Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood Read Online Free Page A

that. Made them dream. But not me. People. People made me dream. And movies weren’t like people.
    As we were sitting there in the front seat, Juliana took out a cigarette.I told her my dad said we couldn’t smoke in his car. Not anymore. A new rule. That’s the thing—there was always a new rule. We got out and sat on the hood. We smoked. Just then, Pifas Espinosa and Jaime Rede waved at us from a car just ahead of us. “That you, Sammy?”
    “He’s drunk,” I whispered to Juliana. “Yeah, Pifas, it’s me.”
    Pifas stumbled toward us. “Órale, you wanna beer, ese?” He was in a friendly mood. Pifas was okay.
    “Yeah,” Juliana said, “a beer sounds good.”
    I walked back to his car with him. “She’s alright, ese,” Pifas said. Jaime didn’t say anything. I could tell something was wrong. Jaime was one of those kinds of guys—something was always wrong. “She’ll dump you,” Jaime said after a while. “Same as she dumped me.”
    I nodded. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
    “You’re not so special,” Jaime said.
    I wanted to punch him out, but more than that I just wanted to get back to Juliana. “No. I’m not so special,” I said. I took the two beers Pifas handed me and walked back to the car. The beers were cold and I was happy. Juliana and I drank them down slowly. And we smoked. “You like to drink, Sammy?”
    “It’s okay,” I said. The truth was that I’d only had two beers in my whole life—and I’d stolen those beers from the bars I cleaned. I didn’t hang out much. Not with anybody.
    “Have you ever smoked pot, Sammy?”
    “Nope.” I said, “You?”
    “People are starting to do that a lot,” she said. “Especially gringos. They’re hippies. That’s what they call them.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “Do you want to be one?”
    “No,” I said.
    “You don’t have to be a hippie to smoke pot.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “I thought that smoking weed would help me forget,” she said, “about stuff. But it didn’t. There’s not anything you can drink or smoke that can make you forget. Not one damned thing. And that’s sad, Sammy.” She finished her beer and looked at me. I think she was waiting for me to kiss her. So I did. And then she asked me if I’d ever been with a girl. “Have you, Sammy?”
    I shook my head.
    “How come?”
    “Just haven’t.”
    “Serious?”
    “Serious.”
    “Do you want to?” She kissed me again. I kissed her back. I was shaking. “Do you want to make love to me, Sammy?”
    I think that’s when I first felt the wings. That’s when they woke up and started flapping around inside me.
    I don’t know how we did it exactly, there, in the back seat of my father’s car, but it was good. It was good. I was scared. Not too scared. Not scared enough to stop. That’s the thing—I didn’t want to stop. Not then. Not ever.
    It wasn’t her first time. I knew that. Not that I cared. I told her I loved her when she wrapped her bare legs around me. I didn’t know anything could feel that perfect. And when it was over, I told her again that I loved her.
    “You shouldn’t say that,” she said.
    “But I do, Juliana. I love you.”
    “Even if you do, Sammy, you shouldn’t say things like that.”
    “Why not?”
    “Some girl might believe you some day—and then what?”
    I didn’t say anything after that. We did it again. Only slower. And after, I wanted to lie there, in the back seat. With her. Forever. Finally, we put our clothes back on. She helped me with my shirt. For a long time after that, I felt her fingers on my bare back. We laughed. I kissed her. Then we sat outside on the hood of my father’s car. The movie on the outdoor screen didn’t matter. What mattered is that we smelled like each other. We smoked. We looked up at the stars, and she told me that she was going to leave Hollywood. “Next year, after I graduate. I’m packing.”
    “Where will you go?”
    “Maybe to the real Hollywood.”
    “Nothing’s more real than