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Maybe I am pretty, I thought, then turned and hurried out to go down the stairs.
Mickey was waiting for me. “You’re going to the beach?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Mom says I can’t go because you’re going on a date.”
“She’s right. No one’s bringing younger brothers or sisters. There wouldn’t be anyone for you.”
“You don’t go on dates,” he said.
“So? There’s always a first time, Mickey.”
“My friends always asked me about you, why you don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Well, now you can tell them I do,” I said.
His eyes widened. “Took you long enough,” he said, and I laughed. “Have a good time,” he muttered, and returned to his room.
My bright little brother, I thought. At least he never feared being corrected by me. I knew he bragged about me more often than not. Now he would have something more to say. I suspected that my having a date pleased him almost as much as it pleased me, if not more.
I hurried down the stairs. Something told me Greg would be right on time. He’d think that was very important to me. I was right.
My parents were there to greet him, too. I could see they were pleased with his demeanor. He was mature and polite. My father spoke to him in Spanish, deliberately, I thought, to emphasize that Greg was taking on the responsibility of keeping me safe. My mother understood Spanish but didn’t use it often.
After I got into the truck and we started away, Greg smiled with relief. Then he quickly said, “Tu madre es muy hermosa.”
“You can say it in English.”
He laughed. “Your father put me on the Spanish track.”
“But you’re right, my mom is very beautiful,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound unappreciative, but to me, it was an obvious fact. My mother was clearly photogenic. She had never had a bad photograph taken of her.
“So I can see why you’re so pretty, too,” he said.
I avoided reacting. Maybe what I was really doing was being modest, but the truth was that I was afraid of what being pretty meant. Would his friends think so, too? How should I react to that, especially in front of the other girls? What if I sounded arrogant to them? In my mind, I saw myself traversing through minefields. I would surely say the wrong thing, at least to them, and appearing stupid was just not in my DNA.
“Your parents ever take you to La Jolla Beach?”
“No. We went to beaches elsewhere when I was younger, much younger, but not for years now.”
“When you go to college, the other girls won’t believe you’re from California. They think we live on the beach.”
“Somehow what the other girls will think of me doesn’t seem very important. I’m not sure about college yet. Our guidance counselor, Mrs. Pelham, thinks I could take the master’s exam in almost any subject now and get my degree.”
He nodded. “I bet you could. Any idea of what you want to do?”
“None,” I said. “Everything,” I added.
He smiled. “For today, just have a good time.”
I sat back. Why did that sound like the most difficult thing of all to do?
Greg’s friends were already at the part of the beach we were going to, as he said, stake out for ourselves. They had blankets spread and music going.
Mateo Flores, already down to his bathing suit, began to do salsa steps when he caught sight of me stepping out of Greg’s truck. Renata Solis leaned over to turn up the music. She was wearing quite an abbreviated bikini. Her family had moved here from Honduras a little more than two years ago.
“Hola!” Mateo shouted. “Come dance, Señorita Genius.”
