“Hey, how about a hello for your old man?”
“Hello.”
“Is everything okay? You look like you’re down in the dumps.”
“I am not in the dumps,” I say. I can hear the irritation in my voice.
“Okay, you’re
not
in the dumps. I’ll take your word for it. How about lunch?”
“I have lunch.”
“We’ll save your sandwich for tomorrow.”
“No.”
“No? Why?”
“I am having lunch with Jasmine.”
“Oh, I see. Where?”
“We go to the cafeteria.”
“You do? How often?”
I start to walk away.
“What’s wrong? Why are you in such a hurry? Jasmine can wait a few minutes. Are you still upset because I reassigned you to Wendell? Come on, get over that. Wendell is who you should be having lunch with.”
“Marcelo is not upset at that. Good-bye.” I don’t raise my voice when I say this. I don’t think I do anyway. Still I walk away from my father while he is not finished talking to me. I have never done that before. I can almost feel his eyes on my back. It feels good to walk away from him but I am also afraid. Of what? Of making him angry at me? Of losing him?
No pea soup for Jasmine this time but clam chowder. Clam chowder does not come as piping hot as pea soup. She puts a brown folder on the table.
“You found the box,” I say.
“You need to think a little more about what you’re doing here.”
I don’t know what to say. Jasmine seems afraid.
“I mean,” she goes on, “you need to take some time and think about all the people who could be affected by what you’re doing.”
“Marcelo has thought about it.”
“Maybe in the abstract. But”—she places her hand on the folder—“it’s going to get real.”
I reach out for the folder but the force of her hand prevents me from moving it toward me. “Look at your hand, you’re still shaking,” she says.
“I saw Arturo. On my way to the cafeteria.”
“And?”
“Marcelo has never felt confusion before. It is painful. There is no peace. No certainty. Am I supposed to put my father ahead of everything?”
“Let’s talk about what is in this folder, just so we are all clear on what we are doing.”
“Yes.”
“What is in here is bad, as far as Vidromek is concerned. If it’s made public, Vidromek will have a very difficult time proving they were not at fault. Then there’s what this may do to the firm. Vidromek is the firm’s biggest client, and if the firm is responsible for Vidromek’s losses, then…”
“What? What happens?”
“Vidromek has dozens of ties to other businesses in the United States and we, the law firm, do all their legal work. It would be like dominoes falling. If Vidromek goes, they all go. I see the money that comes in from Vidromek and the salaries we pay and the rent we pay. Without the Vidromek money, there will not be enough money to pay all that.”
“Jasmine could lose her job.”
“And Marcelo could end up going to public school.”
I had never thought about it in that way, but it is true. Paterson is expensive. I have heard kids say that they are attending the school on a scholarship because their parents cannot afford to send them otherwise. Without the money Arturo earns from Vidromek, we may not be able to afford Paterson.
“That is why I will show you what is in here only if you agree to one condition.”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t even heard what I was going to say.”
“I meant ‘yes’ as a question. But also probably I will say yes to your condition.”
“Because I’m usually right?”
“Because if I don’t say yes, I will never know what Jasmine found.”
“Fine. Here’s my condition. You go with me to Vermont next weekend and think about everything we’re doing here. I have to take Dad to the doctor anyway and you need to get away from here. Things are happening way too fast. There you’ll have time to weigh all the repercussions and sort through all the facts and feelings that are so confusing. You might even stop trembling after a day out there in the hills.”
“Vermont.”
“Yeah, it’s the perfect place to ponder.”
Ponder. I would like to slow down and ponder.
“When you get back you can do with this as you wish.”
“Is it so bad, what is in here?”
She lets go of the folder. I open it and take out a single sheet of paper.
It is in Spanish. I read it as best I can.
MEMO
Importancia: Urgente
Dirigido a: Sr. Reynaldo Acevedo, Presidente
Por conducto de: Lic. Jorge Baltazar
De parte de: Ing. David González, Jefe de Control de Calidad
Fecha: 21 de junio de 2005
Re: Pruebas de Impacto Modelo 285X
Se adjuntan Pruebas de Impacto—Parabrisas Modelo 285x. Pruebas demuestran fragmentación diferente a la especificación de diseño. Se recomienda descontinuar fabricación de dicho Modelo 285x inmediatamente.
“I don’t know all the words,” I say. “What is
parabrisas?”
“It means windshield. I looked up the words I didn’t understand, but most of them are not much different than the English words. It is a memo from the engineer who is in charge of quality control to the president of the company.”
“He is recommending that the manufacture of the windshield be discontinued.”
“A whole bunch of charts which were probably the test results were attached.”
“Vidromek knew.” I realize my hand is shaking again.
“There are so many things we don’t know about this. Sometimes it is not as simple as it seems.”
“Where did Jasmine find the memo?”
“Some of the lawyers keep the important files in their offices.”
My heart stops and then begins to race. “Arturo’s?”
Jasmine ignores me. “The question is, now what? You give that to Jerry García and then all kinds of things will happen.”
I put the memo back in the folder. If someone asks me where I got the memo, I will have to lie—otherwise Jasmine will lose her job. “Jasmine could have told me that she looked and did not find a thirty-sixth box. Why did she give me the memo?”
She crumbles tiny round crackers into her clam chowder without looking at me. “Okay, so, if we’re going to Vermont, we leave early Saturday morning and get there in time to take Dad to the doctor. We can go camping on Sunday and come back on Monday. Have you ever been camping?”
“I live in a tree house. Is that like camping?”
“Look at you. You’re a mess, mentally speaking. Out there in the middle of the wilderness you see more clearly. There is less confusion.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you’ll come?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” She smiles. Going to Vermont has made her happy. “Belinda will take care of the mailroom on Monday. You don’t have to look so glum. It might even be fun.”
I lift the folder with the memo. “Now Jasmine is involved in all of this.”
“Yup. That’s what happens. I’ll keep this. When we return from Vermont it will be yours to do with as you wish. But not until we return.”
She is already up from her chair and going to dump her almost full cup of clam chowder. Another lunch where neither of us managed to eat anything.
J
asmine’s battered Jeep turns into the driveway. The top of the
Jeep is down. Namu acknowledges her by a simple pricking of his ears.
“Ready?” she asks.
I nod. I am putting my backpack in the backseat when Aurora comes out with a plastic bag full of sandwiches, assorted fruits, and juice drinks. The trip to Vermont is three hours if there’s no traffic on I-93, but Aurora always packs a lunch regardless of how long or short a trip is.
Namu climbs into the Jeep by the side door and makes his way to the backseat. This he does on his own accord.
“Someone’s looking forward to this outing,” Aurora comments.
“He’ll have lots of fun,” Jasmine responds.
Aurora was thrilled when I told her and Arturo about the trip. It was Arturo’s reaction, however, that surprised me. Just when I thought I was getting good at understanding the feelings behind
most facial expressions, a new one presented itself for deciphering. Arturo, who has been pushing so hard for me to be independent, suddenly dropped his jaw and turned stiff when I mentioned the trip. What was that look of his, what did it mean, where did it come from? Suspicion? Resentment? I have never seen that look on Arturo’s face before.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Arturo said.
We were sitting at the kitchen table. Aurora and I stopped eating when we heard his words.
I repeated what I had just said in case he misunderstood my description of the trip. “We are going to take her father to the doctor’s on Saturday. Then on Sunday we will go hiking nearby for a few hours. Jasmine says she can drop me at home Monday evening around eight.”
There was silence at the table. I looked at Arturo and saw that look I had never seen before and I felt fear.
Aurora spoke, ignoring Arturo’s objection. “That sounds good. But I want you to take Namu with you. He’d be good company on the hike.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I don’t think so.” Arturo was firm, but there was something unusually shaky in his voice.
“Why?” Aurora asked. She was now the one with a suspicious look.
“I was going to ask Jasmine to work this Saturday. We are working on a merger of two of our Mexican companies that needs to be done next week. And she never asked me if she could take Monday off.”
I said, “Jasmine does not know about the merger.”
“Arturo,” Aurora said, “she needs to take her father to the doctor.”
“Jasmine did not mention anything to me,” Arturo said.
“Does she need to tell you how she spends her weekends? What are you afraid of?” Aurora asked. That was a first too. I had never seen Aurora speak so bluntly to Arturo.
Arturo was silent, confused, speechless, for the first time ever.
“It seems to me that the plans have already been made. I’m sure you can find someone else to help you if you need to,” Aurora said. And it was the final word.
Aurora now takes me by the arm over to the side of the house to say something to me alone. “Listen to me,” she says. She waits for my eyes to meet hers. “You call me immediately if anything happens to you or Jasmine, if the least little thing in your trip does not go as planned. Your cell phone is equipped to handle long-distance calls from absolutely anywhere in the world. If you or Jasmine are in danger, large or small, you call. It will not matter one bit how or why you got into trouble. Am I clear?”
“Yes,” I say. I sign
I love you
with my hand, the way I learned at Paterson.
She touches her heart with her hand and then touches my chest.
By the Jeep, Jasmine hands Aurora a slip of paper. “My father’s phone and address. He’s getting old and his mind doesn’t work as well as it used to, so I also gave you the phone of a neighbor. Jonah
will know exactly where we are and can come find us if you need us for anything.”
“Thank you. Did you say good-bye to your father?” Aurora asks me, as if suddenly remembering.
“Yes,” I answer without looking at her. But I am not telling the truth.
Namu barks a solitary bark.
Enough with the good-byes already. Let’s go,
is what I think he’s saying.
When we reach the highway, I ask Jasmine, “Is your father proud of you?”
“Where is
that
coming from?”
“The dictionary defines pride as ‘pleasure or satisfaction in one’s work or achievement.’ According to that definition a person needs to do something before you can be proud of them. You could not be proud of them simply for who they are. I’m not sure I know what pride in another person feels like.”
“I talked to your father late yesterday. He stopped by the mailroom before he left. He wanted to know more about our trip.” She shakes her head and smiles at the same time. “Your father is proud of you, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
“What else did Arturo say, when you saw him?” I feel strange as soon as I finish asking her. I am trying to find out why Arturo did not want me to take this trip. I feel ashamed for thinking that maybe Jasmine knows and she is not telling me.
She looks at me in a peculiar way, as if trying to figure out the real motive behind my question. Then she says, “He wanted to know where we were going to go camping, whether anyone else was coming with us. It was kind of weird. Like he suddenly had doubts about whether you could handle all that. You can, can’t
you?” I know that she expects me to laugh or at least smile, but I don’t.
“Does your father know you play the piano?” I ask.
“Of course. I grew up playing it at home. My mother brought the piano from her home when she got married and sat me at the keys before I could walk, it seems.”
“But does your father know that composing and playing your music is what you want to do?”
“I suppose he does. We don’t talk about it much. You’ll see when you meet him. Amos doesn’t much care what you do with your life so long as you’re keeping busy and you’re earning your keep.”
I close my eyes and remember the time when I was eight and Arturo enrolled me in the town’s soccer league. Within five minutes after I took the field, it became obvious to all that I could not play. I stood there lost, not knowing what to do, taking a few disoriented steps every which way except in the right direction. When the ball came to me I kicked it to the sidelines or to one of the opposing players. I remember the look on Arturo’s face as we drove home, the father’s realization that his son would never be able to participate in any sports. Then, a few seconds later, remembering what Jasmine said to Aurora just before we left, I ask, “Who is Jonah?”
“You’ll meet him today. Jonah and I grew up together. His mother and my mother were best friends until my mother died. My brother and Jonah’s little brother, Cody, were the best of friends too. You’ll like him, you’ll see.”
We travel the remaining two hours mostly in silence. Jasmine asks me if I mind if she puts some music on. I know she is doing
that so that I don’t feel like I have to talk. She hasn’t asked me anything about Ixtel or about the memo. It’s not that she doesn’t care. I can tell she wants to let me be alone with the decision. But I decide not to think about the memo just yet. Instead, I close my eyes and feel the cool air rush past my face.