Down to the Bone (8 page)

I want to reach out and hold Soli and Rynn’s hands and tell them I really appreciate their support. But something stops me. I suddenly feel gloomy beyond my control and don’t want to start sobbing.

Soli does a three-sixty. “Hey, tell Rynn how I used to wear pigtails in elementary school.”

I pull my little tick-machine to me and squeeze the furry ball into my arms. Soli’s trying to entertain me. She knows I’m going through hell and wants to make me laugh. I don’t want her to feel bad. So I start:

“She always had three pigtails, two on the sides, and one on top of her head. She looked like she was sprouting trees.”

“Hey!” she slaps my knee. “I was
way
ahead of my time.”

“Absolutely!” I pinch the tip of her nose. Neruda barks at her in agreement. “Her mom starched and ironed her dresses every morning. Her uniform was stiff as a board.”

Soli tosses her head back, and lets out a melodious laugh. Her eyes light up. “Remember how Mrs. Agria used to grab your cheeks and pinch them hard when you were sketching instead of paying attention in class? Remember the day Mrs. Guantes cut your shaggy hair in class, and gave you short bangs because, she said, ‘I can’t see your eyes under there. You do have those round things inside sockets, don’t you?’”

“What a whacko!” Memories fly around me.

She faces Rynn. “In third grade, this girl, Olga, once yelled to me, ‘Black Bootie Bitch!’ Shyly screamed to her, ‘Look who’s talking. You’re white like dirty sour milk, at least
she
looks like yummy chocolate!’” Soli goes on. “Another time Olga screamed to me, ‘Hey, Charcoal!’ Shyly said to me, ‘Don’t pay attention to her.’ She pulled me by the hand, took me to the far corner of the playground, and started making jokes. She made me laugh with her wacky sense of humor.” It was hard for me to see the way that one girl had it out for Soli. I’m glad I was there to protect her.

I look to the colorful friendship wristband I gave her for her birthday and remember she and I were the only kids in our class without fathers. Her dad died of a heart attack a month after mine passed away. Soli was as inconsolable as I’d been about Papi’s death. We were there for each other to console one another. That was the only time I’ve ever seen her weep uncontrollably. Every year, around the time our fathers died, Soli, her mom and I do candle rituals and dedicate the day to our dads. We spend it remembering them and doing things they loved, like horseback riding, eating their favorite foods, playing catch (they both liked baseball) and things like that.

Having grieved together bonded us in a way that’s indescribable, and that’s why our friendship is indestructible.

I rub the wristband she gave me for my birthday, and we throw each other a smile.

One thing about Soli is that things never get to her unless they’re huge (like the death of her father). She’s not sensitive like me. Look at all the horror that kid put her through, but as long as she had me, she didn’t care. And she’s not neurotic about it, either. Nothing fazes her. Everything that happened to me today will be stuck in my heart—like a sharp knife that gets twisted in there—for
ever
. Soli says she’s never even cried about all the horrific names Olga called her. Things just slide off her chest easily. And that’s a large chest, let me tell you!

I wish I could be like Soli. I don’t know why I’m so thin-skinned. It’s a curse, no doubt.

Viva comes indoors and spreads kisses. “¡Eh,
familia
!”

“Rynn,” I jut my nose over to Viva, “this is Viviana Celina de la Risa Catalina del Carmen Cabrera Prieto de Santillanos.” Viva giggles and her chubby belly ripples. I can tell she loves that I’ve memorized her entire birth name. A little thing like that is a bold statement that matters to her, it says loud and clear that I care. To Viva, a gift like this is far better than anything material I could possibly give her.

She plops on the couch and fixes the little mercurochrome-colored bun on top of her head with bobby pins. When she finds out I haven’t yet called my mother, she reprimands me, “Shylita, call your mami
now.
Tell her you is staying with me.”

Viva and my mom don’t get along too well. Let me rephrase that. Mami doesn’t respect Viva too much. She thinks Viva doesn’t know how to rear children. She disapproves of Soli doing whatever she wishes and says, “Allowing a girl to roam the world on her own and go in and out of the house as she pleases, isn’t a sane way to raise a child. That woman is missing some screws. How can she not place rules for Soli to follow? I can understand if Soli were a boy.”

Isn’t life ironic. I don’t see Viva kicking her daughter to the curb anytime soon. They have a beautiful relationship based on love and more love.

“Yeah, Shyly, get it over and done with.”

I hate having to do this but I must. I’d rather be in denial and focus on the times I’d look up at my mom, naïve, questioning and she regarded me with tenderness. If I’d go to her consumed with grief about a parakeet or hamster that had died, she’d hold me and reassure me, “Everything’s going to be okay. Go ahead. Cry. Crying is good.” The following day, she’d come home with a baby pet.

How can a mother change so drastically on you?

Soli throws me her cell. I drag my feet as I pace up and down the living room. I feel my heart in the pit of my stomach as I press my mom’s digits. I know I have to call her or Viva won’t let me stay.

“
¿Hola
?” she answers in a stern voice.

“Hi, Mami.” I shake inside; it feels like a marble is stuck in my throat.

She growls, “Hi, Mami? Hi, Mami?” She repeats it, as if I didn’t hear her the first time. “How will a ‘Hi, Mami,’ ever take away what you’ve done to our family name? You’ve disgraced us.” I gulp knives and razor blades and bombs that explode in my stomach.

“Mami, please relax.” I sit next to Viva on the couch and lay my head on her lap. She gently smoothes the hair away from my face.

“Re
lax
when your own daughter gets thrown out of school for obscene texts and lies about having slept with that degenerate in my house? Is the
degenerada
Soli? Is it?”

“No, Mami. It’s not Soli. I swear on Papi’s grave.” She knows I only swear over my father’s dead body to say the truth. I close my eyes. “Mami, I’m in really bad shape. Don’t make things worse.” I feel like I’ll die of a heart attack if she keeps this up. We’ve never really fought. Of course, we’ve had your typical arguments, but she’s been the type of fun mom all my friends wished they had.

“If Jaime finds out, I’ll kill you!”

I go on with a trembling voice. “Viva will let me stay at her place if you don’t want me anymore.” This is a hint, to see if she still loves me and wants me back. I mean, if I were a mother, I’d want my child back no matter what.

“How could I want you after everything you’ve put me through? The humiliation! All my friends will find out about this. You’ve ruined my life, and you’ll be a bad influence on your little brother. Can you imagine if he’d found and read those texts?”

The cell is on speakerphone. Everyone’s hearing everything.

“I’ve replaced the locks. You’re never stepping foot in here again unless you tell me her name. That girl’s parents need to know what she did and how her actions have destroyed our lives. Go ahead, stay with those immoral people who enable you to not be honest with your own mother. Live it up. You’ll have no rules now, and no one to set limits or tell you what’s right or wrong. Have a fun life.” She clicks the cell off.

I feel my throat tightening. Tears want to burst out of my eyes but I won’t let them. I need to keep it together.

“
Uy,
Shylita.” Viva helps me sit up. She lifts my chin with her index finger. “Your mami loves you
mijita.
She is just scaring you into changing.”

“Shyly, don’t worry. Your mom’s just overreacting because she’s shocked and hurt. All this time she thought you were straight and her close friend. Give her some time. In the meantime . . . you’re about to start your full-time job and you’ve got us.”

Rynn jumps in. “Your mother’s the one with the problem, Shai, not you.”

Why doesn’t it feel as if my mom destroyed our relationship? Why does it seem like it’s all my fault?

People in good relationships take them for granted, as if you knew your loving family will always be there for you no matter what. No one ever teaches you that there are threats to your life that can instantly destroy everything that was once precious.

Something feels broken inside me. I’m so damned lost.

Soli tells Viva about how there are millions of homeless kids and some commit suicide after their parents kick them out of the house. Viva’s eyes show concern. “We love you
mucho,
mucho,
Shylita. Tings will be better. You will see.” She smoothes her hand on my face. “I is going to buy you a bike in a little while, after I take a bath. No need to get yours at your mami’s. And soon, I will buy you a cell phone.”

Viva takes a
merenguito
from her dress pocket and hands it to me.

I don’t want anyone to worry about me, or think that maybe I’ll be ending my life, so I act goofy. “Yummy! White plastic sugar!” I lift it in the air. “
Merenguitos,
nothing can be better for a quick diabetic coma!”

Neruda takes a flying leap and almost grabs the
merenguito
from my hand. The right side of Viva’s lips lifts as she giggles. She holds my hand like only a mother can. She kisses my right cheek and Soli kisses my left cheek. I think that maybe, just maybe, I’ll live through all this.

7—Landscapes

Rick stayed in Miami two weeks. Marlena and I were bummed. She had to see him every day. The good thing was that she snuck calls and texts to me every second she wasn’t with him. And, we talked every night via video phone before going to sleep. Yesterday, Rick the Dick left. Woooo hoooo!

Last night, after an early no MSG Chinese takeout dinner, while listening to blasting music, I helped Soli weed her closet of clothes she’d outgrown
.
I learned something about Soli: she kept Sunday dresses she wore as a kid in a box, tucked away in a corner of her closet. She said, “They remind me of happy times when Pipo took me to parks and museums.”

Her floor ended up littered with piles of clothes she’d grown out of. I ended up adopting jeans, minidresses, sneakers, sandals, vibrant colored blouses, shorts and winter jackets.

Viva came by shuffling her feet in a silly dance, carrying a bag full of clothes she spilled at my feet. “They no fit me no more.” She pulled out a pair of flowered, gabardine slacks. “I has them since Cuba.” She plucked a checkered polyester blouse and eyed it against my chest. “This color be beautiful on you, Shylita.”

I loved everything nerdy and geeky. Instantly, I fell for the retro bell-bottoms, garish colored blouses and polyester pants she made me try on. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Before I went to sleep I called my mom again, to see if she’d changed her mind. She hadn’t.

This morning I woke up at four a.m., sighing. I did yoga on top of the rollout sofa-bed to ward off the feeling of doom settling inside me.

At five, after a breakfast of almond cereal, milk and berries, with a boiled egg for protein, I quietly rushed out the door on my tall handlebar bike Viva bought me.

I raced through traffic with a warm breeze blowing in my face, contemplating my dubious future. I practiced talking to my mom in my head in a soft tone. “I’m just a child. Don’t you care what happens to me? Remember what you used to say about Viva’s rearing habits? If I didn’t have Soli, I’d be sleeping in the streets. What kind of a mom does that make
you
? Please take me back.”

Nothing came out right. I always seemed to blame her.

I couldn’t knock the thoughts and feelings of desperately wanting to go back home out of my head until now.

I’ve just arrived at the site where I’m about to start a full-time job with a crew I’ve never met.

Tazer’s dad hired Marco’s company. We’ll be working on the front yard landscape of his three-story villa.

Tazer is nowhere in sight. I park my bike and see the crew waiting for me. Everyone looks about seventeen to twenty-one. I glance up at the sun and it disappears behind a dark cloud. I don’t blame it. I feel like hiding too.

Angel, Marco’s partner, tells me in Spanish, “I want you to keep an eye on the gang until I get back with more trees and mulch. I don’t know these people well. Marco just hired them. I trust you to not let them slack off.”

“No problem.” I couldn’t care less about anything right now. He could’ve said, “Your job today is to pour truckloads of venomous rattlesnakes on the plants for fertilization and lie on them,” and I would have answered, “
¡Fantastico!
”

Before he marches, he explains what needs to be done, which sounds like,
Blih, blue-blah, bloh, blih-bleh.

I look at his unshaven round face and nod as he’s talking. I know my job by heart.

Angel tells everyone that texting, talking on the cell, or listening to our iPods or MP3s isn’t allowed. “There are dozens waiting in line for your job. Kids spend their lives tweeting and hearing music and getting nothing done. If that’s what you want, then leave now and I’ll get replacements.” We’d need to hand him our cells, iPods and MP3s every morning upon our arrival. He said Marco’s niece,
moi
, is in charge until he arrives. I leave a smile from ear to ear on my face, that hurts to keep plastered on, till he leaves. I guess Marco and Angel want to lie about me being Marco’s niece so they won’t laze off.

Landscaping bosses always leave new workers feeling unsettled, restless and desperate to make plans behind their backs, like bringing extra cell phones. They don’t understand that an incentive, mixed with encouraging words, and trust, will motivate employees into wanting to follow rules and go the extra mile from the get-go.

As soon as Angel bounces, a short, scrawny guy who looks my age, with flaming carrot-colored hair, shining green eyes, a puffy lower lip and a grease stain on his left cheek says in a husky voice, “
Hola
. I’m Che,” as if he were the prince of the world. He slaps me a high-five that makes my hand sting. “I’m named after the revolutionary. My father is Argentinean and my mother, Cuban. They were both crazy about him. I’m not, but it’s too late to change my name.”