Felix grabbed my wrist, taking me by surprise. His fingers were warm and moist. “Don’t forget what we talked about,” he said.
“What?” His touch was making it so that I couldn’t think straight.
“Back in the warehouse. You said you would help me stop your dad from buying a new oven. We’re talking about a couple thousand dollars even for a used one.” He dropped my hand.
I held my wrist. “Don’t worry. We don’t even have any money. He can’t buy anything without money.” We were late on all the bills and all of our savings were gone.
My dad returned and handed me the bottle of Yacón syrup. I looked at the label.
“Yacón is cheaper if you buy it in bulk, I’m sure,” Felix said. “You can special price the new recipe. And, you can save up the money for the syrup if you don’t buy that oven. I did a little research. There’s a place in Indiana that rents kitchen equipment.”
“No, Felix. I already ordered the new oven,” my dad said.
It was the first I’d heard of it. “You have? Can you cancel it?” I asked.
“It’s done.”
“How did you even pay for it?”
“I took out a line of credit.”
My mouth dropped open. No one in his or her right mind would give him credit. Not with those notices from the bank sitting in that drawer. I took it to mean he’d borrowed money from my grandparents. How had he managed that? He’d just started talking to my mom again. Asking my grandparents to dip into their saving was something he’d never ever done before.
“I’m happy with my decision. Felix, I hope you’ll help me set it up when it arrives,” he said. His face hardened. I didn’t see that look too much, and it told me to leave it alone.
Felix nodded and excused himself, looking both displeased and resigned. I cleaned up as soon as it was time to close and followed my dad upstairs.
“Have you told Mom about these?” I asked.
“Not yet. I’m thinking I’d rather have her taste them.”
“Are we mailing her a care package?”
“Or maybe she’s coming back.”
“You won her back?” I jumped.
“It’s too soon to tell. Let’s make another batch of Patricia’s marranitos.”
“Sure. But you can’t call them that. It’s not very romantic to have someone attach the word pig to your name. The name should describe the thing. If I had to name them, I would name these ‘Skinny Pigs.’”
“I like the sound of that. Skinny Pigs.”
He pulled out everything we needed. I put on a pot of coffee. I watched him stir together shortening, baking soda, cinnamon and vanilla until the mixture formed a firm paste. He beat in the yacón syrup, eggs and milk. He gradually added flour to form the masa. Since it was more cake or cookie than it was actual bread, we didn’t have to wait for the dough to rise. He rolled out the masa and cut it with the pig-shaped cookie cutters. Finally, he brushed them with egg wash, and popped them into the oven.
The phone rang. He dove for it, not letting it get to a second ring.
“Patricia,” he said. “We were just making something…We have something delicious for you…It’s sweet…Not as sweet as you. No, you’ll have to come get it…”
He was worse than those guys in the cheesy soap operas. I was sure I’d end up with diabetes too if I listened any longer. I groaned, but fought back a smile. He missed her.
I was happy for him. Maybe, just maybe, I was also growing less mad at her.
Chapter 36
The roar of an engine announced Belinda’s arrival. Her shiny black SUV tankered onto the lawn and parked parallel to the pyramid.
Those standing scrambled to find seats.
Loretta Sanchez stuck her head inside the pyramid before taking a seat on the mismatch of chairs set up just outside its door. Casey and Stacey plopped down on the thirsty afternoon grass on either side of Marcos. Casey played with his hair. They whispered things into each of his ears. I didn’t care. I looked away.
“You kids did a wonderful job,” my dad said.
“It could use some windows,” Loretta said.
“Don’t pay any attention to her, kids. Whoever heard of a pyramid with windows?”
Felix popped out from the passenger’s side of the SUV and sat next to Josefina and me. Belinda adjusted the rearview mirror, fixed the collar of her shirt, and climbed out.
Colonel Franco struggled to his feet and stood beside Belinda. “Ok, now that everyone is here, I’m going to make this quick,” he said. “I know you are all excited about the big unveil just a few days away and you should be. This will be a very short meeting so we can all get back to our preparations. As a final order of business, I’d like to motion for us to relocate the Pig Park Chamber of Commerce here to La Gran Pirámide.”
“I second the motion,” my dad said. There wasn’t much arguing this time. A series of ‘ayes’ followed, making it a unanimous decision.
“See, I told you it’d be quick. Belinda has something she’d like to talk to the kids about now. As per an earlier conversation, I think they can handle this on their own. Please excuse me.” Colonel Franco slowly made his way home, and the other grown-ups followed suit. Felix jumped up from his seat.
“What’s going on, Felix?” I asked.
“This is all Belinda. I’m going back to the warehouse. I’ll see you later.” He walked away shaking his head. I frowned. I didn’t understand.
Belinda waited until all eyes were on her. “Ok. I have something for you,” she said. She stood up and flipped open the back door of her SUV. She had converted the cargo compartment into a makeshift closet. Two aluminum racks sagged at the center from the weight of their contents. Belinda squatted on the back bumper. We crowded around for a closer look.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a gift. This is the finishing touch. Masi, you suggested nice shirts. Felix was really into the idea, so I suggested you take it one step further and dress the part. Peasant shirts, guayaveras, sombreros, mariachi hats,” she said.
My mouth dropped open.
She handed me a fuchsia peasant shirt embroidered with wild flowers, and Josefina a lime green one. Casey and Stacey received a pair of red flamenco style shirts. They held the ruffled confections against their torsos and twirled around. The guys received guayaberas. And there were still enough outfits to spare.
“It’s like the wardrobe trailer for a mariachi movie,” Josefina said.
“It’s all very cha-cha,” Marcos snickered. He waved the peach short-sleeved dress shirt with lace columns down the front, still on the hanger. “I’m not wearing this. These are the kind of shirts old men wear to baptisms and first communions. No one is going to take a guy named Nowak seriously wearing this.”
“If they can make American Lard in a foreign country, and a guy named Wong can sell tacos and chicharrones, then you can wear this. It’s called globalization,” Belinda said.
“I’m a Chino-Latino. Get your story straight,” Pedro Wong complained.
“Globo-li-what? Is that something to do with balloons? Globos?” Casey asked.
“It’s exploitation. That’s what it is,” Marcos went on.
“If people can exploit the American flag on Memorial day and the Fourth of July, then you can exploit anything. It’s fair in a free market economy,” Belinda argued.
“How come our parents don’t have to wear this frilly stuff?” Iker wanted to know.
“We’re the free labor and the face,” Pedro nodded at Marcos.
“Frilly isn’t the word. This is just plain dumb. We’re not cheap puppets you can dress up. We are not caricatures.” Marcos threw his shirt back into the back of the SUV. He had a point.
“Your product could be the best in the world. If your image doesn’t draw people to you, no one will ever know it. These authentic, quality garments celebrate what you’re doing here.”
I looked closely at the stitching in my hands. I turned it inside out.
There was no special tag. But they were still costumes. They were no different than anything that ever graced the stage at one of American Academy’s school plays. The clothes were Belinda’s outsider idea of what we were.
“These aren’t costumes.” Belinda objected as if reading my mind. “They came all the way from Jalisco and Tamaulipas. You are very lucky Dr. Vidales Casal happened to be traveling through the interior.”
“Interior of what?” Josefina asked.
“Ugh, abroad. These clothes have a purpose. There are restaurants, bakeries, and flower shops all across the city. Something has to make people choose Pig Park.”
“That’s what the pyramid is for,” I interrupted.
“Yes, you built La Gran Pirámide. I’m talking about creating an entire experience to go with it.” Belinda laughed her loopy laugh. “These clothes commit you to the experience. You have to calculate and capitalize on all of your assets.”
“You mean like the flowers?” Stacey asked.
“No, I mean you go all the way. You start with the clothes, then you speak the part. Flavor your words. Give them some Spanish, but not so much that you scare them away. This is Parque Puerco from here on out.”
“No offense,” I said to Belinda. “Parque Puerco translates to Pork Park. We’re Pig Park.”
“And no one will know the difference when this place disappears off the map. I thought you wanted to save this place.”
“We do. Like Colonel Franco always says, we can’t give up now,” Freddy Fernandez said. Frank Fernandez nodded his head.
I wanted to tell them to stop agreeing and nodding. I wanted to stand up and tell Belinda that she was nuts. I sat there and thought long and hard before opening my mouth again. Belinda was Felix’s sister. We had already gotten off to a bad start. I needed to try harder. We were desperate. Besides, no one had ever died from wearing a shirt. I took the shirt, put it on over my clothes, and walked home.
Chapter 37
Felix’s voice carried up from the sidewalk. I jumped out of bed and found Felix talking to my dad downstairs. “You’re here early, Felix,” my dad said.
“There isn’t much else left for me to do.”
“You should do something fun then, go downtown or something. Summer is almost over. Before you know it, you’ll be an old man like me who’s done nothing but work. We won’t tell on you.”
I sprouted valor like wings. “My dad’s right. I’ll go with you downtown so you don’t get lost, if you want.”
“Ok.” Felix shrugged.
I grabbed my backpack and dumped out all the crumpled-up homework from the previous year. I threw in a water bottle, a hoodie, gum and all of my savings—which added up to nineteen dollars. I was ready to run away.
We walked to the train stop. “I thought about asking Belinda to see if she wanted to come, but she’s got her hands full,” he said.
“What’s she doing?”
Felix hesitated. “Fixing up that old building.”
I smiled. Maybe it meant Felix would stay past the summer. “Did she really buy a building?”
Felix hesitated again. “No. The Old Goat—Dr. Vidales Casal—paid for it. It’s his building.”
“He’s moving here?” I asked.
“No.” This time his answer was quick. While I didn’t understand what the doctor wanted with it then, it had to be better than letting the birds and cobwebs swallow it up. I knew Dr. Vidales Casal was Felix’s sore spot, so I didn’t push.
Felix inserted a couple of dollars into an automated machine, and retrieved a train card. He slid it once for each of us, and we pushed through the turnstile. We were the only two humans on the platform. A squirrel looked at us out of the corner of its beady eye and gnawed at something between two doll-sized hands.
We took seats near the entrance of the train. I looked out the window at the city flying by. Several stretches of road looked devastated to the point of desertion. There were a few enclaves of clean new neighborhoods throbbing with life. They looked like small suburbs with tall buildings.
We exited at the first stop downtown.
Large neon signs advertised delicious things to eat. Hot dogs. Noodles. Deep dish pizza. Iridescent road signs pointed to daily parking that cost more than the bakery made in a week. There were school buses and charter buses parked along the streets with their hazard lights blinking red and angry. They unloaded school children, parents, senior citizens, people who looked like they had someplace to go, people who looked lost.
Languages I didn’t speak buzzed all around. Cameras snapped away down the street. An old man scrolled a device, then stuck it back in his fanny pack. A young couple argued over something on a piece of paper. Businessmen and women pushed through the hordes alongside us on their way to work.
“Look at all these people. We should’ve brought some flyers to pass around for La Gran Pirámide’s unveiling,” Felix pointed out. “I don’t know where to start. What should we do, Masi?”
“My mom likes coming downtown to see the Christmas windows. But it’s not Christmas.”
“No, it’s not Christmas.”
“You know that old movie about the kid who takes the day off from school?”
“He crashes that parade, sneaks into the fancy restaurant, and visits the art museum.”
“Yes, the Art Institute. They shot that movie here.”
I sprinted down the street. Felix paused, then ran up behind me and jumped on the back of one of the bronze lions that guarded the museum gates. I climbed the mountain of stairs two at a time. Felix hopped off the lion and motioned for me to follow. We walked through the doors at the tail end of a large tour group, unnoticed by the ushers.
We followed the crowd into one of the rooms. A half-painted canvas filled the wall. The stuff in the adjoining room was straight out of a pirate ship or a castle. “The pyramid isn’t like this at all,” I said.
“Well, it shouldn’t be.” Felix looked like he was thinking. “It should be its own self, just how Pig Park is its own self. Never mind what Belinda says.” The corners of my mouth pushed against my cheeks. I smiled. I kept the bit about the shirts and mariachi hats to myself. I wanted to just enjoy my day with Felix.
We moved quietly through the exhibits and walked out just as we’d walked in. I was undone by the sunlight. I squinted and covered my eyes with my hands. “There are stores all along that street.” I pointed north of the museum and walked in that direction.
Felix pushed through the glass door of the shop on the corner. The cashier glared at us from the corner of her eye like we were a pair of rats climbing out of the sewer. “I don’t like this place,” he said and walked out.
He sauntered toward a street vendor. A lady with waist-length hair extensions stood before an array of knickknacks on the sidewalk. She smiled at us. Felix handed her three dollars and took a keychain with an imprint of the Chicago skyline. “I haven’t bought anything for my mom,” he said.
“It’s hot. Want to go over by the fountain?” I asked.
“Sure.”
The fountain was big enough to swim laps in. Water shot twenty feet in the air. A group in Maple Leafs T-shirts took advantage of the light and snapped a series of goofy pictures. Felix and I moved along the edge to the shady side.
“Anything else you want to do?” I asked. I fiddled with my hair.
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Felix looked at me. He leaned. The thing inside me fluttered, and I braced myself. I closed my eyes. His soft lips landed on mine. I reached for his face. A southbound breeze slapped the fountain water so that it sprayed down all around us. It was a kiss in the rain that ended before that thing inside me really kicked up the dust. I opened my eyes. Droplets of water evaporated off Felix’s skin and steamed.
“That shouldn’t have happened again. It was an impulse. I’m sorry,” he said.
“It was nice.”
“I shouldn’t have done it again.
”
“Why?” I didn’t understand. We weren’t making bombs or selling drugs to third-graders. Maybe I’d read things wrong. Maybe I had bad breath or he simply didn’t like me like that after all.
“We should go.” Felix pushed through the crowds. I struggled to keep up.
The landscape of the city flew past the windows of the train. His mouth was a vault locked shut. We were back in Pig Park and on our separate ways in the blink of an eye.
I walked home alone, with my thoughts still wrapped around that kiss. I wanted to kick myself. I didn’t understand. Felix could make me feel so good one minute, and terrible the next. What was his problem? I grew mad. I was mad at myself for getting caught up in something as simple as a kiss.
Chapter 38
My dad and I watched the freight truck squeeze onto our street and stop in front of the bakery. Two red-faced men, an overweight one and a skinny one, hopped out.
“Delivery for Burciaga,” the overweight one said.
“Yes, right in here.” My dad propped the door open.
The overweight man returned to his truck and rolled open the back, revealing several rows of large commercial kitchen appliances. His skinny companion pushed one of the metallic monsters to the edge. He hit a protruding red button that lowered the rear end of the truck like an elevator. They strapped it to a dolly and huffed and puffed their way up the stoop.
“Right back here.” My dad led them to kitchen. “I pulled the old oven out so you won’t have trouble.”
“Do you want us to dispose of that?” the overweight one asked. He pointed to our old clunker sitting in the corner, up against the display cases.
“No need. Thank you so much. I’ve made other arrangements.”
Since the street was too narrow for the eighteen-wheeler to turn around, the two men inched out in reverse.
Marcos and the Fernandez brothers helped Felix haul the old clunker away later that afternoon. Money issues aside, I was relieved to see it go—to be rid of its mood swings. The thing was as moody as Felix.
Pig Park Page 11
