masie and I were freshmen—cheerleader, beautiful (or so they say), but none of her popularity rubbed off on me. There were always guys calling her and stopping by the house after school, and I’d have to say it got pretty annoying at times. Then when she had the chance to pick a guy to marry, she picked the biggest loser of them all, a total fake who seemed to fool everyone but me. Luckily, our house was too small to fit them in if they ever fell on hard times. And then I thought about the pullout sofa, and the thought of Angie and Jason moving in with us made me shudder. Jason went through jobs like most people go through underwear, so nothing was ever a hundred percent sure when it came to him. But Masie was still in awe of Angie and always asking about her. So maybe some of Angie’s popularity actually did rub off on me—at least when it came to Masie.

  A thump came from the back of my truck, interrupting my thoughts. I put everything down and stood on top of that low wall where I could see into the bed of the truck. Bettina’s propped up leg had fallen over and was making a sort of triangle with her other leg. I hopped down and walked over to the truck as quietly as I could to avoid crunching the gravel. I guess you could say she was snoring because I’m pretty sure it qualifies as snoring when a small poof of air escapes from your closed lips at regular intervals, making an audible sound each time. I’d never seen a girl sleeping before except Angie, and she didn’t snore. As far as I knew, Maman didn’t either, at least I’d never heard Papa complain about it. So, I was a little surprised that girls actually snore, and I got to thinking, well, why shouldn’t a girl snore? It’s something I’d never thought about until that moment.

  Then all of a sudden, Bettina moved her hand to her hat and flung it off her face.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped. “Why are you standing there staring at me?”

  “I heard something, I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Jeez. I didn’t want her to think I was some sort of creeper.

  She sat up, looking semi-dazed. “Have you finished washing my car?”

  I had. I couldn’t lie. I’d squeezed about every last second I could from that job. My watch told me it was only ten o’clock so there were still two more hours to go. Two more very long hours.

  “I think you’ll find it to your satisfaction,” I said. “If you’d like to inspect.”

  She looked at her car from the bed of the truck. “No, I can see it looks fine. So, what should you do next?”

  “Pick grapes?” I suggested hopefully.

  “Ray would be mad if you did that without him here to supervise. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

  She put the hat back on again and hugged her arms around her knees. “Hmm . . . there are breakfast dishes still in the sink. Nana would be happy to see them done by the time she gets home.”

  “Nah, I’m sorry. I really don’t think that’s a good idea. I shouldn’t go in the house with you and me alone. Nope.”

  “Why?” She scooted to the edge of the tailgate and hopped out.

  All I could think about was Maman and Papa’s #1 rule for Angie when she was still living at home: No. Boys. Over. When. We’re. Not. Home. Period. They never had to worry about telling me the rule about no girls over because I never had any girls over, but I was pretty sure Mr. Diaz would have the same rule and I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his wrath—even if nothing was going on and I was just doing the dishes.

  “It wouldn’t look right,” I said.

  She walked right up to me, her face engulfed in the hat-shadow. “Are you worried I’m going to seduce you or something?”

  “Ha! No. Ha!”

  Was I worried? No girl had ever tried to seduce me yet, and that was sort of the last thing in the world that would worry me if and when it happened. But Bettina? The Beast? Maybe I was a little worried—yeah, maybe I was, if I wanted to be completely honest with myself.

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “Like I said. It just wouldn’t look right. I’m the hired help, remember?”

  “Whatever.”

  She walked away and began to pace. I emptied the soapy water out of the bucket and rinsed the sponge and bucket, then squeezed the water from the sponge and set it on top of the wall to dry. I rolled up the hose, all the while looking at her out of the corner of my eye and wondering why she was pacing around like that. Like a caged tiger, which made me wonder if her spirit animal was a tiger, but that wasn’t it at all.

  “I’m thinking,” she said like she could hear my thoughts. “About what else you can do since you refuse to do the dishes.”

  “Again . . . it’s not that I’m refusing”

  “Will you do them, then?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then you’re refusing.” She began to pace again.

  I was wondering how much time we could kill with me watching her pace when she suddenly got an idea in her head and marched over to the low wall where I’d left the sponge and bucket. With an agility I wouldn’t have suspected from her, especially in those tall shoes, she grabbed the bucket and leaped over the wall. Then, carrying the bucket a few yards away to where there was a mound of earth that looked to have been dumped by a tractor, she picked up a shovel and started scooping dirt into the bucket.

  “Need some help?” I called over to her.

  “No, that’s alright. I can handle it.”

  She emptied three, maybe four shovelfuls of dirt into the bucket and then struggled with it back to the wall. At that point I went over the wall and intercepted her—I mean, I couldn’t exactly stand there watching her trying to carry that load while wearing those shoes. But she didn’t object when I took the bucket from her hands.

  “Where do you want this?” I asked.

  “Over by my car, please.”

  I scaled the wall and set the bucket down right next to the Range Rover. She followed me over, using only one hand for support to vault the wall, and I have to say I was impressed. I could see a panther in her graceful but athletic move, but a panther was too nice an animal. That wasn’t Bettina.

  Once she was by my side she picked up the bucket, struggling to hold on to it from the bottom where she could gain more co
ntrol and get a better grip. Then, right before my unbelieving eyes, she dumped the whole bucket of dirt on top of her nice, white, shining car.

  “What did you do that for?” To say I was shocked is an understatement. “I just spent almost an hour washing your car, and now look what you’ve done!”

  She put her hands on her hips in a way that must have coincided with a smile on her face, although I couldn’t be sure with that hat-shadow.

  “Now you can do it again,” she announced proudly. “And you can take another hour to do it. Aren’t you happy?”

  “No,” I mumbled. “Not really.”

  But actually, I was happy once I got over the shock. It was easy work and the prospect of killing another hour outside without doing something even more bizarre was a relief. So I started all over again, rinsing the dirt out of the bucket, stirring up the soapy water, and hosing the loose dirt off the Range Rover. Bettina went back to my truck and sat on the open tailgate, dangling her legs over the side and swinging them back and forth the way little kids do. Neither of us had much to say, but I couldn’t lose myself in my thoughts the way I had before, on account of her being wide awake and keeping such a close eye on me the way she was.

  After a while, I spoke up just to defuse some of the tension I was feeling. That and the boredom. “So, why aren’t you in church with the rest of your family?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “I can’t remember what you answered.” I kneeled down to scrub the right front rim.

  “I said, why should I be?”

  “I was just wondering. It seems strange, that’s all. Your whole family and everyone being there and you being here.”

  “Is it strange that your whole family is somewhere else and you’re here?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I don’t want to be here, no offense or anything.”

  She didn’t say anything for a few minutes and I worried I might have gone too far.

  “Well, I don’t want you to be here either,” she said in the smallest voice I’d heard her use so far. “It’s my dad’s idea, remember?”

  “Anyway,” I said. “Let’s drop it—none of my business.”

  “You’re right, it isn’t,” she agreed.

  “But don’t your mom and dad get mad at you and try to make you go with them?” There was that Beau again. The one who didn’t know when to shut up.

  “Do you always have to have the last word?” she asked, and I have to admit it kind of threw me when she said that. “Anyway, for your information, it’s my dad only. And Nana, if you count her.”

  “Oh,” I said, still thinking about what she’d said about me having the last word and wondering if she was right.

  “And, not that it’s any of your business,” she went on, “but no, my dad doesn’t care. It’s up to me.”

  So, that went well.

  Eleven

  Igot pretty soaked washing the car for the second time, but the day was warm and getting warmer by the minute, so I didn’t mind. What I did mind was having to work with Bettina staring over my shoulder, watching every move I made. I wondered what she was thinking and what she was plotting for me next.

  “What are you thinking about?” I blurted out, unable to restrain myself.

  She stopped swinging her legs and arched her neck to point her face in my direction. “The same thing everyone else is thinking about.”

  “But everyone else isn’t thinking the same thing. For instance, I’d bet anything that you and I aren’t thinking the same thing right now. Or maybe right now we are, but not before I asked you.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” she said.

  “Well, how could we prove it? We couldn’t. Somebody would have to go first and say what they were thinking and then the other person could lie.”

  “You said you’d bet anything. And now you’re backing out.”

  “It was just a figure of speech. When a person says I bet anything, it doesn’t really mean they’ll bet anything, it just means . . . ah, you know what it means.”

  “There’s some dirt on the right front you didn’t get,” she said. “Just above the light thing. The headlamp.”

  “Headlight,” I corrected her. “You know what? I bet you’re a very literal person. You don’t read between the lines much, do you?”

  “I’ll take that bet,” she said without a trace of a smile or humor in her voice. “But how would we prove it?”

  “That’s just what I’m talking about.” I wiped away the tiny speck of dirt she’d brought to my attention. How she’d seen it from that distance, through her hat, I had no idea.

  She hopped off the tailgate. “I’m hungry,” she announced. “You?”

  “I wouldn’t say no to a snack.”

  “Keep working. I’ll be right back.”

  She teetered off on her high-wedge sandals over the gravel parking lot and eventually disappeared out of sight, after going through the side gate that led to the orchard. When she didn’t come back after five minutes, I went in the garage and looked around for a towel or a rag to dry off the car. The garage was huge and spotless like everything else around that place—my entire house could’ve fit inside it. The floors were varnished and shiny, with no oil stains like there were where we parked our cars. At my house, there was no real garage, just the end of our drive-way with a tentlike structure that provided some shade in the summer.

  There were a couple of cars in the Diaz garage—a Bentley that looked brand new and some tiny sports convertible underneath a tarp I was afraid to lift up. I found a pile of neatly folded rags near the car-washing gear. I grabbed one and went back outside. Still no Bettina and it had been at least ten minutes. But I was already used to her disappearing act and I was almost hoping she’d stay gone this time. Then I’d only have about an hour before her dad was back. I could probably find something to tidy up. Maybe I’d go out front and see if there were any weeds growing around the flower beds.

  After about fifteen or twenty minutes, I heard the crunch, crunch of gravel and Bettina reappeared carrying one of the buckets we’d used the day before for picking grapes.

  “I brought us some grapes to eat,” she said.

  “Aren’t those wine grapes?” I hadn’t eaten any when I was picking them, but Ray had told me they were wine grapes. I had no idea what a wine grape would taste like, but I imagined it might taste like wine. I was also a little hesitant to eat anything they grew on the Diaz Ranch, considering it was Maman filching the avocado that landed me in this mess to begin with.

  “They still taste good.”

  She set the bucket down at my feet and pulled out a cluster of grapes that she slowly dropped into her mouth, tightening her lips to free each individual grape from its stem. When her cheeks were bulging like a chipmunk, she swished the mass of grapes from one side of her mouth to the other and then began spitting out seeds like a machine gun. Then there were a few noisy gulps, after which she spat out a big clump of grape skins.

  “Mmm . . . ” She licked her lips. “Good.”

  I’d watched that whole show with my jaw hanging. It was pretty disgusting, really, but I halfway admired her for it and I was intrigued. I picked up a cluster and tried to imitate what I’d seen her do. Somehow things didn’t go quite as smoothly for me though. I wasn’t quite prepared for the thick skins or the massive number of seeds, or for the way the grapes oozed so much liquid in your mouth all at once. But they tasted pretty good, I’ll give them that. Unfortunately, the juice went down my windpipe and I wound up choking on some skins and seeds.

  After about two minutes of nonstop coughing, during which time she continued to consume even more clusters of grapes, I finally caught my breath. “I think I’ll pass on any more,” I said. “But thanks for the . . . snack.”

  She looked up at me with that maddening flop of her hat covering her eyes, but I was close enough to see her lips and
the sticky sweet juice dribbling down her chin.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance to do the dishes,” she said.

  “And I’m going to say no one last time,” I answered.

  “Okay, well there’s only one other choice you have in that case,” she said. “Try to beat me in a game of croquet.”

  Twelve

  Iknew it was something I really shouldn’t do but I was tired of her overconfidence and bossing me around. I was pretty good at playing games, so how hard could croquet be? This was my chance to put her in her place, with her permission.

  We went through the side gate to the path that led through the orchard and back to the huge grassy expanse of lawn. And guess what? The croquet set was all laid out, I assumed the way it was supposed to be because I had no clue. So that’s what she was doing all that time. She’d known all along she was going to challenge me to a game and the grapes were probably an afterthought because they happened to be close by.

  “Do you know how to play?” she asked.

  “No, but it looks straightforward. I’m sure I can figure it out.” This looks like child’s play compared to miniature golf, I was thinking. I was pretty good at miniature golf.

  “Okay, because our time is limited, we’ll just play with one ball each. This is the starting point. You have to hit your ball through these two wickets and then zigzag over to those, then the two on the opposite side, zigzag back on that side and then back to where we began. First one back to this stake wins. There are some other rules about hitting the other guy’s ball and stuff, but I’ll fill you in as we go along.”

  Easy peasy. Now for some payback time. I was excited.

  We flipped a coin, which Bettina won, and she started going through those wickets like there was no tomorrow, and I wondered if I was ever going to get a turn. She flipped her mallet around, sometimes sideways, sometimes straight-on, as if it were an appendage. When I finally got my turn, she was already so far ahead I knew I’d have to double down just to catch up. But it turned out not to be so easy to get those wooden balls to do what you wanted them to do on the grass. And then toward the end she slammed my ball with hers and sent it soaring in the opposite direction, and somehow that counted for extra strokes for her. Needless to say, she won and took great pleasure in rubbing it in.