“I have a confession to make,” Marian blurted. “I made a few calls.”
Roberto saw us and came over and gave me a huge hug, which he had never done before but which under the circumstances was perfectly appropriate. He thanked me for all I had done for Silvia, which stung a little. I introduced Roberto to Marian, and even though he was extremely keen to see Silvia, he thanked her and kissed Marian’s hand—not in a goofy way, but in a very natural way. I wanted to know what was up with that, but Marian just smiled and made a big “Okay” sign with her fingers behind his back.
Roberto wanted to see Silvia right away. I explained on the way over that she was being guarded by police and that he could try, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t let him in. I had never seen him so determined. It made him very handsome.
When we got to Silvia’s ward, the guard stopped him at the desk and asked him what his business was. He said he was Silvia’s husband and he demanded to see her right away. The guard was impressed. He immediately picked up a telephone and spoke quietly into it. He made out a special pass for Roberto and said that “the children”—meaning Marian and me—would have to wait outside.
While we were waiting, Marian told me that she had gotten Roberto’s number from Silvia, back when we were in the gardening shed. She had done it secretly, so I wouldn’t think she was butting in. “Butting into what?” I said.
“Your adventure,” she said. “Hell-o?”
Then Marian told me she had called VISA to make sure the charge for the airplane tickets had gone through. They told her it hadn’t, so she called the airline. Her next call was to Roberto, telling him to come right away. She didn’t mention it, but I was sure she bought Roberto’s ticket.
I told Marian she was awesome, but secretly I was furious that the one thing she had done for Silvia was better than everything I had done for her, put together.
I changed the subject. I said I couldn’t believe what a smart move it was for Roberto to say he was Silvia’s husband. That made him family, which was the one category of person they said was allowed to see Silvia. The baby didn’t count as family, apparently. Marian said she thought Roberto was a perfect gentleman, and understood why Silvia had Surrendered Her Sacred Prize for a guy like that.
Roberto came out about fifteen minutes later. His hands were shaking. I made him sit down and catch his breath.
“She looks awful,” he said. “Just terrible.”
I told him that having babies takes a serious toll on women and that they often looked the worse for wear. I didn’t know it for a fact, but it sounded like common sense. I asked Roberto if he wanted to see his baby. “My baby?” he said. The words surprised him. “Of course I do. But not before Silvia’s turn.”
Then we just sat there, listening to the announcements over the P.A. Marian got up to make a phone call, which left me alone with Roberto. I thought of asking him about his trip and how things were going in L.A., but it just seemed too trivial, so I told him what had happened at the airport when Silvia and I tried to fly out to see him.
“Marian told me the same thing,” he said. “I’m glad Silvia didn’t have the baby on the plane. So maybe it was very lucky.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I told Roberto how impressed I was with his lie about being Silvia’s husband.
“It’s no lie,” he said, rubbing the corners of his eyes with his thumbs. “Silvia is my lawful wife.”
I was dumbstruck. “But she told me you were just her boyfriend,” I said.
“I made her do that. Our marriage is a secret. My parents don’t approve.”
Roberto told me he still lived with his parents. His visits to Silvia were as much a secret to them as to my grandparents. It was too bad Marian wasn’t there. This Romeo and Juliet business was the kind of thing she ate for breakfast.
“So the baby isn’t. . .”
“No,” Roberto said. “She is legitimate.” He seemed grateful that I hadn’t said it the other way.
“And Silvia’s here legally? I mean in this country?”
“Well, mostly,” he said. “We made her application, as my wife. Her papers are in order. At least they were, before all the trouble. Now, with this, I could lose my own visa.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong!” I said.
“Of course not. But that’s not the point.”
Roberto told me that one of his friends had gotten sent back to Mexico for not having his car inspected in time.
I wanted to tell him how unfair everything was, but I couldn’t think of a good way to say it, so instead I rubbed his back and said, “We’ll work it out.”
He nodded and said, “Sure, sure.”
Marian finally appeared. I could tell she wanted to help cheer Roberto up, but for once she left well enough alone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Finally, it was my turn to have a good idea.
I left Roberto in Marian’s hands and called my grandparents. They were staying at the Colonial, a fancy downtown hotel, while their house was being fixed. My grandmother answered the phone, as usual. I asked her to get my grandfather on the line. She said he was “indisposed,” which was code for his being in the bathroom, but I said I’d wait. There was a long, difficult silence.
When my grandfather finally picked up, I told him that Roberto and Silvia were married and that Silvia wasn’t illegal after all. I said I’d be willing to be a family again if my grandfather called his friend the judge—the one who gave them custody of me—and asked him to straighten everything out with the police.
My grandfather agreed to my terms. There was a pause, and I could tell he was about to say something obnoxious. My grandmother sensed it, too. She said, “Eskimo, Herbert.”
It was strange to hear her say that. I had forgotten his name was Herbert.
The judge fixed things in less than an hour. Silvia was moved to a normal room, a completely private one where she could have visitors. I was there when they introduced her to her daughter. The baby almost drowned in Silvia’s snotty tears. The nurses actually had to threaten to take little Chloe away if Silvia didn’t calm down. Roberto was filling up the windowsill with stuffed animals and disappearing every five minutes to buy a new disposable camera.
My grandparents came by that afternoon. My grandfather brought little Chloe a stuffed donkey. My grandmother was on her best behavior, giving Silvia advice about diapers which was about fifty years obsolete. Then she snapped open her purse and pulled out a thick envelope. “This is something for you,” she said, handing it to Silvia.
Silvia opened it up. She started to cry when she saw how much money was inside. She showed it to Roberto, who was shaking his head even before he looked.
“We can’t accept this,” he said. “Really, there’s no need. We’re fine.”
My grandmother took the envelope from him and gave it back to Silvia. “It’s not for you, Roberto. It’s for the baby’s education.”
Silvia still didn’t want to accept it. I wouldn’t have blamed her for holding a grudge against my grandparents, after the way they treated her, but that wasn’t it. Silvia was just embarrassed by the size of the gift. My grandmother had to be sneaky.
“Think of it as back wages,” she said, which did the trick.
I tried not to be a sap when it came time to say goodbye. I told Silvia I thought she was an amazing individual and I wished her good luck in California. I couldn’t think of any words for how I really felt. All that came to mind were clichés. Silvia told me she thought of me as her little sister. She said she’d remember me every time she wrote her daughter’s name. We hugged. She cleaned off my shoulder with some Kleenex. I tickled little Chloe’s nose one last time. Then I said,
“Look at this gorgeous family,” and it was time for me to go.
After the goodbye, I went back to the hotel with my grandparents in their fancy car. The police still had the Dodge.
My grandparents didn’t talk to me. They just let me cry, which I appre
ciated.
When I was feeling a little better, I asked if we could visit my father’s grave sometime. My grandparents looked at each other. It took a minute for my grandmother to compose herself. She broke out some Wet-Naps from the glove compartment. She passed one back to me, saying, “Of course we can.” She didn’t try to comfort me beyond that. She didn’t have any right to—at least not yet—and she knew it.
We were on the freeway for a long time before I realized we were driving above the river. What a different world at highway speed! The river was invisible. I could barely remember how it smelled. I opened my window, but the car was too full of my grandmother’s perfume. A sign flew by, one of those historical markers. The name of the river was on it, in tiny words I could barely read. The river had an Indian name, with lots of “o”s and “c”s and “q”s. I wanted to know how to pronounce it. It was the kind of thing my grandfather knew, but I didn’t ask him.
When we pulled into the driveway in front of the Colonial, a black man in white gloves and a silk top hat opened the door for me. He smiled at me like a robot. I said “Thank you,” like a robot. It seemed perfectly normal at the time. I was sealed up in the hotel’s revolving door before it occurred to me that elevator men weren’t really extinct. It’s amazing how quickly you fall back on unthinking habits.
The lobby felt unthinking, too, with its artificial flowers and muzak and ritzy furniture. All the guests were white. So were the people behind the counter. There were two black men, but they were wearing tight hotel uniforms which blended in with the wallpaper. They looked uncomfortable and bored. They smiled when they realized I was looking at them. My grandmother said, “Isn’t this a nice place?”
“Sure,” I said, “if you’re into apartheid.”
My grandfather’s face soured. “This is a first class hotel,” he said.
My grandmother took his arm. “I thought we were all going to try,” she said.
They showed me my room, which had an automatic lock on the front door. It opened with a white credit card. Their room was connected to mine by an inside door. They showed me the swimming pool up on the roof, which had an unbelievable view of the city. I stood for a few minutes at the edge of the roof, leaning against the guard rail and watching the night traffic. Finally, I thought, something to show Marian.
Looking out on the city, I thought about James. I wondered if he was safe at his aunt’s house. I couldn’t seem to find the projects. I went all around the roof, but never saw those marooned apartment towers.
Josh was waiting for us when we got back to our rooms, his hands squirming behind his back as if he was practicing how to escape from handcuffs. It was the first time I’d seen him nervous. My grandmother invited him out to the balcony and ordered iced tea from room service. She sounded like someone from an old black and white movie. I realized she was making a conscious effort to sound like that.
The problem, Josh told us, was that my mother had escaped from police custody. My grandfather just about blew a gasket when he heard that, but my grandmother told him to calm down, indicating me with her eyes—as if his little tantrum in front of me was worse than the news itself!
I told Josh I was less worried for me than I was for my grandparents, because my mother had threatened their lives. He said he understood that, but wanted us all to rest assured. He said she wasn’t likely to be much of a threat. He pulled out a blurry photograph of my mother, taken through a windshield. Her hair was bleached and permed, but there was no mistaking her. Josh said the photo had been taken at the border.
“With Mexico?” I asked. Josh nodded.
“Coming or going?”
“Going,” he said.
“That poor country!” I said. Josh laughed. He said that the border police had my mother’s information. They had standing instructions to arrest her if she ever tried to cross back into the States.
“Good riddance,” my grandfather said.
“Amen,” my grandmother said. In their minds, everything was settled.
“There are plenty of ways across a border,” I said, and I was right, too. All it took was wanting it bad enough. Just look at Silvia. Or me, with my father.
But the grown-ups had spoken. I was back to being irrelevant. Josh thanked my grandmother for the tea and got up to leave. He asked me if I’d walk him to the door.
When it was just the two of us out in the hallway, he said, “I want you to try to take it easy. And call me if you need to. For any reason. It doesn’t have to be an emergency.” He handed me his business card, which for some reason smelled even more like barbershop powder than the rest of him. I pressed the card to my forehead, pretending to memorize it through telepathy. I wanted to tell him how incredibly much he reminded me of my father, but that would have been inappropriate, so instead I asked him to sign my cast. I gave him my cast-signing Sharpie. Without complaining or making a joke, he steadied my elbow and wrote his name on the plaster, right next to Silvia’s.
“Don’t throw this away,” he said, tapping the cast. “Someday it may be worth something.”
“Or not,” I said.
“Here’s your pen back,” he said. “I’m serious about you calling me. Even if it’s the middle of the night.” He was trying to wrap things up, but I knew he wouldn’t go until I said it was okay to.
It would have been childish to stand there all night enjoying my power over him, so I finally dismissed him with a dry peck on the cheek. Things got a little dreamy after that. The hallway seemed to extend like a telescope as Josh walked away, waving without looking back. The thick hotel carpet swallowed his footsteps. I waited until I heard the elevator come for him. Then I went back inside, closing the door behind me as gently as I could. When I let go of the doorknob, the automatic lock clapped shut. It startled me. Loud noises will still do that, even though I know they’re coming.
Matthew Olshan is a freelance writer and producer. A native of Washington, DC, he was educated at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Oxford Universities. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and daughter. Finn: a novel is his first published work of fiction.
ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR
Finn: A Novel
A Book of the Month Club/Teen People Book Club Selection
“Young adults should be transfixed by Chloe Wilder’s ‘been there,’ hilarious, and relevant narrative. Olshan keeps the action interesting. . . His Finn: a novel is compellingly entertaining throughout.”—Gary Packard, head of the Teachers’ Reading Resource
“A smart, provocative re-imagining of Twain’s novel, catapulted into contemporary culture. Paired with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it will make for powerful classroom discussions about values, class, literary influence, and stereotypes.” —Rachel Eisler, former English Dpt. chair, Bryn Mawr School
“An urban epic with a balance of toughness and humor reminiscent of Mark Twain’s Mississippi writings. . . Chloe Wilder rings true. She will be a hero to young readers, and a reminder to older ones of the oft-forgotten resiliency and intelligence of childhood.”—Joshua McKeon, librarian, Folger Shakespeare Library
“Rollicking but literary, Matthew Olshan’s Finn: a novel is a beautifully crafted and remarkably absorbing story about strength and ingenuity. Overflowing with hilarious turns of phrase, essential observations, and lovely metaphors, it’s a remarkably clear tale of economic disparity and emotional endurance.”—Jonathon Scott Fuqua, author of the prize-winning YA novel The Reappearance of Sam Webber
“The beginning was funnier than anything, and no one could have asked for a better ending. Is there to be a sequel? . . . Please!!!”—Adam Bulkley (12)
“A redo of Huckleberry Finn would be a tall order for anybody, but there are flashes of brilliance in Matthew Olshan’s attempt, and the voice of his heroine (for better or worse) is as true to our time as Huck’s was to his.”—Madison Smartt Bell, National Book Award fiction finalist
“To say I related to Chloe Wilder in Finn: a novel is an understatement. I felt lik
e I personally experienced her experiences, lived her adventures, and survived her hardships right along with her.”—Julie Ann Taylor (12)
“I’m confident that our magazine’s readers will relate to Chloe, be entertained by her adventures, and be challenged by her ideas. I myself didn’t want to put the book down!”—Ellen L. Runnels, Associate Editor, Topics Magazine
“If I really like a book, I lend it to a friend. I lent Finn: a novel to my friend Conner. I told him that boys like him and like me would find it cool, even though the main characters are girls. I expect that Conner’s gonna read it too.”—Adam Bortz (13) “Thoroughly enjoyable and very well-written. . . I found myself laughing out loud on many occasions!”—Jill Lamar, Director, Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program
“Strap on your safety belt, there’s no time to stop once you’ve joined ‘life on the run’ in this fast-paced, action-packed adventure. . . Although Finn: a novel battles stereotyping and prejudice, the reader will be satisfied with the positive ending.” —Hannah Pickworth, Middle School Librarian, Roland Park Country School
“Like Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Olshan’s Finn: a novel is both a thrilling story and a social document. Every child will enjoy it—and every adult will learn from it.” —Jesse Norman, founder/board chairman of Widelearning, an e-learning company
“It’s a great story, funny and fast-paced, concise and clear, and Chloe is one of the more lively and endearing characters I’ve read in some time.”—Stephen Dixon, two-time National Book Award fiction finalist
“With remarkable skill and a modern plot, Matthew Olshan beautifully captures the lively and exciting world of Mark Twain on several levels.”—Ruth F. Boorstin, poet, children’s newspaper columnist, and book editor
“An engaging, vivid, and wonderful story!”—Trudi Rishikof, former communications director, RI Department of Education
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