How to Build a Heart

by Maria Padian

  Betts would win, hands down, a Most Likely to Own Her Own Nail Gun contest.

  It was hard to concentrate, not only because Mr. Lyle began the meeting by passing out a booklet-thick stack of papers (boring) but also because my phone kept vibrating. It was mostly VC girls on the group text but also messages from Roz.

  They were the first texts I’d received from her in a week.

  Roz: We need to talk

  Me: Are you home?

  Roz: Sorta. Outside your house. Where are you??

  Me: With my mother. A meeting. Long story. Back soon

  Roz: I’ll wait

  It was not a friendly I’ll wait. It was a WTF?? I’ll wait. Not that you can tell the difference on a phone screen. I just knew.

  Unfortunately, as I was texting Roz, Mr. Lyle asked me a question.

  “How does that sound to you, Isabella? Hours for A’s?”

  I had no freakin’ clue what he was talking about.

  “Um, okay,” I said.

  Mami shot me one of her glittery-eyed looks. Pay attention, those eyes warned.

  “What else can Izzy do to earn hours?” Mrs. Brenda asked.

  Betts cleared her throat. “Depends on how old she is,” she said. Her voice sounded like car keys in a can. Shaken, not stirred.

  “I’m sixteen,” I said.

  Betts cracked her knuckles. “She can work on-site if she has an adult volunteer supervising her one-on-one.”

  I wondered what was up with her speaking about me as if I weren’t in the room.

  “Plus you can earn hours helping at the ReStore,” suggested Red Beard.

  “Or coordinate meals,” added Natalie. “We provide snacks and lunch to everyone every building day. That involves getting people to donate, picking up and delivering food, and cleaning up.”

  “Trading in an A will seem easy by comparison,” Mr. Lyle commented.

  “Easy for Isabella.” Mami didn’t bother to hide the pride in her voice. “She is a straight-A student.”

  Everyone seated around the table beamed at me.

  Except Betts.

  “Sounds like you Crawfords will reach three hundred in no time,” Ms. Clare commented. Which is when I finally got what they were talking about: sweat equity. What we “put down” on our house instead of cold, hard cash.

  Every Habitat family has to give a certain number of hours working on its own or another family’s home. How many depends on the size of your house and your family, so for us, with Mami being a single parent with two kids . . . we need three hundred. Most of that will come from her; some can come from me. Apparently, every A I earn at St. V’s is worth an hour of equity, which is sweet.

  The bad news is: it’s just me. Jack’s too young. And even though relatives can pitch in, we don’t have any around. All Mami’s people are in Puerto Rico and the Crawfords are in North Carolina. Not that Mami would ask them . . .

  “Of course, first things first,” Mr. Lyle continued. “We’d like to share the good news about the Crawford family. Introduce you not only to our Habitat community but also to your East Clayton neighbors.”

  “A little public relations,” explained Ms. Clare.

  I didn’t like the way that sounded. I think the word “public” set off alarm bells in my brain.

  “What do you mean?” asked Mami.

  “Well, fund raisers, for one thing,” Natalie said. “We’ve got a few dinners planned and even a silent auction, and everyone will want you to be there to meet the donors.”

  I’d never heard of a silent auction, but dinner sounded good.

  It would have been fine if they’d stopped there. A few meetings, with food, to meet people. Yank Jack into his Church Pants, wear a nice dress, and talk to adults for a few hours. I could do that.

  But they didn’t stop there.

  “And we’d like to feature your family in our newsletter. It’s distributed to more than twenty thousand people in the greater Clayton area, and you’d be on the front page. With a picture!”

  I can’t remember who said that. I think I’ve blocked it. Sort of a post-traumatic stress thing. Because . . . no. No. Way.

  No one was mailing my picture and telling my story all over Clayton.

  I looked across the room at Mami. She was smiling away. Like this was all fine.

  “Do we have to?” I heard myself say.

  Every head turned in my direction. Even Betts’s.

  “It’s pretty standard. With every new family,” said Natalie.

  “And particularly important in your case,” added Mr. Lyle.

  I saw Red Beard frown at him. “Equally important.”

  Mr. Lyle looked irritated. “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding not one bit sorry. “But Rita needs to know what we’re dealing with.”

  Red Beard sighed. “Very simply,” he began, “a small but vocal group of East Clayton residents challenged this project—”

  “Why?” Mami interrupted. Her smile had been replaced by the classic Mami Worried Look: three lines creasing her forehead, eyes wide.

  Red Beard stepped in. “Your house is the first of four homes we plan to build in that part of town, on land donated to us. Previously, we’ve built all our homes within the Clayton city limits, so extending our reach into East Clayton is a first. It was challenged by abutters who were worried that putting houses on half-acre lots instead of four- or five-acre lots would hurt property values.”

  “Abutters?” Mami asked.

  “Homeowners whose property shares a boundary with yours,” he explained.

  Mr. Lyle made this snorting sound, just shy of a laugh. “The Buttheads.”

  “Lyle,” Ms. Clare warned.

  Betts ducked her head. I could swear she was grinning.

  “The good news,” Red Beard said, glaring at Mr. Lyle and Betts, “is that this was a small group of neighbors. Most people support our work.”

  “But the losers aren’t happy,” added Mr. Lyle. “Which is why we’re launching a Charm Offensive.”

  “We are not launching a Charm Offensive,” Red Beard replied. He sounded tired. Like this was an old argument.

  Mr. Lyle sat up straighter. “Sure we are,” he fired back. “We’re going to beat back their opposition by overwhelming them with positivity. When the newsletter—and the local paper, and the conversation by the water cooler—is all about this wonderful family that is building a house with Habitat, they’ll back off.”

  There was a pause after that. I decided to weigh in again.

  “You’ll have to count me out.”

  “Isabella!” Mami didn’t sound angry. She sounded surprised. Shocked beyond mad.

  “Excuse me?” Red Beard said.

  “I’ll hammer nails,” I told them. “I’ll make food, work in the ReStore, and earn straight A-pluses. But I don’t want to be photographed and interviewed.”

  “What’s the problem?” Red Beard asked.

  “There is no problem! We will all do the interview!” Mami said.

  I looked straight at Mr. Lyle. “Parts of my family’s story are . . . painful. I don’t like talking about it.”

  “You don’t have to share anything painful, Isabella,” Mr. Lyle said.

  How about personal? I didn’t say. How about embarrassing?

  How about this: appearing in the Habitat newsletter feels like inviting the entire city of Clayton to examine my underwear drawer?

  Mr. Lyle and all these nice people might have our best interests at heart, but they don’t begin to get how it feels to be me.

  “Maybe to the people who read your newsletter, the dead vet dad and the hardworking single mom trying to make a better life for her kids is a great story,” I said. “But to us? It’s no story. It’s reality.”

  “Isabella.” Mami’s voice. Quieter. With h
airline cracks. Like she couldn’t decide whether to cry or yell at me. “We will talk about this later.”

  “Or not,” we all heard. Betts. Who was squinting at her own phone now, then shoving it in her pocket. Like she needed to leave for another appointment. “We can postpone the family feature until your daughter feels more comfortable. The most important thing right now is cash, folks. I need cold, hard cash if I’m going to buy supplies. Can we count on you for dinners, Isabella?” It was the first time she’d said my name and spoken to me directly.

  “Sure,” I told her.

  Betts stood. “Well, that’s settled,” she said. “Sorry, folks, but I have to go. I know Lyle here will help you work out all the important details in my absence.” Mr. Lyle winked at her. “Isabella.” She tilted her head in the direction of the door. “Walk with me.”

  This, I thought, as I pushed back my chair and followed her from the room, is how the condemned feel on their way to the gallows.

  Betts didn’t waste any time. She spoke as we descended the stairs, her crank-box voice competing with the creaky wood until we reached the ReStore on the ground floor.

  “We’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other, Isabella,” she croaked.

  Great, I didn’t say.

  “I’ve built houses with a lot of families,” she continued. “Each one of them struggling. Each one of them special. In their own way.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to this, so I didn’t.

  “I like your mother. She’s a good woman,” she said.

  For some reason, this touched a nerve. I could feel the sting of gathering tears.

  “Don’t make things harder for her, kid.” Then Betts turned on her heel without another word and headed out to her car.

  It occurs to me now, as Roz and I set off on foot toward the market for my four-hour shift, that I’m exhausted. Like I’ve been carrying heavy stones for too long. I hardly have the energy even to talk to Roz, which is so not our way. Finally, she decides to poke a stick at the eight-hundred-pound Gorilla of Silence walking between us.

  “I feel like something’s up with you.”

  “We’re moving,” I blurt.

  She stops in the middle of the road. She looks at me like she’s not sure if I’m teasing or double-crossing her.

  It tumbles out of me, as if pieces of a jigsaw puzzle I’d stuffed in my pocket spill, in no apparent order, onto the ground. From Mr. Lyle to sweat equity and the property in East Clayton. The pieces are strewn before her and she fits them together in a flash.

  “You’re going to live in McMansion Land,” she says. As if she can’t quite believe it. “Are they building you a mansion?”

  This makes me laugh. “Roz, it’s Habitat for Humanity. Not Oprah.”

  “They only build mansions out there, Izzy.”

  “Guess again.” I don’t bother telling her a few of the neighbors share that impression.

  “Still. Good for you. Getting the hell out of here.” She says “here” like . . . it’s the halls of Clayton County High. We resume our walk to the store.

  “So why is your mom mad?” Roz continues. As if news like this should be a permanent antidote to mad-ness.

  “They want to write about our family in their newsletter,” I tell her. “I don’t want to do it and Mami is furious. She yelled the whole drive home.”

  “Why don’t you want to do it?”

  “I just don’t.”

  Roz snorts. “Seriously? You’re up for three hundred hours of hard labor, but you won’t pose for the camera and say ‘cheese’?”

  “It’s not just that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. They pissed me off. I don’t mind that the Habitat people know us. But our ‘story’ isn’t the whole town’s business!”

  I’m getting worked up. Again. Like I did with Mami. And Roz’s attitude right now doesn’t help. She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

  “Hell, wanna trade stories? I’ll take the cute brother, the mother who cooks, and the war hero dad. You can have drunk Gloria and pistol-packing Shawn. Deal?”

  “My father is not a war hero. He’s just a dead Marine.”

  “Sure he is. There’s a reason everybody’s always saying ‘Thank you for your service,’” she continues. “It’s freakin’ brave to fly over there where everybody’s pointing guns at you.”

  “God, I am so sick of that line!” I kick the gravel. “Do you know, when people find out my dad died in Iraq, they say ‘Thank you for your sacrifice’?”

  Roz grimaces.

  “News flash,” I continue. “My dad wasn’t a hero. He was unlucky. And ‘sacrifice’? That’s a choice. Nobody gave me a choice. And if they had, I’d choose my dad. Back home and alive. Every time.”

  We’ve reached the market, ten minutes before my shift starts. Nobody pays me for working extra minutes, so I signal to Earl, the guy I’m relieving behind the register, to put me down for an extra snack. Roz and I each take a Dove Bar from the freezer case and go around back to eat.

  She looks thoughtful as she unwraps her ice cream. “You know, you fight with your mother. But your dad’s the one you’re really mad at,” she says.

  I resist the urge to throw my slightly freezer-burned bar at her head. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How could I be angry with my father? He can’t help being dead.”

  “Same reason I’m mad at mine. For not being here.”

  “Yours walked out. Mine got blown up. Really not the same.” I don’t care how this sounds. Roz is pissing me off. Possibly more than the whole Habitat crew. Which is saying something.

  Roz takes a big bite. “End result is the same,” she says, mouth full.

  The fact that she’s talking with her mouth full annoys me. I stare at my Dove Bar. I love these things: they make them with good-quality chocolate, decently thick so you get a nice, solid bite. But right now I have no appetite. I flip mine into the dumpster and wipe my hands on my jeans.

  Roz looks horrified. “What the hell! I’d have eaten that!”

  “I gotta go,” I tell her.

  She takes one step forward, blocking my way. “Not until you tell me what’s up with you. And don’t say it’s you don’t want your picture in some newsletter.”

  “What if it is?” I demand. “Why don’t you get that I don’t want to be the poverty poster child of Clayton, Virginia?”

  Roz’s eyes narrow. Like she’s finally caught on. “Oh, you mean people might find out your single mom makes crap money and you live in a crappy trailer? You have to borrow clothes from your crap friend who lives in an even crappier place? Boo-freakin’-hoo, Izzy. Cry me a river.”

  She’s trying to piss me off with “trailer.” Once, when I told her the term was “mobile home,” she laughed and said something like, “Yeah? And denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.”

  “You know what? This conversation is over,” I say now, trying to step around her, but she puts her body between me and the door. I’m about to push her out of the way when the expression on her face stops me.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen her look truly angry at me.

  “You think I don’t get why you dissed me at the game last night? Afraid I’d blow your cover with your snotty-ass private school friends?” Roz’s stare dares me to disagree.

  We are so different. Roz wears poor like it’s a badge. Like it’s her superpower. If she could, she’d display her troubles like trophies. She’s right: I don’t want the St. V’s girls to know where I live. I don’t want them to see the stained carpet, the beat-up fake-wood kitchen cabinets, the toilet that runs, those plastic chairs . . . But that’s not why I blew her off.

  She hates those kinds of girls. Calls them Basic. She would’ve sat there with that constipated expression on her face like she thinks everyone and every
thing sucks, and if someone had tried to be friendly to her, she’d have shut them right down. I don’t need that.

  Especially because I like them. And I shouldn’t have to apologize for it.

  “Why are you so afraid of people finding out you’re not perfect?” she demands.

  I can’t help it: I laugh. Perfection is so not what I’m worried about. “You really don’t get it,” I repeat.

  Roz doesn’t answer. Instead, her gaze tracks to her melting ice cream bar, which she stares at in confusion. Like she can’t recall how it got there. She considers it for a second, then tosses it in the dumpster with mine. “You want a news flash, Izzy?” she says. “Here’s one. Life ain’t perfect. Not for anyone. And real friends? They don’t expect perfection.” She turns to walk home but then thinks of one more thing. “But they do expect honesty.” Roz doesn’t wait for a reply. She quick-steps away from me and back toward Meadowbrook.

  As I watch her go my phone buzzes in my pocket. God, I am so sick of the VC thread today. I pull it out to take a quick look before heading inside to relieve Earl.

  And what do you know. Speaking of perfection.

  Sam: Got a minute?

  12

  It’s not a date.

  But that doesn’t stop me from dressing for one. I shower and straighten my hair. Apply fresh eye makeup. Dig out my one clean, cute top (he’s seen the white Roz-shirt already) and squeeze into my best skinny jeans. So by the time I get around to asking Mami for the car keys so I can make a tampons run (a request no mother, however angry, could deny), I’m lookin’ gooooood.

  Jack isn’t fooled.

  “Where are you going?” he asks. He and Paco are watching television.

  “Grocery store,” I tell him.

  His brow furrows in that little-wise-kid way, as if he’s trying to decide whether the fat guy in the red suit is the real Santa or one of the “elves.” That’s the line we always feed him at Christmas when he gets suspicious.

  “With earrings?” he comments, eyeing my big hoops.