Summer of a Thousand Pies

by Margaret Dilloway

  María’s out front, wiping a table. I glance around—Shell is in the kitchen. I don’t want her to know I’ve looked through the mail, but I do want to know the answer to my question. Jay’s mom seems like a safe person to talk to. “María? What’s a collections agency?”

  María stops wiping, and straightens up with narrowed eyes. “Where did you hear that word?”

  Uh-oh. Did I make her mad? I pretend to be interested in picking a crumb off the chair. “I saw it on TV.” My neck gets hot, and it’s not because I was outside.

  “It’s a place that collects money from people. For debt they didn’t pay on time.” She keeps wiping the table, only now she’s really attacking it. I swallow. Shell owes money. But that’s probably normal for her because she runs a business. I think.

  “Hey.” Jay’s standing behind me, a plate with two pieces of pie and a scoop of vanilla ice cream in his hand. He sits at the table his mom just cleaned.

  “If you get crumbs on there, so help me—” María shakes her head and returns to the back.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll wipe it. Sheesh.” Jay tucks into his dessert. “She’s so crazy about keeping stuff clean.”

  “Well, you would be too if you knew how much stuff people spilled.” Even Mr. Miniver made a little mess. I sit opposite Jay, trying to read his expression. He doesn’t seem angry from what happened this morning. But a lot of times mad people don’t look mad but secretly are. Me, on the other hand, if I feel mad, I look mad.

  He shovels ice cream into his mouth. “Why are you staring at me?”

  “I’m not.” I close my eyes. My palms get wet. I cross my arms and hide my hands in my armpits. I don’t think I’ve ever apologized for anything on my own before. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. About everything I said and did.”

  I let out a long breath, and to my amazement, my body feels like I’m being lifted in a balloon. Lighter than I’ve been all day. What a relief. Still, when I open my eyes, I half expect he’ll be gone.

  He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “No big deal. I’ve got sisters, remember? We have a fight on every day that ends in y.” Jay pushes away the suddenly empty plate. He’s like Shaggy with that eating. “Have you had any real food today?”

  My stomach growls. Now that I’ve apologized to Jay, I remember my hunger. “No. Just pie.” I guess I can’t live on dessert alone. “Why?”

  “My grandma made empanadas. Let’s go get some.”

  Shell drives us back. “I’ll be home around five. Stay out of trouble.”

  “Okay.” I shut the door and look in at her, remembering her earlier promise. “So can we make a pie tonight?”

  Shell laughs, dipping her head onto the steering wheel. Her face relaxes, and that makes me relax, too. “If you like. But I thought you’d be sick of it.”

  I shrug. Maybe I am, but I also want to use everything in their kitchen. “How about a cake, like Suzanne said?”

  “A cake sounds pretty good, actually.” Shell lifts her hand in a wave. I wave back. Cake and pie in one day? This is going to be great!

  I follow Jay to the right of Shell’s house, past the orchard, to a small house. It’s one story and sort of looks like a small barn or a shed. But the outsides are covered in the same siding as Shell’s and painted the same yellow.

  “It’s super cute,” I say, and I mean it.

  Jay snorts. “Yeah. Cute. It’s Shell’s, like everything else.”

  I don’t understand why he sounds bitter. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t like depending on other people for everything. Do you?” He looks me straight in the eye and I have to admit he’s right. I don’t. Jay gets me so much it’s spooky. We go inside.

  A TV blares a show in Spanish. The savory smell of hamburger and pastry fills the air. I sniff. I definitely smell onion and garlic and maybe oregano. What are those other spices? My stomach rumbles.

  A little girl about four years old in a hot-pink dress runs up. “Jay, Jay, Jay!” She holds out her arms and Jay scoops her up and swings her around. “This is Esmeralda, my little sister.” Jay sets her down.

  Esmeralda peers up at me. “Hi.”

  “Hello.” I don’t know what else to say. I hardly ever know how to start talking to other kids. If they make the first move, like Jenna and Jay both did, then it’s fine. But if I have to do the talking, I’m worried I’ll say something they won’t like.

  We stand there looking at each other. She’s got a heart-shaped face and dark eyes. She reminds me of Jenna, when I met her. I sink to one knee so I’m eye level. “Do you like to read, Esmeralda?”

  She nods, suddenly shy.

  “Maybe I could read to you sometime.” I glance up at Jay to see if that’s okay.

  He rolls his eyes. “You’re going to be sorry. She makes me read the same story two thousand times in a row.”

  “Well, I’ve gotta go. Bye!” Esmeralda takes off, her little feet kicking up behind her.

  “She’s cute,” I say.

  Jay shrugs. “Sometimes, I guess. Abuelita!” Jay calls. “I’m home. I have a friend and we smell empanadas!”

  “There’s no need to shout. Esta casa es pequeña.” A heavyset woman emerges from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She moves slowly, with a limp, as if her left knee isn’t too good. Her hair is short and curly, streaked with gray, but her cheekbones are high like Claudia’s and her teeth are as even as María’s. She peers at me with distinct disapproval behind her round, pink-framed glasses. “So this is the famous Cady Bennett?”

  “Hello, madame.” I hold out my hand and give a little bow.

  “Madame? Am I French?” She ignores it. “I’m Señora Vasquez.”

  “Hi.”

  She continues to stand there examining me, her lips pressed together. “So is this Cady well behaved, Jay?” She sniffs and makes a face. “Ay, Cady, won’t Shell let you use the shower?”

  “Abuelita!” Jay raises his voice. “That’s so mean! Don’t listen to her.” Jay goes into the kitchen. “I’ll get us the food.”

  “Do not tell me what’s mean and what’s not, Jesús Ignacio Morales. I am telling the truth.” Señora Vasquez sits down heavily in an armchair and regards me as if I’m stinking up her whole house.

  It’s true. I do need to take a shower after sweating all day at the shop. My hair’s practically matted to my head. I fight the urge to scratch my scalp. This time I stink because of hard work. Not because I don’t have a bathroom.

  Jay reappears with two pastries wrapped in napkins. “Empanadas,” he says. They’re small pies, shaped like half-moons. “You’re okay with beef, right?” He hands me one.

  “Yes. Thanks.” I bite into it. The ground beef is spicy, with a bit of tomato sauce, but not enough. It’s dry, sticking in my throat.

  “Sorry about my grandmother.” Jay shakes his head. “I don’t know what her problem is.”

  “My problem is disrespectful young men, apparently!” Señora Vasquez turns off the television. In the sudden silence I hear the sound of me chewing. I’m noisy, like a cow. I stop, embarrassed. “We know all about tu padre.”

  Now the empanada turns to dust. “You do?”

  She nods. “Your father broke Tía Shell’s heart. Moving to Oregon without a word.”

  What’s she talking about? We never lived in Oregon. Maybe my dad had mentioned the idea once. He’d talked about plenty of things like that. Moving to Alaska to get a job on a fishing boat (judging by the TV shows we watched about it, he wouldn’t have lasted a half day). Moving to the South, where things cost less. In the end, of course, we stayed here. Where at least we know what things are like.

  I’m about to tell her that, when I inhale a crumb and hack until tears squeeze out of my eyes. I double over, my hands on my thighs, coughing.

  “Don’t stand there. Get her some water.” Señora Vasquez gestures at Jay.

  He leads me into the kitchen and gives me a glass of water. I drink it down. At last
I stop coughing.

  “So you don’t like my empanada, huh?” Señora Vasquez says.

  “It is kind of dry,” I say honestly, and at this Señora Vasquez gives a little miffed sound, then snorts what may be a laugh.

  Chapter 12

  We spend the rest of the afternoon with Esmeralda and the dogs, and Jay teaches me how to play Stratego.

  I lose both rounds. Somehow with Jay I don’t mind.

  And he’s right—I do read Esmeralda the same book over and over again. It’s fine with me. I use British accents and Australian accents and Esmeralda laughs until she literally has to go pee.

  Then, when it’s almost five, Jay walks me to the orchard’s edge. “I’ll have to take you to the secret stream,” he says. “Sometimes there are even fish there. Not big enough to catch. But in the spring, there are frogs. I’ll show you where they lay their eggs.”

  This sounds like the most amazing thing ever. “Will your grandmother let you? She doesn’t seem to like me.” I feel a pang. Dad says what other people think about us is none of our business. Easier said than done.

  He makes a dismissive gesture. “She’s old and cranky because her knee always hurts.”

  “I don’t know what she was talking about. We never moved to Oregon.”

  Jay shrugs again. “She probably misremembered. But don’t worry about her. You going to the shop tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know.” I remember Grandma’s Pies, and my stomach flip-flops. Then I think about the collections agencies I saw on the bills. “Jay, is the pie shop doing okay?”

  “It’s always slow this time of year.” Jay’s voice sounds so normal that I know he’s telling the truth. I smile in relief. “My mom says it’s tight, but we’re going to be fine. And Claudia wants to move out this summer, so we won’t have to, you know, buy food for her.”

  This makes me remember Claudia’s weird fight with María. “Hey. Your sister wanted to go to the city on the bus, but your mom said no.”

  “So?” Jay examines a tiny apple growing on a branch.

  “Claudia’s nineteen. I ride the bus all the time, and I’m twelve. So why doesn’t your mom want you guys to ride the bus?”

  Jay’s shoulders stiffen. “Oh. My mom thinks the bus is dirty.”

  I wonder if it’s because homeless people ride the bus. A lot of people complain about that. I don’t think there are homeless people in Julian, though. “It’s really not bad.”

  Jay’s mouse-quiet for a minute. Then he lets go of the apple, so it springs up on its branch. “If I tell you something, can you not tell anyone?”

  I nod. “Of course. I’m an excellent secret keeper.” I’ve had to keep my mouth shut a lot through the years. Keeping stuff from my teachers. Not telling social workers the whole truth.

  He scuffs at the dirt, pieces of dead vegetation rising up into the air. “I can’t ride the bus because I’m not a citizen.”

  I think about the citizenship award they give out at school. But that’s not what he’s talking about. “What is that?”

  “I was born in Mexico and my parents brought me here when I was a baby.” Jay takes a shaking breath, anger coming off him like heat off a fresh pie. “We’re what they call undocumented.”

  It’s my turn to kick at the dirt. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means I don’t have papers to be in this country. Neither do my older sister and my mom and my grandma. It means”—he gives a small, disbelieving laugh—“I’m an illegal alien.” He almost spits those words, making air quotes with his fingers, his nose wrinkling. “Haven’t you heard people say that? Aliens. Like we’re not even human.” He swallows, his eyes bright. “It means that, I don’t know, we’re shadow people or something. We can’t get Social Security numbers. America’s not really my home, but neither is Mexico. I’m in between. Like a ghost.”

  My stomach turns cold. I don’t know what to say. He’s shifting his weight back and forth as if he wants to run. Illegal aliens. Once, by the beach, I saw a freeway warning sign that was like one of those deer-crossing warning signs, only there was a silhouette of what looked like a family running, the mother figure gripping the hand of an Esmeralda-sized kid whose ponytails flew behind her. My dad said the sign was for the “illegal aliens” who might try to dash across the freeway to get into the United States, so drivers would know to watch for them like they watch for deer. Like they were animals, too, only they were humans. It made me feel sad.

  I asked Dad why they needed to come into the country like that instead of just walking over the border, and he explained how the US put a limit on who could be here. So sometimes people traveled through a big desert and even swam part of the ocean to get in. “Their lives must be pretty bad where they come from if they’re willing to do all that,” Dad told me. We passed a strawberry field, and he pointed at it. “They take all the farm jobs nobody here will do. Cheap labor.”

  I asked my dad then why we didn’t have a way for them to come here to work, and he said he didn’t know. I never thought too much more about it, though. Except that Dad told me Grandpa Sanchez came here from Mexico a long time ago. I don’t know if he was ever an “illegal alien” or not.

  That phrase feels bad, like when people called my dad a “dirty bum.”

  I imagine what it would be like to wake up every day and pretend to be someone you weren’t. I guess I know a little bit about that, but if people found out I was homeless, the worst they’d do is make fun of me or tell me and my dad to move along. But Jay might actually be kicked out of the whole country.

  “So we can’t ride the bus because sometimes ICE—those are the immigration police—do sweeps and arrest people.” Jay looks at the ground.

  “But how would they know?” I mean, it’s not like I carry ID that says I was born here. Nobody’s ever questioned my dad about that.

  “Because.” Jay points at his arm.

  I blink, confused.

  He taps it. “This skin color. They look for this skin color.” Jay drops his arm.

  I hold up my arm. It’s a few shades lighter than his, a few shades darker than my father’s. I look mostly white. Nobody would stop me. I don’t know what to say. It’s all so awful. “But—but you guys can become citizens, right? It’s not your fault you’re here. You were only a baby.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s no way to do it. Not by going to college or getting married or doing paperwork. Nothing.” Jay’s jaw twitches. He’s ashamed and scared and trying to be brave all at the same time. He focuses on me. “That’s why we can’t rent anywhere. Go anywhere. That’s why we have to depend on Shell for everything. Probably forever.”

  I feel turned inside out. That might be the worst thing I ever heard. I try to imagine how it would be if I were undocumented. How I’d get around if I couldn’t ride the bus. If I knew there was nothing I could do to change it for as long as I lived.

  I look at Jay, his chin resting on his chest. He seems so happy, and he’s such a hard worker. I wonder how much effort that takes, when it seems like it wouldn’t matter whether he tried or not. I feel like he’s showing me something real about himself, something he doesn’t show other people.

  I don’t know what to say. Or what I could say.

  Jay bends to look into my face. His eyes have turned a very deep brown, almost black, and his brows have a furrow between them. “Seriously, don’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t.” I wish I could fix this for him. I can’t stand to see him look so miserable. It feels like I should hug him, but I can’t quite bring myself to go that far. I give his upper arm a quick squeeze instead. I search for a joke. “Huh. You feel pretty human for an alien. And, by the way, if anyone calls you that, they’re going to have to answer to me.” I hit my chest with my fist, Tarzan style.

  Jay wipes his face with his hands, seeming to rub away all the negativity for now. He lets out a quick, relieved chuckle. “I know I wouldn’t want to tangle with you.”

  “Oh yeah?”
I grin.

  “Yeah. You might throw a whole pie into my face.”

  “That’s right. Maybe that’ll be my signature superhero move.” We giggle.

  Jay hops up and down. “We should totally make that into a comic book.”

  “Totally. What’ll we call it?”

  “Pie Girl?” Jay suggests.

  “Meh. Doesn’t sound strong enough.”

  “Neither does Ant-Man. And that got made into a movie.”

  “We’ll see.” I wave goodbye and he turns around, back to his house.

  When I get home, Shell’s truck isn’t there and the house is dark and cold. Tom mews sadly and the dogs swarm around my legs. “Shell!” I call out anyway. “Anybody home?”

  No answer.

  I walk through the house, calling, turning on every light I find. “Shell?” It’s after five. Shell said she’d be home. Panic rises in my chest. “It’s okay,” I say aloud to the animals, but it’s really to myself. I get back to the kitchen, the animals following, and sit at the table. I draw my knees up to my chest, hugging them, turning myself into a tight little ball. I shiver—the temperature really drops at night here.

  I flash back to the last time Dad left me alone. Once, earlier this year, after he got his disability check, we stayed at a motel. He said he was going out to get us dinner. When two hours turned to four, I went looking for him around the motel grounds.

  Downstairs, nobody sat in the tattered chairs by the greenish pool. On the curb out front, several people smoked cigarettes. Dad had told me to stay away from everyone. This neighborhood wasn’t exactly high-class. Trash flew around the driveway and the noise from the freeway next door thundered. In the manager’s office, an older man sat alone watching TV and barely glanced up as I pushed the door open.

  “Have you seen a man with, um, glasses?” I tried to come up with a good way to describe Dad. A positive way.