A Dream Called Home

by Reyna Grande

  “Sure! Like what?” I asked. I knew the book wasn’t perfect, and I was excited that with his help, we could get the story to where it needed to be.

  “He wants you to change your main protagonist. He wants a novel about a U.S.-born Latina, not about a Mexican immigrant girl.”

  “But that’s what the whole story is about!” I said. “I can’t get rid of my main character. Tell me what he said exactly.”

  I could tell she was hesitant. She hadn’t told me much about the other editors who had turned the book down. I knew she had done that to protect me, but this was different. This was an editor who was willing to make me an offer. But he was asking me to do the unthinkable.

  “Well, he said that no one is going to care about the story of an immigrant girl looking for her missing father.”

  I was glad I was sitting down because those words sliced through me like a machete. “He’s willing to work with you, Reyna. He’s said as much, but it would take major revisions on your part. He’s not interested in immigrant stories. He wants a more mainstream story. Chica Lit is really popular right now. Everyone’s looking for work by Latinas but in that genre.”

  “What exactly is Chica Lit?”

  “Books about middle-class Latinas who have assimilated into American culture. Not too ethnic, more mainstream. Like chick lit but with a Latin flavor. You want to think about it?”

  No, I don’t want to think about it, I wanted to say. But I said, “Yes, let me call you later.”

  When I hung up, I lay down on the couch and cried. He was willing to take a chance on my writing, but not on the story I had written, only on the story he thought I should write.

  But what about my novel? What about Juana and her struggles? Even though it was fiction, those struggles were real. How many children in the world—not just in Mexico or Latin America, but in the entire world—had been forced to say goodbye to a father, to watch him walk away and seek a better life in another city or country, wondering if they would ever see him again? How many children had parents who emigrated and, when they didn’t return, were forced to leave their homes in search of them, desperate for an answer to the question, “Do you still love me?”

  The psychological violence of watching your parents walk away from you was a wound that never healed. I had to honor that experience by standing up for my vision and holding fast to what I believed in.

  I called Jenoyne the next day and asked her to decline on my behalf. I knew that might be my only shot at getting published, but I was willing to take the risk. I didn’t want to write for a trend, even if it was my ticket in. I wanted to write a story that mattered. No one is going to care about the story of a Mexican immigrant girl looking for her missing father, the editor had said. Could I prove him wrong?

  Even though I tried not to let it get to me, the rejection hurt me so much that I wallowed in my misery for days. Even Cory couldn’t get me out of my funk.

  “Don’t you know what this means?” I told him. “If a Latino editor doesn’t understand my story, then what chance do I have of a non-Latino editor taking a risk on my book?”

  “I know what you need,” Cory said. “Come on, get out of your robe and get dressed.”

  By then Cory knew me well enough to know that when I was down, I needed comfort food. He drove me and Nathan to San Pedro, to my favorite seafood market, where they cooked the food in front of you and served it with delicious garlic bread. But as I peeled my shrimp and licked the spicy sauce from my fingers, my mind returned to my disappointment and fear. The shrimp suddenly took on the metallic taste of failure.

  A few weeks later, as I was driving down Florence Avenue, Jenoyne called me. “Are you sitting down?” she asked. “We have an offer. Atria Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, wants your book.” Simon & Schuster was one of the biggest publishers in the country, Jenoyne said. The editor, Malaika Adero, was an African-American woman who had fallen in love with my novel.

  “What changes is she asking for?” My stomach was already churning at the thought that once again I would be faced with compromising my vision. Would I be strong enough this time to say no? Would my desire to see my work in print get the better of me?

  “No significant changes,” Jenoyne said. “You will still need to go through edits and copyedits, but essentially she’s publishing your book as you wrote it.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said. “I can’t believe this is happening.” I wanted to jump out of my car and dance on the sidewalk, scream at the top of my lungs that I had an offer, that out of twenty-seven editors we submitted to I had finally found one editor who understood the story I had written, who would publish my book the way I had envisioned it. But I didn’t get out, and I didn’t scream. Instead, I pulled over and called Cory.

  “It happened,” I said. “It really happened.”

  “What?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m going to be published!”

  Reyna with her first book contract

  38

  TO CELEBRATE, I decided to visit the place that had inspired the story—my hometown.

  “I’d like you to come with me to Iguala,” I told Cory. “I want you to see where I come from.”

  I believed the only way he would really know me completely was if he saw where my journey had begun. Although our relationship was getting stronger every day, to the point where he spent every day and night with me and only went to his apartment in Long Beach on Sundays to get his mail, I felt that Cory only knew one part of me.

  He had been to Mexico as a little boy when his grandmother had taken him on a cruise to Cancún. I warned him this trip was going to be completely different. “Iguala is only three hours from Acapulco, but it’s the exact opposite of a beach resort,” I said.

  “I’ve read your book,” he said.

  But I worried about his reaction once he really saw it. His ex-girlfriend had taken him to her hometown, too, but she was from an idyllic island country called Cyprus and he had gone swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, and snacked on figs and halloumi cheese every day as he tanned under the Cypriot sun. In my insecurity, I worried that this trip would make him regret his decision three months before—but it was a risk I was willing to take because I needed to go to Mexico, and I knew he had to come along.

  When the school year ended and our summer break began, the three of us took off. But as soon as we landed in Mexico City, doubt set in. What if instead of bringing us closer, this trip tore us apart? What had I been thinking, bringing this middle-class gringo to a place where there were no luxuries, not even the simplest things he was used to? I told myself I was being ridiculous. Cory knew how to adapt to new environments and handled meeting new people better than I did. He also wasn’t easily upset the way I was. When there was a drive-by shooting in front of my house while we were playing Scrabble, and we went out to find his windshield shattered and bullets embedded in his car door, he hadn’t made a fuss or gone running back to his Long Beach apartment.

  When he met my brother for the first time, and Carlos said to him, “Aren’t most serial killers white?” Cory handled the situation much better than I did. I wanted the earth to swallow me whole from the humiliation, but Cory simply laughed it off and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill your sister.”

  I started to feel better and even fell asleep on the bus ride to Iguala. But as the bus entered the city and it rocked back and forth on the uneven road, I woke up and my worries returned.

  “Ready?” I asked as we walked out of the Iguala bus station and hailed a taxi to take us to my aunt’s house.

  “Yeah!” he said enthusiastically, taking it all in—the hustle and bustle of the marketplace across the street; the taxis and minibuses inching along, picking up passengers laden with groceries; the vendors selling their wares along the sidewalks, pushing wheelbarrows full of dried hibiscus flowers, peanuts, tangerines, or jicamas.

  We jumped into a taxi and made our way to my aunt’s house. I wondered what
Cory thought as we drove along the narrow streets rife with potholes and trash, passing by the river with its fetid water, the empty train station with its abandoned, rusty freight trains, the dirt roads lined with shacks and crumbling houses.

  “That’s where my uncle Gary lives,” I told him as I pointed to one of the shacks along the tracks. “Remember in my novel there is a little boy who dies in the bus in his mother’s arms while they’re on their way to the doctor?”

  “I remember,” Cory said.

  “Well, that was my tío Gary’s son, Chucho.”

  When we passed La Quinta Castrejón, I pointed to it and told him, “That’s where we used to sell snacks with my mom. Maybe I’ll take you to the pool in there.” I looked at Nathan and said, “Won’t that be fun, to go swimming?”

  “Pool!” Nathan said, clapping his little hands enthusiastically, but I was suddenly weighed down with worry again. I worried about him or Cory getting diarrhea from the food, or being stung by a scorpion, or stepping on a rusty nail, or ending up with lice or tapeworm. Nathan’s vocabulary was limited, so I was used to anticipating his wants and needs. I had brought Cory to a place where his vocabulary would be limited, too, so I would have to do the same for him to ensure he didn’t feel out of place.

  Finally, my aunt’s green gate came into view. Hearing the taxi, my aunt, her husband, and my cousins came running out. At the sight of them, especially my favorite cousin, Diana, I felt the long hours of travel fade away. The hassle had been worth it. I was with the family who lived on the south side of the border—the warm ties I had with them kept me even more connected to this place.

  “Ya llegamos,” I said, stating the obvious.

  I introduced everyone, and Cory shook hands and smiled politely, but there was really no conversation to be had with any of them since all he could say was “Mucho gusto” and “Gracias.” My cousins—Lupe, Angel, Diana, and Rolando—gawked at Cory with blatant curiosity. My aunt and her husband tried to be more subtle, but they stared at him in astonishment. Of course, they had never seen a gringo in person before! Iguala had no tourism. Foreigners—especially gringos—never visited. So this giant of a man, with his sparkling blue eyes, pink skin, and golden lashes, was someone they couldn’t help staring at. Cory just stood there and smiled, allowing himself to be gawked at. My aunt and uncles looked like our students at Fremont. I hoped those years of interacting with Latino immigrants would help him feel somewhat more at ease with my family.

  “Well, I’m so glad we’re here!” I said, trying to end the awkward moment.

  “Pásenle, pásenle,” my aunt said and ushered us into the house. She immediately began to serve us the meal she had prepared. Cory looked around, taking in the concrete floor that should have been tiled but wasn’t, the cracked cement walls with the faded paint and crumbling stucco, curtains where doors should have been, the plastic bags hanging from nails punched into the walls. Since storage space was limited, my aunt used grocery bags to store things.

  Tía Güera set a plate before Cory, and he looked at its contents in surprise. The sauce looked a bit like baby throw-up, but at least she had served him the drumstick and given the chicken feet to my cousins. Chicken feet on his first dinner in Iguala would not have been a good idea.

  “It’s mole,” I said.

  “But it’s green,” he said.

  “Yeah. There’s all kinds of mole—green, black, red, yellow. Trust me, you’ll like it,” I said, in a voice that warned him that he’d better eat it all. Green mole was a favorite meal of mine because my aunt served it with tamales that weren’t found in the U.S.—tamales nejos, which were made of corn dough, lard, and a special kind of rock salt called tequesquite which gave them a smoky flavor. Her husband had made them that day, adding nasturtiums to the dough for added flavor, and they were hot and delicious. I dipped a piece of one into the mole and popped it in my mouth. The sauce was thick, similar to the curry sauce in Indian dishes. It tasted of pumpkin seeds and epazote, with a little kick from the pureed jalapeños my aunt had added.

  Cory peeled off the banana leaf and was surprised to find that the tamales were nothing but dough, no meat and sauce inside of them.

  “Instead of tortillas we eat these special tamales with our mole,” I said.

  Everyone watched as Cory took a piece of the tamal nejo, dipped it into the mole, and had his first bite. I knew he was not going to like the green mole. He loved the red one I made because it had chocolate. But the green mole was thicker, spicy without the sweetness, and a bit grainy.

  But still, Cory put his acting skills to good use and pretended that it was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten. His eyes shone with approval, and my aunt and everyone at the table dipped their own tamales into the mole and enjoyed their meal.

  Conversation at the table was in Spanish, and I tried to translate what was being said to Cory—mostly answering questions about my mother and siblings—but at some point I became exhausted from all the effort it took to say everything twice. Finally, we said our good nights and retired to the room my aunt had prepared for us. “Buenas noches. Gracias,” he said to everyone, and my aunt smiled at his funny accent.

  The bed was so old it dipped and the metal springs poked through as soon as Cory sat on it. The sheets were stiff and scratchy, made of poor-quality cotton. He picked up a pillow and was surprised at how heavy and lumpy it was. “What’s this thing made of?” he asked.

  “Well, they’re not real pillows,” I said. “They’re pillowcases stuffed with old clothes.”

  “They’re hard as rocks,” he said, “and weigh a ton.” I shrugged. I had forgotten about those pillows.

  I showed him how to fill up a bucket of water from the outdoor tank to flush the toilet. I showed him where to get a glass of purified drinking water to brush his teeth. “Don’t drink the water in the tank,” I said. “You’ll get sick.”

  As we stood on the patio brushing our teeth and spitting the water on the ground, he exclaimed, “This is like camping!”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” I said. I had had little experience with camping. Cory had grown up going to summer camps, and I supposed it had been fun to pee in the bushes and escape “civilization” for a few days.

  Back in the room, as he was about to jump into bed, I stopped him. “Make sure you shake the bedcovers,” I said as I demonstrated. “Don’t lean on walls. Shake your shoes in the morning before putting them on.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “Scorpions,” I answered. I pulled the mosquito net hanging above the bed and wrapped it around the entire mattress, making sure there were no gaps. Mosquitoes could be merciless at night. We lay down to sleep, with Nathan between us so that he wouldn’t fall off the bed and hit his head on the concrete floor.

  “I liked going to camp and roughing it for a few days,” Cory said. “I can’t believe people here have to live like this on a daily basis. Do you ever get used to it?”

  “I suppose people can get used to anything,” I said, “especially when they don’t have a choice.”

  The next day, I took him to see my father’s house. I had told him so much about that house that he wanted to see it. We walked along the dirt road with Nathan in my arms. Cory massaged his neck as we walked. He had woken up with a terrible sore neck due to the hard pillows, and despite the netting, his legs and arms were covered in mosquito bites. I wondered how long it would take him to ask if there were any hotels in the area and demand that we check into one. We walked to the main road and hailed a cab. As we stood before my father’s dream house, the one his sister had stolen from him, I told Cory how when I was a child, the house had seemed like a dream come true. But now as I looked at it with him there, the house seemed small and simple, reduced to what it was—a plain, cinder-block, three-room house. It had meant so much to our family and now was nothing but a sad reminder of what had happened to us all.

  “It’s not much to look at, is it?” I said.

  We went to the cemetery
to take flowers to Abuelita Chinta and pay our respects, getting lost in the labyrinth of decaying graves and overgrown weeds. Cory was enthralled by the cemetery, with its spooky angel statues with broken wings and blank eyes that stared at nothing. “Not like the cemeteries back in L.A.,” I said, thinking about Forest Lawn with its lush green manicured grass, artificial ponds, and graves that were in neat white rows. Years ago, my father had bought a plot at Forest Lawn because he wanted to be buried in a beautiful place, never mind that its beauty was artificial. Seeing this cemetery, I understood why. Who would want to be buried here where even in death you were stuck in this ugly place? Years later, as he was dying, he changed his mind and asked to be cremated and his ashes to be taken back to Iguala. Despite its broken beauty, it was still home.

  “This cemetery has character,” Cory said, snapping away with his camera. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  We finished the day by going up the hill to see the Mexican flag that flies over the city of Iguala.

  “It’s the biggest flag in the country!” I said with sudden pride. Finally, here was something beautiful and breathtaking about my hometown besides the mountains.

  As we stood up there on the hill, the giant flag flying above our heads and the city spread out before us, the mountains a deep purple against the afternoon sky, Cory looked at it all and said, “Thanks for bringing me here, love.” He put his arms around me and held me close.

  When we got back, my aunt had another surprise for us. For dinner she was going to make another of my favorite dishes—pigeon in red guajillo sauce. She and my cousins sat in the patio plucking away, gray feathers scattered everywhere. My aunt’s husband chopped wood and prepared the fire for cooking the pigeons. Nathan was enthralled with the dead birds. In L.A., he loved to chase the birds around whenever he saw them in the park. When we had left this morning, I had given my aunt money to buy the ingredients for the day’s meal. I hadn’t expected such a treat. Pigeons were a delicacy in my hometown. These were not the pigeons that fly around in the streets. These were raised by a pigeon breeder in the neighborhood. During my last visit, I had gone with my aunt to purchase pigeons from the breeder. She had taken the pigeons out of the cage one at a time, held them with a firm grasp, whispered something in their ear to calm them, and then, to my shock, pressed each pigeon against her hip and smothered it. She killed each one this way, not by violently twisting or wringing its neck, but by gently pressing the soft spot on its throat and suffocating it with her own body.