Ana of California Read online

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Minerva said over the music. “Thought I’d wait to make my presence known until after you finish doing whatever it is that you’re doing.”

  “Did you let yourself in?” Abbie said, switching off the stereo.

  “Of course I did—rang several times, but there’s no way you’re going to hear me over that noise, my dear. I could hear it plain as day from the front porch. But I apologize for interrupting this moment. Lord knows we’ve all turned to Heart at some point or another during our middle-age crises. More of a Linda Ronstadt fan myself.”

  “What do you need, Minerva?” Abbie said. She wiped flour across her brow. “I’m right in the middle of a last-minute order.”

  “Working overtime for that strapping new chef in town? Don’t blame you. Word’s out, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there’s no hiding it. You’re over there every week and, I mean, look at the guy. Best to do what you can until the can is gone.”

  “He’s a client,” Abbie said, grabbing her loaf pans and making a point to set them down hard on the counter.

  “He’s calling the place The Bracken; the sign went up today. It’s sure to raise many an eyebrow in these parts, let me tell you . . .”

  “Are you here for cider or preserves?”

  “Both. And there’s another matter . . .” Minerva looked down. “That girl you have living with you. The Mexican girl.”

  “Yes. Ana.”

  “I think I might have misunderstood when she was over at the mansion that one time. Apparently, there is such a thing as Mexican Coke.”

  “There is indeed. I can’t speak for her myself, but she was very sorry for the way she spoke to you.”

  “Well, I share the same sentiment and am here to make it known. You do realize I’ve hardly seen you since then? I fear the little misunderstanding has somehow soured our friendship, Abigail.”

  Abbie sighed. She didn’t have time for this, but she thought it amusing that Minerva considered them friends, especially because Minerva spent her side of the relationship meddling and passing judgment. But Abbie knew, even after all of their squabbles, their years-long acquaintance was more than that. Minerva had been kind to both her and Emmett after their father died. And she’d known their mother too. “Besides,” she thought, “who else do I have left?”

  “So this girl, Anna—”

  “Ana,” Abbie said. “Oh my goodness, Ana! What time is it?”

  “Just fixing to turn three o’clock.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Barracuda!”

  • • •

  Ana waited in front of the school, watching the steady stream of students filter around her in the race toward home. She remembered all the bus rides, long walks, or long waits of her past.

  Ana looked for Rye on the way out of the building but realized she still didn’t know where Rye’s locker was. She watched the door periodically and scanned the parking lot, waiting for her to emerge. The time continued to pass—still no Rye and no Abbie, who was supposed to pick her up—so Ana concentrated on the mundane details surrounding her, hoping for tiny miracles shown only to those willing to see them. A hand in a jacket pocket pulling out a lollipop, a snapped broom discarded next to a trash can, a boy nuzzling the neck of a girl in a Jeep with a license plate spelling out DAIRYQN.

  She put her hat back on and leaned against the low wall next to the flagpole, wishing Brady’s mother hadn’t picked him up already. She felt the same stares and kept her head dipped into her notebook, double-checking the homework she’d already finished. It was the first time she truly looked forward to her farm chores and to the ride back to the farm. It was the first time she didn’t worry about looking over her shoulder.

  “Nice hat.”

  “Of course it’s Cole. Of course he’s with his friends. Of course I’m gnawing on a granola bar at this very moment,” Ana thought.

  “Need a ride?” he asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Just hanging out by the flagpole?”

  “Looks like it, doesn’t it?”

  “I like your backpack. Did you draw all that yourself?”

  “Uh, yes, who else would have?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know you that well. Yet.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He continued to stand there, looking at her.

  “My buddy Jim’s got his pickup . . . we can drop you anywhere you need to go,” Cole said as three guys in Lions jackets came into view, the very same ones she’d encountered at lunch. “There’s room in the back. I’ll sit with you.”

  “No offense, but that sounds like a death sentence—literally and metaphorically. Your friends are the worst.”

  “Have you even met them?” he said, taken aback.

  “It’s one thing to jab at the new girl, which is unoriginal at best, but making fun of—”

  “I don’t know what happened, but—”

  “Ask them,” she said, looking over at all three of the guys who were making a point of ignoring that she was even there. “Rye didn’t deserve it. No one ever does.”

  “They said something about Rye?” Cole asked, concerned.

  “You can discuss it during your joyride. I need to get back to my homework, thanks.”

  There was a honk. Manny pulled up to the curb in Emmett’s truck, Vic and Rolo waving in the back.

  “That your dad?” said the guy Ana assumed was Jim. “Or do you pay them by the hour?”

  Ana shut her notebook and slung her bag onto her shoulder. “The worst,” she said to Cole before heading to the truck. She jumped into the front seat as Manny maneuvered around the parking lot traffic and Cole walked away with a shake of the head. His backpack was just as worn and scribbled on as her own, she noticed. He seemed to know everyone he passed, exchanging nods and high fives with a select few. Though he didn’t engage with his friends, he followed them through the parking lot to an oversize pickup truck with obnoxiously tall wheels. The girl in the blue dress emerged from a car parked nearby. She encircled her long arms around his neck. They exchanged a few words before Cole climbed into the passenger seat of the truck.

  “Everything okay?” Manny asked.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Those boys bothering you?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle. Where’s Abbie?” she asked.

  “Ran into some trouble prepping a last-minute delivery, so she sent me. Sorry I’m late. The tractor broke earlier, so Emmett said we’re done for the day. I’m dropping off the guys on the way back to the farm.”

  “I’m not working this afternoon?”

  “You’re off. Not bad for the first day, no? How did it go?”

  “To echo your words, ‘Not bad.’ Not great, either. I didn’t get into the art class I wanted to take.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Em—. It was full.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. I know how much you were looking forward to it, mija.”

  “I have independent study, which means I get to study in the library.” She sighed. “The universe keeps throwing me into libraries, Manny. Not much has changed there.”

  “It’s funny. I remember visiting my brother down in Chula Vista. My nephew always wanted to go to the library instead of the beach, said it was more fun. Always had his face in a book; real curious, loved to learn. Reminds me of you.”

  “I’ve still never been to the beach.”

  “We’ve got one, you know. Ask Abbie to take you. It’s just down the road, borders the end of the forest.”

  The ride back to Garber Farm was a pleasant one, Ana thought. It was a cool, crisp afternoon and what she imagined autumn should feel like. Before Manny dropped them off, Vic and Rolo op
ened the window behind Ana’s seat to ask her about her first day. They, in turn, told her about the tractor problem and Emmett’s subsequent meltdown.

  “Reminds me,” Manny said as they got nearer to the farm, “Emmett wants you to take Dolly for a walk before he gets back.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Up to Keyserville to pick up some parts for the tractor; said he’d be back around dinnertime. I don’t know if Abbie’s still there with Minerva, but I know she’s leaving to make the delivery.”

  “Minerva Shaw is there?” Ana said, wishing she’d never climbed into the truck.

  “She is. I’m late getting home, so I’m going to drop you at the gate if that’s okay.”

  “I always forget you have a family. I don’t mean it like that. . . . I just hope I didn’t make you late.”

  “Never. Uncle Manny’s here to help whenever you need him.”

  • • •

  Ana took her time walking down the field road to the farmhouse. If there was one person she didn’t want to see, it was Minerva Shaw. She stopped to pick the remaining in-season blueberries as a quick snack, hoping no one was watching her from the window. When she got to the barn, she jingled the keys at Emmett’s door, making Dolly bark before she let her out to run in circles in the dirt. She grabbed a leash from inside and peeked into Emmett’s darkened living room. It was spare and cleaner than she imagined, with a small couch and leather chair next to a stone fireplace, a television in the corner. She tiptoed out as if it were occupied.

  “C’mon, Dolls,” Ana said, putting the dog’s leash on and walking her through the garden to the back door of the farmhouse. She bent down to rub Dolly’s head as she looked past the gardening shed to the entrance of the forest in the distance. “Stay,” she said to Dolly. She went inside to unload her backpack, expecting to see Abbie and Minerva Shaw, but neither one of them was there. In their place was a bottle of Mexican Coke sitting on the counter with a note attached that read “With apologies—Minerva F. Shaw.”

  “No way,” Ana said. She picked up the bottle not believing it was real. Though a part of her didn’t want to accept it on principle, she believed the apology was sincere.

  She ran upstairs, pulled the map out of the Frida book, and switched her boots to sneakers before running back down again. She unloaded half of her backpack in the kitchen, keeping her sketchbook and tossing some dog treats into it. The Coke sat there still demanding her attention, so she tossed it into her bag as well and headed outside.

  “Adventure time, El Perro de Peril.”

  Ana had studied the map of Hadley enough to know the woods behind Garber Farm were protected lands shared with Alder Kinman and one other property much farther away over the hills. She also knew, per the map and Manny, that the forest edged out along the ocean. Dolly kept to her side as Ana made her way past the shed and closer to the entrance where there was a visible path, worn yet slightly overgrown. She stepped over some branches, Dolly sniffing behind her, and followed it in.

  Birds chattered in the branches above as Ana crunched her feet down the winding path. The late afternoon light dimmed, and the sound of flowing water in the distance echoed off the tree trunks. Walls of green surrounded her on all sides as if the forest were swallowing her, she thought. She took deep breaths, stopping every now and then to crane her neck up to the towering redwoods, barely able to see their tops, let alone the sky. The forest was dark and alive, slices of white sunlight crisscrossing along the path. “There’s nothing more beautiful than this,” Ana thought, imagining unseen fairies floating in the dust that hung in the patches of light.

  Dolly sniffed everything around them, so Ana stopped to let her explore the base of a tree that was covered in clinging moss. She bent down to take a closer look at what she thought were tiny white flowers sprouting along the visible roots but realized they were mushrooms. She pulled Dolly away as they continued along the trail. “Why Abbie and Emmett don’t spend more time back here is both a mystery and a travesty,” Ana said to Dolly. They came to a fallen tree in the pathway. Dolly scrambled right up, but Ana took a few tries before digging her sneakers in and hoisting herself up and over. On the other side, they found themselves at the edge of a gurgling creek. “A good place to stop,” Ana said, leaning up against the fallen tree, listening to the flowing water mingle with other unknown sounds hidden deeper in the neighboring thicket.

  Dolly sniffed the ground and looked up at Ana, her enormous tongue rolling out of her mouth. “Here you go, girl,” Ana said, giving Dolly a treat from her pack. She walked them over to a large rock on one side of the creek and sat down in the middle of it while Dolly rested at her feet. She pulled out her sketchbook and pencil and began to shade the water onto the page, trying to mimic the way the water rolled over the rocks into a deeper pool where dragonflies danced on the surface.

  Ana had never experienced this kind of solitude. “You can hear the silence,” she thought as she drew in Dolly’s silhouette, the dog’s ears held up by minuscule fairies. She took out the bottle of Coke but realized she didn’t have a bottle opener. She took deep gulps of air instead, letting the air out slowly through her nose, still not fully believing where she was. She likened it to the densest parts of downtown L.A., the trees standing in for buildings, the creek its traffic, the sun blighted by the congested atmosphere. She could almost hear the rush of vehicles, the snarl of an angry driver, until she realized that was exactly what she was hearing.

  There was a blur of blue and green camouflaged by the forest foliage until the dirt bike, tipped in silver and red, leaped out of the path on the other side of the creek. It zigzagged up and down making its way to the water, filling the silence with a tremendous motorized roar. Ana remained still, grabbing Dolly’s leash and standing up. The bike jumped from the path and into the water, skidding to a halt and spraying water as it passed them, before falling over along the embankment.

  “Are you okay?” Ana yelled from across the water.

  The rider pushed the bike up and then himself, ripping off his helmet. He sat in the dirt running his gloved hands over his head before staring up at her. She stared back. Dolly barked and barked.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked again.

  “Don’t think so. What are you doing here?” Cole answered.

  “Was about to ask you the same.”

  “I’m riding. This is our land.”

  “I’m sketching. This is our land.”

  “Whose?”

  “Abbie and Emmett’s—Dolly’s,” she said, rubbing the dog’s head to get her to stop barking. “Guess you took that joyride seriously.”

  “I’m not joyriding, I’m testing my bike and prepping for a race.” He stood up and Dolly started barking again. He checked his bike and propped it up before turning toward her, arms crossed.

  “What?” she said.

  “Can I come over there for a minute?”

  “Stay on your side of the creek, please,” she said, letting Dolly stand in front of her. “That is your side, isn’t it?”

  “Yep. That side’s yours,” he said with a smirk. “I want to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For my lame friends. I’ve known them most of my life, and they’ve always been that way. I guess I’m just used to it.”

  “Doesn’t excuse their behavior.”

  “No, it doesn’t. If it makes you feel any better, I told them off.”

  “My hero,” Ana said, shushing Dolly again.

  “Why do you dislike me so much?” Cole said. “You don’t even know me.”

  “Why do you keep trying to get to know me?”

  He shook his head, took off his gloves, and splashed across the creek. Dolly pulled at the leash, barking louder than ever, and when Cole got close, he knelt down and let her sniff the front of his hand. “Hey, girl,” he said. Dolly licked his hand, so he rubbed the
top of her head and behind her ears, and then continued crossing the creek.

  “You’re trespassing,” Ana said.

  “I’ll suffer the consequences.”

  Cole leaned up on the edge of the rock, continuing to rub Dolly, who wanted nothing else to do with Ana. “I’m really sorry if you weren’t welcome at school today. It’s a small town.”

  “So I keep hearing.”

  “I’ve been away most of the summer and it’s like I came back from another dimension. People at our school can be rather limited in their thinking, but that’s mainly because they live in a bubble. I’m just putting in my time before I can get out again.”

  “You sound like Rye.”

  He smiled what seemed to Ana a sad smile.

  “That your Coke?”

  “I couldn’t open it.”

  He glanced down at the ground and picked up a flat rock. “May I?” Cole said, to which she nodded her head. He wedged the rock under the bottle cap and popped the cap open before handing the bottle back over. “So, what about you? I heard you’re from L.A., and I know you live with the Garbers . . .”

  “Hold on,” she said, taking a sip of the Coke before chugging half of it. “I thought you were gone forever,” she said to the bottle. “Want some?”

  “No, thanks. So, what, are you a Garber relative or something?”

  “Not exactly,” Ana said, finishing the bottle and putting it back in her bag, realizing then she was now full of bubbles. “I’m an intern, I guess, working on the farm, going to school, that kind of thing.”

  “Your family’s still in L.A.?”

  “I don’t have any family,” Ana said, having said it so many times before.

  “So the Garbers are—”

  “My foster guardians at the moment.”

  “Oh,” he said with a quizzical look.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, it’s just you don’t come across like a—”

  “Like an orphan? It’s okay, we do exist in this post–Oliver Twist world.”

  They both stared at the creek.

  “So, the Hex,” Cole said, changing the subject, though for his benefit or hers she couldn’t be sure. “They’re way better than I gave them credit for.”