Try to Remember

by Iris Gomez

  The strange, sad mess that had become my familia.

  Except for recoiling slightly when I got to the part about my father’s attack on Manolo, Octavio simply listened. He didn’t laugh at my descriptions of my father’s bizarre typing projects and rants against the U.S. government, and I ended my jumbled confession with the fear that people at Royal Palm High would find out about my family and look down upon me.

  “Gab,” he said. “I would never tell a soul. Honestly. But—” He hesitated. “You guys should probably tell someone before anything bad happens. I mean, I know Latinos don’t like to admit this kind of stuff, but maybe your father could get cured.”

  “He won’t go to the doctor. My uncles tried once.”

  “Can’t they, like, commit him or something?” Octavio asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, someone signs him over to the State. Like your mom.”

  “You mean to an insane asylum?”

  “I don’t think they’re like that anymore. Are they?”

  I was horrified at the thought of having my father institutionalized. As bad as he was, how could we send him off to one of those dungeons? “Octavio, we could never do that. My mother would kill me for even suggesting it.”

  After going at it for a while, I convinced Octavio that there was nothing for me to do but wait out my time until I could figure out a legitimate reason, besides getting married, to leave home.

  “But that might be a long way off,” he said.

  “I don’t know. If I got desperate, my father’s lawyer told me about this thing once, emancipation.”

  Octavio raised his eyebrows. “Come on, Gabi. How would you support yourself?”

  “You’re right,” I admitted, sighing.

  Lockers began to rattle around us, and Octavio and I stood up.

  We parted ways, but as I walked down the hall an unusual, almost euphoric calm seemed to carry me along. Telling Octavio had placed my family in some oddly suspended state of being; as if, for a moment, I might just be free.

  Octavio kept his word too. He didn’t tell anyone about his expulsion from the Garden of the de la Paz, as he began to call it when we were alone. Nor did he tire of hearing cuentos about my father’s obsessions, such as the mortgage records Mami hid to keep him from sending the bank inappropriate letters. Ironically, my father had provided me with someone to confide in about him—and I was especially grateful now that I was unsure whether the sleeping pills could be trusted.

  Octavio encouraged me to confide in Fátima too. “She’s your best friend, isn’t she?” he asked.

  “Yeah, kind of. But I can’t.” It was hard to explain exactly what made me so reluctant, but Fátima’s family seemed sort of perfect, helping one another out in ways you could be proud of. And I’d already lost so many people—like Lydia, the junior high gang, and Olguita… I didn’t have the strength to tell Fátima my truth yet.

  [ EIGHTEEN ]

  THE OCTAVIO BLOW-UP left me anxious that my father might, without warning, throw everything out of equilibrium. With Mami overwhelmed by her secret job, I easily persuaded her to give him whole sleeping pills, which I suspected might be more potent than diluting the ground half-pill in a drink. Mami fooled him that the new “vitamins” were from my aunt. The only problem was, my father refused his “vitamin” once, saying that his egg and orange juice tonic made him healthy enough. Mami had no choice but to let it go, sighing. “As long as he takes them most of the time,” she said to me in private.

  I began to reflect, as the holidays approached, that if worse came to worst, I could always go to that cozy-looking Dominican convent in the Gables. The convent wasn’t such a bad prospect, I thought nostalgically, recalling my childhood aspirations. The legal emancipation alternative, as Octavio had exposed, was pretty ill-formed, even if I overcame my Latina training that girls didn’t leave home that way.

  I was attending church with Fátima’s family often nowadays, undoubtedly the reason I overheard Mami telling Tía Rita that Fátima was a good influence on me. What Mami didn’t know was that Pablo was the one in need of good influences. In junior high, he’d expanded his extracurricular hobbies to include not only glue and pot but also, queerly enough, the Wite-Out in ample supply at our house. Mami poked around, almost instinctively, for evidence of wrongdoing in his room but had no clue what to look for. Once, after she’d left, he imitated her peering through an imaginary spy glass into his laundry hamper. I had to giggle, and he joined in.

  “Crack yourselves right up, huh,” said Manolo, placing a pillow over his face.

  “The old lady’s getting as crazy as the old man,” Pablo quipped back.

  “Yeah, but you better clean out the pockets before throwing anything in your hamper,” I advised.

  Manolo reached for a pair of jeans on the floor and checked them.

  My eyes widened. “You have stuff too?”

  “Relax. I don’t do Wite-Out or that glue shit.” He tossed his pants back.

  Pablo laughed.

  “You’re fucking yourself up,” Manolo warned.

  “I don’t feel fucked up,” Pablo said, laughing again.

  “Well, you’ll be going to a nice village school in La Güajira when you get yourself deported,” I informed him sardonically. “All by yourself.”

  Manolo looked up to see if I was serious. “Nobody’s gonna bust us, Gab.”

  Sighing with resignation, I left. Maybe he was right. Look at those hippie kids who smoked dope in the Royal Palm parking lot. No one seemed to get caught. Maybe you just had to be smart about it. Anyway, “illegal” drugs—at least pot—weren’t as bad as they were made out to be; nothing extraordinary had happened to me when I’d tried the joint with Pablo, who seemed to smoke without consequence. The only drug that really altered him—turning him hyper and sometimes hysterical—was the glue, which wasn’t even illegal. By contrast, the pills Tía Rita obtained from Dr. Sanabria were illegal, according to a “diverted pharmaceuticals” lecture in my Health Education class. Yet all they did was calm my father down. It was hard to know what to think about drugs anymore, or about legality. Besides, the double standard applied to us immigrants in this country had left me with more than a few doubts about The Law.

  My father was fully Dalmaned at Tío Victor’s on the 31st, and that brought everyone else the peace of the New Year. I eavesdropped on Mami’s conversation with Tía Rita about my father’s grosería toward Octavio, a story that led Tía Rita to toss out the foolhardy doctor notion again. Mami responded by trying to justify my father’s aggressive fundamentalism as no more than concern for his daughter’s morals. Tía Rita rose to get another drink.

  The following morning, I accompanied Fátima’s temperate family to New Year’s Day Mass. The priest’s sermon on the Holy Family’s plight to save the baby from persecution explored the meaning of refuge. His hopeful words filled me with gratitude that at least the Holy Family had made it safely into Egypt.

  That night, my own family enjoyed a relatively quiet meal together. When Mami brought out a bottle of cidra, Pablo released a bizarre whoop, as if the cider were a gift from the gods. Manolo grinned stupidly and I realized that he was stoned too. Then my father gave us his beatific calmante smile and I was dumbstruck: Was everyone in my family on drugs?

  “Toma, mi’ja,” Mami said, carefully pouring my serving.

  No, my mother certainly wasn’t high.

  When the holiday break ended and I returned to school, Amy invited me to her brother’s bar mitzvah. “Something to do with the Old Testament,” Fátima explained to me afterward. The Adam and Eve story was the one that stuck out in my mind the most, probably because of Octavio’s wisecracks about his “expulsion from the garden,” but reminders of a naked Eve disobeying God were clearly not likely to go over well with Mami. Fortunately, she so admired the ivory invitation I showed her that she decided Amy’s family must be gente decente and that I should attend.

  I went to the gringo
mall that weekend with Fátima, who bought herself a red print dress before we picked up Amy and headed back to Fátima’s house. I asked Amy about her own bar mitzvah, and she explained that girls had a bat mitzvah, though she hadn’t had one and they weren’t common. “I guess it could be sexist,” she added, shrugging as if it didn’t matter.

  “We don’t have quinceañeras for boys either,” Fátima pointed out.

  “So Latin girls become women,” I threw in, “and Jewish boys become men.” I suspected Lara would have something interesting to say about this particular gender difference.

  Amy scrunched up her face. “It’s different. Boys come into the faith, not just their manhood. But Jewish women carry the faith. Like, if I married a non-Jew, my kids would be Jewish. But if my brother did it, his wife would have to convert. Maybe it’s reverse sexism.”

  “In traditional quinceañeras, you’re supposed to go to church first,” I observed neutrally, before Amy went on. But suddenly it seemed to me that she and I had more in common, despite her wealth, than I did with those other American girls at school who seemed like me in not having much money but who weren’t Latin or Jewish. Amy was connected to her gente—her people. Did those hippie girls even have a people?

  Fátima’s sister Rosalía insisted on giving me a practically new dress that she said didn’t fit her anymore. It was ivory, a crushed-velvet with tiny gold flecks and a white lace collar. At everyone’s insistence, I tried it on.

  “You look sooo adorable,” Amy cooed.

  The dark-eyed girl in the mirror reminded me of my mother in some old-fashioned, painted photograph from Colombia days.

  “It shows off your figure better than mine,” Rosalía admitted, studying me. “Why do you wear baggy clothes so much, Gabi?”

  “To cover my hips,” I replied reasonably.

  “You don’t have to worry in that department,” she retorted, eyeing Amy more critically.

  “Welcome to Bimbolandia,” Fátima quipped airily, grinning.

  I laughed.

  “What are you gonna do with that hair?” Mirén asked.

  “What do you think?” I responded democratically, as everyone inspected the thick brown locks that only gravity’s weak force kept hanging down my back.

  “Tie it down. Use a ribbon,” advised Mirén. “But gel it so you’ll look dressed up.”

  Gabriela Cinderella, I mocked myself. What I could do with a real fairy godmother!

  At the bar mitzvah, Fátima, Octavio, and I sat together watching Amy’s little brother, who was spruced up like a good do-bee in a suit. Something about his bearing reminded me of Manolo, forever trying to compensate for his smallness by acting manly.

  Octavio drove Fátima and me to the party afterward, and Amy introduced us to her cousin David. Blond streaks shone in the shaggy hair that fell over his hazel eyes. He was good-looking, despite a twine he wore in lieu of a tie around his neck. Amy explained that he’d interrupted his first year of college and was working at a Coral Gables daycare center.

  When the Temptations came on, I danced with Octavio and Fátima until it became uncomfortable in the three-inch “little heels” she’d loaned me. I strolled over to a glass-domed enclosure where Kaplan relatives were admiring flowers.

  David came up with a beer in hand. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “These plants grow all over,” I replied. “It’s like putting a giant jar over your yard and calling it a grass collection.”

  He laughed, showing his dimples. “Yeah, some people don’t figure things out very well.”

  “Where do you go to college?” I asked.

  “I’m taking time off. To clear my head,” he added, then glanced at the glass doors. “Wanna check out the outside gardens?”

  It was 90 degrees out, but I said okay.

  David led us to a hammock situated where the path split. The shady island was thick with hardwoods, and we sat on a bench to inspect the signs. Sable Palm. Mahogany. Strangler Fig.

  “This is like the Everglades,” he observed. “You hang out there?”

  “Not really. When we first moved here, we went to the airboat rides. You know those?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s more like an amusement park. Everything around the village is pretty much Everglades though. Grass. Big birds.” Should I tell him about the birds? I considered self-consciously.

  “How long have you lived here?” he asked.

  “Since I was thirteen.”

  “A long time, huh?”

  “I’m seventeen,” I stated defiantly, studying the Strangler Fig.

  “Oh yeah?” He squinted out of one eye and cracked his dimpled smile. “I’m getting another beer. Want one?”

  “No thanks. But maybe we should go back to the air-conditioning,” I suggested.

  “What if I bring you a cold drink?”

  “Okay.”

  When he returned, he was balancing a plastic drink cup between two beer cans. “Saved myself a trip,” he said sheepishly. As I took the cup, he immediately downed one beer while standing and threw that can in the trash.

  I sipped my soda and watched with keen curiosity.

  “Okay,” he said, back on the bench. “Time to party.” He pushed his wild hair behind one ear, popped the new can open, and turned toward me. “So what’s the deal? You go to school with Amy?”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to add. “Where did you used to go?”

  “NYU. I’m thinking of living on a kibbutz now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s like a community, kind of a socialist thing. In Israel. It’s pretty cool. You never heard of it?”

  When I shook my head, David explained about the kibbutzim movement. How people owned land in common and raised their children collectively. You could live on one that farmed or one that made or fixed things.

  “You know about farming and stuff?” I asked, surprised.

  He laughed and finished the beer. “No way. I’m a tabula rasa. I don’t know anything.”

  “So can anybody go live there? Like—me?”

  “You probably have to be Jewish. Are you Cuban?”

  I shook my head. “Colombian.”

  “Oh yeah! García Márquez, right?” He nodded at me with interest. “Great book! My Spanish professor made us read that.” He reached into his pocket. “You get stoned?”

  I was taken aback. Why did he think I did? Maybe it was my Medusa hair that gave him the impression. I hadn’t followed Mirén’s gelling and tying advice.

  “There’s nobody around,” he added.

  Despite the disconcerting drug offer, I was flattered that this college guy wanted to hang out with me, but I’d started to feel uneasy about spending all that time with him. “Fátima and those guys will be looking for me,” I said and stood up to leave. “I’d better go in.”

  David looked up, suddenly less confident.

  “I’m sorry,” I added.

  “No problema,” he answered, giving me a peace sign.

  I left him staring into the trees with one hand in his pocket. Eyes a little sorry, I thought, inexplicably.

  Inside the dome, I found Fátima. She raised a neatly plucked eyebrow, then dragged me to one side. “What were you doing with that guy? Amy says he almost got kicked out of college.”

  “Really? We discussed history,” I said. “He’s very informative.”

  A few evenings later, Fátima’s family dropped us off at the Gables Cinema to meet Octavio and Amy, who showed up, lo and behold, with her cousin David. He was wearing a baby blue T-shirt and his arms were really tan. He looked cuter than in that dark suit he’d worn to the bar mitzvah, and I felt tacky in a snug Cartagena de Indias T-shirt my relatives had sent me.

  “Aren’t you coming?” I asked him casually, after Amy got out of his van.

  “Nah, not my thing.”

  The comedy turned out to be about a bunch of guys who wanted to have sex. Even without my mad mo
ral custodian around, I didn’t find it too funny.

  At the pizza place where Fátima and I waited afterward for her parents, David reappeared to pick up Amy. When Octavio started mimicking characters in the movie, David smiled playfully and sat down. Something about the way his eyes grazed over me made me feel very self-conscious, and I grew quiet. After a while, I excused myself and went to the bathroom.

  When I came out, David, who was taller than I’d realized, was leaning against the wall facing me. “Hey,” he called softly.

  “Hi.” I nervously pushed my hair behind my ears.

  “So I have to drop Amy off,” he said. “How ’bout a little party afterward?” He gave me a dimpled, irresistible half-smile.

  Party with me? My heart skipped, but in a good way for once. “The thing is,” I said hesitantly, “I’m not really allowed to go out. Except sort of like this.” I waved toward where the others were sitting.

  “What about during daylight?” he asked, looking amused. “Like, could you skip out Saturday?”

  What I wanted to skip out with was a cool, sophisticated answer—but all I could say was, “Sure, I guess so.”

  “We could check out a park or something,” he added.

  I flashed immediately on Tuttle, where Pablo hung out with his little girlfriends. “There’s this place in my neighborhood,” I offered. “It’s got jasmine trees and stuff.”

  “Cool.” He grinned. “How do we get there?”

  Since I couldn’t very well tell him where I lived, I had to give roundabout directions from the library and suggested we meet by the swings. I pretended my phone was disconnected, and he retrieved a crumpled daycare form from his pocket and scribbled down the phone number for his aunt’s house in the Gables, where he was staying.