Facts of Life

by Gary Soto

  Keri shrugged.

  They sat watching the final scenes of Nemo. When the credits began to roll, Rachael suggested that she and Freddie go to bed. Any other time, Freddie would have fought such a proposal, but he rose without complaint and shuffled off to his bedroom. He didn't bother to say good night.

  "What do you think my mom's going to say?" Rachael asked.

  "Jeez, I said I'm sorry. What else do you want me to do?" Keri brought a fingernail to her mouth and chewed.

  "Sorry might not be good enough."

  Keri began to work on another fingernail.

  Rachael went into the kitchen, where the exploded pizza still hung from the microwave. She cleaned up the gooey mess, washed the grease-spotted floor, did the few dishes in the sink, and went to brush her teeth.

  I'm going to be normal, she promised herself. I don't care if I wear jeans and T-shirts. And what kind of band has a name like Spew Face?

  Rachael didn't bother to say good night to Keri. She went to her bedroom, dressed in her pajamas, hopped into bed, and closed her eyes. But she couldn't sleep. She thought of her mother on the dance floor. She pictured her mother's earrings swinging on her lobes as she danced to a nice singer like Céline Dion. Rachael tossed and turned, punched her pillow, thought of Keri on the couch eating her fingernails, then recharged the image of her mother on the dance floor. She imagined her mother's earring flying into the air, and she imagined a nice man bending to pick it up.

  "Come on—go to sleep," she mumbled. She was tired of the day—let it be over!

  Rachael then remembered the coffee she had drunk. It was keeping her awake, she figured, and maybe she would never sleep again!

  "Sleep!" she scolded herself as she rolled onto her belly. But Keri's face kept reappearing with more things pierced in her nose, including—would this be possible?—a large lock.

  "Sleep, I tell you," she scolded her body.

  Rachael turned over in bed, listening to the house creak, and held her breath when she heard the front door open—her mother was home. She got up and quietly opened her bedroom door, listening for voices.

  "Was everything okay?" her mother asked.

  "Yeah," Keri answered.

  "Liar," Rachael whispered, then closed the door. Wait until morning! She imagined Freddie walking into the kitchen with his orange hair—maybe bloody from his reopened wound!

  Rachael returned to bed. She still couldn't sleep. The clock on her chest of drawers glowed 12:24. She squeezed her eyes, then relaxed her eyes. She rolled onto her stomach, her back, and her side. Nothing worked to make her fall into a slumber.

  "I shouldn't have drunk it," she mumbled. She began to realize what made adults so grumpy: the coffee they threw down their throats every morning. They drank that horrible stuff, and at night they couldn't sleep. They rolled around in bed and revisited the scenes of the day. How many times had her mother told her of insomnia?

  Toward dawn Rachael had a dream about flying, and woke with the feeling of anvils on her eyelids. She sat on the edge of her bed, sighed, and slid her feet into her slippers.

  "I feel tired," she moaned. She assumed this was how adults woke up every day: tired but hankering for more coffee to straighten them out.

  She passed her brother's bedroom and peeked in. There he was, asleep, with his orange hair. She shook her head, closed the door, and decided not to worry.

  Her mother was in the kitchen reading the newspaper. Her dark hair (dyed black, Rachael knew) was wild. Her eyes were puffy as if she, too, hadn't slept.

  "How did you sleep, little princess?" her mother asked.

  "Okay." Rachael sat at the table with her mother. Soon shell know, Rachael thought. Soon Freddie will appear from his bedroom. For now she didn't care. No, she wanted to be like her mother.

  "Mom." Rachael exhaled.

  "What, girl?" her mother asked as she turned the page of the newspaper.

  "Mom, I want a cup of coffee."

  Although she was only ten, she felt she had become a grown person. She had not slept well and she had a burden she couldn't quite explain. She hoped a dark brew, with cream and sugar, would wake her up.

  Citizen of the World

  LAURITA MALAGÓN SPUN the globe in the library. As it squeaked on it's axis, she closed her eyes and dragged a finger on it's glossy surface until the globe slowed to a stop. This is where I'm from, she told herself. Her eyes fluttered open. Her finger had stopped near New Zealand and a ring of islands in a vast blue ocean. Is that where they have coconuts? she wondered. Or is it penguins? Or maybe it's the place where they play the ukulele.

  Summer school was reading, drawing, and folk dancing from Texas and Ireland, which were both far away for eleven-year-old Laurita. Summer school was also math, done on a calculator, and singing, which made her cheeks bloom like red poppies.

  She wasn't able to dwell long on New Zealand. Her teacher, Mrs. Moore, was calling everyone to hurry up. They were on their weekly visit to the school library to scout for fresh books. Several sixth graders would enter the library at a time, choose a book, and leave as quietly as mice. That was the rule.

  New Zealand, Laurita reflected, with enough dreaminess in her heart to make her stride lightly from the library. That's where I'm really from. I'm from an island so far from any continent that birds can't fly there, or people get there, unless they board a ship or a plane. I'm exotic.

  Exotic.

  She had learned this word when a friend described a fruit drink she had drained in twenty seconds in Orlando, Florida. Exotic was the flavor of the week. The drink came with a tiny umbrella, as if it's ice cubes needed shade; it came with a plump cherry and a sprig of mint. Models in magazines wearing hoop earrings were exotic. A flower with a pinwheel of tropical colors was exotic. A poodle with a ball of fur at the end of it's tail was exotic, plus kind of cute.

  Laurita knew full well she wasn't from New Zealand. Her father and mother spoke Spanish, and a few phrases in English: "It's really hot." "Oh, doggone it." "That's too much, my friend." Like parrots they could say words—"shoes," "milk," "bed," "bargain"—but couldn't easily connect them into sentences. Her parents, both of whom worked at Big Lots as janitors, remained mostly monolingual.

  Monolingual. Laurita had learned that word in second grade. A big person had asked, "Are you bilingual?" To this she playfully shrugged her shoulders. The person then asked, "Are you trilingual?" She added an embarrassed grin to her shrug. Then the person said, "Oh, you must be monolingual."

  Laurita had shrugged, grinned, and kicked a toe at the ground. She answered in accented English, "I speak two languages." She unfolded two fingers and held them up.

  But she actually knew other languages, too. When her mother served Top Ramen for dinner, Laurita would thank her with what Japanese she knew: "Arigato." If she ate a hamburger, which she discovered was a German food, she would peel back the bun and whisper for the fun of it, "Danke, danke. Thanks, thanks." And she did like Chinese pork buns; her mother would tease, saying that she was adopted from a princess in the Far East.

  Who was she, really?

  ***

  That day at the library, Laurita checked out the novel Heidi. Instead of playing a rowdy game of four-square with her friends, she sucked on Jolly Ranchers and read three chapters of a story set in Switzerland. She kept looking at the cover of the book and dreamily pondered little Heidi. She was pretty, the valley green, the sheep white, and the sky bluer than any color found in her pack of 48 Crayolas.

  When she asked her teacher about the word yodeling, Mrs. Moore lent her a CD of The Sound of Music. Laurita was smitten by the sound of yodeling. She played the song over and over, and then she, too, began to yodel. She yodeled before dinner, yodeled after dinner, and yodeled during dinner until her parents told her politely to knock it off. In the shower, away from the commotion of her family, she yodeled. It was the happiest sound in the world.

  On Sunday after church, her father blew the dust off an old 45 record, set it on
a phonograph as old as time, and lowered the needle on the first song, "Canción de Mi Vida." Laurita was stirred by the yodeling female singer. How is it possible, she thought, this yodeling in a song in Spanish? Her father, his hands on his belly, basked in the sounds of the song.

  "But, Papi, it sounds like it's from Switzerland," she explained to him. She played the song again and, yes, the yodeling was there. Her father explained the German influence on Mexican music. He tapped his toe to the beat.

  Laurita yodeled to that Mexican song and yodeled to the flip side. She didn't care when the dog next door began to howl, or that her little brothers, the jokers, also began to howl.

  But who was she—really?

  "What's happening to the world?" her father remarked sadly. It was a regular Wednesday evening when nothing important had occurred, except that her brothers Miguel Dos and Kirby had gotten bee stings on their toes within seconds of each other.

  After work, it was her father's habit to read the local Spanish-language newspaper in the yard. He read about a raid that had deported a family of six. His mustache jumped at the news of the government cracking down on so-called illegals. You could go out to buy milk and find yourself picked up in a van and heading for Tijuana. You could go to return a video and la migra, the immigration police, would be outside waiting for you.

  "Viejo, what will happen if they catch all the people?" Laurita's mother asked as she walked onto the back porch with a pitcher of iced tea.

  "Nada," he answered sagely. "We're citizens of the world." He accepted the glass of iced tea with a "Gracias, vieja."

  Citizens of the world, Laurita pondered. She liked that phrase. She had felt that way for a long time, ever since she got her own library card with her name on it. And wasn't it true that she had a license plate that read LAURA attached to the back of her bike seat? She could roll up one side of their driveway and down the other side as long as she pleased. And couldn't she yodel just like singers in Mexico and Switzerland?

  One day when their parents were working, Laurita's two little brothers rifled through the desk where bills, prescriptions, hand-scrawled recipes, old sepia-colored photographs of relatives in Mexico, pens and pencils bundled in rubber bands, and important documents were kept.

  "This is mine!" Miguel Dos exclaimed when he held up his birth certificate.

  "This is mine!" Kirby screamed, even prouder. "Look how little my foot was."

  Laurita searched that desk, but couldn't locate her birth certificate. This stopped her yodeling, the bird inside her suddenly quieted. Later at the playground, she froze when she saw an official-looking car parked outside the fence. Was it la migra? Was it there to round up kids screaming on the monkey bars? Shoo them out from under bushes where they lurked, playing hide-and-seek?

  Laurita thought her family might have a better chance with la migra if they practiced English. That evening, when the dinner dishes had been removed to the sink to soak, Laurita ordered everyone to stay put. She had a game she wanted them to play, and dashed off to get her dictionary.

  The parents looked nervously at each other, not unlike when people spoke to them in English and they could almost understand, yet not quite.

  "I'll look up a word and you'll have to say the word," Laurita said excitedly.

  "I can spell lamp," Kirby announced.

  "Yeah, I bet." Laurita told her brothers that they would have their turns, but first she wanted Mom to give it a crack.

  "Mom, say Damascus" began Laurita. "Just listen to the word." She repeated it slowly.

  Her mother wiped her mouth with her napkin, giggled, and uttered, "Da-mas-kaz." Her mouth, usually pliable, appeared stiff.

  No one laughed. They were proud of their mother trying hard words: gearbox, telescope, persist.

  "Dad, try fox terrier:" Laurita turned to him.

  He gave it a try, his mind shifting easily as Laurita called out semiannual, unhealthy, sparks, and holy-moly.

  The children were impressed, and clapped when their father not only pronounced initiative, but also spelled it and used it in a sentence. "I have the initiative to work and get rich in America."

  The mood the next evening was different. After dinner was done, dishes done, homework almost done, and her brothers were in the bathtub, Laurita approached her father in his recliner. His eyes were half closed, like an alligator's. But she knew he was all ears and most certainly heard her footsteps. He could hear sounds from far away and could even guess whose car was starting a block away. "Oh, Señor Montez must be going to the store to get a jug of milk," he would predict.

  Before she sat down next to him, he was asking, "¿Qué quieres, mi cielo?"

  "Papi, tengo mis papeles? Soy 'illegal?'" Laurita asked directly. "Do I have my papers? Am I illegal?" Her heart pounded for an answer.

  "Cómo?" he responded, his alligator eyes now wide open. "What?"

  "My papers," she repeated. "Miguel and Kirby showed me their birth certificates, but I couldn't find mine." She pointed to the desk that was like an altar, for it held a large bronze-plated candelabra and pictures from family members as far away as Jerusalem, where an aunt on her mother's side served as a nun. The desk was off limits to the kids, and was off limits to Dad as well, unless he had to fetch the digital camera hidden in the bottom drawer. It was Mom who handled all the papers, the bills, the report cards that needed to be signed, the vaccination papers, the junk mail that she read to practice her English.

  With a large hand he pulled at his mouth and studied his daughter. He sat up in his recliner, buttoned the top button of his shirt, and ran a hand through his hair. He looked like a man ready to talk business.

  "Claro qué sí," he answered.

  "But I wasn't born here, was I?" she asked.

  "No, míja, naciste en Mexico," he answered and patted his lap, a signal for her to hop up and cuddle her old bear of a father. "You were born in Mexico. In a little house on a ranchito."

  "What if la migra gets me?"

  "No ones going to get you." He chuckled. "You got to remember. You're a citizen of the world." He explained that boundaries were just lines on a map and what was really important was being nice, being productive, staying in school, and honoring the country where you live.

  After that, Laurita understood that she was both Mexicana and a citizen of the world. She had rights no matter where she lived, just as music had rights to move from country to country. Or like the folk dances they did in summer school. Or like the food they ate: one day Mexican, the next day Chinese. Why not?

  Laurita wondered about birds. Are they illegal? she mused. They spent winters in Costa Rica but flew north to Wisconsin for summers, where they mingled with local birds. Or humpback whales: One week they were near Baja and the next month, if they swam fast enough, were in Alaska.

  She was a citizen of the world. That's who she was.

  One day Laurita's mother had to go to Kmart to get a few things. Laurita rode with her to the store, her mother grimacing at a rock song on the radio. It was turned low, but her mothers face was pleated with disgust.

  "¿Que horible!" she complained.

  "It's not horrible, Mom!" Laurita turned it down, but after two blocks her mother sighed and turned the volume up. She wet her lips, as if she were tasting the music, and finally concluded, "No es Luis Miguel, pero es okay."

  At the store Laurita stayed in the car to finish reading a novel. Her mother warned her to stay put.

  Laurita would have obeyed her mother, but she was curious about a commotion down the street. Loud noise made her think, Oh, a carnival. Then she heard barking and thought it had to be the Humane Society, which sometimes came to shopping centers to give away dogs and cats, all adorable and huggable as stuffed animals.

  But it was a protest, a word she had used on Kirby when he wrote a naughty word in dirt. Hands propped on her hips, she'd admonished him. "Kirby, I protest your use of that word. You're lucky I don't tell Mom."

  Laurita got out of the car and stood w
ith one hand touching the back fender, as a gesture of safety. She understood right away: There were two groups, one waving American flags and shouting, "You Mexicans go home! You're taking our jobs! You're illegal! Go home!" The other group, mostly young men and women, maybe some college students, was shouting, "If it wasn't for us, nothing would get done! We're the ones working! We do the hardest work!"

  The two groups yelled at each other, and passersby in cars honked. The police, in glaring sunglasses, waited across the street.

  Laurita, following her heart, went closer and became angry when one of the men began saying rude things about Mexico.

  "You do the work!" she found herself hollering, her hands on her hips the way she did when she was mad at her brothers. "You do it!"

  "That's right! I'll do the work!" the man roared. "You just go back home!"

  "You're going to pick the lettuce?" Laurita inquired. "I would like to see you do that! Or, or, or—"

  "You shut up, little girl!" a woman interrupted, stepping toward Laurita so that she was engulfed in the woman's shadow. The woman was wearing sunglasses and her face was smeared with white sunblock, like war paint. She had a berry-sized ruby ring on her finger. Laurita had to wonder whether the red stone contained the blood of people she had punched.

  "Shut up?" Laurita asked as her hands came off her hips and wrapped around her chest. "Me shut up? That is rude, lady. Anyway, I have a right to say what I want." She stood her ground, her thin shadow falling across the sidewalk.

  "You're illegal," a man in a straw hat adorned with small American flags yelled. His large belly jumped when he jumped, and his face reddened.

  "Yeah, maybe," she retorted. "But I don't want to be. I'm only eleven years old!" She fumed and added, "You don't know anything!"

  Laurita wheeled around, dashed to the car, and looked back at the commotion. From that distance, she remembered a word she read in a book: tolerance. Like getting along, like accepting, like you're white and I'm brown and both are okay. Why couldn't people be like birds or whales living without boundaries? Or seeds that fly in the wind?