Delia's Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

and I did not share at the private school.
    Considering her opinion of Mexicans, I found it ironic, even amusing, that Sophia had chosen Spanish class over French class, something most of the students at the school actually had done. There were only eight students in our French class, but because this was a private school, the class could still be conducted.
    Of course, the students who chose Spanish, thinking it was far easier, claimed they chose it because it was more practical to learn Spanish in our community, with so many Latinos working and owning businesses here. There weren’t only people from Mexico. There were people from Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Costa Rica, as well as some other Central American countries.
    “ Je suis très bien, et vous ?” I replied.
    “ Bien, ” he said, and then looked worried that I would continue speaking only in French. I could see it clearly in his face, a face I would be the last to deny was quite handsome, with his luminous blue eyes highlighting his classic Romanesque nose, high cheekbones, and strong-looking firm lips. He had rich light brown hair gently swept behind his ears and halfway down his neck. Six feet tall, with a lean swimmer’s physique, he was the school’s track star and thought to be a shoo-in for a sports scholarship at some prestigious college. Most of the girls in our class and the class below swooned over him, and the problem I saw was that he knew it far too well. He had an arrogant strut, and when he walked through the hallways, he wore a self-satisfied smile that, in truth, put me off despite his drop-dead gorgeous looks. I thought that conceited smile was just another mask.
    Ironically, avoiding him seemed to be just the right thing to do to win his attention. Either it bothered him very much that I wasn’t doting on him as were most of the other girls, or he was genuinely intrigued and interested in me for being so indifferent to him. Whatever the case, I was not going to become another one of his conquests, nor would I forget Ignacio to be with him. In fact, just thinking about Christian made me feel guilty.
    He tried to ask in French if I were going to Danielle’s party but gave up after “ Etes vous ” and added, “going to Danielle Johnson’s birthday bash?”
    “ Mais oui ,” I said, and then hurried to my seat.
    Monsieur Denning, our teacher, had entered. He was very serious about the class, annoyed if we wasteda second of our time. We were at the point where he wanted us all to try to say anything in class in French and would make a student look up the words and attempt the correct pronunciation, no matter how long that took.
    I glanced at Christian, who was sitting two rows over, and saw him smiling at me warmly. I also saw how some of the other girls in the class were looking at me with shadows of envy darkening their faces, but I did not smile back at him.
    Just before I had celebrated my quinceañera , my fifteenth birthday, in Mexico, a birthday that was very significant for us, a time when we were moving from being a girl to a woman, my mother passed on some of her advice about men.
    “You must be careful about the messages you telegraph to them, Delia.”
    “Messages?”
    “In your eyes, in your smile. The secrets in your heart can be revealed very quickly. Be careful,” she said, and then told me a saying her mother had. “ Mujer que no tiene tacha chapalea el agua no se moja .” It meant, a woman who’s innocent can splash around in the water and not get wet.
    “Be careful where you splash,” she added with a twinkle in her eyes.
    So, although I felt a smile trying to come out to answer Christian Taylor’s smile, I recalled my mother’s advice and looked away quickly. I concentrated on my French to avoid thinking about him, and not once during the remainder of the class did I look his way.
    However, now I really was caught in a paradox. Seemingly, no matter what I did, Christian saw it asencouraging. It continued. The