Free Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood by Benjamin Alire Sáenz Page A

name.”
    “Pick it up with your mom and dad.”
    She really shot me a look. You know. The look. The one that makes you feel like a worm about to be stepped on.
    “Okay. Look, I don’t go around telling everyone your real name’s not Gigi. I don’t know—”
    “You told Jaime Rede.”
    “Big deal.”
    “Now he knows.”
    “He was in the first grade with us, Gigi.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “That’s how I know what your name is—from first grade. That’s what the teacher used to call you.”
    “You remember that?”
    “How the hell else would I know what your name is, Gigi?”
    “Well, you shouldn’t have told him. Everyone he knows has started calling me Ramona. And it’s all your fault. I feel like a pendeja.”
    She didn’t smoke a cigarette like a real smoker. She didn’t like it. I think a cigarette just went with the outfit—that’s why she wanted to hold one.
    “That’s why you’re mad at me?”
    “I have other reasons.”
    “You wanna tell me about ‘em?”
    “No.”
    Great. I hated that. “No?”
    “No.” She inhaled the cigarette I’d given her like she was real cool, like she’d been practicing in front of a mirror. “See ya, Sammy.” She disappeared into the house, got swallowed up by the song that was blaring out I’m getting closer to my home. . . I look over and see JaimeRede talking to this guy that was in my Spanish class, Eric Fry. And the two of them are talking real quiet. I wondered if they were making some kind of dope deal. Someone told me Jaime was into that. And Eric Fry, well, I didn’t know anything about him—except that he spoke perfect Spanish, something pretty odd for a gringo, spoke it better than most Mexicans. But he was a little too proud of himself. He liked to correct people in our Spanish class. I hated that. I didn’t like him much. I don’t care if he did speak Spanish. No. I didn’t like him. Not that he wasn’t nice to me. He was. It wasn’t that. Anyway, whatever they were talking about, they were really into it. I wondered if I shouldn’t walk over there and say “How is it?” but then I thought, what would I say after that?
    Just then, I thought I’d light a cigarette. That’s when I heard someone yell, “Fight! Fight!” Somehow the whole party had pushed itself out to the front yard. There was a big circle around two guys who were going at it. I had a feeling. I did. So I elbow my way to the front. And there’s René and some guy who played football named Scott. And they were really fighting. They hated each other. Nobody could fight like that if they didn’t hate. Shit. Shit. And then someone yells, “Cops! Cops!” And Scott and René don’t care. They keep fighting. But I care. And if the cops came, I knew they’d just haul René in again. I hated that. I jumped in. Crazy. I was crazy. “Goddamnit, René, let’s get the hell outta here!” He looked at me—then we just ran.
    I couldn’t believe it, there I was running down some street, didn’t even really know where I was running. And then I start getting mad. This is what I get for saying okay. This is what I get for dancing with the fucking devil—I wind up in hell. What did I expect? Shit, when I get a hold of Pifas—I kept looking back to see if there was a cop car following us. And then I saw these headlights, and I thought, busted. Cabrón, Pifas,when I get a hold of that little shit — busted, busted. My heart was pounding right up to my throat. Right there. In my throat. And then, when I turned I could see it wasn’t a cop car, just an old beat up ’57 Chevy, but that didn’t stop me from running. I just ran, René still running behind me. And as the car caught up to us, I heard a voice, “Hop in.” Gigi! It was Gigi! Thank God. Thank God for Gigi. We didn’t ask questions, we just hopped in the car.
    “You guys aren’t too smart, you know that? How many times have you been hauled in, René? And you, Sammy?” The thing about Gigi was that she