Surviving Santiago (11 page)

“I don't listen to that one. Too much talk.” He makes a talking gesture with his hand. I laugh.

“Yeah, you're right.” I figure Frankie doesn't pay much attention to politics, since he doesn't like that kind of radio. Maybe something happened to his father to scare him away.

The waiter brings us a platter of pork still on the spit. Using a two-pronged fork, he slides the pieces onto our plates. The aroma of barbecue makes my mouth water. The meat is crisp on the outside and soft in the center, spiced with salt, pepper, and garlic. I've been to barbecues at my friends' houses, but I've never eaten a piece of pork so tender and juicy.

“How did you know about this place?” I ask.

“My uncle. Me, I'm a McDonald's guy.” He winks, and I laugh.

“Yeah, me, too.”

“You don't mind that I brought you here?”

“Of course not, Frankie.” I slide my hand toward him, and he covers it with his larger, rougher hand. “It makes me feel special.”

He gives my hand a light squeeze.

I know it's none of my business, but I want to know more about Frankie's father and what Frankie said at
the ice-cream shop about the rats that drink and don't work. As soon as we finish our meal, I ask him, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Three younger sisters. No brothers.” He pats his chest. “I'm the hope of the family.”

I stare at him, open-mouthed. “What?”

Grinning, he switches to Spanish, “I'm the only son. King of the house.”

Another
machista
like my father and brother. I can ignore his king of the house comment and write him off. Or I can try to change his mind. I switch to Spanish to make sure he understands. “You want to live in the United States, right?”

“Of course.” He squints at me. “Is my English that bad?”

“No, you were perfectly clear. I just wanted to be extra sure because things are different there.” Deciding to make my points with silverware, I pick up the fork. “First of all, women work at the same jobs as men, and even if it doesn't always happen, they're supposed to get the same pay.” I point my fork at him. “Does your mother work?”

Frankie shakes his head. “She takes care of all of us. Even my father who doesn't deserve it.”

“Second.” I pick up the spoon. “Girls and boys go to school for the same amount of time. My mother went all the way to get her PhD and is now starting a job as a university professor. Girls don't have to drop out to
get married and make babies. And they can go back to school even when they have kids like Mamá did.”

I think I've silenced Frankie this time. I set the spoon down and hold the knife up. “When a girl is born, it's not like some huge tragedy for the family. It's not the end of”—Frankie's words come to me—“the family's hope.” I tap the knife on the table. “Girls have value for themselves and not just for catching a husband. We're awesome, and we can do anything that you can do.” I set down the knife, fold my hands across my chest, and bare my teeth in triumph. I make a mental note to give Papá this speech one day.

“Okay, okay. I'm sorry,” Frankie says in English. He reaches for my hand, and I let him take it. All is forgiven by the warmth of his fingers.

“My father's the same way. And because he's old, he's probably never going to change his mind.” I stroke the smooth skin of Frankie's wrist and smile at him, trying for what my counselor at school would call a win-win situation. I want this win.

“At least your father got a real house,” Frankie says. “Mine, he doesn't do anything. That's the other reason it's all up to me.”

“Is he unemployed?”

Frankie snorts. “He hasn't worked a steady job in years. All he does is drink.” He lets go of my hand and waves it toward the door of the restaurant, where
groups of people wait for tables. “That bum across the street where I parked my bike? That's him.”

“That was your father?” Frankie wouldn't even talk to the guy.

“No, not really him. But my father is always passing out in the street, and people don't bother bringing him home anymore. Last weekend he was arrested for public intoxication, and my uncle had to pay his fine.” He glances at his empty plate. “That's why I was late to pick you up. And sort of pissed off.”

“I'm sorry.”

Frankie holds his head in his hands. “Tina, I'm embarrassed to have his name.”

I want to cheer Frankie up since it's our first big date. Besides, this is something we share—something nobody else in the world but he and I understand.

I scoot my chair toward him. “You want to hear a secret?”

Frankie nods, so I continue. “My father didn't work for the longest time, either. Remember when I said he was disabled? He drinks, too. A lot.”

“Did he ever pass out in the middle of the road like a dead pig?”

“No, but he used to hit me.”

Frankie leans across the table and points to the bridge of his nose. I saw a bump there before, but now I notice the way his nose bends to the right. “He broke it. Twice. When I was eight and when I was thirteen.”

Papá never hit me hard or with his fist, not even when I talked back to him after he got out of prison. But I bet Frankie never had to take his father outside like a dog. I suck in my breath. “My father would pee on the bathroom floor because he couldn't find the toilet.”

“At least he made it home. Mine was arrested for urinating in public.” He pauses. “In public. In the middle of the day. With the whole neighborhood watching.”

That must have been so embarrassing for Frankie's family. But there are worse things. “My father threatened to kill himself,” I say.

Frankie jerks up straight. “You're kidding.”

“I'm not. He tried to get a gun.”

“My father hasn't done that.” He stares at his empty plate again. “Sometimes I wish he would.”

“You don't mean it?” I wouldn't want Papá to shoot himself, no matter how awful he's acted or how messed up he is. But maybe it's because he survived so much, and I can't believe after all that he really wants to die.

“Haven't you felt that way about your father? When he was hitting you, or drinking up all the money for food and rent?” There's a strange brightness in Frankie's voice, as if he's discovered a solution for a bad situation.

“No.” I want to tell Frankie about Papá's time in prison, and what he was like before, but I can't. Even if his father is on our side, that doesn't mean Frankie agrees with him.

“You probably think I'm a horrible person,” Frankie says.

I shake my head. “It sounds like you had it worse than I did. I haven't seen my father for three years. You see yours all the time.”

He seems to accept my explanation. He changes the subject, to English words for fun things to do. Music. Movies. Soccer. Basketball.

When the check comes, I reach for my wallet, for the allowance money Papá gave me yesterday. “No,” Frankie says. “That's not how we do it here.”

He counts out a stack of bills, more than a delivery boy with an unemployed alcoholic father should be spending. Maybe we should have gone to McDonald's.

When he gets to the corner half a block from my house, he cuts the engine. I climb off. “Are you free on Thursday?” he asks.

“Yes!” I have to restrain myself from jumping up and down in the street.

“How's a movie and dinner?” He tells me he can get off work early and be at the house by six. Then he puts one arm around me and plays with the strands of hair that fell out of my ponytail. I smile. He stops and looks into my eyes. I see the streetlamp's reflection in his eyes, framed by his long lashes. Then he kisses me.

Frankie's lips are full and soft. The smoky taste of the
asado
fills my mouth. This isn't my first kiss, but it's easily the most delicious. I want us to stay like this all
night, but he pulls away. My lips tingle. My whole body tingles. He straddles the bike. I give him a weak, stupid wave as he rides off.

I talk my way past Tía Ileana. My room hasn't been touched. I slide the letter to my mother from under the stack of books. Without reading it again, I tear it in half, then in quarters, and finally in little pieces that I slowly sprinkle into the wastebasket.

C
HAPTER
9

Thursday, June 22: 60 days until I go home

“¡C
huta!”

Frankie's eyes are huge. He stares open-mouthed at our living room furniture and up the stairs to the second floor. Papá's house isn't
that
big. Sure, it's bigger than the various apartments where I've lived. But many of my friends' houses are the same size or larger, and Petra lives in a real-live mansion. Even the house my mother and Evan are fixing up without me has a separate living and dining room and bedrooms that can fit more than one piece of furniture besides the bed.

Maybe Frankie's home is one of those one-room cardboard shacks in the
poblaciones
. I don't know how anyone can live there. What do they do when it rains? And he said there are six people in his family. How do they all fit in? Do they all sleep together in one room, boys and girls? Where do they go to the bathroom?

He reads the titles of the books on the floor-to-ceiling bookcase. “I've never seen so many books,” he says.

“Don't you have a public library?”

“Not where I live.” He takes a book from the shelf.
I sommersi e i salvati.
“What's this?”

“I don't know. It's not in Spanish or English.” I open the cover to the title page. The publisher's address is in Torino. My aunt said she was in Italy last year, so it must be her book. “Italian,” I say.

Frankie scrunches his face. “Who knows Italian?”

“My grandmother was from Italy, so both my aunt and my father do.”

He returns the book to the shelf and scratches the back of his head. “That's like my family. My uncle speaks German, but I don't think he reads it. Anyway”—he runs his fingers along the spines—“we don't have any books at home. Except ones for school.”

“We always had lots of books. When I was little, my father used to read to me at night.” I rub my cheek where his beard would tickle when I'd sit on his lap. “I learned how to read before I started school, but he'd still want to read to me. Except he'd make stuff up to see if I could catch him.”

“I bet you did,” Frankie says. “Because you're really smart.”

I smile. That's what my old
papá
used to say:
I always knew I had a smart girl.

Graciela eyes us suspiciously from the kitchen. Not only is she part of Papá's “security detail,” so is the older
couple next door, who she works for as well. Papá and Tía Ileana have made sure that Graciela is around when I'm home alone. They won't be back from work for at least another hour.

“Do you want to see the birds?” I ask. “Papá rescues injured parrots.”

“Sure,” he says dully, but then he puts his arm around my shoulders. “Show me the house first.”

In the kitchen I introduce Frankie to Graciela. Avoiding eye contact, he shakes her hand. Graciela doesn't take her eyes off him. “I'm teaching him English,” I explain before she decides to report Frankie's rudeness to my father and aunt.

Then Frankie says, “I want to learn the words for things in an office. For a job.”

I lead Frankie down the few steps into Papá's office. I point out “desk,” “chair,” “books,” “bookshelves,” “pen,” “pencil,” “paper,” and “typewriter.” He repeats each word several times while lifting things on the desk and setting them down again. At first Graciela stands in the doorway, but then she leaves—bored, I guess. Or reassured that he won't take anything, including my sort-of-already-taken virginity. Frankie taps a piece of paper that Papá left in the typewriter. I peer at a title, a couple of sentences underneath, and a note in my father's handwriting.