Pig Park

by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez

  Josefina lay down on her bed. She turned off the light. I lay down next to her. I watched the shadows of her ceiling fan grow big and small, going round and round.

  She rolled over and sighed.

  I wondered if she was thinking about Otto, the boy who had moved away. Sometimes things didn’t work out. They didn’t work out at all. I could accept it for what it was or trip and fall into a gloom. If I looked at everyone around me—if I looked at Josefina and Otto, if I looked at my mom and my dad—then love didn’t last. But I didn’t want to be like my mom or Josefina. I didn’t want to give up on friendship, Pig Park, or love.

  I drew a blanket around myself and closed my eyes.

  Chapter 22

  Josefina pushed the door of the bakery open. A sour smell that reminded me of the bottom of a clothes hamper hit us. I’d left a tray of bolillos out the day before. The warm weather and yeast had worked their dark magic.

  I walked in and threw my keys on the counter. I drew the shades and opened the windows a crack to let the fresh air in.

  “Wow,” Josefina said. “It stinks in here. Should we do something?”

  “Let’s sort out the good pieces of bread and toast them for capirotada,” I said.

  “Good idea. Does it matter that it’s not Lent?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s better than throwing everything away.” According to my dad, people ate capirotada during Lent because the bread represented the Body of Christ. The syrup was his blood. The raisins on top were the nails, and the cinnamon sticks were the wood of the cross. Religious purpose aside, it also tasted good.

  I sorted whatever pieces of bread felt soft and sniffed them to make sure they were still edible.

  Josefina walked into the kitchen. She grabbed a saucepan and filled it with water. She waited for it to boil and added two cinnamon sticks and a cylinder of raw cane sugar. We watched the sugar melt into syrup. I sliced the salvaged pieces of bread and arranged them on a tray. I turned on the oven, though I didn’t know if I could trust it, and pushed the tray in to toast the bread. I turned the pantry inside out until I found the raisins. I sighed.

  “Are you thinking about your parents again?” Josefina asked.

  “I’m not.” I was only thinking about my mom. My dad was upset, but he was not sick. I moved the stool in front of the counter—my mom’s favorite place to sit while she waited for customers who never came.

  I tidied up the ransacked kitchen and tried not to think about anything.

  A few minutes passed.

  Someone rapped against the window. I looked up to see a head of hair rollers. Loretta Sanchez pressed her big round face close to the glass. “Hope your mom feels better, mija,” she said in that loud voice of hers.

  “I’ll be sure to tell her you said so.” I called back. She somehow already knew about my mom being sick. She smiled, dismissed us with a nod and moved on to her next order of business.

  I spread butter across the top sides of the toast.

  The next knock on the window came from Felix. Josefina hurried and opened the door for him.

  “I heard about your mom. I ran into Loretta outside,” he said to me. I shrugged. Although I felt like yelling at Loretta for broadcasting my family’s private business, I wasn’t going to let it ruin my afternoon with Felix.

  “What are you girls making?” Felix asked.

  “We’re making capirotada with the stale bread,” I answered, stumbling on my words. Every nerve in my body was trying to edge out of my skin. Meanwhile, Felix was cool and calm. There wasn’t a hair out of place or a breath out of rhythm.

  “Cool. You know why bread goes stale?”

  “Because it’s old?” Josefina said.

  “It’s a chemical reaction. Bread has high levels of starch, which crystallizes in cool temperatures. The process is called retrogradation. The formation of crystals leaves the bread hard. The same thing happens when you leave bread out in room temperature—the bread comes into contact with bacteria in the air,” he explained. We nodded politely. It was all ‘blagity-blah, blah, blah,’ but I couldn’t tear my eyes from his lips.

  I could smell him. He smelled of campfire. I imagined that’s what all of New Mexico smelled like. I breathed in slow, holding his scent. I realized what I was doing, and the heat climbed from my chest up to my scalp. I looked away.

  I hurried back to the kitchen. Felix and Josefina followed. I layered the buttered bread onto a pan and added pecans. “Sprinkle these on.” I put a box of raisins on the counter. Felix’s hand hovered two inches from mine. He picked up the box and sprinkled the raisins. I topped our creation with grated cheese, poured the syrup over it, and pushed the pan into the oven. We each grabbed a fork while Josefina poured milk into three cups. The cheese melted—the capirotada was ready. It was gooey—and smelled as good as the boy next to me.

  Felix’s portion disappeared in two bites. “This is quite wonderful,” he said. I hadn’t even picked up my fork. My hand was tense at my side. I was too close to him. I didn’t want anything getting caught between my teeth or dribbling down my shirt.

  “Have you had this before?” I asked.

  “Not like this.” His lips curved into a smile. He rubbed his belly. “I should get going.”

  “You want to take some with you?”

  “That’s a good idea,” Josefina said.

  Felix’s eyes opened wide and he nodded. “It’s nothing but canned soup over at Jorge Peregrino’s. Not that I’m complaining. I grew up on ramen. My mother worked a lot. Variety is very welcome, that’s all.”

  I prepared a plastic container for him. I wrapped up the rest to take back to the Nowaks. Josefina pulled the shades.

  “Thanks for everything, Masi,” Felix said. I mustered half a wave, sorry to see him walk away again.

  Chapter 23

  I looked at the door. My dad and I stood in the middle of the bakery. Neither of us said a thing. I didn’t bother him with any bakery updates. He didn’t notice the pillaging of the cupboards. The oven groaned. “Back to work.” He dismissed me with a wave.

  “And Mom?”

  “Your mother refused to come back with me.”

  I kicked myself for asking. My grandmother had said she wouldn’t come. Then there was nothing as obvious as my dad walking through that door alone. I didn’t know what to say. I limped away with my foot in my mouth.

  My dad stayed put by the counter. Bloodshot eyes gazed out the window. The phone rang. I reached over him and grabbed the phone next to the counter.

  “Masi?”

  “Mom.”

  “Masi.”

  “What are you doing, Mom?” I asked.

  “I’m reading a book in the backyard.” My grandparents’ Spanish-style home had a rose-colored terracotta tile patio and a yard the size of half a city block. All around them were mountains. They’d figured out a way to make the money from the sale of their furniture store stretch. “It’s a gardening book. Your grandmother promised to show me how to grow geraniums, gardenias and pecans. She has a tree out here that she grew herself from a pecan. Can you believe that? I mean, I grew up a city girl like you. Your grandmother on the other hand came from a whole different world. She thrives here. I think I’m starting to thrive here too.”

  “No, I mean what are you planning to do?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’ll be helping your grandmother in the kitchen. She wants to hand dry her homegrown chilies for chilaquiles. You should see how beautiful they are. We’re also waking up at five in the morning tomorrow to make pozole.”

  It wasn’t what I meant either. She didn’t get it. She was sick. She needed to come home. She needed to stop eating fried tortillas and pork. She needed to start being a mom.

  I didn’t say anything. She hadn’t come back after my dad had gone all the way there. She wasn’t coming back on account of anything I said. I wasn’t going to nag her the way she did my dad about money or me about picking up after myself. She was a grown-up. I guessed she could take
care of herself.

  “I should get to bed now. I’m a little tired. Even with the time difference, I have to get up with the roosters tomorrow,” she said.

  “Hold on a second.” I put the hand over the receiver and pushed the phone in my dad’s direction.

  He pushed it back and stomped out of the room.

  “Sorry, I was checking to see if dad was here. He’s not.”

  “That’s fine. I’m going to bed. My mouth is watering just thinking about those chilaquiles.”

  “Goodnight then,” I said. I hung up the phone. My mom annoyed me plenty of times, but now I was also getting angry. I was angry at her for the first time since she’d thrown away my favorite T-shirt claiming I’d outgrown it. I loved that thing.

  I threw my hands up in the air. Let her stuff her face with fried tortillas. I didn’t care what that meant for my dad either. Maybe they would get a divorce.

  Happily ever after had turned into happily never after, but people split all the time. Casey and Stacey didn’t have a dad and neither did Iker or Felix. I wouldn’t have a mom. I didn’t like it, but I would learn to live with it.

  I needed for Pig Park to be saved and for Josefina to stick around more than ever.

  Chapter 24

  My dad crouched down and stuffed the display case with croissants, rolls, and ginger pigs. He was in the same T-shirt and jeans he’d worn the night before. “Baked some bread,” he said.

  “I’m going to Colonel Franco’s for a few hours,” I said. Sitting in Colonel Franco’s basement was better than thinking about my mom. At least there was still hope for Pig Park.

  I glanced at the bakery counter later that afternoon. There were three more trays of rolls stacked on top. “You’re still baking? Did we get an order or something?” I asked.

  “I just felt like baking.”

  The bread wasn’t going anywhere.

  It was too much for capirotada or croutons. I pulled out clear plastic Ziploc bags, and filled them to try and keep the bread fresh longer.

  My dad pounded more masa. He slid two additional trays into the oven.

  The phone rang. It was my mom. “We’re kind of in the middle of something,” I said. I didn’t tell her anything else. I was a little embarrassed for my dad. Maybe I was a little scared too.

  I opened my eyes wide and closed them at the sight of the counter the next morning. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven more trays of bread. I filled more bags and stuffed them in the cupboards. I set them on top of the refrigerator, on the table, and even on the dining room chairs. The piles grew and grew. He cranked out batch after batch.

  My dad had finally lost it. I wanted to scream that he’d gone insane, but I pursed my lips into a tight line.

  I took a few dozen ginger pigs and croissants to the Nowaks. “My dad overdid it with the bread. He’s been baking all night. There’s piles of bread everywhere,” I said to Josefina.

  “Why did he do that?” she asked.

  “Maybe it helps him keep his mind off my mom. Can I borrow one of the grocery store carts so I can haul it away?”

  “Sure. Marcos!” she yelled. “Can you bring a cart out for Masi?”

  Marcos pulled a cart out into the street for me. “Where are you taking it?” he asked.

  “I’m still trying to figure that part out.”

  “I can help you push it.”

  “It’s okay. Thanks anyway, Marcos.”

  I pushed the cart to the bakery, racking my mind for a solution. I parked the cart out front and walked into the bakery. Then it came to me. “I’m taking these leftovers to the church,” I said. Maybe I could pray to God while I was at it.

  I grabbed an armful of bags and kicked the door open with my foot. I tripped on the threshold, dropping some of the bags.

  “Too much for capirotada, huh?” my dad said. He picked up the bags off the ground and slung them over his shoulder. He stood there. I stood there. I realized that he meant to come with me. I just about tripped again.

  I glanced across the street at the park. Red, yellow and brown bricks peaked through the trees. With everything going on, I’d barely noticed that the pyramid walls had started going up.

  We cut across the alley and entered the church. It was a chapel attached to the west building of the American Company. The pews were empty. I headed to the back room. “Father Arturo?” I called to its sole holdout.

  Father Arturo was typing away on his computer. He swiveled his chair a half circle to face us. “Come in, come in, hijos.”

  “We brought bread,” my dad said from behind me. “It’s a lot. Where should we put it?”

  “Such generosity, Masi and Tomás! Come, come.” Father Arturo led us to a table along the wall outside his office. “This will be a wonderful gift for my weekly visit with the missionaries. They can really use this.” With so few God-fearing people left in Pig Park, Father Arturo spent most of the week at other parishes.

  We placed the bags on the table.

  “I’ll catch up with you at home,” my dad said. He plopped down in one of the back pews. I’d meant to stick around, but I walked away without asking and gave my dad his space. I acted like it was the kind of thing that happened every day.

  My dad walked in through the front door of the bakery about an hour later. He stood taller. He rested his bread-kneading fists on his hips. “I’m winning back your mother,” he said. He smiled with his entire face so that his eyes crinkled at the corners. I would always think of that as the look of salvation.

  Chapter 25

  My dad pounded down the ball of masa with his knuckles. His moment of craziness had passed so I went back to thinking about other things.

  “I forgot to tell you. Felix was looking for you while you were gone. We spent the morning making capirotada, but he probably wants to talk business,” I said.

  “I should call him and ask him over then,” my dad said. It worked better than if I’d planned it.

  Felix walked in later that afternoon. “Hi, Masi.”

  “Hi, Felix.”

  “Is your dad here?”

  “Yes.” I pointed to the back from my spot at the register.

  My dad burst out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee in one hand. “Felix, glad to see you. I completely forgot we were meeting last week. Good thing this daughter of mine is on top of it and you were able to reschedule. I made some coffee. Have some bread.”

  “Thank you so much. It’s really not necessary.”

  “No need for shyness here.” My dad put a mug and a ginger pig on the counter. Then he poured the coffee. Felix tore at the ginger pig’s soft brown flesh until it was gone. He picked a large crumb off his shirt and put it in his mouth.

  “Mmmm, as delicious as everything else. Okay, now to our business. The goal is to help you make your bakery as inviting as possible for when La Gran Pirámide is finished,” Felix said.

  “When the bakery first opened,” my dad began, “the bread sold itself. Our product was pure and simple. People bought food to eat, absolutely no other reason. No gimmicks. Those were different times.”

  My dad told Felix about his dreams as a young man—about the journey to the heartland, before Pig Park and my mom, before the wheat and life took their toll. The first few years were hard, but nothing like this. Once he and abuelita Carmelita got the bakery going, the American Lard Company’s influx of workers meant that business boomed. Their sacrifices paid off.

  The trip down memory lane had my dad sounding like his old self again.

  “Your mother must have been a great woman,” Felix said.

  “That is very kind of you, Felix. With all the work you do for Dr. Vidales Casal, I expect you’ve heard your share of stories.”

  “I’ve heard a thing or two, but I only started working for him this summer. I’m getting credit and a stipend to work off part of my tuition so my mom doesn’t have to. I don’t like her to worry about how much school costs. She waits tables. She’s on her feet all day. She alread
y works hard.”

  “I’m sure she’s very proud of you, Felix.” My dad topped off the coffee mugs. “I’ll be honest, Felix. I’m not good at all these types of things. I’m only good at one thing: making bread. I’m not sure how to do what you’re asking for.”

  “I think maybe you don’t give yourself enough credit. Just think of it as making your business stand out.”

  “I bet Masi would be more helpful than me. Masi, you can come up with some ideas, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. Although I wasn’t really so sure.

  “Sounds like a plan. I have to meet Mr. Wong this afternoon, but I’ll come back tomorrow so we can talk about it some more.” Felix downed the remains of his cup and left.

  I climbed the stairs to my room. Laundry lay neglected and festering in piles by the door. I kicked a few shirts aside. There was a notebook somewhere. I found it on the other side of my bed under a scarf. I pulled the notebook up to my nose and sniffed it. It smelled of vanilla. It smelled of my mom.

  Even though I had said I was done worrying about my mom, I couldn’t help thinking about her.

  I picked up the phone and dialed my grandparents’ number. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to tell her she was selfish and that she had nearly broken my dad. “Where’s the laundry detergent?” I asked instead.

  “It’s in the basement cabinet next to the washing machine,” she said. I hung up. I knew exactly where it was, but I couldn’t bring myself to say what I wanted to say. I took the notebook and a pencil downstairs with me to the basement. I tried to brainstorm ideas while the washer ran to keep my mind off my mom. No ideas entered my head.

  I glanced at my mom’s bike. I pulled it out of the basement, dusted it off, pumped air in the tires, and rode around in circles. Then I rode by the warehouse. Finally I rode to the Nowak Grocery Store where I found Josefina sprawled on the front stoop. “What are you doing with a bicycle?”