Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight
thirty-nine
forty
forty-one
forty-two
forty-three
forty-four
forty-five
forty-six
forty-seven
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
More Books from HMH Teen
About the Author
Connect with HMH on Social Media
Clarion Books
3 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Copyright © 2020 by Natalia Sylvester
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
hmhbooks.com
Art and cover illustration by Alex Cabal
Cover design by Sharismar Rodriguez
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sylvester, Natalia, author.
Title: Running / Natalia Sylvester.
Description: New York : Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, .[2020] | Audience: Ages 12 and up. | Audience: Grades 7 and up.
Summary: “When fifteen-year-old Cuban American Mariana Ruiz’s father runs for president, Mari starts to see him with new eyes. A novel about waking up and standing up, and what happens when you stop seeing your dad as your hero—while the whole country is watching.”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019029658 (print) | LCCN 2019029659 (ebook) ISBN 9780358124351 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358330806 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Fathers and daughters—Fiction. | Politics Practical—Fiction.
Cuban Americans—Fiction. | Conduct of life—Fiction. | Family life—Florida—Fiction. | Miami (Fla.)—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S994 Run 2020 (print) LCC PZ7.1.S994 (ebook)| DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029658LC
ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029659
v1.0620
For Nonno
Prologue
Gloria collects the mangoes from the tree in our backyard once they’ve fallen but before the birds or bugs can get to them. She cuts them into cubes and lets me nibble on the pepa and then she packs them into my lunch in a little Tupperware with a spoon. When I get home from school the first thing she always asks is, “Did you remember to bring back the Taper?” Then she washes the container by hand and leaves it to dry facedown on the kitchen counter.
In the mornings I help her pack me and my brother’s lunches while I wait for my mom and dad to get dressed. I cut our sandwiches into triangles and put them in ziplocks. I put the cold cuts back in the fridge and wipe the counter. Somehow, Gloria always sneaks in a note on my napkin. I know I’m too old for them, but they’re funny, usually some pun having to do with my food. Like with the mangoes, she’ll write, “Man, go eat some frut!” She always spells fruit like that. She’s learning and she’s trying; but it’s the words that are similar in English and Spanish that trip her up. She even has a language app on her phone that she plays in the kitchen while she cooks, but only if my parents aren’t home yet. It makes her say things like, “The mountain is too far to walk,” which cracks me up because there’s not a single mountain in Miami, unless you count Mount Trashmore, the landfill we pass on the highway anytime we go to Orlando.
The morning after Papi dropped his bombshell of a plan on our futures, the papaya tree in our neighbor’s yard had yielded fruits the size of footballs. It’d grown at an angle so that one of the fruits dangled over our side of the fence. Gloria ran across the grass to get it before the neighbors could see her. That day at lunch, along with a Tupperware full of diced papaya, I got a napkin that read, “Papá ya agradeció a los vecinos.”
Dad already thanked the neighbors. It’s a play on words, so it loses all its humor in English, which is what I said to Zoey, who speaks so little Spanish that the joke was entirely lost on her.
“Papá and ya mean ‘Dad already.’ Gloria just likes to make double meanings with different words for food,” I said.
“It’s not that funny if you have to explain it,” Zoey said.
Vivi and I locked eyes and smirked when she wasn’t looking, a silent acknowledgment that we, of course, had gotten it. Even though she teases me about the notes being childish, Vivi also thinks they’re cute “in a charming retro kind of way.” I told her about the stolen fruit and the mango tree that’s ours and how Gloria jokes there’s so many mangoes, we should sell them off the side of the road. Vivi only laughed and said, “Oh my god, Mari, that’s so reffy.”
Papi got home late that night, so we waited for him to eat because he kept calling to say he’d just left the office, he was just five minutes away, he was just eight minutes away. When he arrived twenty-five minutes later, I got so upset watching him take off his tie and unbutton his shirt at the table that I blurted out, “Oh my god, Papi, that’s so reffy.”
He stopped and gestured to me with his right hand balled up in a loose fist, his thumb sticking out. “Mariana. We do not talk like that in this family. What would people say?”
People. He’s always saying that, like there’s some invisible audience watching us at all times. When I was little I thought these people were on the other side of every mirror in our house, even the bathrooms, so I’d never undress in front of them. I’d brush my teeth, twenty seconds on each side of my mouth exactly, just like the dentist ordered, thinking people were judging my every move.
“Why not? What does it mean?” my brother asked. Ricky’s seven years younger than me, but his question made me realize that I didn’t know what it meant either. Not really.
Mami cleared her throat and wiped her mouth with the napkin on her lap. This is her not-so-subtle way of warning my father to be careful. I’ve gotten this look so many times, it might as well be a neon light flashing CUIDADO across her forehead. “It’s . . . it’s a horrible thing to say about people who’ve been through difficult times.”
“It’s short for refugee,” Papi added harshly. “And very insensitive.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“You know better than to be so careless with your words,” he said.
“That could be your grandparents,” Mami added. “They fled Cuba not even a week after they were married, leaving everything.”
My dad set his hand on the table, rattling our silverware, the salt and pepper shakers. “We d
on’t make fun of people like them.”
When Papi says people, there’s a hierarchy: first it’s his campaign manager, then his biggest donors, then the news anchors and Twitter and Facebook and, basically, the entire internet. People we can’t see but who can see us. People I’m devoting my life to, he always says.
That’s why my father’s running for president.
To make things better for everyone.
Except, it turns out, me.
one
“I’m Anthony Ruiz.” My father pauses, widening his smile. “And I approve this message.”
From behind the camera, the director says, “Just a few more times.”
“I’m Anthony Ruiz, and I approve this message.”
Someone holding a light over me and my family coughs. Papi leans forward and looks across the couch at Mami before trying again. “I’m Anthony Ruiz and I approve this message.”
“Not so fast, Tonio,” she says.
“I’m Anthony. Ruiz. And I approve this message.”
Ricky tries to keep from laughing, but ends up sounding like he sneezed with his mouth closed. I shoot him my most stern don’t-laugh-at-Papi look, but I fail miserably at keeping a straight face.
“You sound like a robot, Papi,” he says.
“It’s super unnatural,” I add.
“I’ll try it one more time. We don’t have all day,” he says, but I think he’s trying not to laugh too. The dimple on his left cheek—the one that, according to Mami, makes the focus group of women her age melt—starts to peek through.
“Actually, this is going to make great blooper reel footage,” the director says. “The PACs will love it.”
At the mention of PACs, my mother clears her throat and turns her nose up, away from the director. It’s no secret that she’s not comfortable with what we’re doing. When I asked her why before the shoot, she said that Political Action Committees can help the candidates they’re supporting, but they can’t donate more than five thousand dollars directly to their campaign.
“It’s to keep super-wealthy people from buying influence in an election,” she said. “But outside of that five thousand, PACs can do other things with the money they raise, like make ads and buy airtime on TV for their chosen candidate.”
“So we’re shooting these videos for the PACs,” Ricky said matter-of-factly. I raised my eyebrows and gave him an encouraging smile. It’s cute how he acts like he knows what he’s talking about, even though I suspect he thinks there’s a giant yellow Pac-Man doing Papi’s bidding. Still, he catches on to more than my parents give him credit for.
“No no no no no,” Papi replied, very quick to contradict him. “We’re not shooting footage for the PACs. We’re putting these on YouTube. Whatever anyone does with all the video is completely up to them.”
Mami glared at my father.
“What?”
“It’s too gray, Tonio. You know how I feel about shady tactics.”
“It’s common practice. All the other candidates do it.”
“That’s not the kind of reasoning I want to teach the—”
She was interrupted by one of the assistants asking us to take our seats at the dinner table.
Not that we actually ate dinner. It’s noon on a Saturday and we’ve been up since five in the morning for makeup and to catch what they call “good light.” Papi said grace twenty different ways over a meal we didn’t eat, then we played catch in the backyard. Correction: Papi and Ricky tossed a football back and forth while Mami and I sat on beach towels by the pool, laughing like we were in a 1950s toothpaste commercial. We walked around the neighborhood holding hands as a family, and now we’re here: all four of us on the couch in the living room. Mami sits next to Papi with Ricky to her right, and I sit to Papi’s left. He puts his arms over our shoulders and squeezes.
“I love you all so much.”
“Nice, that’s really nice,” the director says. “One more time?”
“Gladly,” Papi says. “I’m just so proud of my family.” We all look at him and smile, but his gaze remains steady on the camera until he finally catches my eye and says, “I love you, hijita.”
I smile back despite the awkwardness. Between the film crew and Papi’s campaign staff, there are at least fifteen people watching us. There will be who knows how many million more, once the videos are online.
I try not to think about it.
“Okay, now let’s try the approval a few more times, but this time the kids join in and say ‘we approve this message.’” The director takes off his Marlins cap and runs his hands through his hair. I can’t remember his name, just that Papi was really excited we got him for this shoot because he did a bunch of spots for a Mitt Romney PAC in 2012. When politics was still about honest men running, he always says.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mami says.
“¿Por qué no?” Papi lowers his voice even though we’re all wearing mikes.
“It’s tacky, dear. Leaning on the kids so much.”
“I think it’d be sweet. Ricky, what do you think?”
That’s messed up and my father knows it. Ricky’s only eight, which means he does anything Papi asks, no questions. He’ll figure out he has a choice in things eventually. For now, he nods enthusiastically.
“Mariana?”
I’m surprised Papi asks me. Has he forgotten the fifty-three hundred times I’ve begged him and Mami to leave me out of this? My father acts like I’m still eight years old and dreaming of being an actress. He caught me rehearsing my Oscar acceptance speech in front of the mirror with a hairbrush as a mike the one time and he’s just never been able to drop it. He put me in front of the cameras every chance he got, calling me his Best Supporting Actress. But back then his campaigns were different. For one, I had no lines. Mami was in charge of everything and she insisted it was for our own protection that Ricky and I should be “seen but not heard.” Besides, people weren’t exactly tuning in by the millions to watch footage of their local elections.
This, though. This is on a totally different level.
Before he announced he was running for president last fall, my father made a really big deal about getting me and my brother’s support, and of course I was excited for him—I still am. But guess who froze on camera during her first channel 39 appearance when the anchor asked the simplest question of all time? Turns out a mike is not the same as a brush. Turns out it makes “Are you excited for your father?” sound like “What is the square root of seven hundred forty-nine thousand?” Papi knows I can’t handle the public speaking thing. He knows that inside I panic Every. Single. Time. Still, he can’t accept the fact that I’m not a crowd-pleasing natural like him.
Mami cuts in before I can answer. “You don’t want to look like a local mattress store salesman, do you?”
She gives me a subtle wink. At least she remembers that Papi promised to use Ricky and me as little as possible. “Only when it’s absolutely necessary,” he’d said.
Except who gets to decide what’s necessary and what’s not?
“Don’t exaggerate, Juliana. It’s just a few simple words.” He smiles, but his dimple isn’t showing anymore. He taps me on the chin and says, “Right, chiquitica? It’s not like we’re live.”
I wave his hand away like it’s a mosquito that landed on my face. He’s making things so much worse. We may not be live, but everyone’s watching us. If I contradict him in front of the crew, I can already imagine what his assistant, Joe, will say when it’s over: every time you undermine your father, you make him look like less of a leader. But if I stand here another second, I’ll feel my throat turn into a giant suction cup, like in those nightmares I always have where I’ve lost my voice.
“Can we take a break?” I finally say. “I need to use the restroom.” I don’t wait for the director or my dad to say yes or no. I walk out before they have a chance to stop me.
* * *
I use the half bathroom downstairs because the camera
crew is blocking the way to my bedroom and bathroom upstairs. It’s smaller than my closet but at least it’s quiet. I check my phone and see that Vivi texted me a bunch of screenshots and links to articles in support of my father.
See? It’s not so bad. She adds a bunch of smileys and the lady-dancing-in-red-dress emoji. That’s her trademark.
Thanks, I text back. Still trending, tho.
Last week, during the primary debate, Papi messed up bad. I could tell by the way Mami, who sat in between me and Ricky in the front row, squeezed my hand like she was making orange juice.
The moderator had asked my father about climate change, about why the party is so averse to using those two words when Miami Beach is already being affected by sea level rise.
“That’s not entirely accurate,” Papi said, in this vague, could-mean-anything way that I’m starting to realize is probably the point. He added that the weather patterns are not necessarily manmade and that what’s happening on the beach shouldn’t be blown out of proportion.
“When a hurricane blows our way, do the other forty-nine states duck for cover? No, because we’re talking about Miami, not the whole country,” he said. Then, maybe out of nerves, or maybe thinking it’d be funny, he chuckled and added, “We can be our own Latin American bubble sometimes.”
By the end of the debate, #BubbleBoyRuiz was trending and people from both political parties were saying that comments like my dad’s are what enable our government to abandon its own people in times of crisis, like they did Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Others were calling his Latin America sound bite controversial and insensitive, which everyone knows is code for racist. Joe started freaking out that my dad’s campaign would have to go into crisis mode. Jesus. He just made all of South Florida think he doesn’t think they count, is what he kept repeating, over and over. The primary elections are less than a month away; other states like Arizona and Illinois are voting on the same day, but my father’s team is hyperfocused on Florida because for him, it’s make or break. He can’t win the GOP presidential nomination without winning his home state; it’s worth way more votes than most. Pissing off the city with his highest number of supporters was a really stupid move.
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