by Meg Medina
I am ashamed under his gaze. There are tears in my eyes, so I squeeze them shut, wanting him to get on top of me again and press me close, wondering what this will be, what it will feel like to have Joey inside me. There will be no way back, but would I want one? I’m nearly a woman, right? Maybe I’ll laugh about it lightly the way the ladies at Salón Corazón do. I will make it No Big Deal. Tears are stupid, a thing of little girls, I tell myself.
But Joey sits up and moves to the edge of the bed instead. He clasps his hands and stares at a spot on the floor, thinking.
“Don’t stop,” I tell him, desperate for him to help me feel better. “Please.”
But Joey stands up slowly and covers me with my sheet. I start to cry hard, humiliated.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.
My words are like a hard slap that makes his face contort. I’ve repulsed him completely.
“Don’t say that,” he says, eyes blazing. “Not ever.”
He hands me my shirt and leaves.
I call Darlene and beg her to mark me excused.
“I can’t go in looking like this. Have a heart,” I tell her. “Please.”
“It’ll cost you some physics homework,” she says. “A lot of it.”
I agree; cheating doesn’t seem like such a big deal now, though I’ve been absent and haven’t even glanced at what we’re doing in class.
Later, after Ma’s gone, I get on the bus and go all the way out to Mitzi’s new school to see if I can catch her at lunch. I keep my hood up and try to ignore people’s stares. I need so much to see Mitzi and to try to tell her what’s happened, even if I’m not sure she’s speaking to me. A long time ago, Mitzi and I made a promise about the first time we were with a boy. We’d told each other first about our periods. About the boys we liked. We’d definitely tell each other about our first time. What I never imagined is that it would be like this. Me so torn up and ugly that not even the worst boy she knows would have me.
What will she think about me and Joey? She used to be the one who got stuck walking him to the principal’s office every day. She complained that he smelled of onions.
I wait near the bushes when I get there. It’s nearly lunchtime, and some of the girls huddle around outside picnic tables, even though it’s cold. They wear long-sleeved navy sweatshirts over their plaid skirts. There’s a sweet sound to the girls chattering and laughing that I’ve never noticed before. It’s like wind chimes. Mitzi is sitting with Sophia — plain, combed, smiling Sophia — surrounded by their other friends. Of course, Mitzi would like Sophia. She is sunshine itself. I can feel her warmth from here. I watch for a long time, trying to figure out how I’d fit in. In the end, I see that I don’t. Mitzi’s here now, far away from where I once knew her. She can’t imagine a Yaqui or a place like DJ. For her, the worst part of her day is taking a hard quiz.
Eventually the bell rings and they all head inside. I think about Mitzi and Sophia as I head for home, their brightness burning a hole inside me.
Wednesday, I have a close call. I get dressed and head to the Glen Ora to give Darlene my homework before school. I’m waiting by the intercoms when someone opens the door and calls my name.
“Piddy? What a surprise!”
It’s one of Lila’s customers, Maria Estela. I bagged up her Avon order myself but never realized she lived out this way. Great, the vast network of Avon strikes against me.
“You remember me from the party? I’m Lila’s friend.”
I swallow hard. “Yes. Hi.”
“What brings you to my building?” she asks. I can see her studying what’s left of my shiner.
I swallow hard as I spot Darlene coming down the hall toward us.
“My friend lives here. I was picking her up so we can walk to school.”
Darlene throws open the door just as Maria Estela fastens her scarf.
“Ah. Well, it was nice to see you. Have a nice day at school.” She turns before stepping outside. “Oh, and tell Lila I’m loving the skin-firming mask.”
I promise her I’ll do just that.
“You have them?” Darlene asks when Maria Estela is out of earshot.
“Here.” I shove the answers to the physics homework in her hand and head back home.
When Lila calls me that night to check how school was, I hold my breath, waiting to get busted. The Glen Ora is way past DJ. There’s no way I’d ever be there to pick somebody up for school.
“Any more trouble?” she asks.
“No, I’m fine. They’ve left me alone.” There’s a long pause.
“I found out something today.”
Oh, no. Here it comes. I’m queasy, the way I get on elevators.
“The Halpers might get evicted,” she says.
“What?”
“It’s all over the building. They’re six months late on their rent, according to the widow in 2C. The super put a note on their door.”
“But where would they go?” I ask, my stomach plunging again.
“What do I know?” Lila says. “But at this point, I’d be glad to lose that trash. There’s too much bad drama in that house! I have nightmares of that woman screaming. It’s as much as I can take.”
“Joey’s not garbage,” I say, and hang up.
Darlene stops by after school. She looks worried, and her hands are shaking. “I almost got busted today, thanks to you,” she says. “Mrs. Gregory in guidance almost nabbed me pretending to talk to your mother when she accidentally clicked into the line.” She tosses her head and throws back her shoulders. “I’m done helping you. I’m not risking anything for you anymore. Besides, your work is getting shoddy. You had two wrong on the stuff you gave me this morning. You have to come in tomorrow with a doctor’s note or something.”
“Can’t you say there’s been a death in the family?” I ask. It feels sort of true, except for being a flat-out lie.
“Really,” she says, bored. “Who’s dead?”
“That’s private,” I say.
“Uh-huh.” She looks around at our apartment, taking in every mismatched and scuffed piece of furniture — probably so she can report on it to anybody who cares. “Listen, I’ve been saying I’ve spoken to an adult, but you’ve been out for, like, days. It’s not like I can keep covering for you. Do you know the trouble I can get in? Jeez. And I don’t even think you can even move up to eleventh grade with this many absences. There are policies, you know.”
“It’s not like I’m out committing crimes, Darlene.” I motion with my arms. “Does this look like a drug den to you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she sniffs. “It could be. But think about this: You’re going to get put in moron classes if you don’t shape up. At the very least, you won’t even be considered for McCleary. You need recommendations for that place, you know.”
I set my jaw and lie. “I couldn’t care less.”
“Suit yourself, then,” she says. “Become a loser. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you don’t show up tomorrow with a note, you’re on your own.”
“Fine. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
There’s a long pause before she answers.
“Look, I feel bad for you, Piddy, I really do. Who would want to come to school looking like you do and all? But after today, that’s it.” She’s out the door before I can even say good-bye.
I’ve never been lucky, although I’ve tried, believe me. I don’t step on sidewalk cracks, and I haven’t owned a black cat, although that’s mostly because Ma says we can’t afford a pet. Every summer Mitzi and I look for four-leaf clovers in Kissena Park, but I’ve always come up empty-handed. Once I even begged Ma to buy me a rabbit’s foot.
“A dried-up piece of rabbit? Niña, don’t be silly.” She bought me an ojo de Santa Lucia at a store in Elmhurst and pinned that little black eye to my shirt instead. “Everyone knows this is what really works.”
But in the end, not even Ma’s remedy helps. As if I haven’t been unlucky enough lately, not only is Darlene out sick o
n Friday, but when my fifth absence comes rolling along the desk, Mrs. Gregory calls Ma at Attronica. Worse, she speaks español perfectly.
It’s ten thirty in the morning, and I’m watching a morning show about husbands who cheat on their wives with their best friends. I’m on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, when Ma’s key clicks in the lock. She storms in and throws up her hands in disgust.
“You better have a good explanation!”
Thanksgiving is only a week away, the start of the season of frenzy. Ma is still in the Attronica-issued rain poncho she wears on the loading dock, where the stock team passes boxes back like old-time firefighters putting out a blaze. I can see through the plastic poncho that she’s wearing her lumbar belt, her only defense against the bad back that she complains about at night. Her hair is damp and frizzy. It’s stockroom-meets-madwoman.
“Your school called, Piedad!” she shouts when I don’t answer. “You haven’t been at school. Why not?”
I can’t think of how to answer her, the list is so long.
“I’m sick,” I finally say.
Ma yanks off my blanket.
“It’s busy at work, Piddy. I had to punch out to come here, and there’s no one to cover for me. I have no time for games. Why aren’t you at school?”
I cut my eyes at her. “I’m not playing games.”
Ma catches my arm as I start to storm off to my room.
“They say you’ve been gone all week. What have you been doing, eh?” She stares at my faded hickey, and her voice becomes a growl. “Is it this boy again? Who is he? Have you been bringing him to this apartment?” Ma asks. “Is that what you’re doing instead of going to school?”
“No!”
“These new clothes,” she continues. “This new attitude. You’re acting like a —”
My anger boils over.
“Like what? A tramp? God forbid! That’s the most important thing to you. The only trouble is that you’re full of shit.”
Ma blinks in shock. I’ve never cursed at her.
“Don’t you talk to me like that.”
“So what if I brought a boy here?” I continue. “You’re not exactly one to talk, like you’re some kind of nun.” My voice is getting shrill as Ma stands there, dumbfounded and helpless against what I know. “That’s right! People talk, Ma. I found out about Agustín having a wife. Very nice. Thanks so much for not telling me that you had an affair!”
“Who told you those things?”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re true, and everybody seems to know but me. Who are you to judge me? The truth is that you’re a little chusma yourself, Ma.”
In all her life, Ma has never slapped me, but her hand comes across my face hard. I’m so enraged that before I can stop myself, I give her a shove back.
“Get off me!” I shout.
Ma’s eyes are wild, her face bright red.
“What kind of devil are you becoming?” she demands.
I grab my coat and head out into the downpour.
“Get back here! Where are you going?”
I run down the street blindly, her words chasing me like bad spirits as I go. Where are you going? Where are you going? No matter how fast I go, her voice is there in my ears.
The dark of the subway feels good, even though people look away or even step back a few paces when I walk through. What can I look like, all bashed up and wet? They’re leaving room, I suppose, between them and me, a potential crazy. Maybe Ma’s right, after all. I’m a devil of some kind, one of Ms. Shepherd’s monsters, like the Minotaur roaming my labyrinth.
All day long, I get off at stops I’ve never heard of and switch trains. I travel uptown through the Bronx and then back downtown and over to Brooklyn, staring at my reflection in the windows as we hurtle through tunnels. I glare straight back at the men checking me out, change trains when one with broken teeth starts to touch himself. I get off at Grand Central. Music wafts through the dusty walkways as I wander past the shops all afternoon. A cello. Someone’s squeaky trumpet. Paint-bucket drums. Later, after the station fills with the crisscross of home commuters, I ride pressed against strangers and wonder if Joey is cutting school, too, and if he’s somewhere in this maze with me, riding by himself to nowhere as the world goes dark. Will he live here like a track rat, I wonder, when there’s nowhere else to go?
Ma calls me all day, but I won’t listen to a single message. After a while, I just shut my phone off.
When I finally climb out at our station, it’s past ten o’clock, later than I’ve ever been out without telling Ma where I am. Serves her right, I tell myself so I don’t feel too bad. It’s not like she’s never kept secrets from me.
The temperature has dipped, and I’m chilled to the marrow, but I start home on foot. I walk straight through puddles, my hands shoved deep in my coat pockets. The side streets are shadowed by long rows of apartment buildings, alleys in between. One or two people walk by, but mostly things are deserted as I get farther from the bus stops and closed shops. It occurs to me that I’m only a few blocks in the other direction from where Yaqui lives. If I wanted to, I could walk to her building right now, hide in the doorway, jump her the way she did me. I’m a crude thing now, a demon, after all.
Men’s voices float through the streets from somewhere nearby — laughter, a few curses. But my eyes are straight ahead. The old Piddy might have been afraid, the way Ma taught her. But I don’t care now. Jump me if you want. Disappear me. Make me a milk-carton kid. Who cares?
As I start to cross the street, I spot a cop car on the corner. I don’t get far before I hear its door open.
“Hey.”
I turn just as a flood of red and blue lights fills the streets. The cherry top is spinning silently like a disco ball.
“Piddy Sanchez?”
The voices on the street go silent as one of the cops approaches me through the glare. It’s only when he’s right in front of me that I see it’s Raúl.
“I thought that was you.” He flashes me a friendly smile, but I don’t answer. The cold has turned my thoughts into a thick goop. This is his beat, I remember now.
He signals to his partner in the car, then takes a step closer and lowers his voice. “You okay, Piddy?”
I’m light-headed, frozen. My teeth are chattering.
“Fine,” I say.
His head bobs as though we’re having a pleasant conversation. His partner is waiting in the car, listening to the crackle of their radio; she tells the dispatch their location.
“Thing is,” he says, “it’s late, and you have a couple people worried about you.”
So, Ma has set the hounds on me.
“Nobody has to worry,” I say. “See? I’m fine.” My lips are quivering, though.
“Hang on.” He goes back to the patrol car and pulls a blue blanket from the trunk. He holds it out to me when he gets back.
“It’s cold,” he says. “And you’re far from your place. How about if we give you a ride home?”
I don’t take the blanket. Instead, I shake my head and turn to go. “Thanks, but I’m not going home.”
His face looks serious as he steps into my path. I’m suddenly aware of his size, his badge, the gun in his holster. I can see his breath in the air between us.
“Your mother and Lila are worried. They’ve called me twice.” He says it just the way I’ve heard fathers sound on TV. His voice almost breaks my heart. “Now, let’s go.”
When I get home, I march straight past Ma and Lila without a word and lock my bedroom door. Lila’s voice is low. Gracias, mi vida. Ma adds her own stupidities. She was where? She could have frozen. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Teenagers, blah-blah. I don’t even care. I strip off my wet clothes and get under the covers, despite my growling stomach and numb, itchy toes. I’ll have to wait for Lila to go home and for Ma to start snoring. Then I’ll prowl like the beast that I am and find some food.
Ma tries to turn the doorknob.
“Piedad, open the door,�
� she whispers on the other side.
But all I do is roll over, hate her all over again, steel myself to another night of restless dreams. I’ll never talk to that hypocrite again.
“Hungry?”
Ma is sitting at the piano in her pajamas, an untouched cup of tea on the lid above her.
I ignore her completely. It’s four a.m., and I’ve crawled out of bed, starving. I only realize she’s there when I’m already holding a whole loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.
“Sit down, Piedad.” She motions to a spot on the bench beside her.
I don’t move.
“We’re not going to talk about school,” she says. “We’re going to talk about your father.”
My father. She has never used that phrase before.
“I’m pretty sure I know the story now, Ma. No thanks to you.”
“You know, it’s not so easy to explain things like this to your kid. You don’t know that yet. But it’s hard to talk about certain kinds of mistakes.”
“Why? Because you’d have to turn in your morality-police badge?” I’m pushing it now, but Ma just takes a deep breath.
“You think I would take a woman’s husband on purpose? When you think of me, that’s the woman you think I am?”
I don’t answer. The truth is that Ma has never done a crooked thing in her whole life. She barely drinks. She works all the time. She doesn’t date. Her only crime is being a sour nun.
“You going to say anything?” she asks.
“There’s no talking to you,” I say. “There’s only listening.”
“Then, listen.”
I close my eyes. All I want is food and my bed, but when Ma has you in a net, it’s hopeless. I step into the living room and sit down next to her on the bench.
“Don’t,” I say when she stands up to turn on the light. “It hurts my eyes.”
Ma lights a jar candle we keep on the piano instead. It’s our Dollar Store Virgen de la Caridad.
“You’re right that Agustín was married to someone else when I knew him,” Ma says. “Her name was Laura.”
I watch the light flicker inside the frosted glass. The virgin’s arms are spread wide to calm the frightened fishermen beneath her, but her light makes the chipped piano keys glow garishly.