The Flowers by Dagoberto Gilb

much and that was her fault too. I hadn’t swept the slate deck up there for a while, but how could I as long as there was this pinche weeding to do? I wasn’t ever going to finish this, I just knew it. I didn’t try and wasn’t going to either. I ain’t no slave, that was what I’d tell myself to say. I wasn’t explaining to either the Cloyd or my mom about it.
    So I was going to my room right after school, and then I ran out to the bowling alley to eat a burger Mrs. Zúniga made for me. It was all better going there, and they liked me so much they stopped making me pay for my games. That kind of made me hold back. I didn’t want to take advantage. But I did stay longer. I always got free coke refills. So I bowled frames, and if I stayed out late enough, he was usually asleep on his chair or even already in the bedroom and maybe my mom would be on the couch watching TV. She never watched TV before. It was crazy to see my mom in front of it. She’d even be asleep there, the phone stretched out, and I’d go quiet as I could to that bedroom. Neither of them were asking me anything when they saw me, but I figured out to say how I went to school or to some friend’s, like over to the twins for instance, even though I didn’t know where they lived.
    It was hard to see in the night—no lights nowhere—and if it were a hole to step in that went to the bottom of the earth, you wouldn’t know it was in front of you until you fell into it. But it was also a little harder to be seen. I was going to see if Nica had her TV on.

    â€œWhat’re you sneaking around to do?” I heard Cindy’s voice behind me say.
    I jumped, caught and guilty. I hadn’t seen her or thought one thing about her for a while.
    â€œYou trying to steal more magazines from somebody?”
    That doubled my surprise. I had no idea where that was coming from. She got up real close to me, where I could almost taste her breath and touch the hot coming off her bare neck and shoulders.
    â€œI heard about it,” she whispered. “Gina told me.”
    She was wearing a bikini top and some torn cut-off jeans, but once she said that, I didn’t look.
    â€œWhat’re you talking about?” I asked.
    â€œYou know!”
    We were near the window of Mr. Josep’s apartment, and he pulled his curtain back to see us. Cindy grabbed my hand and led me, like I might get lost. It was like she wasn’t even thinking I was up there for any other reason but to talk to her.
    â€œYou know,” she said again once we were inside her apartment.
    It was a lot warmer in here. Too warm. I think she had the heater on. Except she also had the apartment door and the windows on either side of it open.
    â€œI don’t either. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œOh, you don’t know, do you?” she said, teasing. She put her hands to her chichis, pushed them together, and made a sexy face. “What can you think of now?”
    That made it less clear to me. I did see how she was pretty good there. I let myself look at them when she did that.
    Cindy was shaking her head at me. “You have to meet my sister,” she said. “Do you know she posed for
Playboy
magazine? People talk about my sister’s incredible body. She just isn’t very pretty. They say I have the pretty face.”

    â€œ
She
has the body?” I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I was more thinking that Cindy was here in the living room, her hot living room, and she was in a bikini top.
    â€œI know I don’t look bad,” she said, “but I’m supposed to be the pretty one. Wait till you see my sister, and then you’ll know what I’m talking about.” She went over to the kitchen counter. “I’m glad you finally noticed me, though. I’m not so bad, am I?” She was refilling a glass she’d been drinking from. “Hey, you