Red Glass

by Laura Resau

  I usually wore a big T-shirt at the pool, taking it off only to dip myself in the water a few times. And this, only after spreading myself with so much sunscreen I left an embarrassing layer of grease on the water.

  “Look at this!” Dika would say when we got in the water. She left a slick film of oil, too. “My poor, poor boyfriend! He must to clean up all this grease!”

  “We shouldn’t even be here, Dika. It’s illegal.”

  “My boyfriend invites us! He is boss of the pool!”

  He wasn’t exactly the boss of the pool. He was the maintenance man.

  One afternoon, a few months after Pablo arrived, we’d been cooling off in the water while Pablo did flips between us. We were arguing, as always, about whether we should be using the pool. The maintenance man, meanwhile, slowly picked out leaves here and there.

  Dika reasoned, “Ah, Sophie! No one uses this pool! We are only ones! Whoever made this pool will be too happy that some people uses it. And that poor pool man. He doesn’t have job if no people uses it!”

  The pool man was a short, stocky man—from Mexico, I assumed. Brown skin, a polite smile. We saw him fixing things sometimes, leaving an apartment with a case of tools. Dika watched him closely whenever he was around. She made a show of applying baby oil to her legs, rubbing it on the folds of flesh hanging over the bikini; made a point to check the tan line of her giant bosom as he raked the water’s surface with his pole net.

  This day he was hovering by the pool, waiting for us to get out of the water so he could clean it, yet pretending he wasn’t waiting so we wouldn’t feel rushed. I got out and dried off. “Let’s go, Pablo. Come on, Dika!”

  “Always you are rushing, Sophie, rush rush!” She lumbered up the pool steps and then her foot slipped. I think it really was an accident, because I saw the shock in her eyes, and how her chin jarred as she fell, but within seconds she’d recovered and decided to milk it for all it was worth.

  “Ohhh! Ahhh! Mein Gott! My leg!” And she sat on the step, clutching her thigh, massaging it.

  The pool man rushed over and crouched down beside her. She looked at him with designed bashfulness. She actually fluttered her eyelashes.

  “You are okay, miss?” he asked in a thick Spanish accent.

  I could see her mind at work. Miss. He must have noticed she had no wedding ring. Or else he just thought she was very young. Or else he was deliberately complimenting her.

  He helped her up, walked her over to her chair as she pressed her body against his, coating his shirt with oil and water. He crouched by her chair and she bent her leg. “Look at it!” she moaned. “You think it will be okay? You see bruise?”

  He looked at it and swallowed hard. “Is good, I think, very good.”

  I saw the corners of her lips curve up.

  An hour later they were still talking in a mix of Spanish and English. “Children! I must to let my leg rest more before I walk home. Mr. Lorenzo helps me! You go!”

  And that is how Dika snagged the boyfriend whose son would change my life.

  Jewel Errands

  School ended in June, but since Juan was swamped at work and Mom couldn’t find a waitress to sub for her, they postponed the Mexico trip. That was fine by me. I’d already made a three-page list of things to do with Pablo over the summer.

  Then, one sweltering evening, out of the blue, Dika announced over dinner, “We have plan. We drive to Mexico together. Me, Mr. Lorenzo, his son, Sophie, Pablo. We stay in Pablo’s village for one week. They go to Guatemala and they find the jewels. Pablo can to see his poor family. Mr. Lorenzo and his son return to Pablo’s home, they pick us up, and we return to Tucson. Good for everybody, no?”

  “What jewels?” Juan asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Find the jewels,” she said, impatient. “You know, the things they have to do, like the errands.”

  “Jewel errands?” Juan raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Don’t look at me,” I said. “This is news to me, too.” My pulse quickened, but no, this wouldn’t really happen, it was too far-fetched.

  “You’ve only known this Mr. Lorenzo guy for a few months, Dika.”

  “That is how long I date him. But really, we know him more. No, Sophie? We watch him every day. For one year! Watch him work.” Dika punctuated her words with her fork. “Every day. He works hard.”

  “Hmmm.” Mom looked skeptical.

  “But you know me, you know I am good judge of the people,” Dika insisted. “He works hard, Sophie, no?”

  I shrugged.

  “What do you think, Sophie?” Mom asked me.

  It sounded like a bad idea. I wanted to keep postponing Pablo’s trip until the idea of it faded from everyone’s memory. Anyway, a road trip was way too dangerous. After all, didn’t car crashes kill more people than all natural disasters combined? And I’d never traveled anywhere without Mom and Juan, never been brave enough to. Once, on a family vacation, we were in the car and suddenly a panic gripped me, a panic so strong I felt as though I were suffocating. I made us turn back. That panic would pop up at other times, too.

  The worst thing was, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was always a dark, sinister shape lurking just underneath the surface. And that worry spawned another one: What if, after a big wave of fear knocked you over, you could never, in your whole life, stand up again? What if you could never feel pure happiness? I imagined my fears piled up inside me like broken pens, leaking ink and turning my innards black.

  Dika’s idea was terrible, too, because it meant weeks trapped with her and her boyfriend, and the son. Who was the son, anyway? How old was he? I pictured a short, stout twelve-year-old, a miniature Mr. Lorenzo.

  While I was making this show of thinking about it, Pablo piped up. He hardly ever talked, so it was easy to forget he could understand us.

  “I like the pool man.” His voice came out small and thin, and in English at that. His eyes were lit up, more animated than ever before. “I really really like the pool man,” Pablo added, louder this time.

  A warm, liquidy feeling spread out from my chest.

  “You really want to do this, Pablito?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Yes!”

  I took a deep breath. “I’ll think about it.”

  Mom stared at me. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s think about it.”

  “The pool man is cool,” Pablo said, rearranging his mouth into what almost passed for a smile.

  After dinner I lay in the hammock and watched the layers of leaves quiver above me. Could I do this? Mom and Juan wouldn’t let them go without me. Maybe not even with me.

  The idea of traveling outside Tucson made my pulse race. Here, at least, I could control things. I could change the dish sponge every week to avoid bacteria buildup and check the radon detector’s battery daily. But traveling was like standing in an open field during a storm, danger shooting from all directions like lightning bolts. I suspected Mexico would be my worst nightmares wrapped into one deadly package: exotic germs, ruthless criminals, poisonous creatures. And no turning back.

  It wasn’t just Mexico, or traveling, or Mom dying; all kinds of possibilities made my breath quicken and my throat start closing up. Life-threatening illnesses might creep up on me, like cancer or AIDS—not to mention hepatitis, typhoid, malaria, and leprosy. Then there were the everyday risks of getting trapped in an elevator or poisoned by a disgruntled fast-food worker. And of course, with every car ride, a giant truck could smash me, or a driver with road rage could beat me to a pulp. Then there was a whole slew of natural disasters like a building crushing me in an earthquake or a flash flood drowning me. And the more insidious dangers—molds and toxic gases and deadly chemicals seeping into our house through the ground.

  I pushed myself in the hammock with my foot, rocking back and forth. Beams of sunlight sifted through the leaves, illuminating a patch of my left thigh, my right ankle, the center of my chest. Above me, the layers of green shifted, like all the layers of
myself. Layers I’d forgotten about, or maybe never knew existed. I saw my trail stretching before me. Up ahead, it branched into two. One route led through a forest of thickening fears to a small, closed-in life, and the other led…somewhere else.

  Suddenly I had the feeling that everything depended on whether I went to Mexico.

  Later that night, after Pablo and Dika had gone to sleep, Juan and Mom and I sat at the kitchen table under the wobbly ceiling fan.

  Juan tilted his head at me, looking baffled. “You really think this is a good idea, Sophie? You think you can do this?”

  “I think Pablo needs to see his family, and we need those adoption papers signed, and, well—I think it makes sense.” I tried to sound confident.

  Mom raised her eyebrows. Wispy pieces of blond hair floated around her face. “His village sounds pretty remote—you won’t be able to snap your fingers and be home.”

  “I know. I can do it.” As I said this my heart was pounding. Was I crazy to think I could go?

  Mom and Juan looked at me doubtfully.

  “I can do it,” I said again, biting my lip.

  “And, Sophie,” Juan said. “Remember, Pablo might decide to stay there.”

  My stomach contracted. “No, he won’t.”

  Mom looked at Juan. “We can’t force him to be happy here. It’s been nearly a year and he’s still all melancholy, still wants to sleep out there with the chickens. Sure, he’s better than at first, but have you ever seen him laugh?”

  I thought about it. “I guess not.”

  “Okay, Sophie,” she said. “Go down there with them. Spend a week or so in his village. See how he feels.”

  The full impact hit me in bed that night: If Pablo decided to stay in his village, and Dika went off and married Mr. Lorenzo, I’d be an only child again, just me, Juan, and Mom. It gave me a thirsty feeling, but I couldn’t figure out what I was thirsty for.

  We planned to leave at sunrise—who knows why, but Dika had some idea that all long trips must start at sunrise. “We must to leave when the sun raises. We must!” I wasn’t clear whether this was a superstitious thing or a practical consideration.

  I slept outside with Pablo the night before our departure. When the sky started growing lighter, I heard people loading our Volkswagen bus, but I just wanted to lie there. I’d hardly slept from nervousness. Pablo was sound asleep, eyebrows wrinkled, intent on some dream. The rooster crowed and I covered my ears.

  “We should get up,” I whispered to Pablo, nudging him. “Ya, levántate, principito.”

  He opened his eyes, groggy.

  “Buenos días,” he said. Not to me, to someone else.

  I propped myself on my elbows and squinted into the sun. A guy my age, in mirrored sunglasses, towered over me. He wore a long black leather coat, about five gold chains around his neck, glaring white tennis shoes, and a baseball cap pulled low. Reflected in the lenses were convex images of me in my dirty white nightgown with chicken feathers in my hair.

  He knelt down and extended his hand. “I’m Ángel. Lorenzo’s son.”

  My Feet Are Nice

  His voice seemed artificially deep, as if he were trying to sound manly. He held out his hand.

  I wiped the dirt off mine and shook his.

  “I know you already. Sophie.”

  He stood back up. I looked at him more closely. I recognized the sunglasses, the way he stood, his legs firm, but his body swaying slightly, confident as a tall tree. He held, under his arm, a small wooden box, about the size of a Kleenex box. It was made of dark, rich wood, carved and polished to a bright sheen.

  Now I could place him. He’d been in my woodworking class two years earlier. I was the only girl in the class, which I rebelliously took as an elective instead of Computer Skills. Most of the guys in the class skipped it regularly. Ángel came to class about once a week.

  The main thing I remembered about him was this: At the end of the semester we all displayed our pieces around the dusty worktables. Mine was a crooked little end table. One guy made a gun case, another a toolbox, another a stool. But Ángel had made a giant mahogany armoire, taller than himself, carved intricately with flowers and birds, the curves smooth, the wood brilliant. I’d assumed he’d bought it, or stolen it, or gotten it from his house and lied about making it himself.

  But Mr. Mutton, the teacher, had reached an understanding with him. It turned out he had let Ángel build it in his neighbor’s wood shop, where he worked after school. When he asked Ángel to tell us how he made it, Ángel went through the process step by step, running his hands over the wood as though he knew it well, like a pet’s fur, or a girlfriend’s hair.

  “You’re the one who made that gigantic armoire, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m surprised you recognized me.”

  “You kidding?”

  What did that mean? Outside of class, he was one of the guys who hung around huge pickup trucks, red or black and shiny, with ranchera music blaring. He was definitely not an amoeba. He was part of an organ. And the other cells of the organ: girls in halter tops and tight pants and thick eyeliner perched on the hood. Intimidatingly sexy girls. Whenever I’d pass them I’d pull my hat down over my eyes. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might have noticed me.

  “You must be Pablo,” he said, turning to Pablo. “Hey, my man. Wassup?” They bumped fists.

  He switched to Spanish. “You guys always sleep with the chickens?”

  I felt my face warm.

  Pablo nodded, serious.

  “Not always,” I said.

  After Ángel left to help load the van, I noticed that the plastic pearl buttons on my nightgown were low enough that you could see a shadow of cleavage. I wondered if he’d been looking there. Who knew—all I’d seen from his sunglasses was the reflection of my face.

  While everyone finished loading the van, I took a quick shower, scrubbing the dust off my legs and feet. After I stepped out, I stood there, dripping, in front of the full-length mirror. Repeating a mantra I had read in a magazine article, I whispered to my reflection: My feet are nice, my ears are nice, my elbows are nice. Actually, I was supposed to say beautiful, not nice, but I didn’t want to push my luck. My arms are nice, my knees are nice, my ankles are nice.

  Outside, they were all waiting for me in the red Volkswagen bus. Dika in the passenger seat, Mr. Lorenzo at the wheel, Pablo and Ángel in back. I stuffed my duffel bag of clothes toward the way back, and kept with me, in the backseat, a pillowcase full of books—chocolate-stained, jam-spotted books that I’d read and reread. Pablo’s favorite poetry, a few novels, and my dog-eared Little Prince. A whole week in the van to get there, a week in Pablo’s village, and a week to get back. I knew I’d be too embarrassed to talk much to Ángel. I’d just try to get absorbed in my books.

  “We are ready!” Dika declared. In her hand, she cupped the shard of red glass, about the size of her palm. Her version of a security blanket. She always said it was for her headaches, that when she held it up to the sun, the red light eased the pounding. “Better than the aspirin!” she insisted.

  Saying goodbye to Mom and Juan was harder than I’d thought. A lump came to my throat when I hugged them. Mom whispered, “You’re in charge, Sophie.” And Juan: “If you have any problems, call us.”

  What kinds of problems? Corrupt cops who demanded giant bribes? Armed drug traffickers roaming around the border? Poisonous snakes and scorpions? Amoebas and diarrhea from unsanitary food preparation?

  Okay, Sophie, deep breath. I’d gone over this a million times in my head. The cops and drug runners we’d just avoid. Go the speed limit, not give them a reason to pull us over. I wouldn’t walk anywhere where snakes and scorpions could be lurking, and I’d shake out my shoes and clothes before putting them on. And the food—I’d squeeze lime juice, a natural disinfectant, over everything. For days and nights, I’d been coming up with possible things that could go wrong and making backup plans.

  “Everything
’ll be fine,” I told Mom and Juan.

  “You sure you want to do this, Sophie?” Mom asked.

  I looked at the four people in the van. Dika and Mr. Lorenzo were examining the map, their heads close. Ángel was making faces at Pablo, bug faces with his sunglasses. Pablo looked different, and it took me a moment to figure out how. He had a smile, a smile that showed his teeth, a smile that made his eyes scrunch up. He was making a little high-pitched chipmunk sound. Pablo was laughing.

  “Cool box,” Pablo said to Ángel as we exited onto the highway.

  “Thanks.” Ángel held the box on his lap like a baby. He brushed his fingertips over the carvings of leaves and trees that covered it. I noticed an old-fashioned silver keyhole. I wondered if it belonged to the skeleton key that was nearly hidden in gold chains and saints and Virgins at his neck.

  “You make it?” I asked.

  He nodded and didn’t offer any more information. Maybe it was drugs. What if it was drugs and we got caught and sent to a Mexican prison? I didn’t know anything about this guy and his father. They could be drug dealers.

  I did some deep breathing and tried to act casual. “So, what are you guys doing in Guatemala?”

  “Digging up my mother’s jewels.” Ángel said this as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  Somehow I’d assumed that the buried jewels thing had been a misunderstanding on Dika’s part. Maybe they weren’t drug dealers. Maybe they were just crazy. Of course, Dika attracted crazy people. My stomach tightened, and again, that familiar feeling came, the beginnings of panic—next my heart would race and my breath quicken and my throat dry up. Relax, Sophie. We’ve only been gone five minutes. We can turn back.

  “Digging up her jewels?” I asked.