The Thing You're Good At

by Lesley Choyce

  Maria suddenly looked suspicious. Lotz started walking toward the office, but she didn’t move.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We can trust him.” I figured if I couldn’t trust Lotz of Ideas, I couldn’t trust anyone. And we desperately needed to trust someone.

  At the office, Mr. Lotz spoke to the secretary, and she pointed to an empty room with a desk and a phone. We went in and he closed the door. “Don’t tell anyone I did this, okay?”

  We both nodded and then watched as he dialed a number and introduced himself as an immigration lawyer. He asked for permission to speak to Maria’s parents and then was put on hold for several long, agonizing minutes.

  When someone came on the line, the first thing Lotz said was, “Are you being watched right now?” And then he said, “Good. I’m going to put your daughter on the line. Don’t overreact, please, or draw attention to yourself. And don’t tell anyone there who you’re talking to.”

  He handed the phone to Maria.

  “Mom,” Maria said, “I’m so scared. I miss you so much and want to be with you.”

  The room was quiet enough that I could hear a little bit of what her mother was saying. She was telling Maria not to come to them. I could tell Maria was trying to keep from crying.

  Mr. Lotz nodded to me and pointed to the door. We left the room so she could have some privacy. Standing outside the room, I began to fear that Maria would decide to turn herself in and be deported with her parents. As the minutes passed, one of the other teachers brought in a couple of boys who looked like they had been fighting. They were led into Mrs. Warren’s office.

  When Maria walked out, she looked devastated. Mr. Lotz ushered us out of the office and into the quiet of the empty hallway. “I have to get back to my class,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  I walked with Maria to the cafeteria, and we sat down at an empty table. No one was there but the kitchen staff, and they didn’t pay any attention to us. I waited for Maria to speak.

  “They’re being sent out of the country tomorrow,” she said. “There’s nothing they can do about it. My mom insisted I stay here. I told her you’ve been helping me and said I can stay at your house. But none of this feels right. What if I never see them again?” She started to sob.

  “You’ll see them again, I promise.” But those were hollow words. I didn’t know the first thing about what was going on. I just knew I wanted Maria to stay and would do anything to keep her here.

  We sat in silence for a while after that. I think Maria was still wrestling with what to do. I hated how I felt so powerless right then. When she broke the silence, she said, “My mom says I have to go back to the apartment and get a few things before the landlord throws our stuff out. Will you come with me?”

  “Of course.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The door was open to Maria’s apartment. It was a mess inside. Someone had been in there, ransacking the place. Maria didn’t seem all that surprised. “We really didn’t have much to steal,” she said. I followed her into her bedroom, and she lifted an old beat-up suitcase out of the closet.

  I felt kind of helpless but was more determined than ever to look out for her. She opened the suitcase on the bed and began to put her clothes into it. Some things had been knocked around by whoever had been in here. I picked up a framed photo with a cracked glass from the floor. It was a picture of her parents and Maria when she was quite young. I handed it to her and said, “I can fix this,” but I knew there was a lot more that needed fixing than the cracked glass.

  “I’m going to help you get through this,” I said as she put an old doll into the suitcase and then looked around the room. I tried to imagine what it was like for her, leaving her home like this and not being able to be with her parents.

  Maria went into her parents’ bedroom and came back with a few more photographs and a couple of scarves that must have belonged to her mother. Then she closed the suitcase and tried to zip it up, but the zipper was broken. Broken suitcase. Broken life. I went into her parents’ room, found a couple of belts and used them to tie the suitcase shut.

  That’s when I heard footsteps on the stairs and men’s voices. They were headed our way. I quickly closed the door to the bedroom and listened. They entered the apartment, and someone kicked over a chair.

  There was no place to hide. I was convinced that whoever they were, they were coming for Maria, and I couldn’t let that happen. Maria nodded toward the window and the fire escape. I looked at the suitcase, but she shook her head no. We had to get out of there.

  We slid open the window and slipped out onto the landing. I looked down. We were three flights up. We started down the rusty metal stairway and made it to the second floor, but the stairway to the street was missing. “We have to jump,” I said. “We’ll do it together, okay?”

  Maria locked her eyes on to mine and nodded.

  “One, two, three,” she said and held my hand tightly as we took the plunge.

  The sidewalk was broken concrete, and I felt my feet slap down hard on it before I tumbled and then rolled off to the side. Maria did the same. I looked over and saw a familiar face. Oscar. He waved for us to move toward him. Maria helped me to stand and gripped my hand tightly as we hobbled in his direction.

  Oscar ushered us into a basement doorway and made us tuck down while he kept a lookout. Maria was shaking as I put my arm around her. Oscar put his finger to his lips, urging us to stay quiet.

  I heard some angry voices as I looked back in the direction we’d come from. Up above on the fire escape I saw three men. These were no government agents. They looked like a trio of thugs. Oscar gently pushed my head down, and we stayed like that for several long minutes, all three of us breathing heavily.

  Finally Oscar said, “Okay, they’re gone. Let’s get you two out of this neighborhood.”

  My feet and legs still hurt from the jump, and it was even more painful standing up.

  “Do you know who those guys were?” I asked Maria.

  “No,” she said.

  “I’ve seen them around,” Oscar offered. “Those three are definitely up to no good. One of them beat up my ol’ buddy Crick one night, just for the fun of it.”

  “Why do you think they were in Maria’s apartment?”

  “I don’t know,” Oscar said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense. If they were going to steal something, you’d think they’d pick on somebody else.”

  Suddenly I felt really bad for Maria. “Your suitcase,” I said. “It had your family pictures and your clothes. I should go back and get it.”

  “No,” she said. “Leave it. Stay with me.”

  Oscar walked us to my home.

  “Thank you, Oscar,” I said.

  Oscar bowed and said, “Glad I could be of service.” I tried to invite him in, but he politely declined. “Have to be on my way,” he said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My father didn’t say anything when he came home and saw Maria and I playing cards at the kitchen table. Maria had found a jar of spaghetti sauce and some pasta noodles, and both were bubbling away on the stove. My father walked over and lifted the lid on the sauce. “Smells good,” he said. “And it don’t smell like fish.” He headed into the bathroom to wash up.

  Maria and I set the table. Luke came in, his head hanging down. He was his usual silent self. As we ate, I didn’t mention anything about what had happened that day. My father, opening a bottle of beer, seemed less irritated than he usually did and, out of the blue, asked Maria what her favorite baseball team was.

  “I don’t know,” Maria said politely. “What’s your favourite team?”

  My father took another slug of beer and then coughed and laughed at the same time. “Well, to be honest, no one’s asked me that in a long while. I used to like the Phillies, then the Giants, then the Dodgers. But I stopped having a favorite team, because whichever one I picked seemed to always end up being at the bottom of the pack.”

  Luke laughed at
that and shook his head. My father smiled and looked at Luke and then at me. And I suddenly had this weird feeling. I realized we were sitting here having a normal meal and making small talk. And it felt like a real family for once. I think I even felt goose bumps on my neck.

  After dinner my father went into his bedroom and turned on the little TV in there. He took a couple of beers with him, and I worried he’d get into one of his moods, but all I heard was him laughing. Maria being here had changed the mood in the old apartment.

  Luke offered to wash the dishes while Maria and I played some more cards. But I could tell her mind was elsewhere. I knew she was thinking about her parents.

  In the morning we walked together to school. I thought about cutting some classes and sneaking back to the apartment to get her suitcase with her things in it. But then I remembered those three creeps. What if they were watching the place?

  When we arrived at the school, the secretary saw us walking past the office and came out. “Mrs. Warren would like to speak to you,” she told Maria. Maria looked worried. I walked her inside.

  Mrs. Warren was a no-nonsense woman who always had a serious look on her face. She had a reputation for being tough but fair, and, as far as principals go, she was probably as good as it gets. She waved a hand for Maria to sit down. She couldn’t quite figure out why I was there too, but she didn’t ask. Maria sat down and I sat beside her.

  “I heard about your family,” she said, sounding concerned. “These are some dark times.” She paused and cleared her throat as she fiddled with a pencil from her desk. “We had some men here asking questions about you yesterday.”

  Maria said nothing.

  Mrs. Warren cleared her throat again. “Mr. Lotz had already talked to me about your…situation. I’m so sorry about what happened to your parents.”

  “It’s not fair,” Maria said. “They weren’t hurting anyone.”

  “I didn’t give them any information. They didn’t have any identification. So I told them you’d been absent for a week.” Then she looked embarrassed. “I don’t usually lie,” she said. There was an awkward silence, then a knock on the door that startled Maria and me.

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Warren said. “I asked Mr. Lotz to come by.”

  The door opened and there was Lotz of Stories, trying to look cheerful. “Hi, Maria. Jake. I’ve been worried about you guys. Everything okay?”

  There was no okay. Lotz read our looks.

  “Maria,” Lotz said, looking serious now, “I don’t quite know how to tell you this, but I checked at the detention center again. Your parents have been sent out of the country.”

  Maria’s hands balled up into fists. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Mr. Lotz cleared his throat. “Do you have a place to stay?” he asked her.

  I explained that she was staying with me. He and Mrs. Warren both looked concerned, but they didn’t say anything. And then Mr. Lotz leaned toward Maria. “You were born here, right?”

  Maria nodded.

  “Do you have your birth certificate?” “Yes,” she said, her voice full of emotion.

  “Will that mean she can stay?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Lotz said. “The way things have changed, anything could happen. They could send her to be with her parents or they might make her a ward of the state.”

  “What does that mean?” Maria asked.

  “Well, you’d go into foster care or into a group home until you turn eighteen,” Lotz said. “They could send you anywhere.”

  “Jake,” Mrs. Warren said, “are you sure Maria is going to be okay at your house?”

  I wasn’t sure what she was implying, but it was clear that the school principal, along with Mr. Lotz, had gone out on a limb for her already. I didn’t think Mrs. Warren knew anything about my dad and his moods or my home life—I figured she was just concerned.

  “I’ll take care of her,” I said.

  Mrs. Warren took a deep breath. “All right. I hope we can do more to help. For now, I guess, you should both get to class.”

  We had different first classes in different parts of the building. I was nervous about letting her out of my sight. But she gave me a smile and said, “Go to class, Jake. I’ll be okay. See you after school.” And she walked off down the empty hall.

  Chapter Seventeen

  At the end of the day, I expected to meet Maria by the steps in front of the school. But she wasn’t there. I waited for twenty minutes, but she didn’t show. I asked Leo if he had seen her. They had an afternoon math class together.

  “No, man. Didn’t see your girlfriend. What’s the matter, she avoiding you? Maybe she’s just tired of you and looking for a new guy.”

  But I knew that wasn’t it. I got thinking about the conversation in the office. Something about it had scared her. Maybe her birth certificate was back in her apartment in that suitcase. But why would she have gone back without me?

  Then it occurred to me that Maria would do something like that. She would have thought she’d caused enough grief for me already.

  I felt a cold tingle of fear run down my spine. Damn. I started running. I didn’t know what else to do. My lungs were aching and my right leg was still hurting from the jump from the fire escape. But I ran. As soon as I saw that damn old run-down apartment building, I knew something was wrong. The place had doom written all over it.

  I raced up the stairs and into the apartment. I called out her name, but she wasn’t there. The place had been trashed even more than before. Furniture was knocked over, and closet doors had been smashed. In her bedroom I looked for the suitcase, but it was gone.

  I sat down in the middle of her bedroom floor and surveyed the scene. Had the immigration people staked out the building, waiting for her to return? Or was it something else? All I knew was, I had let her out of my sight and something really bad had happened. I could feel it in my bones. There were torn-up newspapers on the floor and pieces of broken furniture. Then I spotted a photograph, the one of Maria and her parents. It had been taken out of its frame, torn up into four pieces and thrown on the floor. What did that mean?

  I picked up the fragments of the photo and tried to piece them back together. They were all smiling. Damn.

  I pocketed the photo pieces and got up and left.

  Back on the street, I went looking for Oscar. I found him not far from where he often slept and asked him if he’d seen Maria.

  “No, Jacob, I haven’t. But you need to look out for her. She shouldn’t be down here by herself. I’m hearing rumors about bad things happening around here. And it’s not just those immigration people.”

  “What kind of rumors?” I asked.

  “It might just be talk, and it might be nothing, but those guys who were in her apartment, some people say they are part of some gang or organization or something. All I know is, they are up to no good, and you need to stay clear of them.”

  “Do you think Maria is in some kind of serious trouble?”

  “Jacob, I don’t know. And I may be all wrong. You need to find somebody who knows what’s really going down around here. I only know what I see and what I hear. And people don’t always tell me the truth. But I’ll keep an eye out for her. You gotta find her.”

  As I walked off I was more fearful than ever about Maria’s fate. Why had she come back here? And what had happened?

  I thought about going to the police, but I really didn’t have anything to go on. She had disappeared for one afternoon. Maybe it was nothing at all. And if I did go to the police and she turned up, it might set in motion her deportation or her becoming a ward of the state. But Oscar’s warning haunted me. I had to do something.

  I knew if I could find Dalton’s truck, I’d find Dalton. It wasn’t at his parents’ apartment building, so I tried McDonald’s. He was just leaving when I showed up.

  “Jakey, how goes it?”

  “I’ve lost Maria,” I blurted out.

  “Shit,” he said. “How?”


  “I don’t know. She left school and went to her old apartment, I think. And I think something happened there.”

  “They pick her up? The goons at immigration?”

  “Could be, but I don’t think so.” And then I told him about Oscar and the rumors he’d heard. Suddenly Dalton looked very serious.

  “Yeah, I heard about that. People being deported with kids left behind. Those kids left behind, teenage girls mostly, being abducted by a bunch of creeps. Doesn’t get much more rotten than that.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Ever hear of the term human trafficking?”

  I felt the blood drain out of my face. “Who would do this?”

  Dalton shook his head. “I don’t know who they are. Just talk, ya know. But whoever they are, they’re not from around here. All I know is, they’re tied in with a couple of big-time criminals who are already in the prison your brother’s in. If you really think Maria is in trouble, I suggest you talk to your brother and see what he knows.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Back home, I rummaged through a drawer in the kitchen until I found the number of Cole’s counselor at the prison. My father talked to him in order to get through to Cole. I dialed the number, not exactly sure what to say to this guy.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Ron Charles here.”

  “Mr. Charles, this is Jake Compton, Cole Compton’s brother.”

  There was a pause. “Hello, Jake. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I’m wondering how I could talk to Cole on the phone.”

  “That can be arranged. He doesn’t hear much from his family. What’s the special occasion?”

  I wasn’t about to trust some stranger. “Oh, I just miss my big brother. I just really want to talk to him.”

  More silence. “Sorry, I was just checking schedules. How about you call back at this number in one hour? I’m pretty sure I can get your brother on the line.”