Because of the Sun

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  “Shit, that’s messed up, having to move here your senior year.”

  I nod.

  “You live with your aunt, right?” She nods in Shelly’s direction.

  I look toward the truck. I can’t see Shelly because of the glare on the window. I wonder if she’s looking at me.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you around, you and Paulo,” the girl says, like she knows something about me. “Are you guys like a thing?”

  I feel my cheeks getting warmer. “Just friends…”

  “Okay, okay,” she says. “Sure you are.” She looks at me and laughs. “He used to drive us to school last year when he was a senior, before his grandma’s gas station got held up and he started working there more.”

  “It got held up?”

  “Yeah, it was nothing. Wasn’t anyone here anyway. No one around here would do that to Doña Marcela. Had to be someone passing through who didn’t know her.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugs. “Because she’s always helping people, you know? But she’s tough as hell, too. I mean, I wouldn’t mess with Doña Marcela.”

  I think of Doña Marcela standing in front of me with those jugs of water in her hands. Her stern face somehow offering both softness and refuge. I picture her driving through the desert, hammering crosses into the desolate land, leaving food and water for strangers on their journey.

  Journeys of survival.

  Paulo said something else about journeys, but I can’t remember what.

  Jessie interrupts my thoughts. “Don’t go thinking there are always holdups around here or anything, though.” She shrugs and rolls her eyes. “It’s not like we’re in shoot-outs all hours of the day the way people imagine.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that….”

  “Anyway, you like it here?” she goes on.

  “I…”

  “I’m just joking,” she says. “This place sucks.”

  “It’s not that bad…,” I tell her.

  “Hmm, if you say so. But I’ve lived here all my life and I can’t wait to leave.”

  The boy looks up. “Shut up, yo,” he tells her.

  “Why? It’s true. I’ll go to Dallas or something. Get away from this fucking place. Sorry you got dumped here. But you’ll probably leave too, right? First chance you get?”

  I shrug.

  “I would,” she says. “I mean, I totally am. Gonna get an education and become something.”

  “Shut up!” the boy says again.

  “Calm down, Chicken,” she tells him. “You can live with me once you’re done.”

  “Don’t call me chicken,” he tells her.

  “Nickname,” she says to me. “It’s cuter in Spanish.”

  He shakes his head.

  The bus comes and we get on.

  There are only a few other kids on the bus and it’s a lot quieter and calmer than I would’ve guessed. The other kids look up at me and then go back to what they were doing.

  Chicken walks down the aisle toward the back. When I try to take a seat up front, Jessie tugs at my arm and says, “Uh-uh, come on. You don’t want to look like some uppity white girl.”

  I follow her and we sit in the back. “Just stay away from this one,” she says, pointing to the kid sitting behind us next to Chicken.

  He looks up and rolls his eyes at her.

  “Watches porno on his phone,” she says loudly.

  “Suck it, Jessie! It was one time!”

  “Yeah, yeah…one time, whatever. I’m going to tell your mama, you little pervert,” she says, but she’s laughing and smacks him on the head.

  He sucks his teeth and shakes his head. “Don’t,” he tells her.

  “If you’re good I won’t.”

  Jessie chitchats some with other kids as we ride, but mostly she talks to me. She tells me that Chicken is scared she’ll leave him behind for good since he doesn’t bother to hit the books. She tells me he has learning disabilities. She tells me he could still go to a community college near where she’ll move. Or he could study a trade that would make him good money, like auto repair. And then they can both get their parents out of here. Jessie talks a lot, but it’s not annoying.

  “Anyway, I mean, I don’t want to end up living here. Or Mexico. No offense to my parents or anything,” she says.

  “Hey, hey, there’s nothing wrong with Mexico!” one girl calls over.

  “Shut up, I’m not saying there is,” Jessie tells her.

  “Just don’t go giving another gringa a bad impression,” she says.

  “I’m not! Chill out.”

  “I’ll die in Mexico,” the girl says. She gives me a hard look. I nod because I don’t know what else to do.

  Jessie rolls her eyes. “You were born here,” she says to the girl.

  The girl shakes her head. “Like that makes a difference.”

  The boy next to her says, “It does if you’re one of the little baby skeletons they find in the desert, or one of the kids who gets eaten by coyotes while trying to cross just because the shit at home is even worse.”

  “You don’t have to tell me babies die, okay? I know. I’m just saying this place doesn’t want us. Even though we were born here. They want to deport our asses to Mexico no matter what dirt we were born on. Because we’re brown. But hey, if you want to bust your ass getting all As just so some asshole thinks all you do is scrub toilets and then calls the migra on you, then go for it. Good luck with that, chavo. Good luck.”

  The boy looks down, and then out the window.

  Jessie turns to me, raises her eyebrows. “Anyway,” she says, taking a deep breath and looking at me. “What about you? Where did you move from? Why are you here? Come on, this ride is like an hour long and we talk.”

  She looks at me, waiting. I think for a minute about what I can tell her. “I lived in Florida,” I say finally. She waits for more. “With my mom. I lived there with my mom. Then I moved here because…she died.”

  It sounds weird to say it. I can’t quite believe I did until Jessie looks at me all sad.

  “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  “She wasn’t…that great,” I say before I can stop myself. I’m afraid to look at Jessie, to see the way she might be looking at me now. I wish I could take it back.

  I glance at her, but her face remains soft and sad, like she understands. “Still, she was your mom,” she says.

  I look away fast and focus on the mirror at the front of the bus, the one reflecting the bus driver’s frizzy hair and sweaty forehead.

  Because, yes, she was my mom.

  When we get to school, Jessie tells me where my first class is. The school is not very big, a lot smaller than most of the schools I’ve gone to, so I don’t feel totally overwhelmed. I had a quick tour of it when I registered with Shelly, so I have an idea where I’ll be going throughout the day.

  I head to my first class, passing him in the hall. I hardly pay attention at first, but I know he’s there, painted on the wall and looking at me. A great black bear staring at the hall of students, his mouth open in one never-ending roar.

  Shelly had stood frozen when she saw it. Said she’d forgotten the school mascot, and I thought then about telling her how I see the damn bear all the time. How he followed me all the way here from Florida and I wasn’t sure how long he was going to stick around or why. But I didn’t say anything. And she shook her head and walked out and I followed her.

  I have only a couple of credits left to graduate because somehow I need fewer credits here than at my last school. So study hall and office assistant take up two of my classes.

  The office assistant job has me at a desk that looks right out at that bear. For an hour we stare at each other.

  What do you want? I ask him. What do you want?

  The rest of my classes are easy enough: AP English, sociology, phys ed, Spanish II, and film. I couldn’t believe there was actually a film class, and when the guidance counselor suggested it, I thought at least I’d have that to look for
ward to.

  When I walk into Mr. Diaz’s class, he jokes with us, saying if we only took this class because we thought we’d be watching films all year, we were only half right.

  Mr. Diaz wears slacks and a jacket and tie and his dark hair is combed very neatly. He tells us a little bit about the program, how he had to fight to get a class like this into the school, had to make his case to the school board because they thought film study was irrelevant in a school like this, even though he knew this is exactly the kind of school where we need a film class! And now his students are entering film festivals and making more films, and he knew one day, no doubt, one of you, or many of you, will be accepting an Oscar.

  He tells us that by the end of the year, we’ll be making our own films, and to get us motivated, he shows a couple of short films from some of his past students.

  He turns off the lights. The first one is about a woman running away from a camera. As soon as it’s over, I want to see it again. We talk about it, but then Mr. Diaz moves on to the next one, about an old man and his shoes. We talk about that before he shows us a third.

  This one starts by zooming in on a water faucet on the side of a small cement house. The water is dripping.

  It cuts to a shot inside a vehicle. A guy wearing sunglasses drives through the desert.

  Then the inside of a home, a woman making coffee. And this shot is weird, because you feel like you are the woman as you watch her hand stir the sugar into the coffee.

  Back to the water faucet. Water dripping.

  Then the guy again.

  Back in the kitchen, the woman spills the coffee, and it drips over the counter and to the floor. She looks annoyed, throws the spoon on the counter, and begins wiping the mess up with a kitchen towel.

  A guy comes into the kitchen from the hall. He is shirtless and disheveled, but he smiles at the woman as he shakes his head and says something. But the audience can’t hear his words. In fact, it’s at this point that you notice the soft drip-drip sound that has been in the background the whole time. It gets louder.

  The woman shakes her head and looks amused, and she smiles too.

  She walks into the hall, looks toward a room.

  The water drips louder.

  Then the car stops in front of the house and now the camera angle is from the viewpoint of the guy with sunglasses.

  He knocks on the door.

  The water drips louder. And the image of the water faucet comes back onto the screen. This time the camera stays on the dripping water for ten drops and each drop is violently loud, like a bullet.

  Then there’s a shot of the guy driving away.

  The door is open and the man and woman are on the floor, covered in blood.

  The camera focuses on the doorway the woman had looked at earlier, and pans out. The water drops are soft again, and then the gruesome tableau goes to black.

  The room is silent. The bell rings, making us all jump. Mr. Diaz says softly that we’ll discuss it tomorrow.

  I feel a cramp in my heart.

  I think of Paulo.

  By the time the hot air is whipping at my face on the bus ride home, I’m almost glad Shelly forced me to go. School breaks up the days.

  The ride home is louder. Everyone is yelling and Jessie is sharing her headphones with Yolanda, the girl who is going to die in Mexico, and I just watch. I watch all of them because somehow they make me feel less like I’m floating. These are the faces I’ll see for a while.

  “How was your first day?” Yolanda yells when she catches me looking at her.

  I shrug. “All right.” I don’t tell her how I walked to the cafeteria and picked up my lunch and brought it back to the office to eat at the desk where I sat staring at the bear. Maybe if I stared at him long enough, I’d figure out what he wanted.

  She holds one of Jessie’s earbuds to her ear and nods her head to the beat of the music. “That’s good!” she yells. “But hey, if anybody gives you trouble, just let me know.” Her wavy hair whips over her face, gets caught in her red lipstick. She doesn’t bother to smooth the hair away. Instead she keeps nodding to the music, lets her hair get wilder, cover her completely, so she gets lost in it and the music.

  A part of me is glad to have crossed paths with Jessie and Chicken and Yolanda. They made the day easier. And I realize I’m not afraid of school. I wasn’t even afraid if anyone gave me any trouble.

  Because I felt like the bear, quiet and powerful. And like I could tear anyone limb to limb if I had to.

  When the bus comes to a stop, Jessie, Chicken, and I get off. Sitting where Shelly’s truck was this morning is Paulo’s truck.

  He waves and Jessie nudges me. “Just friends,” she whispers as Chicken runs over to Paulo. Jessie and I follow him.

  “I’ll give you a ride home,” he says to me. “You guys, too,” he says, nodding at Chicken and Jessie.

  They jump in the bed of the truck, then tap the window when they’re settled in.

  Paulo pulls away from the curb and looks over at me. “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I answer.

  I feel funny suddenly, like Paulo knows somehow about Jessie’s teasing. Like it’s made things different between us. Or maybe because until she said something, I didn’t think about it much.

  Paulo drives toward his house, then past it, and down a couple of roads on the grid of mobile homes. He slows in front of one with a green awning. It’s pretty, carefully decorated with pots of flowers and rocks in the front yard.

  Jessie and Chicken get out and yell “Thanks” to Paulo and “See you tomorrow” to me. I wave.

  “So, how was it?”

  “Fine,” I tell him, and start to break down the day since it gives me something to talk about which feels safer than riding in silence. If I stop talking, I’m certain he’ll feel the awkwardness I feel. He listens, and when I tell him about the film class, he smiles.

  “Mr. Diaz! That was my favorite class,” he says. “He’s a cool guy. He’s actually the one who got me into making movies.”

  “We have to make a film by the end of the school year.”

  “Yeah, yeah…I remember,” he says, smiling. “You’ll love it.”

  He drives and I stare out the window for a while.

  “He showed us a few student films today,” I tell him, knowing what it will lead to.

  He looks over at me. “Oh yeah?”

  “One was a girl running…” He nods like he knows what I’m talking about. “Another had this old guy…” I watch the way the wind blows his hair. “And the last had”—bullets and blood and—“this dripping water faucet.”

  He nods, staring straight ahead. I wait for him to confirm or deny what I suspect, but he just keeps driving. I suddenly think how stupid it was for me to mention the film. Too personal. It wasn’t fair of me to bring it up, flaunting that I’d seen it like some little kid who has been given somebody else’s toy.

  We’re silent the rest of the ride home, but when we get to Shelly’s, Paulo reaches over and grabs my hand. I don’t want him to leave and I know he doesn’t want to either. And it feels like one of us has to say something.

  “Come inside for a while,” I say finally, without looking at him.

  He turns off the truck and I listen to the pebbles rolling under our feet as we walk up to the three wooden steps that lead to the front door. He’s close behind me every step of the way, and when I put the key in the lock, turn the knob, I can feel him watching my hands. And then I can feel him leaning in close to me. I turn to look at him and he holds my gaze for a few seconds. His eyes remind me of water and fog and smoke.

  Then I feel his lips on mine.

  He tastes warm and the thrill of his kiss makes my chest feel full, like there’s an ocean inside me with rolling waves. I pull him closer and both his hands are on my face and it feels amazing to be wanted. It feels like I’m loved, like I matter. I’ll do anything to keep feeling this way. I don’t want to let go. I want to be a part of him.

>   And something zaps in my brain. I see my mother and all those men by the pool, all the images of her kissing them, how she tried to keep their eyes on her when they’d already turned away. I see her red smile, her sleepy eyes. I see how those guys were fascinated by her but quickly became bored. And when they left, how she tried to make each one stay.

  I pull away fast. My hands find his chest and push him back.

  “What’s wrong?” he says, but I just shake my head. I can’t look at him; I don’t want him to see her, Ruby, in me.

  I won’t be like her.

  “Nothing,” I tell him. “I just…Shelly…,” I say as an explanation, even though it’s not one. I look up and past Paulo’s shoulder, as if she might be coming down the road at any moment. He turns and then looks back at me but doesn’t say anything. I go inside and he follows me.

  “You want something to drink?” I can feel his eyes on me, I can feel the way he’s trying to figure out what just happened as I take out a glass, fill it with water.

  “No, I’m okay,” he says. I take a sip as he walks around the kitchen, but there’s nothing to look at.

  “You know, I’ve never seen your room,” he says suddenly.

  I stare at him.

  “I’m curious,” he explains.

  “About?”

  “You.” He walks through the entryway to the hall and I hear his footsteps as he goes searching for my room. I follow him and watch as he goes in, looks at the bare dresser, the suitcase still on the floor, and the pile of dirty laundry in the corner.

  He holds up my copy of The Stranger. “Any good?” he asks.

  “It’s okay.”

  He nods. I stand by the door. The room is as bare as the landscape outside.

  “You know what you need?” he says, leaning against the dresser and still looking around. “You need posters. I’ve got a couple of movie posters in my room.” He looks at the suitcase and adds, “Unless you’re anxious to get out of here?”

  I shrug and follow his gaze. Even the clothes that I’ve washed have been packed away again.

  I hadn’t been able to unpack. But I also don’t have plans to be anywhere but here. I think of getting through one hour, and then the next, until all the hours of the day are up. And somehow, the days pass.