Dream Things True

DREAM THINGS TRUE

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

DREAM
THINGS
TRUE.
Copyright © 2015 by Marie Marquardt. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
(TK)

ISBN 978-1-250-07045-6 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4668-8024-5 (e-book)

First Edition: September 2015

St. Martin's Griffin books may be purchased for educational, business, or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or write to [email protected]

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Dedication TK

PART ONE

ONE

Machete Moments

If you grab a machete blade near the bottom, just above the handle, it won't cut through your skin.
That's what Alma was thinking, riding in her dad's truck way too early in the morning on the last Wednesday of summer.

Alma knew a lot about machetes—one of the perks of her summer job, if you could call it that. So, pondering the machete wedged behind her seat, she composed a list of facts in her head, hoping that a mind full of machete facts wouldn't have room for anxiety.

Machete hooks are great for pruning blackberry and blueberry bushes.

She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as her dad maneuvered the pickup truck from their barrio into the rich part of town.

In the traditional dances of many Latin American countries, men wear machetes as part of the costume: the
cumbia
in Colombia, capoeira (which, technically, is a martial art) in Brazil, and Mexican Matachines, to name just a few.

Alma hugged her knees tighter and sucked in a deep breath. Her stomach started to churn, and her hands got clammy.

Her dad always said that if he could only have one tool, it would be a machete.

“
Papi
,” she said tentatively, “there's something I need to ask you.”

Her father shot her the look—the one that told her she'd better switch into Spanish if she knew what was good for her.

“There's this anthropology class at the community college I want to take. It's after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she said in Spanish.

In five days—on August 20, 2007—Alma would start her junior year of high school.

She had been dreading the day for months. Now that it rapidly approached, she knew of only one way to lessen the pain. If she was fated to waste her time at Gilberton High School every day, she could at least take college classes after school.

One problem: she knew her dad would say no. Wasn't this supposed to be any parent's dream?

“
¿Y c
ó
mo lo vas a pagar, hija?
”

“I've saved enough money to pay the tuition.”

“
¿De verdad?
” He said this with a knowing grin. “Do you know how much those classes cost?”

“I looked online, and—”

“
¿En la tarde?
” her dad interrupted.

She saw exactly where this was going. Sometimes, Alma couldn't believe how absurd her life was.

“
S
í
, Papi,
in the afternoon, but—”

“But what about your
primas
?” He chuckled softly. “Will your cousins come to class with you?”

Now he was making fun of her. Fantastic.

“Can't Uncle Rigo watch them for a couple of hours? I mean, he
is
their father!”

“Your
t
í
o
Rigo is recovering from a severe back injury, Alma.”

Alma considered asking why, if Uncle Rigo was in so much pain, he went out fishing with his buddies every weekend. Remembering that success was her goal, she kept her mouth shut and considered alternative strategies.

“What if I ask
T
í
a
Pera to adjust her schedule at the plant?”

“Pera is lucky to have gotten her position back at the plant, Alma. She can't go to her boss asking for special favors.”

How could she possibly be lucky to spend eight hours a day as a backup killer at the poultry plant, Alma wondered. Her aunt spent her days gripping a lethally sharp knife in each hand and watching an endless row of headless chickens move slowly by, dangling from their feet. Her job was to chop off the heads of the lucky chickens that made it through the killing machines alive.

Sometimes Alma felt as helpless as those chickens.

Alma was not even seventeen yet, but she had experienced enough to know that there are certain days in a life—moments, even—when the unexpected happens. Just like the swift swipe of a machete, it cuts through your life and leaves behind something entirely new. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes both at once.

Like that morning in eighth grade, when Mrs. King pulled Alma into her office. Mrs. King was the new middle school counselor, and probably the largest small woman Alma had ever met. She was the kind of woman with wrists so narrow that her bones stuck out, but somehow everything about her seemed oversized, all the way down to her deep and resonant laugh. She transferred in halfway through the year, and brought with her the perfect strategy for luring middle schoolers into her office. The smell of unusual homemade sweets wafted through her door: devil's food cake, buttermilk pie, candied pecans, sweet potato cheesecake. No chocolate-chip cookies, no brownies. They were “too ordinary.”

The office was filled with bookshelves and the distinctive aroma of roasted peanuts. A degree from Spelman College covered the narrow strip of available wall space, just above a certificate of recognition from the Association of Black Psychologists. Apparently Mrs. King was part of something called the “Disaster Relief Task Force”. Strangely, that made Alma feel hopeful.

She sat Alma down and offered her a hefty chunk of homemade peanut brittle.

“I have a plan,” she told Alma. “And I know you're gonna like it.”

Alma bit off a piece of peanut brittle and let it slowly melt in her mouth as Mrs. King began.

“We're going to find another high school for you—a good one.”

The local school, Gilberton High, wasn't a bad school, but it was the kind of place where Latino boys were funneled into classes like Fundamentals of Construction, and the girls wasted their time in glorified home economics classes, carrying around eggs for a week as a way to practice caring for babies.

“Really?” Alma asked, wiping the crumbs away from her mouth. “I mean, is that even possible?”

Until that day, no one had ever told her there might be an alternative.

Mrs. King pulled out a map of north Georgia.

“Show me where you've got family, sweetheart.”

When Alma's sticky finger landed on north Atlanta, Mrs. King set the plan into motion. She laid out a future filled with possibilities: top-ranked teachers, advanced placement classes, college admissions counselors, scholarships and university degrees. Alma would live with cousins in Atlanta and attend one of the best high schools in the state—if they could convince her dad.

Mrs. King, Alma soon discovered, was a very patient woman. Or hardheaded. First, she tried reason with Mr. Garcia, bringing a stack of standardized test scores over to Alma's house and sitting at the dining room table with Alma's dad. The conversation went something like this:

Mrs. King: “Are you aware of how unusual it is for a child to score consistently in the ninety-eighth percentile?”

Alma's dad: “Yes, and my Alma will have this score next year again, here with her family in Gilberton.”

Mrs. King then suggested that Alma resort to “good ol'-fashioned bribery.” Here's how that conversation went:

Alma: “I'll work for you every summer if you let me go,
Papi
.
Te lo prometo.
I promise, every single day, all day.”

Alma's dad: “Yes, you will, just like your brother, as soon as you turn fifteen.”

Alma: “So I can go? To Atlanta?”

Alma's dad: “No,
hija
. How will you work for me here in Gilberton if you're living over there in Atlanta?”

Apparently Alma was expected to do the work anyway, not only in the summer but every weekend during the school year, too—which, by the way, is why it would be a big stretch to call this her “summer job.”

When Mrs. King told her to give it one last try, Alma even tried guilting her dad by bringing up her mother. That conversation was so painful that Alma had blocked it out of her memory. Basically, her dad insisted that Alma's mom would have wanted their family to be together, no matter what. It looked like Alma would be heading to Gilberton High School.

But then came another machete moment.

Alma met Mario at a family party three weeks before the start of high school. He was a
reci
é
n llegado
—recently arrived from their hometown in Mexico. He was probably a third cousin or something since everyone from their hometown seemed to be related. Anyway, he followed her around all night while she was taking care of her little cousins.

The two of them stood and watched boys throw themselves against the mesh walls of the trampoline, and Mario looked so pathetically sad and lonely that Alma decided to make conversation.

“How do you like Gilberton?” she asked in Spanish.

“It's OK,” he replied.

That was all he said. Squeaking trampoline springs filled their awkward silence.

“Are you working at Silver Ribbon?” she asked.

He nodded once but said nothing.

Alma already knew that, like everyone else who came up from her hometown in Mexico, Mario had a job at the chicken plant. Her
t
í
a
Dolores always scored the newcomers a job there.

“What's your station?” she asked, not having any idea how else to make conversation.

“Killing floor,” he said, focusing intently on the pack of boys as they hurled themselves from the trampoline. “Cleanup.”

So he spent his days mopping blood and feathers from the killing floor. No wonder he was miserable.

Alma felt so sorry for him that, when he cornered her against the rusty trampoline and tried to kiss her, she let him. He groped at her body with clumsy hands while forcing his tongue into her mouth and swirling it around in swift circles. It felt like she was on some crazy roller coaster ride. To make matters worse, he was chewing Big Red gum, which filled her mouth with an overwhelming burning sensation.

She should have known that the burn would foreshadow worse things to come.

Her dad showed up just as she was disentangling herself from Mario's roving hands. Glaring at Mario, he took Alma by the forearm and pulled her away. They marched directly to his Bronco without exchanging a single word. He opened the back door and pushed her in, not roughly but definitely not gently either.

“Stay here,” he grumbled, his eyes burning with anger.

She watched as he slammed the door, trapping her in the car. He went inside and came out moments later with Ra
ú
l, Alma's older brother. The two of them found Mario cowering behind the trampoline. To their credit, Alma's dad and brother used only their words to make Mario to retreat from the party. As Ra
ú
l headed toward the car, her dad went to exchange words with his sister, Alma's
t
í
a
Dolores. Presumably, he was trying to guard Alma's purity.