American Hero - George R. R. Martin Page 0,71

Guadelupe Maria del Rosario Garza aka Rosa Loteria

Hey, America! Rosa again.

There’s . . . okay, so much stuff’s happened. Mr. Berman said I should just start at the beginning and they’d cut what they need to, so here goes. . . .

It’s a whole lot of getting picked.

Yeah, I know, I pick cards all the time. But I don’t shuffle through my deck face up and go, Ooh, okay, her. I could use this one. I mean, yeah, I do that, but that’s just strategy, that’s not how my power works. When I pick a card, I pick blind, and just deal with what I get.

Other people, it’s different. Like back when DB asked me out. Other girls are going, Oh, no, he’s a player and Cleo’s all, Boo-hoo! He used me and threw me away! Along with some nice bling, I might add. But hey, he’s hot, he’s rich, he’s popular, and he picked me. We had a good time. Part of why we had a good time was because I didn’t have any expectations. I’m not some telenovela Ugly Betty thinking just because she gets a date with a Takisian prince he’s gonna whisk her away to his castle beyond the stars. I’m Rosa Loteria, I’m an ace, and while I kind of like DB, I’m not gonna follow him around and be the chick with the tambourine.

But hey, sometimes it’s nice to get picked.

Curveball and Stuntman did the same with me last week, and it’s not hard to see why. She’s Ms. Offense, he’s Mr. Defense, and they needed someone who could do everything they couldn’t do if they just bought her some time. And hey, they picked right, because we won.

Block party with my family? Best thing ever. Got to see people I hadn’t seen since my quinceañera, ’cause you gotta remember, that’s when I turned my card, and I walked out halfway through the party. Bootsie—that’s my nickname for La Bota—she walked me all the way to Cleveland before I drew another card, and I had a heck of a time getting back. But American Hero gave me the rest of my party, letting me come of age not just as a woman, but as an ace.

Of course, we also won the chance to go up against each other, except this week’s challenge was crap. We were supposed to be fighting a bunch of terrorists, but they’re the lamest terrorists on the planet. Any of the gangs in LA could eat them for breakfast.

First we had to fight our way through a bunch of stuntmen. Fair enough except it’s not. Jamal? He’s invulnerable. They can use real ammo on him and it won’t make any difference, so they did, but they were dumb. Real terrorists would have shot him in the eyes and blinded him like they did Tiffani a few weeks ago with the paintballs, or used a net or bolas, or chopped him up with a machete and put him in different dumpsters. But these were special ed terrorists.

Then Kate goes out with a bag of Nerf balls instead of marbles, and her stuntmen have paintballs instead of bullets. Fair enough. Except, you know, added bonus for Curveball, Nerf balls are bigger than marbles, so she has a lot easier time blocking the paintballs.

Then there’s me, and I’ll admit I pitched a fit, ’cause this Loteria deck is a family heirloom, and at the fiesta, I promised mi abuelita I’m not going to let any damn paintballs near it. So Mr. Berman says fine, he calls wardrobe and they hook us up with a laser tag rig, and that would be great except they still don’t know what cards I’m going to pick and neither do I.

So I shuffle the deck and pull out Las Cerises, the Cherries. If these had been real terrorists, they would have been hosed. Mr. Berman is all, “What the hell is a chick in a red dress and a Minnie Pearl hat going to do?” I never heard of this puta Minnie Pearl. But I bet even if she had a straw hat with cherries on it, she couldn’t pull off a handful and have the stems light with the other sort of cherries, you know, the type you get on cigarettes.

And fuses.

I toss a bunch under some random prop crate and blow the hell out of it, and he’s all, “Cherry bombs? You make cherry bombs? Do we have any prop cherries? We don’t have the