Chapter Nineteen
American Dream
The mail comes with a brochure from a boarding school in central Florida. It shows buildings surrounded by pine and oak trees trailing lacy Spanish moss from their branches. A pretty blonde girl poses by the front portico, smiling up at a boy holding a book. The school is just outside the town of Howeyin-the-Hills, which I imagine as having steep winding streets and picturesque shops just like a Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell.
I used to think I’d be sent to an American school in the capital after my correspondence courses ended, but Mama says it’s too unstable in Santo Domingo these days and I might not be safe. It’s been over a year since Trujillo’s assassination, but the new government is shaky. I decide not to think about that; I worry instead about how I’m going to look when I get to Florida and whether there will be a tall boy to dance with when I get to the coed school.
I look at my clothing: homemade shorts and stained shirts and the two dresses that still fit me, one of them clearly showing Mama’s careful mending after I snagged it on a thorn bush. The town seamstress stitches me up two skirts, one that will also go with a new store-bought sweater. Jittery with excitement, I pack a month before I’m going to leave. And just like that, I’m finally on my way. At the airport, Daddy crushes me in a squeeze. I see he’s crying but making no noise. I look away as he blows his nose and tries to wink at me.
“See you later, alligator.” We heard that on a rock and roll record last summer, and it’s now Daddy’s standard good-bye.
“After awhile, crocodile,” I answer, choked up too. I hug him back, not minding his sweat-stained shirt. He looks lost all of a sudden, not scary at all. I cling to Mama, afraid to leave her smell, her skin. Her blue eyes are full of tears and sadness but she smiles anyway.
THE NEXT DAY I’M ON A BUS heading for a brand new life. It turns out there are no hills to speak of in Florida. For mile after mile I stare out the bus window as flatness drones by, horizontal lines punctured occasionally by perpendicular roads. Alongside the highway, pines and palmettos stand at attention. Houses are single-story, sprawling rectangles that all look the same. As we motor up the coast, the Atlantic sparkles on the right. Even the royal palms grow straight up, as if that is the rule here. In the Dominican Republic the land curves up into mountains, slides down into ragged bays and undulating meadows. Roads slither like snakes, and even some hovels are decorated with trills of curving iron railings. Florida looks more like a geometry lesson.
Finally the bus heads inland, the angularity now broken by swamps and rivers. The air is softer here, but also heavy. I’m wearing the sweater set, which is much too hot, and a new pair of shoes I haven’t broken in yet, so I have blisters on both ankles. In the seat in front of me, a small child whimpers and his mother fans him with a magazine. I try not to think of Berta, of baby Mitch, but I can’t help it. What would he look like now? Could he be this child—this very one?
Shut up, I tell myself—just stop thinking.
Howey-in-the-Hills doesn’t exactly live up to its name; it has no steep winding streets or real hills at all, just some hillocks near a lake. The air is humid and hot, no tropic breezes to cool my anxiety. Live oak trees with twisted branches hang heavy with Spanish moss. I feel all out of place. My hair is all wrong, the pleats in my skirt too wide and the pattern too bright. The other girls giggle and float in dainty dresses with subtle floral patterns—Villagers, I’m sure. According to Seventeen Magazine, Villager is the favorite clothing brand of discerning teenagers everywhere. Boys mill around the girls like bees. I feel lightheaded. Everybody else looks like they belong in this picture, and it’s not a photo in Seventeen; this is real. My head clouds up. No one is noticing me. I’m going to be nobody here, nobody at all. In Miches, Berta and I were sought after just because we were foreigners, extranjeros, who lived by different rules than Dominicans. We were always going to be different. Not better than, Mama warned. Still—we could leave the country when we pleased, unlike Dominicans. And now I’m nothing special at all.
The air fills up with confusion as we sort out what line to stand in for registration and how to sign in for our dorm room. I feel all alone in the auditorium, even though we’re crammed together for the orientation session. In a daze, I notice the slicked-back hair of the boy in front of me. An older girl, maybe a senior, slouches in the seat next to me, chewing gum and applying lipstick at the same time. Her charm bracelet jangles as she catches me staring, and she frowns slightly then yawns, as if this is all very boring—as if I’m boring too.
I wonder if it was this way for Berta. Was she also scared? I can’t help thinking about her now, even though I try to push any thoughts about her away because I don’t want to cry. I finally get to move into the dorm room I’ll share with Beth Porter for the next year. I know her name from the dorm signup list. The door is open and I see two beds are perpendicular to each other. A tall girl with brown hair waves me in.
“Hi, I’m Beth.” She gestures to the closet. “Let me know if you need more space.” I lug my one suitcase onto the bed and when I’m done unpacking, she says, “Is that all you have?” Then she makes a face and says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean how that came out.”
“It’s okay,” I say. I don’t know what to say to her, but that’s not a problem. Beth likes to talk. She tells me right away about her boyfriend Charlie. Beth says she is at the boarding school because she goofed off in ninth grade in public school and her parents thought private school would help.
“Are your parents very mad at you?” I ask, puzzled by her cheerful tone when it sounds to me like she’s been sent here as punishment. Berta and I didn’t dare get bad grades at home. That would risk a beating with Daddy’s old leather belt.
“Mad?” she asks, shaking her head no. “They just want to get me away from Charlie so I can concentrate on my studies. Not that they don’t like him—they do.”
“So you’re not afraid of your father?”
Beth looks at me and furrows her brow. “Scared of Dad? Nah. I guess Mom’s the tough one, but she’s okay too. She nags a lot, though. I won’t miss that.”
I sit back against the pillows and try to imagine what it would be like to be in a family like this, to be unafraid of my father—to like him, even.
“So you know all about me,” Beth says. “Okay, your turn.”
I start to tell her about Miches, about Casalata and Cocoloco, and as I’m talking, these names sound peculiar and silly all of a sudden. She asks about my family. I look down at the pillowcase I’m twisting into a knot and say something safe, like Mama likes to read books and that Daddy was an engineer before he became a coconut farmer. I describe the finca and how pretty the beach is.
“Do you have any sisters or brothers?”
I stop. Do I? Did I? I stutter and say no, just me. I get up quickly, saying I have to use the bathroom. To my relief, she returns to the subject of Charlie, and then the lunch bell rings and we head off together to the adventure of our first meal in the school cafeteria.
Two of my teachers stop by my desk after classes and ask, “Didn’t your sister used to attend here? What happened to her? She was such a good student. Is she in college now?” To them I just nod, yes, yes, she’s fine. Luckily Beth isn’t in either of those classes, but it’s getting hard to keep straight what I’ve told to whom.
I get in trouble the second week of school at evening study hall. Beth and I have both finished our homework, so I start drawing, copying a picture from an art book. It’s Botticelli’s Venus painting, and I exaggerate her bare breasts and flying snake hair and the clamshell at her feet. When I finish, I pass it to Beth. I don’t notice the study hall monitor has been watching the exchange. I’m washing my hair in the sink that night after dinner when a loud rap on the door interrupts the quiet. Mrs. Hitchens, the housemother, is standing outside. She’s built like a fireplug, with badly dyed red hair and bow legs. She points at me and says the dean wants to see me, ri
ght now, in his office. I have no idea why, and my hair is full of shampoo. “Rinse it out,” she barks. “He’s waiting.” I slip on shorts and a sweatshirt and wrap my dripping head in a towel.
The dean is frowning under the glare of a desk lamp. He picks up a crumpled piece of paper and shoves the Venus drawing at me. I stare back, afraid. “I know this is yours, young lady. I can have you expelled. Do you want to go home; is that it?”
“No, no. It was just a joke,” I stammer. I can’t continue; my throat has tightened up. I squirm in the chair. I can’t go home—Daddy will disown me too, and then what will happen? The clock behind the desk ticks, ticks, ticks. I strangle a cough. The dean finally pulls the paper back and rips it up. “Consider this a warning.”
Beth is in bed, looking at a magazine, when I come in and burst out crying. She puts her arm around my shoulder as I tell her what happened. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Hey, your drawing was good—he wouldn’t know real art if he saw it.” I feel comforted by Beth’s words. She acts as if I need taking care of, or at least watching over. It’s a really odd feeling—that someone wants to protect me. As the days go by, Beth says she feels sorry for what she calls my “sheltered life” and shows me how to apply makeup correctly and how to use curlers to get the most lift for my limp hair.
At least here I know exactly where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do. At night I don’t have too many nightmares, and there aren’t any crickets to hunt down and kill. On Sundays we wear our school blazers and attend chapel. It’s the first time I’ve sat through any religious service. Mr. McFarland is the chaplain and school counselor. He’s a thin man with dark hair and brown eyes, and he wears horn-rimmed glasses. I ask Beth what a counselor does, and she says he helps kids who are in trouble. I like sitting in the darkened chapel as his calm voice leads us in prayer or song. I can’t imagine why Daddy would think this kind of thing is so terrible. Mr. McFarland’s sermons are about forgiveness and caring, and I drink up all the words like I’ve been dying of thirst and didn’t know it until now. After chapel, he usually waits at the doorway and greets students who want to talk. I want to meet him, but I feel shy and awkward, so I just rush out as if I can’t wait to get in line for lunch.
I get almost used to the food here. The cafeteria serves up big flat hamburgers, greasy hot dogs, runny mashed potatoes, and canned vegetables and fruit. No fresh avocados, mangos, or pineapple so tangy it makes your mouth water just thinking about it. Here we get Jell-O for dessert, or bread pudding, which Beth says they make from old, stale slices left over from breakfast.
On a Saturday, Beth and I take a bus to a nearby town to stock up on makeup at the Eckerds Drugstore. This seems unnecessary to me because Beth’s shelf by the sink already overflows with jars and tubes of everything from hairspray to face cream. Beth picks up a wire basket and strides right through the chaos of products to the Maybelline counter, where she’s going to buy the latest color, “Tangerine Kiss.” I figure her allowance must be bigger than mine, but then she shows me the bargain bin, where she says we can get really good stuff for almost nothing. I poke around, lost, and she says no, not that brand, it’s not good—but here, this is great. I end up with a new lipstick and brown eyeliner Beth says will make my eyes stand out, which I learn is very important since I wear glasses.
We walk past the window of Howey Homes, Inc. with their big sign boasting Beautiful Home Sites on Little Lake Harris, and peer in at the women getting their hair done at the Pleeze-U Beauty Salon. The hamburger place is full of students, but now that I’ve had an education in makeup buying, I feel almost like one of them now, not just an odd girl from a foreign country. We order fountain Cokes and moon pies, which are big cookies with white marshmallowy stuff smashed between them.
Every day feels a little safer, especially at night after lights out. It’s the first time I haven’t had to fear the sound of Daddy’s voice raised in a drunken muddle. Here the nights cool down as fall comes on, another new sensation. I miss Mama and the ocean and the loudness of rain. Here the thunderstorms are muffled by thick walls and insulated ceilings.
Berta stays in my mind every day. I can’t help but think, She was here; she was in this dorm, maybe even this room. She went to this class, had this teacher. To forestall questions from staff and teachers, I decide to remain invisible. This isn’t hard; I’ve been practicing for years. No one chooses me for Phys Ed teams until there’s just two or three of us still standing, the leftovers. I’m also the last pick for a biology partner. The dead frogs all splayed out in formaldehyde make me sick. At least I’m good at English and art and especially geography—from all those years of poring over every word, picture, and map in the National Geographics. When grades are posted in the main building for all to see, I’m shocked to see my name on the list of students with the highest grades. I hear “Good going,” and there’s the dean standing behind me, his eyes no longer stern. As he smiles, I wonder if he’s noticed I got an A+ in art.
One Sunday I finally linger after chapel to meet Mr. McFarland. I tell him my name and how much I like his sermons, but he looks at me oddly like we’ve already met, and then asks if I’m related to Berta Gardner, who was here a few years ago. I look around to see if anyone else is listening, but no one is in earshot. I can’t pretend I didn’t hear his question, nor can I run away, because he’s still holding my hand in his. His eyes see all the way to the places I keep hidden, where the secrets live. I can’t speak, but I start to shudder.
Mr. McFarland pulls me quickly into his office and closes the door. He motions to a chair and I fall into it, my throat tight, swollen shut. “There, there,” he says, and that remark sounds oddly funny to me, and I snort, half laughing and half crying. He pulls out a white handkerchief that smells like Ivory soap. “Here,” he says, and I’m embarrassed that I’m laughing, because nothing is funny. I’ve read about people getting all hysterical. That’s it. I’m hysterical and insane. I want to leave the room, but I can’t move. Mr. McFarland just sits there. I mush up the handkerchief and wipe my face until the cloth is damp with tears. “I’m sorry,” I say to the soiled handkerchief, as if I’ve done it some wrong, and then I look at Mr. McFarland and his eyes say yes, you can say anything, everything.
And so I do. He’s the first adult I’ve really just talked to, just straight across, no hiding, no pretending. My voice is small and tight, as if I’m squeezing out of a dark cave into sunlight and I’m not sure there isn’t danger outside in all that brightness. I tell him about Daddy and how we’re supposed to be a happy family but we’re not. Then I stutter at the part about how Berta disappeared, and about the newspaper clipping, the one about the blonde girl found dead soon after Berta was missing, and that the girl is probably her.
Mr. McFarland asks how I felt when it all happened, and I don’t know how to answer him, so I just shrug. Feel? I don’t think I was allowed to feel anything. He shakes his head like he can’t be hearing me right when I tell him Mama and Daddy made us keep all this terrible news our family secret. I try to explain why it’s like Berta never existed at home, inside our four walls, that she’s just a story we tell to other people—you know, the made-up one. I tell him I thought coming to the States would be the end of lying, at least here. But it’s not. Even here, even him—there’s always someone just being polite and asking the usual “tell me about your family” questions. I’m sick of telling them I’m an only child because inside my voice shouts “LIAR!”
Then I tell him that when I see any small child now, I find myself wondering, Could this be Berta’s baby boy? As if somehow I’d know him if I saw him. Finally, there’s no more to say. There’s nowhere to hide now. Mr. McFarland’s voice breaks in and I start crying again, but this is more like a light sprinkle left over when a storm has just passed. Mr. McFarland’s eyes are wet. He says he remembers Berta well. She was special, probably one of the smartest students in the whole school. His voice wraps around me like a warm blanket. I am startled when he says tha
t I don’t have to lie to anyone anymore. Just like that.
“But—” I start.
He continues, waving my “but” aside like an annoying mosquito. He says I can say yes, I have a sister, but she’s decided to go away and not tell us where she is.
“But I think she’s dead.”
“I understand,” he says. “So leave that part out; it won’t hurt as much. Tell the truth—but you don’t have to tell everything. Just stop right there. If anyone asks for more, just say you’d rather not talk about it—period.”
Oh. I hadn’t ever thought of that. Again he asks how I’m feeling. I don’t know quite how to say it, but I’m lighter inside, as if I’ve cried out some of the heaviness that lives there. He pats my shoulder lightly and stands up. He says to come see him any time I need to. Any time, he repeats. Later Beth comes into our dorm room and asks what’s wrong, and I tell her I was talking with Mr. McFarland. She says, “Are you okay?”
I take a breath. “Can I tell you something?”
So I tell her it wasn’t true when I’d said I didn’t have any brothers and sisters, and even though my voice threatens to shut down, I manage to squeak out what Mr. McFarland suggested. I hold my breath, waiting to see if my short answer will be enough for her or not. All she says is, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And then, after a short silence, “I bet you miss her a lot.”
Chapter Twenty
Cold War and Warm Holidays
Beth and I have progressed to worrying about such things as the annoying crop of pimples we both have sprouted and the nastiness of some of the students, the ones that gather like a flock of twittering birds and ignore us as if we don’t even exist. They whisper about one girl behind her back because her hair is cut short like a boy’s, and one of them mocks the shy boy in history class who stutters and walks with a limp. I’m still learning how to be here, as if I’m swimming in murky water where I’m not sure where the bottom is, how far the shore, or whether sharks are circling, looking for bait. I never imagined it would be like this, the part where perfect-looking students make fun of their own classmates. In Miches, nobody did that—not to be mean, anyway. I think about a National Geographic article I read once about animals in the wild and how the strong cut the weak ones out of the herd in order to survive. But we’re not on some African plain with lions chasing down runty calves; we’re here in America, safe and sound.
The Coconut Latitudes: Secrets, Storms, and Survival in the Caribbean Page 10