Just Like Me, Only Better by Carol Snow Read Free Book Online Page B

not!”
    “Really?”
    “I just wanted to confirm our meeting place. Eleven-fifteen at . . . El Taco Loco?”
    “Yes! El Taco Loco—right. It’s in a strip mall just off the freeway. They have really good carnitas, if you’re hungry.”
    Dead silence. And then: “I don’t generally eat lunch.”
     
     
    I parked outside El Taco Loco, locked my van, and went to stand in front of the smudged glass front door. The dirty air rumbled with freeway sounds.
    My cell phone rang: Rodrigo. Damn it. I knew he’d cancel.
    “Yes?”
    “I’m here.” He sounded tense.
    “Where?” I scanned the lot until I saw a hand waving out of the window of a green Prius. “Okay, I see you.”
    I shut my phone and crossed the cracked asphalt. I tugged once on the handle before Rodrigo popped the lock. I slid into the car and he locked it again.
    Rodrigo Gonzo was exactly what I’d expected, only in miniature: dark hair cut short, gelled into perfect place; sunglasses on the back (not top) of his head; buff, hairless arms; brown eyes with thick black lashes. His blue jeans were faded, his beige T-shirt tight. Even seated, I could see that he was at least an inch or two shorter than me (I’m 5’4”). He weighed maybe a hundred and ten pounds.
    “You found it okay?” I said.
    “You’re really going to leave your car here?” he asked without answering my question.
    “Sure. Why not?”
    He raised his eyebrows.
    I forced a laugh. “I don’t think any car thieves are going to bother with a five-year-old Dodge Caravan.”
    “Good point,” he said with a little too much conviction.
    The minivan had been Hank’s doing. Ben was a year old, and my car, a ten-year-old Camry from my parents, was giving out. I’d been eyeing Volkswagen station wagons and Honda CR-Vs, debating the merits of each. But when I came home from the playground one Friday afternoon, there was an enormous red minivan parked in front of the house.
    “Who’s here?” I asked Hank, who was sitting at the kitchen table, watching TV.
    “Just us.”
    “Then whose van is that?”
    “It’s yours.”
    I didn’t ask him why he’d bought me a car without consulting me first. I didn’t ask him why he hadn’t traded in the Camry. The only thing I could think of was: “How’d it get here? Your car is in the driveway.”
    “A guy from the dealership drove the van. I thought you’d be excited. You said you never had a new car.”
    “I am excited.”
    All I could think was: why so big? Of course, now I needed the van to drive the Mott kids. Maybe Hank was just thinking ahead.
    “Are we going to Haley’s house?” I asked Rodrigo.
    He shot me a side glance. “Didn’t Jay tell you?”
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “What?”
    “Yes. We’re going to Haley’s house.”
    “Okay. And . . . where does Haley live?”
    He shot me another look. His lips tightened. “I’m not authorized to tell you.”
    “Unless you’re going to blindfold me, I’m going to figure it out,” I joked.
    He bit his lip, as if considering. Dear God—was he really considering a blindfold? And then I remembered Rodrigo’s size: I could take this guy.
    “Beverly Hills,” he said finally.
    “Oh. Of course.” I thought about Ben and the Mott kids, who would be waiting for me after school. Beverly Hills was pretty far away. “I’ll need to be back at my car by two-thirty.”
    “Two-thirty . . . today?”
    “Um, yeah.”
    He pursed his lips. “That may be difficult to accommodate.”
     
     
    Most people associate Beverly Hills with money, stars, and glamour. Southern Californians associate it with traffic. To get there, Rodrigo drove on the I-5 freeway from horribly congested Orange County to ridiculously crowded Los Angeles. As always, the traffic stopped and started to its own inexplicable rhythms. Once we reached the city, we veered off onto the I-10 Freeway, Rodrigo’s little green Prius engulfed in a canyon of loud, smelly trucks, along with a swarm of jacked-up pickup trucks,