Reckless Hearts Read Free Page A

imagination to explore her reality and transform it into extravagant cartoons. She liked the sunshine. She liked jangly music played live on the guitar, especially when she was near the ocean and there was maybe a campfire nearby. Her sister just sort of let her life happen to her.
    More than anything else, it made her depressed. She hated the thought of being condemned to this house, wasting her life away in front of the TV, shutting down her brain and passively letting the world close in on her.
    Of course, she couldn’t tell her sister all this. Instead she said, “I don’t care what we watch. Whatever you want. It’s not like a different show will bring Jake back. Here—” She lobbed the controls back to her sister.
    For the next three hours, they sat there, not moving, barely speaking, just staring at the obsessive freaks on the screen as they bid on box after box. Elena felt like a huge metal plate was being pressed down over her head, crushing her, pushing her into the floor. She felt both bored and trapped. She wondered how Nina could live like this all the time.
    Then she wondered what was wrong with her that she was so ready to judge her sister—her pregnant sister! Life was just such a disappointment sometimes. Jake would understand how she felt. Jake would know how to make her feel better. But then, if Jake were around she probably wouldn’t be feeling this way. She wouldn’t even be here! She’d be outside somewhere with him, imagining, like they sometimes did, all the ways that, when Nina’s baby was born, the two of them would make sure it had good taste, teaching it about art and music and culture.
    Eventually, the familiar sound of her father jangling the spring-loaded clip on which he kept his keys broke the monotony. Elena could hear him futzing with the door before realizing it was already unlocked, and then there he was standing in the room with them, a look of exhaustion and smoldering frustration weighing down his face. His white guayabera shirt was stained with sweat at the armpits and his pleated linen pants had inched under his gut.
    He flipped his keys back and forth around his finger,slapping them repeatedly in the palm of his hand, taking in the situation at the house.
    â€œ Hola ,” he said. “Good to see you’re all doing something constructive with your day.”
    With three great strides, he moved to the window and dramatically pulled the curtains open, filling the room with streaming evening sunlight. Elena and Nina shot quick wincing glances at each other, blinking in the suddenly bright light and bracing themselves for what was about to come. He was in a mood. Everybody was in a mood today.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you?” Nina said bullishly.
    He brushed his hand from the top of his bald head down over his bushy salt-and-pepper mustache, reigning in his thoughts. “What’s wrong with me is, one, I’ve been zipping back and forth from one Super Suds to the other, dealing with all kinds of mierda —Selina locked her keys in her car on the south side and I had to open up for her, then the basement flooded on the west side . . . uno, dos, tres, quatro . Every single one of my Laundromats had something go wrong today. And then while I’m dealing with all this, what do I get? I get a call from a Mr. Ricardo Colon. You know that name? You should. That’s Matty’s parole officer—”
    At the mention of her boyfriend’s name, Nina shot up into a sitting position, ready to fight. “No, no, no, no,” she said, waving her finger at her father. “I’m not his keeper.”
    â€œYou see? Why don’t you tell me why this Colon guy called me, hey?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Nina, defensively.
    â€œSure you do. Matty missed his appointment. Matty hasn’t been to work. Matty this, Matty that. Matty’s blowing it again.” His voice rose a tick with each