Barbara Samuel (25 page)

It wasn’t like it was easy to find guys who liked her. They thought she was too tall. Or they were afraid of her dad. Or she was a good girl. Or she wasn’t their type. Or they were disgusted because she’d dated one black guy for two lousy months, and he turned out to be the biggest jerk she’d ever met. A friend had tried to warn her not to go out with guys who were that good-looking, but she hadn’t listened. “Any guy,” Tracy said, “who is that cute is going to be too much trouble.” And he had been. Especially because there were a lot of boys still who wouldn’t go out with a girl who had gone with a black guy.

Not that she’d want to be with a guy who would think that was bad.

It was so complicated!

She stubbed her toe on a rock. Hard. With a yelp, she hopped around, blinking back tears, and saw that it was starting to bleed. A bad stub. She turned around to go back to the river, and realized she was confused. Not lost, surely. There was a thin path—she hadn’t gone off it, and she could still hear the little boys yelling and carrying on, and below their voices, the rushing sound of water.

Limping, holding her toe up as much as possible, she headed back toward the sound of the boys’ voices, blood dripping down into the valley between her toes. It hurt, too, and suddenly, the sun seemed really hot, and the undergrowth kind of scary. She thought she saw the figure of someone up ahead—a patch of red shirt,
and the swish of hair—and yelled, “Hey! Lady!” The woman kept moving, briskly, sun dappling over her shoulders. “Hey! Help!”

She came around a turn, feeling really sorry for herself and starting to cry—and nearly ran into somebody. She had to swallow a scream as she looked up, and it was Thomas’s quiet friend Tiny. He looked confused. “Did you see a lady over here?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, “and her little kids over there, too, but look.” She pointed at her foot, which was now covered in a truly gory amount of blood. The whole top of the toe was flapping with loose skin—not as bad as it looked, but pretty disgusting all the same. “Help me get to the water and wash it off.”

“Eee, girl, that’s bad. Lean on my arm. Hop.”

Joy gratefully took his skinny arm. It wasn’t far to the water. She carefully didn’t look toward her mother, and was thankful when Tiny whistled, long and loud, to get their attention. Not that they’d be doing anything in broad daylight, of course, nothing more than a little necking, but she didn’t want to even see that. She shoved her foot into the cold water, squeezing his arm a little and sucking in air over her teeth. “Oooh, that hurts!”

“Stop the bleeding, though.” He looked over his shoulder. “You saw that lady, too, then, huh? She wasn’t just my imagination?”

“No, I saw her. Really long hair? A red shirt.”

“Yeah.” He blew out his cheeks in relief and gave her an oddly appealing grin. “I thought it might be
La Llorona
and that I was in big trouble.”

“Who’s that?”

“You don’t know her?” He inclined his head, making a
tsking
sound, and squatted. Joy recognized the stance of a tall tale and got ready to listen.
“La Llorona,”
he
said, “is an evil, evil ghost. She killed her children when her man disappointed her, and she spends all of her time wandering the river, trying to suck children into the water to drown them, or sometimes warning men they’re going to die.”

A bird cried overhead, right on time, and an involuntary shudder passed down Joy’s spine before she laughed. “That scared me!”

He nudged her. “Me, too!” he said, and laughed.

“What’d you do, kiddo?” her mom asked, coming up with Thomas following behind. Her cheekbones were red, but more with sunburn than shame, and Joy was glad about that. She pulled her foot out of the water with a pitiful expression. “I got an owie, Mommy.”

“Oh! I guess you did.” She bent in to look at the wound, her hand around Joy’s ankle. “You always have gotten the worst stubbed toes. Poor you!”

Sun glinted on the gold and silver in her mother’s blond curls, and she raised dark brown eyes full of love to Joy’s face, her mouth pursed in a half smile, half frown of sympathy, and Joy suddenly remembered being three and six and seven, coming to her mommy with these stubbed toes. Her eyes filled with tears of gratitude. “Nobody ever takes care of me like you do,” she said, adopting a little girl voice so it wouldn’t be so serious.

“C’mon, kiddo, I’ve got a first-aid kit in the car.”

Thomas bent down and put his back to her. “Climb on. I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”

“I’m way too heavy!” she said, but Tiny laughed. “He’s strong,
h’ita,”
he said, so she climbed on. His braid was hot from the sun and smelled like the wind on a summer day. His shoulders were broad as a canyon, and even though her toe dripped blood all the way, she
felt safe. Safer, she thought, than she’d ever felt in her life. How could that be?

Late, late in the afternoon, Thomas tugged Luna to her feet and they walked down a path through the trees. It was lazy and rich, just walking with him. Her body was limp with the lassitude of sunshine and peacefulness. A good day to be alive, she thought. Days like this made all the others worth living.

Thomas said, “I heard what you were saying to Tiny. Thanks.”

“Probably none of my business. But he’s in so much pain.” She thought of Tiny’s wife, sitting there so selfconsciously last night. “So is his wife.” She shook her head. “What’s their story?”

He sighed. “I don’t know.
Abuelita
says Angelica is from a bad line of witches.”

That piqued her interest. “Really.”

“She gave Tiny a charm this morning. And me, too.” He pulled it out of his pocket and put it in her hand.

“What’s in it?”

“Holy dirt, mainly. A saint’s medal.” He lifted a shoulder. “Who knows?”

“And what’s it for?”

“Protection, I guess.”

“Dirt for protection?”

“Ah, that’s not just any dirt. It’s holy dirt from Chi-mayó.”

“I see,” Luna said with proper reverence. “I’ve heard about it, but never been there. Have you?”

“Lots of times.” He took the packet from her hand and hefted it, as if he was gauging the weight of magic it contained. “It’s a holy place, but some of it gives me
the creeps. They have these dolls in there—I don’t like them. And Santo Niño—do you know him?”

“No. Baby Saint?”

He tucked the charm back into his wallet. “Baby Jesus. They say he walks around the countryside, doing miracles, and he does it so often they have to replace his shoes once a year. I was terrified of him when I was a kid.”

“Why?”

“He’s in this special stall in a side room, a big statue with clothes like a toddler in the eighteenth century or something. Inside the stall are a bunch of baby shoes, and people have carved the names of people—probably kids, mostly—into the wood around him.” He quirked his mouth. “When I was little, I thought I could hear the whispers, and I always had nightmares about him coming into my room to tell me he’d seen me doing bad things.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty creepy.”

They were only talking to avoid kissing, and Luna finally halted, putting a hand on his arm. “I think it’s safe now.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Coast is clear.” A hand came to her cheek. “Thank God.”

Maggie’s Diary

17 Septiembre 2001,
San Roberto B

Dear Tupac,
My mom’s getting worse and I don’t know what to do. Yesterday, her boss called all pissed off and wanted to know how come she hadn’t been to work in three days. Which I didn’t know. I told him she was really sick with the flu and he said she had to call him. He was tired of her just not showing up. Enough is enough.

When my dad was around, Sundays were a big day in our house. We got up early and went to Mass, all of us together, at Our Lady of Guadalupe church, right in town. Then we’d go to a restaurant for lunch, then
around somewhere. Sometimes we drove up to Pueblo to shop, or over to the Pueblo to eat some fry bread, out to the mountains somewhere, sometimes down to Espanola to visit cousins. Stuff like that. It wasn’t always what I wanted to do, but it was still fun. Wish I hadn’t complained so much then. It was good and I didn’t even know it.

And every Sunday night, except when we went shopping, my mom cooked something good. A lot of times during the week, we only eat regular stuff like spaghetti or burritos because they’re fast and my mom has to work, after all. But every Sunday, my mom did this big supper—pork chops, maybe, or a big roast or sometimes she bought tamales from the old ladies at church who sell them, and she’d make some green chile and we’d eat that.

So, this Sunday, today, I decided maybe that’s what she needed. I called my uncle Ricky and he came and got me so I could buy some tamales. Then I called my grandma, my dad’s mom, and asked her to come over for supper and told Ricky he could come, too, if he wanted. He said he would like to, and he’s nineteen already, even though he’s still got one more year at high school, so he’s pretty grown-up. That made me feel good.

My mom was taking one of her long, long naps, so she didn’t notice that I was in the kitchen all day. I used one of my mom’s recipes, and it’s not like I don’t cook— I’m pretty good at it—so pretty soon the whole house was smelling good, filled up with these nice smells. The kitchen got all steamy, which made me feel cheerful, and I even turned on the Spanish radio station and listened to it, because it made me think of my dad. He liked the Spanish radio.

Late in the day, it got cloudy and that made it even
cozier. I set the table with the bright red and yellow plates my mom got from Pier One in Albuquerque, with pictures of roosters and sunflowers and teakettles, really loud stuff and silly, and that’s what my mom liked about them.

My friend Joy called around five. “Whatcha doing?”

“Setting the table. We’re having tamales. Want to come? Ever eat really good tamales?” I don’t think they have stuff like that in Atlanta.

“I don’t think I can. My toe is stubbed bad. It’s totally disgusting.”

“Your mom can’t drive you?”

“No.”

“It’s only around the block—like half a mile. Put on some big shoes.”

“It’s too sore.” Joy sounded like really disappointed, and I felt disappointed, too. “It would be so nice to get out—with somebody my age.”

“Maybe my mom will come get you when she wakes up, okay? You want to?”

“No, don’t go through all that. I should probably do homework anyway.” The phone clicked and she said, “I gotta go. That’s call waiting. See you at school tomorrow.”

So right after that, it started to rain. Not the big rains we’ve been having, but soft. Colder. My grandma and Ricky came over and I wanted to get my sweater when I let them in! My grandma said, “Brr! Winter’s coming.” Then she lifted up her nose and smelled. “Oh,
h’ita
, it smells so good in here!”

I told her thanks and got them to come in the kitchen to see the table, which looked so cheery, and my grandma says, “So where’s your mom?”

I told her she was sleeping. Grandma lifted up the pan lids and looked inside, and I was kind of nervous
that it might not be good. She took a big spoon out of the drawer and stirred the chile, looking at it for about a whole minute, I swear, and I can never think what she sees in a pot—just a bunch of chiles and onions and specks of pepper and meat. “I didn’t get the onions small enough, did I?”

“They’re perfect.” She took a bite and looked at the wall. “It’s good, real good. You’re gonna be a great cook.” She turned down the heat a little bit and told me, “Next time, maybe leave the pork cooking while you go to church, then when you come back, it’ll be real tender.” She said it in a nice way, just giving me something new about cooking and I didn’t take it the wrong way.

“You two get ready to eat,” Grandma said. “I’m going to get Sally up.”

Ricky lifted up the lid of the tortilla keep and tells me, “Not homemade.”

“Duh,” I told him.

He grinned at me to show he was only teasing, and took one out anyway. “You should have Grandma teach you, so then you know how when you grow up.” He rolled it up and leaned on the counter, chomping it, and it made me think of my dad
so much
, especially when he did this thing, tossing a piece of hair off his forehead, that I got tears in my eyes all of a sudden.

Ricky’s saying, “What’s wrong, Maggie? What happened?” and I just shook my head, shaking my head so the tears wouldn’t ruin my eyeliner. “You just look so much like my dad.”

He came over and put his arms around me and said, “I’m sorry,
h’ita.
I know. I miss him so much sometimes. Every so often, I think of something I want to tell him, or I see a car he’d like, and then—I remember all over that I’m not gonna tell him anything ever again.”

I didn’t care about my eyeliner then. It was so nice just to talk about him. I told Ricky, “I miss him all kinda ways, like when the tomato plants were in the Safeway parking lot, and when they sing the Latin songs in church, or when I’m painting my toenails, because he thought it was funny that I liked painting them green.”

From my mom’s room came this big noise, like a fight, and my heart fell all the way to the floor. To the basement. I didn’t know till then that my mom had took some of her sleeping pills. Now she wouldn’t really be awake till morning. If we got her out of bed anyway, she’d be all hysterical and strange, and I just couldn’t stand that, so I ran into the room and told my Grandma to leave her alone, come and eat, it would be okay. My grandma says, all outraged, “You cooked!”