The Secret Side of Empty (17 page)

“Ummm . . .”

“That’s a no. Okay, we need to get that done.”

“Seriously, Mom, it’s going to take all of ten minutes.”

“That’s fine, you can do it after you take M.T. home, but then I need it done tonight. Not tomorrow when the car service is waiting outside. Tonight.”

“Okay.”

“And it looks like the presents I shipped ahead aren’t there yet.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding like he’s not sure why she’s tell-ing him.

“And the pet sitter is lined up, but I have an issue with the alarm.”

“You’re checklisting out loud again,” he says.

“Yes, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. You go have fun,” she says, turning around and walking away, clearly still checklisting in her head.

So we go to the family room. He picks up the remote and starts flipping through options. On Demand. Netflix. DVD carousel.

“Let’s watch this,” he says.
Sleeping Beauty
. I haven’t seen this in like . . . I don’t know. Ten years.

“It used to be my favorite Disney movie,” I say.

“Oh, yeah, I remember the T-shirt. The basketball T-shirt. Is it weird and unmanly to admit that I loved it, too? I mean, until I found out that it was totally weird and unmanly when I was like four. Something about kicking ass in that thorn forest though . . . awesome.”

“Okay, fine, let’s watch it.”

Somewhere around the “banquet in Princess Aurora’s honor” scene, I say, “The good guys suck, right? I hate the good guys.” I say this without thinking, kind of like you say, “Damn, it’s colder than I thought.”

As soon as I say it I realize it’s
One of Those Things
. The things you think everyone thinks, or at least everyone under eighteen thinks. But instead it’s like one of those observations you
think
everyone else shares, like, “Hey, isn’t weird how everyone else’s poop smells terrible but your own kind of smells good,” except once you say it you realize you’ve gone out on a very long, very lonely limb. And they don’t share it. Or else, they aren’t willing to share it out loud. (True story, by the way. I once said that poop thing in third grade and it took until about the seventh grade for people to forget about it.)

So in response to my “good guys suck” One of Those Things, Nate just says, “What do you mean?” Blank face. Like . . . no shadow of agreement. Or even understanding.

“I mean, Maleficent is clearly the better character here.”

“What?” He laughs. “She’s horrible.”

“She’s misunderstood.”

“She puts a
death curse
on a
baby
.”

“I’ll agree that her methods are sometimes questionable.”

“Sometimes?”

“Look at how they treat her. They exclude her. They have this whole party and she’s not invited.”

“I’m pretty sure they have good reason for that.”

“I’m just saying the villains are more interesting. You can tell that they’ve been through some stuff. They have things to say. They want things.” I think that I could see baby Julissa growing up to rock a seriously Maleficent vibe. And who could blame her?

I go on, “Plus, don’t you get the sense that the good guys are always bullshitting you? Like they’re those kids at school that are absolute jerks but then act like angels when teachers are looking. These stupid sanctimonious fairies in
Sleeping Beauty
are just like those kids.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“I’m just saying.”

He reaches over to tickle me, “Were you, like, abused by fairies or something?”

It’s in this moment that I get that he’s one of the people who has no suspicion of the good guys and no twinge of recognition, no feeling of camaraderie with the villain. So I just let him tickle me and make me laugh. There’s no cure for what he’s got. I both envy him and pity him, with his impeccably dressed, checklisting mom and his boughs-of-holly-festooned life.

I
T
’
S
C
HRISTMAS
E
VE
,
AND
MY
MOTHER
IS
IN
THE
KITCHEN
MAKING
picadillo
for the
empanadas
, as necessary to Christmas as a Christmas tree. Jose sits at the table, quietly having a fork run a bombing mission over some mashed potatoes. I sit and stare off into space. Nate hasn’t called me all day, and hasn’t responded to three texts. My father hasn’t come out of his room.

I am in what one could consider a Bad Mood. It’s made worse by the fact that my mother and Jose seem to be in such a Good Mood. Such a very, very Good Mood. Which baffles the hell out of me. It’s like they can’t see we’re living in the real endtimes.

My mother actually hums. I despise her particularly today.

“Guess what the Nun said to me today,” says my mother. “The Nun” means the principal, Sister Mary Augustus. It’s like “The President.” You don’t need to say which one. Although school was closed, my mother went in to work this morning.

“We’re all going to hell? That’s pretty much the only thing I’ve ever heard her say.”

“Oh, Monse, why are you always so mad? She told me after we get back from the break, I can be an assistant in the
kindergarten
instead of just cleaning all the time.”

“How will that go?”

“I’m going to help the teacher in the afternoons.”

“Can you do that? I mean, can they do that?”

“Well, I think I’ve done a pretty good job with my own children.”

“I don’t mean that, I mean . . . you don’t speak English.”

“I speak a little. And it turns out that the kindergarten teacher speaks Spanish, too. And guess what.” I am really not in the mood for guessing games. Luckily, she doesn’t wait for me to guess.

“I’m going to take English class at the library.”

“When did all this happen?”

“I just signed up last week.”

I see.

“So I’ll need you home on Tuesday nights.” She’s not asking, she’s telling. I’m not sure I like this new and improved mother.

“Why?”

“You’ll have to watch Jose while I’m in class.”

I consider arguing, and root around my head for ammunition for about thirty seconds before giving up.

My father comes out of his room. He hasn’t shaved. He looks like a wild animal, like one of the lions on
National Geographic
before they bring down a gazelle after a long, hard drought. All that fear in his eyes yesterday is gone and seems replaced by thirsty lion hatred.

“Hey, little snot, don’t you say Merry Christmas to your father?” he asks. I say nothing. I believe the little snot is not going to say Merry Christmas to this guy. But I can tell that talking or not talking will all lead to the same thing.

“No? Am I too
pathetic
for that?” he says with a sneer. I can see that he will choose Christmas to avenge our little coffee shop run-in. Great. I knew about ten seconds after that happened that I would pay for it one day.

He stands over me. “I’m talking to you.”

“I hear you,” I say. Does that warrant a smack? I wait. Brace. Nope, not today. Not yet, anyway.

“Get your coat on; we’re going to New York.”

“Jorge, it’s Christmas,” says my mom.

“Yeah, so it’s Christmas. So I want to talk to my family in Argentina. So New York is beautiful at Christmas. Can a man want to do something nice on Christmas with his family? Is that allowed? Get ready.”

My mother quietly takes Jose by the hand and goes into our room.

I square off in front of him. “You see she’s cooking, right?”

“She can cook when we get back.”

“Why do we have to go to New York now?”

“Because I said we’re going to New York. Who the hell do you think you are, questioning me?”

“It’s Christmas. It’s not just what you want. It’s cold. How are we going to get to New York anyway?”

“I borrowed a car.”

“You
borrowed
a car? You don’t even have a driver’s license. You want to be driving around at Christmas with a fake license?”

Smack
. The skin tingles like a burn and my cheekbone aches. Even though I knew it was coming, it still makes me fist-clenching furious.

“You don’t ask me questions. Now go get dressed before I drag you out by your hair.”

I run down my usual options. Call the cops. No, get deported. Murder him in his sleep. Messy, very messy. Plus, get deported after thirty years in jail. Hit him back. Get my butt kicked, make the neighbors mad. Neighbors call cops. Get deported. I can’t think of another solution besides sit here and take it.

I dig the nails from my left hand into the thumb of my right hand and concentrate on how that feels. I remember my list. Towels. Sheets. Hair dryer.
Add Band-Aids
.

“I don’t want to go to New York,” I say.

He gets up close to me. “Get. Dressed. Now.”

My mother is back in the kitchen, a bird in a panic. “Monse, please just go get dressed. It will be nice to go into New York,” she says. She’s not convincing me. She doesn’t look like she’s particularly convinced herself either.

“I don’t understand why he just starts making crazy demands and you just do what he says.”

Smack
. I dig my nails into my thighs, through my jeans. It steadies me, keeps me from doing what I want to do, which is hit back.

“Because I’m your father!” he screams. “Because what I say goes! Because you’re a little snot who doesn’t know anything. I have to work seven days a week, when I’m not too busy getting swallowed up in immigration raids by men with guns. And for what? So you can go to that fancy school and learn to think you’re better than me.”

“Actually, I think
she
works so I can do that.” I know that’s going to bring it, but I can’t resist.

He hits me again and again, harder. My skin stings where he slaps it. I put my forearms in front of my face but that doesn’t help much. I concentrate on not crying.
No crying
. It’s one thing I can keep from him—my tears. One thing
I
control.

He hits harder, my ear, and it causes a weird tinny echo. Out from in between my lifted arms, I see Jose crying in the corner.

My mother raises her voice urgently, just under a scream. “Jorge, please! Jorge, it’s Christmas. I know you’re upset, but this isn’t the answer! She’s sorry!”

He pulls back, breathing hard. Hitting me must be hard work. “Somebody’s got to teach her. Somehow she’s got to learn respect. Kids in this country don’t respect anyone. Look at how disrespectful they teach kids to be in this country.”

“What are
you
teaching me? What! That you’re stronger? You may be stronger now, but one day I’ll be strong and you’ll be weak. And you’ll see what’s going to happen to you then.”

I think that will make him hit harder, but it doesn’t. He deflates like at the coffee shop. I’m almost disappointed.

We go to New York. We come back. We have the
empanadas
, and, as always, we wait until midnight to open the presents. Jose is unreasonably happy. I guess ignorance is bliss.

Jose gets blocks and a
SpongeBob
filled with candy, plus some seriously ugly corduroy pants, but at least they have the tags still on them and they seem to be the right size. He sets off to build a pineapple house for
SpongeBob
.

My mother pushes two boxes toward me. “Open them,” she says.

I do. One is a hideous orange messenger bag, the other a pair of jeans which I know I will never wear. But I know she’s trying.

“Thank you,” I say.

She opens the kindergarten craft book I bought her at the last minute and holds it to her chest like it’s a couple of gold bars.

“It’s so wonderful!” she says.

It is her only present.

C
hristmas Day is its own usual blend of disappointment and jail. Nate is gone and for some reason he is not responding to texts. Chelsea is somewhere with family. Later in the week I’m sure I’ll help her put away her whole new wardrobe and electronics and dancing bears and whatever other extravagant collection she’s received for Christmas. And she’ll give me the stuff displaced by the new stuff. We’ll both try to pretend that she doesn’t feel weird and I don’t feel little and yet hungry and wanting at the same time.

Lucky for me, the Parentals ignore me. The thirsty lion parental now looks more like a whipped hyena, and is dressed and ready to go somewhere. My mother gets up to hug him. He kind of hugs back. I want to gag, but that would draw attention to me.

My dad actually puts a hand on my shoulder before walking out. It burns. It disgusts me when he touches me. I say nothing. I know this is his version of “Sorry.”

“Good luck,” my mom says. “I’m sure you’ll get the job.” I’m a little surprised that he’s got a lead on a job so soon since the other times he’s lost a job he’s stayed in bed under the covers for weeks while the refrigerator got empty.