Living Beyond Borders

by Margarita Longoria

  She cracks a smile and takes a little sip of coffee from her cup. I’m the one interesting part of her morning.

  “Do you have proof of residence? Like, where you live,” she says, and something in her tone says that this is a question she’s required to ask but doesn’t necessarily care about.

  “Nope, nel pastel.”

  “Who taught you that? I haven’t heard that in a long time.”

  “Pues, who else, miss? My moms.”

  “Seriously, mija, you sound like a forty-year-old woman saying ‘nel pastel.’ ”

  “Um, thanks?” I say, and put the purple streak of hair behind my ear. I’m still surprised Miss Yoli hasn’t asked me about my hair yet.

  “I’m sorry, mija, I’m not making fun of you. It’s just been a long time since I’ve heard that.” I think to tell her that this is how Mama talks, teaching me the old ways, how people used to talk in the Valley, taking me to the places she went to when she was little because she wants me to know the history of her home now that we’ve moved back. I think that deep down somewhere inside her, because we don’t have a lot of family, Mama is afraid that it will all end with her if she doesn’t pass these things on to me. Since we never have a place we call home for long, we learned a long time ago to hold value in only a few objects we can take with us, things we must also be ready to let go of if we have to. This is why we carry most of our memories through words.

  Holding our history in my center, knowing the old ways and words, helps me hold on to who I am, but it also helps with the viejitos. When I’m registering with counselors or the clerks, or when the assistant principals start threatening me with suspension or ISS because I violated dress code, missed too much school, talked back, or got into a fight with some girl who made fun of me one too many times, I use these words and throw them over the viejitos like a blanket. Help them reminisce under their colchita and think about the old days.

  Ay, mija, they say. You took me back. Now go to class and don’t let me catch you doing that again.

  I go through the forms Miss Yoli hands me, filling out what I can while she takes her little sips of coffee, typing something, and clicking her mouse from time to time. Queen’s a multitasker. I know the special form is coming, the one I don’t want to fill out because this will determine the way Miss Yoli will look at me forever after.

  She hands it to me and I have a decision to make. Do I fill it out honestly or use some address from anyone I know near the school, like maybe that tía I’m not going to name who just last night asked us again when we would be getting a place of our own. She gave us the side-eye and sucked her teeth when Mama said she was going to find something soon, that she’s just trying to save up for the deposit. It is a simple question for most girls my age: Where do you sleep at night? You’d think the form would ask you, where do you live? Then I would fill it out: With my mama. Or if it said, do you have a home? Yes, wherever my mama is. But no, it says to best describe where the student (me, because I’m filling it out) sleeps. You are expected to put an X next to one of the lines below.

  ____ In a home that the student’s parent or legal guardian owns or rents

  (I wish)

  ____ In a place that does not have windows, doors, running water, heat, electricity, or is overcrowded

  (Literally anywhere other than a house)

  ____ Staying with a friend or relative because of loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason

  (Or your tía who’s the queen of side-eye)

  ____ In a shelter

  (Mama will never allow it again after some stuff went down)

  _____ In an unsheltered location, such as:

  A tent

  A car or truck

  A van

  An abandoned building

  On the streets

  At a campground

  In a park

  In a bus station or train station

  Other similar place

  (Thankfully, not for long, and not now)

  _____ In a hotel or motel because of loss of housing or economic hardship

  (Texas Inn being our favorite)

  _____ In a transitional housing program

  (Never been to one even though I’m always in transition)

  Then the form goes into a whole section about you being homeless as a result of natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and “other,” which I guess is where you would put things like a global pandemic, economic collapse, EMP/nuclear war, alien invasion, which, when I think about it, they should have a whole section for unnatural disasters and YouTube theories.

  I decide to continue being a woman of mystery, so I put an X next to other and write in: It depends. Miss Yoli should love that.

  I hand it over.

  She looks at the form, and her eyes get tiny like an abuelita who’s caught her grandbabies up to no good but at the same time wants to laugh at the mess they’ve made.

  “Okay, Leidy, it says here depends. I’m not Walter Mercado, who can read your mind or tell the future. Wait, do you even know who that is?”

  I circle my fingers over my core like my hand is circling the universe inside me, and say, “ ‘Paz, mucha paz, y sobre todo, mucho, mucho, mucho, mucho amor.’ ” And on the word amor I blow a chef’s kiss at her and give a little wink. It was Walter’s signature move, wishing his viewers much peace and love above all else (que en paz descance). The wink is my edit.

  She screams and starts laughing and keeps going that way, the tears coming down, grabbing at her side because the laughing is giving her a cramp in the ribs. Then she hits the speaker, dials the phone, and says, “Hey, Esmer, you have to come here. You’re not going to believe it,” but this Esmer puts her on hold.

  I say, “Hey, miss, can you turn up the hold music? It slaps.” And I’m being serious. It really does.

  “Ay, mija, you’re so safada.”

  Esmer never comes back to the phone and finally Miss Yoli gives up. I already don’t like Esmer for ghosting my girl like that.

  She gets on the radio instead and says, “Yoli to counseling, come in.”

  They don’t answer, and she says, “This is Yoli Esparza, Community and Schools Coordinator, to counseling, come in.” Miss Yoli is flexing by throwing out that title; she’s more than a clerk. She’s got the power. She winks at me and nods, letting me in on her power flex. My girl’s a coordinator. A queen.

  * * *

  ~

  Counseling sets me up with a schedule and then they send me back to Community and Schools Coordination with Miss Yoli Esparza.

  “Knock, knock, miss,” I say as I stand outside the doorway of her office. It’s something I’ve seen old people do instead of actually physically knocking on the door.

  “Come in, come in, mija.” She’s looked at all of my paperwork, maybe made a few phone calls, and has coded me homeless just like at my last school: staying with a friend or relative because of a loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason. I can hear it in her voice, how it’s just a little softer than it was before.

  “Mr. Puentes wants to meet with you.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Oh, mija, it’s okay. He does that with as many of the new students as he can whenever they register.”

  “Who’s Mr. Puentes?”

  “He’s the principal, mija.”

  She walks me over to his empty office and sits me down in a padded leather chair in front of his desk. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

  There are stacks and stacks of paper on every flat surface. On the shelf behind his desk, and on the walls everywhere, there are picture frames of football players wearing Dennett blue and gold, cheerleaders, ballet folklórico dancers, choir kids, band kids,
orchestra kids, poetry performance kids with fluttering papers in their hands, their mouths captured mid-stanza, and crowds of kids from the ’90s, ’00s, and ’10s, standing around Mr. Puentes and his different hair shades over the years, smiling into the cameras. I stand up to look at the panoramic photographs of classes gone by and peer into their tiny faces. It’s funny how all of the brown faces like mine are the same over the years, just with different makeup and hair.

  “Mija, thank you, thank you for coming in,” Mr. Puentes says as he walks into the office, in a rush, slightly out of breath. “Siéntate, mija, this won’t take long. I want to get you to second period, which is about to start.” At my last school, a counselor told me that I could miss the whole day as long as I was there at 10:07 a.m. when they took attendance.

  “Homeroom is attached to second period, mija, and I want to make sure you get a little tour of the school before you go to class. I have a question for you.”

  He takes a deep breath and settles. He’s older than Miss Yoli, more white than gray in his mustache and hair, and he has a kind face. He does make his eyes little as he notices my purple streak, but he doesn’t say anything.

  And then he asks me something no teacher, administrator, or counselor has ever asked me.

  “What do you dream about, mija?”

  I pause for a second, stunned. Of all the things he could have asked me, I was not expecting this.

  “You mean like in my dreams? Like how I always dream I’m flying, and when I do fly, it’s no biggie, and it’s like something I’ve always known how to do, but have only forgotten?”

  “That’s beautiful, and you’ll have to tell me about it later, but no, mija, what I mean to ask is, what do you want for your life? You’re fifteen now, and you might not know yet and that’s okay. I want you to know that here at Dennett Ninth-Grade Campus we do everything we can to help you fulfill your dreams and your potential. We are all about dreams here, mija.”

  “I want to go to college.” I almost say it as a question because I’m not quite sure if that’s what he wants to hear. Mama has always told me that the first thing that comes out of your mouth when someone asks you a question is what is in your heart. So this is what’s in my heart: I want to go to college.

  He slams the papers on his desk and says, “Eso, mija, eso. Yes, that’s what we’re all about here. ¡Ganas! In addition to that, I want you to be thinking beyond college and what comes after, what you want out of your life, your kids’ lives if you want to have kids, and the generations after.”

  “Sir, I’m fifteen and it’s not even ten o’clock in the morning.”

  “Ay, mija, you’re a character. We’ll talk more about this later. Think about it.” He then pulls up his radio and calls counseling and asks for a student ambassador.

  “Please send Brittney to escort Leidy to her class.” While he holds the radio up to his ear, waiting for a response, he pulls at long imaginary hair, gestures his white eyebrows at my purple streak, and gives me a thumbs-up.

  * * *

  ~

  Brittney, a girl who takes turns being bored and amused by her job as a student ambassador, talks in monotone one minute but then her voice lifts and rises as she goes through the practiced part of her tour. It’s spirit day and she’s wearing a Dennett Mustangs T-shirt, intentionally ripped jeans, and tennies.

  She walks me first to the Hall of Champions, where high up on the wall there are white vinyl banners with different school years in their titles. They’re long white banners with the phrase Banner of Champions, and under one it says Graduation Commitment: Class of 2024 and so on. On these banners are hundreds of signatures, in different colored Sharpies of kids who have committed to graduating with their class three years down the line.

  “These are our Banners of Champions.” Brittney says in this practiced presentational voice. She pushes up her glasses.

  “Sounds like a bunch of superheroes.”

  Brittney snorts. “Where are you coming from?”

  “Oh, I’ve been all over. I went to the Bears, the Bulldogs, the Greyhounds, the Cardinals.”

  “Well, welcome to the Mustangs.”

  As she is walking me to my class, we pass the entryway, and up high in the hallway is another banner. It says Second Annual Quinceañera: A Night Among Princesses.

  I stop and say, “What’s that all about?”

  “That’s our annual quince. Mr. Puentes started it last year when he found out a girl wasn’t going to have a quinceañera. It’s actually tomorrow tonight.”

  “Like a real quince?”

  “Yeah, with a cena and a dance and chambelanes and everything.”

  It takes me back to my fifteenth birthday earlier in the year, when we were living at Casa de Palmas, paying for the motel room week by week. Mama had taken me to dinner at Taco Fiesta and we’d both had the plate lunch special: carne guisada, rice, and beans. A real feast for anyone, and the typical dinner they serve at quinceañeras. Mama had gotten a flan to go and we’d gone back to the room to do our favorite thing together: work on a puzzle. We had done many as a team, but the one that went with us everywhere was a thousand-piece puzzle of the movie poster for Titanic. We had completed that puzzle and taken it apart more times than I could count. It was Mama’s favorite movie. I had memorized Leonardo’s and Kate’s faces. The place where their foreheads meet as they lean into each other is always the hardest because the colors are the same, but it is my favorite and the part I always save for last.

  It is too late for my quinceañera now because it’s already passed, and looking at that banner, something breaks in me.

  “Are you okay, Leidy?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I was just remembering my own quinceañera.” Brittney smiles because she doesn’t get what I’m saying. She thinks I’m talking about a dance, the dress, the presentation, all of the padrinos and madrinas, the regalos. Brittney can’t even imagine because the way her pants are intentionally ripped and those expensive glasses, she probably got all of those things.

  “What’s the Wi-Fi password?” I ask.

  “It’s ‘Collegebound@2022.’ Why?”

  “I want to send my mom a picture.”

  I get out my phone and start typing it in.

  “Why don’t you just use your network?”

  I lie and say, “I can’t get a signal.” Truth is, I don’t have a signal anywhere I go and I use calling and texting apps to send messages. My phone hasn’t been activated since two moves ago.

  I take pictures of the banner and of the quinceañera announcement and send it to my mom.

  Mira, mama, I type, and the pictures send.

  “Can anybody go to the quinceañera? I mean, do you need an invitation or anything?”

  “Yeah, just ask Mr. Puentes. He lets all the kids go. I’ll be there. I already had my quince with my parents in December, but I was going to go for the dancing. The huapangos are wild.”

  “So anyone can go?”

  “Anyone with an invitation, and Mr. Puentes hands them out to anyone who asks.”

  “Do you have to dress up?”

  “Some do and some don’t. The quinceañeras go all out because they get their hair and makeup done by professionals in Dennett and in other towns, and wear dresses that are lent out or donated. I mean, they are legit and get their photos done and everything. But for us students, it can be as casual as you want. You should go, Leidy.”

  The bell for second period rings and kids start coming out into the halls. They look just like all the kids from the other schools I’ve been in on a spirit day, except there seem to be more boys representing takuache cuh, which is a style that is a mix between preppy and wannabe new narco—how they wear embroidered jeans, belt buckles, and boots with tight polo shirts. When they aren’t wearing hats, their hair is always slicked down with baby bangs in the front. It’s not really i
mportant, but I always pay attention to little things like that, always try to get the social layout of any new school I enter.

  “Let me take you to your homeroom or Mr. Puentes is going to get on my case and give me the student leader talk.”

  My back pocket buzzes and it’s Mama.

  Ay, mija, I wish we could have done that for you. There is a crying emoji, and Mama’s gotten good at capturing her mood with them. It’s not something I do, get involved with anything at school like going to events, joining clubs, or making friends for long, but I decide I want to go. Even though I learned a long time ago not to make any school home and always try to remember that home is Mama, Brittney pretty much had me at huapango.

  Can I go? I ask Mama.

  The little dots are flashing too long, which usually means no. And I kind of actually hope she doesn’t give me permission because then it will take it out of my hands to decide. The little dots disappear and I guess that is my answer. I am actually relieved. It’s easy to act brave in front of adults, but I know if I get too close to anyone my age, either I or they will disappear.

  “I can’t go,” I say, and try to sound disappointed.

  “Well, maybe another time we can do something else,” Brittney says. The enthusiasm in her voice is real, and I can tell she’s not just saying it to say something.

  It only makes things worse because I know if Mama’s new job doesn’t work out, if we don’t get enough for a deposit for an apartment, we’ll be moving schools again. That means that when I move again, Brittney and I will say we will keep in touch, when what we really mean is that we will text for a while, then follow each other’s feeds, and our friendship will then be measured in likes and comments, and then not even that.