by Unknown
“Hey.” Angel can’t read her tone from the single word. Depressed? Aggressive?
“Are you okay?” Angel tears her nail too close to the quick. “Where are you at?”
“Home.”
“Oh. Good. So when do you move?”
“Just before Christmas.”
Angel’s heart pounds. “Do you . . . have a place to go?”
“Yeah, my one cousin’s friend said I could crash with her for a while.”
Angel is jealous of this anonymous friend who is able to offer Lizette such essential, material aid. “Oh. Okay. So you’ll be okay?”
“Yes, Angel,” Lizette drones. “You’re not my mother.”
“I’m really relieved. Did you get my texts?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we all miss you.”
Silence. In the crib across the room, Connor wakes, sits up with bleary effort, and looks around, his cheek creased from the crib sheet. His face cinches as he works up to a wail, but when he sees his mother he smiles and bucks.
Angel flashes him an automatic smile and inhales. “You’re, like, the main part of Smart Starts! It’s boring without you. Who’s supposed to keep Jen in check?”
Silence. Connor has found a board book in his bed. He turns it in both hands, inspecting it nearsightedly.
“Brianna seemed really sorry,” Angel says.
“I don’t fucking care.” The words come out with startling velocity.
“I mean, she said that. Said, ‘I wish Lizette would come back.’ ”
“She said that?” There’s hope in Lizette’s voice, hope so naked that Angel is taken aback. “Did she say that?” Lizette repeats with urgency.
“Yeah! Yeah.” But her voice wavers. Angel is not a good liar, and this fact enrages her. She should be better, especially now, when the stakes are this high.
“I gotta go. Nice fucking try, Angel.”
“Wait. Can’t I see you?”
The pause is long enough that Angel wonders if the call has been dropped.
“Lizette?”
Then she says with a sigh, “I don’t know. I gotta go.”
For a long time Angel sits with her phone in her lap. As close an observer of Lizette as Angel has been all these months, she somehow missed this central, astonishing fact: that for all her bluster and antagonism, Lizette cares what Brianna thinks of her. She wants—desperately—for Brianna to help her.
And why shouldn’t she want that? Lizette is a kid, a kid well within her rights to expect help from her teacher. Except that of course she doesn’t, because she is also a kid who’s been wronged and hurt and abandoned by every adult she’s ever known.
Angel must talk to Brianna, must make her see how much Lizette and Mercedes need the program. And Angel needs Lizette. Their teacher can convince Lizette to return—Angel’s sure of this—if only Angel can convince Brianna to convince her.
Over and over since Wednesday, Amadeo has picked up his phone to call Brianna. He needs to apologize—sour nausea rises like a fast incoming tide every time he thinks of her. And he thinks of her often—her alert face, the way she tucks her feet under her when they watch a movie, her weight against his chest.
On Sunday, once he’s helped his mother with her breakfast, he goes to the morada again to pray, because that’s where his priorities should lie, not on earthly concerns about some woman. Once he’s there, though, he realizes that he’s actually waiting for Al and Isaiah. He wants the reassurance of their steady, male presence. He wants reassurance that, simply by virtue of being on his knees in this building, he’s in the right. Also, he wants to pray with them again.
“Where’re you working now, son?” Al asked last time, as they locked up the morada.
Amadeo confessed that he isn’t working, not exactly, that his business hasn’t taken off, but his mom is sick, and he has to be with her, but that also he’s worried about money. “You know, with her being sick and all. I just—I don’t know why I don’t have a job yet.”
Isaiah said, “Listen, man. We’re hiring at Lowe’s. Let me know.”
Amadeo was filled with a sense of well-being; here was this stranger, offering help.
“Okay,” he said eagerly. “I will.”
Now, Amadeo sits on the bench for nearly an hour, looking at his hands, but no one comes by. He wonders how Isaiah is holding up.
What would Jesus do? he asks himself, and the answer is clear: Jesus would follow up with Isaiah and get a job. Jesus would take care of his mother and his daughter. Jesus would call Brianna and apologize. Jesus would make things right, and Jesus would see if there was still any chance for something between them.
So call he does, as he walks home. It goes to voicemail, but then a second later she calls back.
“I wasn’t going to pick up, but I changed my mind.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“You were really a dick to me. How could I know your mom was sick?”
“I know,” Amadeo says. “I’m sorry. Hey, do you want to hang out?”
“Are you calling because you want to hook up?” Her voice is defensive.
“No,” Amadeo says, and wonders if she’s right. He doesn’t think so, but there’s a chance she sees him more clearly than he sees himself. “Not that I’d mind. But I thought we could talk.”
“God,” she says. “Fine. Let’s get together.”
After school Monday, as the other girls gather their bags, Angel lingers near Brianna’s desk, her weight uneven on her feet. “Miss?” she asks, because Brianna seems too familiar, given the shift in the classroom atmosphere.
Brianna flicks her eyes from her computer screen. “Yes, Angel. How can I help you?” Her voice isn’t cold exactly, more wary.
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Brianna has aged in the last week—she doesn’t have new wrinkles or a sudden stoop, she doesn’t appear exhausted, nothing so clear as that—but ever since Lizette left, there’s been a ragged, unhappy electricity around her that makes Angel think of her mother.
“What, Angel?” Brianna’s eyes slide back to her screen.
And because she’s thinking of her mother, of her mother’s helplessness in the face of authority, and of how she rejected her mother’s attempt to draw her back home, and then of her grandmother, Angel loses her nerve.
“Oh, nothing. See you tomorrow.”
“You sure?” Brianna asks, and this time the softening in her voice makes Angel’s step stutter, but not enough to break her momentum.
“See you tomorrow,” she says, almost fleeing to the hall. Immediately, though, Angel regrets leaving—her job, after all, is to help Lizette. Why is she so afraid of Brianna? She clenches her fist in frustration. In the nursery, she recaptures her resolve, but by the time she gathers Connor, the classroom is empty. Brianna is talking to Raquel in the front office.
Angel pauses outside the door, but they’re going on and on about quarterly reports, so she gives up. “Come on, baby,” she mutters. “We’re going home.”
In the parking lot, though, she wavers again. She can’t stand the thought of going home, of facing the long afternoon and evening with this important thing left undone. So instead of going to her grandmother’s car, she crosses the parking lot to the Jack in the Box. She’ll get a milkshake, let Brianna finish up her meeting with Raquel and get some distance from the school day and from the other girls’ reproachful silences, then try again. “Please call Lizette,” she’ll say. “I’m worried about her.”
She’s thrown away her cup, changed Connor’s diaper on the grubby plastic changing table in the bathroom, and is pushing through the glass door to the parking lot outside, when she sees Brianna and her father. They are leaning against Brianna’s green car, their heads bent together. Her father’s hand is on her shoulder, and whatever they’re discussing, it’s obviously more intimate than anything they have any business discussing.
Later, Amadeo will scroll through the minutes before Angel approached them, ask himself wha
t exactly they were doing at what point, and whether Angel could have seen them touching. He doesn’t think so.
It’s true that when he first rushed up to Brianna, he drew her in for a kiss and she responded and then pulled away. For a moment she kept her hand in his, and it felt good and right, but then she pulled her hand away, too. All of this—kiss, hand—lasted for no more than a couple seconds—no time at all, really, given the length of a whole life, say, or even the length of a single day. They stayed leaning against the car, not touching, while many long minutes passed—seven or eight or even nine maybe—long enough for Amadeo to apologize again, and for Brianna to say that he shouldn’t have sworn at her and none of this was a good idea, and for Amadeo to ask her to tell him honestly, to seriously just say it, that he doesn’t matter to her, and for Amadeo to consider pulling her in for another kiss, then to decide against it because he was afraid of how she stood there, the bridge of her nose white, the wisps of her hair flying around her face in the dry afternoon wind. Long enough for Brianna to repeat that this was all a bad idea, and she never should have slept with a student’s father, and for Amadeo to tell her that his mom is doing bad, really bad, and Brianna has to understand just how much he’s going through, it’s crazy, like, actually the hardest time in his life. They stood there long enough for Amadeo, panic rising, to make argument after argument in favor of a relationship—don’t they like each other? Don’t they owe it to each other to try?—and she listened to all of this, her throat and face flushed, and he touched her shoulder to make her look at him—
There was time after the kiss for all this to occur before Brianna raised her head and murmured, “Shit.”
At the time, however, Amadeo simply registers Brianna’s curse and elaborates on it, thinking only, oh shit, oh fucking shit, he’s been caught. Also Angel shouldn’t even be here—he and Brianna arranged to meet here, now, precisely because Angel should be home—and why isn’t she home? Shouldn’t she be looking after his mother?
As Angel approaches, Brianna steps away from Amadeo, putting a decorous distance between them.
Angel’s expression is still questioning, uncertain. Her eyes flick from one to the other, wary.
Amadeo is struck by how sapped his daughter looks, weighed down by the infant and by all of the infant’s accoutrements. Her hair is escaping her ponytail. Connor is also out of sorts; he glances at his grandfather before grabbing a hank of his mother’s hair and smashing it against his cheek. He drops his face against her shoulder in a gesture that looks very much like despair.
Amadeo is a father, a grandfather. He’s involved in an adult relationship. His terminally ill mother depends on him. All of these things may be true on the surface, but in the face of Angel’s exhaustion, whatever is going on between Amadeo and Brianna seems very slight and very juvenile.
Brianna plays it off like a champ; Amadeo is impressed by how swiftly she gathers herself. “Hi, Angel! You’re still here? Your dad was just telling me that you’ve been reading a lot lately. I’m glad to hear it.”
“Oh,” says Angel.
Amadeo forces a laugh, but doesn’t manage a smile. “A real bookworm,” he says, though it isn’t true. When would she have time to read?
Angel produces the car keys. “I’m going home.” Without glancing at them again, she crosses the parking lot to Yolanda’s car, which he’d failed to notice.
“See you tomorrow!” Brianna’s countenance is shiny, impenetrable, and Amadeo draws inspiration from her demeanor. He wonders if she actually doesn’t feel bad or if she’s just good at hiding it. But what is there to feel bad about, really? They’re adults, and people meet each other where they meet each other. It’s not like there’s a scandal here. It’s not like he’s Brianna’s student.
“I stopped by to see if you were still here!” calls Amadeo to his daughter. Somewhere behind his sternum, a gnarl of dread is accruing mass, a dark pearl.
Angel unlocks the car, snaps Connor into the back, slams first one door, then the other, starts the engine.
“Go,” Brianna hisses. “Take care of that.”
“Wait!” He looks to Brianna, and mouths, I’ll call you, but she presses her lips and is already turning away, shaking her head.
When he gets in the car, Amadeo stares out the windshield, his hands folded primly across his knees. Somehow he can’t remember how he usually sits. “What’s up,” he says jovially, but it’s not a question. “I can ride home with you, yeah?”
She pulls out of the lot and turns into the stream of traffic.
He doesn’t want to give Angel the opportunity to ignore him, so he scrolls through old texts, as if catching up on much-needed news. In the back Connor whimpers. Her stops are easy and smooth, her turns fluid. He can’t help but feel proud.
“You’re a good driver,” he says, but Angel doesn’t even spare him a snort.
Of course he was going to get caught. Amadeo never gets away with anything. But then, is it such a crime to be sleeping with Brianna? No one’s being hurt, except maybe Angel, who doesn’t have any actual claim on her teacher. She has no right to act all betrayed.
He ventures a glance at her righteous posture. He can’t even begin to imagine what she’s thinking. He should ask, but he can’t muster the courage.
“So,” says Angel, “you’re, what? Sleeping together?”
Amadeo is almost relieved. “It hasn’t even been that long, Angel.”
“Oh, god. You are?” From the blanched shock in her face, he understands that she didn’t, in fact, know this.
“It’s a total nothing. Like, if it was something, I’d have told you. Honest. And it’s over now.”
“Don’t even fucking talk to me. Don’t even say one word.”
Amadeo hadn’t realized how venomous Angel could be. His tongue feels fat and scummy. He makes fists so tight his nails dig into his palm.
If only he knew what exactly she was mad about: the fact of their relationship or the fact that it was a secret. “I mean, we couldn’t really tell you, because Brianna didn’t want people thinking she played favorites. You know, like, that you were her favorite because she had a thing for me.”
Angel turns flat eyes on him. “Did you hear what I said? I don’t want to hear one more word from your mouth.”
“Seriously, the best thing we had in common was you.”
Angel rolls down the window as if he’s made a stink in the car, and the wind blasts around them. She’s drowning him out.
He puts up his hands in surrender—Fine, I’ll shut up. The drive has never felt so long. They’ve left the dry, dusty valley and have climbed into thick, sheltering trees. It’s a beautiful afternoon, the chilly wind whipping up the scent of piñon, the sunlight thick and mild as a benediction.
“Come on, Angel. Don’t be like this.”
They pull into the driveway. Angel shuts off the engine but doesn’t get out. Without looking at him, she says, “Gramma’s going to die soon. If you keep treating people so bad, who’re you going to have left?” She unsnaps her seat belt. Even after she’s gathered Connor, Amadeo doesn’t move, gazing unseeing at the house, his eyes scratchy, stunned.
Class started less than an hour ago. The students are bent over their workbooks. It’s so quiet that Brianna can hear the mechanical click as the minute hand advances. Each time she glances at Angel, a geyser of anxiety jets through her, but Angel does not look up from her work.
Last night Brianna didn’t sleep; rather, she slept, but woke after half an hour, and then twisted in her sheets, heart hammering, until morning. The one thing she has in her life is her job, this job she is good at, actually good at! And now she’s jeopardized it by behaving in the most unprofessional way possible.
This morning she dressed in her red wool suit—blazer, stiff white blouse, skirt—complete with heels and dangling earrings. Her intention was to stride into the classroom girded for battle, professionally put together, impervious. But now that she’s here, she keeps tugging on he
r skirt, buttoning and unbuttoning the blazer. She excuses herself to use the restroom, but can’t bear to see her own reflection. Her thin hair pulled into that mingy, marble-sized bun makes her head look oddly small, her temples and forehead scraped and exposed.
“You going somewhere, miss?” Ysenia asks when Brianna returns. “You got a business meeting?” Her tone is merely polite, devoid of the energy and good-natured nosiness with which the girls once approached her.
“A job interview?” asks Jen.
Brianna rolls her eyes, but her face heats. “I don’t remark upon your clothes, girls. I expect you to extend me the same courtesy. I should be able to dress however I want without commentary.”
“Okay,” Ysenia says agreeably. “Well, good luck.”
Brianna removes her blazer, then sits back down at her desk. After a moment, the sounds of pencil-scratching and page-turning resume. Brianna presses her palm against her breastbone, trying to relieve the pressure there. All night, beneath her heart’s hammering, was a constant low humming ache. Because, why? Is this heartbreak? Was she in love with Amadeo?
All at once Ysenia stands, walks over to Lizette’s empty desk. She drags it to the wall, the legs leaving tracks in the short pile of the institutional carpet. “It’s too sad to look at,” she explains.
“She’s not dead or nothing, Senia,” Christy reminds her, then adds, “but it’s still sad.”
“Sad as crap,” says Trinity.
At her desk, Angel blinks wildly. The girl is just a child, a vulnerable child, and all at once Brianna is furious, because why is Angel blaming Brianna for Lizette’s poor choices? Brianna’s mouth twitches as if she’s working to dissolve some bitter lozenge. “Angel,” she says. “Are you chewing gum?”
The girls regard Brianna, then swivel to Angel.
Now Angel meets her eye. Brianna’s shoulders hunch within the boxy confines of her power suit.
“Spit out your gum,” says Brianna.
In the space Lizette once occupied, there are four divots pressed into the carpet.
Angel holds Brianna’s gaze and begins to chew, slow, determined, openmouthed.