Hour of the Bees (4 page)

Alta walks into the room, quiet as a shadow, and sits on the futon, leaving a foot of space between us. Apparently I have cooties.

Her thumb flies across her phone screen as she scrolls through every social media account she has, her nail perfectly polished neon orange.

“Girls?” Mom calls from the other end of the house. “Come help with dinner. Alta, put your phone away.”

My sister rolls her eyes but doesn’t move. I get up and find Mom in the kitchen.

She’s a blur, whipping from counter to stovetop to fridge, and back again to counter. She points to a head of lettuce. “Rinse that for me,
por favor
?”

“Por favor?”
I raise my eyebrows. “What are you making?”

“Caldo tlalpeño,”
Mom says. Lu’s in his high chair, devouring a board book.

“Translation?”

She gives me a look. “Chicken soup.”

I rinse the lettuce.

“Don’t let the water run,” she says. “Water’s scarce here.”

“Because of the drought?”

She nods. “One of the worst ones in the country. That’s why the grass is so brown, and the sheep are so thin. There’s just not enough water to keep everything alive.”

“Serge said it hasn’t rained in a hundred years,” I say, letting one last burst of delicious cool water pool in my hands before shutting off the tap.

Mom shrugs. “I believe it. We need to be careful with our water use. Five minutes, tops, for showers. And only flush if it’s number two.”

“Alta’s going to love that,” I say. I concentrate on drying my hands for a moment, then ask, “Mom? Serge said there’s no bees in a drought. Is that right, or is that his dementia?”

“No lo sé,”
Mom says. I don’t know, she means.

“What’s with all the Spanish?”

“I can’t speak Spanish?” she says. “We’re Mexican, after all.”

“Mexican American,” I correct under my breath, “and we never act like the Mexican part.”

Alta does, though — at least a little bit. She and her friends drop snippets of Spanish into their sentences, and no one gets teased. They’ve figured out how to make the Mexican part of Mexican American cool. Of course, it helps that she doesn’t have a long, dramatic, embarrassing Spanish name: she’s just Alta.

My friends and I would rather show up to school in just socks and underwear than have our “roots” brought up. I don’t want to be Mexican. Or American. Or Mexican American, or Caro-leeen-a.

Just being Carol is hard enough.

“Why can’t we eat something normal?” I say. “Like Hamburger Helper? Stuff we eat at home?”

Mom snorts. “Oh, come on. I’m making something that isn’t from a box for once.”

“Exactly,” I say.

“Hey.” Mom’s voice has a barbed-wire edge. “Think about why we’re here.”

Surround your loved ones with things that make them happy
, the pamphlet from the Seville suggests,
things that remind them of home and of the person they used to be
. That’s why Mom’s speaking Spanish and cooking a traditional Mexican dinner.

For Serge.

Caro-leeen-a
. Serge’s question chimes through my head.
Why do you spit on your roots?

Mom slices a red chili into pine needle–thin slivers and rubs a lime against a grater, making it snow green citrus flakes. Next she claws the cloves out of a bulb of garlic and tosses the ingredients into a pot with one hand while flattening a made-from-scratch tortilla with the other.

I didn’t know she could cook this way. Like she’s conducting a symphony.

After a minute she asks, “Where is your sister?”

I don’t answer. We both know where she is.

“Tell her to come here. Now.”

In the living room Alta’s still on the futon, pretending to be fascinated by the actor in the cheap, historically inaccurate Indian costume riding a fake horse on TV.

While she’s distracted, I stare.

It’s obvious that Alta and I are only half sisters. She has Mom’s round, gleaming mineral eyes and toasted brown skin, Gael’s bold cheekbones, and a dainty mole on her right cheek. I have Dad’s squinty eyes and a stranger’s blunt nose, which always seems okay in the mirror, but photographs like a pig’s snout. My lips are thinner than Mom’s and disappear if my smile gets out of control.

Alta’s black hair is cut bluntly at her shoulders; when she moves, it sways like an expensive silk scarf, draped across her clavicle. She doesn’t wear much makeup; just a swipe of mascara and some goo that makes her lips shine baby-blush pink.

Me, I’m a natural tumbleweed, with frizzy dry hair that has to be fried into submission with a flat iron. Mom won’t let me wear real makeup, not until high school, only clear mascara and lip gloss. But I don’t even come close to resembling Alta when I put it on.

“You’re supposed to come help,” I tell Alta.

“I will at the next commercial.” She tries hiding her phone in her lap, but it glows against her red shorts.

“Alta!” Mom shrieks from the other room. “Put down your phone! Get in here and help!”

“I am!” Alta glares at me like this is my fault and stomps to the kitchen.

The silence only lasts a second. Dad’s phone rings again.
Beep, beep. Beeeeep
.

“Argh, Rrraúl!” Serge rolls my dad’s name around in his mouth, then spits it out like a habanero seed.

If I stay here, in the eye of their storm, I’m going to get a headache. I leave them to their Spanish-infused argument, the TV flickering static-shadows on their faces.

In the kitchen, it’s not much better. Mom and Alta bicker, two angry hens clucking and snapping, pots banging against the stovetop. Lu’s adding to their percussion by slapping his hands on his high-chair tray.

I need quiet. I’m thirsty for it.

I walk to the other side of the house and peek through the open doors of the bedrooms.

Mom, Dad, and Lu will be sleeping in the pale-yellow guest room. The bed and dresser look like they were carved in another century, giving the room an old-fashioned feel.

The next room down is where Alta and I are staying: Dad’s old bedroom. It’s a plaid nightmare of a room, still decorated from when he was a teenager. Posters of some mullet-sporting rock star in a denim vest are pinned to the wall above the bed. The room is cluttered with knickknacks: a hula-dancer doll with hips that bobble, one of those hats from Russia with the fur-lined earflaps, a miniature Eiffel Tower. . . . If there’s a theme to all this junk, I’d say it’s
Anywhere but here
.

Only one twin-size bed for Alta and me, which means I’ll be sleeping on the hardwood floor, unless I can convince Alta to let me share the bed. Doubtful; hierarchy says big sisters get the bed.

Even on the opposite side of the house, the echoes reach me — a pollution of noise and contention:

“Put the phone away and finish chopping the tomatoes!”

“The TV volume doesn’t go any higher,
Papá
!”

“Then stop breathing! You breathe too loud! Helicopter breathing!”

I go to the only other room in the house.

The door creaks open until I’m staring at my own shadow on a bedroom floor. I squint in the gloom, taking in the details of what I decide must be Serge’s room.

The bed is neatly made, a patchwork quilt tucked over two plump pillows, and the nightstands on either side of the bed hold identical gold lamps. Squares of cardboard are shoved into the window frames, blocking daylight.

I cough. The room is stuffy, and even in the darkness I see a layer of grime coating everything. No one’s been in this room for a long, long time.

But I hear a whirring, coming from the closet. No, not a whirring.

A buzzing. Like a bee. Like a
thousand
bees.

I put my ear up to the closet door. Yes, an entire military fleet of bees.

But . . . why? Bees in a closet? Is hoarding animals a symptom of dementia? I don’t remember anything about it in the Seville pamphlet.

I jiggle the handle, but the closet door won’t budge.

It’s eerie, the thought of bugs scuttling along jacket sleeves, in and out of pockets, inside shoes. I leave the door handle alone. I should leave the ranch’s secrets alone, too.

“Caro-leeen-a.”

I jump. Serge stands next to me, only half of him in a stream of the hallway’s fluorescent light. His wrinkles trap shadows in their valleys, making frown lines around his mouth, like scribbles from a marker.

“What are you doing in here, Caro-leeen-a?” There isn’t even a whisper of anger in his words. Everything about him is relaxed, cool as a stone smoothed by a river — nothing like the Serge I met on the porch, who was spilling out of his own leathery skin.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was looking for . . . looking for . . .”

He doesn’t even blink, his eyes clear blue coins. “You were looking,” he says.

“There you are.” Dad charges past me and links his arm in Serge’s. “I thought you wandered off.”

Serge rips himself away from his son’s reach. “I can wander. It’s my house.”

“No,” Dad says. “You can’t wander. Not too far. Things are different now.”

“
Silencio
, Raúl,” Serge says, his jowls quivering. “Make that phone stop ringing.”

I look at Dad. His phone is clipped onto his belt, quiet.

“Dinner’s ready,” Dad says, and Serge stalks to the kitchen, wheeling his oxygen tank behind him.

Dad waits until Serge is out of earshot, then says, “Grandpa doesn’t go in the bedroom. No one does.”

I think about this. “Then where does he sleep?”

“On the porch, I would imagine. He always slept outside when
Mamá
was gone.” He coughs once. “I don’t think he’s opened that door in twelve years.”

“I promise I wasn’t snooping,” I say.

“I know.” Dad pats my back. “But let’s remember the goal this summer.”

I make myself smile. “Don’t do anything to upset Serge.”

His return smile is just as wooden as mine.

In the kitchen, Serge lets Mom guide him to the table. He plops into his chair like a dropped ham.

Alta heaps her bowl full of Mom’s chicken soup and licks the drip that spills on her wrist. “Mmm, this smells divine.”

I hold my breath. Alta’s attempts at sucking up aren’t working; she’s in trouble, and we all know it.

Mom doesn’t waste any time. “You know, we have to talk about that car.” She slams a tortilla onto her plate.

I serve myself a teensy bowl of
caldo tlalpeño
and wait for the fireworks.

Alta flares her nostrils. “Fine. Let’s hear it.”

My first bite of soup, and I’m thrown into a sprawling garden, bursting with every chili in existence. It’s the most flavorful thing I’ve ever tasted, like I swallowed a piece of heaven, so rich I’m in a stupor.

“This is so good,” I tell Mom, but she’s not listening to me.

“I don’t think a seventeen-year-old needs her own brand-new, fully loaded —”

“Tons of seventeen-year-olds have their own cars,” Alta interrupts. “You’re just pissed because Dad was the one to help me pick my first car out, not you.”

“Whoa, it’s spicy,” I say, trying to cover for Alta’s use of the word “pissed.”

“No, I’m not,” Mom says. “Not at you. Your dad completely went behind my back and ignored our agreement.”

“What agreement?” Alta says.

“Really spicy,” I repeat, louder. It’s a slow-burning heat, fanning from the back of my tongue to my lips. Mom passes me water without a glance. It’s lukewarm — no ice in a drought.

“The agreement was,” Mom says, “that if you wanted your own car, you’d earn the money yourself. Your daddy won’t pay for your toys forever. He’s not made of money, even if he thinks he is.”

My dad grunts: a laugh in disguise. Mom rarely talks about her ex-husband, but when she does, she aims below the belt.

Gael lives in Placitas, in a rich bachelor-pad town house with a pool. Alta has a private entrance to her own bedroom and a queen-size canopy bed. Gael is a businessman, some kind of analyst, whatever that means — I never get details. Mom just says Gael’s job sounds too good to be legal but apparently is.

Alta stops pretending to eat and pushes her bowl away like a boxer clearing the ring for the final throw-down. “I paid for my car. Well, most of it. Dad only covered the rest because I got a four-point-oh.”

“What’s a four-point-oh?” I ask.

“Straight A’s,” Dad says, serving up his third helping of soup. Alta’s grades are always perfect — part of her Alta-ness — so this isn’t a surprise.

I pull Lu’s empty bowl off his head and help him scoop a bean onto his spoon; Mom’s too worked up to pay attention to anything but winning this argument.

“So your dad buys you a car for getting the grades you’re supposed to get anyway? Does he give you money to breathe? To maintain your tan? Is that how you paid for your half of the car?” Mom’s sarcasm is so deadly, I wince.

Alta narrows her eyes. “Dad pays me to clean his place. I scrub, pick up, dust, mop . . .”

“He pays you to do chores?” Mom hasn’t taken a single bite of her soup.

“I’ve been saving for over a year,” Alta says.

“I think she should keep the car,” I offer, but I get no response, not even a mind-your-own-business death glare from Alta.

“You just hate hearing that Gael is a good dad,” Alta says, and Mom can’t recover from the stinging truth in that statement. “I’m keeping the car. It’s my birthday present. He got me insurance, he’ll help me schedule tune-ups, everything. So stop worrying. You don’t want me to be the only one at Mesa High without a car.”

Mom picks up her spoon, finally. “You wouldn’t be the first high school kid to survive with no car.”

I let out a breath. Mom’s retreating. She knows she can’t win against Gael, not with the new car, and the town-house pool, and all the future ways that Gael will throw his money around. The fun parent wins, always.

That’s what Alta said after her birthday last year. Mom offered Alta a sleepover party with pizza and ice cream, but Gael wanted to throw a pool party with a taco truck and a live band. A boy-girl party. “The fun parent wins,” Alta had said, and she was right.

“Can I be excused?” Alta asks, flashing a white victory smile. Her phone’s vibrating under the table.