The Book of Unknown Americans: A novel (4 page)

“No.”

“So we need to get her in that program to start. While she’s there, they’ll evaluate her to see if she’s eligible for special education services.”

“Eligible? But we have a letter from the doctor. We came all the way here so she could go to Evers.”

“If they determine that she needs to be at Evers, that’s where she’ll go. Just not right away. They have to do an evaluation first.”

Disappointment gathered around me like storm clouds. “How long will it take?” I asked.

“It usually takes one to two months.”

“Two months!” I said.

“We’ll try to get her situated as quickly as we can,” Phyllis said. “I promise.”

And what else could I do but say okay and wait, again?

ARTURO WASN
’
T HAPPY
—neither of us was—but he was an optimist, and at least, he said, we were one step closer. At least,
he said with his hands on my shoulders, the process was under way.

So on Maribel’s first day of school in the United States, Arturo and I woke up early, filled with impossible expectation, and roused Maribel, watching her push her hair off her face.

Arturo said, “Today’s the day, hija. You’re starting school.”

He had switched shifts at work to be able to stay home for the big send-off.

“What school?” she asked.

“A new school. Here in Delaware.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Yes, we did.”

“Where is my old school?”

“Your old school is in Pátzcuaro.”

“I want to go there.”

Arturo shot me a pained look.

“You’re going to this new school now,” I said.

“Where?”

“It’s here in Delaware.”

“What is?”

“Your new school, hija.”

She stared at us, and I waited for some sign either that she had absorbed the information or that she was still confused. It was impossible to tell. Her expression never gave anything away anymore.

“Come on,” I said, trying to mask my impatience. “The bus will be here soon. You need to get up and get dressed.”

Maribel rose to her feet, like a filly finding her legs, and stretched. She chose a sweatshirt and jeans from the piles of clothes I had folded and placed on the floor along the wall.

“I can wear this,” she said, holding up the top.

“You can wear whatever you want,” Arturo said.

She slid the jeans up her legs and, when they were over her hips, I raised the zipper and snapped the button for her. She wrestled herself into the sweatshirt after that, pulling it on backwards, and though usually neither Arturo nor I would have pointed it out—we tried to make her feel capable when we could—I wanted her to look nice on her first day, so I started pulling her arms back through the sleeves to turn it around.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m fixing your shirt.”

“I liked it how it was,” she said.

“But it was backwards.”

“I liked it how it was.”

So I left it alone. I didn’t comb her hair either, because any time I tried to, she complained that it hurt, that it pulled at the scar across her scalp. When Maribel was little, she used to get up early in the morning so I could plait her hair in two long braids down her back. She inspected them when I was finished, and if the braids weren’t tight enough, she would undo them and make me start again. So stubborn. So sure of what she wanted. One thing that hadn’t changed.

We ate eggs in the kitchen, and when it was time to go, I handed Maribel a backpack—the same one she had used in México—that I had packed with a pencil, her green notebook, a ruler that was part of a sewing kit my mother had given me for my quinceañera, a small wooden box filled with medicine tablets, a note for the nurse, and a tag with her name, address, and phone number written on it.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“For what?”

“Maribel, you’re starting school today. Remember?”

“What school?”

She stared at us with those wide, beautiful eyes. The way she used to stare at us when she was a baby. It had taken us so long to have her, so many years of trying and failing. So many doctors, so many prayers. But then I had gotten pregnant. At last. Our miracle de Dios. And after she had arrived, Our Everything.

“It’s a new school,” Arturo said. “I think you’ll like it there.”

Maribel studied his face. Arturo and I waited. So much of our life with her now was about waiting, something I wasn’t very good at.

“Okay,” she said.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. Sin pies ni cabeza. She resisted, she was confused, and then, suddenly, something would snap back into place and she was compliant, agreeable. Even a year after the accident, I was still unable to discern the pattern.

It was humid when we walked outside. The three of us stood in the weedy grass along the edge of the parking lot until a long yellow bus dragged itself up from the street. It stopped in front of us and the door folded open. The driver, a woman wearing a baseball cap, waved and yelled hello. That much I understood. But when she kept talking, I got lost. Arturo looked at me as if to ask whether I knew what she was saying. I shook my head, and thought, This is how it is for us here. This is how it will be. We simply had to trust that the bus driver would deliver Maribel safely to school and that her teacher would make sure she was in the right classroom and that all day long, people would take care of her the way she needed to be cared for. We had to push past trepidation and believe that by sending her off we were doing the right thing. What other choice did we have?

Standing next to each other, Arturo and I watched as Maribel climbed aboard the bus. Through the windows, I saw her sit in a seat near the front and push her sunglasses up.

We had been planning our life here for so long. Filling out papers, hoping, praying, waiting. We had all of our dreams pinned on this place, but the pin was thin and delicate and it was too soon to tell whether it was stronger than it looked or whether, in the end, it wasn’t going to hold much of anything at all.

As if he had read my mind, Arturo said, “She’ll be fine.”

But I couldn’t tell if he was only trying to convince himself that it was true.

“Say it again,” I said.

“She’ll be fine.”

And because I wanted to believe him—because I wanted more than anything for her to be fine and fine and eventually better than fine, for her to transform again into the girl she used to be, for this past year to have been nothing but a strange, cruel detour that we could move beyond and never venture down again—I nodded and watched the bus heave away.

ARTURO LEFT FOR WORK
not long after—he had his own bus to take, three of them, actually, all the way to the mushroom farm—which meant that I was alone in the apartment for the first time since we had arrived. I wasn’t used to being alone, here or anywhere, and the silence felt like an invasion. Usually in Pátzcuaro someone—either my mother or else one of my friends—stopped by in the morning. I would make café con leche and we would talk, sometimes for only a few minutes, sometimes for hours. And even on the days when no one came over, through the open windows of our house I could hear the
noise of our neighbors—a Juanes song from a nearby radio, a barking dog, the dull banging of a hammer, the ripple of voices, the hush of the breeze. Here, it was as if I was sealed into a noiseless box, and even when I opened a window, all I could hear was the rhythmic whisper of cars driving on the nearby road.

I turned on the television for company and studied people’s mouths as they spoke in English, trying my best to replicate the sounds, even though I had no idea what they were saying. And they spoke so fast! I wasn’t sure if I was mouthing individual words or bunches of them strung together like grapes.

After a while, I turned the television off and wandered into the kitchen. I pulled out my comal and thought, Maybe I’ll make something. Something to remind me of home. But I didn’t have any of the ingredients I needed, so I just stood there, staring at the flat cast-iron pan, feeling homesickness charge at me like a roaring wave, filling my nostrils and my ears, threatening to knock me down. I took a deep breath. I would do something else, then. I would go out. This was my life now, I told myself, and I was going to have to figure out how to spend my days. I had to learn how to outrun the wave. Or else I had to learn how to stand far enough inland that it would never approach me in the first place.

I showered and dressed, parted my hair down the center and combed it back into a low ponytail. I dabbed candelilla wax on my lips from the small tin pot I had brought with us. I inspected myself in the mirror, pinching my cheeks to flush them and baring my teeth to make sure they were clean. Then I picked up my purse and headed toward the door.

We needed more food, but the only place I knew where to get any was the gas station, and I didn’t want to go there again, so I
stood outside on the balcony, my hands around the metal railing, and tried to think of something else. I looked up at the clear sky and listened to the low roar of cars and semi-trucks headed to places I didn’t know, driven by people I had never seen. I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. It’s the same sun that shone on us at home, I told myself. The same sun.

Then, from below, I heard the rickety sound of wheels against the pavement. When I opened my eyes and looked down, I saw the boy from the gas station riding his skateboard, pushing himself up the slight incline to our parking lot where the gravel changed to asphalt. As quickly and as quietly as I could, I slipped back into the apartment. What was he doing here? I snuck over to the front window to watch him. He stopped in the middle of the lot and stomped his foot against the tail of the board, flipping it up into his hand. He stood like that, calmly, and stared at our apartment door. Had he seen me? Had he recognized me? Had he come here because he was looking for us? But how had he known where we lived? Had he followed us that day, after the gas station? I was breathing fast. Calm down, Alma, I told myself. Maybe it’s only a coincidence. Maybe it’s not even the same boy. But when I curled around the side of the window again to peer at him, I was sure. I could see the tattoo, the navy blue ink of it, winding up his neck.

He didn’t move for at least five minutes. I kept expecting him to turn around, to look at the other apartments, but he only stood with his hand gripping the top of his skateboard and stared at our door. As if he were waiting for us. For Maribel.

At last, he spit on the ground and dropped the skateboard with a clatter. He turned around and pushed off, jumping the curb at the edge of the lot, and glided down to the gravel.

I took a deep breath. What had that been about? Was it only that he liked Maribel or was there something else?

When I was sure he was gone, I stepped back outside. At the end of the balcony, a man was standing with his arms crossed, looking grimly at the parking lot. As soon as he saw me, he raised his hand above his head and waved. I nodded, and he walked toward me.

“I was just coming to find you,” he said. “I’m the landlord. Fito Angelino at your service. I have your mailbox key.” He pulled a small brass key out of the chest pocket of his shirt and handed it to me.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, dropping it into my purse.

“You are okay?” Fito asked. He was slender and sinewy with a pointy gray goatee.

“Yes,” I said. “I just … I thought I saw someone.”

“You mean that boy? On his skateboard just now?” Fito shook his head. “Just a local troublemaker. Un alborotador. He’s always hanging around by the Shell station. The 7-Eleven, too. He lives in Capitol Oaks down the road.” Fito looked over his shoulder in the direction the boy had gone. “I don’t know what he was doing here.” When Fito turned back to me, he said brightly, “But don’t worry, Señora. He’s nothing to worry about.”

I nodded slowly, wanting to believe him.

“You’re going somewhere?” Fito asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You’re coming from somewhere, then?”

“No.”

“I see. You are confused.” Fito chuckled. “Fortunately for you, this is not a confusing area. You have Main Street and all the university students. You have Hockessin with all the gringos.
Downtown Wilmington is where most of the blacks live, and Greenville is where all the rich white people stay. Elsmere and Newport are for the lower class. It’s all very simple.”

“And here?” I asked.

“Here is us! Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, México, Panamá, and Paraguay. We have it all.”

“All in this building?”

“You’ll fit right in,” Fito said.

He was jumpy and quick, all sharp angles and sudden movements. I didn’t know what to make of him. But there was a certain comfort that came with hearing someone speak Spanish, to understand and to be understood, to not have to wonder what I was missing.

“And don’t give a second thought to that boy,” he went on. “It’s safe here. Very safe.”

I realized that Fito was concerned that he’d scared me away and that if he had, he would lose out on the rent he would be getting from us.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said again. “Yes?”

“Nothing to worry about,” I said, testing the words on my tongue to see if they felt true.

I expected to run into the Rivera girl at school. Not right away, obviously. But sooner or later all the kids who moved into our part of town showed up at school. When Fernando Ramos walked into homeroom the first day of freshman year, he told the teacher to call him Adiós because that’s what she’d be saying to him soon anyway. “We never stay anywhere for long,” he explained. When Lucia Castillo got here, she spent the whole year as a mute, shuffling from class to class and eating the food her mom made her—pinto beans and rice and tamales—by herself in the corner of the cafeteria. And when Eddie Pabón arrived, he was so excited to be in the United States and out of Guatemala that he took the concept of educational opportunity to another level—another
planet
—and joined every single one of the fourteen clubs at our school, started playing the trumpet in the band, lettered in three sports, volunteered as a hall monitor during his free period, and cozied up to the teachers so much that by the end of the first marking period, he was having bagels with them in the morning in the lounge. People started calling him Lambón Pabón, a nickname he accepted like it was an honor to be called a suck-up.