The Same Sky (5 page)

The girls watched us, expressionless. Framed by Markson’s doorway, they were a portrait of young misery. And
then the principal shut her door. “What have they done?” I asked.

“Who knows?” she answered, sighing, settling in behind a wide desk anchored by a dusty Dell Inspiron computer. “Drugs, bad attitude, backtalk …” She ticked off possible infractions. “Knives, guns, hooliganism …”

“Hooliganism,” I murmured. The word seemed a relic from an easier time.

“Anything is possible,” said Principal Markson flatly.

“Oh,” I said. It was true that I’d usually cross the street when I saw a group of Chávez kids, but I’d never examined why. Some of the kids, who wore hooded sweatshirts and called to each other with deafening shrieks, did seem capable of anything.

“Which brings me to why I’ve asked you in,” said Principal Markson.

“Yes?” I said. The office was small, with a view of the front parking lot. Markson, who was single (as far as I knew), had a wall of photographs behind her: hundreds of kids’ school portraits, Christmas cards, shots of choral concerts and sporting events.

“First of all,” said Principal Markson, “are you okay?”

“What?” I said.

“Losing the baby … that must have been quite a blow. I was surprised you two didn’t take some time off.”

“Time off?” I repeated dumbly.

She folded her hands in her lap and watched me. But I didn’t want to sink into the grief. Jake kept bringing it up, how
sad
he was, how
disappointed
, wanting to commiserate and mope, but I was stronger than that. I knew that the
only way to handle sadness was to push the fuck on through. “I’m pretty busy,” I said. “Let’s move on.”

Principal Markson looked surprised, but pursed her lips and nodded.

“Okay.” She took a breath. “Okay. We’re getting our budget cut next year. If, of course, they don’t close us down, but that’s another issue for another day.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. Did she want Jake and me to donate money to the school? If so, she was in for a letdown. Our failed insemination efforts had emptied our savings, and even though Conroe’s was doing well, we had little to spare.

“One of the positions we’ll be losing is the full-time school psychologist. Juliet Swann—do you know her?”

I shook my head.

“She might be a vegetarian, now that I think of it,” said Principal Markson. “Or a vegan? Not sure. There’s usually a big yogurt labeled with her name in the staff refrigerator.…”

“Well, that would explain it,” I said. There was an awkward pause. “I’m sorry,” I ventured. “But what does any of this have to do with me?”

Principal Markson clasped her hands. She paused, then said, “Look. There are some kids here in real trouble. They don’t have guidance at home, and now they’re not going to have as much guidance here. I’m reaching out to members of the community I think could be good role models. I’m hoping to create a Big Brother/Big Sister type of network, a way for adults to help at-risk kids at Chávez.
Maybe eat lunch with them once a week, assist them with homework …”

“Oh, Principal Markson,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

“One girl I had in mind is Evian. Her mother is … let’s just say
inconsistent
. Her father’s out of the picture, and last year … well, she shot and killed her little brother. By mistake.”

My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, no,” I said.

“It was ruled an accident,” said Principal Markson. “Her mother wasn’t home. Evian called 911 herself and waited with her brother. He bled to death. She was showing him the gun, she said. It belonged to Evian’s mother.”

I said nothing. My stomach churned and I wanted to get up and leave the room.

“Evian transferred from Travis, to get a new start. But she often skips school,” said Principal Markson. “There’s no one to keep an eye on her, check in. She’s depressed, most likely, and who knows what else. She doesn’t have anyone. No one. I know you’re busy, Alice, I do. But I just thought I’d ask. If you could just have lunch with Evian once a month? Just come to the cafeteria and sit with her for twenty minutes. I wouldn’t ask if I had … other resources.”

“Lunch is a busy time,” I said.

Principal Markson stood. “I understand. I hope you don’t mind my giving this a shot. I’ve got a list of kids like Evian, and I’m just trying to do what I can to help them.”

I nodded, standing. Principal Markson smiled as I departed, but I could see exhaustion etched into her
features. “Have a good one,” she said, echoing Officer Grupo’s salutation.

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“What can you do?” she replied. I walked away from her office feeling like a jerk. But what did I have to offer a depressed teenager? Nothing, I told myself. Still, as I left the school and walked toward Conroe’s, waving at Grupo in his cruiser, I felt a certain stirring. I tamped it down, pushing the girl from my mind. At Conroe’s, I climbed into my Ford Bronco (with newly upholstered leather seats—an anniversary gift from Jake) and drove toward Mildred Street. Jake would be waking up soon, and I felt like kissing him until my thoughts receded.

7
 

Carla

A
S I HAD
hoped, on my eleventh birthday Humberto asked me to be his girlfriend. By this time we had both stopped going to school and spent our days at the dump. Not many girls could handle the smell and the aggression, but I am not like other girls. As I’ve mentioned, my mother was in America, which gave me strength.

In the years my mother had been absent, her voice had grown raspy, hoarse. She sounded old. During one Wednesday call, my brother Carlos (now in kindergarten at Campbell Elementary School in Austin, Texas) mentioned “the baby.” I asked him, “What baby?” but my mother made him get off the phone. I asked her, “What baby?” and she said to please stop asking so many questions. Was she married? I asked her, and she said, “
Dios mío
, no.”

Each morning we walked to work in a group, our garbage bags over our shoulders: Humberto, me, some other boys. People lived at the dump, so we tried to arrive as close to dawn as possible to fill our bags before the piles were all picked over and you had to touch the needles or dig through shit to reach anything with value. Toward evening, trucks arrived, paying us handfuls of
centavos
for our hauls.

Some of the girls I knew had started sniffing glue. Some had become prostitutes. This is not a euphemism. No one was hiring you to do their laundry, not anymore. There were few jobs for men and no jobs for women. The robbers had become increasingly violent. I could go into more detail, but the point is that times were very hard. A woman had something to sell, and many did.

I did not.

I guess it was my grandmother’s Catholic doctrine, and the fact that my mother sent us enough money to survive. I believed that sex was something I would save for marriage. I lay in bed some nights, praying that I would remain a virgin. For some reason, I felt that this was out of my control.

On my eleventh birthday, I made fifty
centavos
. Walking home, Humberto and I lagged behind. Ever since I had started gathering trash myself, Humberto’s odor did not affect me. He walked very close, and I thought about him putting his fingers beneath my chin, tipping my head up,
and placing a soft kiss on my lips. (I had seen this slow buildup in American movies.)

At the door to my house, Humberto paused. His shirt was worn thin as silk, and his body was wiry, his skin scratched and dirty but to me, perfection. “Carla,” he said.

“Yes?” I said. I could hear my brother shuffling behind the door. After my grandmother died, Junior stopped going to school. No matter how much I raised my voice, telling him that he needed to educate himself, that he was too young to be left alone, he did not listen.

“Carla?” My brother’s voice sounded scared. But I ignored him: Humberto had a dreamy look on his face.
This is the moment
, I thought.

“I was hoping …,” said Humberto. Was he going to ask me to marry him? It was too soon for that. And he had so little money. I wanted to kiss Humberto, but I was not sure I wanted to stay here, in Tegu. Even with him.

“You could be my girlfriend, if you wanted,” said Humberto in the nonchalant voice he used when he was afraid but wanted to sound unafraid.

His face was as familiar to me as Junior’s. He had dark eyes, and hair that curled along the sides of his face unless he caught it in a rubber band. “I do,” I said. He sighed with relief, his smile showing his nice teeth.

“I won’t have sex with you,” I said. “I mean, I want to stay a virgin until my wedding.”

“I know,” said Humberto, who knew everything about me.

“I guess I’ve always loved you, you idiot,” I said.

“I know,” said Humberto. He cupped the back of my head with his large hand. “Good night,” he said. He pressed the side of his face to mine, his skin soft and warm. But there was no kiss.

“Good night,” I said. I watched Humberto walk off, admiring his long stride, his thin but muscled back, and then I whispered to Junior to open the padlock and let me inside.

In the middle of the room was a new dress. It was aqua, and made from some amazing fabric that fell across my hands in waves.

“It came today,” said Junior. He sounded strange. “Stefani brought it to the house.”

“Have you been crying?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m hungry,” he said.

We had so little food by this point. I made a paste of flour and water, and as we ate, I looked at the dress. When would I wear such a thing? What did my mother think my life was like? You could not eat a dress.

Still, after I scratched Junior’s back and he fell asleep, I slipped from the pallet and took off my clothes. I pulled the garment over my head. It fit me perfectly. Our mirror was cracked and rusty, but I could tell I looked like a supermodel.

“Happy birthday,” I said to the girl in the mirror.

8
 

Alice

A
S SOON AS
I stepped off the plane in Montrose (an hour and a half from my Colorado hometown), I realized I should have left my vintage skirt and red leather cowboy boots at home. Funky wasn’t really a thing in my family. My sister was waiting by the gate in high-waisted jeans, sneakers, and a functional anorak; her three boys wore athletic shorts and T-shirts.

Jake, who had recently grown a moustache, gripped my hand tightly. My father, in his John Deere hat and twenty-year-old parka, stood with his hands on his hips behind Jane and her kids. “Your dad scares me,” whispered Jake.

I squeezed his hand back. Jane came running, her smile huge and warm. She looked the same as when she was six, with her wheat-colored hair cut shoulder length, bangs straight across her full face. She hugged me so
tightly I struggled for breath, and then she was wrapped around Jake, who shot me a look of thrilled panic. “Boys!” Jane yelled to her sons. “Come give your aunt Alice and uncle Jake a hug!”

We were swarmed by skinny arms and I breathed in the smell of dirty sneakers. Tears came to my eyes, but I brushed them away. “I’m so sorry,” said Jane. “Oh, Alice, I’m so sorry.”