by Adi Alsaid
When I get off the bus at the end of the day, I clear my throat in the cold windy air. My brother gets off his bus at the same time. He starts to excitedly tell me about his day using a combination of words and signs. I laugh. My unused tongue reshapes words again. I can still speak to him.
As we run down the steps to our basement rooms, we smell cardamoms, sugar, tea and milk, boiling and steeping into the perfect chai.
Once inside, I place my backpack next to the shelves built with cement blocks and planks of wood where I have arranged my books.
Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. The two classic books that I first read aloud with Dada and Dadi. They gave me these books almost five years ago, on my tenth birthday.
The books sit by their picture. They wait for our weekly phone call. Calls are expensive, more than two dollars a minute, and make me miss them more. I cannot touch or smell or feel their arms around me over the static-filled phone lines. But I can remember reading aloud with Dada, as he sat in his favorite rocking chair, his voice lilting and excited.
“I have never seen snow,” he said when we read about the March girls walking through the snow on Christmas Day. One day, I hope that he and Dadi will visit, and we’ll walk through snow together.
When Dada and I read Anne of Green Gables, we agreed that Marilla, with her quiet, no-nonsense strength, was just like Dadi, who was listening even as her fingers expertly knotted jasmine flowers into a garland. These books still feel warm from the touch of my grandparents’ hands.
“Priya.” Ma calls for me to join them.
Rishi slurps his tea. “I made a new friend today,” he announces.
Ma’s smile lights up her face. “If you’re both happy, this is all worth it.”
I make up a story about having a friend too, because that smile on Ma’s face is a reward.
“Ma, Jane said she liked my shirt. I told her about how you and I picked the cloth from the fabric store near our house in Bombay and how you sewed it for me,” I lie.
Jane did speak to me; she pointed to my top and said, “It’s so pretty.”
I should’ve responded. I want to talk with Jane. Yet I didn’t say a word to her.
A nod and a smile were all I could manage.
My English doesn’t sound like Jane’s. What if she doesn’t understand me? What if I make a fool of myself again?
Everything is so foreign, like the trees that drop gold leaves, the kids in high school who drive cars, the lockers in which we’re supposed to store books, and the couples who kiss and embrace openly in the cafeteria. I had never seen two people kiss on the lips before in real life, only in Hollywood films, and I almost choked on my food. In Bollywood films, the actors don’t kiss on the lips. The camera discreetly moves away during intimate moments.
That evening, I take a break from homework and helping Mom and watch Full House on the TV in the motel communal living room. I listen carefully to how the actors roll their Rs and slant their As. One day I imagine having hair like DJ’s. I want jeans that hug my hips like DJ’s do, and a shirt that I can tuck into the waistband. My shirts hang around my hips.
* * *
I am sitting on a bench by a mural of books, open, flying, on shelves and suspended in space, in the most magical room I’ve ever known, when the school librarian says, “Listen up. I’m starting a book club. It’s open to everyone.” She holds a book high with both hands and does a dance. “This is our first selection. We’re starting with the classics.”
The room spins.
Little Women.
Her copy is exactly like mine, with the same logo of a penguin in its orange egg on the cover.
I don’t hear anything after that, because the Atlantic Ocean separating me from my grandparents roars in my ears.
I blame the heady smell of the books, and the sound of those waves, for the words that almost escape my mouth.
Right before they take flight, though, I reel them back like a kite on a string.
Without realizing it, I have risen to my feet in excitement, my mouth open. Everyone notices.
Kids giggle.
I look around and slump back into my seat.
But for a nanosecond, my eyes lock with Mrs. Kennedy’s. She smiles.
“I have a sign-up sheet on my desk,” she says.
As I pass her on my way out, the librarian places her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll chat about the girls and Marmee while we eat lunch. I hope you come.”
I can’t imagine anything more wonderful.
Speak, my brain commands.
I don’t listen. I nod.
I have so much I want to tell Mrs. Kennedy. I’d tell her that, once I start speaking, I won’t stop. My best friends in Bombay always said I talked too much. I’d tell her that I have never seen a library as beautiful as hers. Could she recommend a book for me to read?
Somehow, I know that she will understand.
All the words imprisoned throughout the day escape on the bus ride to the grocery store that evening. I tell Ma and Rishi about the book club.
“Will your friend Jane be there?” Ma asks.
I blink. One of these days my lies will catch up with me. I don’t know if she’ll be there, but I want Ma to think Jane is my friend. I lie again. “Yes, yes she will.”
Excited, Rishi says, “You have to go. That’s your favorite book.”
In the grocery store Rishi points to a jar of peanut butter.
“What’s that?” Ma asks.
“It’s what all the kids eat,” Rishi signs. “Priya can make a peanut butter sandwich for her book club. It’s during lunch.”
I know what she’ll say next. “Is it expensive?”
“We have to stop converting everything into rupees,” I say.
Ma checks the price and puts the jar in our cart.
On the bus ride home, Rishi signs and again asks, “When is the book club?”
I sign back and tell Rishi I’m not going.
He looks at me surprised. “Why?” he signs.
“I don’t know anyone,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows and challenges me.
“Of course, you do,” he signs. “You know the girls from the book.”
His words sink in and call me out.
Wait.
When did he get so smart? I do know the March girls, and although they are characters in a book, they are real to me.
I hold on to his hand. This little brother of mine has grown up and become so wise in a few short months. Rishi has thrived despite his obstacles. He is a survivor and is inspiring me to be the same. I might have taken care of him when we were little, but today, he is showing me the way. It might not have been my choice to come to America, but I am here. I must keep marching.
* * *
On Tuesday, I wake early. My hair lies flat on my head. How do all the girls in school have high and curly hair, with a poofy roll up front, that adds at least an inch to their height? I try to get my hair to poof up, but it won’t. I have seen a girl spray her hair in the bathroom. Maybe that’s what does it. I don’t have magic in a can.
Rishi does notice that it looks different and points and signs, “What’s wrong with your hair?”
Oh no! I run to the bathroom to try and flatten it back down, because Rishi is right. It looks like a nest of hay.
Rishi helps me cut the crusts off the bread and open the jar of peanut butter. We all smell it and take a taste.
“It tastes like besan ladoos,” says Ma.
She is right; it tastes like the chickpea flour sweets from home.
All morning, my heart races. Is Jane going to book club? She was there when the librarian announced it three weeks ago, but I didn’t see her sign up, so probably not. I could ask her, but that would mean speaking words aloud.
Then the last class bef
ore lunch, social studies, is done. It is still my hardest class.
I see a group of girls heading toward the library, laughing, their arms linked. I stop in my friendless tracks.
What am I doing? I don’t belong.
I don’t know anyone.
They carry their lunches in brown paper bags. I might have a peanut butter sandwich instead of the chutney and cucumber one that Ma typically makes, but it’s still not right. Mine is wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. My clothes are not stylish either, they were made by my mother. They don’t look like anyone else’s.
I remember Jo from Little Women going to New York, alone, in her unstylish clothes. She did not let the big city defeat her.
They all had their shirts tucked in. I can do that. I slip into the bathroom and tuck my loose shirt into my pants. In the mirror, I look different. My hips are outlined like the other girls’. I smile at my reflection. One day I might have a friend, and maybe she’ll help me with my hair. I might even own hairspray.
I square my shoulders, clutch my copy of Little Women and my lunch and race to the library. Yes, I might make a mistake again, but I will live, and I will learn.
I turn the knob on the door. It is closed. It’s not usually locked, but maybe Mrs. Kennedy doesn’t want interruptions. I am late.
Defeated, I walk away.
Then I hear Mrs. Kennedy’s voice, calling me. I turn around. She stands there with the door wide open and smiles. “Priya! Come in. I’m so happy you decided to join us.”
The kids are sitting by the castle. Jane is there too. It is a complete closed circle.
They are busy eating, chatting. Nobody notices me.
I stand outside the group.
Mrs. Kennedy clears her throat, “Everyone, let’s make the circle bigger and make room for one more. Priya, get a chair.”
Chairs scrape on the floor and the circle widens.
Jane has jumped up and brought me a chair.
As she places my chair in the group, she whispers, “I hoped you’d come.”
This time, I squeeze her hand, and my eyes promise friendship.
Then Mrs. Kennedy says, “Let’s start the discussion by sharing who your favorite character is, and why.”
I take a deep breath. I must do this.
“Jo March,” I say loudly and clearly.
My fifth and sixth words float into the air like a kite, and this time I don’t reel them back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Varsha Bajaj is the award-winning author of picture books and middle grade novels. Her middle grade novels are Count Me In and Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood, which was shortlisted for the Cybils Award and included in the Spirit of Texas Reading program. Her picture books include The Home Builders, and This is Our Baby, Born Today, a Bank Street Best Book. She grew up in Mumbai, India, and when she came to the United States to obtain her master’s degree, her adjustment to the country was aided by her awareness of the culture through books.
FAMILY EVERYTHING
Yamile Saied Méndez
DEDICATION
To Florencia, Mauricio, and Gabriel, my dear friends
who became my family when I was alone in a strange country,
trying to learn a new language and find out who I really was.
And to my family who’s always with me in spite of the time
and distance we’re physically apart. ¡Los quiero!
Ayelén hated translating on the spot. It was one thing to transcribe the lyrics of the last Backstreet Boys songs for her friends or the recipe of upside-down pineapple cake for her mom. Translating her good news in front of the family and even some friends who’d seen her grow up was quite another. The expectation, in some cases tinged with doubt, of the people in the room had given Ayelén the wings to try the impossible, and now it was time to confirm that all her work had paid off.
The fact that they all knew what she was about to say didn’t make things easier. As soon as Ayelén had received the letter the night before, her parents had marched to the locutorio and called everyone. Their phone had been out of service for months for lack of payment. Every cent had been saved for her education.
Now that everyone wanted to hear the news from her mouth, the doubts came from her own heart and pulled her down like an anchor. She felt she was in one of those flying dreams gone wrong.
The thick paper shook in her hands. For the first time, she noticed it had been postmarked three weeks ago. Even in the year 2000, life-changing news—history-making news—took its sweet time to arrive in her small town of San Lorenzo, beyond the city of Rosario in Argentina.
“Read,” her father nudged her softly, luminous pride in his voice.
She locked her knees so that her legs wouldn’t tremble. The trick worked, but only until she realized her padrino’s stare was trained on the paper as if the letter would sprout teeth and fangs and ravage her hands.
Padrino’s house held its breath to catch every word. The only sounds were the fútbol commentary from the neighbor’s radio, the shifting of her little cousins’ sandaled feet, and the hum of the blue-bellied refrigerator.
“Read,” Nadia and Selena, her little cousins, urged. Santino, the baby, cried, and Daiana, the only cousin her age, hurried toward her bedroom, to feed him most likely.
In her mind, Ayelén read in English and the words transformed into Spanish. When nerves got the better of her and the rising emotion clouded her sight, the words on the paper swam like the noodles in the soup Abuela used to make when she was still alive. But Ayelén remembered every word, comma, and period. She’d read it hundreds of times, afraid that the words would change, that she had misinterpreted their meaning, or worse, that she’d imagined it all.
“Ayelén Sofía Abad...” The words sounded like a blessing. “You have been accepted to Brigham Young University for our Spring semester starting on April 29th...”
Applause and cheers erupted before she could finish the first sentence. Even the little cousins who didn’t know what the words meant celebrated the victory, which had been generations in the making. Even Malón, the aging husky, barked like he did whenever Rosario Central, the family’s favorite soccer team, scored a goal. All her life, Ayelén knew that family was above everything, and that a victory for one was a victory for all.
After hugs and kisses, Madrina María Laura clapped and the women got busy frying empanadas, making the chimichurri, and setting the table, while Helena, Ayelén’s mom, boasted about her daughter. The men drifted toward the parrilla, the bricked-walled grill, where the fire had been waiting for el asado. Ayelén hesitated, unsure if her place was with the women making the meal or the men discussing politics and fútbol while they drank máte and beer.
On the back patio, her cousins jumped rope. They chanted the same song Ayelén and Daiana had sung on the patio years and years ago. At seventeen, she still knew all the words.
“Arroz con leche, me quiero casar...”
In the past, before she got her letter, before Daiana had her baby, her cousin had been Ayelén’s refuge, her companion on adventures and in dreaming. She was the only one who understood the weight of so many expectations. Now Ayelén was alone, severed from her people, far from them already.
Throughout the afternoon, she read the letter time after time to anyone who asked her to, and she tried to explain where the university was (nestled in the mountains in the Western United States, where the church her family went to was established), and who she was going to live with (she had no idea). The only one who didn’t ask for more details was her padrino, Tío Alí. He gazed at her with such sadness that Ayelén had the urge to turn back time to the night before, when she was still a girl dreaming and not the chosen one expected to save them all.
In January, the sun went down late, and after another meal of homemade pizzas and leftover asado, as the frogs sang their nightly son
g and the bats circled the sky under the silver moon, visitors trickled back to their homes and lives. Soon the only ones left were Ayelén, her parents, and her brothers, Lautaro and Francisco. They slept on the couch protected by the mosquito repellent coil’s smoke while the little cousins tried to catch lightning bugs and crickets.
Madrina María Laura called them in and ushered them to bed. It was time to go, and Daiana had never left the room she now shared with her baby.
“We better go,” Ayelén’s dad said, just when she’d gathered the courage to walk toward her cousin’s closed door. “We have to work tomorrow. There’s so much to do before April.”
In the US, school usually started in September, but her English teacher had encouraged her to apply for Spring term, when there were fewer incoming students. Ayelén was grateful she’d followed the advice, but April was just around the corner.
Madrina helped Ayelén’s mom herd the boys into their old car, a Renault 12 held together by prayers and miracles.
“Felicidades, Farid. You won,” Padrino said, as if he’d hoped to end with the last word.
She winced at the bitterness lacing Padrino’s voice, and worse, his words. Her dad had won?
After a few seconds of charged silence, Padrino added, “You proved she could do it, but sending her by herself is too dangerous. You can’t let her go.”
The unspoken words were, If you let her go and anything bad happens to her, it will be your fault. If you let her go, it will mean you’re a bad father.
Ayelén had never meant to leave on her own. The family’s shared dream had been for her and Daiana to go together.
Ayelén looked at her father, afraid that all her work had been for nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time her father’s mind had changed after a word from his brother.
Ayelén had literally burned her eyelashes in candlelight to keep studying when the power went off in their cinderblock apartment, located in a neighborhood of government housing. Her mom cleaned houses after she came home from cashiering at the supermarket. Her little brothers made do with hand-me-downs and no birthday parties. And her dad spent backbreaking hours in a taxi, risking his life during the hours when taxi drivers were most vulnerable to the rampant crime in the city, to earn another one-hundred-peso note that could salvage the night.