Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco (16 page)

The guard stood over me — a man with a gun on his hip and a badge on his uniform. Standing in the cold light of a room with no air in it, his creamy light brown skin looked blue-white. I clutched my pink purse to my chest, now glad to have my passport inside it. I didn’t feel like an American, but the blue book was proof.

“We’re looking for Miguel Juárez,” Miss said to the guard.

“You know his number?”

She frowned. “No.”

“We might have several detainees named Miguel Juárez.”

Miss sighed. “I called this morning and was told I had to come here to get his number.”

“Are you a relative?”

Her throat turned red, but it looked purple in the blue light. “This is his daughter.”

He did something
unexpected
. He smiled at me. A warm, reassuring smile. I didn’t think an ICE man could smile like that. Suddenly he looked like Mr. Flores, my Language Arts teacher. Then the smile melted like the snow. “We could try looking up his birth date.”

Miss looked at me, and I told them Papi’s birthday. But when the man asked, I didn’t know what year he was born.

“How old is he?” the guard asked.

“Thirty-three.”

The guard typed numbers into his computer while I listened to the hum of the flickering lights. I tried to look through the window of another metal door but couldn’t see past the glare and the chicken wire in the glass.

How can someone so close be so far away?

It turned out that he wasn’t even back there, but at the time I was ready to break down the door with my fists. Instead I slipped a hand into Miss’s, wrapping my pinkie around her pointer finger. She gave me a grimace that was
not
reassuring. The guard stopped typing and stared at the screen.

“Nothing. Sorry.” He looked at me, and I saw his soul.

He
is
sorry. ICE men must have daughters, too
.

“He’s not here?” asked Miss.

“Well, if he is, he’s not in the computer.”

“It’s been two days!”

The guard shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Surely there’s some kind of record.”

“You might check the field office.”

Another long drive. Another government building, but newer and taller. We walked through a glass door. It looked like Miss’s bank, with shiny stone walls, and a ceiling far away. People waited on chairs in rows. It didn’t look as scary as the warehouse.

That shows not to trust
first impressions
.

Two officers worked behind a desk. They both had guns and badges. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

The large woman in uniform said, “May I help you.”

It didn’t sound like a question. She was talking to us, but it was hard to tell. Her eyes were rolled up toward the ceiling, though she must have seen it before. I wondered if she had a string in the back of her neck you pulled to make her talk like that.

“We’re looking for a detainee,” said Miss.

“Fill out a request form.” The woman shoved a paper at us, still staring at the ceiling.

I thought of what Miss had said about looking people in the eye. And I understood. The guard was being
disrespectful
. Telling us we didn’t exist.

Miss slapped her purse on the desk. She pulled out a pen and snapped the bag shut again. She was annoyed, but the guard didn’t seem to know or care how dangerous Miss could be.

She’ll find out
.

I looked at the people sitting in rows. Not just Mexicans. People in all different colors. Women with children, tired old men, angry young men. People by themselves, and whole families talking in languages I didn’t know.

Are all of them waiting to see their fathers, brothers, sons? Are there women detainees, too?

Miss’s voice broke into my thoughts. “I don’t have his number. That’s why we’re here.”

The guard dragged her eyes from the ceiling and looked Miss up and down. “Are you a family member?”

The guard was big, taller than my mentor, but Miss lifted her chin. “This is the man’s
daughter
.”

The way she said it made me sound important. As though being the daughter of Miguel Juárez was like being a queen. So I lifted
my
chin.

The guard gave me what’s called a
withering look
. I dropped my eyes to the floor.
You can just keep your nasty eyes on the ceiling!

“If you’re his daughter, you should have his number,” she said.

I recognized her tone. It’s called
derisive
.

Miss stepped between me and the guard, showing all her teeth. It wasn’t a smile. She reminded me of a mother bear on a nature channel. “As I said, we’re here to
get
his number.”

“I’m sorry.” The guard looked back at the ceiling.

It felt like a slap in the face, and I realized the conversation was
over
.

“I need to talk with a supervisor,” said Miss.

“Do you have an appointment?” the guard asked the ceiling.

“No. I need to talk to your supervisor.”

The guard flicked her eyes at Miss. “I said, you need an appointment.”

“I heard you. I want to make a complaint.”

We followed the woman down a hall. She mumbled, “If I get into trouble over this —”

But Miss enjoyed making trouble for rude people.

The big woman made Miss take off her watch, her earrings, and her shoes when we went through a metal detector. I could tell the guard enjoyed that. She took the nail file she found in Miss’s purse and threw it in a trash can. She glanced into my purse and handed it back to me. Then we were marched down a passageway.

Another man stepped out of an office. His name tag said
ARELLANO
. “May I help you?”

Miss held out her hand. “Kathryn Dawson Dahl.”

His eyes widened.

“May we sit down?” Miss asked.

Mr. Arellano smiled the way Miss did sometimes — the smile-that-wasn’t-a-smile — and he didn’t take her hand. “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Dahl. I do not have clearance to talk to the media.”

The lady guard’s eyes moved from the ceiling to Miss. As though she’d just noticed her.

I grinned.

“I’m not here with 5News,” Miss told him.

“It wouldn’t be worth my job to risk it. Surely you understand.”

Miss blew a whiff of air out her nose. “The station has no idea I’m here. I told them I’m out with a sick child.”

I turned to stare at Miss.
She lied to the people at her work? Miss says lying is for cowards
. But maybe it wasn’t a lie. I
was
sick — sick with worry.

Mr. Arellano gave a little nod. “What’s on your mind?”

“We’re looking for a detainee. Your people are unable to locate him in your system.”

“You are family?”

“This is his daughter.”

“You have his case number?” Mr. Arellano looked at me, but I looked at the floor.

Miss answered for me. “We’ve been trying to get his number all morning.”

I looked up at him. I wanted to use my puppy-dog eyes, but I couldn’t do it. Now that I knew about real power, it felt like cheating.

Mr. Arellano showed all his white teeth. He turned his smile on me. “If your father’s been detained, he would’ve been allowed to make a phone call. If he hasn’t called you, there’s nothing I can do.”

His fake smile made me mad. Miss had warned me to let her do the talking, but I blurted, “He did call! But he didn’t give us a case number, and no one told him where he is!”

Mr. Arellano spread his hands apart and shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t have to see his soul to know that he wasn’t.

Miss didn’t try to hide her annoyance. “Walk me through your procedure.”

“It depends on the circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“Mrs. Dahl, I don’t have time to talk you through multiple scenarios.”

“A typical scenario. Is there a hearing? Are they posted somewhere?”

“I’m sorry. You need to leave.”

I stiffened.

“I’m invoking the Freedom of Information Act.” Her voice had a sharp edge. Like broken glass.

“You need to leave,” he repeated.

“What do I do? Write a letter? To whom?”

Mr. Arellano folded his arms across his chest.

Miss crossed her own arms. “I asked you a question.”

His eyes flashed, but his voice was
calm
. Like a dead man’s voice. “You think I haven’t seen your kind before? Well-meaning church ladies. You take a barrio kid out for ice cream once a week and think you’re Mother Teresa.”

My mouth hung open.
What Mexican would talk to a white lady like that?
But then it hit me. Mr. Arellano wasn’t Mexican. He was American.

And he wasn’t through with Miss. “You charge in here, demanding special treatment for your charity of the week. You think I don’t know what these kids go through? I see it every day. If you don’t like it, then change the law. But don’t barge in here and tell me how to do my job.”

I glanced at Miss. Her eyes were wide and round. I was sure nobody had ever spoken to her that way before.

“Mrs. Dahl, you have been asked
twice
to leave a high-security area. Walk out now, or be arrested.”

The big guard took a step. The handcuffs on her belt clinked. I grabbed Miss’s hand. It trembled in mine. I thought I was shivering, until I realized,
Miss is the one shaking!
I looked at her face and saw something I’d never seen there before.

Fear.

She tried to say something, but the strangled sound wasn’t English. Mr. Arellano made a motion to the guard, but before the big woman could move, we were halfway down the hall.

Miss dragged me along. Her usually cool hand was sweaty. The guard harangued us — like a pit bull barking and snapping at our heels. I didn’t hear what she said. My heart throbbed like a drum in my ears.

After we burst through the doorway to the outside, words burst out of me. “Miss, could they really arrest you?”

“Get in the van.”

Once inside, she leaned against the steering wheel with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths.

“Miss, they
couldn’t
really arrest you!”

She looked at me, shaking her head. “Put it on my tombstone.”

“You just asked a question!” I wanted her to think
logically
, to storm back in there and fight. It was a luxury only
she
could afford.

Then I realized I was wrong.

I’m an American. I can go back in there and stand up for myself. Like in the French class
. I unbuckled my seat belt, but before I could open the door, Miss grabbed my arm.

“Jacinta, I’m tapped out. If we get arrested, I can’t afford another lawyer.”

“Call your TV people!”

“So I can get
fired
? I told them I was out with a sick kid, remember?”

“SO YOU DO
NOTHING
?”

“Nothing?”

“Think of something!”

Her breathing had returned to normal, but her face was still red. “Thinking and adrenaline are a bad mix.”

I’d learned in science that adrenaline triggers the fight-or-flight response.
I
wanted to fight, but Miss seemed ready to run away. I’d thought she was brave.

But if you’re brave only when you know you’re safe, are you ever really brave at all?

Then her eyebrows pulled together, and she stared out the windshield. I could tell she was trying. I shut up so she could think.

My heartbeat slowed until I couldn’t feel it in my ears anymore. It was cold outside, but sun streamed through the glass like in the botanic garden’s greenhouse. I was steaming. I took off my new sweater and looked at it.

I knew it was bad luck to leave Mamá’s sweater behind!

I threw the new one on the van floor.

Miss didn’t notice.

I looked to see what she was staring at. A single leaf clinging to a tree in front of us danced in the breeze. I watched it play, watched it twirl.

Miss can fix this
. I couldn’t let myself think anything else.
She’ll call somebody. The mayor, or maybe the governor
.

We watched the leaf until the wind tore it away.

Miss must’ve heard my thoughts. “I could call our senator. She could make Mr. Arellano’s life pretty miserable. But that might make things worse.”

“Worse?”

“For your dad.”

A chill went through me.
Papi? What could they do him? Did we give Mr. Arellano his name? Would he find Papi and hurt him?
“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?”

Her face was whiter than I’d ever seen it. I saw freckles under her makeup.

She whispered, “I don’t know.”

MISS STARTED
the engine and backed away from the ICE building, but her eyes were empty.

How can she drive without seeing?

If her head had been made of glass, I would’ve seen wheels turning inside. I waited for a spark — a light to come into her eyes — but it didn’t happen. The stone in my stomach got heavier.

I thought I might throw up.

I pushed the little button to open the window and stared at the slushy gray mounds on the roadside. Even with cold air blowing on me, sweat poured off my face.