Red Glass (7 page)

Pablo giggled. I wanted to hug him right then and it wouldn’t have mattered if I got soap and cold water all over my clothes. I rinsed him off, and then Ángel wrapped him up in a clean towel and carried him to the bed. “See? You’re like a burrito now.”

We dressed him in his pajamas, and then he wanted to be a burrito again, so we wound the peacock blanket around him. “Sophie?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can you read to me and Ángel?”

Ángel smiled. “Pleeeeeease?”

I picked out a few poems from my e. e. cummings book. He was a poet who didn’t like to use capitals or correct punctuation, and he tossed around parentheses like dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg. His poems didn’t make much sense the first time I read them, but then later I’d notice some of the lines flitting through my head, pieces of dreams. I figured that even if my brain didn’t get the poem, some other part of me was soaking it up.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Pablo looked thoughtful, wrapped in the peacock blanket. He turned his head and said, “Ángel?”

“¿Sí, señor?”

“What’s in your box?”

“It’s—” He stopped and laughed. “You’re sneaky. You almost had me.” He grinned at me. “Not telling.”

Pablo looked at me, as though I could convince Ángel somehow. I shrugged. Pablo motioned to me to come closer. I bent over, moved my face close to his. “Sophie,” he whispered loudly in my ear. “You think his mom’s heart’s in the box?”

At first I wrinkled up my nose, thinking of a real human heart, blood and vessels and muscle, slimy blue and red, pumping blood from nowhere to nowhere. Then I realized it was a twist on the poem.
i carry your heart in my heart.

I glanced at Ángel. Any trace of a smile had drained from his face. He got off the bed, took the box from his backpack, and wrapped it in two plastic bags. Then he carried it into the bathroom with him and closed the door. Soon the patter of shower spray started.

“Maybe you’re right,
principito
,” I said. “Maybe that’s what’s in his box.”

And I realized I couldn’t bear the thought of never hearing that laugh again. For me it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert.

“Little fellow, I want to hear you laugh again.”

—T
HE
L
ITTLE
P
RINCE

Sparkles in the Virgin’s Hair

The fifth day, we snaked through the mountains and passed through woods and huge fields where cows and goats grazed. Gradually, the cement houses grew closer together, and the air thickened with smog, and we officially entered Mexico City, dense with people and cars and buildings, everything tinted gray. Clouds of black exhaust oozed through our open windows and made me cough so much I was sure an asthma attack would kill me. I insisted we roll up the windows, which meant we were all sweating like pigs. Mr. Lorenzo drove carefully, hunched over the wheel, wiping his forehead as taxis cut us off and horns blared.

Once we left the city, relieved, we rolled down the windows and let in the dry air, the smells of trash burning at the roadside. We wound around low hills of scrub brush and cacti until late that afternoon, when we saw the sign for Huajuapan, the town closest to Pablo’s village.

“Ha-WHAT-pan?” Dika cried. She squinted at the map, holding it at arm’s length. She refused to wear reading glasses. She said they made her feel like an old lady when in her heart she felt sixteen.

“Wa-HWA-pan,”
Pablo said.

Dika ordered us to say it ten times so that we would remember what town we were in. At first I rolled my eyes and ignored her, but after the fourth
wa-HWA-pan
, Pablo collapsed into a fit of uncontrollable giggles and I couldn’t resist joining in. Ángel didn’t participate. He’d been unusually quiet since the motel.

At the gas station on the outskirts of Huajuapan, two men told us the road to Santa María Nuquimi, Pablo’s village, was closed because of mudslides. This was a common occurrence in the mountains in rainy season, they assured us, and in a couple of days the road would be clear. They suggested we stay in Huajuapan, since we’d arrived smack in the middle of the yearly weeklong festival for
El Señor de los Corazones
, the dark-skinned Jesus, patron saint of the city. Pablo’s relatives weren’t expecting us for two more days, and it would be only a two-hour drive to his village, so we decided to stay.

It seemed like a pleasant town, not too big, not too polluted, with neat rows of low, pastel-painted stores and houses. Women in checked aprons and long braids were selling pyramids of mangoes on the sidewalk. On every street corner, neighbors and shopkeepers were chatting, some leaning on brooms or mops. We splurged on a hotel on the main street with a courtyard bursting with flowers and fruit trees, and a pet parrot. All this lush color felt like a drink of cool water.

We waited in the courtyard with our bags while Mr. Lorenzo paid and got the keys. Dika and Pablo made a beeline to the parrot and offered it bits of banana leaves. It turned its nose up at the leaves, but seemed somewhat interested in the squawking noises Dika made.

A line of ants toting pieces of neon pink flower petals crossed the concrete patio, meandered around the legs of white plastic chairs and tables, and disappeared into bushes at the base of a lime tree. Ángel had to have a dozen lime-girl jokes going through his head right now, but he kept his mouth closed, his lips pressed firm. Something was going on with him, and I couldn’t figure out what.

Two girls about Pablo’s age were making a show of wiping down the tables, but mainly whispering and giggling and staring at us. One of the girls took a breath and asked me in Spanish, as if on a dare, “Why is your hair yellow? Do you dye it?”

“No,” I said. To deflect attention from my hair, I added, “But my great-aunt does,” and nodded toward Dika.

“Ha!” Dika grabbed my arm and pulled me close. She whispered theatrically, “Why you tell my beauty secrets? Eh?”

“It’s not exactly a secret. Look at your roots.”

“Shhh! What if my boyfriend hears you say this?”

I laughed.

“Hmph!” Dika said. “Those girls, they think you are funny with your yellow hair.”

“Funny?” I said. Why could I joke around with Dika about
her
hair, but the second my hair’s turn came, my stomach knotted up and I thought, Yes, I am ugly. “What’s funny about it?” I asked, hurt. “Am I ugly, Pablo?”

Ángel looked at me and opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again.

Pablo said, “You’re the most prettiest girl on the world.”

“Thank you, little brother.” I’d never called him “brother” before.

He slipped his hand in mine. “I want tacos for dinner.”

I squeezed his small hand. “Then tacos you’ll have,
principito.
”

After we dumped our bags in the rooms, we looked for a place to eat tacos. It was dusk, and lights were starting to turn on. We found a tiny restaurant that looked welcoming.
COMEDOR HERMELINDA
—Hermelinda’s Eatery—was neatly stenciled in red paint over the entrance, which was essentially a garage door. One whole wall of the restaurant was open to the street, the way most of the other restaurants here seemed to be. The TV in the corner blared a comedy show with slapstick skits that the customers loved. A few bare lightbulbs dangled from the ceiling and cast a stark light that somehow felt cozy because of all the people talking and laughing. Imagine if your neighbor stuck some tables and a TV in his garage and squeezed everyone on the street in there for an impromptu party.

“Ahhh! Look!” Dika cried. “Only places for three people at this table!”

“Pablo and I can sit at this other table,” I said.

“Oh, no! Pablo sits here with Mr. Lorenzo and me! I must to help him select the food.”

Dika was playing matchmaker again, which was fine with me, since I was obviously bumbling my way through whatever this thing with Ángel was. It seemed as if he’d crawled into his box and locked himself up with whatever was in there.

I sat down at a table and he sat across from me, setting his box down between us. Ángel ordered three tacos and a Corona with lime. I ordered the same, glancing at Dika and Mr. Lorenzo to see if they’d noticed the beer part, but they didn’t seem to care. Corona was Mom and Juan’s beer of choice. Sometimes during their parties, I’d sneak a bottle and lie on the hammock and watch people laughing and talking as though they were on-screen, on a TV show with sets and lights, while I was hidden backstage.

The waitress set down our Coronas, and after the first sip, I didn’t think I’d be able to finish it. The beer was warm and flat, maybe due to limited fridge space, or maybe the people here liked it that way.

Ángel wasn’t talking, so I looked around the room, feeling awkward. An altar to the Virgin of Juquila—Oaxaca’s special Virgin, Pablo had told us—hung on the wall above our heads. Multicolored Christmas lights surrounded her, gold tassels dripped from her shiny gown, glitter sparkled in her hair, and her crown shot out gold rays with stars perched on the ends. It made me think of the lady who had saved Ángel when he fell down the ravine. Even if I didn’t have any magical ladies looking out for me, I appreciated that he did, that
someone
in this world did, that maybe there was hope for me yet. I wondered what his magical lady thought of me, whether she was rooting for me.

Ángel put his extra lime slices on my plate, a small, silent present. I watched his hands and remembered how they felt braiding my hair. Heat gathered in the center of my body and spread out. I wanted him to braid my hair again. When he’d braided it, for the first time it hadn’t felt dry and thick and frizzy. It felt worshiped and full of sparkles and stars, like the Virgin’s hair.

We ate without talking much at first, just a few comments about the mysterious spice in the beans, ginger or cloves, something you’d normally find in Christmas cookies. Alone, without Pablo, I couldn’t think of anything to say. This was like a date. Almost. A date with a bleached-orange-haired chaperone at the next table over who periodically sent us disapproving glances. Once she called over, “You childrens have good conversation, no?”

Dessert came free with the meal. They called it
gelatina
, which sounded classier than what it really was—red Jell-O in a clear plastic cup. I looked at it closely to make sure there were no flies or roaches in there. Little ripples and bubbles were caught inside like a frozen lake. Some light bounced off the surface and some light sank in, and for a second I saw a whole world inside the cup of Jell-O. Maybe that was what Dika saw in her red glass, a distant world of light and joy.

“Hey, lime-girl. You gonna put lime on that
gelatina
?” Ángel said. “’Cause I have another extra one.” He gave me a weak smile, as though he was making a big effort. I heard that if you smile even if you don’t feel like it, you might trick yourself into being happy.

“No thanks.” I dug my spoon in and slurped it up and felt it dissolve on my tongue. Then I took a deep breath and said, “You’re quiet.”

“So are you.”

“But I’m always quiet,” I said.

“Are you?”

“Come on, Ángel. What’s wrong?”

He tapped his fingers on the wooden box. “Just a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

I figured he would say something about his mom or the jewels or the box, but instead he said, “Someone like you wouldn’t be friends with me in Tucson.”

I stuck my spoon into the Jell-O and let it stand there, alert like a dog’s tail. “What does that mean—someone like me?” I was truly curious. What would someone like me be like? I’d wondered, of course, how other people saw me. Maybe it would be like when you hear your voice on an answering machine and it doesn’t sound anything like how you think you sound. I hoped so. Mostly I figured other people didn’t notice me. Other times I thought they noticed me enough to see that my clothes didn’t fit right and my hairstyle hadn’t changed since I was five, and that I never knew exactly how much to swing my arms when I walked.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dika throw her head back and guffaw. I wondered if she would be surprised at how other people saw her. Probably she wouldn’t care. Probably she looked at her reflection in the windows by the pool and saw a curvy sixteen-year-old in a sexy bikini. And who knew, maybe Mr. Lorenzo saw her that way too. Maybe he saw her draped in Christmas lights and gold tassels and glitter.

“Sophie, in wood shop, you never talked to me. You never even learned my name.”

I looked into the lenses of his sunglasses, trying to figure out if he was joking. His mouth looked serious, no hint of a smile. “But, Ángel—”

“You only talk to me now ’cause you’re stuck with me,” he said.

“I didn’t think you cared if I knew your name.” It had never occurred to me to talk to him. He’d seemed too different, with his long black coat and the heap of gold chains around his neck. If I’d tried to talk to him, I figured that instead of really hearing me, he’d just be noticing how I never got slang right. In English class, we read a book with a passage I underlined that said when it comes to explaining to other people what’s deepest and truest and most important to us, each person is trapped in her own tower and everyone speaks a different language, and the only words we share are things like “It’s going to rain. Bring an umbrella.” How can you express your heart’s deepest feelings with words like that?

At the table next to us, Dika and Mr. Lorenzo were holding hands. Her cup of Jell-O was empty. He was feeding her spoonfuls of his own Jell-O and she was giggling and licking the spoon, then licking her lips seductively. Pablo was oblivious. He bounced up and down in his seat yelling “My turn! My turn!” until Mr. Lorenzo gave him a spoonful. If any people were from different towers, it was those three. But they’d found a way to connect. You could almost see little waves of warmth floating between them.

I looked at Ángel. “I’m not stuck with you. You’re the one who’s stuck with me. You’re the cool one, even Pablo can see that. I’m just—” I was going to say “an amoeba,” but then he’d think I was hopelessly weird.

“You really don’t know, do you?” he said.

“What?”

He smiled. “You have
chispa
, even though you try to hide it.”

I have a spark? I flushed. I didn’t know what to say.

A shadow passed over his face. “I wish…” He didn’t finish, just swallowed his last spoonful of Jell-O, looked at his box, and breathed out. The kind of sigh that said it was too late for whatever his wish was.