With the radio tuned to the local station and his hand poised over the keys in the ignition, he began his mantra: You are one with the car. You and the car are one. For whatever reason, and embarrassing as it was, it worked; he hadn’t had an accident since he’d adopted it. The news came on. A wildfire on the Rim. Traffic jam on I-17. Updates about the Jess Winters case. He stopped his mantra and turned up the volume. The forensics team would arrive today and begin its investigation. Detective Gil Alvarez cautioned against speculation. He urged patience and privacy for the family.
Roberto looked over at the shop’s open bays. Angie stood in the first bay, her white hair sticking out from under her ball cap. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to her yesterday after the news broke. He’d been so distracted and tired this morning he’d forgotten to say hello. He got out of the jeep and shut the door. Angie looked up. They met each other’s eyes. After almost twenty years, he knew when she’d been crying.
Beto had first met Jess at Allen’s Thrift, where he liked to go on the weekends even though he had no money. He liked to wander the aisles and try on clothes, and the older women who worked there would give him butterscotches from the dish at the register. Jess was there with Angie Juarez, sorting through racks in the men’s section. He remembered it was cold because he was wearing Tomás’s wool church suit. Since his growth spurt, his own jackets and pants had gotten too short, but the suit was still a little big. The sleeves hung past his wrists, his fingers poking out from the wool, and he’d safety-pinned the waistband of the pants. The jacket still smelled of Tomás, hints of peppermint and chicory coffee and sweat.
He’d seen Jess in Humanities and in the halls, of course. The Phoenix Girl, people called her. He knew Angie, too; they’d gone to school together since they were babies, though they’d rarely spoken. Well, she hardly spoke at all then. Jess and Angie held up clothes to each other as he watched.
Jess caught him staring, but instead of making a face or looking away, as girls at school did, she waved at him.
“Hey, Slim,” she said. “What do you think of this shirt?” She held up a black stretchy thing with a narrow neck. She shone like a new penny. He wanted to hold her in his pocket.
“It’s nice,” he said. “Looks like something on Star Trek.” He heard Tomás’s voice in his ear: No, no, no Star Trek talk, hombrecito. No space shit. Be cool. He blushed.
“Cool belt,” Jess said, pointing at the one he held. “You going to get it?”
“Maybe,” he said. He gripped the leather, heat in his cheeks. It was only a dollar, but he had fifteen cents in his pocket. He made next to nothing on his paper route, and money was tight at home, with Papi’s bum back and Abuela in the nursing home and Mami asleep half the day since Tomás’s funeral, the folded flag on her dresser. Luz was working two jobs, waiting tables and cashiering at the HealthCo. “I’m nineteen and look at me,” she’d said the other day, pointing at her stained shirt and holding up her chapped hands. “I think you look great,” he said, and Luz had hugged him. “I know you do, Beto.”
Now Jess said to Angie, “Hey, we should jam if we’re going to make the movie.” She looked between Angie and Beto and cocked her head. “You want to come with us? Lunch at the Patty Melt and then to the Palace to watch the same movie for the fiftieth time in a row. Heaven forbid we should get a new release. Still, what else are we going to do around here? Watch paint dry?”
Beto clutched his belt. He didn’t think of sitting next to Jess, her long curly hair tickling him as they bumped elbows on the shared arm, or that the movie was a sci-fi one he loved. Instead he pictured a cheeseburger with bacon, ketchup dripping onto his fingers. A chocolate milkshake, sucking it through a straw until he got brain freeze. Plump hot dogs rotating on silver wires, popcorn smothered in butter, and fat red licorice ropes and candy boxes displayed like fine jewels. His stomach growled so hard he caught his breath.
“I don’t have any money,” he said, before he could think of another excuse.
Jess’s brow wrinkled, and she said, “Oh.” Then she smiled and said, “Well, hell, I can spot you. Come on.” She took the belt out of his hands, dropped it in her bag, grinned, and sauntered out the front door.
Beto and Angie stood together, watching her go. He looked at Angie, and she looked at him. They both started laughing. He’d never heard Angie Juarez laugh that way. A great big laugh that reverberated like a canyon echo. Her eyes lit up like someone had flipped a switch, the silver streak in her hair almost glowing.
Soon after, something happened between Angie and Jess. To this day, Roberto didn’t know exactly what had caused the fallout, though he could guess. (Love. Wasn’t it always love?) It was right around the time the lake disappeared, he remembered, because he’d ridden his bike to look at it and found Angie’s Impala parked there. After the bike ride, he was hot in Tomás’s coat, but he kept it on. It was starting to smell a little, like a wet towel left in the washer. He saw Angie sitting on the dock by herself, swinging her legs.
He rode over to her, his tires bumping over the rocks and tufts of bear grass. Two days after the lake story ran in the paper, the mud was dried up and cracked, scaly even. It looked like pictures Ms. Genoways had shown in class of the drought in Ethiopia during the famine. He thought of those pictures, those babies with their big heads and swollen bellies, when he was feeling hungry. At least he had food. What did he have to complain about?
Angie waved at him but didn’t say anything. She folded her legs under her on the dock.
He parked his bike and set the kickstand. He pointed at the empty lake. “Crazy, huh?”
She nodded.
“Where’s Jess?”
She shrugged.
Beto sat on the dock next to her. He wished he knew what to say. Tomás would know. Whenever Beto would blab on about nebulas or supernovas or tell him about another girl turning him down for a date or ignoring his smiles, Tomás would crack his gum and shake his head. “Stop trying so hard,” he’d say. “Girls can smell desperation. Just let it happen. Be yourself.”
Finally, Beto said, “Are you okay?”
She nodded but then said, “My car won’t start.” She brushed at her bangs. “Battery, I think. Not sure. Might be the alternator.”
Before Tomás signed up at the army recruitment office, he was often out in the carport tinkering on his truck. When Beto wasn’t reeling off news about the Hubble, he was watching, taking in the names and shapes of engine parts. He’d hand Tomás tools or hold a flashlight, liking the clang of metal on metal, the pungent oil and gas fumes.
“Want me to look?” he asked Angie.
“You can,” she said.
He walked with her and his bike to the Impala. She popped the hood and tried to crank the engine.
He leaned over the engine, listening. He tugged at the spark plug wires and wiggled the distributor cap. “I think your cap’s loose. Do you have a Phillips head?”
She opened the trunk and pulled out her toolbox. She handed him the screwdriver and leaned next to him as he tightened down the cap.
“There,” he said. “Try again.”
She did, and the engine turned over. She smiled, her face as bright as it was that day in the thrift store. He tossed the screwdriver in the air and caught it with a grin. Angie laughed, but then her face crumpled. She started to cry.