America's Dream (34 page)

“If I stay there,” Adela complains, “I end up working on my days off.”

América has a bank account, into which she deposits a fourth of her salary. She sends money orders to Rosalinda and to Ester every week and keeps a small amount for personal expenses, which are few, since she gets room and board at the Leveretts’. Her dream is to have a credit card, so she can charge whatever she needs without having to carry cash.

“You’re so lucky,” the empleadas tell her, “to be an American citizen.”

They describe how, in the places they come from, everyone dreams of coming to the United States. When she tells them that where she comes from people are fighting to win independence from the United States, they seem amazed. “But you have it so good!” they assure her.

It confuses her sometimes, to talk about these things. The em- pleadas describe wars and guerrilla killings, corrupt priests and the burning of villages in the night. The governments in their countries are repressive and brutal, and anyone who complains ends up dead.

Back home, protests against the United States presence in Vieques are commonplace. Every so often a sea turtle is blown to bits by the shelling offshore and the residents complain to the

U.S. Navy. Or the fishermen’s cooperative blockades the target beach by circling their boats where the Navy maneuvers will take place. The men and women involved in that kind of thing are viewed as heroes by their supporters, and América respects them for their commitment and passion for their cause. Just before she met Correa, she was involved with a group of students planning to demonstrate at the gates of the Navy base. But Correa put an end to that. “Women,” he told her, “should stay out of politics.” So many things I didn’t do because he said not to, she tells herself as she drives back to the Leveretts’. It didn’t occur to me to challenge any of his opinions, his rules. And our daughter is the same way. We close our brains when he speaks. We’ve been docile as faithful dogs. Of course he’d take advantage of that.

Who wouldn’t?

She hasn’t talked to Rosalinda in over a month. Every time she’s picked up the phone to call her number, she changes her mind, believing she needs to punish her daughter for her rude- ness. It occurs to her that she didn’t warn Rosalinda that this would be the consequence for her behavior, so she decides to write and let her know, so that her daughter doesn’t feel like América forgot her.

Dear Rosalinda:

Here is your money order. I haven’t called you the last few weeks because I’m sick of having the phone slammed every time you don’t agree with what I say. If you want me to call you again, you have to promise not to do that anymore. I talk to Mami every week, so call her and tell her if you agree with this condition.

Love,

Your mother

P.S. I have a lot to tell you.

She posts the letter, feeling proud of herself. She’s being firm but fair, she thinks. She got the idea for this letter from a radio psychologist who answers questions over the air. América is in the car, driving to or from school with Kyle and Meghan, when the psychologist is on, and so she has a chance to listen to fifteen or twenty minutes of advice every day. Being firm but fair is one of the things the psychologist recommends when her listeners complain about their kids.

América has decided that one of her problems is that she hasn’t been firm enough. For example, the first time Darío called she had every intention of telling him never to call again, but all she could muster was, “I’m sort of busy now,” and she said good-bye and hung up without waiting to hear what she was doing. The second time he called she didn’t want to be rude, so they talked for about forty minutes. She told him how many beds she makes in a day, and he told her how frightening it is to be a taxi driver in New York City. “Every passenger you pick up,” he said, “can be the last person you see.” The idea of facing death every night was so fascinating that she asked him many questions, and he told her stories of the close calls he’d had. He called again the next night, and they talked for twenty minutes. She didn’t tell him never to call again, and now she thinks it may be too late.

She has to be firm with Karen. All of last week, and most of this one, Karen has worked late at the hospital. Charlie has been

out of town, so América has put in fifteen-hour days. She thinks she should get paid extra for working more than the eight hours Karen Leverett told her she would be working. The truth is that América is on duty by seven in the morning and doesn’t get to her room until after eight every night. That’s more than eight hours. América hopes that Karen will agree with her. After all, a woman who spends fifteen dollars for a pair of panties should be able to afford a couple of extra dollars for the woman who cares for her kids.

After the children have been put to bed and Karen has settled on the couch with her papers, América tiptoes downstairs. She’s never had to ask for a raise, so she’s not sure how one approaches these things. She figures if she’s firm but fair, Karen will go along with it.

“Excuse, Karen?”

“Yes, América?” Karen removes her glasses, which she wears when she takes off her contact lenses.

“I need tell you something.”

Karen nods, doesn’t ask her to sit down. América stands on the other side of the sharp-edged granite table, her hands in her pockets so Karen won’t see them shaking. She takes a deep breath. “I work hard longer than eight hours every day.”

Karen tenses, the corners of her lips press against her teeth. “I think…” Be firm but fair, América tells herself. “I need raise.” Karen unfolds her legs from under her, folds them in the op-

posite direction. “You’ve only worked with us for three months. You get a raise after a year, as we agreed.” She settles her papers on the other side of the couch.

“I know, but you say I work eight hours. I work more than eight hours.”

“How can that be? The children are in school most of the day.” “I clean house when kids in school.”

“For six hours? Really, América…” Karen shakes her head, chuckles to herself.

“Is big house.”

“But We’re not here all day. We haven’t entertained in weeks. It’s really mostly the kitchen and the bedrooms that you have to clean. That can’t take you six hours every day.”

Have you ever cleaned a house? América wants to ask but knows that would be rude. Of course Karen Leverett has never cleaned her own house. That’s what maids are for.

“I careful. Many delicate things. I clean under beds, in back furniture. It takes long time.”

“I still can’t believe it takes you six hours every day to clean this house, come on.” She fiddles with her glasses, apparently eager to get back to her paperwork. “I tell you what, you should take some time off in the mornings, when the kids are not here, okay?”

She’s not being fair, América tells herself. “But if house not clean?”

“I’m sure you can work this out, América. You just need to be more efficient, so you can have the time. I know you can do it, okay?”

“Okéi,” América says, not because she agrees but because she’s angry and doesn’t know what to do with her anger. She starts out of the room, and Karen Leverett calls out “Good night!” in a cheery voice that grates on América’s nerves. She doesn’t wish Karen Leverett a good night. She wishes, in fact, that Karen Leverett will have the worst night of her life. She closes the door to her room and locks it.

I should have told her that it’s not six hours, she fumes, it’s four. I have to pick up Meghan from school by twelve. And I should have told her I do the laundry and iron most of their clothes. And I have to cook. I didn’t remind her of that.

She gets ready for bed but knows she won’t get much sleep tonight. She’s too upset. If she had given me twenty dollars more a week I would have been happy. She didn’t need to double my salary. Just twenty dollars more a week. That’s less than she pays for a bra.

“I asked Doña Paulina if I could pick you up,” Darío says when he meets her at the station.

“I want to get there in one piece,” she says. She’s still annoyed from last night’s meeting with Karen and is not happy to see Darío’s hopeful smile.

“I’ll drive as carefully as a little old lady,” he jokes, strapping himself in. “There’s a seat belt over there.”

“This wasn’t here last time, was it?”

“I put it in to impress you.” He smiles at her, taking his eyes off the road. “Oops!” he says, facing forward.

In spite of herself, América smiles. He must be on drugs, she thinks. How else to explain this change in his personality when they’re alone?

“I’m working tonight,” Darío says, “but tomorrow I’m taking the kids to the circus. Have you ever been to one?”

“No, they don’t bring them to Vieques.” “Would you like to come with us?”

She thinks a minute before answering, not because she’s not certain, but because she doesn’t want him to think she’s too eager. “Yes, thank you.”

“Great! We’re going to the early show, so we have to leave here around nine in the morning.”

“Okéi.”

He lets her into the apartment building, and in the confines of the foyer between the street and hall doors, she senses how close they are, almost as close as when they danced. He seems to feel it too, and gets close enough to kiss her but at the last minute changes his mind, sticks the key in the inside door, and steps back to let her by.

“See you later,” he says, the familiar mournful expression darkening his face.

“Aren’t you coming up?”

“I have to go to work.” He nods in her direction and disappears behind the street door.

América stands in the hall for a minute. Even though she really doesn’t want anything to do with men, this man is not so bad as the others. As the other, she reminds herself as she starts up the stairs. They’re not all like Correa.

Janey and Johnny are so excited that Darío has to keep telling them to stop bouncing on the backseat of the car or they’ll turn back and forget the circus. The children quiet down for a few minutes and then begin again, unable to sit still.

América is equally excited. She has never been into Manhattan, and when she told Darío this, he said they would take the scenic route. They drove down by the side of a broad river, then into the center of the city.

“This is Times Square.” Darío drove slowly down the broad avenue lined with tall buildings and lit billboards. Behind them, cars honked their horns and taxi drivers gave them dirty looks. “On top of that hotel,” Darío pointed, “is a restaurant that goes

around, so you can see the whole city.”

América can’t imagine how a room turns around and is still trying to figure it out when they arrive at Madison Square Garden. They line up with thousands of people waiting to get in. Vendors offer balloons, shaved ice, cotton candy, hot pretzels, plastic swords that light up, stuffed animals. Everything they see, Janey and Johnny want, and Darío stops at almost every kiosk to buy it for them.

“I know I spoil them,” he apologizes to América, who hasn’t said a word.

Their arms laden with every conceivable souvenir, they finally make it to their seats and have to hand everything to Darío and América because there’s no place to keep it. They have a row of four seats fairly close to the middle ring.

América, no less than Janey and Johnny, is fascinated with everything she sees. Madison Square Garden is the biggest place she’s ever been in. Music comes from somewhere up above, drowning out the sounds of children squealing with delight at the antics of a few clowns running around the three rings.

No sooner have they taken their seats than the place darkens and a man announces the beginning of the circus. Spotlights fix on the garage-size openings at one end, and a parade of animals, acrobats, and clowns circles the three rings. There are elephants and tigers in cages. Tiny horses. Camels with golden bridles.

Clowns that run up and down the aisles making funny faces at children. One of the clowns sits on a woman’s lap. Another kisses a man. A third gives a little boy a handkerchief, and when he walks away there are a hundred more tied one to the other stretching from his pocket.

After the parade, three women do tricks high up on a rope suspended from América doesn’t know what. A muscular man holds a whole family of acrobats on his shoulders. Two boys perform tricks on bicycles. Trapeze artists swing each other across, then jump onto a net. It is the most wonderful thing América has ever seen. When the lights go on and she stands up to go, Darío tells her it’s only the intermission and there’s more.

She takes Janey to the bathroom, where they have to wait on a long line. Then they all buy hot dogs and popcorn and ice cream. When they return to their seats, there are more clowns, a man who makes tigers jump through hoops lit on fire, a woman who makes horses dance, a man who folds himself into impossible positions. Twelve elephants lift their massive front legs on top of each other until there’s a long line of elephants on two legs. There’s a man who eats fire, stiltwalkers, a woman who twirls from a rope that she grabs with her teeth.

“Did you like it?” Darío asks as they follow the throng to the street.

“It was wonderful!” América says in the same wonder-filled voice as Janey and Johnny. “Wasn’t it great?” She turns to the children, embarrassed that she feels like a kid who’s never seen anything, has never been anywhere, and didn’t know there were such marvels in the world.

On Monday when she’s cleaning Kyle and Meghan’s rooms, she finds souvenirs from the circus and wonders if the Leveretts were there at the same time as she was.

“We went Saturday,” Kyle informs her when she asks, “and I got to see the elephants up close.”

“Me too,” América says.

“But we got to touch them,” says Meghan.

“Really?”

“After the circus Daddy took us to where they keep the ele- phants, and the tigers,” Kyle adds.

“But we couldn’t pet the tigers,” Meghan says seriously. “No, they too scary,” América says as she serves Meghan a

helping of potatoes mashed with plantains.

“Daddy knows the head clown,” Kyle says, “that’s why we could go where they get ready and stuff.” He looks down at his plate. “What is this?”