Free Looks Over(Gives Light Series) by Rose Christo Page B

We'd danced together at the summer pauwau.
     
    Granny got up to dance with Reverend Silver Wolf.  The Navajo girl took her seat.  She scrutinized me shrewdly.  "You still don't talk?"
     
    I shrugged my shoulders and smiled ineffectually.
     
    She smiled back and stuck out her hand.  "I'm Kaya."
     
    I shook her hand.  I pointed at the sky above us--rich and blue with deepening dusk.
     
    "Hello, Sky."
     
    Rafael sat down on the blanket with a handful of samosas.  He didn't bother trying to hide his glare, intensified as it was by the square lenses of his eyeglasses.  Unperturbed, Kaya offered him her hand.  Taken aback, he hesitated before he quickly seized it.
     
    Kaya looked between us with recollection.  "You two were together in July."
     
    "Nah," Rafael said.  "We were just friends."
     
    A silence, indescribably awkward, settled over all three of us.  Rafael seemed to realize his mistake.  It was pretty impressive how quickly his face transitioned from its typically brutish visage to a sickly shade of puce.  I shook my head and dropped my face into my hands.  I was mortified, and yet I wanted to laugh.
     
    Kaya beat me to it.  I peeked between my fingers and saw her with her head back, her chest rippling with laughter.
     
    "You're funny, Rafael."
     
    Rafael gave her a perplexed look.  "I didn't say my name."
     
    "Your sister told me."
     
    Kaya pointed to a group of Hopi who were generously giving out gifts of prayer sticks.  Mary stood among them with prayer sticks in hand, bopping them on their heads.
     
    It was Rafael's turn to look mortified.  "Mary!" he shouted.  He leapt up from the ground and ran at her.
     
    "Charming family," Kaya said.
     
    I tapped Kaya's shoulder and gestured between the two of us.  I mimed writing a letter on my hand.
     
    "You'd like to keep in contact?"
     
    I nodded.
     
    Kaya gestured for me to wait.  She carried her platter of sheep intestines to a woman I took to be her mother, then returned with a notepad and a pencil.  We wrote down our e-mail addresses and traded notes.  She waved goodbye and danced away just as a man began to play the Apache fiddle.
     
    By the time Rafael returned, he was thoroughly frazzled.  His glasses were crooked, his dove's feather askew.
     
    "I'll kill her," he swore.
     
    I gave him a thumbs up.
     
    "Where'd that girl go?  I wanted some ach'ii."
     
    I gave him a dubious look.
     
    It was our tribe's turn to show off.  Our elders gathered around the tribal flag and performed a wartime flag dance while Morgan Stout played Heavy Fog on his plains flute.  Annie and the In Winter girls danced a shawl dance together, spinning and whirling like pinwheels in the autumn wind.  Everyone laughed when Gabriel, still wearing Rosa's shawl, leapt into the fray.  Mr. Red Clay led the first graders in a decorous grass dance, steps light, arms aloft.  Jack Nabako kept abandoning his position and running at the girls.  The girls shrieked.  Morgan played the Shoshone love song, and the facade of competition dissipated.  Misty-eyed couples from every tribe danced cheek-to-cheek; mothers danced with their babies.  Gabriel wrapped Rosa's shawl around the two of them.
     
    I got up off the ground and reached for Rafael's hand.
     
    Rafael had promised back in August that he'd dance with me at the autumn pauwau.  The thing is, Rafael hated dancing.  He hated more or less anything that held the potential to bring attention to him.
     
    I watched his eyes shift nervously behind his glasses while he chewed on the inside of his mouth.
     
    Poor Rafael.  I didn't want to press the matter.  I reached down to pat him on the shoulder.  He must have misinterpreted my intent, because he grasped my hand and stood.
     
    "Now what?" he murmured, his mouth barely moving.
     
    I could hear my pulse in my ears.  Why was I nervous?  I was supposed to be the confident one.  No, I knew why I was nervous.  I'd never danced with another boy