“Is this your daughter?” asked the ticket lady.
“She’s a friend,” said Miss, still smiling for the cameras. So I did it, too. Like I was famous. I had been on television with her.
One of the men lowered his camera. “I’m glad you hired an attorney. That little blonde who replaced you is an airhead.”
I looked at Miss. Her eyebrows strained to touch in the middle. It hurt my own face to watch her clinging to her smile. “We’d better get our seats.”
“Goodness, yes! It’s about to start.” The ticket lady let us through, not bothering to take our passes.
Miss picked a row. As we squeezed past them, people pointed and whispered.
They think I’m the daughter of someone famous?
We plopped into seats as the lights went out.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” A game-show kind of voice echoed from the space above the crowd. “Michener University presents the postseason Women’s Gymnastics Exhibition!”
Sparklers exploded around the gym.
I jumped.
Girls wearing big smiles and tight, glittery black-and-yellow costumes bounced out of the dark. The girls flipped and flitted across the arena like bright little birds. Gymnastics is nothing like basketball!
The voice boomed again. “Featuring all-around winner of this year’s N-C-double-A Gymnastic Championships! EVA CHÁVEZ!”
People leaped to their feet, yelling. We hopped up, too, but I couldn’t see over the lady in front.
“Stand on the bench!” Miss shouted.
So I did.
A brown girl stood in a light of her own. She was smaller than me, and almost as dark. The crowd cheered. Eva Chávez smiled and waved. Everyone sat down, but the noise continued. I slipped onto the seat and pulled on Miss’s sleeve.
“Is she famous?” I yelled.
Miss shouted back, “She’s going to the Olympics.”
I felt dizzy and happy. Like the cheering was for me.
Imagine girls flying without wings. That’s gymnastics. Like dancing in the air.
Like magic.
Driving through the dark on the way home, Miss yawned, but I couldn’t have slept if you’d paid me a million dollars. The entire night had been a happy dream.
Even without a sports car, Miss would make the best Amiga ever.
Better than Angélica’s Amiga, who wore glasses on a chain and smelled like baby powder.
I clutched my new Michener Mountaineers T-shirt. The gymnasts had thrown them into the crowd. Miss jumped on the bench to catch one. Then she gave it to me.
As we drove past a streetlamp, I held up the shirt, trying to catch some light in the darkness. I wanted to read again the words written on it.
Miss had interviewed Eva Chávez on TV once, so I got to meet her after the gymnastics. She kissed me. On both cheeks. Then across my new T-shirt, she wrote:
Somebody famous wrote that I was her friend.
She even had a Spanish name. Like me.
“Miss, how did Eva learn to do that stuff?”
“She’s been training since she was little. Younger than you.”
Younger than me? Could I flip around on skinny bars and walk across a narrow board? Would everyone cheer and call my name?
“I’d like to be a gymnast.” Two hours before, I hadn’t known the word gymnast. There I was telling Miss I wanted to be one.
But when Miss dropped me off, all she said was, “It was nice meeting you.”
Past tense.
Nothing about being my Amiga, or seeing me again. The movie in my head ended without the princess getting the glass slipper.
When I walked inside, Rosa was slouched in front of the television. She looked up expectantly.
I didn’t shove my T-shirt in her face. I didn’t say anything about Eva Chávez, or sparklers, or even cotton candy. I went into our room and slammed the door.
SUELITA wasn’t in the stroller — she was inside our apartment, having her diaper changed — so I didn’t care if the stupid thing broke. The night before had been so big, so wonderful, but it hadn’t changed anything. I let the stroller bang on every step as I dragged it up the stairwell.
At the top, grimy boots waited for me. Inside the grimy boots were the grimy feet of our apartment manager, Mr. Spitz. I assumed his feet were grimy. I lowered my eyes, glad not to look at his dirty T-shirt and fat belly.
“Hey, Rosa, where’s your folks?”
“I’m Jacinta.”
“Whatever.”
“Mamá and Papi are working.” This wasn’t a lie. Mamá just wasn’t getting paid.
He leaned toward me, and I smelled his chewing-tobacco breath. “Tell them to get the rent to my office, pronto.”
He didn’t scare me. We could never be evicted again. Papi had two jobs now. “Yes, Mr. Spit.”
“Spitz!” He waddled away.
“What did he want?” Rosa carried Suelita, who wiggled to get down.
“Money.”
Since Mamá wasn’t around to clean houses, Papi sometimes had to avoid Mr. Spitz. But Papi worked a lot, and Mr. Spitz worked only when he felt like it, so avoiding him was easy.
Rosa inspected the stroller. “If you break it, you will carry Suelita to the food bank.”
“Why do I even have to come?”
“Why are you so lazy?”
“Maybe the food bank isn’t open.”
“Tía said it is open.” Rosa wheeled our sister down the driveway. I sighed and followed.
Tía Carmen always knew what days the food bank was open. Our aunt had two little kids and another baby on the way. She watched Suelita while Rosa and I went to school.
When Mamá was home, she and Carmen traded caring for Suelita and my cousins so they could both work cleaning houses. Having Mamá gone was hard on our aunt, too, since she had to stay home with the babies and couldn’t make money. Tía’s boyfriend, Victor, was sometimes too “sick” to work.
It was a long walk to the food bank. Summer hadn’t started, but somebody forgot to tell the weatherman. Sunshine bounced off the windshields of the cars speeding by, right into my eyes. I dragged a hand across my wet forehead.
The food bank stood behind a church with colored windows. To get there we had to cross la línea — the line. Americans lived on the other side. I didn’t like crossing la línea, but white people didn’t care if we went to the food bank. As long as we kept moving.
But once, Angélica’s cousin and some of his friends were just hanging around in the barrio blanco — the white neighborhood — and somebody called la policía.
When I told Papi about it, he said hanging out in the barrio blanco is just asking for trouble. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hang around the white neighborhood, anyway.
In our barrio you’d find your neighbors in the parking lot or on their porches, smoking or talking. Music poured from the open windows of pickup trucks. Kids laughed and shouted, chasing each other up and down the apartment staircases.
You never saw people in the white neighborhood. Sometimes a dog barked, but mostly it was quiet. Like a neighborhood full of dead people.
When we got close to the food bank, though, we heard music. Rosa and I looked at each other. We walked faster. The music got louder. We were almost running. Suelita leaned forward, her feet kicking the footrest as the stroller bumped over the cracks in the sidewalk.
The church parking lot was usually empty, but a million kids were crowded around the 5News truck as it pumped out music. The same camera guy took video while a mob swarmed around Miss as she signed autographs.
I pushed into the horde, trying to reach her. “Miss!”
She didn’t look up from the picture she was signing.
“MISS KATE!”
Her head came up. Her real smile inched up the side of her face. She nodded at me. Then she went back to signing her name.
It was enough. I wasn’t like every other kid, begging for her autograph. I was her friend. And I didn’t n
eed her name on a photo to prove it.
But I got one anyway.
To show Angélica.
Rosa took Suelita inside to get our food, but I stayed in the scorching parking lot while Miss did her live shot. A bunch of us kids stood behind her and waved at the camera while Miss interviewed Miss Ordaz, the food-bank lady.
When the guy put his camera away, the crowd disappeared, but I stayed to watch Miss help him pack up. She struggled with a supersize suitcase that must’ve weighed a bazillion tons. “I’m too old for this.”
He said, “So quit. You have enough years to retire.”
“Two kids to put through college, and my ex’s alimony? The only one who gets to retire is my lawyer.”
Miss turned and gave me that sideways smile. Then her eyes moved to Rosa, who’d walked up next to me. Suelita hung on to her arm. Our food was piled in the stroller. Miss’s smile flickered. “You girls want a ride?”
Cool! “In the TV truck?”
“No, in my van. I’m on my way home.”
Oh. Not so cool. “Sure, Miss.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sure,” I repeated.
Rosa elbowed me. So I said, “Thank you, Miss.”
Instead of saying, “You’re welcome,” Miss just said, “Better.”
She opened the back of her ugly brown van so I could shove our food inside.
Suelita fought and cried while Rosa strapped her into a fold-down toddler seat. My baby sister didn’t want to go with Miss, and she didn’t like seat belts.
“Didn’t you say your boys are older than me?” I asked.
“That shows you how long I’ve had this van,” said Miss.
Rosa got to sit in front because she was fourteen. I got stuck in back with Suelita, who continued to scream, right in my ear. So when Miss pulled out of the parking lot, I didn’t hear what she’d said. But Rosa laughed.
The green beast clawed at my insides. I pushed the button to let Suelita out of the car seat so she’d stop crying. She scrambled onto the floor of the van.
Just as fast, Miss pulled to the side of the road. “Not okay.”
She got out, threw open the side door, and caught Suelita, who howled and screamed. Miss wrestled her back into the booster seat. My eyes popped. Suelita was the baby. We always let her have her way.
Rosa said, “Miss! I can hold her in my lap.”
Struggling with Suelita, who continued shrieking, Miss panted. “Not good enough. Have you seen what happens in an accident to a kid not wearing a seat belt? I have. It goes with the job.”
Just as the buckle clicked, Suelita’s hard little shoe caught Miss right in the nose. Miss’s hand came up to her face. She staggered backward. Suelita cheered. Miss slammed the door, then pulled herself into her own seat. She inspected her face in the rearview mirror.
Rosa swallowed. “Your nose, Miss. It is bleeding.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.” Her voice sounded stuffy. I unbuckled my belt and slid forward to see. Miss dug through her purse, coming up with some tissues, but blood dripped onto her shiny blouse.
“It’s getting on your clothes,” I said.
Miss grabbed at her blouse. The air in her lungs escaped in a groan.
When we got to our apartment, Rosa invited Miss to come in and wash off the blood. As Suelita was carried inside, I saw her exchange looks with Miss over Rosa’s shoulder. The word for those looks is animosity.
On both sides.
Rosa took Suelita into our parents’ room to change her diaper again, while Miss stood at the kitchen sink, dousing her blouse with cold water.
“You’re getting all wet,” I told her.
“It feels good. It’s nice and cool down here — the advantage of a garden-level apartment.”
I’d never heard of a garden-level apartment. I couldn’t wait to tell Angélica, who told everybody that I lived in a basement.
Then Miss handed me food to go in the cupboard. A rich lady helping put groceries away?
When I thanked her, she said, “My pleasure. I’m not looking forward to going back out in that heat. Good thing I’m taking the boys swimming.”
Swimming? I stared at Miss with puppy-dog eyes.
Her face went tomato red. “I shouldn’t have said that right in front of you. It was rude.”
I didn’t speak. Except with my eyes.
A fly buzzed around the room and landed on the screen door.
Miss cleared her throat. “Would — your dad let you go with us?”
I grinned. Taking me swimming wasn’t something she wanted to do. Miss seemed tough. But I’d found her weakness.
ROSA DUCKED to look in Abuelita’s mirror so the crack in the glass wouldn’t cut across her forehead. She pouted, reaching for her lip gloss.
I wanted to smack her.
At the gymnastics meet, Miss reapplied her lipstick after we ate cotton candy. But when I asked her to put some on me, she’d refused. I told Rosa. “Miss says makeup is inappropriate for little girls.”
Rosa’s eyes flicked over to me sprawled on my bed. “I am not a little girl.”
Smiling into the mirror, she pulled at her T-shirt, admiring the way it hugged her shape.
If I’d been a cartoon, steam would’ve blasted out my ears.
Miss’s sons — rich white boys — would go crazy for Rosa, with her lighter skin and movie-star eyes. I didn’t care about them, but I didn’t need Rosa butting in. “Maybe Miss won’t want her sons hanging around a Mexican.”
“I am not the one who called her a gringa,” Rosa shot back.
I gasped like she’d thrown ice water in my face. I stomped out, slamming the door, and joined Tía Carmen, Suelita, and my cousins in the living room.
When Rosa called Papi at work, he worried about us going swimming with Miss’s sons. He reminded us again what happened to Tía Carmen before she dropped out of school. All because los muchachos sólo desean una cosa — boys only want one thing.
Papi didn’t say what it was boys wanted, but I already knew. Parents in the barrio worried about girls getting pregnant. But it wasn’t something they’d talk about.
Especially fathers.
Especially Papi.
And there was another problem. Suelita wasn’t invited. Miss said she wasn’t comfortable trying to supervise four older kids and a toddler at the same time.
Rosa promised to watch Suelita, but Miss said no, there would be too many distractions at the pool. Miss said she had our little sister’s safety to consider.
I think Miss was considering that Suelita had kicked her in nose.
With Mamá away, Papi wasn’t sure what to do, so he called his sister, Carmen. Even more than having her watch Suelita, Papi wanted Tía Carmen to meet the dangerous boys who’d be with us in the water wearing nothing but their swimsuits — tall, handsome, rich boys that no girl could resist. Boys who could get Rosa and me “into trouble.”
Maybe Papi thought our aunt’s pregnant belly would be a warning to Miss’s sons.
Tía was happy to come. Our apartment was cooler than hers. But she told me to be back by seven. Victor would get angry if she didn’t have dinner waiting when he’d had to work late. I told her I’d remember.
I really thought I’d remember.
A stampede of legs came down the stairwell. I ran to open the door. When Tía Carmen stood, Suelita and my cousins ran to hide behind her.
“Hi, Jacinta.” Miss gave me a quick one-armed hug. A thrill all the way to my toes. I hated that she had so much power over me.
Then Miss gave my aunt a little wave. “Hola . . . Carmen?”
Tía smoothed her dress over where her baby was starting to show. “Hola, Miss Kate.”
“These are my sons, Ethan and Cody.”
They shuffled in, watching their feet, their hands in their pockets. There’s a word for how they looked. Scruffy.
Not scary. Scared. And skinny. And short.
I couldn’t help it. Laughter bubbled out of me. The boys loo
ked at each other. Tía Carmen laughed, too. She could tell Papi that our hearts wouldn’t be stolen.
Rosa swept into the room, ready to meet her prince. Love at first sight. Like in the movies. When she saw Miss’s sons, she stopped. Her eyebrows came together, and her mouth fell open.
I grinned. If I’d been a cartoon, devil horns would’ve been poking up through my hair.
Ethan, the older boy, called “Shotgun!” which meant he got to sit in front with Miss. So Rosa and I claimed the middle seat. The younger boy, Cody, sat behind us.
“Seat belts,” said Miss. Then she steered her van in the opposite direction of the pool.
Rosa and I looked at each other. I said, “You’re going the wrong way, Miss.”
She snorted. Not a pig sound. Just that ladylike puff of air. “I’m pretty sure I can get there without help.”
The van rumbled away from our barrio, burping up clouds of blue smoke. In minutes nothing looked familiar. There were stores I knew the names of, but I didn’t recognize the buildings. Where’s she taking us? My mouth went dry. I couldn’t have spit if you’d paid me a million dollars.
“Is this okay?” Rosa whispered to me.
“Sure.” But I crossed my fingers.
Long after we should’ve been at the pool, we took another turn. Then we were on a freeway.
I gripped Rosa’s hand. Her sweaty hand.
We’d been places in Papi’s truck, but never on the freeway. Driving on a freeway is like begging la policía to drag you back to Mexico. The only times we’d been on a freeway were to go to Abuelita’s farm. For that we’d taken a big, slow bus.
But Miss had been driving for a long time. Too long, too far, too fast. My heart beat like bongos.
Eyes wide, Rosa pointed. A sign said PHOENIX SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY.
I tried to swallow but couldn’t. One of Papi’s brothers lived in Phoenix. In Arizona. We lived in Colorado. If we were in Phoenix, it could mean only one thing: Miss — who might have been watching us in the rearview mirror through her dark glasses — had taken us across state lines, like Mamá always warned about.
Miss would sell us into slavery.
Speaking in Spanish, I said to Rosa, “Is Miss kidnapping us?”
Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco Page 3
