CHAPTER
29
Friends and Monsters
I don’t know why it happened the way it did. The first person I saw when I got back to school was Camila. It wasn’t Nora who’d been my best friend and who I’d known most of my life. It was Camila.
Camila stood in front of me wearing squeaky new sneakers with spotless shoelaces. Her bright pink and green outfit was new. She had a different haircut that was much shorter. She was practically doing jumping jacks, looking like she was about to split open like a ripe watermelon. There were no A-girls behind her. I was the first person she saw too.
“I had the best vacation. I went to the beach in Corpus Christi. I got a new bathing suit. We rented a van, and my whole family went. See how I have some sun on my nose. Look. I get freckles. I brought back sand. It’s in a jar in my backpack. I’ll show you when everyone else gets here,” Camila blurted excitedly.
She was sure that no one could top that. “What’d you do?”
“I went to my dad’s funeral,” I muttered with a stiff tongue before I thought better of it. Maybe I only imagined I muttered. Maybe she didn’t hear me. Maybe my tongue was too dry to have said anything. Maybe she didn’t know what to answer. Maybe she didn’t do it on purpose, but Camila didn’t say anything. Her eyes didn’t say anything, and her mouth didn’t even twitch.
I felt like my dad didn’t exist. I didn’t exist. I kept my mouth shut after that. I just listened.
All the kids around us talked about their spring breaks and what they did for Easter. They talked about the new Sunday clothes their parents bought them. The girls were excited about their new dresses. The boys hated having been made to wear slacks and ties. Some kids whispered about cookouts with their family. Other kids bragged about long car trips to visit faraway relatives. Everyone passed around their leftover Easter candy. I took some and put it in my backpack.
Eventually Camila took over again.
“I love the beach,” she said. “Your family should go there sometime,” she said.
She continued nonstop about her trip and her new clothes. She got three new outfits even though there was only one Easter. Her sisters also bought her new sneakers. She talked and talked without asking any more questions.
Every time another girl in the group arrived, Camila started her story from the beginning and repeated every detail down to the last shoelace. She told the girls how everyone at the beach was wearing short hair, and so she had cut hers. She talked and talked until the bell rang.
Toña and Brenda showed us their new outfits as we walked to class. They both had on skirts from the teen store at the mall. When Toña asked if I got a new outfit too, I squirmed in my clothes, a little embarrassed. I knew that everyone would dress up so I’d dressed up in a nice pair of capri pants and a pattern shirt that I’d worn to church before. We hadn’t gotten new outfits, but at least my mom hadn’t made us wear black to school.
I wasn’t sure what to say, then Nora saved me. She chimed in with a story about how she saw a bunch of junior-high kids making out at the park during break. She’d been on her way downtown with her sister. That’s all they talked about until the second bell rang and class started.
I didn’t pay enough attention to know if class was the same as usual. I didn’t raise my hand when the teacher asked questions. I opened my book to whatever page it landed on. I tried to be as invisible as when I didn’t have friends. I snuck tiny marshmallow Easter eggs from my backpack, peeled their plastic wrappers, and popped them into my mouth.
When the teacher called my name for lunch, I got in line out of reflex. I was near the front. I loaded my tray with a sloppy joe and tater tots. I found a table. I sat down. The other girls were still piling things on their trays. I opened my milk carton and took a swig. I felt a little like I might throw up right then and there.
Roy found me and sat with me. He looked at me, quietly at first. He asked me to put my hand out. I did, and he put out his and dropped a pink Hershey’s Kiss onto my palm. For a few seconds he held his hand on top of mine. When I turned my head, Camila was walking towards us, but something was wrong. The blood rose to her face until she was fire red. Then she pivoted, like she was faking in the soccer field, and walked straight in the opposite direction.
Brenda and Toña followed. Camila sat two tables away and called to Nora, who stood in the middle of the cafeteria. She and I looked at each other, trying to figure out why we hadn’t all just sat together.
“I thought there was nothing going on with Roy. She’s still such a loser. This is why we can’t be friends with her,” Camila hissed loudly.
I didn’t understand. Roy had come to me. She was jealous! That was the big secret of who she liked. That was why she’d hated me so much. But Roy was just my friend.
Before I could explain or think much of the worst, Nora did something I didn’t expect. She shot back at Camila, “Stop being so bossy. You’re wrong. Even if you can’t be friends with her, I can.”
She walked to my table. Nora put down her tray and hugged me. I looked over, and Camila’s face was a double angry blister. Roy was already eating his food. Roy was clueless. He probably hadn’t even heard that Camila put a tacha-tacha on him—put an X on him and called dibs.
I gave Roy my tater tots. He and Nora sat with me until the bell rang. I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought I should feel bad, but there was no more room for it. Maybe having real friends was one hundred times better than being Camila’s clone. I didn’t tell them about Apá. I didn’t have to because the look on Nora and Roy’s faces told me they knew. Their amás had probably talked to mine. Nora and Roy didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say anything. I was more like Amá than I thought, and I was glad for the silence.
CHAPTER
30
The Other Reconciliation
Nora followed me through the maze of kids leaving the building when the bell rang. We made it outside the school fence, and walked home just the two of us for a change.
“Thanks for sticking up for me,” I told her.
“You’re welcome, but I’m no saint. I was also sticking up for myself. Those girls were never that nice to me. They aren’t even that nice to each other. Listen, there’s something I want to tell you. I tried to tell you one time at the library. You said I didn’t need to, but I do.”
“Are you going to tell me that you can’t be my friend again?” I asked. She looked at me like I’d hit her in the face with a ball.
“Don’t be mad. I guess I deserve that,” she said. “I wanted to be popular, and I was. But being part of that group was miserable. Sure, it was nice at first. They talk and talk about clothes and boys. But, that’s all they talk about. It gets boring after a while. I thought about trying to make up with you a whole bunch of times. I was scared you’d tell me to bug off, and then I’d end up all alone. I would have deserved that too, huh?”
“I was all alone.”
“I am so sorry that I wasn’t there for you before. I want us to be best friends again. Can we restart the year, and be best friends again?”
“We can’t start the year over, but I can be friends,” I said. She hugged me, and I hugged back. Then we both cried. We cried for my dad. We cried for all the things we’d lost. We cried and cried until we started laughing too. We hushed up when we got to my house. She told me she understood that my family wanted to be alone just then, but that she wouldn’t be able to sleep just thinking about how we were going to be best friends again.
Nora and I spent all our free time together after that. Camila went back to saying mean things about me when I was alone, but I wasn’t alone much. Sometimes Roy even joined us for lunch.
Nora and I walked home together on the days I didn’t have GT. I told her all the things I’d never said in front of the clones. We caught up on the whole year that way. I told her about my dad getting sick, about reading alone at the library, about finally getting to use the stuff underneath the bathroom sink, about our new
house and about doing homework with Roy.
“I think Roy likes you in that way that makes Camila want to spit,” Nora told me. It was because of the way he gave me that Hershey’s Kiss.
“No way,” I said. “He’s my friend. It’s not like he squeezed my hand or anything.”
She made me admit he was cute, and that it wouldn’t be so horrible if she were right. Nora said Roy had always been Camila’s secret crush. The Queen believed the most popular boy and girl should be together. She had even carved Roy’s name inside a kiss on the big oak tree outside the library in fifth grade.
Nora told me about her sister marrying her boyfriend and moving out. She told me about winning sweepstakes at the science fair, and about life with Camila. She told me how Camila made her feel like they’d always be better than her, even if she were part of their group. She hadn’t known them since first grade, and she didn’t get into GT. She was always the last one told things or invited places. Nora spilled it all.
She told me how Ms. Hamlin caught Camila cheating off of Brenda. Camila had cried and told Ms. Hamlin that she only did it because she was afraid her own work wasn’t good enough since her whole family was made up of smart teachers. Ms. Hamlin felt sorry for her and didn’t even tell the principal.
That’s when Nora knew for sure that Camila was a big old fraud. “I knew that being let in by that big fake wasn’t worth losing my best friend. I just didn’t know how to come back,” she told me.
“I’m sick of Camila,” I told her.
We made a pact not to talk about those girls anymore. We promised to do things because we wanted to and not just to try to measure up to Camila.
My amá let me start going over to Nora’s house for an hour or so when I didn’t have GT. She also let me invite Nora and Roy over. She said it was only for homework. Nora and I challenged each other to see who could finish their homework first and get the best grades.
One day Ms. Hamlin announced a very important test. It was so her bosses could make sure the kids in our school were doing okay. It would also decide if we were ready to move on to the next grade. It didn’t really measure how much we learned in class. It didn’t ask questions about the lessons. It was general math, reading, and writing. Every student in the state had to take it.
Nora and I raced to see who’d finish first. I won.
At the end of April, Amá reminded me that I wouldn’t be able to study with my friends after school during May because of “Mary Service.” She’d only let me miss for GT.
I told Roy and Nora. Roy didn’t mind. Nora asked to attend “Mary Service” with me. She’d never done “Mary Service” before. Her parents never made their kids go to church on account of the fact that they could never decide whose church they’d go to. Her dad was Methodist. Her mom was Catholic. Nora didn’t really know what either religion was. “I guess that makes me a Cathodist,” she said one day.
Silvia rolled her eyes at me when I walked into our room that night and told her Nora would be tagging along for “Mary Service.”
“Great,” she said, “now there will be two of you.”
I couldn’t wait.
We walked straight to the church after school. My parents had given me a veil as a present after our final offering the year before. I carried it in my backpack all day. The crown had tiny plastic pearls and plastic leaves that came alive with the sunlight. I’d been so happy when I got it. Only the girls with crisp white socks and a new dress every week had their own veils.
“It’s only for church. It’s bad luck to wear it inside the house,” Amá had warned. I remembered Amá telling me that same thing when I opened an umbrella inside the house once. I hadn’t listened to her then. Like a book, I’d read the umbrella’s parts, slid my hands over the smooth handle and each separating bone. But I listened now. I was as scared of what she said as I was of Abuelita’s declarations that God would punish me. We’d had enough bad luck and punishment.
Neither Silvia or Nora had their own veils. They sorted through the loan box when we got to the church. It was full of rosaries, hair pins, veils, and other odds and ends.
I spotted Miss Mickey. I walked over to her. “Miss Mickey,” I whispered. “Miss Mickey, does God punish people who don’t pray?”
“Mija, God wants us to pray. He wants to hear from us what is in our hearts. But God doesn’t punish.” She squeezed my shoulder. It wasn’t at all like a pinch. “Have faith, mija,” she said.
I saw Silvia and Nora walk toward me. I knelt down in one of the pews. I made the sign of the cross on myself and prayed. I concentrated really hard. I prayed for my family. One by one, all the girls knelt down. Miss Mickey passed out the flowers. I counted the flower petals and listened to the nuns’ song.
I could’ve listened to that song forever.
CHAPTER
31
Oh Brothers and Sister
Amá signed up for a class at the YWCA from six to nine at night. She was studying for a driver’s license. She rode the bus to her classes. She might not have been born in a car, but my dad had left a truck, and she was determined to drive it.
Angel Jr. wanted to learn how to drive too. He wasn’t old enough for a permit, but he said he wanted to take the red pickup and just drive and forget. He forgot alright. He forgot all about the truck as soon as Amá got him a skateboard. His friends were all into skateboards. They built a ramp in our backyard with Apá’s scrap wood. They taught themselves tricks. Their boards slapped across the pavement while I did homework, and on occasion one or another walked by nursing a big scrape.
Amá asked Silvia to babysit Clark and me three nights a week. I objected to having someone watch me. Silvia didn’t object to any of it. There was nothing else for her to do since her friends had gotten in trouble for ditching school so they could keep on hanging out at the park. A park worker had busted them and called their parents.
Most of Silvia’s friends were grounded until the end of the school year. That meant they weren’t even allowed to look at boys. Silvia wasn’t with them that day, but she claimed to be sick of boys anyway. That creep from the Dairy Queen, and later the swimming pool, had started talking to some other girl.
My mom told Silvia that she was lucky she hadn’t been out there in the park, and that she’d better not be talking to boys until she turned fifteen. Silvia just nodded her head because she’d be fifteen and in high school soon enough.
The first time Silvia was in charge of us, she acted too old for herself. She called us childish, as if she thought she was older than all of us put together. The ancient one probably didn’t even remember being eleven anymore and flying across the pavement because she had opened the door to get out of the truck before it stopped moving.
Silvia took us to “Mary Service” first thing after school. Clark went with us too. When we got home, she put on her headphones and ignored us.
She was annoyed that Angel Jr. didn’t have to do anything. He didn’t even have to watch Clark when we went to church. Angel Jr. just locked himself away with his video games or skateboard. No friends were allowed over when Amá wasn’t home. Silvia was taking it out on us.
I told Clark that we had to stick together or we wouldn’t stand a chance against Silvia.
Silvia didn’t feed us so Clark and I took a can of chicken noodle soup from the cupboard. We opened it and poured it into a plastic container that we stuck in the microwave. Clark set out two bowls before it beeped. I poured half the soup into each one. I sliced a big lime in half, and squeezed it onto our soup. We sat down and ate together. Finally, we rescued all his favorite cars from underneath Apá’s truck.
There were two important things that I remembered about the day Clark was born. The first was that Angel Jr. wanted to name him Superman and Apá suggested Clark instead. Boys!
The second was that Silvia told me Clark was the new baby and I’d no longer be able to sleep in Amá and Apá’s bed. As if to prove her right, Clark breast fed even after he could walk. It
made me hate him for a long time, but I didn’t anymore.
The second time Silvia stayed with us, she did nothing but boss us around. I tried to stay out of her way. Clark and I sat outside where even the nopales wanted to shrivel up with thirst. I looked at our backyard with the cactus, dirt, and rocks. I watched a lizard dressed in sand scurry up the side of our house where the grass had grown tall and green. The lizard spy found a place on the porch. The sun sat just right to give enough shade for the lizard’s dwarf body. I asked Clark if he wanted a mayonnaise jar to catch it. Clark said no. He liked it and didn’t want to scare it away. When Silvia told us we had to come inside and do our homework, I wished she’d just go back to ignoring us.
Clark just took it. He was a nervous little puppy around her. She must have felt bad because she offered to help him with his vocabulary. She held up his red flash cards and made him use the words in sentences.
The first word she held up was mope. “My mom mopes the house when the floor is dirty,” he told her.
“That’s MOP, silly. Amá ‘mops’ when she cleans. You ‘mope’ around the house when you don’t get what you want,” she corrected him.
He turned the color of the flashcard and giggled. Then she laughed too. By the end of the evening, she even looked like she was having fun. He gave her a hug. She hugged him back.
The third time that Silvia stayed with us, she cleaned out her closet. She piled clothes that she didn’t feel like wearing anymore onto my bed. Some of it didn’t fit her. Some of it she was just bored with.
I asked her what she was doing with it. She said I could have the clothes if I wanted them. I started hanging them on my side of the closet. It was some of my favorite stuff. I got a couple of new dresses, skirts, shirts, and a hair bandana. They weren’t new, but they were new to me. I didn’t think she wanted me to hug her, so I gave her a dumb smile. I asked her if she wanted to have some noodle soup with Clark and me. She answered okay, but she turned on the burner and cooked it on the stove top.
The Smell of Old Lady Perfume Page 9