Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco

by Judith Robbins Rose

  I snatched up my passport.

  The officer braced himself.

  Holding out the blue booklet, I pleaded, “Allez, monsieur, regardez! Vous voyez? Je suis américaine, monsieur! S’il vous plaît, laissez-moi tranquille!”

  The policeman stood in the center of a crowd, his gun pointed at me as I groveled on the pavement. Sweat soaked the armpits of his shirt as he gaped.

  Slowly he lowered his gun.

  “What’s she saying?” he croaked. His eyes never left me, but everyone else looked at Miss.

  So did I.

  She blinked. Then she spoke.

  Spoke in her TV voice so everyone would hear. “She says she’s an American, and she begs you to leave her in peace.”

  Her explanation did nothing to clear the confusion on the officer’s face. People murmured. His eyes finally took in the crowd around us. His face was deep red and sweaty as he returned his gun to its holster.

  Someone might wonder, What was Jacinta thinking? But that’s just it. I wasn’t thinking. For the first time, Miss was wrong. Thinking and adrenaline aren’t a bad mix. They don’t mix.

  The officer strode over to Miss. Lowering his voice, he bit off each word. “Get — her — things — and — get — back — in — the — car.”

  He snatched his broken sunglasses off the street, then barked to the crowd, “Move along! It’s over! Clear the area!”

  Some people looked relieved. Others seemed disappointed as they shoved their phones back into their pockets. The officer directed traffic around us while Miss gathered my stuff. I stood on shaking legs, my knees burned and bleeding from the blistering asphalt. I stumbled to the van.

  Mamá grabbed me and dragged me back inside with her. She hugged me to her, her face wet with tears. I whispered for her to stay quiet, but she sobbed, trembling.

  Miss dumped my stuff on the seat next to me and slammed the door closed. Then she waved Ethan over.

  He leaped gratefully into the passenger seat. She climbed in the driver side, grabbing the wheel for support, her hands shaking.

  The policeman slammed the door behind her and leaned into Miss’s window. His heavy breath blew strands of her oily hair. She leaned away. His face was an angry shade of purple.

  He glared at me. Still clipping his words, he asked Miss, “What — did she think — I was going to do?”

  “Sh-she’s seen people get deported. She wanted you to know that she belongs here.”

  “Et ma mère aussi. Il faut qu’elle reste chez moi,” I said.

  “And her mother, too.” Miss didn’t translate the last part, that I needed Mamá with me. But it was true.

  The officer continued to glower at me, his face a mix of embarrassment and resentment for what I’d put him through, causing him to hold a gun on a kid in front of a crowd.

  This isn’t such a big town. Everybody’s going to hear about this.

  There’s a word for what I felt. Remorse.

  “Je m’excuse, monsieur. Désolée.”

  His face told me that he understood it was an apology. He asked Miss, “What language is that? French? Her family’s from French Guiana?”

  Miss shifted in her seat. “One of those places south of here.”

  Even when she wasn’t exactly lying, Miss was a bad liar.

  He gave me a piercing look. I almost dropped my eyes again.

  That would’ve been a mistake.

  It would’ve been so easy to let my eyes slip away from his. But everything I’d learned in the past year argued against it. It was time to claim my power. My Jacinta Juárez power.

  Without his sunglasses, I could see into his soul. His eyes said he was trying to decide what to do with me. Jerking his head in my direction, he asked Miss, “She a good student?”

  There was surprise in her voice, but otherwise Miss sounded like herself. “Quite gifted, actually.”

  Gifted? The word flared in my mind, like a newly lit birthday candle.

  I lifted my chin a bit more and allowed the man in the uniform — the stranger with the gun and the handcuffs — to look right into my eyes. Not my puppy-dog eyes.

  I let him see my soul.

  Let him see my pain. Let him read my love for my family. Let him see my need to belong, to feel safe. To hang on to those who belonged to me.

  It wasn’t a demand for fairness. It was an appeal for grace.

  I made myself vulnerable, but whatever he decided, I would carry my power inside.

  His look traveled across Mamá’s trembling form, but he made his eyes soft, trying not to hurt her with a rough stare. Light came into his eyes as he read the story in her sun-ravaged, beaten body. A hoarse whisper. “¿Su madre es mejicana?”

  A cold thrill went through me. I felt Mamá stiffen when he asked in Spanish if she was Mexican.

  But the time for lies and manipulation was past. We’d seen into each other’s souls.

  My head tilted up, then down. The smallest of movements.

  After a few moments — or maybe a lifetime — his eyes slid away from mine. He looked at Miss. “Your little friend has made a big problem for me. I could lose my job over this.”

  I sensed her tension as she waited to learn what he would do.

  But I already knew.

  He said, “You have exactly ten minutes to get back to Colorado.”

  “WHAT the HELL was THAT?”

  Miss was shouting at me as the van barreled through town. She wasn’t exactly speeding, but she wasn’t wasting any of our ten minutes, either. I opened my mouth to say something, but Miss wasn’t through.

  “You could have been killed! You don’t go grabbing a cop! What were you thinking?” Again I started to answer her, but it was a rhetorical question. “Never mind! You weren’t thinking! Of all the stupid tricks!”

  Mamá started yelling, too, her face dripping with sweat and tears. Almost the same words, but in Spanish. I was bawled out in two languages.

  Stereo.

  Ethan glanced over his shoulder at me. I thought he’d be mad, too.

  But he winked! I dropped my eyes and pressed my lips together to keep from laughing, while Miss and Mamá harangued me.

  They were still taking turns telling me off when we passed the sign that read, WELCOME TO COLORFUL COLORADO. Even when they’d finished, they sat there breathing hard. The lecture continued in their twin sets of glaring eyes.

  I shrugged. “You said, ‘No English, no Spanish.’”

  Miss opened her mouth. Strange noises pushed past her lips. It took me a few moments to recognize them. She’s laughing? Wild, hysterical laughter. Then the shrill sounds changed to her airy, snorting laugh.

  Ethan cackled.

  We couldn’t help it. Mamá and I joined them. If it were possible for a van to explode from hilarity, we would’ve been blown to bits.

  We pulled off at the first town we came to. Neither Miss nor Ethan was fit to drive. We were tired, we were shaken. We were starving.

  And I still had to pee.

  Miss was outside the restaurant using Ethan’s phone to call her work when our dinners arrived. I wanted her to hurry. I knew how she felt about her food getting cold, and I didn’t want her to send it back when Mamá was with us. I didn’t need her making a scene.

  As the server put my plate of lasagna in front of me, the spicy aroma made my stomach growl. So I was too busy eating to study Miss’s face when she came back inside. But I did notice that her grease-smeared shirt was stained with coffee. Her hair was a wreck, and her makeup was seeping into the wrinkles around her eyes. My famous mentor was a spectacular mess.

  But no one gave her a second look. Maybe her TV show airs only around Denver? Her world is too small!

  She slid into the booth next to Ethan. I was telling Mamá that Cody had taught me to make lasagna, so I wasn’t paying much attention to Miss. I’d just thought she was having one of her messy moments. Until I heard Ethan’s voice.

  “Mom?”

  Then I really looked at he
r. And I knew.

  “They fired you,” Ethan said. It wasn’t a question.

  Someone who didn’t know him might think he was angry, but I knew better. Ethan was afraid.

  Miss blinked several times, pushing back the water in her eyes. Her voice was low when she said to Ethan, “We’ll discuss this later.”

  She eyed the poached salmon on her plate, then looked away. As though she might be sick. Her food had grown cold, but she didn’t send it back.

  She didn’t eat it, either.

  Suddenly the smell of my lasagna made me gag.

  Mamá noticed I’d stopped eating. She glanced around and saw that Miss and Ethan weren’t eating, either. I was about to tell her Miss had been fired.

  Miss spoke. “Don’t.”

  I played with my hair as I mumbled to Mamá that everyone was too tired to eat.

  Miss wadded up her napkin. “Let’s not rush home. We’ll get a couple of rooms and start again in the morning.”

  She said we’d call Rosa and let her know to get her stuff packed. We’d pick her up around noon the next day, then Miss would drop the three of us off at Tía’s house.

  And that would be that.

  There were two beds in the hotel room I shared with Mamá, but I crawled under the covers with her. I needed to know I could reach for her and she’d be there. We left the bathroom light on, in case we had to get up in the night. I could see the outline of Mamá’s face, her warm curves. I watched her sleep, trying to convince myself she’d really come back.

  I wanted it to be true, but I knew. Some part of her hadn’t returned — would never return. A piece of her soul had been ripped away. I imagined it hanging on the barbed wire of la línea.

  I lay on my back while tears rolled down the sides of my face, into my ears.

  As slowly as our trip the day before had passed, the next morning slipped away as we drove through the dull brown landscape. The air grew cold. A forgiving blanket of snow softened the sharp edges of the jagged purple mountains to the west.

  Miss had never been mine. She’d been on loan to me, like a book from the library. Her year as my mentor was over. I’d wasted precious weeks of it refusing to speak to her.

  And far worse, Mamá was lost to me, too. The best I could do was form a new bond with the frightened soul who’d replaced her. And Mamá would be living with a stranger who looked something like her daughter but wasn’t the same person as the girl she’d left.

  The green beast prowled in its dungeon. I felt greedy and mean, and guilty for feeling that way. I wanted the old Mamá and Miss. I wanted them both. But I couldn’t have either one.

  “¿Tienes sueño?” Mamá asked me.

  I told her I hadn’t slept well because I was excited to have her back.

  She gave me a shadow of her old smile. I snuggled against her.

  It’s enough.

  We pulled over one last time for gas and coffee in Colorado Springs, less than an hour south of Maplewood. Miss bought more coolant and wanted me to pour it into the engine. My final educational opportunity.

  I paused. I set the bottle of coolant down on the curb and pulled off my ruby ring. “I think you should have this.”

  Miss didn’t reach for it. Pain moved across her face. “I know — it wasn’t my place to give you that ring.”

  “No, Miss! I just meant — you can sell it and get the money.”

  I was surprised to see her smirk crawl up one side of her face. “Don’t worry about it. I’m rich, remember?”

  I hung my head. “But it’s my fault you lost your job.”

  Her smile disappeared. “No. You mustn’t think that. I’m responsible for my decisions.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  The lopsided grin came back. “What I should’ve done a long time ago. Sell that monstrosity of a house and use the money to go after some child support.”

  “So — you’re happy about it?” I asked hopefully.

  “Not exactly. But I’ll figure it out.” She leaned over and picked up the bottle of coolant. “Now, pour.”

  The green goop started leaking out of the engine even before we got back in the van. Looking at the slimy puddle on the ground made me queasy.

  Ethan had crawled into the backseat to sleep. Mamá asked if I would sit up front with Miss so she could lie down on the middle seat.

  I nodded, glad for the chance to say what needed to be said.

  But once the van hiccuped onto the freeway, my brain stopped working. Miss had taught me hundreds of words — my mind sifted through them — but nothing seemed right. I tried not to worry about saying the perfect thing.

  Just say something. ANYTHING.

  Miles and minutes slipped by. The lump in my throat became an ache. I knew what I wanted to say. Magic words, spoken in the future tense. Words that could make us amigas — spelled with a small a.

  Friends.

  I didn’t want to be Miss’s charity work. I didn’t want her to feel obligated or as though it was her job to rescue me. I wanted to be the kind of friend to Miss that I should’ve been to Angélica. Someone who can give and take, and never keep score.

  But Miss’s year as my mentor was up. I’d heard her tell Ethan. The only words left to say were all in the past tense.

  As though hearing my thoughts, Miss turned, her eyes filling. Magically, the words came. They hung softly in the air between us.

  “Thanks for everything. I’m sorry for the mess I made. But I’m glad that — that I got to know you.”

  All the right words.

  But I wasn’t the one who’d said them.

  With her eyes still on the road, Miss held out her hand. I took it, then wrapped my pinkie around her index finger.

  I think she understood.

  DÉJÀ VU. It means “already seen” in French. That’s how it felt, driving through the white neighborhood to the Dahl house. As though it had all happened before. I kept turning around to see Mamá stretched out on the seat behind me. It was real. We’d saved her.

  Saved pieces of her.

  How can she sleep? The metal-on-metal groans of the van’s engine seemed louder since leaving the freeway. We were climbing the hill to Miss’s house when it happened. The van rumbled — a low, painful sound — as it gradually slowed.

  Miss frowned. “I’ve got the pedal all the way down.”

  I glanced back at Mamá. She sat up, her eyes darting. They landed on me. A warm smile made cracks across her broken lips.

  I had to smile back.

  At a stop sign, Miss braked. When she stepped on the gas, instead of lurching forward, the van rolled back.

  “Whoa!” Miss turned the wheel, and the van slid downhill, neatly parked against the curb. She yanked on the emergency brake. “The transmission.”

  “But you can fix it, Miss?”

  She shook her head. “A new one would cost more than the whole thing is worth.”

  Miss reached into her purse and pulled out Ethan’s phone. She glanced at it, then dropped it back in her purse, irritated.

  Then she said a word she never planned to teach me. But I already knew what it meant.

  I didn’t mind walking up the hill to Miss’s house. Fruit trees had blossomed, making the air sweet. Birds called to one another, squirrels and rabbits darted from yard to yard, as if Snow White’s woodland friends had moved into the barrio blanco with her.

  Ethan ran ahead, anxious to get home.

  Holding Mamá’s warm, rough hand on one side and Miss’s cool, smooth hand on the other, I walked up the hill.

  My pinkie looped around Miss’s index finger. Mamá and I kept giving each other loving little squeezes. We didn’t hurry.

  But it was over too quickly.

  When the Dahl house came into view, Mamá gasped. I tried to see what she saw. A mansion? A magical castle? To me, it was simply a house. A home where a family lived and ate and fought and laughed.

  Then I remembered Miss hadn’t only lost her job. She and her
boys were going to lose their home — just like my family. But we’d figured it out. And so would they.

  The garage doors stood open, like the house wore a lopsided grin. Rosa ran out squealing. She threw herself into our mother’s arms. Watching them was like having my insides sucked out. I wanted to be part of their happiness, but too many other feelings sloshed around inside me. Then Rosa pulled me into a tight circle with Mamá. “Papi called! He is working in Tijuana to make money to pay a coyote.”

  “¡Gracias a Dios!” said Mamá — thank God!

  Then it hit me. Gracias. Grace.

  Rosa burst into tears, hugging me. “Thank you for bringing Mamá home safe.”

  I hugged her back, but it felt like someone else was inside me, making my arms and legs move. I hadn’t brought Mamá home safe. Because life isn’t safe.

  And life is never fair. It still felt like life should be fair. But now I know better. We can only go forward with hope while we pray for grace.

  It’s the best we can do.

  When I let go of Rosa, I noticed the scar across her eyebrow where the hair refused to grow back. The slant of it made her look angry. The image of Victor’s scarred eyelid flashed in my mind.

  I reached up with one careful finger. “Did I —?”

  “Está bien,” she said, pulling away.

  The scar ruined Rosa’s perfect face. As long as we lived, that ugly mark would tell everyone about the very worst in me. About my meanness. I felt small. Like I was shrinking inside myself. “What do your friends say?”

  She shrugged. “I tell them I walked into a door.”

  She lies? To hide my badness? A moment before, I’d thought I couldn’t feel any worse. I whispered, “Can you forgive me?”

  Rosa surprised me with a wide grin. “You’re my sister!”

  I looked away so I wouldn’t cry.

  Faces swirled around me. Like being inside a 3-D movie. But I should’ve been sitting in the audience with a box of popcorn, because I didn’t feel like part of what was happening on the screen.

  I looked around again and was surprised to see Cody standing next to me.

  “Hi,” he said.

  After the trauma and drama — the long drive and sleepless hours, the descent into cavernous depths, a daring rescue and a tearful reunion — Cody squinted at me and said, “Hi.”