Imperfect Spiral (27 page)

“I get that. Although if you went to an US-2 meeting, it might help you figure out what you think.”

“I think maybe I'm not an activist at heart.”

She's looking at me skeptically again.

“What?”

“
Ma chérie
, of course you're an activist,” she says. “You have it in you. Remember fifth grade? You wrote that letter to the Franklin Grove Board when they were talking about turning the community hall rec room into some kind of computer lab.”

“They never answered that letter,” I say. “And I can't believe you remember that.”

Becca taps her head in a wizard-like way. “I remember everything,” she says.

“They never answered the letter,” I repeat. “So big deal.”

“They may not have answered the letter—which was very
rude, but never mind—but, tell me, did they turn the Ping-Pong room into a computer lab?” Becca asks.

They did not.

“You are too an activist, Danielle,” Becca says. “You just haven't decided what you're an activist for.”

My bus comes, and this time I climb aboard.

COME TO OUR 2ND MEETING!!

We are …
Students like you.
They call us “illegal.”
We have done nothing illegal.

Some of us were born in another country and brought to the US by our parents. The US is the only country we know and love, yet we live in constant fear of being sent back to a country we don't know.

Some of us were born in the US but our parents are undocumented immigrants. We are citizens. But some lawmakers
want to take away our citizenship. Some people even want to kick us out of public schools.

Learn more about immigration law and policy and how it affects your peers. Join us in fighting for fair laws. Come to a meeting on:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 * 2:30 * ROOM 235-C

We are US, too!

US-2!    US, TOO!    US-2!

I'm not a joiner. I'm not an activist. I'm not speaking to Justin.

But I find myself, at 2:28 p.m. on November 13, walking down the hall to room 235-C.

The doorbell rings. Mom and Dad aren't home from work yet. I'm not expecting anyone. I turn off the stove, where I've just boiled a kettle of water, and go to the door.

Justin.

Justin Folgar, fugitive from justice.

Stop it.

It's been fifteen days since I've seen him or talked to him, not that anybody's counting. He hasn't called or texted. And I certainly haven't reached out to him.

But hurt and angry and disappointed as I was—still I'm happy, or relieved, or something, to see him. When I went to the US-2 meeting at school, I thought about how Justin ended up in his precarious position through no fault of his own. I thought about how pained he looked when he told me about
why he disappeared when the police and EMTs came to the ice rink. How sad he was when he told me about the blue minivan.

How dishonest he was with me for weeks and weeks, not telling me about the blue minivan.

Still. I'm not going to shut the door on him.

“Come in,” I say, in what I hope is a chilly tone. He follows me to the kitchen. “I was just making some tea.”

He doesn't want any, but I fix myself a mug. We sit at the kitchen table.

“They're not charging my father with anything. They said the accident wasn't his fault. It's official.”

“Good,” I say flatly. “That's great.”

I can't help but think: If it's officially not Mr. Folgar's fault, is it now officially my fault? I mean, the police have told us that it's definitely not a police matter—I'm not going to be arrested or prosecuted or anything. But what about being sued by the Dankers?

I did finally talk to my parents about this. Turns out, they've been worrying about it from day one. They didn't mention it to me, though, because they didn't want me to worry. So we've all been in this cone of silence to avoid freaking each other out. They've actually consulted a lawyer and talked to their insurance company. What they haven't done is ask the Dankers,
So, are you going to sue our daughter?

Justin continues. “The place my father works, though, this lab—they freaked out because of all the trouble they can get into for having an undocumented alien on the payroll. Even
though they've always sort-of-kind-of known about it. But now, with all the publicity—they fired him.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, intending to sound sorry, only in a cold and indifferent way.

“And now ICE is all over them—”

“ICE?”

“The government. Immigration enforcement. You know—
La Migra
. As they say.”

I have never heard Justin say a word of Spanish before.

“Can't your parents become legal now?” I ask. I think I remember Justin saying that they could have done this years ago but never got around to it. And I heard people talking about it at the US-2 meeting I went to—about going from illegal to legal by filing a bunch of papers.

Justin shakes his head. “It's not even close to that easy. For one thing, as of last week my dad doesn't have an employer anymore to sponsor him. You don't get to stay and get a green card just because you've lived here a long time. Just because you think it's your home.”

“I'm sorry,” I say again. It's hard for me to stay cold and indifferent. He looks like he's going to cry. “What will happen now?”

“We can leave voluntarily. Or we can go through a trial in immigration court, which we'll lose, and then be deported.”

“How do you know you'll lose?”

“We will,” Justin says. His voice is tight. “Trust me.”

“But your little sisters are citizens!” I say. “That should help.”

“Not really.”

“And what about the police not knowing that you're here?” I ask. “Not knowing that you exist? Remember you told me—how the newspaper said your little sisters were the only kids, and you and your parents were glad about that?”

He half rolls his eyes. “I wouldn't say we're glad about anything. But yeah, I think so far the ICE doesn't know I exist. Or my big sister. But who knows how long that can last? And what am I going to do—live here by myself after my parents and the girls go back to Colombia?”

I don't know.

“So it looks like we're going to leave,” he says. “In theory, we can come back.”

“What's the theory?” I ask.

“Say, if my mom or dad finds some company in the U.S. to sponsor one of them,” he says. “Or maybe I could come back for college, on a student visa.”

“Like your parents did.”

“Yeah. Look how well it turned out for them.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes.

“I feel so bad,” he says.

“Something could still work out,” I say. “Listen, maybe you can live with your older sister in Philadelphia. The two of you can stay.”

“No, I'm talking about us,” he says. He sort of slumps in the kitchen chair. “I feel so bad about not being up front with you. It's like, once I didn't say anything when we first met in the
park, I got trapped—in the half-truth of just being this random guy who met you in the park.”

I squint at him. “The
half
-truth?”

I would call it a lie. I get up from the table to lean against the counter. A lie, not a half-truth. If that's what he's calling it, I can't even sit at the table with him.

“The untruth,” Justin says. He reads my mind. “The
lie
. But it's not like everything was a lie, which is why I have a hard time using that word. I didn't know that you and Humphrey were going to turn out to be—who you turned out to be—when I saw you guys playing catch and dancing, and when I thought,
Hey, that's a cool girl
. And then later, after, when you and I first met, I didn't know for sure that you were the girl in the accident.”

“Oh, come on!” I say.

“No—I wasn't sure. Not at first. There could have been other girls babysitting other little kids in your neighborhood.”

“But you had to have figured it out pretty quickly,” I say. “As in, as soon as we started talking.”

He looks away from me for a second. “Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

“And you said nothing.”

“You were cool. And funny. And pretty. I didn't want to ruin it.”

There that is again. That—ruination thing.

And as quickly as I got angry, I get un-angry.

“And I ended up ruining it anyway,” he says.

“Yup,” I say.

“Is there anything I can say or do to make you not hate me?”

“Yup,” I say, while I'm thinking,
You already called me cool and funny and pretty
.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Yup.”

“And?”

“Don't give up so easily. Don't just surrender and decide you're leaving, that you have no choices. Maybe you should go to one of those immigration law groups where they take cases for free. I heard about them at the US-2 meeting. And in the meantime, keep on being invisible to the ICE.”

“This is what will make you not hate me?” Justin asks.

“Yup,” I say.

“That's what my parents want me to do, too.”

“I guess they're smarter than your average parents, then,” I say.

“I hate being this scaredy-cat ‘illegal' keeping my head down. I hate being too scared even to feel good about helping that referee on the ice. I hate having to be invisible.”

“The idea is to be
selectively
invisible,” I say. “Invisible to the government, at least for now. But not invisible to everyone.”

A small—tiny, tiny, but I see it—smile starts to play around Justin's mouth.

“Kind of like a superhero,” he says.

“Let's not get carried away,” I say.

“And it's okay if I lie to the government by pretending I'm
not here, but not okay to lie to you about being a random guy from the park?”

“Because a lie of
o
mission is less bad than a lie of
co
mmission?” I offer. I don't know. I can't make it come out all tidy and consistent, even if I try.

Justin gets up from the kitchen table and comes over to the counter where I'm standing. He leans into me. I lean into him. He is definitely not invisible to me. His presence feels so strong, I am a little concerned that he can't possibly be invisible to anyone.

“This is no lie,” he says.

“Neither is this,” I reply.

We kiss.

Pleasurably. Pleasingly. Un-platonically.

I am sitting at a table in front of the esteemed and honorable members of the Meigs County Council.

When I called Jen, the council aide, to tell her that I would testify at the hearing, she sounded surprised.

“What made you change your mind?” she asked.

“Oh, you know,” I said. “I wanted to do my civic duty.”

She offered to e-mail me a list of questions the council members were likely to ask. I turned her down. If I had the questions in advance, I thought, I would feel compelled to compose answers to them in advance. Then I would rehearse them. It would be too much like giving a speech—or like being on the bimah with the Torah in front of me with specific words I was supposed to say.

It does help that the witness chair, where I'm sitting, faces
the council members, who are sitting up on some sort of platform. So I can't see the people in the audience, which I hope will help me survive this. I can try to pretend I'm just talking to the seven council members.

The hearing is being held in the Franklin Grove Community Hall, rather than the Meigs County Council building. I think they held it here so that a lot of the neighbors would be sure to come. And the hall is filled—overflowing, even. Who knew this many people lived in Franklin Grove.

Which makes me realize that, no, actually, I really don't think I
can
pretend I'm just talking to the seven council members. And if I can't pretend that, how am I going to stop the panic from overtaking me?

Visualization. That's supposed to be my solution, according to Dr. Gilbert. She and I could spend months and years trying to get to the bottom of why exactly I became afflicted with this fear of public speaking. I'd really rather not. I like Dr. Gilbert, but, as I told her, I'd rather have some coping mechanisms up my sleeve than struggle to get to the bottom of my deep, dark psyche. The coping mechanism at the top of her list of suggestions is to visualize something soothing. Like the beach.

Now that I'm actually sitting by my lonesome self in front of the council members, knowing that there are maybe two hundred people at my back, I'm having serious doubts about visualization. I love the beach. Love the ocean. But when I bring up a picture of it now, what I see is a sea full of angry
whitecaps, and then a giant tidal wave pushing toward me, and then crashing over me. This is not a helpful image.