The Feria Read Online Free PDF Page A

porch—underwear secured on her head—peeling potatoes, and swimming through these thoughts which were as vast as the California ocean she loved, and coming in as fast as its waves approached shore.
    “I don’t believe it! It’s Esperanza!”
    The potato she was working on jumped from her hands. She knew that voice. The very boy she’d spent the last hour thinking about. Without looking up, she could hear the hurt in his voice.
    “Hello.” Her greeting was faint. She was sorry for hurting him.
    When she finally had the nerve to look up at the six feet standing over her, she felt like a child being cornered, waiting for the forthcoming scolding.
    He carried two grocery bags in his arms, and he was silent. This was the very meeting she’d prayed to have tonight, so she wouldn’t waste this opportunity.
    “I’m glad to see you again because I wanted to apologize if there was any confusion about anything last night.”
    She waited for his response. Nothing.
    “I believe that you believe that I was not forthcoming about my name last night, but you’ll be pleased to know that my name is actually Esperanza. But people call me Soledad.” She was rambling. “Okay, people actually call me Soledad because that’s my name. Esperanza is my middle name, and no one calls me that unless it’s my mother. Or my father for that matter and I’m in some sort of trouble.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m really sorry I sort of lied.”
    Just as she was going to give up and go punish herself somehow for the embarrassment she seemed to have accidentally achieved, Xavier burst out laughing. His laughter was melodic. She would have gotten up and danced to it if she were invisible. And right now, she wished she were after all the nonsense she had just spewed out.
    “Is that it?” His voice was so forgiving, so pleased.
    “Well I didn’t know you. And I believed you were just some jerk making jokes about me.”
    “Where on earth would you get something like that from?”
    “I don’t really know, actually. Lately there’s a lot I don’t know.” The words stung as she spoke them and she recalled how her father had failed her last night, something she never imagined was possible.
    “Would you also like to apologize for exposing me to your intimates?” His beautiful blue eyes moved to the top of her head. “My pure eyes can only take so much.” He chuckled.
    Soledad instantly remembered the underwear on her head, and she ripped them off fiercely, catching strands of hair in her nails. She stuffed the wadded panties into her jean pocket.
    While last night her hair was in the bun she had made in California before her trip home, today her long dark brown hair fell freely down her shoulders and back.
    “Wow,” Xavier whispered while staring openmouthed.
    How could she sit there talking to a blue-eyed angel with her underwear on her head? She jumped from the ground, tossed her knife in the bucket with the potato peels, and took a flying leap off the left side of the porch. She was mortified yet again, and running away, yet again. But this time it was for good. That was the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to her. Well, the second. The first was when a stranger made friendly with her hand and helped himself to impure thoughts with his eyes right in front of her entire family. She was suddenly bitter.
    “Please wait!” His voice shook as he began his run to follow. “Soledad, wait.”
    She slowed, then stopped. After lying to him last night, she owed him one. She heard him approach, then stop a few feet away.
    “I was trying to laugh with you to soften the blow! I only knew if I’d left and not said anything, once you realized you had underwear on your head, you would have never spoken to me again!”
    “I did realize I had underwear on my head. I put them there.” She made a face. “How else do you think they got there?”
    “Okay, then why are you so mad?” He took her by the elbow. For as dirty and