Running

by Natalia Sylvester

  A cloud of red settles over our heads. We stand and look up at the ceiling just as the last bit of net comes undone and releases thousands of balloons. I’d forgotten about them. They’d been sitting up there all night, waiting for the call of victory to let them loose. They were supposed to fall on an ecstatic crowd, but instead they float, slowly and uneventfully, onto the empty floor. I trace their lazy paths with my tear-filled eyes. “I guess they had to come down at some point.”

  I hear a pop, and then another and another. The sounds speed up and slow down like a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

  “Joe!” My father’s voice cuts through the noise. “Can you please wait till we’ve gone?” He emphasizes please in such a way that it’s not a request. The stage vibrates as he walks across it one more time. “Vamos.”

  I kiss Vivi and Zoey good night. They head to the hotel entrance, where Vivi’s mom is waiting for them. Mami takes Ricky into her arms, and even though he’s getting big now, and he’s still asleep, his body conforms to hers, making him seem weightless as she carries him. She rubs my shoulder with her free arm. As we leave the ballroom, I’m careful not to step on any pictures of my father that say RUIZ FOR PREZ.

  We’re a few feet from the elevator when the sounds of the balloons popping start up again. They’re loud and angry in a way I wish I could be.

  forty-seven

  We don’t ask not to go to school the next day, but we don’t have to. Mami and Papi’s bedroom door stays closed all morning, and when I pull back the curtains in the living room, the house fills with blinding light. I make my brother a late-morning snack—diced apples and water crackers with butter. He does this gross thing with his mouth, where he takes a bite but doesn’t really chew, just waits for it to get soggy from his saliva. Then he smacks his lips and the little crumbly bits fall from his face as he swallows.

  “Ewww. Qué asco,” I whisper.

  But he’s like a zombie, not really here. He is the only one of us who doesn’t hide his emotions. They pour out of him, pure and unfiltered, as if there is nothing worse in the world than this loss.

  He starts to cry, his tears torrential but muted, and to my surprise, he lets me hold him. The concept that some people did not vote for Papi is soul-shattering to him. It’s a betrayal I see written on his face, all the soft spots that turn hard as he tries to make sense of it.

  “But . . . they said they would. Hundreds of them. I saw them.”

  He’s thinking of the people who shook Papi’s hand at rallies, or the ones who took a picture with him for their Instagram, promising they’d get out the vote. Ricky didn’t know it was a reciprocal transaction. I don’t have the heart to tell him that people don’t always do what they say they’ll do.

  Even after he’s gotten the tears out of his system, Ricky doesn’t turn on the television or his iPad; he just stares into the backyard. I notice the trees have sprouted new fruit, and since Gloria hasn’t been around to keep track of them, the fruits just hang bright and heavy from the trees’ limbs.

  “Come. I want to show you something.” I take off my sandals. Thick blades of grass tickle my toes and crunch beneath my soles as we make our way across the yard. Fallen mangoes lie along the roots of the trees, dotted with holes that birds and bugs left behind. I stretch on my tippy-toes to pick the ones still intact. They’re yellowish green and firm, and splatters of sap cling to their skin. My fingers get sticky as I hand one after the other to Ricky. I spot our neighbor’s papaya tree and banana fronds peeking over the fence. They’ve yielded nothing new, but what we have in our own yard is plenty.

  “Will we lose the house?” Ricky asks. “At school, there’s this girl Erica who’s gone, and Andrew says it’s because her mom lost her job and then their house.”

  “Papi hasn’t lost his job. Not really.”

  Ricky stands in the middle of the yard with his arms full of fruit, staring at our home like it’s a faraway place he already misses. I wonder if he knows what losing a house means, or if he’s imagining that ours will float away and we’ll be left stranded. I think of Vivi on the beach, miles from her home that used to be not even a mile from ours.

  “We’re not going anywhere. And even if we did, we’d still be fine.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I go back to looking for more fruit because I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ll ever understand men like Irving, or the people like Papi who follow him. I don’t know how they can be so obsessed with buying property and selling houses instead of making homes.

  Last night during Papi’s speech, he said he was looking forward to spending more time with his family. But when he finally comes out of the bedroom with Mami, it’s only because Abuelo has arrived, and neither Ricky nor I heard the doorbell. The three of them come outside with their hands in the air, trying to block the sun from their eyes.

  “Se van a quemar,” Mami says. “At least come inside to put on some sunscreen.”

  In the kitchen, the local midday news is on, recapping last night’s results. We pretend not to hear as we gather paper plates and disposable silverware for the bag full of chicken that Abuelo bought from Pollo Tropical. A second plastic bag from Publix is filled with avocados. I know they’re from Abuela’s tree—he’d never eat any others. As he cuts one open, careful not to let the blade pierce his skin, he smiles gently at Mami. “We have each other. That is the most important thing.”

  She squeezes his hand and I hear the familiar jangle of her silver bracelets. It’s like the sound of keys when you’re heading home.

  Behind us, the TV volume increases until a woman’s voice fills the room. Papi is slouched against the edge of the table, holding the remote control.

  “Earlier this morning, a five-year-old boy was admitted to Hialeah Hospital in what may be the youngest case linked to recent findings that the groundwater from the Biscayne Bay aquifer contains high levels of pharmaceutical contaminants. Doctors believe the boy’s heart medication may have reacted poorly over time with the chemicals in the drinking water. No word yet on his condition or prognosis.”

  Papi sits in silence. I want to ask him if this changes things, if maybe now, for this boy at least, he’ll take action. I’m angry that it’s come to this; why do we need more victims for something to matter? Why can’t we try to keep bad things from happening instead of doing damage control after they do? I start to move toward him but Mami places her arm softly across my chest.

  “Not now, hijita. Soon. We’ll have plenty of time for these things, I promise.”

  I think of all that time Papi said he’ll be spending with his family. I wonder if it’ll be days, weeks, or months before he’s meeting with donors and constituents again. He can’t change who he is. We all know he’d rather be running. For president, for senator, for anything. I wonder if now, maybe he’ll run for me. But I can’t wait for him to make a decision before I make one of my own.

  As if she read my mind, I get a text from Jackie.

  Sorry everything sux right now.

  It’s not your fault, I reply.

  I know. But I’m still sorry. I wish things were different. All the things. The world.

  You and me both.

  I see her typing something and then change her mind. I wish I could just talk to her and Didier and Crissy. Putting my phone away, I start helping Mami empty out the dishwasher.

  “I want to go back to school tomorrow,” I whisper.

  She also keeps her voice down, even though no one asked us to. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “Positive.” Then I ask Abuelo if he can take me to see Vivi this afternoon once school lets out.

  * * *

  The streets of Miami Beach are worn along the edges. Bits of gravel collect in wet, black clumps in the places where the ocean water came and went. I catch glimpses of the crowded shore as we cross each intersection. Earlier today, city officials lifted the no-swim advisory now that the sewage leak cleared out, so people’s arms and legs poke out of th
e waves here and there. We drive with the top down in Abuelo’s newest old car, a 1999 Mustang convertible that he says he got for a steal because the air stopped working and the top won’t go back up.

  “So, pray it doesn’t rain.”

  “Abuelo! You’re joking, right?” There’s no chance it won’t rain this afternoon. Precipitation is the only thing that’s ever punctual in our city.

  I close my eyes against the breeze. When I open them, we’re parked in front of Vivi’s building and she’s running toward us from the end of the street, having just gotten off the school bus. Last time I visited Vivi’s aunt’s apartment, we were eight and her aunt took us for ice cream on Ocean Drive after we’d spent the whole day in the sea. When we were done we chased lizards outside her building. They darted up ferns and palm trees, fleeing from the clusters of giant black-and-red grasshoppers in the hibiscus bushes.

  I catch the sweet, light smell of hibiscus nectar as Vivi opens the gate to the building. She tells us that her mom brought her abuela home while she was at school today.

  “Abuela!” she half shouts, half whispers as we walk into the apartment. The orange Saltillo tiles in the living room are almost entirely covered by cases of plastic bottles wrapped in plastic. “She might still be sleeping.”

  We poke our heads through a crack in the bedroom door and sure enough, her grandmother is out. Her lips are dry but they slowly pucker and part as she breathes, like a fish.

  Vivi shakes her head as she closes the door. “They finally thought she had enough fluids in her system to let her come home. Isn’t it crazy? The water made her sick but then she needed water to rehydrate. How can the thing that almost kills you be the same thing that heals you?”

  I start to agree, but no. “It was never the same thing, Vi. Don’t confuse the toxic with the good.”

  Epilogue

  When you grow up in Florida, you don’t just grow up on the land, you grow up in the water. It clings to the air you breathe. It falls from the sky almost daily, like clockwork, like someone was just flushing out the pipes. At the beach, if you dig a hole not even a foot deep in the sand, you’ll find ocean there. Canals meander through neighborhoods. Ponds and fountains dot apartment complexes, manmade to mimic larger bodies. Almost everyone has a pool, or access to one in their building or a neighbor’s. In the summer, newscasters track the moisture levels in the air as depressions turn into storms turn into hurricanes that make their way to shore.

  Which is why no one is surprised when it rains nearly nonstop in the days after the election. It’s the kind of spring rain that windshield wipers can’t clear. On the way to dropping me off at school, Mami drives below the speed limit through the flooded streets, squinting through the window. It looks like someone ran a hose down the glass. I jump out of the car and run as fast as I can across the school courtyard. I feel every drop of water on my skin turn to ice as I walk indoors.

  Nothing keeps the water out. The school lays extra drying mats, but we still drag mud and water into the hallways. In first period, the rain seeps in through the windows and Ms. Walker plugs the leaks with a purple and green beach towel she got from her car. I can’t stop staring at the towel during class. It’s hard to imagine her lying on it in the sand, tanning in a bikini. I bet when she does, no one sends a drone to spy on her.

  Days when it rains like this, everything goes quiet. Like life and all its noise can’t make it through the dampness. We walk around being careful not to slip. And maybe it’s because we like hearing the raindrops against the building, or the rumbling thunder, but no one ever raises their voice.

  The calm feels nice. I let it settle me. I know it’ll pass, but for now it helps me piece myself back together.

  The day after I go back to school, PODER holds its first meeting since the walkout. It’s not just the five of us anymore; it’s standing room only and people stay so long that we pool our money together to order pizzas. Jackie brings out her stack of green flyers again and reminds everyone to run for offices of PODER. I hold one in my hand, folding over the edges into tiny triangles.

  “I think I’m going to run. For vice president,” I whisper, turning my head to smile at Didier. With Jackie and Crissy graduating, we’ve all known Didier will run for president. I’m still figuring out how I can help as I go. He puts his hand out in the air for a quiet fist-pump, and Crissy squeezes my arm as she rests her head on my shoulder.

  We brainstorm what’s next for PODER, writing our plans on a whiteboard calendar that Ms. Sepulveda bought after Jackie’s first televised interview. It’s filled with color-coded tasks that people can volunteer for. There’s something for everyone: some of us will text our members of Congress, others will call or write letters. Zoey wants to protest outside the mayor’s office while Didier is choreographing a gratitude demonstration for the senator (the other one) who released a statement in support of us after the walkout. Students from other schools have reached out in solidarity, so we’re planning to FaceTime to exchange ideas. There’s even talk of us forming our own PAC—we’ll raise funds only for candidates who’ll support passing laws for clean water and climate change prevention. I wonder what Mami will say when she finds out about that.

  “We’re revolting,” I say once everyone except the five of us has gone, half to myself, half hoping someone will get my I Love Lucy reference. It’s from the “Pioneer Women” episode, when Lucy makes demands for a dishwashing machine.

  Didier smiles at me inquisitively.

  “No more than usual,” I add in my best Ricky impersonation. No one but me laughs at the joke, but it doesn’t matter.

  In the coming weeks, Jackie, Crissy, Didier, and I will take interviews with the kind of big media outlets my father rarely turns down. Every day after school we go over what we have to say. We’ll tell them this is just the beginning. That our health and the quality of our water are not for sale. That it’s way past time our elected politicians looked out for our interests instead of developers’. Always, we’ll remind them this is nothing new. That Flint, Michigan’s drinking water has been poisoned for years, and where is the influx of stories about the kids who’ve been demanding clean water now? Little Miss Flint was eight when the crisis started, and she hasn’t stopped raising her voice. Her name is Mari, like mine. We don’t pronounce them the same, but our messages aren’t all that different.

  “You’re supposed to be the adults,” I tell the Times. “You say you want to leave us a better world, but you’re leaving us to clean up after your mess.”

  “And what does your father have to say about that?” the reporter asks. It’s after school, and I’m sitting on the PODER couch with my phone on speaker, my friends quietly listening and cheering me on.

  “I don’t know. You should ask him,” I say, knowing he won’t respond to a request for comment. Papi is on what Joe calls a “listening break,” which means he hasn’t said a word to me. But last night I heard him and Mami arguing about my interview. They probably thought I was asleep. Mami told him not to get in my way, that he shouldn’t stop me from becoming the person I want to be.

  Her words filled me with both warmth and terror. I wanted to yell down the stairs that sometimes I don’t know who that person is, the one I want to be. Then I caught sight of the moonlight glistening against the canal in the backyard, nearly still on the smooth water, and it felt like a slow exhale. All I’m sure of is that I want to be the one to choose, in my own time. I want to be the one who gets to have her say.

  The reporter asks me if there’s anything else I’d like to add before we hang up. There’s so much. There’s always more I feel I should be saying or doing, maybe because I went so long without realizing I could. But for now I tell her no. There’s Vivi waiting for me at her apartment, and Abuelo outside because he promised me a ride.

  By the time he drops me off, Vivi and I have an hour left before sunset. We walk along the boardwalk, its wooden planks creaking beneath our feet, and then we take off our flip-flops and step onto
the sand. Today I can’t decide if it’s the sky or the ocean that’s the more beautiful blue.

  “It makes me feel so small,” Vivi says, as if she read my mind.

  “I know,” I say, but then I breathe in the breeze. I think of the name my parents gave me, Mariana. The sea it holds. The way its power stirs inside me.

  I run toward it and jump in.

  Author’s Note

  The law that Mari and her friends march in protest against was inspired by real events. In 2018, the Florida legislature introduced a bill that would allow companies to dump treated sewer water into the state’s aquifers. Supporters and critics of the bill used similar arguments to those mentioned in this novel. The bill passed in both the Florida House and Senate, clearing the way for it to become law. To the surprise of many, it was ultimately vetoed by the governor of Florida. It took one veto—and the voices of those who called their lawmakers, testified, and spoke up against the bill—to make a difference.

  Acknowledgments

  This book started as a spark, a what if? that was immediately met with genuine enthusiasm from my agent, Laura Dail, whose excitement was contagious and sustained me in moments I most needed it. Thank you so much, as always, for your unwavering support.

  My endless gratitude to my editor, Jennifer Greene, for pushing me to get closer and closer to the heart of this story with each revision; I’m a better writer for having worked with you. Thank you also to Alex Cabal, for taking my breath away with your artwork and illustration of Mari, and to art director Sharismar Rodriguez, for having such a clear-eyed vision for this book’s cover and bringing it to life in ways beyond my wildest dreams.