Awake Read Online Free PDF

with us, Erin. It would do you good.” Reed winks at me before walking into his house with the bags.
    “Yeah, Erin,” Wade says peering soulfully into my eyes or so I like to imagine. “Might get your mind off the rest of the world.”
    I glance back at my stepmother. Wade and I talking for so long makes her nervous. “Boyle Heights?” I wonder aloud. “Okay, that’s so random. Why not? Do I need to bring like my AK-47 assault rifle?”
    “You’re a funny one,” he says. “No, you’ll be perfectly safe.”
    “And how can you be sure?” I ask.
    “Because I will be your protector. I grew up in Boyle Heights.”

-6-
    Wade Donovan grew up in Boyle Heights. As we drive past the fake palaces of Bel Air and Beverly Hills I realize I know nothing about him.
    I decide to get nosy and quickly learn that his father was an Irish studio musician who had abandoned his beautiful, half-Mexican mother when Wade was an infant. Being only a quarter Hispanic, he grew up the whitest kid in the almost entirely Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights.
    Wade does not tell me these things. Reed answers my questions while Wade drives his Jaguar. Reed also tells me Wade received a scholarship to a top culinary school from the foundation the doctor had set-up with other Beverly Hills surgeons.
    “I bet you’re wondering about the Jaguar,” Wade says. It’s the first time he’s spoken since we pulled out of the circular driveway of the doctor’s estate.
    I don’t answer. I just try to get a glimpse of his eyes in the rearview mirror from the backseat. For a moment his eyes flash up at the rearview mirror and see mine. When our eyes meet I feel it in my blood.
    “It’s a 2006. Doctor Hendricks sold it to me for five-thousand dollars. It’s worth twenty-five thousand.”
    “I wasn’t wondering,” I say even though I totally was. “But that was nice of you, Doc. Let me know when you want to sell another car.”
    Reed turns back and winks at me. “I told him he can pay me back when he’s a big restaurateur.”
    “Ninety percent of restaurants fail,” Wade says. “You might be waiting a while.”
    They smile and I can see they have something like a father and son relationship. I assume Reed was the one who introduced Wade to Tori.
    “Your restaurant can’t fail, boyo,” Reed says. “Your future father-in-law and I have too much money invested.” He shoves Wade in the shoulder affectionately.
    “Don’t remind me,” Wade says quietly.
    Reed turns back to me. “The kid’s a genius. Even today, at the shelter, his food will blow your mind. We finally pulled him away from the Tiki Hut or wherever he was working on Melrose.”
    Wade rolls his eyes in the rearview mirror. “It wasn’t called the Tiki Hut.” I can tell he’s had to say this a dozen times before.
    “I know that place,” I say. “I love Polynesian.”
    Reed turns back to the front. Wade stares at me a long time in the rearview. I decide to stare back. If all I am to ever have of him are his eyes then I might as well remember them.
    Wade parks his Jaguar next to a dumpster in the alley behind the Soto Street Mission. We enter through the kitchen. The stifling air inside carries with it the gagging smell of deep-fried grease.
    A very short Hispanic woman, she can’t be five feet tall, walks around a stack of industrial-sized cans of baked beans. She wipes her hands on an already filthy apron and reaches out to take my hand.
    “Buen dia, pretty girl. I am Alodia. Can you wash dishes?” she says.
    I smile as she studies my body like she’s buying a horse. Reed has disappeared and Wade just grins at my awkwardness.
    “Is this your Tori?” Alodia says glancing at Wade. “Does she speak?”
    Wade laughs. “No, this is Erin. She wanted to come and help.”
    “Well?” Alodia says staring intensely into my eyes.
    “Nice to meet you,” I say. “Yes, of course I can wash dishes.”
    As I am led away by this small, but strong little lady, I look back.