Chameleon Read Free Page A

auntie’s house, Shawn? It’s right on the way,” Trent said. “You’ve gotta have something there you can wear.”
    Because. Because. My life has doors. Doors hide things. And that was a door I didn’t want to open.
    I tapped the Walk button. This light is always slow.
    “Ay, Shawn, is that Marisol?”
    Across the street a young Mexican girl about our age headed into the Tamale Hut. Lorenzo nodded her way.
    “Where?” I said, darting my eyes around the intersection. Marisol. My savior.
    She was at ten o’clock. The Tamale Hut. Clear jellies on her feet. Sunshine-yellow pedal pushers on her legs, a flower on the lower right pant leg. White blouse. Long black hair caressing her butt, with a butterfly clasp pulling the hair out of her face.
    Yup. Marisol.
    Her slow, easy stride carried her inside, where she was joined by two of her friends, Passion and Ivy.
Mare-ee-solll.
Just the syllables coming out of my mouth made my heart skip a beat. We went to school together, and I had it bad for her. I wanted to learn Spanish because of her. It might have been the hair or . . .
    Lorenzo elbowed Trent in the ribs and nodded again toward the Tamale Hut.
    “I feel like gettin’ a tamale,” he said.
    “Awww, man. Let’s just go to the park. I ain’t trying to deal with Passion and Ivy,” Andre said.
    Lorenzo grabbed me around the neck.
    “Come on, Trent. I
know
Shawn is hungry for some spicy Mexican food. Huh, Shawn?” he said.
    Andre snatched the ball from Trent. “I thought we was gonna play some ball?”
    Trent tapped at the Walk button with excitement, then did a little dance on and off the curb.
    “Come on, you guys.”
    Lorenzo tugged on my left arm.
    “Yeah, Shawn. What you got to be afraid of?” he said.
    Plenty. But anything that’ll keep me from my auntie’s house is fine by me. Even if it did mean I might make a fool of myself.
    Marisol Rodriguez. Yes, she was fine. But better than that, she was cool. She was even finer because she was cool. Most girls that are fine know they are fine and act all conceited and stuck-up. But the ones that are fine and don’t quite know they are fine are usually cool. Real cool. This was Marisol. We been going to school together since Head Start, and for as long as I can remember, she’s had that long, jet-black hair of hers. Sometimes she wore it in a ponytail. Sometimes she twisted it up. Most of the time she just let it cascade down her back like a waterfall.
    Our neighborhood is a pretty good mix of blacks and Mexicans. Almost equal. Everybody’d gotten to know each other over the years in school, and me and Marisol became friends. Not close friends, but friends. The first time I heard her speak Spanish to a friend of hers, I asked if she could teach me something. I didn’t think she would teach me “I love you” right off the bat, so I started with the basics: cuss words. From there we moved on to the alphabet, then numbers, then the real touristy stuff. Things like:
    Hello.
    Hola.
    How are you?
    ¿Cómo estás?
    I’m fine.
    Estoy bien.
    Where is the bathroom?
    ¿Dónde está el baño?
    What time is it?
    ¿Qué hora es?
(Which really means “What hour is it?”)
    My name is . . .
    Me llamo . . .
    Yes.
    Sí.
    No. Which is still “no,” just with a hard accent.
    I had her repeat that one because it formed her lips into a kiss. I think she was on to me, though, ’cause she only said it a couple of times. I mean, how hard is it to say “no”?
    What I really wanna say is:
You are so beautiful, I want to brush your long flowing hair and taste your hot-sauce lips.
    But not yet. Right now I can barely say
“hola.”
    The light changed and we booked it across the street. Lorenzo made a beeline for the Hut. I brought up the rear except for Andre, who was bouncing the ball. Trent got behind me and pushed me inside.
    “Come on, Shawn. You look hungry. Ain’t you hungry?” Trent asked.
    Not for food.
    Marisol, Passion, and Ivy noticed Lorenzo right away when he