Chapter 13

      Carmen: "Shane! Shane! calm down its me!!! Carmen" I try to tell….after a moment she recollects herself. She loosens her grip on my hand and let’s me sit up and she sits beside me. 

 Shane: " Sorry Carm, I thought Marcos came back" shit! did she get beaten up by Marcos and his gang that day? When Juan started doing drugs he got thrashed by Marcos a couple of times. Marcos is merciless. Rumors go that he and his gang can even kill people if they don’t get their required money. 

 Shane:"Cherie owes a lotta money to him….I don’t know how to pay it all back"

 Carmen: "Why do you need to payback?"

 Shane:"That was part of the deal I had with Mr. Jaffe" she mutters and immediately looks away probably regretting that she’s letting me know too much about herself. 

 I try to lighten the mood. 

 Carmen:"Hey I don’t want you all by yourself in the dark on Thanksgiving. And my mami has ordered you to come and enjoy the evening with us." 

 She looks at me with her eyes widened. 

 Shane:"Carmen you don’t understand. She’s gonna hate me!" 

 Carmen:"She’s not gonna hate you Shane…come on let’s get something decent for you to wear"

 We go to her closet and I pick out a blue button-down shirt and a pair of jeans that actually fits her. 

 She takes an awful lot of time to fix her hair. 

 Shane: "Carm..you don’t understand! I feel like I am gonna throw up" When she comes out she’s really nervous. Her hair looks really nice by the way and she smells good too. I couldn’t resist myself….so I run to her, I cup her face and give her a small kiss on her lips. Her eyes widen and I could tell that it caught her off-guard. 

 Carmen:"Ummm….babe there’s something else I need to tell you….my family especially my mom is a bit of homophobic soo….do you mind if I ask you to act straight?" Shane looks at me, trying to digest what happened and what I told her. ‘Wait did I just call her "babe"’. Shit! 

 Shane: "Sure …. I will try my best" She smiles. 

 I take her hand and lead her toward our house. She stops on the gate. 

 Shane:"Wait lemme breath for one last time" She smooths down her shirt. I fix her collar for her. 

 Shane: "hey let go of my hand…your mom might think something" she tries to jerk off my hand. 

 I laugh at her concern. 

 Carmen: "Shane, they don’t think like that….so no need to worry! come on"

 I almost had to drag Shane inside. As Shane entered the room everyone looked at her with questioning eyes. 

 Carmen:"Hi everyone, This is my friend Shane, I invited her to celebrate Thanksgiving with us."

 Everyone smiles at her….I can feel Shane relax a little bit. 

 Shane:"Hello" and she smiles her flashing smile! 

 Mami calls me from the kitchen:

 mami:"Carmencita! bring her here"

 I go to the kitchen followed by Shane. My cousin sisters look at Shane like she’s a piece of meat in the meat shop. I give them the death glare telling them to fuck off. 

 mami:"What’s your name?"

 Shane:"Shane…Shane McCutcheon" she swallows in between. 

 mami:"Oh Chane! como estas?"

 Shane looks at me! I smile at her nervous look. 

 Carmen:"mami she doesn’t know Spanish"

 Shane:"Yeah I don’t take Spanish…I take French"  she says nervously. 

 mami:"I ask you, how are you Chane?"

 Shane:" OH ummm….I am fine..yeah" she looks at me  and I can’t help but nod in approval. I have never seen Shane this nervous. 

 mami:"I see you work hard on the lawn, why don’t you do our lawn, we’ll pay you good! you see Carmen won’t do the lawn she would only do her flowers" she shot a death glare at me!

 Dios Mio….no way! Now mami is trying to hire Shane to do our lawn. 

 Carmen:"mami that’s not what Shane does for a living, she has school work.." but I am interrupted

 Shane: "No no! its fine! I can definitely do your lawn. You don’t need to pay…I will come by tomorrow! consider it a thank for inviting me!" she laughs!