“But sometimes I get scared. I think of the bad things that could happen. So I tell myself, Tú puedes—You can do it.”
“Tú puedes,” I repeated, liking the sound of it. I wanted it to be true. “Tú puedes.”
“Thank you, Joe,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Hey, I never asked you. Did Manuel like the shorts you gave him?”
“Oh, yes! He doesn’t put them on for working, so you do not see him in them. But he wears them all the other times. They are nice, Joe. Very cool!” she said, turning to me and laughing.
I laughed, too, and suddenly our hands were touching and our faces were so close they were almost touching. Her breath was warm and she smelled of something clean and lemony, and before I knew it, my lips were on her lips and we were kissing. I didn’t know I was going to do it. I didn’t think I knew how to do it, but we were kissing. Then, just as suddenly, it was over. We didn’t say anything; we just looked at each other. Her eyes were wide and searching in the darkness.
The door of one of the trailers opened, sending a shaft of light across the grass.
“Luisa?”
It was Manuel.
“Luisa!” he called. “¿Dónde estás?”
“Estoy aquí,” she answered. Then to me she whispered, “I’d better go.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “Hasta mañana. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I whispered, squeezing back. “Hasta mañana.”
“I’m coming, Manuel,” she said, rising to her feet. I stood up, too. As she crossed the yard, she said, “I was talking to Joe.”
I stepped out of the shadows and called hello. Manuel peered in my direction for a moment, then raised his hand in a wave. I watched as they talked for a minute before going inside.
When I stepped up onto our porch, the phone was ringing. It was my parents.
“Yes,” I told them, “everything here is fine.”
I could feel a grin that seemed to be permanently plastered on my face. “Everything’s going great.”
22
It was close to ten o’clock, and I was about to brush my teeth and hit the sack when I heard a horn honking out in the driveway. I went to the window and looked out, but all I could see was the taillights of a car heading up our driveway toward the barns and trailers. I raced down the stairs and out the door, wondering what the heck was going on.
I ran after the car and watched, stunned, as it careened around the circle out in front of the crew’s trailers. In a scene that seemed familiar and unreal at the same time, I heard a faint pop-pop-pop, followed by laughter and shouted words I couldn’t quite make out. The car drove twice around the circle, then headed back down the drive toward me. A light came on in front of Manuel’s trailer, and I was able to see the car distinctly. It wasn’t one of the two vehicles from the previous late-night joyride. It was a red SUV.
I stood in the middle of the drive as the car headed toward me. At the last minute, I had to jump out of the way as it skidded to a stop near me. Through the passenger side window I saw Randy, grinning with excitement. Beyond him, in the driver’s seat, sat Tony.
“Hey, José,” said Randy. “¿Qué pasa?”
I stared at his smug, smiling face, and I felt so furious and so—so flabbergasted I could barely speak. At last I managed to say, “What are you doing here?”
“We were out cruising around,” he answered. “So we thought we’d come by and give you and your amigos a little thrill.”
“What were those explosions?” I asked tightly.
Tony laughed. “Explosions? Listen to him.” He laughed again.
“Chill out, José,” said Randy, laughing along with Tony. “Those were just some little firecrackers left over from the Fourth.” He paused, looking at my face. “Come on, man, would you relax? You said your parents were going away, so we were just messing around. It was a joke.”
I heard footsteps approaching, crunching on the small stones of the drive. It was Manuel. He stopped a few feet away, looking at us with an expression that seemed both wary and challenging. “These are your friends?” he asked, in a low voice.
I turned from him to Randy and back to Manuel again. His question hung in the air, waiting to be answered. I thought about it. Then I stared right into Randy’s face and gave my answer. “No.”
Randy looked surprised for a second. Then he smiled scornfully and shook his head. In a pitying voice he said, “You are such a loser.”
I kept my eyes on him, and continued speaking to Manuel. “They were just leaving,” I said. “And they won’t be back.”
Tony laughed, gunned the engine, and pulled away, spewing gravel. Randy turned back and called out the window, “Hasta la vista, loser.”
They made a right onto the county road, and I watched the car until its taillights disappeared. I turned back to Manuel, and neither of us spoke for a minute. Then I gestured toward the trailers and said, “Is everybody okay?”
He shrugged and nodded.
“No damage?” I asked.
He shook his head and looked away, and I wished I’d asked the question differently. Maybe no property had been broken or smashed, but we both knew there was more than one kind of damage people like Randy and Tony could cause. I wanted to explain to Manuel about Randy, about how for a long time I’d considered him my friend without really thinking about why. But Manuel was already turning to leave.
I stood there until he reached the trailer and the light went out. I remained for a long time, thinking.
Unless Randy pushed it, I wasn’t likely to run into him for the rest of the summer. I knew he could make my life difficult when we went back to school, and, knowing Randy, he probably would. But that wasn’t what was bothering me.
What had just happened was partly my fault. If I hadn’t had to go bragging about my parents leaving me home alone, Tony and Randy would never have come. All the happiness I’d felt after being with Luisa had drained away. Every time we came closer together, it seemed that something happened to push us apart again. Sometimes I felt as if the gulf between Luisa and me was as wide as the Rio Grande and just as treacherous to cross.
23
I spent a lot of the night tossing and turning and planning what to say to the crew about Randy and Tony. As the “boss,” I felt I owed them some kind of explanation or reassurance. It was easy to picture Dad taking charge and saying just the right thing, but I had trouble imagining myself doing the same.
I could feel the crew’s eyes on me when I walked out to meet them at the truck the next morning. Some of the guys looked down when I got closer, but Luisa gazed straight at me, waiting.
“Is everybody okay?” I asked first.
There were nods and murmurs of assent.
“Good. About those guys last night,” I began. “I know them from school. They’re jerks. They thought it would be a big joke to drive through here and give us a scare. I don’t think they’ll try it again, but if they do, I’ll call the police.”
At the mention of police, Luisa’s eyes widened in alarm. “No, Joe,” she said. “No police.”
“I meant I’d call them to report Randy and Tony,” I explained quickly.
“I know what you meant, Joe,” she answered. “But is better not to have the attention of the police now. You see?”
Her eyes implored me to understand, and I did. Luisa, Rafael, and Frank had reason to be leery of the law. It was part of being illegal aliens, this need to remain in the shadows, to be invisible even as they worked in plain sight. Instead of comforting Luisa, I’d made things worse.
“Okay,” I said. “No police, then.”
Luisa smiled. “Manuel said you told those boys to stay away.”
I nodded cautiously.
“So we will hope they do as you say,” she said with a little shrug. “And that the others will not come back, either.”
Everybody murmured in agreement, and began to climb into the truck.
“Okay, then,” I said
, grinning with relief. “Let’s go to work.”
We began weeding the big cabbage field in the far west corner of the farm. It was bordered on one end by the county road that led to the next town over. On both sides were cornfields. One was ours and the other belonged to Tom Matthews. At the back edge of the cabbage field was a big stand of woods, which was also our property.
That morning we started at the road, and by late afternoon we had almost reached the woods. We were going to finish the field by quitting time. Now that we’d talked about it in the light of day, Randy and Tony’s visit seemed more idiotic than frightening. Tomorrow was Sunday, and nobody was planning to work. Everybody was in a good mood. Even Manuel seemed to have lightened up that afternoon. At least he wasn’t giving me any dirty looks.
As for me, I had begun to feel pretty terrific again. There was no way to talk privately to Luisa with all the guys around, but I managed to stay close enough to her as we moved down the rows so that I could catch her eye, smile, or pull a funny face to make her laugh.
I was at the end of a row, looking forward to getting a drink of water from the truck. Thinking Luisa might be thirsty, too, I glanced over to the next row where, a minute before, Luisa had been hoeing alongside me. She stood, rigid and unmoving. I was suddenly reminded of the fawn that she had discovered hiding in the hedgerow, its instinct telling it to freeze when danger approached and let its natural camouflage protect it. But Luisa, in her red baseball hat and yellow T-shirt, hardly blended into our surroundings.
The hoe fell from her hand to the ground. Even as I turned in the direction she was looking, I knew what I would see. Parked on the county road were a white car and a white van, both bearing the green insignia of the border patrol. Entering the field and walking quickly toward us were four uniformed men.
For a time that seemed much longer but was surely only a few seconds, the whole world was absolutely still and silent. Then the crew began yelling in Spanish and, before I could quite take in what was happening, Luisa, Rafael, and Frank were off and running into the woods.
I looked back at the officers, who were also running now. They’d only just started into the field, and were still maybe a quarter of a mile away. But they were coming fast, drawing their pistols as they ran.
“No!” I shouted.
When I turned to the woods again to warn Luisa and the others, they were gone.
Out on the road, the white van was pulling away. Some of the officers must have stayed behind and were no doubt heading around the big country block, which was a mile and a half to two miles on each side, hoping to intercept the runaways on the far side of the woods.
Manuel, Gilberto, Carlos, Jorge, David, Antonio, and I stood where we were, helplessly waiting. Soon the men approached, panting and perspiring.
“Where are they going?” one of them called gruffly. It was the same man who had done the talking before. His face was red and very angry looking, and he was speaking to me. One other guy stayed with him, and the other two ran into the woods.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“You’d better tell us, if you know,” he warned.
“I don’t know,” I said again, which was the truth. But what if I had known? Why should I tell him? Last time he had told me that none of this was my business.
“It’s a mistake for them to run, you know,” he said. “We’ll find them, and it will go worse for them.” He shook his head with frustration. “We gave them a chance. They should have taken it.”
“Why don’t you just leave them alone?” I burst out. “They’re not hurting anybody, they’re—” I was shouting now, and my voice was cracking and I was on the verge of tears, but I didn’t care. “They’re hoeing cabbage, that’s all.”
There was a silence. Then the man let out a big sigh, looked at the other officer, and shook his head. To me he said, “We don’t make the rules, kid. We’re just doing our jobs.”
Then he turned to Antonio, probably assuming that he was the crew boss because he was the oldest. “Where are they going?”
Antonio shrugged. “No sé.”
“Yo no sé,” said each of the others.
“Nobody knows nothin’, is that right?” The officer put his pistol back in the holster and placed his hands on his hips. None of us spoke for a minute or two, as we all watched the two officers who had gone into the woods come back out and head our way.
“Gone,” one of them reported in a flat voice.
The guy who seemed to be in charge looked annoyed. “All right,” he said disgustedly. “Let’s go.” He reached into his pocket and handed me a card. “Call that number if they show up, or if you see them or hear anything, understand?”
I nodded without looking at him. Yes, I understood. That didn’t mean I’d agreed to do it.
They turned and walked back across the field, and the crew and I stood without speaking until they reached the van and climbed in. The van pulled away, and disappeared.
The whole thing seemed utterly unreal. The sun continued to beat down, making the long rows of cabbage shimmer with light and heat. The smells of the chopped weeds and the freshly turned earth, the sounds of the crows calling and the breeze sighing from the trees were just the same. Yet everything was different. Luisa was gone. Rafael and Frank were gone. There had been ten of us, and now there were seven.
“What should we do?” I said, and my voice sounded high and scared. I tried to make myself calm down. But I had so many questions. “Where did they go? Do you know? What do we do now?”
Manuel looked me straight in the face for a long moment. His dark eyes were piercing. I had the feeling he was sizing me up, deciding whether or not he could trust me. Finally he answered. “Right now, we do nothing.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hand to stop me.
“They will be watching.”
I swallowed.
“We act like always. Everything normal, comprende?” Manuel’s fierce gaze swept us all. “We finish here with the cabbage. We go back like always, we eat. Carlos and Jorge, you shoot the basketball, we watch the television.”
I couldn’t believe this. What about Luisa? I wanted to scream. Where is she? What is she going to do?
“We wait,” said Manuel.
“Until when?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Do you want to help Luisa?” Manuel asked quietly.
“Yes!” I shouted.
“Then do nothing. Until I tell you. Is better this way, comprende?”
I felt like yelling, I don’t understand any of this! Instead, I tried to think. After a moment I said, “But I can’t do nothing. I’ve got to tell Uncle Bud or somebody what’s going on. He’ll know what to do. He can help.”
“No.” Manuel’s voice was very soft now, very firm. “Your uncle Bud, if he knows something, he must tell the migra. Just like you are supposed to do. Is better if you don’t know. Is better if you don’t tell him or anybody.”
But this was too big to keep secret. “I have to call my dad and tell him,” I said. “I have to.”
“What can he do?” Manuel asked forcefully.
“He—” I paused, then admitted, “I don’t know.”
“Please, Joe.” There was a desperation in Manuel’s voice I had never heard before. “Help us. Just wait. I am begging you.”
I looked back at Manuel, at the naked pleading in his face. “All right,” I heard myself say. “I’ll wait.”
It was the longest afternoon of my life, far longer than the first days I’d spent hoeing cabbage or picking strawberries. Mental torment, I was discovering, was worse than physical pain. One minute I was filled with fear for Luisa and the others. Where were they? Had they already been captured and taken to jail? Or were they hiding in the woods, or in the high corn, or in an irrigation ditch somewhere? Then I’d be assailed by doubt. Shouldn’t I be doing something? But what? There was so much I didn’t understand.
I told myself that Manuel knew a lot more about what was
happening than I did. He was Luisa’s cousin, the person who had promised her father he would take care of her. I had to assume he knew what was best for her, and he was asking me to wait, to do nothing, for Luisa’s sake. He was crew boss, the person Dad and Mom trusted to watch over the farm. I’d have to trust him, too. More important, I had to trust the little voice inside me that said that, no matter what, helping Luisa was what I had to do.
I know we finished hoeing the field, although I don’t really remember doing it. As we drove back to the barn, I worried that one of my uncles would already be there and would see that some of the crew were missing, or that the white van would be waiting in the driveway. But nothing seemed at all out of the ordinary.
When we got out of the truck, there was an awkward moment when we all stood looking at one another, not knowing what to do. Manuel spoke softly to Jorge, Carlos, David, Gilberto, and Antonio. “We go home, eat dinner, act like always.”
Then he turned to me. “You, also, Joe. Act normal, like nothing is wrong.”
“Okay,” I said, “but—”
“Don’t come over to the trailer or call. Just wait,” he said.
“Until when?”
“Until dark.”
24
“Just wait.” It sounded so simple. But waiting and not doing anything except trying to act “normal” was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
To my surprise, I fooled everyone. Mom usually had radar for anything unusual that was going on. When she called that evening, I kept expecting her to say, “Joe? What’s wrong? You sound funny.” But she didn’t seem to notice that I was acting odd, if I was. She told me all about what was going on with the relatives, and I said hello to Meg, LuAnn, and Grandma and Grandpa Olmstead. Then Dad got on and asked me how things were going.
I didn’t see any point in mentioning the incident with Randy and Tony. It seemed to have taken place a long time ago. What I really wanted to do was blurt out everything that had happened that afternoon and have Dad take over. But I remembered my promise to Manuel. I remembered, too, that this was my chance to prove to Dad—What exactly was I proving? That I could be trusted to do the right thing? Or that I could make a big, fat mess? If only I knew.
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