Chapter 29: Respect

On Friday night, Michael drove me over to pick up Kristina. We were meeting Josh and Andrea at the mall, and then we were going to go see a movie.

I knocked on the front door and Mr. Mendoza opened the door. He stepped aside, gesturing me in. He was not very tall but he was substantial. I could see just how Jorge would look in twenty years, looking at his father.

I stepped into the hallway. Mr. Mendoza held out his hand and in a heavy accent said, "Welcome, Sean. Kristina will be here in uno momento."

The smaller Mendoza children, four all told, were peeking at me from doorways, whispering to each other and giggling. I felt like I was on display as I shook Mr. Mendoza's hand.

Jorge came out of the kitchen, his mother trailing behind, and came over to me.

"Hey, Sean," he said with a smile.

His father turned to him and said something in Spanish.

Jorge turned back to me, a grimace on his face. "My father has asked me to translate for him. He says that he is very glad to meet you. He also said he wishes to say something to you."

"Okay," I said, suddenly apprehensive. This was a new one on me.

Mr. Mendoza looked at me as he spoke, and I stayed facing him as Jorge translated.

"He says that Kristina is his oldest daughter and so is very special to him, just as his oldest son is special to him." Jorge's voice was expressionless as he spoke. I saw Kristina, dressed in a simple black sweater and cotton pants, just coming in from the hallway. I glanced at her and smiled before turning back to her father. She looked a little embarrassed but said nothing.

Her father glanced back to see her standing in the doorway, then turned and continued.

"We have tried to raise our children to respect all others, even when we ourselves have not been shown that same respect," Jorge continued translating. "It is a sad fact of life that not all people have been taught how to respect others."

Jorge stopped, firing off a burst of Spanish to his father. It sounded like a question, or maybe a complaint. His father answered back implacably, and Jorge, resigned, continued translating.

"He says that he expects you to treat his daughter with all the respect she is due. If you do not, he will know, and he will have words with you about it."

He did not look like a man I would want to have "words" with, particularly alone in a small locked room. Still facing him, I composed my reply before opening my mouth.

"I give you my word that I will give Kristina every consideration I can. I think of her as a good friend, and Jorge is a good friend, and I would do nothing to harm either friendship."

Jorge translated for me. Mr. Mendoza nodded, held out his hand, and shook mine to seal the deal. He smiled then, and turned and held out his arm, as if presenting his daughter to a crowd. Kristina came up to him, kissed him on the cheek, and we headed out the door to Michael's car.

It was always awkward when you had to be driven around because you were too young to drive yourself. Picking up a date was even more so. We solved the problem by squeezing into the front seat with Michael. It was crowded, but I certainly didn't mind. As a side benefit, Mike didn't feel so much like a chauffeur, either.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that with my father," Kristina said as we started down the street.

"Hey, it's just fine," I assured her. "I know he worries about you and wants to protect you, and all that..."

"Yes, well, he's decided that the best way to get his point across is to speak Spanish and have Jorge translate. In reality, he speaks English nearly as well as we do. He's just trying to make an impression on you," she said with a smile.

"Oh, he made an impression on me, all right," I said. "He scared me a little," I added.

"He'll be glad to know that," she said with a laugh. She shifted a little, and the contact I felt with her, up my side and my arm, from my hip and down my leg, got just a little more substantial. We stayed in unacknowledged close contact with each other, just like that, all the way to the mall.

Once we met up with Josh and Andrea at the mall, thoughts of the punishment Mr. Mendoza might be planning to wreak upon me if I got too improper were banished, and we had a great time together. When we got to the movie theater, we settled in with popcorn and sodas, into one of the side rows of the auditorium. Andrea and Kristina were sitting between Josh and me. By the middle of the first reel of film, our hands had found each other's. We spent the rest of the movie in awareness of each other, maintaining contact with clasped hands and knees just touching.

On the way home, Kristina and I once again squeezed into the front of Michael's car, and Andrea and Josh climbed into the back. We dropped off Andrea first and Josh walked her to her door, giving her a long kiss goodnight before trudging back to the car for a ride back to his house.

Kristina's house was our next stop and I walked her to her door, also. I wondered if Mr. Mendoza was watching through the curtains, making sure I treated his daughter properly. I looked at the windows nervously. Kristina probably guessed my thoughts, because she had a small, secret smile on her face as she stood there, waiting for me to make up my mind about what to do. Finally, she took both my hands in hers and turned me to face her.

"Good night, Sean. Thank you for a very nice evening." She leaned in toward me just a fraction, watching me. I bucked up my courage and bent toward her, and our lips touched softly for just a moment. She turned toward the door and opened it, flooding the landing with light from the hallway.

"Kristina?" I suddenly asked. She turned around and looked at me quizzically. "Did you really have a good time tonight? What I mean is, would you go out with me again?"

She smiled her secret smile again. "Yes, Sean, I would love to go out with you again."

The pressure I had been feeling, but had tried to ignore, dissipated into vapor, to my immense relief. I headed back to the car, my feet barely making contact with the sidewalk.

The whole next week at school, I didn't have much of a chance to talk with Kristina. I kept on telling myself that it was just one date, not a lifetime commitment, and to chill out about it. It didn't help. I called her on Tuesday evening, but her father said she couldn't come to the phone. I called her on Wednesday, but she wasn't home. I called her on Thursday, very near panic. She had me thinking that I had done something wrong, that she didn't want to see me again, that she was evading me. She answered the phone on the second ring.

"Si, hello?"

"Kristina? Hi, it's me, Sean."

"Oh, Sean, I was hoping you would call," she said. She sounded happy, not upset. Did I worry all week for nothing?

"You were?" I asked before I could think about it. "I thought maybe you didn't want to talk to me."

"Why would you think that, silly?" She sounded amused.

"Well... ummm... I called the other night, and then again last night..."

"Oh, that," she dismissed. "My father just told me tonight that you had called. He wouldn't let me call you back. He says it's not ladylike to be calling boys."

"That's okay," I said, relieved. "I just wasn't sure if I was making a pest out of myself or not, that's all."

She giggled, a tinkling sound that sent shivers up and down my spine. "You can be a pest, if you'd like," she said softly. "I won't mind."

"Um, would you like to do something this weekend with me?"

"Of course. What did you want to do?"

"Well, Eric and Keisha were thinking about going out to the bowling alley on Saturday night. It's something about using glow-in-the-dark pins, or something. Would you like to try it?"

"Okay. What time?"

"I'll call Eric and find out and call you back," I suggested.

"No, don't call back tonight. Just tell me tomorrow at school, or call me tomorrow night. I'll ask my parents if it's okay, but I'm sure they will say it's fine, as long as I don't stay out past eleven."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow then. Bye."

"Bye, Sean. Thank you for calling." The telephone clicked in my ear as the connection was broken.

Eric, who had just gotten his driver's license, picked me up Saturday night for our dates. It was so wonderful having a little more freedom, instead of relying on older brothers or parents for rides. My birthday was coming up soon and I could hardly wait to take my driver's test and get my license.

We picked up Keisha and then drove over to Kristina's house. I thought I must have passed some sort of test with her parents, because she came bounding out the front door and down the sidewalk, waving back toward the house as she headed for our car. I didn't have to go through a grilling from her father this time. Maybe he figured he had scared me sufficiently that first time, which was true, or maybe he had come to trust me a little bit. I hoped to be trustworthy, not only in his eyes, but in Kristina's too. She climbed into the back seat with me and as soon as we were down the street and out of sight of her house, she scooted over to sit next to me. I took her hand and held it in mine, glad of even that little touch.