Delia's Crossing (Delia 1)

“Sí,” I said. “Yes. You make me speak English, and me make you speak Spanish.”

“Right, right. Perfect. Perfecto.”

Soon after we drove onto a busy highway, he pulled into a shopping center and told me to wait in the car while he went into the big drugstore. Minutes later, he returned with a bottle of disinfectant and some Band-Aids. He had tissues in his car. He poured the disinfectant on the tissues and started on the scrapes on my knees. Through gesture and facial expressions, he warned me it would hurt, sting, but he made such an exaggerated grimace I laughed, even though it did hurt. He carefully put on the bandages, too, and then he cleaned off my palms and put bandages on those scrapes as well.

“Okay?”

“Gracias,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“De nada.”

“Right, de nada. See? We are good teachers. Bueno teachers.”

“Profesores,” I told him.

“Great. I’m a professor already.”

He laughed and drove on. He tried to get me to relax and feel better, but all I could think of was what would happen now, what terrible new fate awaited at my aunt’s home. He surprised me again by pulling into a restaurant parking lot and telling me to wait in the car. I started to explain that I wasn’t hungry, but he waved me off and went into the restaurant. A good five minutes later, he came out with a young girl at his side. She was in a waitress uniform.

“This is Elena Jimenez,” he told me. “You talk with her. Habla with Elena, okay?”

The girl got into the car on his side, and he got into the rear. She had short black hair and was very pretty. She must be his girlfriend, I thought.

“Hola,” she said.

“Hola.”

She explained that she was a good friend of Edward’s from school, and he had asked her to speak with me and learn exactly what had just happened to me. She said Edward had gone to look for me when he found out where I was.

“When he got to the house, he found you were gone. When he saw Señor Baker, he was very, very worried about you and went looking for you. He knows something terrible happened.” She looked back at him. “He won’t tell me why he thinks that, but he thinks it. What happened?”

I looked back at him, too, and he nodded, pointing to Elena.

“Tell her.”

“He doesn’t understand Spanish that well,” she continued. “So you don’t have to worry if there is something you would rather a boy not hear.”

I didn’t say anything.

She leaned over and looked at my hands and my knees all bandaged.

“Damn, girl,” she said. “You’ve been through a little hell, I see.”

I nodded.

“Did Mr. Baker do this to you?”

“No. I fell, running.”

“Why were you running? Tell me what happened,” she said. I was still hesitant. It was embarrassing to tell it.

“Edward’s a great guy. I like him as a friend. I’m not his girlfriend,” she continued. “I know a lot of girls who would like to be his girlfriend, but he doesn’t have one. He likes you or cares about you. That’s pretty obvious, although he hasn’t told me why yet,” she said, and looked back at him again. She said something to him quickly, and he laughed.

“He has to know exactly what happened to you, otherwise he won’t be able to help you, Delia. So,” she said, “as I understand it, you went off to study speaking English with Mr. Baker. You were in some house with him? Just with him?”

I nodded.