The Secret Side of Empty (11 page)

Yep, that dude is definitely here to hook up.

“We have a student auditing class today,” says Blue unexpectedly, jutting her chin out at me. Heads turn in my direction. “Tell me, guest, what do you think about the role of women in antiquity?”

I feel a tingle of electricity through me. “I’d like to learn how pots can be political.”

“I’ll see you in this room next year, then, I hope,” she says. And winks.

I feel my eyes sting.

I
get home to two things: Jose in red leather pants and my mother with a bruise on her cheek. On the good news front, the lights are back on.

I choose one battle to fight.

“What the heck is Jose wearing?”

“Aren’t they nice? I got them from that lady who lives around the block from Chelsea, the one I made those black-and-white curtains for last month. Remember?”

Jose wiggles his butt from one side to the next. “I’m a rock star!”

“Ma, he can’t go out in the street looking like that.”

“Why not? What’s the matter with them?”

“I’m a rock star!” screams Jose, louder.

“Yes, Joey, you’re a rock star. Is
SpongeBob
on?”

“It’s Ho-say!”

“Okay, how about that
SpongeBob
?”

“I don’t know, let me go check.”

Once he’s out of the room, I turn to my mom. How she could be so dense is completely beyond me. I point to her cheek. “And what’s that?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sometimes I wonder why you don’t kill him in his sleep.”

“Monse! How dare you say that! He’s your father.”

“You could call the police, you know.”

“You know what would happen if I called the police. They’d deport him. They might deport us all. I could never do that to Jose and you.”

“Don’t do us any favors. And they’d only deport him.”

“Don’t be so sure. Children need their father. And marriage is forever.”

“There are places we could go. Shelters.”

“And then what, Monse? Then what? They don’t take people for longer than a few days. They don’t take people without papers, either, I don’t think.”

“Then we could get an apartment. You could get a job.”

“What job could I get? I don’t speak English.”

“There’s help, government stuff. That lady on the first floor who always gives us her extra cheese.”

“They don’t give help to people like us. Without papers, you can’t get government help. There’s nothing. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. It’s not so bad.”

She makes me so mad I want to shake her. How she refuses to acknowledge how totally messed up our lives are. How she doesn’t even see how things could be different.

She says, “Anyway, tell me about the college. What was that like?”

“It was stupid, Ma! It was boring! The people were all drunken idiots. What does it matter anyway? What the hell do you care how the college was? It’s not like I can go.”

“Maybe we can find the way,” she says softly.

“Oh, because
you’re
going to be a big help,” I say, pointing at her eye. I know I’m being mean. And I want to be.

Two tears start down her cheeks, one out of each eye. It gives me a wicked satisfaction, like something I’ve said has mattered. I still want to shake her, but a little less.

She’s quiet for a long time. Finally she says, “You still have that little cell phone?”

I didn’t realize she even knew I’d bought one. Is she going to take it away or something?

“Yes.”

“I have a calling card, but no phone to call on. It’s my sister’s birthday. I’d like to talk to her.”
Quiero hablar con ella
.
It’s funny how things sound so much more personal in Spanish. I feel a little squirmy about her simple request of wanting to talk to her sister even after I’ve yelled at her. And I hate to think of her wanting anything. She never wants. It’s like she’s not allowed.

She asks me to dial it for her. As soon as I hear the funny long-distance ring, I hand the phone to her. I want to bolt, but she puts her hand on my forearm. Not holding me, just tractor-beaming me into position.

“Hello?”
Hola
. “What is my favorite sister doing on her birthday? Oh? An
asado
? Who is there?”

A barbecue. I have listened to hundreds of these calls, always just the one side of the conversation. But from the questions and the comments I know what the other side says. The people I’ve never met but am supposed to love. They are always having an
asado
. I swear they must barbecue for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I see the emotions flit over my mother’s face and try to study the paint that’s chipping in the corner.

“No! You’re kidding!” she’s saying. “La Mariela went all the way from San Luis? When did she get there? Just to surprise you?” Apparently some rogue cousin visitor has shown up for my aunt’s birthday. That’s when my mother starts crying big-time.

“Oh, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen her? Probably since that dance, you remember the one? I wore your green dress? And you were mad? Remember? She did my makeup and we tried not to let la Mami see because I wasn’t supposed to wear makeup yet because I was too young?”

She is doing a great job at keeping the tear sound out of her voice. She has a lot of practice at that. Her hand is burning a hole in my forearm. I just want to get the hell out of here.

“Oh,
hermana
, I would give anything to be there. Anything. Who else is there?”

She’s quiet for a long time, listening to the rundown of the
asado
guests. And then I can tell she gets The Question. The question they always ask. Every call.

“I don’t know when I’ll be over there, Mari Carmen. I don’t know.” Then she says the thing I’ve never heard her say before. “I don’t think we’re ever going back.” And she’s out of the closet with the crying thing, too, when she says that.

I feel a deep, drumming explosion in my chest, one where you know nothing will ever be the same. It’s what I want, but it’s not what they want. It is one of those wins that feels like a loss.

I don’t know what her sister says, but it can’t be good, because my mother cries harder.

I rip my arm out from under her touch. “Bring me my phone when you’re done,” I say on my way out of the room.

She calls after me, “But they’ll want to say hello to you.”

“Tell them I’m not here,” I say. I am never going to talk to those people again. I bet they’ll think it’s all my fault that their beloved sister and daughter is never going home. That there will always be a hole in their family where my mother was supposed to be. It’s one thing to know I am never going there. But it’s another to know my mother thinks she’s never going to get to go back to the family she misses so much.

A few minutes later, she walks into my room and gently puts my phone down on my bed. I snatch it up and head for the door. I can’t stand to be inside anymore.

Jose bounces into our room again, doing the rock-star hip motion in his red leather pants. “
SpongeBob
in fifteen minutes!” he says.

“Not right now, little J man.” I try not to slam the door as I go outside.

I ride around for hours. I don’t even feel like calling Chelsea.

When I get back to the apartment hours later, everyone is sleeping. I stand in the door of my parents’ room. I hear my father’s soft snore. I look at him, my heart thumping.

I walk nearer to the bed. My father’s jacket is draped over a chair. Millimeter by millimeter, I get closer. I slip my hand into his pocket. I root around for his money. I pull it out. If he wakes up now, I’m dead. Quickly, I count it: seventeen dollars. I grab five singles, put the rest back, and walk quietly to my room. Jose’s sideways across his bed, feet dangling near the floor, mouth open,
SpongeBob
pillow in a death grip.

I put the five dollars in my vent. I lay down on my futon and stare into the dark. Only $170 to go until we’re even.

I
GET
TO
SCHOOL
EARLY
ON
M
ONDAY
SO
I
CAN
GO
TO
THE
computer lab and check Facebook.

There’s an email from Nate. It says, “So, I was thinking maybe we could go to a movie on Friday. What do you think?”

Happy explosions in my ears.

In about four seconds flat I run down my outfit, makeup, and grooming decisions while I stare at the screen and reread his message eight times.

Then I notice a friend request from Josh, Siobhan’s boyfriend. In the invite, he writes, “Puff, I can’t let you be chronically unhip and parochial all your life. Accept my friend request and you’ll know about songs they don’t play on the radio.” He also includes a link to a YouTube video by some band called The Smiths.

I click Accept. And make a mental note to check the word “parochial” on Dictionary.com because I’m pretty sure Josh just made fun of me for being Catholic.

Then I write Nate back. Yes, a movie.

There is a National Honor Society meeting before homeroom, and I close out the computer and run down to the lounge where we usually have the meetings. Everyone is there, sitting on the old, worn couches. Ms. North, who moderates the NHS, is standing up.

“M.T., I’m glad you’re here. We’ve been waiting for you. There is some pretty exciting news,” she says.

I find a spot to sit.

“So,” she begins, “you know how the NHS plans a trip every year.”

I have a feeling we have two different definitions of good news.

“I am particularly excited about this year’s trip. We are going to . . .” She does her best game show cliffhanger moment. “England and Ireland!”

Delighted gasps all around as girls burst into little chirps of excitement.

“London, Stratford-upon-Avon—yes, people, we’re going to sneak in some learning on this trip—and then three days in Dublin and a wonderful day in the Irish countryside.”

I plaster on a fake smile, close my eyes, and pray for my invisibility ray to finally kick in.

“Dakota and M.T., as president and vice president, I’ll need your help coordinating.”

Awesome
.

Ms. North aims her heat vision at me. “Is that okay, M.T.?”

“Of course.” I smile. It is, in fact, the opposite of okay. No passport means no leaving the country. Well, I can leave, but then I won’t be able to come back in. Wouldn’t that make the NHS trip memorable.

She hands out brochures and answers questions. The sophomores chatter more loudly than everyone. It will be their first NHS trip. It would be my first too, if I could go. Luckily, it’s not long until the first bell of the day rings. I get up to go to homeroom. Ms. North asks me to stay behind.

I know better than to pull the floor stare on her, so I look at her chin and try to make my look steel-reinforced.

“You don’t seem thrilled, M.T.”

“Yeah, I mean, England, kind of drippy, right? Not sure I want to go. I’ll help organize, though. No biggie.”

She fixes me with her I’m-not-fooled-by-you stare. “I know you have never gone on a National Honor Society trip, M. I don’t presume to know why. But just say the word and I will make sure you have a ticket on this trip. We fund a scholarship and I—”

“I don’t want to go,” I interrupt her.

“Don’t you lie to me.”

I raise my eyes up to hers. “I can’t go.”

“I can speak to your parents.”

“That wouldn’t help. Even if they said yes, I still. Couldn’t. Go.” I try to telegraph the truth to her so she’ll understand I’m not being difficult.

She never takes her eyes off mine and I feel her running through the algorithm in her mind. I see a shadow of understanding in her eyes for such a split second that I wonder if she gets it.

“Okay, I understand. I’ll make sure the teachers stop any efforts to persuade you.”

“Thank you.”

Her eyes play over my face. “I’ll mark you present in homeroom. Go down to the locker room.”

“Thank you,” I say again. She knows what I need before I do. I sit in the locker room. I’ve missed other trips before so I don’t know why this one feels like a bigger deal. I guess it’s like the beginning of the end. Of how things will always be from now on.

I stay in the locker room during homeroom. I know I’m pushing it, but I stay through Ms. North’s first period class, then Physics, too. I close my eyes and try to imagine Friday. And forget the trip.

Social Studies is my next class, taught by Ms. Cronell. Witchy old Ms. Cronell’s class is harder to cut, so when the bell rings I head upstairs. I am not in the mood for her.

“Hello, children,” she says. Her short, gray, filing-cabinet−colored hair goes in a weird, giant wave that’s about to eat her head.
Children
. Ugh. Just because she remembers the American Revolution firsthand.

“Now that we’ve had our last test on Reconstruction, I want to start talking about some of the forces at play in the early twentieth century. Let’s start with immigration.”