Delia's Crossing (Delia 1)

She looked at me and then at her mother, who was nodding as if she had heard someone whisper in her ear, telling her something she had known her whole life.

Ignacio and his friends followed Sophia and her girlfriends out of the yard and around the side of the house. I ran after them all, hoping to turn them back. Sophia’s friends stopped me and told me to get into their car.

“Ignacio!” I shouted, but he was already in his friend’s car. They shot away from the curb.

“Well, all right,” Sophia said, exploding with excitement. “Finally, some real action.”

So, this was why she had insisted on knowing where the fiesta was being held. She had planned this all along, I thought, every part of it.

Everything was happening so quickly. I felt helpless.

Moments later, the caravan of vigilantes was heading into the night.

18

Scene of the Crime

Seeing the house in which Bradley had forced himself on me immediately made me cringe. All the way over, Sophia and her girlfriends were giggling and talking excitedly about what they anticipated happening. It was as if they were going to a show. This was to be their entertainment. Sophia’s girlfriends congratulated her on how well she had orchestrated it all and how clever she had been to get the Mexican boys angry enough to do something so quickly.

I sat there listening to them and to Sophia bragging about how easy it was to get Ignacio and his friends riled. I realized exactly how Sophia had manipulated me, too. Her gifts, her acts of kindness, and her feigned concern for my welfare were all part of her plan, and here I had thought we were finally becoming close, becoming good friends, if not like sisters. I could almost hear Señora Porres telling my grandmother, “Solamente hay amigos fieles: la esposa vieja, el perro, y el dinero.” There are only three true friends: an old wife, a dog, and money. She would turn to me and say, “Believe in nothing else. Trust nothing else.”

She would say, if she were sitting beside me now, “See? Am I not right?”

Someday I might be someone’s old wife, but right now, I had no dog, and I had no money. I had no true friends. She was right.

The house was dark except for one dimly lit window, the light flickering. The girls pulled their car up right behind Ignacio and his friends’ car. Sophia turned to her girlfriends and me and told us the light inside the house came from a candle or two.

“Jana Lawler is in there with him,” her girlfriend Trudy said. “He barely takes a breath between victims.”

“Is she Mexican?” I asked, remembering she had said that at the fiesta.

“No,” Sophia said, smirking. “Hardly.”

“But you told Ignacio…”

“Figures Jana would fall for his line,” Sophia continued, ignoring me. “He’s like a spider luring you into his web with all his romantic gimmicks. Candlelight, some wine, some soft music, and all his phony promises. Jana is the perfect little fly.”

“You should know,” Alisha said.

“Ha ha. Thanks.”

“Hey, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it, I say,” Delores quipped, and they laughed.

Although Sophia had intended to make Bradley seem deceitful and disgusting, her girlfriends talked and looked at the house with fascination. The way they were acting, I thought each really wished she were the one who had been invited into what Sophia described as Bradley’s web.

The second Ignacio and his friends stepped out of their car, Sophia leaned out of the window.

“Go around the back. That door is unlocked,” she told them in a loud whisper. They started for it.

“This is not good,” I said.

Sophia spun around to face me. “What are you talking about, not good? You were raped, stupid, or is it stupido?”

She laughed, and the others joined her.

“My cousin Delia is very religious. She believes in forgiveness,” Sophia said. “She knows nothing about birth control, either. I’m trying to teach her.”

“Did Bradley use anything with her?” Delores asked.