Snakeroot

4. Tara in Bloom

It's easy to forget that good things are possible when so much of your world is a wasteland of dust and tumbleweeds. But sometimes, if there's a patch of good dirt and a little sunlight, a flower might just bloom even if there's nothing else around it at all.

That's what it was like when Juan showed up. It happened about a week after we moved in to the camper. The lock on the door was broken and Daddy came stumbling in one night yelling at Tara about running the light bill up. Luckily Uncle Henry came and pulled him out of there before he could hurt anyone or break the camper, but Tara didn't think it was so lucky. She knew it was only a matter of time before it happened again.

Tara had never been much good at mechanical-type stuff, or anything that involved tools. She always got frustrated and mad, and that's exactly what happened when she tried to fix the lock on the camper door. She ended up red-faced and cursing. She knew she needed someone to fix it, like a handyman. But she wasn't sure who to ask until she got to school the next day and saw Juan Lopez standing in the hallway talking to some of his friends.

Juan's father worked in construction, and Juan had been helping him for as long as Tara had known him. Juan's whole family was from Mexico, though they were US citizens by the time Tara met him, and he spoke with an accent. He was two years older than Tara, but two inches shorter.

He'd always been nice, so Tara figured it couldn't hurt to ask him to fix the lock. So she approached him right there in the hallway and asked if she could talk to him alone for a minute. His friends melted away like ice on a hot day, and she found herself arrested by his deep, dark eyes. They were glittery, she said, and so dark she couldn't tell the pupils from the irises.

"I need some help," she said. "Do you know anything about fixing locks?"

"A door lock?" he asked. His voice was deeper than she remembered it being.

"Yeah, on a camper," she said. "I know this is coming out of nowhere but I've tried everything and I didn't know who else to ask."

He smiled at her kind of sideways and looked at her in a way that made her shiver, but it was a good kind of shiver. Then he smiled, and it was more genuine than any smile she'd seen in a long time.

"I'll take a look at it," he said. "After school?"

"Thanks," she said. "Yeah, after school...no, wait. I have to work today. But I should be home around seven-thirty."

"Okay, I'll come then and take a look at your lock."

Tara wasn't sure why her heart was beating a little faster, or why her skin felt like it was flushing, or why this boy that she'd sort of known for several years now all of a sudden seemed so real. Maybe it was the way he was smiling at her, as if he could tell that her heart was pounding. Or maybe it was the fact that she'd never really noticed any boys before. She wasn't sure, but she knew she kind of liked it.

"You need my address?" she asked. There was a little shakiness on her voice that had never been there before, even when Daddy was at his worst.

"No, I know where you live," said Juan.

For the rest of that day, she flip-flopped between worrying about what he must think of her for living in such a place as ours and feeling nervous that he was coming over. It was all silly, she knew, because she couldn't help where she lived, and she was certain that he wouldn't really notice her anyway. No boys ever had, and she'd never been interested in them anyway. With daily life a struggle, she'd always had more important things on her mind. But as the day wore on, Juan's face centered itself firmly over everything else, blocking it all out. In spite of herself, she began to feel excited.

When Tara came to get us from Ms. Linda's house, I knew something was up with her. She didn't tell us about Juan right then, but she seemed awfully smiley and jittery. I'd never seen her like that before and I didn't know what was going on. But when Juan showed up at our place, it all made sense.

I'd never seen Juan before that day. He rolled up to the house in a long brown car, music pumping from the speakers inside. He parked right in front of the camper and stepped out. Tara was watching him through the window, and I thought I heard a tiny gasp come from her. I didn't blame her; he was quite good looking, with messy jet black hair in need of a cut, and beautiful deep golden skin that reminded me somehow of a blazing, burning sunset. His clothes were nothing fancy, just a white t-shirt and jeans that looked well-worn. When he came into the camper I noticed that he smelled of cedar and laundry detergent.

Tara introduced us to Juan. He tickled Tommy's feet, told Megan she looked like a princess in her pink dress, and then he turned his radiant smile on me.

"Eliza," he said. "It's nice to meet you. Tara didn't tell me she had a thirteen-year-old sister."

"I'm only eleven," I said, unable to stop a shrill giggle from escaping my lips. My heart fluttered when he shook my hand.

After that, he opened up his toolbag and set to fixing the lock on the camper's door. He chatted with Tara about this and that as he worked on it, but I wasn't listening. I was watching Tara. She seemed to be hovering awfully close to him, propped against the counter in a way that made all her golden hair fall over her shoulder and trail down her arms. She had jeans on instead of shorts, and though she normally felt self conscious of her bare arms in a tank top, now it seemed as though she delighted in the exposed skin. Confidence radiated from her like beams from the sun, though later she told me she was faking it.

When Juan finished fixing the lock, Tara made us kids stay inside while she walked out with him. They stood by his car for awhile, talking. Only the back windows were open, so Megan and I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but their body language couldn't be denied. They were awfully close to each other, and getting closer as the minutes ticked by. Megan and I pressed our faces into the glass of the window, waiting.

"Are they going to kiss?" Megan whispered.

"I don't know," I said, but I hoped with all my might that they would. I hoped that Juan would lean forward and kiss my beautiful sister and make her the happiest girl in the world. I wanted him to show me, through her, that love wasn't some bullshit fairy tale that never happened in our world.

I saw Tara smile in a way I'd never seen before, and I heard her laugh. He smiled and laughed too. And then, after a moment's hesitation. He took her hand.

Megan and I gasped.

Silent, we watched Juan hold her hand, and then caress it in a way that told me he didn't see her as just a friend. Her cheeks were pink, and they reminded me of the edge of the sky in the mornings when the sun blazed through the clouds. My heart soared.

Juan didn't kiss her, but he held her hand for a long time. They talked all that time and whenever he smiled at her, his eyes sparkled. It was very easy to imagine that he was falling in love with her, and it was even easier to imagine that Tara was falling in love with him. I think I was too, in a way.

When he left, Tara came back inside smiling like crazy. Her laughing eyes were full of pure hysteria. She sat down at the little dining table and stared off into space for a minute, unspeaking. I had a hundred questions for her but couldn't wrap my mouth around a single one of them.

Finally, she spoke.

"I have a date Friday night," she said. "I'm gonna see if you three can stay with Ms. Linda while I go out with Juan."

"Is he your boyfriend now?" Megan asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. "But he said he thinks I'm pretty."