Читать книгу River of Love - Aimée Medina Carr - Страница 12

Chavela, a.k.a. Cha Cha is a wild girl with colossal cojones. Full of fire and sass, “a live wire” who carries Tortilla Flats, the projects and the rez in her veins, and poetry in her heart. Her mind snaps like a whip with clever cuentos that spark wisdom and wit. Her brilliance burns too bright for the simpletons in this town. I’m frightened by her fearlessness. She never gives a flying fart–pedo what others think of her, I envy that.

We grow up inseparable, in this small, all-white conservative town. Flash forward to the summer before our freshman year of high school, Cha Cha’s already fifteen precisely six months older and will forever celebrate the big birthdays first.

She’s at my house on a hot and sticky August afternoon. We watch four, good-looking Chicano boys, play catch football in the next-door neighbor’s backyard. Later we find out they’re from San Francisco, California, on a family visit with their Uncle George.

“Who do you think they are?” I ponder while peering through the lace curtains. We joked that we couldn’t date Chicano boys because they were either relatives or scuzzy lowlifes our parents wouldn’t approve of.

“What the hell–let’s go introduce ourselves.” Cha Cha blurts, jaw set with dauntless nerve as she dashes out the door. A seminal moment that changes her life forever. The oldest one Sam latches like a leech onto her from that instant. Sexually active for over a year and not using birth control she naïvely believes she can’t get pregnant. In the backseat of a green metallic, 1969, Ford Thunderbird at the Skyview Drive-In while Clint Eastwood shoots up San Francisco—a son’s conceived, and her childhood ends.

¡Que pinche lástima!

She moves to San Francisco with Sam. On a bright shimmery spring day, Cha Cha comes to say goodbye. Mom cries, and Rae takes a pitiful Polaroid of the three of us standing outside in front of the brick house. Cha Cha wears a flowery hippie shift that hides her protruding belly.

Summer begins, and Now I have no one, nada. I devise a routine to compete in the cheerleading try-outs for Red Cañon High School. I pick Steely Dan’s song Reeling in the Years for the audition. I start the first week in June working on my routine with try-outs in August. I practiced diligently every day until I could do the routine in my sleep, so no matter the outcome, it wouldn’t be from lack of effort.

I am stunned when I don’t make the squad but proud of myself. I receive a telephone call from Ms. Frey, the cheerleading sponsor. “Rose, I want to offer you a position on the cheerleading squad. The totals were so close after the judges left, I re-tallied them and found an error in your favor. Congratulations, I hope you’ll accept my offer, and I sincerely apologize for the mix-up.” She said in her measured, stiff tone.

Score one for the boss-ass brown girls–Boo-yah!