Silvia gave me a look like where did I get that from. I told her I’d taken it from my piggy bank. I didn’t actually have a piggy bank so much as an old mayonnaise jar in my underpants drawer where I kept the almost nine dollars I’d saved up. Silvia shrugged and put her wallet away.
We sat in a booth that faced the large glass doors. We dug our spoons in. That’s when I saw him. A junior-high boy walked into the Dairy Queen. I could tell he was in junior high because he wore one of those green uniform T-shirts from their baseball team.
Silvia nudged me with her elbow. I curled my lips up to make an ugly face at her. I wasn’t a good chaperone, so I did exactly as she hinted. I made like a banana and split.
The junior-high boy went by Silvia, sat down, and started flirting before I even got out the door. I guess she’d known he was coming all along.
I walked to the curb and sat down on the pavement. The air outside was just cool enough to keep my ice cream from turning into milk. I lapped it up, watching the buses go by.
I daydreamed about getting on a bus and just going wherever it went. Never mind that I wasn’t allowed to ride the bus by myself. I could ride the school bus alone when I was younger, but that was different.
“I don’t like you getting on the public bus with all the locos,” Apá had said. Being a bus driver was one of his many jobs before he’d started working on houses, and he knew about crazies.
We saw a stringy-haired woman barking and biting at her shoulder at a downtown bus stop once. “That’s who you might be sitting next to,” he told us.
My parents thought I was too young. That was always the reason why I couldn’t or shouldn’t do something.
I started to think about places I might go. I might go where La Güera went—she was one of our cousins from El Florido who used to clean houses on the Westside where the rich people lived. We called her that because she looked like a white girl—big pink friendly face, blue eyes and blondish hair just like all those California girls on the magazine covers. Except that when she opened her mouth, perfect Spanish spilled out. One day La Güera decided to move to Los Angeles and become a real California girl.
I wanted to go someplace like that. And why not? My parents hadn’t always lived in El Paso. They’d moved here, and one day I might move someplace far away too. I’d go to a new school and make new friends.
I guess if I’d said that to them, they’d have told me they were older then, and I was too young to be thinking like that. But I just wanted a whole new life.
CHAPTER
15
Out Loud
I didn’t move far away, but I kept daydreaming about it—especially on the morning that we read about Athena.
In my fifth grade bilingual class everyone spoke funny like me. But kids who’d been in the A-classes since kindergarten were different. They spoke mostly English at home and sounded a lot like the people on television. I’d never read out loud in front of kids like that.
I was nervous, so I sped up and stumbled over myself. I read: “A-ra-q-knee said that she could weave the most beautiful tap-tape-estry. This made Athena angry and terrible.”
In that instant Camila’s group went from pretending I didn’t exist to snickering behind my back. “Chelota is a Juareñota. Chelota is a Juareñota,” Camila chimed under her breath and laughed. I could tell by the look on Nora’s face that she didn’t want to join them, but she wasn’t defending me either. It was the kind of thing that made other kids cry, but I ground my teeth until they made a noiseless sound that rang in my ears.
A normal teacher would’ve said something to them. All Ms. Hamlin said was, “Eyes on the book, girls.” It probably wasn’t that she didn’t care. Her head was just always in the clouds. And, since she hadn’t grown up in El Paso, she didn’t understand what an insult being called a Juareña was.
Ms. Hamlin asked me to try again. My words were hesitant and rough, a tight attack on the air, a punch, sharp thuds. “Arachne said that she could weave the most beautiful tape-estry. This made Athena angry and terrible,” I repeated.
I didn’t understand. I could read perfectly in my head. My enemies, who spoke a seamless English, continued to giggle.
“What’s a tapestry?” Ms. Hamlin interrupted. The enemies looked at me expectantly. It was almost like Ms. Hamlin was making fun of my reading too, of my “tape-estry.” But she wasn’t. She just wanted the definition.
She turned to all of us and asked, “Can anyone describe what a tapestry is?” I quickly raised my hand. It was an easy word.
“Chela. Go ahead,” Ms. Hamlin pointed to me.
“It’s a tapicería!” I said, my Spanish oozing out. Camila and her clones burst into another set of mean giggles.
I couldn’t help it. I’d learned to speak Spanish before I’d learned English. El Segundo Barrio ran along the Mexican border, and that’s how it was for a lot of kids in my neighborhood. I’d formed my definitions from staying up with Apá watching old cowboy movies. He always forgot his glasses on purpose and made me read the subtitles out loud. Thanks to John Wayne and my father’s infinite wisdom, I’d learned that letters formed words and that for almost everything in English there was something in Spanish. It also worked the other way around.
I heard their giggling, and I wanted to kick myself for thinking in Spanish and answering in translation. I wasn’t ashamed of the way I learned things or the way I spoke, but I didn’t like being laughed at.
“Before we close our books, tell me what a tap-ee-cerea is,” Ms. Hamlin said. I scrolled inside my head for an English answer. The enemy girls twisted their smiles and rolled their eyes. They maybe thought that I didn’t know.
“A tapicería is a decorative woven cloth with designs,” I finally said.
“Very good!” Ms. Hamlin exclaimed.
As we left for lunch, Ms. Hamlin tapped me on the shoulder and told me to come in from lunch five minutes early because she wanted to talk to me. I wasn’t sure what she wanted to talk about, but some of the boys in class teased me and went OOOOOOOOOH like they liked to do when someone got in trouble.
All through lunch, I pretended to read my book and wondered what she wanted to talk about. May be she wanted me to congratulate her for having remembered I was around this whole time. Maybe she wanted to ask me why I always ate lunch alone. Maybe she HAD noticed how mean the other girls were to me. Whatever it was, I was okay with it because it meant five less minutes of sixth grade lunch torture.
It was none of the things I turned around in my head. Ms. Hamlin wanted to sign me up to take a special test to get into the Gifted and Talented program. It was the first time our school was offering the program. In the past, kids who wanted to participate had to move to another school. Also, since it was new, it would only meet after the school bell on Wednesdays. GT projects included writing poetry and creating science experiments.
I told Ms. Hamlin that I’d talk to my parents about it. I knew that I’d either make new friends in GT or add another couple of hours of suffering to my week.
The program sounded like fun even with no friends. I felt very proud of myself for the rest of the day. I held my head up whenever I walked by the enemy group.
CHAPTER
16
Smart
On Saturday morning, a couple of weeks after taking the GT test, I spent the day in Juarez with my family. It was our first visit across the border since my dad had gotten sick. We were going to a kermes. Church block parties had rides, games, shows and food.
I showered quickly and put on my favorite outfit—a pair of green slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt with silver button snaps and frogs embroidered on it. My dad wore nice clothes and his going-out hat, one like the golfers wore.
“I don’t want to get sunburned,” he joked as he put it on. The sun was out, but it wasn’t hot. It was a perfect day to be outside.
At the kermes, my parents said hello to all kinds of people they knew, people that us kids couldn’t really remember eve
r seeing. We politely said hello as we walked by. We walked past stands of pork tacos and shredded beef gorditas with lots of chile, cilantro and onions. My mouth watered.
Before I begged my dad for anything, my mom reminded us we’d already eaten and hissed at us not to ask. She’d put us all on his new diet.
My dad played the deaf guy. He ordered each of us steaming hot cups of elote. White corn was exactly what I wanted—drowned in Valentina sauce, lime juice and grated cheese.
A man from a nearby dart-throwing booth called Apá over while we waited. Apá aimed and quickly won a box of tequila lollipops, the kind with the worms in them. We dug into the corn. Once the last empty styrofoam cup bounced off the rim of the trashcan and dropped inside, my dad sat with Amá by a tree. He peeled dollar bills from his wallet and handed one over to each of us. Angel Jr. took Clark by the hand and headed straight for the arcade games. My sister and I traded our money for ten tickets to the aluminum tilt-a-whirl. It was the closest I’d ever been to flying, and we stayed on until we ran out of tickets.
Silvia’s plan was to ask for more money when we walked back to the tree. I couldn’t wait to get back on, but a sharp claw closed around my belly. “I think the ride made my pansa hurt,” I said to Silvia.
“Ok, see ya,” Silvia answered and headed out with the extra dollar from my dad. The claw loosened its grip, but I didn’t feel better. It felt like when you eat too much candy or put too much chile on your potato chips.
“I told you not to buy them junk. It was probably the corn,” my mom told my dad. “She’s not having any ice-cream pops later. No one is.”
“No! Amá, don’t be ugly,” I burst out.
“¡Ey! Don’t talk like that to your mother!” Apá scolded me. I stood there with my mouth open until my dad called me to sit down next to them. My mom was being mean, and my dad was taking her side.
I sat on a neighboring bench making angry fish faces. Amá and Apá ignored me. Apá gave Amá little kisses so she wouldn’t be mad at him for buying the junk food. It made me even more nauseous. I didn’t want to see them be mushy. I tried to think of a million other things until the sun got too lazy to hold itself up and the ticket seller told us it was time to go home.
Everyone was upset about not having ice cream before leaving, but my dad took the blame and said it was because he wouldn’t be able to resist it if he saw us eating. Angel Jr. must’ve suspected it was my fault because the whole ride home, he shot at me with spit and made it seem like the bullets came from his nose. He picked his nose with one finger, grabbed spit with the other and pointed at me.
When we got home, I stood behind Amá. She unlocked the door too slowly. I stomped up the stairs. After a few minutes, I heard footsteps. There was a knock and then my dad. He held a letter from the school district’s main office. It’d been sitting in the mailbox.
Then I realized my stomach had stopped churning and there were butterflies. I forgot all about being sore. My dad tore open the letter while I held my breath. He read out loud: “Your daughter has tested gifted and is being offered placement in our new after-school program.”
All they had to do was sign the permission slip. Apá wasn’t surprised. “See! You’re smart. I told you all you had to do was work hard,” he said.
It wasn’t that I was conceited, but I did feel smart. The letter said I was “gifted.” My dad was proud, and he read it out loud again during our salad dinner. Angel Jr. repeated it just like that; he said “gifted” in quotation marks. Then he reminded me that when I was four, I thought corn came from the closet. Never mind that the kind of corn Amá made at home did come from the closet.
After that day, the minutes no longer dragged into days and weeks. Everything went by fast.
CHAPTER
17
Friend
Camila, Brenda and Toña were in the GT program—no one else. They only talked to me when the teacher made us work together or to poke fun at me. It made me want to ask my dad to take back the permission slip, but that wouldn’t have been fair. I liked what we were learning.
I overheard Camila and her clones talking about how only Brenda, who spoke baby Spanish in language class, actually tested gifted. Camila and Toña hadn’t passed, but the school couldn’t start a Gifted and Talented program with only two people, so they added the kids with the top grades in the A-class the previous year.
Nora wasn’t in. She hadn’t passed the test or been in the A-class the year before.
During the first six weeks of GT, we designed a food dehydrator, videotaped a commercial, planned original science experiments, and had a powwow. Still, there were some things that were more work than fun. Like: drawing out a ten-thousand-year timeline.
Then there was the poetry writing. In the bathroom, Brenda and Toña whispered how Camila copied her poems from a magazine and turned them in as hers because she couldn’t find her own words. They never snitched on her. I never snitched on them. I didn’t want them to get back at me for it. Maybe I just couldn’t find the words to speak up.
I walked home alone from GT every week. Of course I walked home alone even on the other days of the week, but at least there were lots of other kids around then.
One afternoon, as I walked home from GT, I heard the sound of someone following behind me—it was the squeal of bicycle wheels a block outside of school. I was a little jumpy and looked over my shoulder. That’s how I found myself staring into a pair of big brown eyes.
“Roy?” Roy got off his bicycle and walked beside me rolling his bike along.
“I stayed late for tutoring,” he said as he ad justed his backpack with one hand. “I can give you a ride,” he laughed nervously. I laughed a little nervously too.
“You like walking alone?” he asked.
“It’s not horrible.”
“I walk home alone after tutoring too. Maybe we can walk home together sometimes,” he said. I was mute for a second. Then I nodded my head. I mumbled something about it being nice. He winked as he mounted his bike. He zoomed away. It was the first time we’d talked since Nora had stabbed me in the back.
When Apá came home from working on the new house, we sat in front of the television watching a telenovela I sort of liked. It was probably all the kissing on TV that made me ask him, “How did you and Amá fall in love?”
He told me he still had all his hair when he met my mom. Since he was an orphan, her family took pity on him and let him sleep in their barn and share their dinner. It was Amá’s job to call him to the table every night. She was only four years old.
“Mari was a skinny annoying little kid with freckles and braids. I moved away soon after that, and we didn’t see each other for many years. Your amá spent that time growing up and becoming beautiful.”
“You fell in love when you saw her again?” I asked.
“When I saw her again, she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on. The freckles and braids were gone. A lot changed about her, but never her eyes. They were still the same dark sparkling eyes,” he said. “We got married soon after that.”
It was a great story and it was very romantic because it had actually happened.
I didn’t like Roy in that way or the way they did in the soap operas, but I remembered him being a nice friend, and I needed those. Roy smiled and said hello to me in class from that day on. Other kids in our class started smiling too, but they didn’t come too close. The Camila group still turned their noses up and laughed behind my back or ignored me. I didn’t mind that so much because being ignored was better than being picked on.
I don’t know why any of it was so, but it was.
Roy and I walked home together on the days when we both stayed late. He rode his bike and played sports with his brother and friends on the other days.
Sometimes Roy and I studied together. He told me he liked studying with me because I always coughed up the right answers when the teacher called on me in class. It also impressed him that I was in the after-school program
and got straight A’s on my last report card.
“I could tell you were smart even before you were in my class. I’d see you carrying all your books in the morning,” he said to me. He smiled shyly, and I wasn’t sure if he was joking.
When he came over to my house, we did homework on the back porch. We sat on my dad’s log bench. We didn’t study together in class because sixth grade boys and girls just didn’t do that unless they wanted to be teased.
My whole family teased us enough as it was. My dad even called him my boyfriend. Thankfully, he didn’t do it in front of Roy.
Roy was a nice friend, but there were still some things that I just couldn’t tell him. I didn’t understand a whole lot about boys, and I was sure they didn’t understand a whole lot about me.
It was sort of like when school started and Angel Jr. gave me advice when all I really wanted was for Silvia to tell me what she thought.
So Roy and I never talked about how he was my only real school friend.
CHAPTER
18
Shhshs
I had only a few chances to talk to kids from other classes. When we lined up to go back to class after PE, a pair of girls who called themselves cholas, wore lipstick, and kissed boys behind the portables, marched up and down the girl lines like drill sergeants and talked about stuff that mostly made me squirm.
Betty and Shorty carried an invisible checklist and asked the big question: “What size bra do YOU wear?”
They talked to me more than the people in my own class did, but it wasn’t like we were friends. That’d have meant letting them see under my shirt and joining their gang. It’d have meant inviting them to my house, and having my mom find out. It’d have meant giving my mom a reason to take off her chancla. My pants hurt at the thought of her shoe stamped on my behind for hanging out with girls who claimed to be gang members. Never mind that these girls mostly just pretended to be tough by wearing lots of eyeliner and talking loud.
The Smell of Old Lady Perfume Page 5
