A few days after our anniversary, Danny catches up to me at school, when I’m on my way to biology.
“Let’s take a break, Pups.”
I stop. “Now?”
“Yeah. Now’s the best time,” Danny smiles.
“I’ve got to go to biology.”
“You’re hardly ever absent,” Danny says. “Once won’t hurt.”
“No. Really. I can’t afford to mess up any more, not even a little.”
“Well. Meet me at lunch then, at the park,” he says. “I have something for you.”
“Okay.”
He gives me a quick kiss and is gone.
At lunchtime, at the park, Danny hands me the package I didn’t open the other night.
“You left this in the car,” he says, smiling the smile I love.
“I didn’t know if I should take it or not,” I say. “You were all quiet.”
“I was mad! Not at you, but at the cops. They had no right to follow us around like that. If I was a rich white kid, they wouldn’t think of harassing me like that. But because I’m just a poor Mexican whose dad doesn’t believe in backing him up, they think they can do whatever they want.”
“It wasn’t exactly Rodney King,” I say.
“Both cops were Mexican, too,” he says, ignoring my Rodney King remark. “They’re the worst kind, going against their own people.”
I sort of want to argue with Danny. A week or so ago he was complaining because it’s mostly white guys who get to be police and they take all of their prejudices out on everybody else, and now he’s unhappy with the Mexican cops. I glance over at him and see that dark, closed look on his face, and decide not to point out his contradictions.
“Here, Pups, open this,” he says, his mood lifting as quickly as it fell.
I take the package from him and sit on a bench, under a tree. I open it carefully, without seeming to be in a hurry, the way my mother taught me when I was only five or six. Resting on white tissue paper is a large, silver barrette, with a simple, engraved design around the edges.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell Danny.
“Look at the back.”
I turn the barrette over and open the clasp. There, on the back, is engraved, “First Anniversary, My love forever, Danny.”
“Oh, Danny, I love it. I love you.”
He kisses me. “I know,” he says.
“Put it on.”
I get my brush from my backpack and brush my hair, then fasten the barrette over a section, pulling it back and away from my face.
“It is beautiful,” Danny says, straightening it a bit, running his fingers through my hair.
“There’s something else,” he says, pointing to a tiny, neatly wrapped package, no more than one inch square.
“I didn’t even notice this,” I say, taking it from the box and unwrapping it carefully.
It’s a thin, gold ring, with a small stone in the middle.
“Look, it’s a real diamond. Not big, but real,” he smiles, slipping the ring onto my ring finger, left hand.
“It’s so pretty,” I say, watching the stone reflect cloud-filtered sunlight.
Danny jiggles the ring a bit. “Is it too big?” he asks.
I move it from my left hand to my right.
“This is a better fit,” I say.
“But I got it for your left hand.”
“We’re not really engaged, though.”
“No, but we will be.”
“Danny. . . I’m not sure. . . I love you and I know I’ll always love you, but . . .”
“But what?”
“But, neither of us is ready to think about marriage . . .”
“I am,” he says, his mouth pulling down the way it does when he’s hurt.
“But Danny, we’ve both got school to . . .”
“Look. I’m making money, I don’t have to borrow from you anymore. I don’t really need school.”
“That’s another thing. I don’t even know how you’re making money, but I’ve got an idea it may not be legal.”
“Just trust me, Pups.”
‘’Do you trust me, keeping these big mysterious, don’t ask, don’t tell secrets?”
Danny looks away, sighing, then looks back at me.
“Just let me get it made smaller for you. It doesn’t have to mean we’re engaged.”
“But that’s what people will think it means . . . let me wear it on my right hand for now, so I can show April, and Rocky. Rocky’ll be so jealous,” I say.
“Okay. But will you at least think about it?”
I nod.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to open it on our actual anniversary.”
“Really, Danny, policemen following us. I don’t like it. And I’m afraid maybe there’s a reason.”
“Fuckin’ pigs . . .” Danny says, suddenly angry.
I think of the old Danny, before his mom died, and wish again that my mellow Danny would return.
“Can you come over Christmas Eve and help us trim the tree?” I ask, wanting to move to a safe subject. “And Christmas Day, for dinner?”
“Are you sure it’s okay? Lately I think your parents don’t like me so much.”
“Lately they’re upset with me, too. But they said they’d like to have you join us. April’s coming over too. It’ll be fun. It’s always fun at our house on Christmas Eve.”
“Things are so different for me now, from last Christmas,” Danny says.
“I know,” I say, remembering how his mom had decorated the house, and how she and Danny put up thousands of lights—enough lights that people went out of their way to drive their little kids past the Laras’ house. This season probably all they’ll see when they drive by is a yard that’s all overgrown and a For Sale sign in front.
We sit on the swings, swaying gently in parallel motion. Two moms, each with a little boy in tow, walk to a picnic table near the slides and set out lunch. It is cloudy, but not cold, not like December where it snows. The boys, five years old maybe, race to the tallest slide and climb the ladder, one after the other.
“Look, Mom! Look!” the first one yells.
Both mothers turn and look up, smiling, at their sons.
Our swings are barely moving now, as Danny and I silently watch the scene before us, the clouds, the trees, the familiar park, the little boys and their moms.
Chapter
15
Christmas Eve, when I walk out to the parking lot to meet Mom, April is waiting for me instead. She has Rocky and Kitty in the car with her and they’re all full of Christmas spirit—even Kitty it seems, who barks and wags her tail as the other two sing “Deck the halls with boughs of holly. . .” at the top of their lungs.
At least it’s not “Oh Holy Night.” Really, that used to be one of my favorite Christmas songs, but after about the billionth time of hearing Rocky practice it, I hope I never have to hear it again. I have to admit hers was probably the best solo at the concert the other night, though. The rest of the kids should have practiced as much as she did.
I get in the back seat, next to Kitty.
“We’ve waited for you to get off work before we trim the tree,” Rocky says.
“Tell the truth, Rocks,” April says. “You didn’t want to wait for your hardworking sister, did you?”
“Well, I just wanted to put a few decorations on,” Rocky whines.
“Yeah ? Didn’t I hear you complaining about why you all had to wait for Erica when she’s hardly ever home anymore?”
“You don’t know everything, April!” Rochelle says.
They make me laugh, the way they argue just like they’re sisters sometimes.
April turns to look at me. “Your dad said trimming the tree without you wouldn’t seem like Christmas and Rocky would have to put her underdeveloped skill of patience to work.”
“April! Look where you’re going!”
April swerves back into her own lane, barely missing a car to our right.
“Oh, yeah,
” she says. “I still forget I’m driving sometimes.”
“Stupid!” Rocky says.
“Hey. You don’t like it, you can just get out, you little twit,” April says, slowing down and pulling over to the curb.
“I like it,” Rocky says.
April starts up again.
I’m still thinking about what April said earlier—how my dad said it wouldn’t be Christmas if I wasn’t there to trim the tree. My throat gets all tight—like I could cry. Dad and I always used to joke around, and he’d take me wherever he went. Sometimes we’d cook stuff together.
My dad loves pies and he knows how to make really good crusts. I’d cut up apples while he’d make a crust. He’d always make plenty, so we could make cinnamon roll-up things with the leftover dough. But none of that has been happening since he found out Danny’d been sneaking in through my window.
Ever since our big argument, things have seemed different. Sometimes I even wonder if my dad still loves me. But he must, if he insisted on waiting until I get home to start trimming the tree.
“Get yourself some soup,” Mom says.
“It smells so good,” I say, dropping my backpack on a kitchen chair and getting a bowl from the cabinet.
“Now do we have to wait for Erica to eat before we start on the tree?” Rocky whines.
Mom laughs. “Bring your soup in the living room, Honey, so we can start on the tree. Rochelle’s about to pop, she’s in such a hurry.”
The living room is filled with boxes of decorations, and presents, some wrapped and some not, and ribbon and wrapping paper strewn about. The tree is fresh and green and piney smelling.
“Here, Rocky,” Dad says, holding out the white porcelain ornament of a tiny baby in a cradle that has Rocky’s birthdate on it. “You be first.”
Rocky takes the ornament carefully from Dad and ties its red satin ribbon to a branch as high as she can reach. She stands back to admire it.
“Mine’s prettier than yours,” she says, sticking her tongue out at me.
“That’s the old Christmas spirit,” April laughs.
Dad hands my ornament to me. It’s a crystal snowflake, and it has my name and birthdate engraved in the very center.
“Your grampa Arredondo sent this to you from Colombia on your very first Christmas,” he tells me, as he has told me every year for as long as I can remember. “It was just before he died.” He sighs. “I wish he could have lived long enough to see you girls.”
The only grandparent I have is my gramma Schmidt—I never even saw any of the others, except in pictures. Every Christmas my dad tells us he wishes his parents could have lived long enough to see us. My mom wishes that for her father, too. I guess Christmas always reminds them of their earlier family times.
Dad digs around in the big box of Christmas decorations, unwrapping the tissue paper that keeps them clean and safe from year to year, searching.
“Gloria?” he says with a smile.
Mom reaches for the brass music scroll that says, “Gloria, in excelsis deo,” which really means glory to God in the highest, but which Dad bought for Mom the first year they were married because it had her name on it.
Mom puts her ornament up high, just above Rocky’s. Then Dad takes his Purple Heart out of the box and puts it next to Mom’s. It’s weird. He got that for being wounded in action, in Operation Desert Storm.
Whenever I ask him why he keeps it for the tree instead of wearing it on his dress uniform, he never gives me a straight answer. “They’re called decorations, you know,” he’ll laugh, and then he changes the subject.
Dad searches around in the box some more, then comes up with a glass ornament in the shape of a raindrop. He hands it to April. She looks at him questioningly.
“April showers,” he says.
We all laugh and she hangs the raindrop on the same branch as mine. Then we all start taking ornaments from the box and hanging them on the tree. We’re finished in no time and we stand back to admire our work.
“It’s beautiful,” April says. “Our tree at home is all scraggly already.”
“This is the prettiest tree we’ve ever had,” Mom says. Which is also something she says every Christmas.
Dad turns off all the lights in the house, leaving only the Christmas tree lights on. We’re all quiet, caught by the beauty of the moment. Dad puts his arm around me and pulls me close to him. I breathe deeply the mixed aromas of English Leather and pine tree, and I know my dad’s not mad at me anymore. Rochelle puts her arm around Dad on the other side, and Mom comes to stand beside me, holding my hand.
“We should keep the tree up all year long,” Rocky says.
The phone rings and I rush to answer it.
“Hey, Pups.”
“Danny. Come over and see our tree. It’s beautiful. Do you have a tree over there?”
“No. We were going to, but then nobody got around to it. Joey and I are putting lights up outside, though. It’s a surprise for his mom.”
“Come over when you’re finished. We’ve got lots of albondigas.”
“Alex is keeping his car at home for awhile ’cause the cops won’t leave him alone—so I don’t have a way to get there.”
“I can come get you. Okay?”
“So, okay. Come get me.”
Danny’s voice sounds a bit fuzzy.
“My parents will be mad at us all over again if they think you’ve been drinking before you come over.”
Danny laughs. “Do you think I’m some kind of lightweight? They’re not going to think I’ve been drinking.”
“I don’t want to think you’ve been drinking, either,” I tell him.
“Hey, ease up. It’s Christmas Eve. Besides, what makes you think I’ve been drinking? I’m cool.”
“Okay. When will you be finished with the lights?”
“By the time you get here,” Danny says.
“I’ll be over in a few minutes then,” I say, tapping the phone three times, I love you. Danny taps back, I love you, too, and we hang up.
April says she’ll take me to get Danny, and, of course, Rocky wants to go too, and Kitty. Mom asks us to pick up some sweet potatoes at the market because she forgot them earlier. Then Dad asks us to go to Bixwell’s drugstore for a special kind of candle he saw there the other day, and it would be nice to have “It’s a Wonderful Life” to watch tomorrow night, so could we stop at the video store? Pretty soon we’ve got a whole list of errands.
When we get to Alex’s I leave the others in the car and run in to get Danny. He and Joey are still working on getting the lights up around the windows at the front of the house. Joey is on a ladder and Danny is handing lights up to him. I kiss him on the lips. “Merry Christmas,” I say, tasting alcohol on his breath.
“I’ll be ready in a minute,” Danny says. “We’ve just got two more windows to do. We want to finish before Gladys gets back.”
I stand watching for awhile and see that two more windows will take longer than a minute. I walk back to the car.
“Danny’s not ready yet. Why don’t you and Rocky go on and get those things and then come back for us?”
“Okay,” April says. “You think he’ll be done in about twenty minutes?”
“I think so.”
They drive off toward the drugstore, and I walk back to where Danny and Joey are working.
“Where’s Alex?” I ask.
“He’s at Gina’s, trying to get back with her,” Danny says.
“Stupid,” Joey says, pounding a horseshoe nail into the windowsill, over the wire for the lights.
Danny laughs and hands the next section of wire and lights up to Joey. I notice Danny is weaving a bit.
“Hand up the Christmas cheer, too,” Joey says.
Danny reaches for a bottle that’s leaning against the side of the house. It’s not one of those little Jack Daniels bottles. It’s a big one, and there’s not much left. Danny notices me looking at the bottle, but he just laughs.
Now I see t
hat his eyes look dull, and he can hardly hold the bottle steady enough for Joey to reach down and take it. My heart sinks. Why does he do this? He can’t go to my house like this. My parents would be totally freaked.
“How about if I make you some coffee?” I ask Danny.
“How about if I make you some coffee?” Joey mimics me in a shrill, mean voice.
“I’m not talking to you!” I yell at him.
“Yeah, coffee,” Danny says.
I go into the kitchen, find the coffee can sitting on the sink, along with dirty dishes and food left over from breakfast, I guess— scrambled eggs, sticky in a skillet that will never be clean again. On the kitchen table there’s a mustard jar and a catsup bottle that look as if they’ve been there for years, and utensils with dried food on them. I wash out the coffee pot, find a paper filter, and put in enough coffee to make an extra strong pot. I go back outside. Joey is off the ladder now, nailing lights along the sides of the window. Danny is sitting on the back steps, his head resting in his hands.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Joey laughs. “Your boyfriend’s a lightweight. You go for those lightweight types. Right?”
“Whatever,” I say, keeping my attention on Danny.
“I’m fine,” he mumbles. “Let’s go to your house.”
“And fags. You like the fags,” Joey says.
“You need some coffee,” I tell Danny. I know they say coffee doesn’t really sober anyone up, but I’m hoping it will help anyway. I go back into the kitchen to check on it. Joey follows me inside. I ignore him and take a cup from the cabinet, then wash it out.
“You think our cups are too dirty for you?” Joey asks.
“Whatever,” I say.
“Whatever. Whatever. Can’t you even talk to me?”
“Why should I? You haven’t said one nice thing to me since I’ve known you. You always act like you don’t like me, so just leave me alone.”
I start to pour coffee into the cup, but Joey grabs my arm.
But What About Me? Page 13
