by Laura Resau
We were on a straight stretch now, and the truck sped up. The stones and bumps in the dirt road sent us nearly flying into the air. Wind whipped our hair, billowed out our shirts. I hung on to the metal beam on the side of the truck.
Ángel smiled at me. “What are you thinking about, lime-girl?”
“About Pablo,” I said. “You think he’ll come back?”
Ángel brushed the wild strands of hair from my face. “You really want him to, don’t you?”
I nodded and moved my hand to Ñola’s necklace. The smooth leather between my fingers made me feel better.
The whole family was waiting as the truck pulled up; they must have heard it coming. Pablo and his cousins raced to us, shouting and laughing. Abuelita raised her arms, praying and crying and thanking God we were back safely. Ñola stood by the house in the shadows, smiling her toothless grin.
And Dika. Dika jogged to the truck in her high heels, a little lopsided with her bruised ankle, her breasts nearly bouncing out of her blouse, a low-cut turquoise number with ruffles flapping in the breeze. She hurled herself into Mr. Lorenzo’s arms. Unbelievably, he heaved her up into the air and spun her around. Then he set her down and bent over, gasping for breath and rubbing his back. Dika threw her head back and howled with laughter. “Look! Look how strong he is, my boyfriend!”
Slowly, Mr. Lorenzo lowered himself onto his knees until he was eye to eye with the varicose veins in her thighs. He looked up at her face, towering over him, and spoke in a deep, romantic voice. “Dika, mi amor, with the permission of your great-niece, Sophie”—and here they both glanced at me while I tried not to giggle—“I ask for your hand in marriage.”
Dika shrieked. An impossibly high-pitched sound that echoed through the village. Maybe even as far as neighboring villages. Then she pulled him up and planted a long kiss on his mouth, leaving a smear of magenta. “Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. I will marry you, Mr. Lorenzo.”
The aunts applauded; the kids jumped up and down, squealing and clapping; Ñola nodded, knowingly; Ángel hugged Dika and let her turn his cheek pink with a shower of kisses. Abuelita clasped her hands together in delight, then pressed my hands between hers. “Manos fuertes,” she said. Strong hands.
Pablo ran over and wrapped his arms around my waist. I bent down and nuzzled my nose to his hair and breathed deeply, trying, very hard, to hold on to the smell.
That night we had an engagement party for Dika and Mr. Lorenzo. Dika spent hours primping. She insisted we spread avocado on our faces to make our skin smooth and soft. We sat on the mattress together, and she rubbed green mush on my face. Then I scooped up more green mush and rubbed it on her face. She laughed and twitched. “Oh, that tickles me!”
Once I finished, she said, “Now we must to wait five minutes.” We wiped our hands on a towel and waited.
Dika reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out her shard of red glass. “You know, Sophie, when the soldiers take me to the prison camp, I am angry. I hate these guards. I want to kill them. Then I want to kill me. I take my glass.” She held out her left arm and turned up her palm. With the other hand, she held the shard of glass over her inner arm, over the three scars. “I cut my arm. One. Two. Three times. I think, for sure I will to die. But no. I cannot! My heart is too strong.” She held the glass up to the square of light at the window. “And then, I look the glass and you know what I see?”
“What?” I asked. Her eyes were wide and looked extra-white, framed in her green mask.
“The happy life. With a man I will to marry. A man I do not know yet. And a new family. In a place that is never cold.” She patted my knee. “And now I am here. In the happy life.”
I smiled and wiped the avocado off her face with a towel. The skin underneath was soft and coated with a layer of grease.
“How my face looks?” she asked, excited.
“You look sixteen, Dika,” I said.
She beamed, and then, with surprisingly tender hands, wiped away my mask.
For the party, we dug into the seventh fruitcake. The night was festive, with laughing and singing and dancing. I even danced with Mr. Lorenzo and Pablo and his cousins. After a while, we collapsed in our chairs, hearts pounding and blood flowing and sweat dripping. Ángel sat on one side of me, and on the other, Pablo, who was holding his new prized possession—the lizard slingshot that Ángel had brought back for him, as promised. I pulled Pablo onto my lap, expecting him to squirm away because, after all, his cousins were around and they might think he was a baby. But he stayed in my lap and settled his arms around my neck. I held him and felt the rhythm of his chest against mine.
Abuelita sat down and asked Pablo the question that had been stuck in my throat all day. “Mi amor, you must decide soon. They are leaving tomorrow. Will you stay or go, my child?”
I wrapped my arms around him tightly. Ángel smoothed his hands over my braid.
Pablo frowned. “Pero, Sophie, can’t you all stay here?”
“No, principito,” I said. “Ángel and I have to start school soon. And Dika and Mr. Lorenzo need to get back to their jobs.”
At the sound of their names, Dika and Mr. Lorenzo headed over with a pile of fruitcake slices balanced on cups of coffee. Little bits of sugar and crumbs sprayed out of Dika’s mouth as she talked. “Oh, finally Pablo decides, poor boy.”
“So what do you want to do, Pablo?” Abuelita asked, her voice gentle.
He stared at his lap. “I don’t know.”
Dika patted his head with her freshly manicured nails, hot pink and gleaming. She spoke in Spanish. “I have loved you from the minute you ate my Fig Newtons in the hospital.” She took another bite of fruitcake. “I will love you always, little boy.”
Mr. Lorenzo put his arm around Dika’s great shoulders, and said, “Pablo, you are like a grandson to Dika and me. And whether you live here or in Tucson, we will spoil you like all grandparents spoil their grandchildren.”
Ángel got on his knees so that he was eye to eye with Pablo. “Choose what will make you happiest. Either way, I’ll visit you and tell you stories and play ball with you.”
Now it was my turn, and I didn’t know what to say. My mouth wasn’t working. It flat-out refused to open. I was afraid if I opened it, I would cry and beg, trying to bribe him with videos and trips to the bowling alley.
I held Ñola’s Virgin between my fingers. “Principito,” I said. I steadied my voice, pushed the tears down inside my chest. “You do what you need to do. You’ll always have enough money to live well. I’ll make sure of that. And you’ll always have more love than you know what to do with. And no matter what, I am always your sister.”
“Sophie.” He buried his face in my shoulder. “I want to stay here.”
A moment of pain, a deep stabbing sensation in my chest, and then, a watery feeling, the hurt rising to my eyes and dissolving into tears.
That night, I stashed my hundred dollars of emergency money in the eighth tin of fruitcake, which Dika had given to Abuelita. They would find the money after we were gone, when it would be too late to refuse. On my way back to the bedroom, I encountered Pablo, brushing his teeth at the cistern.
“Sophie,” he said, toothpaste foam dripping from his chin. “Will you sleep with me and the chickens?”
“With pleasure, principito.” We carried blankets to the patch of dirt by the chicken coop. We lay together and watched the sky, and as he drifted off, I whispered, “Whenever I look at the stars, I will hear you laughing and it will be the best sound in the universe.”
Early the next morning, when the sky was purple-blue, growing lighter pink in the east, my eyes opened. Only a few stars left. I was curled around Pablo, but suddenly I noticed another presence behind me. A steady breathing. I turned over.
It was Ñola. At some point in the night she must have settled down beside us. She patted my hand and said something in Mixteco.
At that moment, Abuelita emerged from the house and headed up the path to the outhouse.
She glanced at us, surprised.
Ñola repeated her words in Mixteco.
Abuelita laughed and shook her head.
“What’s she saying?” I asked.
“She says she’s happy you went after your amor. She missed her chance, but you didn’t. Now she can die in peace. And I told her she’ll probably live another twenty years.”
I smiled at Ñola. “You made me strong. Thank you.”
Abuelita translated, and Ñola giggled.
“Heeheehee…”
I’m happy. And all the stars laugh sweetly.
—THE LITTLE PRINCE
Laughing Stars
The wedding was extravagant—Dika spent eight months planning it down to the last detail. It was in our backyard at eleven o’clock a.m. Dika looked just how I’d imagined: a dress covered with opalescent beads, a plunging sweetheart neckline, a strand of red glass beads dipping between her breasts, a ten-foot-long train, a veil to her ankles, a rhinestone crown, and transparent shoes straight from Cinderella. I was her maid of honor. She’d tried to convince me to wear a bright blue dress studded with fake sapphires the size of grapes, but in the end she let me wear my white sundress.
As we stood together at the altar—between the mesquite tree and the chicken coop—she whispered, “Sophie. I don’t have daughter. But if one day, much years ago, I have daughter, I want her exactly like you. Beautiful and brave.” She pinched my cheek.
Mr. Lorenzo winked at us. He wore a tux with electric blue trimmings, Dika’s choice. She’d put her foot down and made him ditch the flannel shirt for the wedding. He’d lovingly complied.
Ángel stood at his side, decked out in a tux too, and without sunglasses. He’d bought a new pair when we’d gotten back, but his eyes had already gotten used to bright light. These days, he only used shades when we went to the pool. He had replenished his supply of gold chains, though, and now they glinted in the sunlight. He smiled at me and I smiled back, plain old simple smiles that said, Hey, life is good.
After the ceremony and a big meal and a three-level fruitcake at the reception, Dika and Mr. Lorenzo left in a limo for their honeymoon in Vegas. Since there was still daylight left, Ángel and I drove to the desert to watch the sunset.
We parked the van and followed a dried streambed. It was April, the end of dry season, when the air is scorching and the earth parched, every last bit of moisture evaporated.
I felt a drop of water on my arm. And another. And another. “It’s raining, Ángel!”
When it rains in the desert after months of nothing, when you can’t even remember what rain smells like, a raindrop feels miraculous. Soon the wet season would begin, and the wildflowers would come out—brilliant orange poppies and yellow yarrow. Silvery sage and the mustard grass would fill the air with a bitter sweetness. It is in the harshest places where you appreciate beauty the most. Unexpected beauty, tiny succulents pushing through dried, cracked earth, and spilling out tiny pink blooms.
The rain grew harder and lightning flashed in the sky. We ran under a rock overhang to wait out the storm. I wondered if somewhere in the desert a band of migrants were tilting their heads back and praising the raindrops.
Ángel touched the glass beads around my neck. He’d given me a strand, which I wore on special occasions. And when I did, he liked to roll the beads between his fingers, feel the warmth they absorbed from my skin, listen to them click against one another, trace the circle of red light around my neck.
The sun set through drops of water, a fiery crimson lighting up half the sky under an ocean of orange. Soon the rain stopped, and the sky cleared, and after a while, the first star came out, and then another, and another, and soon stars filled the whole sky, like scattered handfuls of tiny white flowers.
About the Author
Laura Resau lived in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico, for two years as an English teacher and anthropologist. She now lives with her husband and her dog in Colorado, where she teaches ESL (English as a Second Language). Her first novel, What the Moon Saw, is available from Delacorte Press. Laura will donate a portion of the royalties from this book to indigenous rights organizations in Latin America. Visit Laura’s Web site at www.lauraresau.com.
ALSO BY LAURA RESAU
What the Moon Saw
Published by Delacorte Press an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2007 by Laura Resau
Excerpts from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, copyright © 1943 by Harcourt, Inc., and renewed 1971 by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry. English translation copyright © 2000 by Richard Howard, reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc.
The lines from “I carry your heart with me (I carry it in” copyright 1952, © 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, from Complete Poems: 1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
All rights reserved.
Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Resau, Laura.
Red glass / by Laura Resau.—1st ed. p. cm.
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.
[1. Self-confidence—Fiction. 2. Automobile travel—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Illegal aliens—Fiction. 6. Mexico—Fiction. 7. Guatemala—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.R2978Red 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2007002408
eISBN: 978-0-375-89059-8
v3.0