The Crossroads

by Alexandra Diaz

  Jaime would have to talk to Ángela. Let her know she was making a fool of herself and that Tía and Abuela would never approve of her hanging out with the likes of that guy, with his disrespect and revolting public displays of affection. Besides, it was too soon after Xavi had disappeared. At least she should show some grief and restrain herself around other boys. Jaime didn’t know the custom for this kind of thing—after all, Ángela and Xavi hadn’t been married—but he figured at least a couple of decades would be a respectable amount of mourning time.

  • • •

  Ángela didn’t get on the bus after school. Jaime replayed the conversation in the truck from the first day. She definitely said Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

  Yet today was Thursday and no Ángela came running when the bus stopped outside the high school. Jaime wanted to ask the driver to wait for her. At least another five minutes. In Guatemala, he could have bribed the driver, but somehow he didn’t think the drivers here worked that way. Besides, he didn’t have any money.

  Instead Jaime watched the town turn into a few scattered buildings until even those disappeared and the desert took over with its shrubby pines and spiny cacti, foothills, and a former volcano in the distance.

  In his all-knowing way, Don Vicente rode up on Pimiento just as Jaime got off the bus. Somehow he’d known Ángela wouldn’t be there because he didn’t bring an extra horse. Or maybe he didn’t realize that there were days Ángela should come home on the bus.

  Back at the corral Jaime greeted Tomás and told him the news—Ángela hadn’t been on the bus.

  Tomás pulled off his work gloves and dug his phone out of his jeans. No messages, but also no reception. “She’s probably hanging out with her friends.”

  “So we aren’t going to look for her?”

  Tomás shrugged and checked his phone again. This time it showed one bar of reception. And also that it wasn’t even five o’clock. “I’m glad she’s settling in.” He pulled his gloves back on and continued mucking out the corral.

  Tía would never have allowed it. Not without at least telling someone where she was going, Jaime thought as he made his way back to the trailer and sat on the steps to watch the dirt track for any vehicles. Pointless really, since any engine coming down the private road could be heard anywhere on the homestead.

  She finally arrived in a dirty white car much too small for all the people it held. Without trying, Jaime counted six heads once Ángela poured out. It was impossible to see how she’d even fit in there in the first place.

  “Bye, losers!” she said in English and laughed when they called her names in return. Names that Jaime knew from la tele and knew no real friends should ever call each other.

  Jaime waited for the car to disappear before standing up from the steps. “Where were you? You missed the bus.”

  She pushed past him and opened the door he guarded. “I didn’t miss it. Just didn’t get on it.”

  “Why not?” He followed her in.

  “Because I didn’t want to be bombarded with these annoying questions.”

  He was about to retort that if she’d been on the bus he wouldn’t have needed to ask these annoying questions. There would have been other questions of the annoying variety. But he went for a more convincing argument.

  “I worry about you.” It wasn’t a lie. He worried about her hanging out with that guy on the bus, and liking him. Or worse, becoming like him. “What if something happened to you?”

  She dropped her defenses and wrapped him in a quick hug. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m just making new friends and we were hanging out. Got a pizza.”

  “A pizza?” No one in their village in Guatemala made pizza, and even if they did, Jaime’s family wouldn’t have been able to afford it. The one time he had tried pizza had been when one of the ladies Mamá worked for had bought a bunch for a party and Mamá got to bring the leftovers home. They warmed up the slices on the comal Abuela used to make her tortillas and the taste had been like heaven on earth. He and Miguel used to tease that whichever of them got rich first would have to buy a whole pizza for the other. And here Ángela mentioned a pizza as if it were something everyone could afford to eat.

  “Yeah, I was just hanging out with Tristan and the others before they dropped me off. Nothing to worry about.”

  Jaime scrunched up his nose and saw the perfect opportunity to discuss the reason he really had been waiting for her. “Tristan? Is that the boy who sounds like he’s gagging when he calls you Ang-gel-la? I don’t like him.”

  Ángela’s defenses rocketed right back up. “You don’t know him.”

  “I don’t want to know him. He’s disrespectful. Tía wouldn’t let you hang out with him.”

  Ángela turned to him with a hard look and raised eyebrows. “She let me cross an entire country with people she didn’t know.”

  How could he argue with that? In many ways, their parents had given them up. Had allowed them to risk their lives going through unknown terrain, be at the mercy of gangs that could have killed them for sport or abused Ángela. A rich mobster did lock them up in a boxcar to die. Put that way, what harm could hanging out and getting pizza do?

  He should give up now. Jaime knew he had no real argument against her friends other than loud voices and bad vibes. And maybe a tiny bit of jealousy for being excluded. Still, he gave the argument one last shot, even though the idea made him cringe.

  “You could hang out with them here, at the ranch.”

  “There’s nothing to do here.”

  “There’s all these cool desert animals to draw and . . .” He was losing her. She wasn’t a visual artist. What did she care about capturing the blue-black wings of a raven in motion or experimenting with shadows to create a flying bird of prey?

  “Well, the thing is,” Jaime grabbed the last desperate thing he could think of, “Tomás doesn’t want you to hang out with them until he’s met them.”

  “He hasn’t said anything. Besides, he’s not my father. He’s not even my brother. And neither are you.” And she grabbed the play script from her bag before yanking the trailer door back open and stomping down the metal steps. The door crashed against the side of the trailer before bouncing shut, making the whole trailer shake.

  So much for talking and hanging out with his cousin.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The sight of the freckle-faced blond boy smiling and waving when Jaime got on the bus gave him a sense of relief from the tension he hadn’t known he felt. After all, it wasn’t like he’d get to sit with Ángela. She’d barely spoken to him last night. But she did make a point of asking—no, telling Tomás that she would be hanging out with friends after school on a regular basis. To which Tomás replied, “Cool, it’s good you’re making friends.” And Ángela shot Jaime a look that said “see?” That was the most they’d interacted since he confronted her.

  But at least someone was happy to see him. The freckle-faced boy cleared the seat for him, as he’d done the other days. Jaime responded with a smile.

  Today instead of reading a book, the boy wrote in some kind of notebook. The boy still didn’t say anything and Jaime didn’t ask. Their silence felt good—no criticism, no expectations, no disappointment.

  The older kids in the back were belting out songs that sounded like they should be in old movies. Tomás would have known from which movies, but Jaime didn’t care. He didn’t know them anyway, and apparently neither did Ángela, though that didn’t stop her. He caught her singing random bits of the chorus.

  He got out his sketchbook and did his best to ignore the serenade. If his bus-buddy could do it, scribbling away in his journal, so could he.

  What Jaime did notice was the boy sneaking glances at the sketchbook. He shifted his arm so the page was less blocked and kept doodling—imaginary creatures with swords, cars with wings, a human with his face in the shadows. When he paused to think about what to draw next, the boy passed his own notebook over.

  On a clean page, the b
oy had written, What is your name?

  Jaime. And then because he knew how Spanish and English letters had different pronunciations, he wrote in parentheses (Hi-meh), and then ¿you? before passing the notebook back.

  Sean, and then with a grin added (normal). Jaime laughed. Seh-Ahn wasn’t exactly a normal name but at least it was pronounceable. Jaime motioned for the notebook back. Between not being able to speak English properly and not understanding how things worked in this strange country, he felt justified to scribble, Me not normal. This time the boy made an odd sound in his throat, as if laughing wasn’t something he was used to doing.

  Cool. I’m not normal either.

  Well then, cool too. And they both went back to their books, Jaime drawing and Seh-Ahn writing. Perfectly normal.

  • • •

  Every day after lunch, Jaime’s class had a subject not taught by Meesus—the last two days had been library and Spanish. (Where Señor Borrego spent the whole time teaching the others how to answer “¿Qué hora es?” but allowed Jaime and Samuel, the other Spanish speaker in his class, to read Spanish books as long as they wrote a book report once they were done. Perfect. Jaime had picked up the fourth Diario de Greg: Días de perros and happily ignored his classmates saying the time was one minus a quarter.)

  When Jaime asked about art class, Meesus said Monday and then something about a teacher and a baby. Jaime hoped that didn’t mean they were only allowed to draw either a teacher or a baby. Although the idea of drawing Meesus with her cardigan and old lady shoes as a baby amused him long enough to ignore Meesus talking for a while.

  Today was music, and Jaime had a horrible feeling he’d be asked to sing like the older kids had done on the bus. Except he’d have to do it by himself. In public. And in English. Because embarrassment is what always happened in movies that take place in school. And in the other Diario de Greg books he’d read.

  Except Jaime forgot Meez Macálista taught music and she didn’t seem the kind to encourage public humiliation. She gave the other kids instructions to get out their instruments and start warming up with scales before returning to Jaime with a “happy to see you” smile.

  “Hola, Jaime. ¿Cómo están las cosas?” she asked.

  “Bien,” Jaime answered automatically. Easier than saying things were as good as they could be considering they still hadn’t heard any news about Abuela, and he didn’t know what to think about Ángela acting media loca.

  His eyes wandered the room. Everyone had an instrument and seemed to be focused on twisting mouthpieces or stuffing the insides with a rag. Three of the kids, including Carla, played larger versions of the instrument. When she caught Jaime looking at her, she puffed her cheeks like she had two guayabas in her mouth and crossed her magnified eyes as she played the lowest note possible. Jaime laughed and turned away as he felt his own cheeks heat up.

  “¿Sabes jugar un instrumento de música?” Meez Macálista brought his attention back to her.

  Jaime bit his lip to keep from grinning. What she had said didn’t make any sense—he guessed she’d translated her words literally. But it was nice to know he wasn’t the only one who made mistakes in foreign languages.

  “No, I never learned to play a musical instrument,” he answered with the correct verb, and Meez caught the word change with a cringe.

  “Claro, you use ‘tocar’ instead of ‘jugar.’ ” She reached for a box under her desk and pulled out a plastic case. “In English it’s called a ‘recorder.’ ” Jaime opened the case and pulled out a plastic black and tan rod similar to the rest of the class’s. “Oh, it’s a flauta.”

  “Yes, it is a kind of flute. But what we call ‘flute’ are usually the ones that go horizontal.” She positioned her hands to the side of her right cheek in demonstration.

  “This one’s a flauta dulce, and the one you mentioned is a flauta transversal.” Jaime gave the recorder a blow and was met with a sharp screech. The other kids turned to give him a look and Diego made a farting sound on his flauta back at him.

  Meez gathered the music in the air with her two hands like a conductor and everyone fell quiet. Like magic. She grabbed a stack of music books and began passing them out. “Work in groups, first three songs, and listen to each other to stay on the same beat.”

  Jaime blew into his flauta again, this time softer, his mouth more relaxed, and less like he was blowing a referee whistle. The sound came out less screechy and almost sounded like a musical note.

  “It takes a real stupid person not to be able to play the recorder,” Diego said to his friend. “He probably believes Ms. McAllister once played for Elvis Presley. Doofus.”

  “Don’t say that.” His friend, the boy whose name Jaime still didn’t know, glanced at Meez Macálista helping Samuel, who was struggling to twist the mouthpiece on correctly.

  “Why? He doesn’t understand.”  This time Diego glared at Jaime as he spoke. Jaime could feel his eyes on him but didn’t look up, didn’t indicate he had understood Diego’s putdown just fine. “See? Stupid.”

  Jaime raised his eyes to give them the death glare they deserved. He turned the recorder around, covered the bottom hole with his left thumb and top hole with his pointer finger, and blew again. The note came out lower and crisper than when he hadn’t covered any holes. No screeching at all. He went on to place his middle finger and then his ring finger on the recorder, each time playing a lower note. He raised his fingers one at a time until he was back to just holding his thumb and pointer in place. With no more screeching, he had successfully played three different notes.

  Meez came back to him with her hand up for a high five. “Perfecto. You’re a natural. Soon we’ll have you playing in concerts around the world.”

  When Meez turned away, he caught Diego giving him an evil stare. Jaime returned the glare with one of his own. See? Not stupid.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  On Sundays, Tomás’s official day off, everyone slept in and then padded over to the big house for breakfast, where Doña Cici cooked up enough food for a herd of ranch hands. According to Tomás, a few times a year there were up to fifteen guys helping with the roundup and Doña Cici provided food for them all. Except now Doña forgot it was only Tomás’s family and Don Vicente and still cooked too much.

  “Ustedes están muy flacos,” Doña Cici scolded Jaime and Ángela as if it were their fault they had been close to starvation just a couple of weeks ago. At the same time, Jaime got the feeling she would always be telling them they were too skinny—she did to Don Vicente. While Doña Cici was on the plump side, Don Vicente’s build leaned more to wiry. The first time they’d met them, Ángela said they looked like a number ten standing together.

  “Don’t you feed them anything in that trailer?” she turned to Tomás while sliding more chorizo onto all three of their plates.

  “I don’t know about them, but you know I live on café y frijoles,” Tomás winked, though it wasn’t too far from the truth. He did pretty much only drink coffee and eat beans. Canned beans though. Not the homemade pinto ones Doña Cici added to their plates.

  Truth was, Tomás didn’t have time to cook or go into town to grocery shop often. He bought food that didn’t spoil quickly and that could be cooked in the microwave. So far with Jaime and Ángela living there too, at least he made an effort to have bread and cheese or meat slices on hand. Anything that Doña Cici made seemed like heaven in comparison.

  A week ago, for their first Sunday breakfast in El Norte, Jaime couldn’t believe all the food—flour tortillas (Abuela always made hers from corn), scrambled and fried eggs, pinto beans, chorizo, fried potatoes, shredded yellow cheese, crumbly goat cheese, too-spicy green chile, bananas and avocados, orange and grapefruit juice, ground coffee, and fresh goat milk from the two does down in the barn.

  Her cooking was spicier than he was used to. Mexicans, or at least these two from Chihuahua, seemed to like their chile and they liked it hot. In Guatemala, food was always flavorful but not often picante. Jaim
e could handle the bite in the chorizo but steered clear of the green chile. Yet Don Vicente poured it on his food like it was the elixir of life.

  “Green chile will save you from any ailment. Keeps you healthy and trim.” Don Vicente patted his flat belly. “Never been sick a day in my life.”

  Ángela drizzled a little on her tortilla but when she took a bite, she ended up coughing and downing a glass of juice.

  “I think I have some mild green chiles in the spare freezer for when the grandkids visit.” Doña placed a kind hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get some out for you next week.”

  Ángela shook her head, still trying to air out her mouth. “It’s . . . okay. I don’t think . . . ah, I like the taste.”

  Don Vicente dropped his fork on the plate as if Ángela had insulted him personally.

  “Don’t say that,” Tomás hissed. “Nuevomexicanos are very protective about their green chile. It’s like saying back home that you don’t like pepián.”

  “What is pepián? I can make it if you like.” Doña Cici got up as if she were about to start cooking the Guatemalan stew at that very moment. Tomás insisted she sit back down at the table. The older woman fussed about feeding everyone else and sometimes forgot to eat herself. It wasn’t until several grumbles later that she agreed to return to the table.

  Last week, the older couple had asked them about their journey to El Norte and Jaime had run back to the trailer for the other sketchbook he had filled traveling through three countries. Like going through a photo album, he showed drawings of Miguel’s funeral and his family members (his one family photograph had been stolen), the bus ride to Arriaga in México, and the friends they met there—Xavi, who had rescued Vida and became Ángela’s boyfriend, and little Joaquín, who traveled with a secret. When Jaime got to a drawing of a smudged calf, Don Vicente had wanted to know what kind of cattle they were. Jaime couldn’t remember what they looked like. It had been near sunrise and Jaime was half asleep when he tried to draw them. The cow distraction was good though. It allowed him to skip over the part of the story where Ángela had gotten mad at him for letting their bags get stolen and he’d almost lost her for good.