Running

by Natalia Sylvester

  Maybe he doesn’t.

  “I’m serious, Papi.”

  “You think I’m not? You think I don’t care about Miami Dade county’s water? You think I’d sell out all my people for Irving’s money? Is that what your friend Jenny’s told you?”

  “Jackie.”

  “Jenny, Jackie . . . Is she the one putting you up to this?”

  “It’s everywhere, Papi. I don’t live in a box.”

  “No, you don’t. That’s exactly my point. Our growing population needs housing, Mari. We’re all doing the best we can with the resources we have. This is . . . a really bad turn of events, but it’s not the crisis you and your friends are making it out to be. Irving knows what he’s doing. He wouldn’t invest seven hundred fifteen million dollars in a flawed project.”

  “That’s . . . a lot of money,” I say.

  “It is. He invests a lot in these properties. Don’t you think he thinks them through?”

  “Do I think he thinks about the money? Yes. The environment? Not so much.”

  “Cuidado with that tone.” Mami’s been pretty quiet, but she never misses a chance to tell me not to talk back to my father. It’s like an instinct she can’t control.

  “No, it’s fine, Juli. Mari’s just voicing her concerns.” He sits on the arm of the couch that faces away from their bed and crosses his legs, suddenly attentive.

  “Please don’t do that.” It’s amazing how fast he’s gone from chewing me out to patronizing me.

  “Do what?”

  “I’m not a constituent you need to convince to vote for you! I’m just your daughter and I’m really upset right now.”

  “Okay. Calm down. And tell me why.”

  “I don’t want to calm down! I don’t understand how you can be okay with Irving doing this.”

  “Mari, it’s not as bad as you think it is. Besides, Irving’s business is Irving’s business. I stay out of his and he stays out of mine.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “What did you say?”

  Maybe Mami is right; I should be careful. “Nothing. It’s just, it doesn’t look good. He’s your biggest donor.”

  And your bill only helps him, I want to add. But I don’t.

  “What do you want me to do? Give back money this campaign already spent?” As he raises his voice, mine feels like it’s shrinking back into my chest.

  “You said you would protect our environment.”

  “When did I say that?”

  It’s like he just threw a basketball at my gut. Could he really have forgotten? Or worse, could he be pretending to?

  “The last time we went to the Everglades. On the boat? And every time we do beach cleanups?” I blink back tears and look away. The shirt he sleeps in literally says, THE EARTH IS OUR ONLY HOME. PROTECT IT.

  “Oh, Mari.” He gets up from the couch and sits next to me on the bed, placing his arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were talking about our trips.”

  “It’s not just that. It’s everything. Abuelo bought like eighty gallons of water, and Ricky is so scared he’s going to die. It shouldn’t have come to this.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “So you’ll talk to him?”

  “To who?”

  “Irving.”

  “These things aren’t that simple, Mari.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do?”

  “Well, we focus on winning this election, for one. You can’t change things if you’re not in a position to do so.”

  I watch the way he pouts his lips as he talks. He’s said this all my life and I’ve always thought it was about empowering other people. What if it’s just about empowering him?

  “It’s not even on your platform, though. None of the environmental issues are.”

  “Ah, so you’re checking up on me now? You don’t trust your Papi anymore?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Look. These big developments that people like Irving plan, they’re a necessary part of a city’s growth. A city either grows or it stagnates, and then everybody suffers because that’s how industries die and people lose their jobs and homes . . .”

  “Vivi’s losing her home. She and her mom can’t afford to live here now that her dad’s selling the house.”

  “What? When did this happen?” Mami stops emptying her suitcase and slumps back on the couch. “How’s Lily? I should call her . . .”

  “Yes, it’s very sad,” Papi interrupts. “But these are all normal growing pains.”

  Mami looks at him in disbelief and I shake my head. None of this makes sense.

  “If these are normal growing pains, how come the only ones getting hurt are people like Vivi’s family?”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” He begins undoing his tie. “I feel like I’m debating one of my opponents, except it’s my own daughter!”

  “Cálmate, Tonio. Stop treating her like she’s the enemy,” Mami says. “She’s just worried about her friend. I am, too, now.”

  “Not just Vivi, though, Mami. What about people even worse off than Vivi? She’s living at her aunt’s because she can, but . . . what about people who are really poor?”

  “I know,” she says.

  “So now you’re both ganging up on me?” Papi says.

  “Tonio, for once, think of someone other than yourself!” Mami’s words rush out of her mouth, and then she seems to gasp silently before clearing her throat. “Hijita, give me and your father a moment alone.”

  He looks just as surprised as I feel. Mami hardly ever gets mad at Papi in front of me. Seeing her lose her composure, even for a second, scares me. It’s another one of those things I can’t pretend I didn’t see, the kind that, one by one, changes everything.

  twenty-seven

  Every other Sunday we go to the 10:00 a.m. mass, which is in English, and then the next Sunday we go to the 11:30 a.m. mass, which is in Spanish.

  The Spanish one always feels longer because the priest talks too fast and he’s really long-winded, and as much as I try to pay attention, I zone out. I don’t mind because on the one hand, I get to sleep in an hour later than I do for the English mass. On the other, Mami doesn’t like us having breakfast before church—she says the body of Christ should be the first thing in our bodies. So on any given Sunday morning, I’m either sleepy or starving, and cranky either way.

  It doesn’t help that we never actually leave right after the hour is up. On the way out, Papi finds any excuse to linger around the church steps. He’ll pretend to look for his sunglasses or check his phone for messages. He’ll thank the Father for the day’s sermon.

  He hangs around to give people a chance to say hello to him.

  Some will simply say, “You’re Anthony Ruiz,” and shake his hand when he smiles and says yes.

  Others will tell him their problems: an illness that’s left their family in debt, a job they lost months ago. Mami says they just need to vent, except she says it in Spanish. Sometimes I translate her words back to English even when I know there’s no exact translation.

  Se tienen que desahogar. They just need to undrown.

  Papi lets people talk as long as they need to. He never interrupts anyone except to introduce them to us. I smile and pose the same each time. Eyes wide but no teeth. Hands in front of me with my fingers interlaced.

  This morning is different, though. This morning there was a smaller tub of holy water at the church entrance because the congregation is trying to conserve water. When it came time to take communion, they ran out of Eucharist because they only boiled enough water to make three-quarters of their usual amount in time for today’s mass. I guess even the body of Christ isn’t immune to whatever chemicals are in our water right now. And before the service started, there was a line that wrapped all around the church building, full of people waiting to get a case of bottled water. Papi donated several cases. He had Joe and his staffers bring them in this morning, and they ran out withi
n minutes. The camera crew filmed Papi handing off a couple of crates and shaking hands with the priest as he thanked him, and then they took the rest of the day off. All I could think about was all these plastic bottles ending up back in the ocean once they’re thrown away. It’s like we’re incapable of solving one problem without creating another.

  Now we’re standing outside on the steps, and the last thing I want to do is play the proud daughter. A few people have stopped to ask us if there’s any bottled water left. Others simply walk by with nothing but horrible looks in our direction. I can’t decide what’s worse: their silent stares or the look on my father’s face when he says there’s no more water. As if a sympathetic half smile from their senator is supposed to make things better.

  “This is pointless,” I say. “It’s embarrassing.”

  Mami only clears her throat and straightens her shoulders. When my father’s been standing and waiting long enough that it’s excruciatingly awkward, he ambles back toward us.

  “It’s a pretty day out, isn’t it?”

  It’s our last Spanish mass before Florida votes in the primaries a week from Tuesday. He’d probably anticipated this would be his busiest post-mass appearance yet, and the disappointment on his face is undeniable.

  “Vámonos, Tonio. You’ll only make it worse,” Mami says.

  “Make what worse? There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the fresh morning air. People are in too much of a hurry these days.” His voice is louder than it needs to be. He talks like we’re hundreds of yards away instead of right in front of him.

  Finally, a man about the same age as Papi walks up with a little boy holding his hand. I can’t really make out what he’s saying until the man raises his voice.

  “My son needs clean water! When are you going to protect him? Grow a spine, Senator.”

  Papi’s face is unwavering. You’d think he just received a compliment. He thanks the man for sharing his opinion as he walks away.

  “It’s not an opinion, pendejo!” The little boy gasps at his father’s language, and the few remaining churchgoers in the courtyard look our way.

  Papi waves one more time, looking flattered. I wonder what it must be like to live in his head, constantly creating your own reality, and having enough people in your life play along.

  “Can we please just go home now?” I say.

  “Yeah, Mami said she’d make pancakes,” Ricky says.

  We make our way to the car wordlessly. Papi squints as he scans the nearly empty parking lot.

  “People are just concerned. And we’re all tired.” Mami reaches slowly for his hand but he brushes it away. “Maybe take the rest of the day off. Descansa.”

  Un-tire.

  “No, it’s fine. People need to feel heard. I get it,” Papi says.

  But making them feel like you’re listening isn’t the same thing as listening, I want to say.

  I don’t. I’m scared the truth will hurt him, so I keep quiet and let it hurt me instead.

  As he drives us home, Papi’s breath practically whistles through his nose. He stops at a red light, resting his elbow against the window, and covers his mouth with one hand as if it were a napkin.

  Mami turns the radio on but he quickly snaps it back off.

  “Tonio, you’re reading too much into this.”

  He shakes his head slowly. “Things were supposed to be getting better after . . . after all of this.” He waves his hand over the center console, tossing the air behind him toward the back seat. Obviously, he means me. “Polls are unreliable, though. But people . . . people you can count on, until they stop showing up. And they’ve stopped showing up.” He punctuates each word with a stiff wag of his finger.

  “I’m sure it’s not as big a deal as you think it is.” I realize too late that these are the exact words he said to me yesterday, when I asked him about Irving’s project. He’ll probably think I’m mocking him.

  “I don’t want to hear another word from you. You might not care if I lose this election, but there are a whole lot of people who actually support me and who I don’t want to let down.”

  What about not letting all people down? What about Vivi’s grandma and that boy who doesn’t have clean water? But I can’t bring myself to say these words either. “That’s not fair. I never said I don’t care.”

  “Well your actions said plenty. I know what you’ve been up to, asking esa muchacha Jackie to come over to plan your little rebellion. Hashtag Dump Irving. Did you ever stop to think they might dump me too?”

  If Jackie were here, she’d tell him This isn’t about you.

  “I don’t want you seeing her anymore. ¿Me entiendes?”

  “What?” I grab the back of Mami’s seat and lean in close. “You can’t tell me who to be friends with. Mami, tell him.”

  She sighs. “Tonio. She didn’t do anything. They’re just kids with ideals.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I know Mami thinks she’s defending me, but her words sting. What, so Jackie and I are too young to be taken seriously?

  “That’s exactly the problem,” Papi says. “People like Jackie, they go around thinking they can fix everything and just end up ruining everything.”

  “Okay, okay,” Mami says. “No es pa’ tanto.”

  “You’ve never even heard her out. You’ve never even heard me out,” I say.

  “Oh, I hear you all right. I get that you don’t want me to win. Loud and clear.”

  He gets on the highway and speeds up so fast that Mami taps his shoulder.

  “Ya, Tonio. Enough.”

  “I never said that I want you to lose.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  twenty-eight

  When we reach our house there’s an old silver four-door Civic in our driveway, and inside are Amarys in the driver’s side and Gloria in the seat next to her.

  They get out of their car at the same time we do, and when I catch Gloria’s eye, her chest rises like she’s taking a deep breath. It makes me nervous to see her nervous. I give her and Amarys a hug while Ricky and my parents stay behind. They wait for Gloria to introduce them.

  “So this is the famous Amarys,” Papi says to them in Spanish. I wonder what he means by that. It must have something to do with the online gossip Vivi told me not to worry about. I got so caught up in the aquifer crisis, I forgot to Google them online. “You didn’t have to keep her hidden all these years, you know,” he says to Gloria.

  Amarys looks like she’s about to laugh, but instead she scoffs. “We like to keep our work and personal lives separate. I’m sure you can understand.”

  The thing about switching to Spanish when you’ve been speaking in English is that everything sounds more polite and formal to me. This would be fine under normal circumstances, but today it just makes Papi sound condescending and Amarys passive-aggressive.

  Mami gives her best hostess smile and gestures toward the front door as if it’s the first time they’ve been here, which I guess for Amarys, it is.

  “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” she says.

  “Yes, it’s good for us to know who our daughter runs off to when she can’t stand being with her family,” Papi says.

  I want to die. I want to summon one of those sinkholes that are always happening in Central Florida and slowly crawl into it.

  “It wasn’t like that,” I say. “They didn’t know I was coming.”

  “Did you really kidnap my sister?” Ricky says. “Is she going to have a girlfriend, too, now?”

  “Ricky!” Mami says.

  Amarys laughs and bends down so she’s eye to eye with him. “How old are you?”

  “I’m eight.”

  “Eight! You’re way too big to listen to fairy tales and silly chisme.”

  Papi’s face turns hot pink as he fumbles for the keys.

  “I don’t know where he heard that,” Mami says. “We try to shield them from all the campaign gossip. But sometimes the kids at school, you know . . .”


  So those are the rumors Vivi was talking about. A bunch of conspiracy theories about Gloria and Amarys abducting me and homophobes talking like being gay is contagious.

  “That’s really what they’re saying?” I say.

  “It’s nothing. It’s a bunch of trolls on Twitter,” Amarys says.

  “But you did get a couple of requests for interviews, didn’t you? From the papers?” Papi says. “My publicist told me a couple of writers reached out to me for comment. Said that they planned to be in touch with you too.”

  “We ignored them, señor. Out of respect for your privacy,” Gloria says.

  He nods approvingly, and it makes me want to scream, What about Gloria and Amarys’s privacy? They didn’t ask to be brought into this. I mumble something about how ridiculous it all is, but neither Gloria nor Amarys responds.

  Inside, the house is dark as a patch of cloud cover makes its way across our backyard. Tiny bits of light poke through, glistening through the glass door into the dining room. That’s when I notice that Gloria is not only carrying her usual overnight bag, but a couple of empty suitcases too.

  “What’s that for?” I say.

  “I’ll tell you after I talk to your parents, okay?”

  They make their way toward the kitchen. Mami tells Ricky and me to go to our rooms but I sit, curling my knees into my chest, in the middle of the stairway.

  I hate that this is how Amarys is meeting my parents for the first time. Why couldn’t they have met years ago, on a random Sunday evening when Amarys dropped off Gloria? They could’ve talked about stupid things like the weather and Miami traffic. We could’ve invited her in for a late night cafecito instead of whatever the hell this is now.

  But I know that’s too much to ask of Papi. What would people think, he’d say. He would’ve been too deep in his personal politics to treat Gloria and Amarys like people. Maybe they were right to stay away from him, but I hate that they ever had to.

  I don’t hear any plates or cups being taken out. No one offers them something to eat or drink. I hear the bass of Amarys’s voice, but I can’t distinguish any of her words. Slowly, I take off my shoes and make my way back down the stairs. I stop just shy of the slanted ray of light emanating across the tile from the kitchen.