The Other Half of Happy

by Rebecca Balcarcel

  “Are you kidding? Of course I’ll be there.”

  He’s being a good friend. So stop being disappointed, I tell myself. He’s been a friend to me all along. Now I need to be a friend to him. I can remember how to do this. How to enjoy Jayden for who he is, not just as boyfriend material. Try, says a voice in my head. Try harder! “I’d love for you to come,” I say, looking right into his eyes. It’s the truest thing I can say.

  “Well, good, ’cause I’ll be there with bells on. Jingle bells!”

  “No Christmas jokes until after Thanksgiving!” I say, mustering all my energy to sound normal.

  “Okay, I’ll try to quit cold turkey.” He waggles his eyebrows, then his mom pulls up, and he’s gone.

  I’m relieved. Now I can go ahead and feel like pieces glued together. Thinking of the envelope in my backpack doesn’t help much. I go back inside to warm up. My brain skips to another thought, and my heart lurches again. The song. I can’t sing it to him now. I’ve been writing a song that will never be heard.

  When Mom drives up, I run through the biting wind to the car. “What flavor did you get?” she asks. I don’t even remember.

  “You were right,” I say. “It’s too cold for frozen yogurt.”

  AFTER THE GERTY’S YOGURT DISASTER, I want to pull on my flannel-lined leggings, crawl into bed, and listen to music in my room. The one thing I might have energy for is buying the bus ticket. I would have to get to the station and back without being missed, which I think I could do right now, and I bet the brisk walk would clear my head. But that plan’s bulb burns out when Mom sticks her head in and says I have to babysit.

  “We should be back in an hour or two,” Mom says, scooping up her jacket.

  I’m feeling staticky when I think about Jayden. I have trouble tuning in to Dad’s frequency as he explains where they’re going. Something about Aunt Jess having car trouble. Something about one of them waiting for the tow truck and one of them taking her to teach a six o’clock class.

  So it’s the two of us. We hear the car start, then drive away.

  Memito turns from the door and runs to my legs. A bit of cheer drops into my heart like a penny in a piggy bank. I press his head against my jeans. Jealousy passes through me as I picture his three-year-old’s life: a little playhouse filled with everything he needs. He feels no pressure to be someone else; he deals with no romance wrecking balls. And by not talking, he gets even more help. Maybe he’s figured out that talking only creates catastrophes.

  Now he faces the other way and raises his arms. A sign for me to swing him in a circle. I hook my hands under his arms and twirl. “Whee,” I say, but only at half volume. I can’t muster a full whee when I’m in such a bad mood. I twirl until my hands go weak and my legs veer off course toward the coffee table.

  “Ga, ga.” Again, again. We go around again, until I’m dizzy enough to forget Jayden for half a second.

  But only half a second. His voice whispers in my ear. Text me tonight, he said at Gerty’s. I put down Memito and pull out my phone. “Ga,” he says, tugging my arm as I try to click letters.

  “Just a minute,” I say. I type Choir concert, Monday 12/9, 7:30 pm.

  My thumbs hover over the screen. I can’t decide what else to say. You broke my heart. Not that. Why didn’t you tell me? Deletedeletedelete. I erase back to pm and click SEND.

  Memito grabs my finger and pulls me to the dishwasher. He loves to roll the empty dish rack back and forth, but it’s full right now with a day’s worth of plates and glasses.

  “No,” I say. “Let’s play blocks.” I try to lead him away, but he won’t budge. I try to carry him, but he writhes and whines like a wet seal until I put him down. He stamps his feet and yells, “Sha!”

  “No sha,” I tell him. That’s his word for dishwasher. “Blocks.” My phone vibrates in my pocket. We’ll be there! We. Great. It can only mean that Seth is coming to my choir concert, too. To think that I actually made one of my passwords QuijanaWinters4ever!

  “Sha!” Memito bangs on the dishwasher door, and his face turns red. He pulls on the latch to unlock it.

  “No, kiddo.” I push it back.

  He starts to cry as he tries the latch again. “Stop!” This time I pull his hand away, and he pushes me. We push-pull the latch until finally I slam it back into place—and pinch his fingers. His face is immediately a squinting scream, and I’ve won and lost at the same time.

  I try to see if his hand is bleeding or bruised, but he flings it out, whacking my cheek. “Oww!” Instinctively, I push back, and my conscience stabs. Everything is so loud, I’m going to lose it. I kneel on the linoleum with my head in my hands. He’s wailing. Why is this so hard? Why aren’t Mom and Dad back yet? Memito’s gulping sobs press all my raw places, and now I’m crying, too, for him, for myself, for every hour that I thought Jayden could like me.

  I barely hear the doorbell. Then comes a pounding knock that rattles my insides. If I answer the door, will Memito open the dishwasher and break everything? Before I can arrive at my next thought, Memito dashes for the door himself. The bell rings again, and I rush after him, wiping my nose with my sleeve, pushing my hair out of my face, reaching the door right as he’s opening it.

  Two women holding pamphlets stand shoulder to shoulder. Thankfully, Memito has downshifted into a rhythmic whine when he sees them, or else I’d be worried they’d call the cops. His face is splotchy and tear-stained, and my face must look similar, but the women don’t seem to notice. The older one fixes her eyes on me. “¿Sabe lo que es el cielo?” she asks in a single, powerful burst. I flinch, and she pelts us with rapid-fire Spanish. I already felt desperate and paper-thin; now I’m pierced with holes.

  I shake my head at her and back away from her extended pamphlet. “My parents . . . I mean . . .” I’m not supposed to tell strangers that we’re alone. Before he runs again, I grab Memito. The other woman starts talking, too; tears gather behind my eyes. I shout to the women, “I don’t speak Spanish, okay? I just don’t!” It’s not totally true—I understand some of what they’re saying. They’re converting people, I think; they’re from a church. But suddenly, I can’t remember even enough Spanish to tell them I don’t know Spanish. I picture Dad shaking his head. I picture Señora Francés frowning. “I can’t help you!” I yell, slamming the door.

  They’re gone. For good, I hope. I bet I seemed so crazy they won’t come back.

  I slide against the closed door to the floor and let go of Memito. I don’t care if he goes back to the dishwasher. If every dish becomes shards on the floor, it will be just how I feel. I wrap my arms around myself. The life I want, the person I want to be, is a fading signal, distant and weak. “I can’t,” I say to the indifferent walls. “I can’t do this,” I say to the flimsy air. Grandma, I just can’t be a brave sea turtle or a keystone species or a gopher tortoise or whatever. The only thing I know for sure is that this must not be the end, because I am not okay.

  I’M LEVELED AFTER YESTERDAY’S TEARS, like a field mowed down to stubble. At least Mom and Dad didn’t find out that I fell apart. By the time they came home, Memito and I were reading a story. “How was it?” Mom asked, looking at her phone and sounding frazzled herself.

  I didn’t say, “A disaster! You’re lucky we’re both alive.” I said, “Good enough,” not wanting to worry them. Later I was so spent that I didn’t even get to the bus station. I still have all my money in my sock drawer.

  Now school is happening around me. Students scoot desks, and I realize that Señora Francés has put us in groups.

  “Over here, Quijana!” shouts Elena. She rolls her eyes as if she’s calling me for the third time. Spanish is Elena’s first language, so she acts like this class is for babies. Sometimes she snickers when I give a wrong answer. She even snubs the teacher. “That’s not how we say it in Juarez.” So Spanish varies from place to place—big deal. Her princesa crown is over-shined today, as usual.

  I stand up and slowly push in my chair. “Hurry up!�
�� she says. Sheesh. I walk to her end of the room and sit across from her without meeting her eyes.

  Carlos joins us. I nod in greeting, but he passes me to sit next to Elena. He touches the bracelet she’s wearing, looks intently at her face, and starts purring in fluent Spanish. He is such a lover boy, I picture Mirabel saying.

  “¡Cállate!” Elena says, shoving his hand away, but then bends toward him and smiles.

  Great. I’m stuck with the two native speakers. Why couldn’t they be in a class by themselves, or at least with the eighth or ninth graders? To top it off, all they want to do is flirt. I feel like I’m watching Jayden and Seth all over again. That knife plunges deeper. Don’t cry in school.

  “Guys?” I pick up the handout and hold it up. If I focus on what’s in front of me, I might be okay. Right now, it’s this handout and my grade, which is teetering between B and C. I need these points.

  Carlos picks a piece of lint off Elena’s shoulder, and she elbows him playfully.

  “Okay, let’s do this,” I say. I let frustration stiffen each word.

  Elena’s eyes turn to ice. “You do it. You’re the one who needs it.”

  Carlos levels his gaze at me. His lips pucker like he’s going to spit. “Pocha.”

  I pull back as if shoved. My mind spins into the past. I’m with my dad at a special grocery store where everyone speaks Spanish. We’ve driven into the city to get here. Dad finds big bananas called plantains and starts to show me how to pick a ripe one, kneeling down and saying how we’ll cook them when a woman steers her cart around us, purses her lips, and says, “Pochos,” under her breath. My dad leaps to his feet. He asks her a question in Spanish and she sasses back. We leave without the plantains, and he mutters all the way home. It’s not until he tells Mom what happened that I understand. “She called us pochos,” he fumes. “In front of our daughter!” Even Mom was confused until he explained. “It’s slang—someone who has no heritage, who’s forgotten where he comes from, who pretends to be white.” It was the only time I remember Dad saying “white” like it was something bad. He huffed around the kitchen repeating, “I’m no imposter.”

  Elena and Carlos are watching me. I straighten my back. “You don’t have to be mean,” I say, hating how lame it sounds. “This should be easy for you.”

  “Should we help her?” Elena asks Carlos coyly.

  “No way.” Carlos crosses his arms, obviously trying to impress her.

  They are two doors slammed in my face. I look at the sheet; a block of text blots out the page. I understand about half the words in the first sentence. Less than half in the next one. I imagine my passing grade sinking, disappearing like a coin thrown into a muddy lake. Tears sting my eyes.

  “No sabe nada,” Elena sneers. This I understand. She knows nothing. “Menos que nada.” Less than nothing. “Hey, wanna hear a joke?”

  I look away, disgusted.

  “What’s brown, but acts white?”

  “Shut up.” I surprise myself. She shrugs, and fire surges through my body. “Shut up, Elena!” I stretch the middle eh of her name, Spanish-style. Coconut, coconut thrums in my head. I’m standing now, ready to throw a book at her or kick her or slap her with my bare hand.

  “Quijana?” Señora Francés’s voice is a stream of cool water, but it steams away as soon as it reaches me.

  “You’re nothing but a snotty, stuck-up, spoiled brat! You think you’re smart, but you’re just mean, just vicious, just a total—”

  “Quijana! May I see you in the hall?” It’s not a question. Señora Francés steps to the door and holds it open, waiting for me to follow. My fire still smokes, but I notice complete silence in the room. Every pair of eyes follows my walk to the door.

  On the other side of it, my heart caves in. Shame crackles in my ears. Worse than any punishment is the disappointment that must be on my teacher’s face. But I can’t even look at her to see it.

  “Quijana, this isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”

  My shoulders curl forward. “I don’t know,” I squeak. Already the shouting feels like it was done by someone else. A ball of thorns rolls around in my stomach.

  “What did she say to you?”

  My throat closes. All I can think is that I can’t, I won’t take Spanish next year, no matter what.

  “You know you can’t shout in class, Quijana. And I can’t allow you to insult another student.”

  I can tell Señora Francés is trying to be as understanding as possible. But all I can do is nod and try not to cry. My nose is already starting to run.

  “Quijana, can you look at me?”

  I raise my head and press my lips together, trying to keep the tears in.

  “Look,” she says, her eyes soft. “I know Elena can be frustrating, but you have to be above that.” Señora Francés is trying to make this easy for me. I can tell this even though her voice sounds far away. Louder in my ears are my own thoughts. Elena’s right. I’ll never be a real Latina. Learning to make a tortilla and speaking a few sentences to Abuela doesn’t change anything. How could I think that was remotely enough?

  “I’m going to let this go this time,” says Señora Francés. “I’ll put you in a different group tomorrow. Will you be all right, Quijana?”

  I’m not sure what to say. The bell rings and saves me from having to figure it out.

  Of course, by lunch, Jayden and Zuri have heard that I yelled at Elena in Spanish class. I’d like to forget it, but they drag me through every detail. “What if Señora Francés hadn’t stopped you? What would you have said?”

  “Uh, I think I was going to say ‘witch,’” I lie. What I really think I was going to say was much worse.

  “Nothing spicier? I’d like to skewer her with this fork. I bet Seth could whop her upside the head for you.” Jayden adds drama to my drama like always.

  “She sounds just dreadful,” Zuri says. Her word captures it well.

  Kids in other classes ask about it, too. “Did you actually yell at her?” I get the sense that a lot of people think Elena is stuck-up because I hear “I bet she deserved it!” from a bunch of people. It’s like telling the story of a car wreck over and over. I’m relieved to hear the final bell, even though, weirdly, I feel a little bit like a hero for the rest of the day. Even one of the bus kids whispers about it and points at me. I’ve never been noticed by anybody but my friends before. I can feel my face get warm, but the attention’s kinda cool.

  At home, I see a note on the kitchen table.

  Dear Quijana, I’ll be back after Memito’s dentist appointment and grocery shopping. Go ahead and eat a sandwich supper. Mom’s at class. See you after 6:00. Con amor, Dad

  Okay. Time to buy a bus ticket.

  I RUN TO MY ROOM, slip on my sea turtle bracelet for luck, and grab the envelope of money. I check Google Maps. It says I can bike the three miles to the bus station in less than twenty minutes. That should put me home in an hour—which will still be a full hour before Dad’s estimate. I can do this. I tuck the money in my backpack and click my helmet’s chin strap. When I straddle my bike, I can’t help but picture Don Quixote mounting his horse, riding into an adventure. Unlike him, I will not be fooled by any windmills this time. I stand up and pump the pedals until they spin without resistance.

  I’ve ridden these streets in a car, but everything looks bigger from a bike. Distances between stoplights seem to stretch. Querer es poder, I remind myself. To want to is to be able to.

  I arrive safely at the station and lock my bike to a rack out front. I walk in, helmet and all, and stand behind a woman with a baby. After her turn, I step up to the high counter.

  “Yes?” says the cashier, looking up. His piercing eyes make me feel younger than I actually am.

  Deep breath. “I want to buy a ticket, please.” I hear a little shake in my voice and take another breath.

  “Destination?”

  “Ocala, Florida.”

  He looks over his glasses at me, but then goes on. “Date?”<
br />
  “December nineteenth.”

  “Round-trip or one-way?”

  My heart seizes. I didn’t think of that. How will I get back home? A voice inside says, Worry about that later. The adults will figure it out. You can’t afford round-trip, so get one-way.

  “One-way,” I say, too loudly.

  “How old are you?”

  I take a chance and tell the truth. “Twelve, sir.”

  “May I see some proof?”

  “Will a school ID work?”

  “Yes, that’ll do.” He holds my ID at arm’s length and squints. “Are your parents here?”

  “Um, no.” My palms have turned hot, and I rub them on my jeans.

  “They’ll have to sign, you know.” I nod, not knowing what they’ll have to sign. “Okay, we got an 8:25 a.m., a noon, a 7:05 p.m., and a 10:35 p.m.”

  “10:35.”

  “That’ll be $135.58, including tax. Make sure you bring this form with you when you travel.”

  I give him the bills and take the form. Large letters across the top read Unaccompanied Minor.

  “Fill that out, and have a parent or guardian sign. Here’s your change. And a receipt. Y’all take care.” He finally smiles. “Next!”

  I look at the form more carefully. It only asks for addresses, but that line for a parent’s signature at the bottom makes me wince. Figure it out at home, I tell myself. For now, I look at my ticket. My real bus ticket. I slide it into my backpack like a million-dollar check, careful not to bend it, and slip the form on top of it.

  The sky goes from beige to gray as I ride home. The thought of the ticket makes my legs pump faster. I’m not even tired when I wheel into the garage and hang my helmet on the handlebars.

  The house is still quiet and empty, and I’m slightly amazed that the living room looks the same, since I feel so different. I lug my backpack straight to my room and take a moment to snap a photo of the ticket, then send it to Jayden and Zuri. Ticket! Next, I open my sock drawer, but pause. Is there any chance Mom or Dad will see it in there? I need a better hiding place. I look around my room. I look up. My manatee poster smiles down at me from the ceiling. I drag in the stepstool from the laundry room and reach up. I slide the ticket and the form between the ceiling and the poster. From the ground I look carefully and can’t tell that they’re there.