by Meg Medina
I glance at the clock. It’s almost four in the afternoon, so Hector will be out of here soon. He’s been leaving the house every day around this time and doesn’t come home until I’m already in bed. I’m doing my best to pretend the little stalker doesn’t exist, but his stench makes it impossible. Mima says boys this age always stink, but this is a lot worse than rank sneakers. His jacket smells like some sort of dying animal.
Anyway, the sound of keys in our lock makes me look up.
Mima.
Maybe she has an Easter surprise? When we were little, she’d buy a Paas egg-coloring kit and let us loose in the kitchen with vinegar and those fizzy tablets.
She sets a twelve-pack box of transparent tape and two foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies on the end table in the living room. Then she looks at us for a few seconds, blinking back tears. Her skirt is turned slightly, and the crooked seam makes it look like her hip is broken.
“Mima?” I say.
“Me botáron,” she finally blurts out.
Hector looks up from the Cyclo-Teacher. “You got fired?”
The lay-uff she’s always worried about has finally happened. Mima’s voice is flat. Mr. Small gave her the free tape, she says, along with her final paycheck in cash, when he laid her off this afternoon.
I feel the same queasiness I get when I ride elevators in tall buildings, that feeling of the floor dropping away. I can practically hear Mrs. MacInerney mentioning the latest unemployment figures over dinner: three hundred thousand people have no jobs.
“You need to come with me to the unemployment office to fill out forms, oíste?” Mima tells me. “Edna told me what I have to do, but those people talk too fast.”
Already my mind is whirling like one of Mima’s old tape spoolers. How will I fix this? What can I say to Papi to get some cash? How do I grovel to Manny so he won’t call in the painters and try to whitewash the memory of us right out of the building? How will I fit in more hours at Sal’s?
I put my head down, suddenly tired. I know I should say something to make Mima feel better, but I can’t manage it. In fact, I’m angry at her. Shouldn’t she be able to take better care of us? Isn’t that what adults are supposed to do? Take care of their kids? Shield them from stuff? Pay bills? Why is everything the wrong way around for us?
Mima steps close to me and runs her fingers through my hair absently, the way she used to when I was little. I can barely breathe; her touch revolts me.
“Stop, Mima,” I say.
She pulls away, and her hurt look drains every last bit of my energy. A chilly shame goes through me. I try to imagine Mima back when she was young and maybe happy. I think of that picture of her in a short veil on her wedding day, her shiny hair past her shoulders like mine. I’ve always wondered if she had to wear old shoes that day, too, if the dress was borrowed.
As if reading my mind, she takes a step closer.
“I was pretty and young once, too, Nora. I was carefree. I wanted things.” It’s an accusation, a disappointment in me somehow.
Hector tosses away the Cyclo-Teacher and grabs his jacket. He doesn’t even look at her as she reaches for him.
“Mijo,” she calls. “Don’t be upset.”
The door slams behind him on his way out.
And then Mima finally starts to sob.
I can’t sleep that night or the next. I try to cheer myself up watching Brick sing “Dazz” on Saturday Night Live. It’s the mother of all funk songs. Kathleen and I love to dance to it when it plays on the radio. I lie awake in bed, imagining myself dancing to “Dazz” with Pablo and then with Freddie Prinze until eventually the TV screen in my mind goes to electronic snow. A fantasy about dancing is better, I suppose, than thinking of Freddie dazed on ludes the way the magazines say he was before he shot himself, or imagining him boxed up in a marble drawer somewhere in Hollywood Cemetery, all that promise just turning to dust.
Hector’s bed is still empty. Part of me is relieved and part of me is wondering what he’s doing out so late. Every so often I hear the loud squeak of Mima’s bedsprings and her slippers as she shuffles to the window to watch for him. She hates that he’s roaming, but as usual, she’s powerless to do anything about it. At least she’s not nagging me to look for him.
I doze for a while, but finally, when I can’t take it anymore, I get out of bed and bring our bedroom phone into the closet with me.
I know I shouldn’t do it, but I dial Pablo’s line. I want to hear his voice, have him talk to me so I can sleep.
“Hello?” It’s a woman, groggy. “Hello? ¿Quién habla?”
I hang up.
It’s his mother, I’ll bet, and I know what she’d say. Probably what Mima would say. What kind of girl calls a boy in the middle of the night?
I dial again, this time to Kathleen. I never did go over to see her this afternoon. She keeps her Princess phone right by her bed, though, and I know she’ll pick up. All the MacInerneys are light sleepers, thanks to a lifetime of calls about fires, emergencies.
She answers on the first ring, but her voice is groggy. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Nora?”
“How was the beach?”
“Dull.”
“You see Brick on TV?”
She lets out a big yawn. “Daaazzzzzz!” she says. Then she sings in a copy of his falsetto.
“It made me dream about Freddie.”
“Nice.” She yawns again. “What time is it, anyway?” I hear a rustle as she reaches for her clock. Then she groans. “You can’t sleep?”
My throat gets so tight that I can’t answer.
“Nora?” she says. “Are you okay?”
I never talk about my family to Kathleen. There’s just no way she would understand how Mima, Hector, and I work. And I wonder, too, if she’d still want to be my friend if she really knew how ugly things can be here. Still, the quiet inside the closet gives me some courage to tell her a piece of it at least. “Mima lost her job yesterday.”
There’s a long silence, and I think maybe I imagined saying it. Or maybe Kathleen has drifted back to sleep.
“Crap,” she says. “I’m sorry. What’s she going to do?”
I have no answer, and that’s the real trouble. Maybe Mima will do nothing, which is the scariest idea of all. If she doesn’t save us, who will?
“Hey. Come over for Easter tomorrow,” Kathleen says. “Mom’s baking a big ham. Uncle Tommy’s coming.”
“The chauvinist?.”
“Yep. Promise you’ll come. We can give him dirty looks while we eat Wilbur together.”
“Go back to sleep, crazy.”
“Going — but see you tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah.”
I hang up and sit for a few minutes, cradled inside the musty coats. Then I pick my way to the back wall and grope for my old boots. I pull out my roll of money; it’s as thick as one of those cigars Mima must have rolled as a kid. I hold it for a long while, thinking about what Mima said. What did she dream about when she was young? Did she try to squirrel away her pennies to get it? Or did her life just sweep her along until all those dreams had to be forgotten?
Mima’s purse hangs on the doorknob in the hall. I tiptoe in my bare feet and unzip the inside pocket. The sound is loud against the silence of the apartment.
“Hector?” I didn’t see Mima staring out the kitchen window again.
“No. It’s just me.”
She watches as I slip the money inside her purse, but she doesn’t say anything. She just holds my gaze a moment and then turns back to the darkness outside.
In bed again, I stare at the ceiling, penniless, until I hear the keys in the lock. Soon enough, Hector’s jacket fouls the air in our room.
A little while later, I watch as the sky turns pearl gray.
When Papi calls on Sunday morning, he informs me that our talk has to be quick. Fine with me; I’ve had no sleep.
“Linda and I hid one hundred and fifty Easter eggs all over the b
uilding for Pierre and his little pals,” he tells me. “It’s bedlam over here right now!”
I sit on the windowsill in my panties and gouge out my bunny’s candy eyes, imagining Pierre’s friends scavenging for plastic eggs, still believing a surprise is always a good thing.
Papi blathers on, but I can’t find the energy to interrupt him. And what would I say? I’m too tired to think up a way to convince him to send us a little extra money or maybe, more important, to make him actually give a shit about what’s happening here when it’s not a holiday.
When we hang up, I pull on my jeans and a T-shirt. Mima is still curled in bed, exhausted. Hector is out cold.
I don’t want to face breakfast with them, so I let myself out the front door and head to the roof to clear my head.
The church bells peal for the ten o’clock Mass. I can see the steeple with the crucifixion scene from here. No stores are open today, and the holiday bus schedule is slow, so there’s a strange quiet on the street below. Kathleen will be home from church by noon. Maybe it will be okay to eat Easter ham and listen to Mrs. MacInerney rail against the Pope’s refusal to allow women priests. Maybe thinking about the world’s problems will be easier than trying to figure out my own.
Families are on their way up the hill to St. Andrew’s, but all I want to do is throw rocks at them, spit on their heads. I can’t bear the sight of all those pink-ribboned hats and white-patent-leather shoes, all those obedient little girls who believe.
“Sheep,” I mutter, hating them all.
I picture myself a burning bird swooping down to frighten them.
I gave too much change back to the lady who bought the Italian loaves.
That has to be it, because no matter how many times I total up the register, I come up about six bucks short, which never happens to me. I’ve been distracted, I guess.
“Sorry, Sal.” I dig in my pocket for a few singles. “Here’s the difference.”
He turns to me from the front door and frowns. “Put that away. Mistakes happen.”
I hope it’s not pity that’s making him so generous, but it might be. I had to tell him about Mima’s job troubles so I could get time off. Turns out, it takes hours to wait in line at the unemployment office.
It’s closing time, and the store is empty. Sal has the front door locked for the night, and he’s waiting for Pablo to finish padlocking the back door and set the alarm.
“Thanks.” I untie my apron and step out from behind the register. Pablo’s Camaro is right out front, still sporting the scrapes. I hate looking at it now. Bodywork is going to set him back five hundred dollars, and he doesn’t have all the money. He hasn’t said a word about who could have done it, but I can’t help but wonder if he suspects it was Hector. He’s not stupid.
I’ve stopped walking home after work because of the murders. But the truth is that getting a ride is the only way I get a few minutes alone with Pablo. He drives like a turtle on purpose, sometimes going around my block a few times before letting me out. It would be nice if we could linger at the curb to say good-bye, but we’re careful. The shooter could be lurking, or worse, Mima could see us from the window.
Sal taps his shoe nervously with his golf club, like he’s waiting for trouble. Something is definitely on his mind.
“You got plans for that thing?” I ask.
He looks up and clears his throat. “I got something to say to you.”
“Okay . . .”
He’s actually blushing. “Don’t go kissing Paulie too long in that muscle car.”
Wow. A prickly feeling spreads across my cheeks. Did he see Pablo steal a kiss when I was fixing the busted doorknob in the john? I glance uncomfortably at the security mirrors he’s got bolted at every corner of the store, but I decide to play dumb anyway. “What are you talking about, Sal?”
“Save it,” he says. “I lost some of my hearing in the war, but not my eyeballs. I know when two kids are mooning over each other.”
“Mooning?” I laugh nervously.
“I call it the way I see it, toots.” He takes a step closer and sighs. “Look: Annemarie says it’s none of my business what you two do after work. But you gotta watch yourselves, hear me? Check around the car before you get in. Don’t be stupid and go parking where no one is around. There’s a real sicko out there, and I don’t want to end up reading about you in the paper.”
As if he needs to remind me.
I try to make light of it and point at his club. “So you’re going to do a security sweep with that thing before we get in the car?”
He looks at the club and shrugs. It’s sad to see such a big guy look helpless. “That’s the thing, sweetcakes. I’m no match for a bullet. And neither are you.”
Sal sees us off, but we don’t go more than a block before bright lights and sirens fill the street. We let the fire truck go by, but as we come up to my block, I see that it has pulled up on the curb in front of my building. My neighbors are outside watching smoke billow out of the basement windows.
I jump out of the car before Pablo has even stopped completely and race toward the crowd.
“Stay behind the tape, please,” a fireman orders.
“But I live here!” I point at several other firemen who are on the roof right above my apartment. A few others are armed with axes and are circling behind the building, checking for any spreading flames. “Is there fire up there, too?”
“Standard protocol to check the roof. I’m pretty sure the fire’s only in the basement, but we’re checking. Probably one of the dryers.”
I look around for Mima and Hector, but it’s hard to see in the smoky darkness. Unfortunately I do see Sergio, leaning against his Monte Carlo. We haven’t run into each other since I broke his mirror.
Then I spot Stiller and run over. Her apartment is right above the basement. “What happened?” I ask.
“A big mess is what happened,” she says. “I saw smoke coming up around the steam pipes. I rang all the bells to get people out, just in case.” She frowns. “And were our smoke alarms working? No.”
“Nora!”
Mima’s near the chain-link fence at the far end of the property, looking as if things are as bad as The Towering Inferno. She’d been sleeping when the lobby buzzer sounded, she says. That’s when she ran downstairs.
Someone grabs my arm. “You okay?” It’s Kathleen and her mom. “We heard it on the scanner.”
“Fine — I was just getting home from work,” I say.
“Well, it’s pretty small, thank goodness,” Mrs. MacInerney says. “They’ll have it controlled in a few minutes.” She looks at Mima and digs in her brain for her high-school Spanish. “No ser preocupado. Everything is bon,” she says, trying to cobble together some words to soothe her. Her Spanish stinks worse than Kathleen’s.
Just then, Pablo joins us, too. “Everybody in your family okay?”
Mima stares at him blankly. This is not the way I would have ever planned on Mima meeting Pablo, so I stand there stupidly for a second, trying to decide what to do. Finally Pablo extends his hand.
“Mima, this is Pablo,” I say. “We work together.”
Pablo’s eyes linger on mine for just a second, but I don’t add anything more.
“Mucho gusto,” he says. Then he shakes hands with Mrs. MacInerney, too.
Meanwhile, Manny is pacing and coming undone as he talks with some of the tenants, “I don’t understand it. There has never been a single frayed wire in the cellar! No paint thinners or kerosene. No loose trash, ever! And look at the mess they made of the door. I just painted it last week!”
“It could have been set by some thug,” someone says. “The whole city is burning.”
“I keep the basement locked,” Manny says firmly.
Stiller crosses her arms. “Well, who’s to say the thug isn’t our landlord, then? We’ve got no-questions-asked insurance policies all over this city. What’s easier than burning people right out of their neighborhoods?”
Manny
stops in his tracks and glares. “What kind of crazy accusation are you making now?”
Stiller shrugs. “It’s not crazy and you know it. In fact, I hear that some building supers arrange for a cut of the insurance money if they offer a helping hand.”
“How dare you! Watch it with that mouth, Stiller,” Manny warns.
She narrows her eyes and seems to grow to her full size. “Watch it or what?”
“Stiller, for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. MacInerney says. “Calm down; you’re upset. Mr. Barros has lived here for years.”
“I’ll calm down when I see the extent of the smoke damage to my place and the fire marshal’s report.” She raises her voice even louder so that every fireman can hear. “And there better be a thorough inspection!”
“Mr. Barros?” Thankfully two firemen call Manny over before things between him and Stiller can get any uglier.
But is Stiller right? Would Manny help burn our homes to the ground for insurance money? I’m not one of his fans, but it’s a stretch, even for me. Sergio, that’s another story. Who knows? Maybe that’s why his uncle sent him this way: because he’s perfect for the job. You’d have to have absolutely no conscience to do something like that.
That, or be a pyro.
I look around. “Where’s Hector?” I whisper to Mima. Could one of the flame balls have hit something? Was he screwing around with his stupid lighter again?
She shakes her head. “¿Crees que está en el techo?” she whispers, knowing the roof is one of Hector’s favorite hangouts. “¡ Ay, Dios mio!”
I look up at the firemen leaning over the roof ledge. “They would have seen him by now.”
It takes another thirty minutes for the firemen to finish, but Hector never shows up. The firemen start to detach their hose lines and replace the caps on the hydrants. They’re leaving behind a big mess. The basement door is in splinters, and there is broken glass everywhere.
“Why don’t you stay at our place, Stiller?” says Mrs. MacInerney softly. “The stink lasts for a while.” She lowers her voice. “I have some Baileys that might make us feel better. And we can ask Pat to get the inspectors over here for you.”
Stiller’s eyes are glued to two firemen talking to Manny, though. “I want to hear what they have to say first,” she says. “I’ll come by in a little while.”
