A Glass of Crazy

by Tina Laningham

Hours later, I sat at the kitchen table staring out the window when a small pickup truck pulled in the driveway. Gabby got out and the man who worked outside got out too.

  "Heard you need a translator," Gabby said.

  "That your dad?" I asked.

  Gabby nodded.

  "Do your parents know where my par-." Something caught in my throat and the coughing attack that followed was clearly over the repulsion of almost calling the Kat my parent. "I mean my dad, do they know where my dad is?"

  Gabby and her mom spoke in Spanish for a minute and finally Gabby said, "They didn't come home last night and she doesn't know where they went."

  "I hope nothing bad happened," I said softly.

  Berta said something in Spanish. "She says they do this all the time. Sometimes they disappear for days and don't tell her."

  Dad wouldn't do that when I only had three days left. Besides, tomorrow's Thanksgiving.

  Gabby tossed her backpack on a chair. "Hey, let's go into town."

  I crossed my arms. "I don't need a babysitter."

  "I know." She slung her arm over my shoulder. "But you do need a Spanish speaking friend."

  We headed into town on foot, hiking through narrow cobblestone streets, and I tried not to think about what the Kat creature had said about driving on cobblestones. It's funny how when you try not to think about something, it's all you can think about, and the thought of Dad having weird sex with the Kat in a massage chair was truly disgusting. Mom didn't need to worry about me having sex and getting mono because after being around Dad and the Kat, anything sexual made me queasy.

  "Hungry?" Gabby asked.

  "Not really."

  "Mam? said you didn't eat today, only breakfast. T?a, my aunt, has a restaurant around the corner. We can eat for free."

  Why was Gabby being so nice to me? Guess I wasn't used to it.

  The small, dark restaurant had only six wooden tables and five were empty. "I always sit over there," Gabby said, pointing to a table in the corner.

  A woman who clearly looked like Berta's sister came out and patted Gabby's cheeks. They spoke in Spanish and when they got to the part where Gabby introduced me, I tried to muster up some of the manners Queen Doreen had drilled in my head, but a weak smile was all I could manage.

  "She's making something special for us." Gabby put napkins and silverware on the table and lit a candle. "Tell me about your high school in America."

  "Not much to tell." I said it like the thought of school left a bad taste in my mouth. It was rude, I know, but I couldn't exactly say, I love my school. Everyone calls me Ghetto Girl and thinks I have mono.

  Gabby looked perplexed.

  "I've only been there three months," I said.

  "You're fourteen?" She asked.

  I nodded. "You?"

  "Sixteen."

  "What's your school like?" If I didn't hear from Mom soon, it was entirely possible I could get shipped to Mexico and I needed to know.

  "It's a dual language school so everything's taught in Spanish and English."

  "No wonder your English is so good."

  Gabby leaned back. "Thanks!" Her aunt brought two big bowls of stew and placed them on the table, and then wrung her hands and grinned at Gabby. "She wants us to taste it," Gabby said.

  With a big spoon, I scooped up bits of tomato, corn and cabbage, and nudged on a piece of beef. I chewed and nodded in praise, but it wasn't until the second spoonful when I tasted the broth by itself that I realized how good it was. That broth had some zing.

  "This is what real Mexicans eat." Gabby winked.

  "Speaking of real Mexicans," I said. "Do you know any curanderas?"

  Gabby's face lit up. "You know about curanderas?"

  "My best friend back home thinks I am one. I figured the only person who could tell me is another curandera."

  "Why does she think you're a curandera?" Gabby asked.

  "My best friend's a boy," I said. "Rafa,"

  "Oh," Gabby grinned. "You have a boyfriend."

  "Um, like no. He's probably gay."

  "Okay," Gabby said slowly. "Why does Rafa think you're a curandera?"

  "I wrote a story about a hurricane destroying our Island and a few weeks later it happened."

  "But hurricanes happen all the time," Gabby said.

  "Not in Galveston."

  With narrowed brows, Gabby slurped a big spoonful of soup, then another. Finally, she said, "I know a curandera."

  My smile widened until I remembered I had no money. "How much does she charge?"

  "Twenty pesos," Gabby replied. "Do you have it?"

  I shook my head and calculated that twenty pesos was only two dollars. "I can pay you back when my dad gets home."

  Gabby winked. "I need to say goodbye to my aunt." And she disappeared in the kitchen.

  My feet wobbled on the cobblestones because I was thinking so hard about what to ask the curandera that I wasn't paying attention to my step. The orangey sun set aglow colorful buildings with rich, warm hues that filled me with wonder and a new hope that something good was about to happen.

  When we got to the bottom of a hill away from the center of town, the scenery totally changed: fancy tourist filled restaurants and art galleries became Mexican mom and pop shops with skinny dogs panting in the doorways and produce stands out front. Though they were poor, everyone seemed happy selling goods to one another.

  The sky darkened as we climbed a hill past makeshift houses wrapped in sagging laundry lines with white sheets billowing in the breeze. Everything seemed gray and white except one thin line of red in the sky. We picked up our pace even though the moms and dads with small children passing by were in no hurry to get anywhere.

  "Turn here." Gabby pointed down a narrow street with no people, but the sound of barking dogs filled the sky. Above us, dogs lined rooftops on both sides of the street and they woofed and howled as we passed by. We walked until the street led to a dead end and in the dim light, we faced a big, black door. Gabby drew in a deep breath and knocked, which made the chorus of barking come to a halt and the only sound was my heart beating like a Native American drum.

  A clicking sound came from inside the door just before it opened a crack. Glowing candlelight shone through, which seemed perfectly normal considering she was a curandera, but I didn't expect to hear the loud, shrill whistle that came from somewhere inside. It sounded like a man whistling at a woman on the street! I peeled my eyes to Gabby, who swallowed hard.

  The door opened a bit more and a wrinkly old woman with long hair and three teeth appeared. Gabby said something in Spanish and handed the woman two gold coins. The woman waved us in. Just inside the door, that same shrill whistle freaked me out and that's when I saw the parrot perched on the woman's shoulder.

  "Upstairs," Gabby whispered.

  Through glowing candlelight and smoky incense, my thoughts slowed to a relaxing pace. I followed the curandera up brown tiled stairs with Gabby close behind. The curandera led us to a small red room with dozens of candles illuminating walls covered with angels and saints, except for one bare red wall that held a flaming sacred heart on a single wooden cross. Gabby and I peered at each other and waited for the curandera to tell us what to do.

  In the middle of the room sat an old wooden table with a purple cloth and four wooden chairs. Three chairs were plain and one, light blue. With a crooked finger, the curandera lifted the parrot off her shoulder and moved it to the back of one of the plain wooden chairs. She pulled out the blue chair and signaled me to sit, and then sat across from me and folded my hands in hers. Gabby took a seat across from the parrot while the curandera closed her eyes and spoke in little whispers.

  "She's praying," Gabby said softly.

  I didn't say anything because talking could interrupt her prayer and I didn't want to take any risks. Finally, the curandera said something.

  "She wants to know why your heart is broken," Gabby said.

  I had to think about it. I mean, this was
complicated. "Tell her my parents hate each other and they don't exactly care about me anymore."

  Gabby's eyes welled up. She turned to the curandera and repeated it quietly in Spanish. The curandera squished her eyes together and prayed harder. I started having doubts about this whole thing.

  "Ask her if I have magical powers," I said. "Tell her about the hurricane."

  Gabby talked in Spanish for a long time and I wasn't sure what all she said. Pretty soon they were having a two-way conversation. "She wants to know if this ever happened before," Gabby said.

  I shook my head. "After the hurricane, I wished for lots of money for my Mom, but it didn't come true."

  After Gabby translated, the curandera went to the wall and brought back a candle that said St. Chamuel.

  "Who's St. Chamuel?" I asked.

  "The archangel of love and tolerance," Gabby replied. "She's asking St. Chamuel to watch over you."

  "Isn't there a saint for money?" I asked.

  Gabby spoke back and forth with the curandera and finally said, "The money will be there when you return, but she is worried about your heart."

  "So I'm a curandera?"

  "She says you have powers, but they are worth nothing without your heart."

  I had no idea what they were talking about with the heart thing. My heart was fine. "Will we win the lottery?" I asked.

  "She says the money will come from someplace unexpected."

  "What about Mom and Dad. Are they getting back together?"

  After all the translating, Gabby said, "No."

  In the center of my palm, the curandera pushed a hand carved wooden heart no bigger than a pebble. On the way downstairs, I stuffed it in my pocket and giggled when the parrot shrieked a street whistle again.

  With her eyes on me, the curandera unlatched the door. The worried look on her face didn't freak me out because old people always seemed worried about something. Besides, I was ecstatic knowing money was coming, hopefully enough to move out of the ghetto.

  Gabby and I stepped out on the street and the moment the curandera shut the door, the barking roof dogs picked up right where they left off. It was freaky how the dogs stopped barking whenever she held the door open, but dogs had a sixth sense. They knew she was a curandera.

  A full moon cast just enough light to see; otherwise everything would have been pure black because there were no streetlights anywhere. Gabby kept a quick pace and soon the chorus of barking roof dogs faded in the background.

  Gabby marched so fast, I had to hurry to keep up. "She was awesome," I said, "the curandera."

  Gabby grinned, turning left out of the little neighborhood and up the sidewalk where all the mom and pop shops had closed. "They say she is the best curandera in San Miguel de Allende."

  When we got back to the touristy part of town, the noise level rose and streetlights shone on bars with drunk Americans stumbling through the streets.

  "This way," Gabby said. We turned onto a street that looked familiar and a few stores down we passed the shop where I got the Pancho Villa T-shirt. After that was a crowded bar and when Dad's big Texas voice boomed from inside, I froze.

  "To Wednesday!" he said, holding a shot glass in the air. Perched on his lap like a burlesque dancer, Kat tossed her head back laughing. Everyone in the bar raised shot glasses and said, "To Wednesday!"

  Gabby pulled my arm.

  "Wait," I said, trying to break away. "That's my dad."

  Gabby pulled harder. "Don't go in."

  I broke away and stared through the window at Dad. Never before had I seen him so happy, not even on TV. I mean he literally glowed with radiance. All the exciting times we'd had were nothing compared to the fun he was having without us.

  Gabby pulled me up the street and I must have had one of those moments where I went into safe mode because even though I didn't remember walking the rest of the way home, I did remember lying in bed and wanting to cry. But crying was always a bad idea, so I got up and wandered through the big empty house until I found an open bottle of wine in the kitchen with about an inch left in the bottom.

  Out of the kitchen window, the lights were off in the guest house, which meant Gabby and her parents were asleep. I pulled out the cork and tilted the bottle up against my lips. The first sip tasted tart and as soon as it started tasting good, the bottle was empty. I pulled another bottle out of a wine rack and rummaged around for a corkscrew. Dad had made it look easy, but it wasn't. I finally got the bloody cork out and took the bottle upstairs.

  Most kids my age would find it liberating that neither of their parents wanted them. Something was wrong with me. I ransacked the jeans drawer and located another one of Mom's pills. I wanted to vanish. I placed the painkiller on my tongue and washed it down with a good swig of wine. With a pillow propped behind my head, I sat up in bed and let a river of wine wash through me. I let out a long sigh. I loved wine. Tilting the bottle up, I took another swig. In fact, I realized I loved everything? and everyone. Yes? every living thing on the planet, especially Fandango.

  When I awoke, it was Thanksgiving morning and my head pounded so hard I could barely focus on Berta, who was mopping puke off the floor next to my bed.

  - 18 -