What Can't Wait

by Ashley Hope Pérez

  “Ouch. How’s your sister?”

  “Well, you saw. She’s pretty worked up. Whatever they’re doing is going to cost a fortune. No insurance, of course.” I lower my voice even more. “Jose’s always been trouble, and Cecilia was actually talking divorce just a week ago. But she won’t leave him now since he’s all smashed up. She practically said as much to me.”

  Just then Cecilia and my mom walk over. Cecilia’s not crying anymore, and she forces a smile.

  “Thanks,” she says to Alan.

  He offers Mami his chair, but she motions for him to sit back down.

  “No te preocupes; I have a seat over there,” my mom says, pointing to where the rosary ladies are.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Mami.” I kiss her on the cheek and hug her.

  “A buen hombre, this one,” she says, patting Alan’s shoulder. “Dios sabe where Gustavo is, that malcriado who thinks the car shop is his family. He should be here.” She crosses herself. “We can only pray.”

  The doctor comes over to give Cecilia the latest update. There’s probably no paralysis, but Jose will be stuck in bed for a long time, and he’s going to need lots of physical therapy just to walk again. The doctor doesn’t meet Cecilia’s eyes when he tells her that Jose will have serious back and leg problems for the rest of his life and will no longer be able to do any kind of physical labor.

  Cecilia takes it more calmly than I expect. When she walks over to her mother-in-law, all I want to do is keep talking to Alan. OK, if I’m honest with myself, what I want to do is touch his arm, put my head on his shoulder, and breathe in his smell of soap and sweat. But I look up and see Mami watching me. She lifts her rosary when she catches my eye.

  This makes me want to scream because already I’m getting up. I’m going to go over there just like she expects me to. I’ve seen Brenda blow off her mom a million times, but between me and even the smallest rebellion there’s this huge pit that I have no idea how to cross.

  I apologize to Alan and join my mother like the good daughter I’m supposed to be.

  Jose is still unconscious when Cecilia, Mami, and I finally get to see him. His face is bruised all over, patches of it dark purple. I can see brown shadows of his blood under the bandage across his left cheek. His legs are in white casts, and he’s hooked into some kind of crazy elevation machine.

  At first no one says anything. Then Cecilia drops her wadded Kleenex and starts choking out a new round of sobs. We wrap our arms around her. She shakes right there between us for a long time.

  Then I hear footsteps in the hall. My dad’s standing in the doorway, stiff and serious like always. Gustavo’s right behind him. Both of them are still in work clothes, sweaty and smeared with grease. I’d like to ask where the hell they’ve been, but I don’t.

  “Mija,” Papi says. He stares at Jose’s hospital bed. Finally he walks closer to us. He puts a hand on Ceci’s arm. This is as close as my father gets to hugs. “Vamos a ayudarte,” he says.

  But then his arms cross back over his chest, and the words hang cold and formal in the air, less a reassurance than an accusation. It’s like he’s saying, we’ll help you, but not because you deserve it.

  “Sí, cariño, we’re gonna help you,” Mami repeats more gently.

  As much as I’m sorry for what’s happened to Jose and what it’s going to mean for Ceci, the person I’m most worried about is myself. It doesn’t make me proud, but I can already see what’s coming. I know from the looks on my parents’ faces that this we they’re talking about is really going to be a lot of me. Whether I like it or not, helping Ceci just got bumped to obligation number one in my life. Because when your sister’s in trouble—real trouble—you don’t get to walk away.

  December

  chapter 8

  I’m at Kroger in my smile-and-scan cashier mode. The customer at my register is buying about four hundred cans of Fancy Feast cat food. No joke. This is the kind of thing the other cashiers complain about, but I don’t mind. The cans pass through my hands, and the bleep, bleep, bleep of the scanner fades into background noise. The only problem is that, before I realize it, the rhythm’s tricked my mind into thinking it can go wherever it wants, and it slides back to how things at home have turned to shit.

  Obviously Jose can’t work, and it’s near impossible for a day laborer with no contract to collect workers’ compensation. So now Ceci works a ten-hour day at a gas station, and I have Anita to take care of until she gets off from work and whenever she has to take Jose for special medical appointments. Plus I still have my shifts at Kroger.

  It would all be easier to take if Jose had been mugged, hurt in a car accident, sick with some rare disease, anything besides the misfortune of his own stupidity. Here’s how he got himself smashed up: (1) He lied to the foreman and said he knew how to use a forklift. (2) He left the forklift running while he got out to stack lumber. (3) He panicked when the machine jumped out of gear and started moving. (4) He tried to climb back up onto the moving forklift. (5) His foot slipped, and he fell. (6) The machine kept going, crushed him, and dragged him fifteen feet until it crashed against a concrete wall.

  I’m thinking all this as I pack up cat-food man’s order. Probably my professional smile has turned into a seriously unattractive frown. That wouldn’t matter, except guess who’s next in my line?

  Alan raises his eyebrows at the cans of cat food. He’s wearing this striped polo that clings nicely to his baseball muscles. His hair looks a little different, gelled or something.

  “What’s up?” I ask when he steps up to the register. I take my time scanning his Hershey bar and Pepsi.

  “Sugar attack,” he says. “Plus they say this is where all the pretty girls work.”

  “Nope, that’s CVS. Around the corner.”

  “Guess I’ll send that line back to the factory.”

  How about the line where he tells me if we’re really, really just friends, or if maybe he wants to be something more? But I’ve got one eye on the lookout for my boss Mr. Vargas, who’ll have a fit if he sees me flirting when I should be scanning. I say, “I got to get back to work.”

  “When do you get off?” he asks.

  “Eight.” I take my time handing him his change.

  “Want to go to hang out at Strawberry?”

  Strawberry Park is this nothing patch of land with a soccer field, busted-up walking path, and two swing sets. But it’s about halfway between our houses, and we’ve met up there a couple of times before, usually when I’m so fed up with Cecilia I could scream or when Alan wants to do some drawing.

  “OK,” I say, “but we’ve got to stop for some food. I’ve got another two hours to work, and I’m already starving.”

  “Deal. Pick you up out front.”

  A few minutes later, I notice something at the end of the checkout belt.

  “Hey, you forgot your stuff, Mr. I-Have-A-Sudden-Craving.” I toss Alan the Kroger’s bag with his soda and candy and climb into his truck. A nasal, twangy voice is singing on the radio.

  “Since when do you like country?” I ask.

  “Just keeping an open mind. What do you want to hear?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” When you’re always catching a ride with someone, it’s best not to have too much of an opinion on anybody’s music.

  “You’re stuck with the honky-tonk blues, then.”

  The music gets drowned out for a second by the squealing of the truck’s stripped fan belts as Alan pulls out of the parking lot.

  On the way from McDonald’s to the park, there’s this awkward silence. I want things to be good between us so much that I don’t know what to say. So I press my forehead against the cool window and look out.

  Empty storefronts and rangy trees pass behind the shadowy image of my face in the glass. The reflection is just a pair of floating brown eyes, a line for a nose, a hazy mouth. No birthmark. Seeing myself like that makes me feel almost pretty.

  Which is dumb because that’s not the face Alan
sees. So I force myself to look at the side-view mirror where my whole face shows, birthmark and all. No sense in pretending.

  The park is dark and mostly abandoned. We carry the food to the picnic tables by the swing sets. I try to fill up the silence with stories from work, but Alan’s mood seems off. I climb up onto a table and dig into the chicken nuggets. I really like the little buckets of barbeque and sweetn-sour; the nuggets are just an excuse for the sauce.

  Alan wiggles the straw in his drink up and down, making that plastic squeaking noise. He kicks the seat of the picnic table. Thud. Thud. Thud. Squeak. Thud. Thud. Thud. Then his eyes drift to the soccer field, where gusts of wind are chasing leaves.

  “So . . .” I want to be funny, to lighten things up. All I can think of is this stupid math joke I heard from Ms. Ford. “What did the zero say to the eight?”

  “What?” Alan pitches a chicken nugget into the weeds.

  “He said, ‘nice belt!’ Get it?” I say, but Alan’s not listening. All of a sudden he jumps down from the table.

  “I need a sec,” he mumbles. He stomps down a grassy slope, hands jammed in his pockets.

  By the time I catch up, he’s already crying. I reach for his arm, but he pulls away. He kicks a pinecone, chases it, and kicks at it again. His back is to me, and his shoulders are shaking.

  “Talk to me,” I say from a few steps behind him.

  But when he still doesn’t respond, I cut in front of him so that I can see his face. “What is it?”

  He blinks fast, but tiny tears still cling to his eyelashes. He tightens his jaw and finally speaks.

  “Jessica’s pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “I can’t believe—I mean, I’m so sorry, Alan.” My hands turn clammy, and I have to work to keep my mouth from hanging open. Jessica is Alan’s little sister, the baby of a family with three boys. She’s a sophomore, not even sixteen.

  “She’s sure?”

  He scrapes his shoe back and forth over the same patch of grass until there’s nothing but dirt left. “My mom sent me to pick her up from the clinic right after I stopped by to see you. She told Mom she needed to go get another one of those allergy shots for these headaches she gets. Nada de nada, right? Well, I pick Jess up, and she’s totally nuts. At first, I couldn’t understand a word she said. Finally I got the truth out of her. Pregnant, four months pregnant. I mean, shit!” He stomps on a pinecone and grinds his heel down on it. “She’s just a kid, you know?”

  “It’s not right, it’s like . . .” My stomach twists and I don’t know what to say. Jessica is one of those girls who changes completely after her fifteenth birthday and everything that comes with a quinceañera. One day she was a sweet girl, the next she was a highlighted, straightened, tweezed, made-up, made-over wannabe woman dying to be noticed.

  “Who’s the father?” I ask.

  “Carlos.”

  “Carlos Arreaga?”

  He nods and looks ready to be sick.

  I’ve seen Jessica hanging out with Carlos and his crew of “seniors.” These are fools so far behind in their course credits that they’re barely classified as juniors. They’re proud of their nearly negative GPA’s and reputation for skipping school for weeks on end. Carlos is maybe the worst, always weaseling his hands up some girl’s skirt. One look in those red-rimmed, pot-polluted eyes is all you need to know he’s a creep.

  “I asked her, you know. Why did she do it? Did she even want to be with him? She said ‘no,’ then ‘yes,’ then ‘I don’t know.’ I had to shake her to get her to talk sense. Then she said that she wanted to do it, but only if he used protection. But he wouldn’t, fed her some crap about wanting her to know the full experience. He told her she should either trust him or forget about being with him.” Alan turns and looks straight at me. The moon lights up the tracks of tears down his cheeks.

  “I should have kept a closer eye on her. Turns out this went on for months. After school, when Jess was supposed to be at a friend’s house. She said she just never knew how to tell him no after the first time. I asked her, didn’t she know she’d get pregnant? Oh hell, she cried then. Said he promised he’d be careful, that he wouldn’t get her into any trouble. As if that asshole gave a shit.” His voice cracks a little. “My baby sister, sabes?”

  “I know, I know,” I say. My hands are in my pockets, but I want to pull him close.

  “My mom tries to understand, but Jess just keeps pushing her away. Ma raised me and Jimmy and Alex to be good guys, but somehow she didn’t know what to do with Jess, how to get through to her. It’s going to break her heart, I know it. When we got home, I got as far as the door with Jessica, and then I just turned around and left. I didn’t want to be there. Couldn’t stay home and watch that happen.”

  I know exactly what he means. It’s like Jose and the mess he made just by faking that he knew how to use a freaking forklift. Jess, wanting to be all grown, ends up screwing everything up. And there’s no pleasure in saying I told you so. None at all.

  Alan closes his eyes and wipes his hands over his face. He edges a little closer to me, his voice coming out in a hoarse whisper.

  “It’s sick, how this happens all the time. Your sister, my sister. And all the other big bellies at school. It’s that asshole Carlos that pisses me off. Just another pinche cabrón doing whatever the hell he wants. Can’t be bothered to slap on a damn rubber; who cares if somebody’s kid sister gets pregnant?”

  “It’s messed up,” I say.

  Alan takes some deep breaths, and then we start walking back to the picnic tables. I get brave and sort of wrap my arm around his back. It slows us down, but he doesn’t pull away.

  We sit on top of a table, and Alan starts untying and retying his shoelaces. “I didn’t want to dump all this on you,” he says. “I just didn’t know what to do.”

  “Come on, Alan. You’ve listened to me plenty. I’m here for you.”

  “No, I mean, this isn’t why I wanted to come here.”

  “Well, I’m really glad that you trust me, that you told me.”

  “Great news, huh?” He tries to laugh, but it comes out choked and strained.

  “I mean it. I’m glad to be here for you.” I rub his back, wishing I could just take the hurt from him. Because I know how it is when these things happen to somebody in your family. It might as well be happening to you, because there’s no way to separate yourself. With family, you get a share in everybody’s problems.

  There’s this long pause.

  “It’s so hard to know what to do,” I say.

  “No, it’s not.”

  He reaches over and takes my hand in his, stroking it with his thumb. He lifts it and presses it against his mouth. His other hand wanders over to my cheek and traces the outline of my birthmark carefully, like he’s painting it on me for the first time. Then he tilts my chin up toward him and kisses me with his warm, dry lips.

  “Just kiss me back,” he says.

  January

  chapter 9

  “Come on, Gustavo, I really need to study for my calc test tomorrow.” I jiggle the knob, but his bedroom door is locked.

  “Can’t do it,” he calls. “I’ve got a job lined up in like twenty minutes. Transmission work. The guy’s paying me a hundred bucks plus extra parts.”

  “Call and tell him you’ll do it later. Please. You said you’d watch her. She’s your niece, too.”

  “Give it up, Mari. I got stuff to do.”

  “God! Why is it always my job to watch her? I can’t do calculus and cook dinner and babysit and . . .”

  Gustavo cranks his music way up, drowning me out. I kick his door hard. “Why are you such a pendejo!” I shout, but I know he can’t even hear me.

  I give the door another kick and spin around, nearly tripping over Anita, who’s standing right behind me, sucking her pinky finger and holding Paco by his neck.

  Shit.

  “I thought you were going to draw me a new
casita to add to my collection,” I say real soft. Less than a minute ago she was coloring at the kitchen table. Usually once she gets started she’s good for at least half an hour.

  I kneel down and reach for her hand, but her body is stiff, and she doesn’t move. Then I smell that sharp, sour smell. I look down. Yep. Her pink sweatpants are wet from the crotch to the ankles.

  “Ay, Anita, not again. You’re a big girl now; big girls don’t do that.”

  She starts crying. Wailing. She squirms back against the wall when I try to pick her up.

  “Shhh,” I whisper, “Cálmate, cálmate. That’s my girl.” It takes a while for her to relax, but finally she lets me carry her into the bathroom.

  Here’s the thing: Anita has been perfectly potty-trained since she was three. But yesterday Cecilia’s neighbor Mrs. Salinas told me that if Anita keeps wetting herself, she won’t babysit anymore. Anita’s too old to piss her pants, she said, and she’s too old to clean it up. Without Mrs. Salinas we’re screwed, because she keeps Anita in the gap between when Mami has to go to work and when I get off from school.

  “What about you? What do you need, mi corazón?” I whisper into Anita’s hair as I clean her up. “You just get carried all over the place, all the grown-ups so busy, huh?” I rinse her pants and undies in the sink, wring them out, and then toss them in the hamper.

  I find a semi-clean pair of shorts and tug them onto Anita’s chubby legs. She’s not crying anymore, but she won’t look at me. I sit down next to her on the bathroom floor.

  “Anita bonita, are you sad?”

  She nods, eyes still down. The hand that’s not strangling Paco slips over her mouth. Seeing her wet her pants, seeing her cry, seeing her still worried about those stupid silver teeth, it all makes me feel angry and guilty at the same time.

  “Listen, Anita, will you make a deal with me?”