Banishing the Dark (Arcadia Bell #4)(59)

“I like to experiment,” she said defensively, jerking her head away from him.

“It looks nice. Kinda different. I like weird things.”

Her face scrunched up, like maybe she was unsure how to take a compliment. So he smiled at her; she loosened up and smiled back. “Thanks. I guess I like weird things, too.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” she said with a big grin that made her cheeks plump up prettily.

Jupe’s insides twanged like an out-of-tune guitar string. His own smile slid into something that felt like it was verging on stupid, but he didn’t care. She liked him. He liked her. This was the single greatest day of his entire life. He couldn’t wait to tell his dad and Cady and his Auntie Adella. And he was even sort of glad the Holidays had seen Leticia, so they could confirm how hot she was in case no one believed him. Maybe he could sneak in a picture for good measure.

“Here’s my grandma’s place. I called her this morning, so she’s expecting us. But I didn’t tell her what we wanted, so let me do the talking.” Leticia lifted a brass knocker shaped like a frog and banged it. Then she rang the doorbell three times. “She doesn’t hear so well.”

After a few more bangs on the door, it finally swung open. A tiny gray-haired woman stood in the doorway. She was sort of round like Leticia, and they had the same big brown eyes. She was dressed in what the Holidays called upscale loungewear, just old-lady sweatpants with a matching pullover top. They didn’t look good on the Holidays, and they didn’t look good on Leticia’s grandmother. But the last time he’d pointed that out, he got bitched out. So he wisely kept his mouth shut.

“Mija,” the old woman said, hugging Leticia tightly. “What a good girl you are to come see your abuelita.”

Leticia pulled back and stepped to the side to introduce him. “This is my Grandma Vega, my dad’s mom. Grandma, this is my friend, Jupe,” she said in a loud voice. “The one I told you about on the phone.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“It’s short for Jupiter,” he said, extending his hand.

Her grandmother accepted it and squinted at him, looking him up and down as she shook. “You didn’t tell me he was a black boy.”

Oh, hell, no. Did she really just say that?

“Excuse me?” he said, snatching his hand back.

Leticia flashed Jupe an embarrassed look. “No one cares about those things anymore, Grandma.”

“I know, I’m too old to understand how the world works,” her grandmother said with heavy sarcasm. She glanced at him. “You a mulatto or just light-skinned?”

“Mulatto?” What was this, nineteenth-century New Orleans? Who the shit said that anymore?

“It’s called biracial, Grandma.”

The old woman shrugged. “I was only curious. What do I care? At least he’s not Salvadoran.” She glanced at Jupe. “You drink juice?”

What was the matter with this woman? Was this a trick question? “Uh, yeah?”

“Then I suppose you can both come on in and sit down.”

As she wandered off to a small kitchen, Leticia grabbed his hand and dragged him into a tiny living room decorated like a beige beach house. Not exactly what he expected from an old magician who used to run an occult order. “You didn’t tell me your grandmother was a racist,” he murmured. “Is she going to call me the N-word, too?”

Leticia looked supremely mortified.

“She’s not racist, she’s just old and opinionated,” she argued weakly. “Okay, well, at least she’s an equal-opportunity racist. She talks trash about white people, too. She even calls my father a pocho because he only uses Spanglish. She claims he’s too American and shames their family back in Ensenada.”

“And why does she hate Salvadorans?”

“Something about a political dispute that’s, like, two hundred years old. I don’t know. But when I was ten, she went to jail for starting a fistfight in a Safeway parking lot with a woman who had an El Salvador flag on her car.”

Jupe restrained a laugh. “Holy shit!”

“Shh,” Leticia said, giggling as she covered her mouth with her hand.

“Santo mierda!” he said, correcting himself in a muffled voice. He’d learned that one from a dubbed Spanish version of Animal House on Univision, and using it now reinforced his suspicion that the things he learned from watching TV had more real-world applications than the crap he learned at school.

“No, no, no!” Leticia whispered. “She hates swearing.”

He peeled her hand off his mouth and grinned down at her, quickly tracing a line down the center of her palm with his finger. Jesus, her skin was soft. When she didn’t pull away, he traced it again. “You have a long life line,” he murmured.

“I do?” she whispered back.

“I can read palms pretty well.” He couldn’t. But a couple of months back, he’d gleaned the basics of palmistry from a 1960s library book and had since been using it as an excuse to touch the hand of every girl in his class. All of that practice had been worth it for this fleeting moment with Leticia. Especially for the way she looked up at him, all breathless and lazy; her lips parted, but no words came out.