Free Eternal Spring A Young Adult Short Story Collection by Various Page A

Corp

 
    The first time Tyler Diaz heard the Legend of the Vanishing
Spring, he was sitting on an intricately carved bench overlooking the tiny pond
next to the “Members Only” clubhouse, wishing he could disappear.
    Face tipped skyward, he let the sun’s first powerful rays of
spring banish the chill from his veins. Letting his eyes drift shut, he
indulged in a moment of homesickness. The more the earth warmed, the more he
would miss La
Villita : the heavenly aroma of the taquerías wafting on the breeze, the swirling
rainbow of festive colors adorning both shops and shoppers, the soothing
cadences of español rolling off a thousand tongues in heated conversation.
    Here, no one spoke Spanish, not even in school. Kids studied
only the most pretentious romance languages, plus Japanese, and— ugh —Latin.
Even everyday conversation was a crazy Stepford blend of stuck-up English,
ghetto teen, and French.
    “We’re going to La Petite Mais ’ for lattes. Wanna come?"
    Tyler shook back his dark curls and blinked at the blonde
Barbie flanked by her silicone regime. No matter how long he lived among them,
he’d never get the kids of Quimby Acres—especially the girls. They seemed
to have an endless supply of money to waste on crap—clothes, electronics,
and the other various, over-priced accoutrements that accompanied a life
of privilege. Often when he stared at their expensive haircuts and European
wardrobes, he wondered how they would fare if their families ever fell from
grace.
    Not that he knew what it was like to be poor. He wasn’t from el barrio ,
didn’t have cousins with gang affiliation doing time for drive-bys. He came
from an average, middle class Mexican-American family. His great grandparents
had emigrated from Mexico City before his abuelo had been born. Since then, three
generations of Diazes had grown up less than a block apart in Little Village on
Chicago’s West Side. Well, almost grown up.
    That was all B.C.
    Before his papi met Carmen .
    Carmen was an overpriced accoutrement, herself. Totally
absurd. Ty still couldn’t comprehend how an honorable, hardworking family man
like Hector Diaz had fallen under Carmen’s evil spell. She wore eight hundred
dollar, bubblegum pink warm-up up suits, worked out like a prison inmate, and
treated her ridiculous little chorkie like she’d given birth to him. It —the
freakin’ dog—had gone to the Bahamas with Carmen and his dad, riding in
the luxury of a handbag that cost more than most people make in a year!
    The first thing Carmen had done, as soon as she’d gotten the
obscenely large engagement ring onto her French manicured, anorexic finger was
to get his papi to sell the lucrative property he owned. Her second nefarious act was moving
them out of La
Villita to the gated community in Wilmette. The third and most unforgiveable
feat was to convince Hector Diaz he owed it to himself to see the world, while
his only son—a minor at that—deserved a first rate, private
education under the custodial eye of their housekeeper, Helga.
    What Carmen had really done was strip the vibrancy from Ty’s
life: the colors, smells, cacophony of sounds, and, most importantly, the rich
familial relationships. In La Villita , he was an average seventeen-year-old boy surrounded by su comunidad ;
in Wilmette, he was treated like a two-dimensional Latino Versace model. But
even as they appreciated his good looks they still managed to make him feel
like a minimum wage pool boy. Which reminded him why he was sitting by the pond
trying to shake of his foul mood in the first place—because he’d been
mistaken for landscaping staff and ordered to sweep grass clippings up from the
communal sidewalk. Which he’d done, much to his humiliation and the confusion
of the actual grounds crew. But it was easier than trying to explain. He
wondered if there’d ever come a day where that kind of mierda didn’t bother him. Not likely.
    “Well?”
    The blonde, whose name was