“No wonder Luis liked you so much,” Luisa said.
“Oh, and the feeling was mutual, my dear. I just adored him. He was like a son to me, except he was young enough to be my grandson. But he was more than just family to me. He was . . . I’m not sure of quite the right word. He was a hero in my life. Yes. That’s not too strong. He was my hero. Here the world is full of all these men trying to model what it means to be a man, but they don’t truly know. They think it means be tough, feel nothing, betray nothing. And then Luis comes along and decides that his definition of a man is someone who is not afraid to be kind. That takes courage. Don’t you think?”
“It does take courage,” Luis Senior said. A bit wistfully, Raymond thought. As if he had a way to go to reach that mountaintop.
“So what did Abuela say?” Raymond asked, hoping to lead the conversation in a less grave direction.
“Well, if I’m not mistaken,” Mrs. G said, “she was telling us that when she was a little girl, a neighborhood would hold a block party for someone who was down. If the world would not care for a person, the neighborhood would turn out and care. I told her I remember that as well. When I first moved to the neighborhood we live in now, Raymond, we would do that. I remember a man was fired from his job. His wife had just had a baby, their first baby, and they were about to be evicted for nonpayment of rent. So the neighbors threw a block party and took up a collection for them, and it was enough to tide them over until he was working again. But I shouldn’t make assumptions, because my Spanish is far from perfect, and maybe that’s not what Abuela meant at all.”
“No, that’s right,” Abuela said in heavily accented English. “That’s what I meant.”
“You speak English,” Raymond said without thinking. Then he felt embarrassed for assuming otherwise.
“Yes,” Abuela said. “I do. But in my own home I like to speak in my own tongue, the one that’s familiar to me.”
“Sure,” Raymond said. “I can understand that.”
And he could. It was important to feel at home while at home.
“I don’t believe this!” Sofia shouted from the kitchen. “Who left the ice cream out on the counter?” She stuck her head into the dining room. “Who did this?”
Raymond already knew that Luis Junior had done it. Because the boy was growing smaller before his eyes, his head shrinking down toward his collar like a turtle retreating into its shell.
Sofia noticed it, too, and fixed him with a withering gaze.
“Sorry, Mom,” the boy said, barely audibly.
“What were you doing even taking it out of the freezer?”
“I just had one spoon of it.”
“Well, that’s bad enough!” she shouted. “But then you just leave it out on the counter? How can you be so careless? How can you not notice that you didn’t put it away again?”
“I forgot,” Luis Junior said, his face flaming red.
“Go to your room,” his father said.
The boy slunk away from the table.
“Can any be salvaged?” Luis Senior asked his wife.
“No, it’s completely ruined.”
“So we have cake but no ice cream,” Luis said. “We’ll manage.”
“But it’s a special day with special company, and I wanted to serve the chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream!”
“I could run down to the store and get some,” Luisa said.
A pause.
Then Sofia asked, “All by yourself, m’ija?”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon, Mom. But Raymond could walk with me. If that makes you feel better.”
“Me?” Raymond asked. Then he immediately regretted it. He leaned to his right and spoke quietly to Mrs. G. “Are you okay here without me if I go?”
“Of course,” she said. “I will be fine talking to this lovely family.”
“Okay,” Raymond said to Luisa. “Fine. Let’s go.”
On the way to the store they had barely spoken. Just walked. But on the way back with the ice cream, Raymond could feel her staring at him. He could see it in his peripheral vision. It made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t bring himself to look over.
“So,” she began. Tentatively. “I just have to ask. Did you put it back on because you knew you’d be seeing me? Or did you have it on this whole time?”
“The medal? I had it on the whole time.”
“Good. You know, I worried about you after you left last time. If I’d had your number, I’d have called.”
“No, I didn’t know that. But you shouldn’t have worried about me. You should’ve worried about Mrs. G. I wasn’t in trouble. I was just afraid for her.”
“But I didn’t know her. And I knew you.”
Raymond didn’t answer, because it sounded too much like something a jury might say if they could be as honest and unguarded as a teen.
“So, is she going to be okay?” she asked.
“I have no idea. She’s sure not okay right now.”
“You’re so sweet to take such good care of her.”
“She’s my friend.”
She stopped him suddenly. And literally. Grabbed a handful of his sleeve and just stopped him in his tracks on the sidewalk. He almost dropped the ice cream. They stood facing each other for an awkward second or two. He could tell she was staring up into his face, but he kept his eyes trained down to the pavement.
“What?” he asked, feeling defensive.
She reached up on tiptoes and kissed him briefly on the lips. Then she dropped back down to her heels again, still staring at his face.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “You didn’t want me to do that. I’m sorry. I thought you were just shy but you liked me.”
“I do like you,” he said.
“But not like that.”
“No.”
Silence. She let go of his sleeve, and Raymond walked again. Quickly. She ran to catch up.
“You like somebody else? Is that it?”
“No,” Raymond said, wishing they could talk about something else.
“You like girls more your own age?”
“No.”
“You don’t like anybody like that?”
“No.”
“But you did, right? You have. I mean, you’re . . . what? Sixteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“Oh. Okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”