Stef Soto, Taco Queen

by Jennifer Torres

  Sunday is the only day of the week we spend all together, the only day Papi leaves Tía Perla parked at the commissary. And by Sunday, all of us need a break. Papi doesn’t want to cook for anyone. Mami doesn’t want to be on her feet. I just want to sleep in. So usually, on Sundays, after I finally wake up, we drive to Suzy’s Café for the breakfast special.

  But today, my alarm clock jostles me out of bed at five thirty. My parents are still asleep, and I go straight to work. I iron a week’s worth of white school uniform blouses and hang them, smooth and starched, in my closet. I sweep the floors and start the coffee, and by the time my parents wander into the kitchen, I’m chopping peppers and grating cheese to make us omelets.

  “Don’t worry about the dishes,” I tell Mami when I see her glance at the growing stack in the sink. “I’ll get to them after breakfast. Now, sit down, sit down. Siéntense.”

  Mami looks at Papi, who just laughs and sits down. I pour two cups of coffee—adding a splash of milk to Papi’s—and set them down on the table.

  “M’ija, thank you, but what are you doing up so early? What’s all this?” Mami asks, tightening her robe around her waist.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” I say breezily, tucking a flyaway curl behind my ear. My hair falls loose over my shoulders the way Mami likes it. “You have such beautiful hair, so thick and full,” she always tells me, trying to get me to wear my hair down. “Thick and full” is just a polite way of saying “wild and frizzy,” so I usually pull it all back into a ponytail. But Mami has also said I look older with my hair down, so today I give it a try.

  “I was just thinking,” I continue. “I’m old enough to cook and clean a little.” I open the refrigerator and grab the carton of orange juice. “Now that I’m getting older, you can trust me with more responsibility.”

  Mami looks confused, but she smiles and sips her coffee. “Well, thank you for breakfast, Estefania,” she says. “I’m impressed.”

  Papi clears his throat. “And this doesn’t have anything to do with the concert on Saturday night?”

  “Concert?” Mami asks, stopping midbite to look at me.

  I take a deep breath, sit down in my chair at the kitchen table, and tell Mami about the Viviana Vega tickets: They just have to let me go. The arena is totally safe, and I can take Papi’s cell phone just in case. Plus, Amanda will be with me—I won’t even be alone, really.

  Neither of them says a thing. I try, but I can’t stop the whine that creeps into my voice. “Please? Everyone else in seventh grade gets to go out by themselves. They go to the mall by themselves. They see movies by themselves. They stay home by themselves. I swear, you can trust me. I’m very responsible.”

  “Estefania, we know how responsible you are,” Mami says gently. “But I’m just not sure about this. I don’t think I like the idea of you being out there on your own. At a concert? And at night? All those people?”

  Papi obviously agrees with her. Were they even listening? I hold my breath for five long seconds to keep from rolling my eyes. This is almost the same conversation we had when I wanted to go on the end-of-the-year trip to the water park last summer (“Those slides look so dangerous”); when Amanda’s parents invited me to go with them on their family camping trip (“What if there’s an emergency and you can’t reach us?”); and when the neighbor offered me twenty dollars to babysit her daughter for a couple of hours one weekend (“Taking care of little kids is a lot harder than you realize. Why don’t you watch her here at home where we can help you?”).

  I let my breath out slowly. “Please. Just think about it,” I say through gritted teeth as calmly as I can manage. My hand shakes as I pour myself some juice.

  The rest of our breakfast is awkward and quiet. I take a few bites of my omelet and push the rest around my plate. It’s not too bad, actually, but I’m just not hungry. After a while, Mami gets up to take a shower, whispering, “Thanks again, m’ija,” and Papi opens the newspaper. It hardly seems like there’s any reason to wash the dishes anymore—it’s not going to make a difference with my parents—but even I think it would be pretty childish not to at this point, so I start filling the sink.

  If it was a normal Sunday, I might be waking up right about now. We would come home after breakfast at Suzy’s. Mami would call my grandma, handing me the phone to tell her about school. Papi would go out to his flower beds, and I’d usually go out and help him, or at least bring him a hat and a glass of ice water if the weather was warm. For dinner we’d eat leftovers, straight out of their Tupperware containers, and afterward, the three of us would fold laundry in the living room, catching up on the telenovelas we had recorded over the past week. Right now we’re in the middle of El Malcriado. It’s about a poor but beautiful housekeeper (of course) who falls in love with the rich but spoiled son of her employer (obviously). I’m betting that, in the end, a letter will come for the housekeeper, telling her she’s inherited millions from a long-lost uncle. Mami thinks she’ll end up saving the rich man’s life, causing him to see how foolish he was to have ignored her all those years. “Then he’ll beg her to marry him, right there in the hospital. Just watch,” Mami predicts. Papi rolls his eyes at us, but we know he’s just as eager as we are to find out what happens next.

  But tonight, we don’t get the chance. The uncomfortable hush that fell over us at breakfast lasts through the morning and into the afternoon. After her shower, Mami calls my grandmother, like she always does, and Papi goes outside to work in the garden. But instead of following him, I go to my room and close the door behind me. I finish the little homework I had left, then open my sketchbook. Drawing calms me, and I even start feeling hopeful. Mami and Papi haven’t said no to the concert—maybe they’re at least considering it. When I wander out of my room around dinnertime, I find Papi at the kitchen table with his grocery list and a reheated container of spaghetti. He looks up and holds it out, offering me a bite. I shake my head, and he goes back to planning for the week ahead. Not very hungry, I warm a tortilla on the stove, spread some butter over it, then roll it up to eat on the living room sofa. When Mami comes in with the laundry basket, I wipe my fingers to help her fold, but we don’t turn on the TV.

  chapter

  11

  Amanda is waiting for me in the hallway outside our classroom when I get to school on Monday morning.

  “Well?” she asks.

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, you know what. What did your parents say? Are you coming to see Viviana Vega? Stef, you have to come.”

  “Well, they haven’t said no,” I tell her, trying to sound optimistic. In my head I add, “Yet. ”

  “Well, I talked to my mom, and she says you can come over to my house for dinner on Saturday,” Amanda continues. “Then my sister will drop us off at the arena and wait for us right outside until it’s over. I mean, she’ll be right there, practically with us. That has to make your parents feel better, right? My mom can call your mom if you want.”

  “That’s okay.” I shrug. I wish that would help, but I don’t think it will. Amanda’s sister is seventeen. Almost an adult, but Mami and Papi won’t see it that way.

  As far as Amanda’s concerned, it’s a done deal. She’s still talking about the concert and the songs she hopes Viviana Vega will perform as we walk into Ms. Barlow’s classroom. It takes me a few seconds to notice, but everyone stops talking as Amanda and I hang our bags off the backs of our chairs.

  “What?” we say in unison.

  “Amanda, were you on the radio the other day?” Jake asks.

  More questions fly at her, one after the other.

  “Is it true you get to meet Viviana Vega?”

  “Can you get me her autograph?”

  “Who are you gonna take with you?”

  Even Arthur, who still says he can’t stand Viviana Vega, pulls his headphones down around his neck to listen.

  Amanda winks. “Stef. I’m going with Stef,” she says, pulling me toward her desk. “She’s actually the one who
called. It was her phone.”

  “Stef doesn’t even have a phone.” Julia sniffs without looking up from hers. But no one seems to notice. Before she can say anything else, class begins, and Ms. Barlow prints today’s writing exercise on the board: “Describe what it feels like to be wrong.”

  After about fifteen minutes, she tells us that when we’ve come to a good stopping place, we can put away our journals for some free reading time. It doesn’t happen very often, but ever since Ms. Barlow told me graphic novels count as books, I look forward to free reading almost as much as art class. I see Arthur slide his journal into his desk and pull a music magazine out of his backpack. The cover is ripped off, probably because his mom thought the picture was inappropriate for school. But she lets him read it anyway. Amanda grabs a book from Ms. Barlow’s library, takes it back to her desk, turns a few pages, closes it, takes it back to the library, and chooses another. And then another, and another. I’m startled when the bell rings and I haven’t even closed my journal. I’ve written three full pages, not on what it feels like to be wrong, but on finally convincing my parents I’ve been right about deserving some independence, and especially about deserving to go to the Viviana Vega concert.

  We have a test in math, so there isn’t time to talk about the concert. But in science, there’s a substitute teacher, and while we fill in our worksheets, Amanda keeps whispering plans across the table. By lunchtime, I’ve caught her contagious optimism and can almost see myself at the arena with her. “I wonder if they’ll let us take pictures inside,” Amanda considers. Then she slumps—“I wonder if we’ll be close enough to even see”—and recovers—“Oh well. I mean, at least we’ll be there, right?”

  “You can always try to sneak up closer,” Arthur offers helpfully. Then he turns to me and tilts his head. “But, Stef, do you really think your mom and dad are going to let you go?” He knows better than Amanda what it’s like to have overprotective parents.

  “Of course they are—they have to,” Amanda answers for me.

  “They might,” I say.

  “Miracles can happen.” Arthur shrugs.

  And then, at the end of the day, an actual miracle actually happens.

  I leave school and scan the parking lot, looking for Tía Perla. She isn’t there. Not a trace of her.

  No way.

  Amanda jogs off to practice, and Arthur climbs in the front seat of his mom’s sedan. I wave good-bye and start walking, a few steps behind Julia. She turns around when she hears me, and I flash a smile, even more sparkling-sweet than hers. She wrinkles her eyebrows and her nose—pretty much her whole face is scrunched up in confusion. Then she snaps her head back around, and her red-brown hair flutters down, smooth and straight over her shoulders as though nothing had ever disturbed it. She continues on to the bus stop without looking back. I smile again, for real this time.

  I turn the corner and walk toward the gas station where I’m supposed to meet Papi. It takes me less than ten minutes to get there, and just like I’ve always said, absolutely nothing even remotely dangerous happens along the way. I’m considering whether to give Papi an I-told-you-so speech, or whether it would be smarter to act as though leaving school on my own was nothing out of the ordinary, when I notice Tía Perla parked alongside two other taco trucks. And that’s definitely out of the ordinary.

  These trucks aren’t like Gyro Hero; they might look a little different than Tía Perla, but their menus are almost exactly the same. I could probably guess what they serve without even looking: tacos, burritos, super burritos, tortas, tostadas.… It’s not good for anyone’s business for taco trucks to be parked so close together.

  When he sees me, Papi waves me over to where he and the two other drivers are standing under the shade of Tía Perla’s canopy, studying a piece of paper.

  “Does it really say we need bathrooms?” asks one of the men, shaking his head. “And we have to move every hour? This is going to put me out of business.”

  “Estefania, go inside and get a soda, then come out and read this for me,” Papi says calmly.

  I decide the soda can wait. The letter is addressed to Papi. It is stamped with the city seal.

  “Dear Mr. Soto,” I read out loud. “You are receiving this notice because you are an officially registered mobile food vendor. We are writing to inform you of proposed regulations that, if adopted, could affect your business. You are invited to attend a public hearing to discuss the attached proposals that we hope will maintain a quiet and clean environment throughout the city and will ensure the health and safety of all citizens.”

  On the next page is what looks like a list of rules for food trucks like Tía Perla. “Trucks must be parked within one hundred feet of a public restroom.” Is that even possible?

  “Operators must move their trucks every sixty minutes.” That makes no sense. As soon as we set up everything, it would be time to pack it all in again.

  “Permits must be renewed every year instead of every five years, and will be granted based, in part, on vehicle appearance.”

  I stop reading. This sounds just like that letter in the commissary. Maybe it really was serious after all.

  “Papi?” I glance up, searching his face for clues about whether we should worry. He looks like he’s still trying to decide, and even though I’ve just finished translating for him, I ask, “What does this mean?”

  “It means we’re all out of a job,” one of the other drivers grumbles.

  Papi takes the letter, folds it, and tucks it back inside the envelope. “It’s going to be all right,” he says finally. “We’ll go to this meeting, and we’ll explain it to them. No one is out of a job.”

  The other drivers leave, and Papi, Tía Perla, and I stay at the gas station for the rest of the evening. I decide not to bring up the Viviana Vega concert, and Papi doesn’t, either.

  chapter

  12

  When I hear Mami filling the coffeepot with water on Tuesday morning, I kick myself out of a tangle of blankets and sheets to join her in the kitchen. I’ve been up for hours, tossing and turning and playing out long, impassioned arguments in my head. Finally, I had resolved to demand an answer to the Viviana Vega question this morning, before leaving for school. My parents have already taken two whole days to think about it. That should be long enough. And anyway, Amanda needs to know whether I’m going with her. I pad down the hallway in socks and flannel pajamas, feeling sure of myself, ready to make my case.

  Then I hesitate outside the kitchen door. As of this very moment, there’s still a chance I might see Viviana Vega four days from now. After that, who knows? I’m not so sure I want to find out, but I take a breath and step inside anyway.

  “You’re up early,” Mami says, half inside the refrigerator.

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  She closes the door and turns to me. “Something the matter? You’re not coming down with anything, are you?”

  She steps forward and reaches out to press her hand to my forehead.

  I duck away and sit down at the table. “Mami. No. I don’t have a fever. I’m fine. It’s just…”

  Looking worried, she sets her coffee cup down and sits next to me. “What is it?”

  I groan. What else can it be? “It’s the concert. What about the concert?”

  Mami sighs, but I can’t tell what it means.

  “Well? Are you going to let me go? Amanda gets to go. Her sister is going to be there. She’ll be right outside the whole time.” Suddenly, an even better argument occurs to me. “Julia is going, too. You know Julia’s parents. They wouldn’t let her go if it wasn’t safe.… And I could borrow Papi’s cell phone to check in.”

  Mami taps the edge of a spoon against her coffee cup. “Your papi and I have been talking about it.”

  “And?” I interrupt.

  She raises an eyebrow. “And it’s a very difficult decision, Estefania. He wants to talk to you about it himself. This afternoon.”

  I start to protest.
/>   “This afternoon,” Mami says firmly. “Now, go get dressed.”

  It’s impossible to concentrate at school, where I spend all day trying to guess what my parents have decided. All morning, I’m feeling positive, convinced that if they weren’t going to let me go, Mami would have just told me instead of drawing it out like this. But by the afternoon, I’m remembering how long it took just to persuade them to let me walk to the gas station after school. Asking to go to a concert is asking for a whole lot more, I think. And I decide it’s a lost cause.

  Only art class takes my mind off the concert. As we walk into Mr. Salazar’s studio, we hang our backpacks on the row of hooks, same as we always do. But when we start picking smocks out of the bin near Mr. Salazar’s desk, he stops us.

  “No need for smocks, class. Our lesson today is going to be a little bit different. Please grab a seat and listen up.”

  Arthur and I choose stools next to each other. “Wonder what’s going on,” he whispers.

  Once we’ve all settled, Mr. Salazar steps to the center of the room and asks Arthur, who is sitting nearest the supply closet, to open it up. I hadn’t noticed before, but now I see right away that everything is running low. We’re down to not much more than a stack of construction paper, a few jugs of tempera, and a dozen boxes of pastels—most of them missing colors.

  “Not too many acrylics left,” Amanda says to herself. It’s true. There are only a handful of tubes, squeezed almost dry.

  “Not too much of anything left,” Mr. Salazar agrees. “And that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  It’s a good thing that the supply closet is looking so empty, he assures us. It means we’ve been creating. Unfortunately, as we can see, there is very little left to work with and no money to buy more.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out a solution for weeks,” he admits. “Finally, I thought, You know, your students are intelligent people. Why not ask them for ideas?”

  None of us says anything. Was he really asking for our help?