At first, I thought I wouldn’t, but so many times I had gone over it all myself to try to understand what had brought us all to this place, this situation. One more time didn’t seem to matter and might get me to see something I had missed. Perhaps he would say something wise as well.
I began by going as far back as the first day I had come to America to live with my aunt and described what it was like then and going to the ESL class and being so alone in a foreign country. I explained how Ignacio and I had become friends and how I had enjoyed being with his family, how it had helped me get over my homesickness.
Adan listened attentively, obviously afraid to utter a sound that might stop me from continuing. When I described crossing the desert in flight, he did shake his head and said, “It’s impossible to appreciate how desperate people can get.”
“I am sorry for how I have hurt my cousin Edward and his friend Jesse,” I added.
Adan nodded. “I’m sure you are, but I’m also sure they’ll be all right,” he said, smiling. “And so will you.”
When we reached the dock, I thought about all the mean things Sophia had said to me and the warnings she had delighted in giving me. I hesitated in the car. Adan, who had gotten out, leaned in to ask if I was all right. I gazed at the boat.
“I have been honest and open with you, Adan. Please be the same with me.”
“What?” he asked, surprised, sitting back in the car.
“Tell me why after so long you decided to call on me.”
He stared a moment and then shrugged. “I wanted to come to see you earlier, but…”
“Yes?”
“My father was very upset with it all. He told me your aunt was near a nervous breakdown.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, smiling. “She could win what is called the Academy Award.”
“Whatever, it made it very difficult for me.”
“And this other girl you have been seeing? She, too, made it difficult?”
“What other girl?”
“Dana Del Ray.”
He turned so quickly toward me that I thought he had snapped his neck. “Who told you about her?”
“Who tells me anything she can to make me unhappy?”
“Oh. I thought it might have been Fani.”
“No, I haven’t spoken to Fani since I left with my cousin to go to Mexico.”
“She has never called you?”
“Never. You told her you were coming to see me?”
“No,” he said.
“And you haven’t told your father, either, have you?”
He played with the steering wheel a moment and then shook his head.
“Why did you come? Why did you ask me out on your boat, Adan?”
“It’s true I’ve been seeing other girls, and even one in particular, all this time, Dana Del Ray,” he began. “Her father’s very wealthy and powerful. My father is very good friends with him.” He laughed. “It’s almost like one of those arranged marriages in Mexico you once described. She’s nice, attractive, but an airhead. You know what this is?”
“I’ve heard about it.”
“After what happened with you, I felt I had to do things to please my father, but I came to the conclusion recently that if I’m not happy, in the end, I won’t be pleasing him. I didn’t know if you would want to see me again. I wasn’t sure what your relationship was with this Mexican boy, whether it was some family thing or what. You know, one of those arranged relationships.