B0061QB04W EBOK (38 page)

“What do you do with those cans?” Carlos asked. We had seen homeless people around her apartment building pushing carts filled with cans on their way to someplace, but we had no idea where they would take them.

“I sell them at the recycling center,” Mami said. “I get good money doing this.” Good money or not, I couldn’t help thinking that Mila wouldn’t be caught dead picking up cans.
Why couldn’t my mother be a
bit like her?
I’d wonder. Mami’s apartment always smelled like rotten beer and soda because she only went to the recycling center once a week, so the bags of smashed cans would just sit in a corner of her apartment all week long. I knew then why there were so many roaches.

Eventually, we got used to our double lives. Yet as the months went by, I still wished there were a way we could have our family together, in the same place. I especially wished this when I graduated from Aldama Elementary a year later. Although I was happy to see Papi there—he actually took time off from work to come to my graduation—I wished Mami were there, too. But that was where Papi had drawn the line. He didn’t want to see Mami. He said he’d never forgive her for what she did with Betty. Neither he nor my mother were ever willing to accept they had both used Betty as a way to hurt each other, and in the process, had hurt us and my little sister as well.

Mami didn’t ask much about him, either. She embraced her new life in this country with Rey and her new baby boy and Betty. The distance between us wasn’t two thousand miles anymore. But there was still a gap. I hoped one day we could overcome it.

11

S
OMETIMES
P
API WOULD
sit us down and talk and talk as if he were trying to make up for the eight years he was gone from our lives. But his talks were always about the future, and they always went like this:

“Here in this country, if you aren’t educated, you won’t go very far.

“School is the key to the future.

“Without an education, you’re nothing. So you kids have to study hard. You hear me? Do you hear me?”

He would tell us how important it was to get an education so that one day we could have a good career and not have to ask anyone for anything. “For example, look at your mother,” he’d say. “Isn’t she ashamed to be on welfare? And what’s she doing at a factory? That’s a dead-end job. You get paid under the table, don’t get benefits. She’s
not putting money into social security for retirement. That’s not the way to live, not here in this country.” He didn’t mention that he, himself, wasn’t getting much out of his job because he was using a social security card he’d bought at MacArthur Park for a hundred bucks.

Papi would tell us that one day we would have great jobs. Be home owners. Have money for retirement. And never be a burden to anyone.

Sometimes, Betty would also be there at the table. She was six years old and had no interest in retirement either. By then, Mami had finally allowed us to bring her over on the weekends because Betty would cry every time we left to go back home. She wanted to come with us. Every time we left her, I felt that we were replaying that day in Mexico. We’d reassured Mami that Papi wouldn’t “steal” her back. Not so much because he didn’t want to, but because they truly couldn’t afford another mouth to feed, as Mila had said. Betty was too little to have any interest in Papi’s visions for the future, and since she rarely came over, they would not have any impact on her later in life, as they would me.

“But I’m only eleven and a half, Papi,” I would say. “Why do I need to worry about retiring?”

“Chata, one day you will get old,” Papi said. “If you think life is hard now, wait until you get old enough that you can’t even bathe yourself, then you’ll really see how hard life is.”

“Like the old people at Kingsley Manor?” I asked.

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be able to afford Kingsley Manor if you didn’t have a good job before you got too old to work,” Papi said. “But see, if you plan ahead, then you’ll be better off.” I tried to picture myself as an old lady, dressed in a princess dress and walking down the halls of a great mansion, as I imagined Kingsley Manor might look. I decided I really did want to have a good job, as Papi said I should.

“But we don’t have papers, Papi,” Mago said. “How are we going to have good careers with no papers?”

Papi said, “Just because we’re illegal doesn’t mean we can’t dream. Besides,” he said, “our lives are going to change for the better. Soon, that will no longer be an issue.”

Papi had been looking at ways to legalize our status. He and Mila got officially married some months before so that she could use her privileges as an American citizen to apply for our green cards. Also, ever since President Reagan approved an amnesty program eight
months earlier, in November of 1986, Papi had been going through the process and was hoping to get his green card through that program. Once he did, he could then claim us and legalize our status if our applications through Mila didn’t work out. Mami had applied for legal residency as well, but unlike my father, she wasn’t concerned about her children’s status.

“One way or another,” Papi said, “we will stop living in the shadows.”

Back then, I hadn’t known what exactly he’d meant by that, but when I thought about the way Mrs. Anderson had ignored me, about the fact that I couldn’t express myself in class and my lack of English kept me silent, I thought I understood what Papi meant.

In September of 1987, Mago became the first person in our family to go to high school. Papi decided to take her shopping for new school clothes, saying that his “Negra” needed to look her best on such an important day because after this his “Negra” was going to go on to college and make us all proud.

“How about me?” I asked. “I need clothes, too. I’m starting junior high.”

“But you weren’t the first one,” Mago said. “I was.”

Papi told Carlos and me that he didn’t have enough money for us all. Back then, I didn’t know that his small paycheck didn’t go very far
to support his three children. I didn’t know that divorcing my mother in order to marry Mila had cost lawyer fees, that the green card applications for the four of us had cost money, and so would the rest of the application process. So when he and Mago left for Fashion 21, I was left behind, angry at my father and thinking him a cheapskate for not taking Carlos and me clothes shopping as well.

I was also angry at my sister. It wasn’t my fault that she was the firstborn. It wasn’t my fault that she would get to do everything before I did. Papi said he wanted us to stop living in the shadows. Whether we got a green card or not, I promised myself that I
would
stop living in the shadow—of my sister, at least. I would find a way to be the first at something. Something that would make my father proud.

If I thought Aldama Elementary was big, I was overwhelmed when I saw that Luther Burbank Junior High School was even bigger. Thankfully, I would not be alone at school. Carlos was starting ninth grade, and he would be here with me for a year. He took me to my first class, which was Intermediate ESL. Finally, I would no longer be in a corner of my classroom as I learned English. I would be in a room where all the students were English learners.

My teacher’s name was Mr. Salazar. His name sounded familiar, and I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it until he took roll. When he called out my name, he paused and asked, “Grande? Are you by any chance related to Maggie Grande?”

“Yes, she’s my sister,” I said, remembering that Mago had mentioned him to me before.

Mr. Salazar had a huge thick mustache, but even his bushy hair couldn’t cover up that big smile. “Your sister was a wonderful student. She was one of my best and brightest.” He looked at me, as if measuring me up. My stomach churned. I just knew that no matter what I did, he would always compare me to my sister. And even if I did end up being one of his “best and brightest,” Mago had done it first.

Luckily, no one knew my sister in my math and science classes, so there was a chance I could prove myself there without being compared to Mago, even if they were my least favorite subjects. In PE, as the teacher took roll, she stopped at my name and once again, my
stomach made a flip. “Reyna Grande?” she asked. “Is that really your name, Reyna
Grande
?”