It’s funny to think of Aracely as a trendsetter, someone breaking tradition. “Do you think a person could make a good living from the herbs?” I ask. “Selling them at the market, I mean?”
Nerick’s mom laughs. “Who here make good living? Aracely will survive. Like everybody.”
But will she be happy? I want to ask. And are you happy? Do you regret getting married now that your husband’s gone and left you?
“Hola!” When Nerick sticks his head into the cookshack, I’m perched on the little wooden chair his sister brought me, my eyes watering from the woodsmoke of the cookfire—so much for looking stylish—but he doesn’t seem to notice my watery eyes or my clothes, for that matter. “Did you come to see about Wilkens? He’s back at work, you know.”
“Yes, your mother was telling me. That’s fantastic!” I smile, but the smoke in my eyes is really getting to me now. I stand up and say I should go.
Nerick’s mother kisses me on both cheeks again. “Thank you for coming.” Her eyes hold mine, and I resist the urge to squirm. I don’t feel like I deserve such a welcome when I should have been a better friend to Nerick all along and when I’ve only come now to tell him the bike lessons are over.
He walks with me to the road. I only have a few seconds left to do what I came here for in the first place, and I don’t know how.
“You haven’t been coming to the market on Saturdays,” Nerick says before I can get a word out, and I don’t know what to say. Two Saturdays have passed since he first asked about the market. I thought he’d let it go and mind his own business, but I guess not. I’m about to make my usual excuse about being busy, but his eyes meet mine with the same unwavering look his mother has. I can’t lie to him.
“You don’t talk about Aracely either,” he says. “Did you fight?”
I chew on my cheek. I know better than to answer his question, even if I can’t see anyone else around. The last thing my ruined friendship needs now is a stream of gossip trailing behind it. But this is Nerick, the closest thing I have to a friend right now. I’m sick of talking to myself. I nod, and I expect him to murmur and say it’s a shame. I’ll shrug, find a way to tell him what my parents have decided about the bikes, then head up the hill for supper.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
I swallow hard. That is exactly what my grandmother would say. She would motion to the big armchair in her living room, and I would flop down into it and tell her all my problems, and when I was finished, she’d ask a single question that would get me talking all over again, usually solving at least some of the problems I’d sat down with in the first place.
Suddenly I miss Grandma so much that I’ve got tears in my eyes. I fake a coughing fit so I’ll have some excuse for them, and I’m sure he sees through it, but he doesn’t say anything, just asks if I have time to sit by the river for a bit.
I know I shouldn’t. Here, girls my age don’t go places with guys, and if anyone sees us, the news will travel fast enough to put instant messaging to shame. I’ll go from marimacho to slut in record time.
Screw them, I think. Nerick is the only person in this whole country who cares how I feel about anything. Why shouldn’t I talk to him?
We turn onto the same small dirt path that Aracely and I went down two weeks ago. I half expect to find her here, yanking up clumps of berro, glaring at me with more anger in her eyes than I’d ever imagined.
At the river’s edge, Nerick sits down on a rock and pokes a stick at the mud below. “What happened?”
I tell him my parents offered to bring her to Canada to study and she decided against it. “I don’t know why. I think I told her too much about how Canada is different from here, and it scared her.” (I don’t mention the marriage. Aracely wanted it to be a secret, and no one’s going to hear it from my mouth, even if all the village gossips are already speculating.)
He drops his stick down into the mud and wraps his arms around his tucked-up knees. “Aracely doesn’t scare so easily, you know. Think of her selling herbs at the market and going against her abuela like that. I wouldn’t want to go against her abuela.”
I laugh. Abuela is a pretty fierce person. She only comes up to my shoulder, but one look from her stops most people in their tracks. Aracely and I have spent a lot of time trying to win her hugs and avoid those freezing looks. I wonder how Aracely is braving those looks now.
“So you don’t think Aracely’s too scared to come to Canada?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Nerick says. “Maybe she’s more afraid of what she’d be leaving behind than what she’d be going to. If she went, she’d never get to see her little sisters and brother grow up. She’d miss her cousin’s kids. She wouldn’t be with her abuela when she passes on. Not everyone wants to miss out on those things.” His voice is bitter as he says the last part, and I bet he’s thinking of his dad.
He’s never talked to me about his father, and if we’d been behind the school, working on the bikes, or even in his front yard, I might have let the comment slide, but down here at the river, it’s kind of echoing between us. “I’m sorry about your dad, Nerick.”
He shrugs. “That’s just the way it is.”
I nod and don’t know what else to say. Maybe there is nothing else to say.
He jumps off the rock and squelches across the mud to a little patch of dry ground. He picks up a few stones and tosses them into the current one at a time. “Decent people don’t leave family behind like they’re ashamed of where they come from.”
As he talks, I realize he’ll never forgive anyone who leaves this place. For him, the person who leaves is just as much a traitor as his father is.
“She’ll find a way to make it here, Dian, just like I will.” He shoots me a grin. “Someday when I’m a rich bike mechanic, I’ll buy my family some land and we’ll build a big house, and you’ll be welcome to visit anytime.”
I feel like he’s grabbed my insides and twisted them. I look down at my hands. “Nerick, about the bikes—we can’t work on them behind the clinic anymore.” I tell him what my parents said and how I’ve been trying to think of another place but can’t come up with one.
“I could come at night,” he says, “after everyone’s gone home.”
Why didn’t I think of that? Maybe because no one goes anywhere at night. Not usually anyway. Guys might go to the colmado to play dominoes and drink rum, but only if they live close by. No one would consider walking all the way up the hill at night if they lived at the bottom of it. Some people still talk about the ciguapa, a woman whose feet point backward and who roams the countryside after dark to lure people stupid enough to be out at night.
If Nerick comes in the evenings, my parents might be in the room while we work on the bikes. I’ll feel awkward, maybe even tongue-tied, and they’ll hear every word we say.
“What about the ciguapa?” I ask.
He smirks at me in a way that says he doesn’t believe in that stuff. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Ten
On Sunday mornings, my parents and I tidy the clinic while upbeat, cheery church songs drift over from across the road. Cucubano doesn’t have a church or even a priest who comes regularly, but on Sunday mornings people gather in the warehouse across from the clinic, push the piles of coffee sacks off to the side and set up a few wooden benches and student desks brought over from the school. A village elder decides which songs they’ll sing, and they sing all morning.
We never go. Everyone’s been inviting us for years, especially since the nearest priest is the one who invited us here. My parents have pointed out that we aren’t Catholic, though, so everyone assumes we’re Evangelical—the only other religion here that most people have heard of—and they leave us alone.
The truth is that my parents don’t believe in God, but announcing that here would be like saying
they dance with the Devil every night.
I’m not sure what I believe. I hate the idea of a god who lets so many people suffer, but then again, sometimes I think believing in God would be a relief. (I just failed my math test? Oh, it must be the will of God. My bike got stolen? Hmm. I guess God wanted me to have a different one.) I told this to Aracely once, and she laughed and said it doesn’t work that way. She said it’s more like knowing that your parents love you and trusting them to always make the best decisions for you. I told her she must trust her parents more than I trust mine, and she was horrified until I pretended that I was joking.
She invited me to church in the warehouse the next Sunday, and I went because I was curious and because I loved the happy music. The music was so cheery that I couldn’t help tapping my toes. I didn’t know the lyrics, but I hummed along and listened. I decided the words made Christianity sound like a sweet deal, and I wondered if my parents would let me keep going to church. But then an old guy got up to talk about the Bible. For what seemed like forever, he rambled on about why women are weaker than men. I stared at him. I stole glances at the other people sitting there to see if they were as horrified as I was, but everyone was smiling and nodding.
By the time he finally sat down, I’d invented a whole story about how this old guy was a bit loopy and no one had the heart to tell him to sit down and be quiet. But later, I asked Aracely about what he’d said, and she got a confused look on her face. “That’s what it says in the Bible. We’ve just got to accept it. It’s part of God’s way of testing us.”
I looked at her with wide eyes and said I didn’t think I’d be going back to the coffee warehouse on Sundays. She looked disappointed. “I guess it’s very different from your church.”
I nodded and prayed to whatever power might exist that she wouldn’t ask me about my church, and in the end she didn’t. Why ask about something you think is all wrong anyway?
I could never be part of a religion that tells women they’re weak. But whenever I hear the happy music, I wonder if I’m missing something about religion. How is it that people here can have so little and sound so joyful? And it’s not just on Sundays either. Every day of the week, people here seem more ready to smile or laugh or even dance than most people I know in Canada. I want some of what they have, and I wish my parents could get some too. I think it would do us all good to quit trying to fix the world and actually enjoy it for once.
This morning, on the second-last Sunday of July, I’m slapping my broom against the fence, watching puffs of orange dust float up. Across the road, the warehouse door is open, and for a moment, the air is silent. I picture an old guy talking—a different old guy, because the one I listened to died a few years ago. Then the place bursts into the last song of the morning.
Normally, this is followed by the scraping of desks against concrete as people get up, and lots of talking, but this time the air goes quiet again for a few moments. Then everyone cheers, and suddenly people are pouring out of the warehouse with big grins on their faces.
Aracely emerges in the middle of the crowd, people kissing her cheeks and hugging her close.
“Please come to our house to celebrate!” her father shouts above the noise. He turns and waves me toward him. “You’re all welcome.”
By this time, my parents have come out of the clinic and are standing next to me. “What’s all that about?”
A group of kids skips past. “Se caaaaaaaasa Araceeeeely! Araceeeeely’s getting maaaaaaaarried!”
Aracely must have heard from Vin that he’s found a job at the mine. The engagement is now official. I feel like someone’s just taken a year off my life. Or maybe about thirty years off Aracely’s.
“You coming?” shouts Orlando, the owner of the colmado.
I think I’m going to throw up, but before I can turn and run, my mother’s arm is around my shoulders, holding me tight. “We’ll change our clothes and be right there!” she shouts and herds me into the school.
Dad follows, and when he closes the door behind us, I stare at them. “You don’t seriously expect—”
“Yes.” Mom’s rummaging in her suitcase. “We’re going to the party, and so are you.”
Dad shrugs and looks sorry. Like he totally understands what I’m going through but can’t possibly do anything about it. I’m about to tell them what they can do with their party when Mom turns on me. “We didn’t come here to offend people, Dian, and you know that’s exactly what’ll happen if we don’t go. I’m not going to go alone and answer everyone’s questions about why Aracely’s best friend decided not to come to the engagement party.” She tosses me a purple skirt and white blouse I’ve never seen before but that are reasonably presentable. I consider laying the clothes on the bed and sitting down and refusing to budge, like Gandhi at a demonstration, but my father clears his throat.
“What your mother is trying to say,” he says, a change of pants in one hand and a shirt in the other, “is that you need to choose your method of protest. Sometimes a boycott is the best approach. Other times, you need to show solidarity, convince people from the inside. This, I think, is one of those times.”
His voice is soft, and when I raise my eyes to meet his, the helpless-parent look isn’t there. He looks like he really means what he just said.
I glare at him but pick up the skirt and blouse and put them on.
* * *
Merengue music is blaring from Orlando’s battery-powered ghetto blaster, and people are spilling out onto the road when we arrive. We greet people as if we haven’t seen each other in weeks, and everyone pushes us toward the bride-to-be and her family to congratulate them.
Aracely is standing by the door of the house. Her hair is pulled back, and she’s smiling a close-lipped smile, eyes averted, as the Eye raves on about something. Aracely’s eyes flicker up; she sees me staring at her, and she looks away again, like I’m invisible.
So much for convincing from the inside. The only thing I’ve achieved by coming here is feeling like a worthless friend.
Aracely’s younger sister offers me a glass of pop, which I take even though I hate the stuff. The bubbles make my nose itch, but I’m grateful for the glass right now. It gives me somewhere to look and something to do with my hands. “Gracias,” I say, and Cecilia smiles and hurries away.
I look around for my parents or a group of kids that I could pretend to be looking after—at least I’d feel useful and occupied—but the kids are running around, dodging between people’s legs, and even I know I’m too old for that.
“Thank you for coming,” Aracely says, and I jump. She laughs—laughs the way she used to before Vin proposed, and for a moment I think she’s forgiven me, but of course it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the entire village crowded around us within earshot of our conversation.
I wish I’d thought about what to say when I saw her. I’m a terrible actor, and if I say any of the usual things—congratulations, I’m so happy for you—everyone will know I don’t mean it and the gossips will be on high alert. If Cucubano had a newspaper, the headline would read Bride’s Best Friend Disdains Marriage Plans, and it would ruin any chances I have left of swaying Aracely.
“So he got a job at the mine then?” I force a smile.
“He sent a letter all about it. Come with me. I’ll show it to you.”
A few feet behind her, the Eye glances up from her conversation and looks at me. I beam at Aracely as if we’ve never exchanged an angry word in our lives, and I link my arm with hers. I don’t believe for a minute that she’ll show me Vin’s letter. I bet she wants to get away from this crowd, and if she wants to use me as an excuse, I’m fine with that. It’s not like I wanted to be here in the first place.
She leads me into the house, where kids are playing hide-and-seek. She lifts the edge of a mattress in the corner and shoos some of the kids awa
y.
“Oooh. Aracely needs privacy to read her love letter,” her brother teases.
“Go on, Miguel,” Aracely says. “Take the kids outside. I want to talk to Dian.”
Miguel shepherds the kids out. Aracely opens the envelope and we sit on the bed together. She makes no move to pull out the letter though. “The Eye was warning me about you back there.”
“What?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“She says Nerick’s been visiting you at night.”
The light is dim and I can’t read her face, but she sounds hurt. Why would she be hurt though? It’s not like she’s going out of her way to be my friend these days, so what right does she have to be jealous of my friendship with Nerick? She can’t possibly be thinking it’s any more than friendship because she knows I share a bedroom with my parents, and they’re home when he comes over. And I’m sure she’s not going weird because of the Haitian thing, either, because she’s always treated him well. If I’ve learned one thing from having a big scar across my face, it’s that you can’t judge a person by how he looks, she says. So what on earth is her problem?
I try hard not to sound annoyed as I explain to her about the bike-repair lessons. “My parents are there the whole time. They open the door to him, and they don’t ever leave while he’s there. I bet the Eye knows all that too.” I imagine her peering out from behind the shutters of her house. It’s the only house in the whole of Cucubano that has windows—no glass, which is too expensive, but openings and shutters. Dad says it must get awfully cold in there because the shutters allow too much heat to escape, but I’m sure she doesn’t care as long as she can still watch from inside every move others make.
But, of course, she can’t see everything from in there. She can’t see how Nerick’s too busy memorizing every detail of the bicycle to even have time for talking. She can’t see how my parents look up from their medical journals every now and then to watch us. They offer us snacks or tea partway through the evening, but Nerick always refuses, not wanting to waste a single minute of bicycle time. He’s polite enough to chat at the beginning and end of his stay, telling us about his family and the odd jobs he’s managed to find, but that’s as deep and personal as it gets. I’m totally fine with that. I think it’s hilarious, though, that the Eye has invented a big Romeo and Juliet love story when nothing could be further from the truth. “So he comes over in the evenings,” I say. “How can she possibly think that’s enough to convince people that we’re—”
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