Kissing Arizona (12 page)

But before long Denny noticed how he looked at Aunt Sarah, as if he thought she was some wonderful gift that just dropped from the sky. That was the one truly comical thing about him, Denny thought, since Aunt Sarah had her feet on the ground if anybody did; she always knew where she was and what time it was. You would never catch Aunt Sarah looking into the refrigerator, as Aggie sometimes did, asking, ‘What am I looking for in here?'

On the terrible night when Grandma Aggie fell down, even Denny was grateful Will was there. He helped catch Aggie, called the ambulance right away, and had been helping everybody in the house ever since. Trying to take Aggie's place, Denny thought.
As if.
She was almost over being scared of him, but that didn't mean she was crazy about having him around all the time, and he would certainly never take Grandma's place. But at least he got Aunt Sarah to quit fretting about Denny being alone in the house after school, and it was handy when he picked her up after soccer practice. Denny couldn't figure out when he slept.

He had just left to go to work Tuesday night when Aggie called from the hospital to tell them that her doctors said her stroke had been very slight. ‘Just a little wake-up call to get me to lay off the butter.' She'd be out in a day or two, she said, and they could all get back to normal. Aunt Sarah closed the phone and repeated the message, smiling. Denny smiled back, not saying what she thought, that it would be a while before Aggie got back to the overworked life they had all been choosing to call normal.

The next morning Dietz stopped in after his shift to ask if Denny had everything she needed for school, and should he make a grocery run this afternoon? This strange quiet man had worked all night but he still had enough juice to think about dinner – he asked Aunt Sarah, ‘I could boil these potatoes and we could have them tonight with eggs, what do you think?'

‘Sounds good,' Aunt Sarah said. ‘There's bacon, too.'

‘And lettuce,' Denny said. ‘I'll make a salad.'

We're all trying to be perfect
, Denny thought as she climbed on the bus. Like Mom when she first got out of detox
.
She remembered her mother's sing-song voice calling, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of our lives!' as she waved her off to the bus after a nice breakfast.
And we all remember how long that lasted
.

That was the most discouraging thought she'd had in the whole scary week. She opened her social studies workbook to find something easier to think about, like global warming or AIDS.

SIX

T
he wall looked taller at night. It had an aura of crazy menace about it too, the bent-toward-Mexico section at the top gleaming in the fierce light from the other side. Below the flanged top, the section they were looking at was made of close-set metal strips painted dirty brown, eighteen feet high and discouragingly smooth. A cleared strip of sand at the foot of the wall was littered with climbers' rubble: plastic bottles, torn backpacks, greasy fast-food cartons and a cracked shoe. A starved-looking cat slunk through the trash, making a meager picnic from the remnants of many lives. Vicky and Jaime and the men he called his
amigos
watched him from the shadows across the clearing. The cat crossed the wall easily whenever he pleased, through small gaps in the foundation.

They had planned in secret for months, working extra jobs when they could find them, saving every peso. When they realized they could never save enough on what they could earn, they began asking friends and family for loans. That was slow-going too – everybody they knew was poor. Finally Vicky, afraid but desperate, persuaded Jaime they should confide in her mother.

They got the expected explosion of protests and warnings at first, but before long Marisol, somewhat to their surprise, agreed to help. She had resigned herself to the fact that Vicky would never be happy in Ajijic. ‘Even getting a cute boyfriend like Jaime hasn't made her contented,' she told her sisters. ‘Vicky was in Tucson too long. I am afraid she will never feel at home here.'

There was something else, never acknowledged but understood by both mother and daughter. Marisol had begun walking out in the evening with a widower, a skilled potter who had a small interest in one of the shops around the square. She knew he was attracted to her but was afraid Victoria, who already had a local reputation as a cheeky pest, would wreck the peace of his home.

Marisol made one of her rare phone calls to Luz. Usually she cried for a minute or so when she first heard her younger daughter's voice, but this time she was brisker than usual. She told Luz she must ask
La Cruz Rosa
to find Pablo, pleading a family emergency.

‘And when you find him,' Marisol said, ‘tell him I said it is time for him to carry Victoria to Tucson again.'

Luz didn't want any part of it. ‘Please don't make me,
Mamacita
,' she pleaded. ‘She will just make trouble for me here, you know she will.'

‘No, Vicky has changed,' Marisol said. ‘You will be surprised. Anyway you don't always have to have your way about everything, do this for me now.'

Pablo's first inclination was to run and hide when the social worker from the Red Cross found him on the job site and gave him Luz's number. But he had been cut off from family long enough to realize that his freedom carried a high price in loneliness. And while Vicky had always been his favorite daughter he knew that Luz was the one least inclined to rock the boat. If Luz wanted to talk to him, maybe it was serious. He was a little flattered that she would turn to him, and besides, his current girlfriend was beginning to cool toward him. He could sense a separation coming, he might need to seek shelter with cousins himself soon. For these reasons and perhaps simple curiosity, he called the number the social worker gave him.

Tía Luisa answered the phone and told him what she thought of
mujeriegos
who neglect their own children. When she finished her rant she handed the phone to Luz, who heard his voice and began to weep. For a time things were complicated as only families can make them, but by the time the storm of guilt and grief ended Pablo had reluctantly agreed to send money to Marisol in Ajijic, and to stay in touch with Luz so he would be available to help if Vicky made it across the border. Privately, neither Luz nor Pablo thought she had a chance of making it, and after doing what they had promised, they both decided not to worry about it till she showed up.

Vicky never doubted for an instant that she could make the trip. Hadn't her dumb-as-dirt parents done it years ago, without a word of English between them? Well, then. Her assurances gave Jaime the courage to keep asking questions, and collecting used gear for the trip.

They never got enough together to afford a
coyote.
Jaime hooked up with two men named Carlos and Paulo. Friends of cousins, they had made the trip before, insisted they knew enough to make it on their own now, and planned to leave soon.

‘Those guides all lie and cheat,' Carlos said. ‘You are better off without them.'

Vicky thought that could not be entirely true but she had heard so many different stories by then that she decided you had to pick one set of lies and stick with it.

‘Find a good backpack for food and water,' Paulo said, ‘and only take one change of clothes. Good walking shoes and a hat. Sew your money into pockets inside your clothes.' They debated every purchase, wanting to save all their money for the trip but afraid not to have the right supplies. Vicky bought a shirt with sleeves that would roll down, to prevent sunburn, and took her sturdiest jeans from the US. Jaime got new sandals and, at the last minute, a small, cheap cigarette lighter shaped like a bobble-headed doll. ‘In case we need to light a fire,' he told Vicky when she protested.

‘Is the girl strong enough?' Carlos asked Jaime. He would not condescend to talk to Vicky. ‘She looks pretty small.'

‘I am plenty strong,' Vicky said, giving him the flat-eyed stare she had perfected in the offices of the principals of Tucson schools. ‘Don't worry about me.'

She was strong enough to keep up with them – just barely – but Carlos took a dislike to her anyway, and was always looking for an excuse to leave her behind. They rode buses part of the way, so after only three days they were all crouched in the shadows of buildings, facing this terrible wall. It was made out of metal posts set deep into cement, too close together to squeeze through, too strong to cut, and much too high for any sane person to try to climb over. What would be the use, anyway? Towering above it, on the other side, were huge lights that lit the immense clearing beneath them as bright as day. It was patrolled by border agents driving SUVs equipped with sirens and light bars and booming PA systems that roared out warnings to anyone who foolishly put up a ladder and risked his body in a terrible eighteen-foot drop to the other side. While he dropped, waiting for the painful landing he hoped would not break his legs, his picture would be taken by the video cameras on the other ominous towers.

This was not the border crossing she had been led to expect. All during the journey, while they waited for and rode the crowded buses from Guadalajara, she had listened to Carlos and Paulo boast about the many crossings they had made, how they had fooled the border patrol.

‘We hire a team of helpers in Agua Prieta,' Carlos told them. Jaime had been listening to him with rapt attention the whole trip, and Carlos was enjoying the admiration, embroidering his tales a little more each day. ‘They are very well organized, they have been doing this for years.'

He described how the teams would bring two ladders to the wall. When they reached it the headman would send two men west with a ladder, but keep the crossers with him, in the shadows, watching the wall. When his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, the headman would run and put his ladder against the wall. When he had set the feet firmly, he would motion for Carlos and his team to come up.

The decoy team that had placed the phone call would already be scrambling up a ladder a quarter of a mile west. In a few seconds, the leader of that team would make a great show of getting stuck in the overhang at the top. The man behind him would make a lot of noise trying to get him unstuck. That charade would continue for a minute or two, depending on how long it took the border patrol vehicle to reach them with all its lights flashing. When it got close enough to threaten them, they would climb quickly back down on the Mexican side and carry their ladder home. By then Carlos and his group must be over the wall and running toward the bushes of Douglas, Arizona.

That was the way it was supposed to go. As soon as they got to Agua Prieta and looked at the ‘fence', they knew it was not going to happen that way.

Vicky and Jaime napped in the one room they rented, while Carlos and Paulo walked the streets of Agua Prieta, asking people there to explain all the changes that had been made since they crossed a few years ago.

‘It is not a fence any more; now it is a wall,' Carlos reported. ‘Much stronger than before, taller, set in cement. It used to be mostly just poles and wire. People could cut holes, break it down in spots, you could slip through. No more.'

‘We could go through that stinky sewage plant they call The Rose Plant,' Paulo said, ‘and jump the fence there, but then we would need a bath and a complete change of clothes before we could talk to anyone or get a ride. Also, sometimes they even patrol the sewer yard and pick up people as they jump the fence. We would have to be lucky.'

‘I do not believe in luck,' Vicky said.

Carlos and Paulo looked at her with raised eyebrows, and Carlos said, ‘Ah, Señorita Uppity speaks her mind.'

‘Well, what then?' Jaime said, trying to keep the peace.

‘We walk,' Paulo said. He pointed east, toward New Mexico. ‘About ten miles, that way.'

‘Over there it
is
a fence, easily crossed,' Carlos said. ‘They patrol it, but we start from here in the morning, walk until sundown, rest a while and watch a couple of border patrol vehicles go by. When the stars come out, right after a patrol car goes by we jump the fence, cross the gravel road and run into the desert. We can be out of sight before the next patrol arrives.'

‘How do we know which way to run?'

‘Follow the trails.' Carlos smiled, bitterly. ‘There are many trails, all headed north. Follow the ones that smell like Mexican blood and sweat.'

‘All sweat smells the same to me,' Vicky said. She nudged Jaime. ‘Let's go eat.' Carlos, she thought, had kind of an itch for drama.

It worked the way he said it would, though. They loaded their backpacks with sandwiches, granola bars and water, and hiked through the desert along the fence. As long as they stayed on the Mexican side they were safe from the border patrol. The only Mexicans around were
coyotes
offering to help them for a fee. If you refused them they might try to rob you, Carlos said, so they tried to hide or run away when they saw small groups of men coming. When one group pursued them aggressively, they each pulled a knife – they all carried knives of some sort – waved it and showed their teeth. Vicky thought they probably looked more ridiculous than dangerous, but it worked – or something did; the group walked away.

She was very tired by the time the sun blazed red above the western hills, and Carlos agreed they had gone far enough. The fence was nearby, on their left – a real fence now, crossed wooden posts strung with wire. All along it, as far as the eye could see, lay the cast-offs of border crossers: worn-out shoes, backpacks with broken straps, water bottles.

They rested in a nearby gully. Vicky ate half a sandwich quickly, lay flat and fell asleep. She was dreaming about being chased by an angry dog when Jaime touched her shoulder and said, ‘
Vámanos.
' They all walked silently to the fence, crouched in some bushes while a patrol vehicle went by, and then scrambled over. It was astoundingly easy. Vicky's heart beat fast. Back to Tucson at last!