Arizona Allspice Read Free Page B

schizophrenic and neither one of us would be leaving Cadence, Arizona to go to college. We needed to stick together and take care of our father.
     
    Our school allowed us to graduate, thanks to Raul who volunteered to bring me my work as well as Manny’s. He even watched our dad for a few hours while we took final exams. Like I said, Raul had been very helpful. I didn’t understand Manny’s problem with him. He never really accepted or understood my relationship with Raul. Neither did his over-opinionated friend Joey Kinsley.
     
    Manny and I had known Joey since high school, but neither of us were friends with him, until five or six months ago when the two started working together at the PiCo Automotive Factory. I wasn’t friends with Joey, but I knew him. Everyone knew Joey. With his soccer skills, his lady-killer reputation, and his infamous bouts of rage with the fiery red hair and steel blue eyes to match, how could he go unnoticed? It was obvious why Joey didn’t like Raul.  Everyone in town knew Raul, too, so he was Joey’s competition for the limelight.
     
    I could smell Joey’s desperation from a mile away. The way he pined for me to adore him like every other girl in town did. It disgusted me that he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that I didn’t want to be in his entourage. I couldn’t even understand why Manny was friends with Joey. All they did was bicker with each other anyway.
     

 
    THREE
     
     
     
    “You still like that girl?”
     
    “Joey, you know how I am about Denise,” I answered. “It’s been four years and I haven’t given up on her. I just need to get her to open up her mind and forget about what her Dad thinks.” I pulled off my gloves. “I know she’s just scared.”
     
    Joey pulled off his gloves and safety goggles and we started walking to the locker room. We both shoved our gloves and goggles into the back pockets of our dirty blue jumpsuits. At the sinks, we lathered and scrubbed at our fingers in unison and then splashed water onto our faces, rinsing the sweat and smudges away. “I think you should move on,” Joey said while toweling his hands and face.
     
    “Are you kidding?” I explained how it was impossible to just ‘move on’ without getting some kind of closure on the history Denise and I shared. We walked to our side-by-side lockers, stripped off our work jumpsuits and began changing into clean clothes. “You understand what I mean?” I finished my speech as I slipped my arms into my shirt. “Don’t you?” I asked when Joey didn’t answer. I looked up to see that Joey hadn’t been listening to me. Apparently he was more interested in his own handsome face.
     
    ******
     
    I glanced into the mirror that hung in my locker. I smoothed a hand over my hair, the tips of my fingers running over the florid, medium length curls. I looked into my own blue eyes and then down at my nose. I had faint freckles there. I looked at his shoulders in the mirror where my tendency to freckle was quite visible. The freckles across my nose and cheeks didn’t bother me as much. And my lips…I didn’t feel like they fit the masculine features of my face, my strong chin and nose. Maybe if my lips weren’t so pink and didn’t have so much of a Cupid’s Bow then maybe she’d… I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth…
     
    ******
     
     “Hey! Cabrón ! Stop admiring yourself already so I can have a two-sided conversation here.”
     
    “Sorry.” Joey snapped out of the spell and pulled a white t-shirt over his head. “Yeah, I think you should move on. It’s been a while and Denise’s dad isn’t going to suddenly not be a racist drunk.”
     
    “But, sometimes Denise says things that make me certain she wants me to be there for her.”
     
    “She just says stuff, you know, because she knows you like her. Denise is going through some mess with her dad right now so she might say things to you just because she feels lonely at the time.”
     
    I