The Rich Girl and the Gangster

Chapter nine

Julio got a face of horror, and then quickly said, ‘Oh, god. I don’t mean it like that. Not on a date or anything.’ He let out a soft chuckle and shook his head, ‘God knows I don’t see you in that way.’

Phew… I laughed then mentally slapping myself, of course not, he had a girlfriend.

‘I mean, will you hang out with me at the mall after I finished my ice-cream.’

‘Yeah, yeah I will.’ I was a little embarrassed but I tried to not let it show.  

‘Good,’ he said and dug into his spaghetti ice-cream. I just hung back and watched him eat it with a look of  adoration on his face.

‘So, how do I look,’ I asked Julio as a pouted my lips and posed.

‘Those sunglasses are unacceptable,’ Julio told me, though it was totally unnecessarily. The woman standing next to us was gaping, and I wondered if she believed I actually liked the sunglasses. I’d been wearing them and staring at myself for quite a while now.

The sunglasses were red and heart shaped, and looked so ridiculous people were actually staring at me. I didn’t like it, the staring, but I had already checked trice if all my clothes were in place. No need to check again. Yeah, if I only believed that.

‘But baby,’ I tuned up a whiny tone, ‘I want these sunglasses.’

Julio’s voice hardened, ‘Bitch, if you buy them, I’m gonna beat your ass when we get home.’

What the…

Julio threw me a playful wink.

‘But baby, I really like them.’

He gripped my arm, not hurting at all, but it looked pretty intense, ‘I tell you now, chica, if you buy them, I’m gonna smash your head in with that ugly ass vase your mother bought us. You ain’t gonna buy that ugly shit with my money, whore.’

‘I…I uh…Honey,’

‘Stop honeying me, chica,’ and then Julio went off in a Spanish rant. It went too fast for me to catch anything, so I surreptitiously sneaked a glance around. People were looking. And I mean really looking.

Julio suddenly swapped the sunglasses of my nose and dragged me out side. When we were out of eye-sight, I finally got my voice back.

‘Julio, what the hell. What was that?’

Julio had a big smile plastered on his face, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

‘Didn’t you see the way they were staring at us before?’ he finally said when he’d wiped the grin off his face.

When I shook my head no, he sighed and said, ‘White people always expect us Latinos to cause trouble.  So we give it to them.’ he ended it with a shrug.

‘But aren’t you making it worse?’

‘People are going to think what they are going to think. They make their minds up and stick with it. Besides did you see their faces?’

Their gaping mouths, their wide eyes, the soft whispers and the nudging each other. A soft chuckle escaped me, ‘Yeah, that was pretty damn funny, but Julio, I’m not comfortable with… you know, staging it?’ having people look at me, be the center of unwanted attention.

‘And that’s why I did it. You need to let go, querida. You shouldn’t care ‘bout what strangers think of you. So let’s go and stage some drama. Kick some scenes.’

It’s strange. Me and my friends are the popular ones at school. There, I’m used at being watched. But though Julio’s offer sounded attractive, I didn’t want to be that noticed. Just when I was about to say no, Julio threw me the puppy dog eyes. Damn.