Best Amigas by Patricia Santos Marcantonio

Author:Patricia Santos Marcantonio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2023-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

the firemen

I still practiced cheering every day, sometimes using the family room downstairs. My yells echoed through the house. Ramón passed and yelled, “Rah, Rah sis boom bad.” Since we couldn’t sit out the curb on school nights, Diane and I went over each other’s house, to the movies, or to Ace Comics on the weekend. Tony hung out with us when he wasn’t with his friends. I even showed him the comic books that I’d drawn in my notebooks. He looked them over carefully and then announced I had a real future as a comic book writer.

It was the first time I wanted to kiss a boy.

I was going to tell Diane about this at our sleepover. Because of school, we hadn’t had one in a while. That night Mr. Alfred worked the overnight shift so it was just Diane, her mom, and me. We had a great time. Mrs. Conrad made us burgers and chunky fries, which were way better than anything at the Star Bar. Later, we all played Monopoly and watched movies. Diane’s mom made popcorn coated with enough butter to slide down my throat. As we played games, her mother smoked and drank beer out of an iced canning jar. She laughed a lot, but her eyes shifted back and forth like a criminal looking for a chance to escape.

I knew she’d never go anywhere. Mrs. Conrad was crazy for Diane. Even though they yelled at each other a lot, Mrs. Conrad bought Diane every toy imaginable. Her mom always wanted to know where Diane was every minute, as if she was afraid someone would steal her away. When they weren’t yelling, they sounded more like friends than a mom and daughter. Diane did complain she was smothered by all her mom’s attention, but I wondered why she couldn’t notice the love behind it. Only a person living outside your family could see that, I guessed.

About eleven o’clock, Mrs. Conrad kissed us good night. Diane and I stayed up and played Xbox until our thumbs ached.

“I love this game,” Diane said, after racking up thousands of points for taking down invading aliens.

“You did way better than me. The aliens polished off my fighters,” I said and then yawned.

We washed up and went into Diane’s room where we talked. I told her about how Tony liked my comic book.

“Of course, he did. They’re good, Juana.”

“Diane, I really wanted to kiss him after he said that.”

She didn’t say much.

“Diane?”

After a while she said, “That would be nice.”

I can’t be sure, but I think I fell asleep with a smile.

***

I dreamed smoke.

The smoke was a soft, glowing baby blanket holding me down on the bed. Then my dream started to smell like one of Mrs. Conrad’s ashtrays, rotten and bitter. My throat ached as if I’d just bitten into a Brillo pad. My eyes watered. I couldn’t wake up. My eyes finally opened to a giant in black and yellow with a plastic face. He picked me up and carried me to the curb where the lights from a fire truck blinked.

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