Celebrity Read online

  Logan and Mateo pulled faces for the camera and made weird sounds, and I laughed so hard I started to cry. I was so full of happy, I felt drunk with it. (Not that I would know what being drunk feels like.) I wished I could make time stand still.

  Looking back, that might have been a good idea.

  The next morning, I woke at Tío

  Alberto’s house before the sun came up. Memories from the night before drifted around me like petals on water. The tracas. The fireworks. Mateo’s deep brown eyes. The white flash of his smile in the dark. Our heads touching as we lay in the grass watching the fireworks. The incredible zing. It was so much like a dream, I almost couldn’t believe it had happened.

  I pulled my phone out from under my pillow to watch the video evidence. The tiny images of Mateo and Logan goofing off made me smile all over again. I wished I had my computer with me so that I could upload it onto a bigger screen. And update my blog.

  I cringed a little when I thought about the blog, remembering the raw video I had posted the day before. I really should have smoothed it out before going live with it. As soon as we got back to Valencia, I’d fix it. And post about the tomato fight. It hadn’t even happened yet, and already I was excited to write about it.

  Meanwhile, I played last night’s video back on my phone’s tiny screen again. And again.

  Outside my window, the light had begun fading from midnight blue to a deep purplish pink. According to my mom’s definition, it was officially morning. Everyone else should be getting up soon. I decided to slip into the bathroom so I could take a quick shower and brush my teeth before anyone else needed to use it.

  When I opened the bedroom door, I just about tripped over a suitcase that was sitting right in front of the doorway. My suitcase, I realized. Yes! I hauled the suitcase onto my bed and opened it up. Grampa’s picture smiled up at me. I set it on the nightstand, and immediately the room felt warmer.

  And clothes! I was so happy to have my clothes back. I’d already planned an outfit for that day—a pair of cuffed shorts I’d bought at the Portobello Road thrift market in London and a highlighter-bright pink-and-white-striped tee. I’d found the perfect strappy sandals to wear with it when we were in New York, and I’d been dying to put the outfit together ever since. I laid the clothes out carefully on the bed, grabbed my robe (a cotton yukata my mom got me in Tokyo), and hurried into the bathroom.

  I had showered and was just about done brushing my teeth when I heard someone thumping around in the rooms upstairs. I didn’t have much time. Quickly wrapping my wet hair in my towel, I pulled the sash on my yukata tighter and yanked open the bathroom door.

  To find Mateo waiting in the hall.

  I almost slammed the door shut again. I mean, there I was with my toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, in my robe, hair wrapped up in a towel, the zit on my forehead glowing like a beacon. On the other hand, he had a serious case of bed head going on himself (which was actually adorable) and was wearing just a pair of baggy sweats.

  “Um, hi,” I said, trying not to stare at his abs.

  He scrubbed his hand over his face and halfheartedly waved with the other. His eyes were barely even open. Good. So maybe I could sneak by with minimal awkwardness.

  Or not.

  “Good morning, Cassie-bug.” Dad shuffled past us, scratching his armpit.

  That was the kind of image I would have killed for on my blog, but not in real life. Not in front of Mateo. I didn’t even bother answering him but retreated to my room before my face combusted.

  I wasn’t surprised to see my mom cooking breakfast with Tío Alberto when I walked into the kitchen. Like I said, she loved to learn new dishes from people who had a connection with the food. I don’t know what they were making, but the kitchen smelled of lemons and coffee and baking, and it made my stomach rumble.

  Daniel hovered behind my mom with a comb. He kept reaching for her hair, and she kept swatting him away. “Not around the food!”

  “What are you making?” I asked. “It smells good.”

  “Magdalenas,” Mom said. She pulled a tin of muffins from the small countertop oven to show me. “Alberto was kind enough to teach me how.”

  Tío Alberto gave me a smile and a slight bob of his head before turning back to whatever he was doing at the counter.

  “She needs to be in makeup by now,” Daniel grumbled to me. As if I had any control over what she did.

  “Oh, hush,” she said. “We have plenty of time.” She told me to pull up a chair, and set a plate with sliced strawberries and a steaming muffin in front of me. “¡Buen provecho!” she said, which I think means something like “bon appetit” or “enjoy your meal.”

  “Gracias, Mama,” I answered, which means “Thanks, Mom” and is about the extent of my Spanish.

  “I thought you said you didn’t speak Spanish,” Mateo said, pulling up a chair beside me.

  “Yeah, well….” I picked at my muffin, trying to think of something a little more clever to say. I mean, I could think of things, but then I’d change my mind because I was too embarrassed. What was I supposed to say, Hey, you looked great in your sweats this morning or I really liked lying around with you in the grass? I don’t think so. (Especially not in front of my mom.)

  “You’re leaving in five minutes,” Daniel said to her. “We won’t have time for—”

  “I’m going to be covered in tomatoes inside of an hour,” Mom said, dodging his comb again. “I hardly think it will matter if my hair is done.”

  “It will for the introduction you’ll be filming before you are covered in tomatoes.”

  Mom considered this and then pulled the apron off over her head. “All right. But make it quick. We need to leave in five minutes.”

  Daniel pursed his lips and shot me an exasperated look. I shrugged. I already knew my mom could be annoying sometimes. What was I going to do about it?

  Just as I took a bite of my lemony muffin, Mateo asked, “Are you ready for this?”

  I chewed quickly and swallowed so I could answer. “I guess.” I mean, it’s not like I had a whole lot to get ready for. Mom had already decided the tomato fight would be too “rowdy” for someone my age, so she tried to make it sound like I was going to have so much fun watching it all from the roof. Okay, so a lot of the locals do watch from their rooftops, but I wasn’t a local. I also wasn’t going to argue, and she knew it.

  She glanced across the table at me and smiled.

  I smiled back.

  Useful, useful, useful.

  Travel tip: The Spanish are experts in regional food, especially jamon serrano, their favorite ham. If you want to start a conversation, just ask about ham.

  Mom and Dad left with Señor Ruiz-Moreno and Cavin to meet the rest of the crew and watch the traditional opening ceremony for the fight. And honestly? That part I wasn’t so broken up about missing. Get this: They put a ham up on top of a greased pole, and a bunch of guys try to climb up the pole to get it down. I am not making this up. Once someone grabs the ham, they fire a cannon and the tomato fight begins.

  Those of us who were left behind with Tío Alberto—Mateo, Logan, and me—climbed to the roof to wait for the action to begin. After Daniel was done doing hair and makeup, he came over to hang with us so he could film it from above. We are so lucky.

  “Our job,” Tío Alberto said, “is to keep the action going.” He showed us some huge buckets of water he had lined up along the ledge and grinned like a mischievous schoolboy. “And to keep them cool.”

  Just then, the cannon fired. The boom rolled across the tops of the houses like thunder. “Get ready,” Tío Alberto said. “They’ll start coming soon.”

  I raised my phone and focused the viewfinder toward the end of the block. Sure enough, people flowed into the narrow street below like a flash flood into a canyon. And they kept flowing until I didn’t see how any more could fit. Already the sun was so strong that the roof was getting hot. Sticky, sweaty, need-to-take-another-shower hot. And the air was
so thick it felt like I was breathing through a straw. I could just imagine how miserable it must be down below, being packed in tight like that.

  Soon the crowd began to chant. “Agua! Agua! Agua!”

  “This is our cue,” said Tío Alberto. “They are calling for water.”

  Mateo and Logan hefted a huge bucket and dumped it over the ledge. The crowd roared happily. On the rooftops around us, more locals were throwing water. Everyone below was soaked.

  “Look.” Mateo pointed out some guys who had ripped off their sopping T-shirts and were whipping each other with them or throwing them at people nearby. “This they call la guerra de camisetas,” he said. “The T-shirt war.”

  “When do they start with the toma—”

  My words were lost in another huge roar from the crowd. I startled and leaned over the ledge to see what was happening. At the end of the street, a huge open-bed truck, the bed piled high with tomatoes, rumbled slowly forward. Impossibly, the crowd parted, smashing back against the buildings to make room. Men who were perched on the truck started pelting the people in the crowd with tomatoes. When the truck was about to pass our building, the back of the bed dropped open and an avalanche of tomatoes smashed to the street.

  That was when the real action began. People closest to the pile scooped up tomatoes by the armload and hurled them at anyone within range.

  “Okay, that looks awesome,” Logan said. “What are we doing up here?”

  Mateo’s face lit up. “You want to go down? What about you, Cassidy?”

  “Oh. Well….” Mom and Dad didn’t actually say I couldn’t take part in the tomato throwing. They just said they’d rather I participated in La Tomatina from the roof. Of course, that was the kind of distinction that could get me an express pass to Gramma’s. “I…. don’t have any extra clothes I want to get ruined,” I said. Which was the truth.

  “We can find something for her, yes?” Mateo asked his uncle.

  Tío Alberto threw another bucket of water from the ledge and glanced over his shoulder at us, distracted. “Hmmm? Uh…. sí.”

  Mateo turned back to me. “Well?”

  “I dunno,” Logan said. “The fight might be too rough for her.” He said the words to Mateo, but his eyes were on me, challenging. Just like he used to do.

  Which means I should have known better. But I couldn’t help it. He was making me mad. I hated the look on his face, like he already knew I wasn’t going to go. I lifted my chin and met his stare with one of my own. “I can handle it.”

  Daniel pulled his attention and his camera from the street for a moment. “Oh. You’re going down? Should I…?”

  “No,” Logan said quickly. “Bayani’s already filming at ground zero. I think my da said he wanted footage from up here as well, right?”

  Daniel frowned, thinking. “Well, yes.”

  We started for the stairs when Logan stopped and added, “Watch for us. We’ll wave up at you.”

  I wanted to slap the back of his head. Subtle. Just in case my mom and dad miss the fact that I joined the fight, let’s be sure to document it.

  Logan grinned triumphantly. But if he thought I was going to back down, he was wrong.

  Downstairs, Mateo found some of Tío Alberto’s old T-shirts for the three of us to wear. I changed into my swimsuit and pulled the T-shirt over it. It was a good thing the suit was dark, because, shirt or no shirt, by the end of the fight everything I had on would be stained tomato-red. I didn’t have any shoes I wanted to get ruined, but from what I had read, I’d probably lose my shoes in the sauce anyway.

  “I wish I had goggles for you,” Mateo said as we reached the bottom of the front stairs. “The tomato juice can sting.”

  My stomach twisted. Not because I was worried about the stinging juice, but because in three steps, I was pretty sure I would be entering Disappoint-the-Parents Land. That was not a happy place to be. But neither was Let-Logan-Think-You’re-a-Wimp Land. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I cared what Logan thought about me. I pushed out the door and into the street.

  The tomatoes in the street were

  pretty much crushed by the time we got out there, so people were scooping up the pulp and flinging it at one another. Since we were the only ones not plastered in tomato guts, we became instant targets. Before long, I forgot all about Wimp Land and Disappointment Land and waded into the fight. Ha.

  I’ve never been in a food fight before, so I can’t say how the tomato-throwing compares; but there was something really liberating about smashing someone in the back of the head with a handful of slimy, drippy, gloppy vegetable. Well, technically fruit, but you know what I mean.

  And slimy, drippy, gloppy whatever is slippery. Once when I took a step to throw a handful of tomato, my foot slid and I lost my balance. I almost went down, but Mateo grabbed my hand to steady me. It might have been my imagination, but I could swear he held on to it longer than he had to. The beginnings of a zing began to build up from my tomato-squelching toes, but then Logan smashed a handful of glop on my head, and the moment was gone.

  Suddenly, the crowd surged forward. I have no idea what happened. All I know is, one minute I was standing between Mateo and Logan, and the next I couldn’t see either one of them. The crowd pushed me farther and farther away from the front of the shop.

  I wasn’t too worried about getting lost; judging from the covered buildings and storefronts we had seen the night before, the tomato fight was confined to a pretty small area. Once everyone cleared out, I knew I’d be able to find my way back to the shop. It’s just that throwing tomatoes wasn’t as much fun without Mateo and Logan as targets.

  Eventually, the road spilled out into the town square. I managed to work my way over to one of the palm trees that lined the sidewalks and pressed up against the trunk to keep out of the way.

  I thought I saw Mateo back toward the store, but he was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. Squinting at the sun, I tried to guess what time it was. The second cannon—signaling the end of the fight—was supposed to go off at one. If I just waited, the street would empty and I’d be able to find the guys and get back inside before my mom and dad got to Tío Alberto’s.

  The plan probably would have worked if somebody hadn’t bumped into me and pushed me away from my tree. By now the ground was so covered in slippery salsa that I skidded and splashed down onto one knee.

  The thing about tomato juice is that it’s acidic. Not only does it burn when it gets in your eyes, if you scrape your knee by slipping on the road, it stings like crazy. I bit down on my lip to displace the pain (it didn’t work) and struggled to get my feet under me again. But that wasn’t as easy as you might think. Every time I tried to stand up, someone bumped into me and knocked me down again. It was annoying the first couple of times, but after falling into the muck four or five times, I started to panic.

  The tomato sludge was at least half a foot deep. If I got pushed down facefirst, I thought, I could seriously drown. I could be trampled. I could—

  “Need a hand?” Logan reached down to help me up.

  So much for Logan not thinking I was a wimp. I gritted my teeth and took his hand, and he pulled me out of the slop. “Thanks,” I said.

  He tightened his grip. “Hold on to me,” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he started pushing his way through the crowd, pulling me along with him. I tried not to let him see me limp, but I’m not sure I succeeded. We managed to make it to one of the palm trees along the sidewalk, and he pressed me up against the trunk so that he was shielding me with his body.

  A handful of tomato hit him on the side of the face, but he didn’t even flinch or wipe it off. The red chunks slid down his cheek and clung to his jaw for a second before dripping onto his shirt. “Some fun, huh?” he asked, grinning.

  I looked into his face and felt a strange tug in my stomach. It felt a lot like sadness.

  And then the cannon fired. It was over.

  Logan took a step back.

  “That was gr
eat,” I said lamely. For once I couldn’t think of anything else to say. No wonder Mateo had been hanging out with Logan. I was boring.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get back.” He didn’t reach for my hand again.

  Just then, Mateo called to us from across the street, waving his arms. “Hey! Where you going?”

  “Back to the house,” I yelled.

  “Are you crazy? Tía Maria would kill us. We must wash off first!” He motioned for us to join him. That wasn’t so hard, now that the flow of the crowd was heading that way.

  “There are showers down the hill,” he said when we reached him.

  At that moment, a shower sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world. ’Cause here’s the other thing about tomatoes: When they dry on your skin under the hot sun, you start to itch. Really badly.

  Some of the locals had started coming out onto the side streets and alleyways with hoses to begin the cleanup. They sprayed people as they walked by, too. We were lucky enough to find an older gentleman in rubber boots who hosed us down. That took care of the worst of it, but we still followed Mateo down the hill where it looked like the crowd was swelling again near a row of temporary showers that had been set up on the riverbank.

  It was so crowded that some people kept walking right on past the showers to rinse off in the shallow river.

  “Over there!” Logan pointed to a couple of showers farther down the riverbank that didn’t have very long lines. We ran to use them before everyone else noticed them, too.

  The showers, we discovered, were simply plastic frames with garden hoses strung over the top. I figured we probably would have had the same thing going for us if we’d have stayed in town. Except then Mateo wouldn’t have been able to grab the hose and spray Logan straight in the face with it. Logan made a grab for the hose, and Mateo turned the icy water on me. I tried to wrestle the hose from him, but he had too tight of a grip.

  It was then that I heard two familiar voices.