Fatal Intent - Jamie Jeffries Page 0,19
somewhere in the restaurant. “Well, no wonder. She’s got one of them for a lover.”
Neither Alex nor Dylan looked around, until the voice made it clear its owner was addressing them. “You’re the girl writes that beaner-lovin’ blog. What’s your boyfriend’s name, beaner-lover? Bet he’s one-a them illegal border-hoppers. What’s your name, wetback?”
Alex froze mid-stride, and then turned around to look for the speaker, her face a thundercloud. Dylan put his hands on her shoulders, and said in a low voice, “Ignore him. Come on, let’s just leave.”
Alex stiffened at his touch, then relaxed. “You’re right. Come on. Ignorant redneck, anyway.”
“Don’t stoop to his level. Calling names never solved anything.”
Dylan would have been amused at the misunderstanding if it hadn’t been so unpleasant for Alex. He was Tohono O’odham, not Latino or Mexican, though the difference was academic along the border, as he’d learned from his aunt Wanda a few months ago. He guided Alex out with his hand on the small of her back.
As soon as they were outside, she whirled and threw her arms around him. “Dylan, I’m so sorry!”
Surprised, Dylan peeled her away from him to look her in the face. “Why, baby? You think I feel bad about myself because some asshole is prejudiced? I don’t.”
“But what he said was so ugly!” Alex’s face was a mask of sorrow. Dylan had never wondered whether she considered him second-class, or beneath her notice. She’d never made him feel that way. In a way, having the thought intrude into their existence was like a flaw on an otherwise beautiful flower, and it saddened him, too.
“Baby, sticks and stones. You know? Words can’t hurt us if we don’t let them. But I don’t like that kind of hatred aimed at you. Please, please take your picture down from your blog. At least do that for me.”
“Okay, Dylan, I guess you were right about that. I’ll do it tonight.”
“Thanks, babe. I’ll feel much better when I know people won’t necessarily recognize you on the street.”
“Me too, I guess.”
They thought no more about it as Alex baked her cake and her housemates arrived with pounds of fresh shrimp they’d brought on ice from Rocky Point. Between the three girls, enough friends showed up to celebrate Dylan’s birthday that he felt part of a group of happy people for the first time in a long while.
SEVEN
Between the festivities of the party, which included some very odd pairings of beer and birthday cake, and Dylan leaving, Alex forgot her promise to take her picture off her blog that night. She remembered the next morning though, when an anonymous comment appeared for moderation. She read it in disgust and then deleted it. No way was she going to allow that filth on her blog. The comment called her everything from a fucking whore to a cock-sucking bitch of a wetback-lover. The worst part wasn’t the language. It was the utter disregard for everything she was saying, the deliberate misunderstanding.
A little more cynical now, Alex removed her photo from the blog and replaced it with the symbol that spoke to her most from the O’odham tradition. I’itoi, Big Brother, stands at the entrance to a maze representing life. The journey is long and takes many twists, but at the center is a return to the center of everything. Alex imagined it as the heaven she’d read about, though she hadn’t been raised in any particular religious tradition. Instead, she thought of a sort of misty otherworld, where spirits roamed free of pain, suffering and sorrow.
After class on Tuesday, she met with her adviser, the journalism professor who’d first encouraged her to blog and to make it a paying enterprise. That it barely made enough to support her internet connection didn’t matter. She told him about the ugly incident at the coffee shop and the disturbing comment she’d refused to publish.
“Alex, there’s a fine line between censorship and keeping yourself safe. Did you get the sense that the person who commented had any personal animosity toward you?” Professor Daniels asked.
“Well. Yeah, I got the idea it was the same person, actually. Some of the phrases were the same. But I want my blog to be as appropriate as it can be, considering the subject matter. I want kids to be able to see it, too. So I couldn’t really allow that language.”
Alex firmly believed that kids as young as pre-teens had just as much right, when their parents or other loved ones were missing, to know