Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood Read Online Free Page B

our Hollywood,” I said.
    “That’s the problem,” she said. “I don’t want real.”
    Take me with you. That’s what I wanted to say. But I thought maybe I shouldn’t say anything. I looked up at the stars. Right then, sitting next to her, I felt as big as the sky.

Chapter Three
    Mrs. Apodaca was always ready with a speech or a sermon. Always. Bet your ass. Or just one of her disapproving looks. She referred to us as demonios. Demons, devils, ungodly, unclean. That’s what she thought about us.
    She was just another person ready to put us down.
    One Saturday afternoon, she stepped out of her house and marched over to the empty lot behind her house where we were playing baseball. Hands on her sides. Shit. Mad. Mad as hell. “Which one of you used that word? ¿Haber? ¿Cuál de ustedes?” She waited for one of us to answer. Hands on her sides. Mad as hell. She’d wait—forever if she had to.
    “What word?” Jaime Rede asked.
    “No se hagan tontos. You know what I’m talking about. Tú sabes.”
    Jaime Rede shook his head. One by one, we all shook our heads. She reduced us to acting like five-year-olds. Shrunk us down with that look of hers. With that voice. God.
    But we could wait, too. Yeah. Just like her. We weren’t gonna squeal on who’d shouted out the “F” word. And no one was about to confess, either. There wasn’t one of us on that field who wouldn’t have rather faced his father’s belt than one of Mrs. Apodaca’s penances. She stared us all in the face. We stared back. This was a war we actually had a chance ofwinning. Not many opportunities. No, not many. Finally she said. “Play. I want to watch.” She grabbed Pifas Espinosa by the shoulder. “There’s a chair on my porch. Tráemela.” Pifas ran for the chair. When he ran back with it, she sat. As if she were the Empress Carlota. “Play,” she said. We all looked at each other. She’d found a way to beat us. Damn. Not one bad word came out of our mouths for the rest of the game. Not much fun, no fun, nope, no fun at all. Damn. I think that Mrs. Apodaca had the time of her life that afternoon. I swear I could almost see her smile. Except she never smiled.
    It is impossible to underestimate the important role Mrs. Apodaca played in the lives of the citizens of Hollywood. We elected her to be hated above all the others. Hers was a sacred and necessary office. By hating her, we created a perfect balance in that small barrio of ours. It was not a question of whether she deserved her fate. And it wasn’t a question of fairness or justice. It was all a question of survival. That’s what I told myself. It helped us to hate her. It helped us to go on living.
    One morning she handed out novenas in honor of the Blessed Mother to Susie Hernandez and Francisca (aka Frances) Sánchez as they passed in front of her house to catch the bus to go to school. “Go to the priest,” she said firmly. She pointed at their skirts.
    “God made my legs,” Susie said, then slapped her thigh as if with that slap she could make Mrs. Apodaca appreciate not only the danger but the beauty of a woman’s legs.
    “But who made the dress?” Mrs. Apodaca shot back.
    Actually, it wasn’t so bad living across the street from Mrs. Apodaca. Any time I got bored, I’d wander out to the front porch. Sit. Wait. I was always rewarded for my patience. Something always happened. It was her habit to stop people as they passed in front of her house. She was agatekeeper, and now, as I think about it, I swear she would have made one helluva border patrol officer. “Who made the dress?” Even from across the street, I could hear her clearly, could see the deep furrows of her scowl, her face becoming a map of the world. “Who made that dress?”
    Susie didn’t shrink. “I did.” She looked Mrs. Apodaca in the eye and stuck out her chin. It was the universal gesture of defiance in Hollywood, a vestige of the ancestors we still carried in our blood and on our faces. She