They Could Have Named Her Anything

by Jimenez, Stephanie

  “What do you want? Do you want anything?”

  Maria wanted a gordita, a quesadilla, but she also didn’t want to be greedy.

  “Cinnamon twists.”

  “You in school?” the manager asked.

  “Not right now. I don’t start until September.”

  The manager nodded. “That’s fine.”

  On the walk home, the sun was high in the sky, relentless. Maria started sweating. She ate the cinnamon twists one by one, slowly and deliberately. She let each piece dissolve until it was a pool of sugar on her tongue. Then she swallowed and started all over again until the bag was empty.

  “How much do they pay?” her mother asked in the living room. All the windows were wide open, but the house was sweltering. Every few seconds, Maria’s mother spritzed herself with water from a handheld misting fan. Maria had never seen it before. The nozzle looked the same as the ones her mother used to spray cleaning product.

  “Six seventy-five.”

  “Good. If they like you they’ll give you a raise.” She held the fan toward Maria. “Here,” she said, spraying her.

  Maria laughed. It felt better than she expected.

  “I got it from the ninety-nine cents store. It’s good, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll get you one. So when do you start?”

  “Next week. As soon as I get back from Vegas.”

  Maria’s mother sprayed her again. She gave Maria a kiss on the cheek. Maria fell into the futon, and her mother leaned on the armrest. They stayed that way for a while, in silence, the two women reclining as if in a nineteenth-century painting. But respites were rare, even the brief ones. Maria’s mother had been called for a shift at an apartment in Manhattan that same afternoon. Maria was supposed to help her get started on dinner. Very soon, they would need to get up.

  CHAPTER 8

  The letter Maria wrote for Miguel was only the latest in a series of many fraught communications, of phone calls and emails that did little to assuage his increasing sense of hopelessness. Initially, they had petitioned the union until the union finally told him that they wouldn’t take his case to arbitration. It had been a devastating decision, one that ultimately led Miguel to seek his own lawyer, but in the meantime, as he waited for the case to be prepared, which he had been warned could take several months, the union had found him work in a different building, monitoring a freight elevator. For nine hours he stood in the same corner and pulled two doors open like the jaws of a mouth. From top to bottom he yanked them apart with a chain. Men lifting cardboard boxes entered, lines of tape creaking behind them. All day it was a variation of the same scene, daylong coffee smells on everyone’s breath.

  Along with the demotion came the pinstripe shirt. He had never worn a uniform to the workplace before, and the sight of the shirt, freshly ironed and hung from the corner of his bedroom, patched with only his first name, Miguel, made him want to scream. The blue and white stripes wrapped around him, curling like the painted grimace of a clown. The stiff collar itched and closed too tightly around the neck—like the knot of a balloon; he felt pressed for air. Worse was how carefully Analise handled the shirt, smoothing out its creases and wrinkles atop her ironing board, the steam doubling over itself as it hit the low ceiling. I hung up your shirt for tomorrow, Papi, she would say sweetly, and he had to suppress the urge to slap her, this woman whom he had never come close to—never even considered—hitting before. It terrified him, how many firsts he’d been brushing up against recently.

  Because it wasn’t the only, or even salient, fantasy. All day the shirt went creaseless, unfettered by the gentle earthquake that rocked him, hour by hour, minute by minute, with each “good morning” and “good afternoon” and jerk of the handle that opened the door. In between breaks in the bathroom, he could feel the breath rise out of him like an impending warm rush of vomit. He began to fantasize about bringing the elevator up to the very top floor, climbing the staircase that led to the roof, and at the water tower—he was still in good shape—he’d hike to the very top point and hurtle himself into the gray sea of concrete below.

  Of course, it never happened. He doubted he even had access to the roof. Either way, the worst part always came early. If he could manage the indignity of fastening all the buttons of that ridiculous shirt in the morning, he could also live through the rest of the day, and he did live through the days for several months. He woke up through them, even though they were long, waiting to be reinstated. In the meantime, he had trouble keeping track of Maria. He didn’t lock her out of the house anymore. He didn’t ground her for coming home past curfew. He had even stopped demanding that she sit with him to eat dinner. He was eating less dinner, anyway.

  A week after he thought he saw Karen staring into the dark, he had consulted with Ricky. Ricky, who had always been close to Maria, was at first reluctant. But Ricky, who was only two years her senior, needed to know that he had a responsibility—and that responsibility was to his family. What would you do if something happened to your sister? Miguel said, and Miguel didn’t even need to name any worst-case scenarios for Ricky to tear up and finally oblige. Keep an eye on your sister was all that he’d asked him. Analise was too good-natured to truly understand what he meant. After all, she had given Maria permission to go to Vegas alone, and now, it was too late to take it back, too late to tell her not to drive to the airport in the morning. Ricky nodded and told him he’d talk to Maria, and Miguel was proud and pleased with his son.

  Miguel wasn’t born yesterday. He knew he could read things by the glaze in a person’s eyes. He knew he could divine things from the long naps before dinner. He could take a guess by the way she kept her door locked on weeknights and did her makeup behind closed doors. But much worse than any of that was that Maria was so sullen and quiet, so reticent, so moody. So sad. She’d been locking herself in her room for hours. She seemed to be acting—well—like him.

  Even though Miguel was distracted now, distracted by this pending lawsuit, distracted by the anxiety that barreled down on him in the middle of the night, the same one that heightened whenever he checked his bank statements or saw the outstanding bills in the mail, Miguel wasn’t distracted enough to stop caring about his daughter. Not distracted enough to stop thinking of her. Sometimes he didn’t know how to understand Maria, and most of the time he had no idea what to say—and he had less time than ever to puzzle over it. Nowadays there were a million reasons for Miguel to be worried, but that didn’t change the fact that stored away in some hidden compartment in his heart was a worry devoted to her.

  Maria was sitting on her forest-green beanbag chair in her oversize school gym shorts, sorting through a pile of clothing, when Ricky walked into her room. Outside, it was drizzling, and Maria knew it was stopping soon, because through the tin-tin of the raindrops, she could hear a faint hum of crickets, as if they were waiting for the last song to be over so they could get their turn.

  His face was puckered with attitude. Maria knew he’d just come from Alex’s apartment, because he always had attitude whenever he came back from hanging with Alex. Maria didn’t understand why—Alex was always nice to her when they’d run into each other, which led Maria to believe that it was her brother who must be doing something wrong. He was constantly on the phone, apologizing to her. Sometimes, Maria even heard him weeping in his room. Maria teased him whenever it happened, but Ricky was always so sensitive, and she had to be careful not to get him even more upset.

  “Hey,” he said now. “What are you doing?”

  Maria tilted her head. Her brother’s T-shirt was wet. His jeans looked heavy and uncomfortable. Instead of being slickened down to his head, his hair was so short that the tiny droplets of rain were scattered like jewelry beads balanced atop his head.

  “What do you mean? I’m packing.”

  “Packing?”

  Suddenly, Ricky coughed. Ricky’s asthma was bad—so bad that the family kept a big box in the living room that he plugged i
n sometimes to help him breathe. When it was turned on, it made as much noise as a small power generator, but the fumes it gave off were nothing but magical. Maria had always wished she had asthma, too, so that she could have a taste of that healing white steam.

  “Didn’t Ma tell you already?” Maria got up from where she was sitting. She picked up a hoodie and started to fold it. “I’m going to Vegas with my friend Rachelle. We’re leaving tomorrow morning.” She pushed her suitcase against the wall. Underwear spilled out of it, along with pieces of bikini string. There was a tiny bottle of conditioner sealed in a ziplock bag.

  Ricky shifted his weight, his shoes squelching with moisture. Like Maria, he wore Nike sneakers, but unlike her, he took great care that they never looked like they’d aged more than a day. As Ricky stood there, with his hard look, his unbudging stance in her doorway, Maria’s eyebrows furrowed. He wanted something, but she couldn’t decipher what. The two lines of her eyebrows joined in the middle, and together they stared back at Ricky.

  “What’s up, dude?” she said.

  “We need to talk, Maria.” Again, he coughed.

  “About what?”

  “You’ve been coming home late every weekend,” he said. “Or sometimes you’re not even here at all. And you reek of cigarette smoke. Don’t you know that? Even now I can smell you. You know you shouldn’t—you can’t do that.”

  “That’s not fair,” Maria said. “That’s not fair at all. I don’t smoke cigarettes.”

  “Stop lying, Maria. It’ll kill you for one. But also, it’s really disgusting.”

  Maria’s face became tight. One of the things that she liked about her relationship with her brother was that aside from a few passive tidbits of advice about boys, he never butted in on her personal life. Their relationship was built on movie references, inside jokes, and giving gag gifts to each other to the chagrin of their parents, who were always so solemn on Christmas Day. They didn’t tell each other their darkest secrets, because they didn’t need to. What they had instead was nice.

  “You stay out late all the time,” Maria retaliated. “And I never say anything about what you’re doing wrong.”

  “Yeah, but it’s different. I don’t do what you do. You’ve been acting so . . . crazy.”

  “Crazy? What are you talking about?” Maria felt her anger take hold. It was one thing for Andres or Dr. Beth to think she was crazy. But no, she wouldn’t take this from Ricky, too.

  “What are you,” she said. “My fucking father?”

  “Don’t fucking curse at me!” Ricky’s wet sneakers squashed against the floor as he took a step toward her. “You go out every weekend with that idiot boyfriend of yours. I know he smokes weed. Everyone knows he smokes weed. I’m almost positive he sells it.”

  Maria was shocked. She’d only brought Andres to their house a few times, and she never even kissed him in front of anyone. She always hated that Andres and her brother both went to Newtown High School, but now that Ricky had graduated, she thought they’d never cross paths again. Andres told her when he saw Ricky around, even gave her status reports on the girls that he saw him with that day, as if Maria cared about whether Ricky was cheating or wasn’t cheating on his girlfriend. It was inevitable that Ricky knew who Andres was—but how did Ricky know that Andres sometimes sold weed?

  “How do you know about Andres?” Maria said.

  “Oh come on, Maria. I’m not a complete idiot.”

  Ricky coughed so hard, he bent over. His wheezing was so bad he sounded like a videotape getting caught on rewind.

  “God,” Maria said. “Of course you know Andres sells weed. You hypocrite! You’re smoking it, too.”

  Ricky snorted, his face even tighter, like he’d just licked a lime. His phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the screen. Maria looked on, the hairs on her arms standing up. Pick it up, she thought. Leave me alone.

  He didn’t. With a quick jab of a finger, he silenced the phone and jammed it into his pocket. He looked down at her suitcase, at the clothes spilling out. Maria looked, too. Her birth control packet wasn’t hidden. Its green case seemed to shine like a neon sign. Maria reached for something to throw over it, but Ricky had already seen.

  “Ms. Goody Two-Shoes, right?” he snarled, staring into her eyes. “You think you don’t need to listen to anyone. You think you know better than anyone else. But the truth is that you’re acting like a slut!”

  For a moment, Maria thought she lost her vision. She blinked, and then, without knowing she was moving, she got up from the beanbag chair and stumbled past Ricky, half seeing the ground in front of her, half knowing from memory how to get out. She went into the living room, through the dining room and then the kitchen, and finally, opened the back door. She had always heard the way that Jonathan and Ricky talked about girls—it was from them that she divined the difference between first base and home, and then later between A and D, and then between the kind of girl you fuck and the kind you marry, which hadn’t even taken Maria by surprise, because she tacitly understood what kind of girl she would be. But somewhere along the way, she must’ve crossed over. She’d gone from the good to the bad. Whenever it happened, it hadn’t hurt at the time. After all, it could happen on any school night. But now, she heard it from Ricky, who’d once been her teacher. Now, it felt like it nearly killed her.

  I hate him. As soon as she closed the screen behind her, she texted Karen, and bent her knees forward to sit on the pavement. She groaned, realizing it was wet. There was a half-inflated beach ball outside the neighbor’s door, and from her perch on the ground, she tried to rename its colors as if they were Crayola: a white stripe that was less White than it was Puddle-Gray from having rolled through so many inky receipts; a green that was not Forest Green but Empty Beer Bottle Green; an SOS Red for how much it screamed desperation. All these sad bursts of color. They faded into the gray cement berm behind the long row of closed doors. Everything about this house was pathetic, she thought. Pathetic that this was the best her family could do. Pathetic that her family might not even be able to keep it.

  Rocky’s house in the Hamptons was so different. Maria knew because she’d seen pictures online, the same way she’d seen pictures of Vegas. Rocky’s was a real house, the kind that could be featured in a movie, the kind that Maria’s cousins abroad always imagined Maria’s family owning. Between hedges and trees was a sprawling lawn that looked more like a golf course than a backyard. When Rocky first showed her, Maria announced her amazement and thought she was saying something profound. “This looks like something from a catalog,” she said, and Rocky grinned. “Well, it’s not a rental.”

  Maria turned her phone over in her hand, but Karen still hadn’t answered. Maria already knew Rocky’s country house well, but Rocky didn’t know anything about Queens. It was still drizzling, unrecognizable from the thick orbs of rain that had fallen earlier in the day. She noticed her breathing; it was finally even. She heard a dog bark in the distance.

  If Maria was a slut, what did that make Rocky?

  The dog that barked once was now barking consistently, in intervals of silence that lasted no more than four seconds. Maria looked up from the pavement. She got up from the ground, unfolding her legs out in front of her. It smelled like wet concrete and garbage, and that was a different smell than what Rocky’s country house might smell like, which was probably always like lavender and vanilla candles. She closed the back door and went to the dining room table, where a pile of mail teetered toward the floor. She paused when she spotted her mother’s uneven cursive and an inky line running down two boxes of text. On one side of an envelope she had written: “Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Even though her parents went to church every Sunday, it was strange to find handwritten Bible verses lying around the dining room table. They were a “God-fearing family,” as her father would put it, but their leather-bound Bibles went unopened during the week. Staring down at her mother’s word
s, Maria knew they were prayers, but they read like omens instead.

  At midnight, Karen still hadn’t responded. That night, Maria had a dream, and in the morning, she reached for the purple poetry book she kept on her bookshelf. She scribbled down what she remembered before her mother could yell at her, with mossy teeth and sour breath, to hurry up. She had to be at the airport for her 10:00 a.m. flight to Las Vegas. When she clasped the book shut, she reached under her pillow for her phone and saw a message alert. First of all, ugh, that’s a stupid insult—Karen had sent at 1:06 in the morning—Maybe he just had a bad night? But Maria’s mind was still whirling from the dream that she had woken from, and she texted Andres instead.

  I had a dream about you. You had an identical brother that I was going to marry, but I was in love with you. Before hitting send, she remembered how Andres was always so jealous. From the way he freaked out whenever she mentioned imaginary white boys who were smitten by her at Bell Seminary dances, she knew even hypothetical people weren’t off-limits. But even though you were twins, I could tell that he wasn’t you.

  How’s that?

  His dick was smaller than yours.

  Andres replied how he normally did, immediately, with a giant LMAO. Maria reached for the towel draped over her bedframe, and as she wedged her toes into her shower slippers, she remembered her brother. If it were things like this that made her a slut, it didn’t seem fair—after all, she couldn’t decide on the things that she dreamed. When Maria was still in preschool, she would have terrible dreams of meeting the devil behind rows upon rows of closed doors. Like a game show from hell, out he would pop, no matter which door she chose. If Maria was responsible for her dreams as much as she was for her actions and thoughts, how could she account for all those encounters with the devil during her Sunday school years?