Dream Things True (30 page)

Ms. Chen rested a cool hand on his forearm. Her fingernails were manicured, with little white tips.

“Evan, I know this is confusing and overwhelming.”

“Yes.”

“Please promise me that if you two move forward, it's for the right reasons.”

“What are the right reasons?”

A deep silence filled the space between them.

“I'm not sure, to be honest.” She lifted her hand from his forearm to her temples as the muscles in her face tensed. “I still can't believe I've even suggested it as a possibility. As a lawyer, it's irresponsible, but I'm not your lawyer, technically. And I thought you should know.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don't know exactly.”

“OK. That's helpful.”

Ms. Chen smiled. “I'm just being honest with you, Evan.”

“My parents, they're married for the wrong reasons. A lot of people I know are.”

“Yes, I'd have to agree with that. But Evan, knowing when it's wrong is a start to understanding when it's right.”

“Do you think that loving her is enough?”

“Probably not.”

They sat together in silence for a few moments.

“I have to get to court now, Evan. Call me if you want to discuss this further.”

She pulled a business card from her jacket and then dug around in her purse to fish out a pen. Writing a phone number on the back of the card, she said, “This is my cell. You can call me anytime.”

She walked through the door, leaving him alone in the emergency stairwell.

TWENTY-ONE

Fishing Without a License

“It sucks.”

Alma had gone
way
off script. She glanced around the room at all of the earnestly smiling people.

“It totally sucks, but I can't be here any longer. If this place doesn't want me, then I don't want it. I'm going home. I'll finish this school year, and then I'm going back to Mexico.”

There.
She said it.

It was a little weird that she was unloading this
here
since she didn't have the nerve to tell Evan or any of her friends in Gilberton.

“And it will be good. I want to know more about my country, my culture. I've heard so much about it, but I've never been there—not since I was two. And my family can be together, and we won't have to worry all of the time.”

She made the mistake of finding Mrs. King in the crowd. Instead of smiling encouragingly or scolding Alma with her eyes for ruining yet another opportunity, she was just staring at the wall behind Alma, tears streaming down her face.

Crap. Do not cry. You will not cry.

“It's not fair, though. My dad and my brother and I, we have done everything right. We have followed all of the rules. But we're being sent away while my tax-evading uncle and his good-for-nothing son get offered citizenship. It just doesn't make any sense. But … whatever.”

Fantastic.

Not only had she said a sort of bad word in front of the scholarship people, she was rambling and divulging family secrets. Why couldn't she just stick with the script?

Alma was the second of the three finalists to speak at the “Face of Promise” luncheon. The room was filled with business leaders, chairs of nonprofit organizations, and lots of other important people from across Georgia. They were here to listen to the heartwarming stories of “underprivileged” high school juniors who had overcome the odds. They expected to be inspired by teens who surmounted any obstacles that stood in their way. Alma had worked for weeks to prepare just such a story: nice young girl, the “model immigrant” sharing her tale of hard work and achievement.

Then, yesterday, she had met with Ms. Chen. The whole system seemed to be such a mess—random and unfair. This morning, Alma woke up furious. She had to
do
something. So she pulled out her speech and started to revise. She decided to tell everyone about her status—to “come out,” to quit being afraid and ashamed. She would win over the crowd with her story of hard work. But then she would ask them all to help her, and others like her, reach their American Dreams by seeking fair immigration laws.

She had a script. It was pretty good. But then Alma walked into the room and saw
her
—Evan's mom, sitting front and center. How could Mrs. King not have warned her? Alma knew she went to lots of fund-raisers, but
this one
? She was falling apart, and her eyes wouldn't focus on the words.

Alma had to find a way to get through this. She could not look at Mrs. King, and she would not dare look toward the front row, so she tried to make eye contact with a stranger in the crowd. Her gaze fell on a white-haired lady in the center row. Bad choice. She was wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. Alma looked toward the back of the room and saw another woman with tears in her eyes. She frantically searched for a man in the crowd, under the assumption that men are less likely to cry in public. No luck. The man she locked eyes with in the crowd was teary, too.

Damn.
This was getting embarrassing.

“But it's OK. In many ways, this country has been good to us. My brother and I got a great education. We got to live in a good house in a great neighborhood. We are bilingual and bicultural. And no one can take that away from us. We will be fine.”

A quiet sob escaped from Mrs. King's lips. How could she do this to Alma? She was dependable, strong—a solid rock.

Crap. Crap. Crap
. Alma was going to have to wrap up quickly—before any more public displays of sympathy.

“So, I invite you all to come and visit me in Mexico anytime!” She forced a big, friendly smile. “I'll even throw in a free Spanish lesson.”

As she scurried back to her seat, Evan's mom caught her gaze. The room was erupting into frantic applause, but Mrs. Roland just looked hard at her. She wasn't teary; she wasn't smiling. She showed absolutely no emotion at all.

 

 

Evan sat in the parking lot and tried to get up the nerve to go in. He ran himself through the pep talk one more time: You're in Atlanta. No one knows you here. You don't have to buy anything. Just go in and browse.

He took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. There were several other cars in the parking lot, so he knew the store would be busy, too busy for the salespeople even to notice him, right?

Wrong.

The glass door swung shut behind him. Evan looked up to see a dozen eyes on him. There was not a single customer in the store, and standing at attention behind the long cases that lined each of the store's walls were six unoccupied salespeople. Their eagerness pulsed through the air like electricity.

Evan felt like he'd been thrown to the sharks. He locked eyes with the least threatening-looking of them, a compact Indian woman with long dark hair, and headed in her direction.

“I'm just looking,” he said.

“Ah, wonderful. Because I'm just here to help,” she replied cheerfully, in a lilting accent. “Do you seek a gift? Maybe something for a special young lady friend?”

There was a gentle teasing in her voice that made Evan squirm. Maybe he should have chosen the burly black guy at the counter across the room. He wouldn't tease about a “lady friend.”

Too late.

“Yes, ma'am. I'm looking for a ring for my girlfriend.”

“Do you have anything special in mind? Her birthstone, perhaps?”

A plan took shape in his mind.

“Uh-huh. But, um, do you have, like, a birthstone chart or something? Uh, I don't really know what her birthstone is.”

The truth was that he had absolutely no idea which month was assigned to the diamond.

She led Evan across the room, toward a display case filled with rings.

“That won't be necessary, young man,” she said, shaking her head. “When is her birthday? I know these things.”

“Oh, right. Of course.” He looked down at his feet.

Feeling something nudge against his shoulder, he looked up to see the burly black guy thrusting a laminated sheet toward him.

“Here you go, man. This should help.”

It was confirmed. Evan definitely should have picked that guy. He frantically searched the sheet to find a diamond.

“April. Her birthday is in April.”

“Indeed? What a fortuitous coincidence. My birthday is also in April,” the saleswoman said, grinning broadly. “Which day?”

“Uh, the thirty-first.”

Alma's birthday was August 31. He figured he could lie about the month but still be honest about the day.

“Hey,” said the helpful black guy, in a deep, sonorous voice, “I think you mean the thirtieth.”

Right. Of course. There was no thirty-first of April.

“In any case, perhaps you should consider a necklace with a lovely diamond pendant, or a bracelet possibly?” She pulled a gold necklace with a diamond chip from the case.

“Uh, that's pretty. But, uh, she likes rings.”

What a joke. Alma wasn't exactly into sparkly jewelry.

Another salesperson joined her behind the counter—a chubby woman in her fifties with perfectly coiffed white hair, pink lips, and lots of eye makeup.

“What she means to say, sweetheart, is that a diamond ring might give a girl the wrong message. Do you get my drift?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh … right,” Evan stammered.

“Ladies!” the black guy broke in, arms crossed on his chest and voice booming. “Enough. If the man wants to buy a diamond ring for his girlfriend, then show him some diamond rings, for God's sake.”

Both women shot him a surprised look. Now it was their turn to seem embarrassed.

“Well then,” said the saleslady, “shall we take a look at the engagement rings?”

Without meaning to, Evan let out an audible sigh.

“Sounds good,” he said. “Let's do that.”

 

 

Leaving the event in Mrs. King's Buick, Alma broke the uncomfortable silence.

“I'm sorry.”

“For heaven's sake, Alma, what do
you
have to be sorry for?” Mrs. King asked.

“You've worked so hard to help me, and I ruined it.”

“
You
did not ruin this. And while your speech may not have been pleasant, you were speaking from your heart. That's always the right thing to do.”

“I can't be the poster child, Mrs. King.”

“I'm not sure I follow.”

“I'm sick of it. I'm so tired of standing up there and acting all perfect, as if I need to
earn
the right to be here—as if my good grades and sweet demeanor make me somehow
worthy
!”

It felt good to get these nagging thoughts off her chest.

“Well, your good grades do in fact make you worthy of a scholarship, but as for your demeanor, I can't say I've ever thought of it as
sweet
.”

“Well, I'm done,” Alma said. “This town's going to have to find itself another model immigrant.”

“So, it's decided?”

“What? That I'm leaving? I don't have another choice. And even if I could find a way to stay…”

“And what does your Evan think?”

“
My
Evan?” She heard herself say. Alma closed her eyes and tried to push the image of Evan—fretting beside her in Ms. Chen's office—out of her mind. “Oh, Mrs. King. I hope his mom doesn't tell him! I just haven't figured out a way to break the news, you know? He's so determined to fix it. And he's so damned naive.”

“Are you perhaps being a little naive, too, Alma? I mean, to think that you can make a life for yourself back in your parents' hometown? It's going to be hard.”

Alma's voice rose to a shrill pitch. “Oh? And this
isn't
hard?”

“Of course it is, Alma.” Mrs. King almost cooed her response.

She slowly eased her car into Alma's driveway. Alma needed to pull it together. There was no reason to take this out on Mrs. King.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Alma asked. “Whit's here.”

“I'd love to see Whit, but I wouldn't want to impose.”

“I promise, it would
not
be an imposition.
Abuela
Lupe had nine kids, and she still cooks gargantuan amounts of food every day. I think Isa has gained fifteen pounds.”

Isa had definitely left her hunger strikes behind. Since the moment her parents left for Mexico, she had been making up for lost time. While stuffing her face, she was fond of proclaiming dramatically that, back in Mexico, they'd probably all be too poor to eat, so she might as well enjoy good food now.

“Well then, I suppose it's my duty,” Mrs. King said, stepping out of the car.

Entering the house, they were greeted by an unusual combination of smells—burnt sugar, roasted tomatillos, and saut
é
ed garlic, maybe? Isa and Selena were chasing each other around the couch, fighting loudly over the TV remote. In the kitchen,
Abuela
Lupe stood on one side of the stove, vigorously chopping onions. Their neighbor
Se
ñ
ora
Jimenez was sitting at the kitchen table with her three children, shoving their feet into an array of new shoes that were laid out across the table.

The sliding doors were thrown open to the deck, where Whit balanced in a headstand on his yoga mat. Since leaving rehab and moving into the transitional house, he had spent almost all of his free time here. Whit came out of rehab clean, centered, and with an obsessive need to practice yoga. His zeal for it was verging on evangelical, and he had Alma in his sights. The day before he somehow had convinced her, for the first time since elementary school, to plunge into a full backbend. According to Whit, this particular contortion promoted an attitude of surrender—openness to any circumstance.