Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco (11 page)

AFTER
my last
educational opportunity
with Miss — the one where she dragged me to watch a play by
William Shakespeare —
I didn’t want to be at home the next time she showed up.

Shakespeare is a dead guy who’s
responsible
for the most boring three hours of my entire life. In this play, some lady drops a hanky, gets strangled for it, dies, comes back to life, and tells everybody she killed
herself —
then dies again.

That’s the whole show. I’m not even kidding.

And now Miss wanted to take me to the
ballet
? I wasn’t even sure what it was. At Halloween, I’d see little girls dressed in pink tights, wearing tiny crowns and scratchy, poofy skirts. Angélica said the ballet was ladies dancing on their tippy-toes to old music, which sounded really stupid.

So when Miss’s name flashed up on the phone, I let it ring. Maybe she’d think nobody was home and go to the ballet without me.

Rosa stopped feeding Suelita. “Who is it?”

“Miss.”

The phone rang.

“Answer it!”

“I don’t want to talk to her.”

The phone rang.

Rosa moved to get it.

I snatched it up.
“¿Bueno?”

“Jacinta? It’s Kate. Sometimes it’s cold in the theater, so bring a sweater. Not that ratty one. Something nice.”

“Miss, I can’t go.”

Pause
. “Because —?”

“I — my dad’s at work — we have to watch Suelita.”

“Rosa’s there?”

Trapped
. Rosa glared at me, a spoonful of rice motionless on the way to Suelita’s open mouth.

“Yesss.”

“Then you can go! Are you dressed?”

“No.”

“Get dressed! These tickets are expensive.” Miss was always telling me how much things cost. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Click
.

It was Rosa’s turn to yell. “You can stay with Suelita, fix dinner, and do laundry.
I
will go with Miss!”

“She’s
my
Amiga!”

“Not if you won’t go with her!”

“I’m going!” I stomped into our bedroom and slammed the door.

I wasn’t ready when Miss arrived, so she drove fast — even though she knew it scared me — speeding to “make up some time.” She broke the silence. “You look nice.”

Since Miss wouldn’t let me wear Mamá’s sweater to the ballet, I’d had to borrow Rosa’s. Crossing my arms, I stared out the window. The Rocky Mountains towered on the left. I heard Miss’s voice in my head. “You’ll never get lost if you remember the mountains are west!”

That was the
educational opportunity
when Miss had handed me a map and we drove all over Maplewood. She forced me to give directions. To the store, to the library, to my school. She made me say,
Go south
, or
Turn east
, instead of saying,
Go right
, or
Turn here
, like everyone else does. Always pushing me to learn stupid stuff.

So I was still frowning when she drove into a parking garage. She pulled into a space and switched off the motor. I expected her to sprint across the parking lot like always. Instead she turned to me, her voice tired. “Could you at least
try
to appreciate this educational opportunity?”

Nag-O-Matic
.

I stared at the concrete wall in front of us. “I get ‘educational opportunities’ at school. The Amiga program is supposed to be
fun
.”

“You had fun at the television station. You spent half an hour on the weather computer.”

“But that last educational opportunity was
boring
. What kid likes Shakespeare?”

“How many times can I apologize for that?”

“Angélica’s Amiga lets her pick where they go.”

Her eyebrows came together in the middle. “You want me to be like
other
people?”

My stomach twisted. “Sometimes. When you make me do weird stuff.”

One of her eyebrows went up.

“Like
Shakespeare
,” I added.

“Some people like
Othello
. It’s romantic.”

“It’s stupid. The choking part was good, but real people don’t talk like that.”

She sighed. “Your world is too small.”

I wasn’t really mad at Miss. I’d told myself I was, but it was another lie. I was mad at Mamá. If she’d been home, I wouldn’t need some
gringa
who tried to turn me into someone I wasn’t. I wouldn’t even talk to Mamá the last time she called. But she still hadn’t agreed to come back.

Miss hurried me to the back door of a massive stone building and pushed the buzzer. She gave the man her name. Her
names
. All of them.

He led us down a corridor.

“This doesn’t look like a theater,” I told him.

“We’re backstage. I’m taking you to the green room.”

“Everything is green? Like the Emerald City?” I thought of the “film classic” that Ethan had made me watch.

The man grinned. “The place performers wait is called the green room, no matter what color it is.”

I let out an angry huff. One more person who smiled because I didn’t know stuff. But then he opened a door, and I forgot to be annoyed.

Fairies filled the room. Kids smaller than me wearing wings, and ladies dressed like flowers. One man wore a tight costume the color of his skin, like he was naked. Except for a big leaf.

A woman turned. “Kate! I do not see you for a long time!”

On her golden head sat a glittering crown. Sparkles covered her skin. The fairy queen floated across the room to us. Smiling, she gave Miss little air-kisses, one on each cheek.

Miss pulled away from the fairy’s clingy skirt, which left bits of glitter on her black velvet pants. “Nadine Robert, meet Jacinta.”

The fairy took my hands.
“Enchantée!”

“Where are you from?” I breathed. Miss smirked. I should’ve said,
How do you do?

The fairy smiled. “I am from France.”

“Nadine attended the Paris Opera School,” said Miss.

“Opera?” Even the word sounded boring.

Nadine Robert smiled again. “Do not worry. We have no opera tonight. Just the ballet.
A
Midsummer Night’s Dream
. By William Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?”
Horrified, I turned to Miss.

She grabbed my shoulders and steered me away. “Uh — Nadine, can we drop by after the show?”

How could she?
I’d been learning Miss’s words, so I knew what to call it.
Betrayal
. But if I was going to spend the afternoon pouting, this was a good place to do it. Red velvet seats near the stage, and floors that weren’t sticky. A chandelier hung from the ceiling.

And there were
three
balconies
. I pointed at the seats floating in the air. “Miss, we should sit there next time.”

She smirked. “Next time?”

My face got hot.
I won’t have a good time, no matter what
.

Miss said, “I usually do sit up there. I can’t afford these seats. The youth center got them for us.”

Oh
.

“That’s why I’d like to be Rosa’s mentor, too. We could all get free tickets.”

I folded my arms again. To help me remember
not
to have a good time.

The lights dimmed. In the darkness, music started. I hung on to the armrests, my fingernails digging into the plush velvet. But the music reached out and swept me away. I’ve never seen the ocean, but it’d be like this. Waves of music flowed through me and into me.

I tried — really, really hard — to
hate
the ballet.

But it’s hard not to laugh when couples chase each other through a magical forest where fairies fly around making everybody fall in love with the wrong person. And it’s very,
very
hard not to like a show when Nadine Robert — the most beautiful woman in the world — is in love with a guy who has the head of a donkey.

Backstage, Nadine Robert signed my program. Her last name was spelled like the boy’s name, and not the way it sounded: row-BEAR.

Next to her picture she wrote,
Pour ma chère amie Jacinta
. Miss said it was French —“For my dear friend Jacinta.”

The same thing Eva Chávez had written.

“How many famous people do you know, Miss?”

She snorted. “Not nearly enough.”

I wished that Mamá could see the ballet. She liked beautiful things.

Why am I thinking about her? She’s not thinking about me
. I shoved her image out of my mind.

Back in the van, Miss said, “Keep that program. Nadine Robert is a true artist.”

That’s when I knew “art” isn’t just things in a museum. Art can be fleeting
and
eternal. I thought that up myself. It sounded like poetry, so I said it over and over in my mind.

Fleeting
and
eternal
.

Like something Nadine might say in her low, throaty voice. Without thinking, I said, “I’d like to talk French.”

I WIPED
my sweaty hands on the van seat when Miss drove past the sign:
MAPLEWOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE
.
Why did I let her talk me into this? A French class? With grown-ups
?
What kid in seventh grade wants to spend more time in school?

Maybe you’d think I should’ve learned to trust Miss, but she kept pushing me to try stuff that was harder and harder. She’d reminded me that learning French was
my
idea in the first place. I was flattered that she thought I could do this.

And maybe some part of me wondered if I could.

Miss shut off the van and jumped out, striding across the dark parking lot. I followed slowly, dragging my feet.

I couldn’t talk to Angélica about it. I still avoided her, afraid I’d blurt out the story of how I beat Victor at Lotería the night he killed her
papá
. A black cloud of guilt surrounded me. A
double
black cloud, because I knew Angélica needed me.

Avoiding her was easy, now that we didn’t have the same classes.

When school had started, Miss made sure I was “properly assessed”— which made Mamá happy when I told her. All her dreams for me were coming true.

I liked my smart-kid classes okay. Everybody was nice, but smart kids think mostly about school and grades. They don’t know what it’s like to miss their
mamás
or worry about their
papás
getting killed or deported. Without Angélica, I didn’t have anyone who knew the
whole
me.

Miss was an earthquake, splitting my world in two while I straddled the crack that grew wider. A new life beckoned on one side. My old life called from the other. If I didn’t pick a side soon, I’d fall into the
chasm
in the middle, and no one would see me again.

Miss continued her long strides across the parking lot, assuming I was scampering behind her like a trained dog.
When’s she going to notice that I’m not with her? If she has to walk back for me, will she decide I’m too much trouble?
Will she just drive me home? Then what?

Rosa would’ve been happy to trade places with me. I’d lied to her — saying I was going to the Dahls’ for dinner — afraid she’d tell Papi about the French lessons.

If Mamá had been home, she could’ve made Papi understand that learning new things is good. But without Mamá to explain, I didn’t know what Papi would do if he discovered I was taking a college class.

Sighing, I raced after Miss. By the time I caught up with her, I was puffing. “You walk too fast.”

“We wouldn’t be rushing if you’d been ready. Where’s your watch?”

Miss bought it for me because I was late all the time, but until that moment I hadn’t thought of it as a
tool
. I wore it to school to show my friends, then left it in my jewelry box.

“Je m’excuse.”
I apologized in French, knowing it would make her forget being
exasperated
.

“Allons-y,”
she said. It means, “Let’s go.”

“This is a college?” It looked like a middle school. Only bigger.

“Bien sûr,”
she said, which means “of course.” “Community college. You’ll go here after high school.”

College. Miss said I’d be going to college.

Just. Like. That.

My teachers talked about college, and I’d assumed they were talking to the American kids. But when Miss said it, she was talking to
me
. I thought a moment. “I don’t want to go to this college.”

She stopped on the concrete steps. She turned, her eyes hard, ready for a fight. Before she could speak, I blurted, “I want to go to Michener University.”

Someone should’ve been there with a video camera. Someone could’ve made ten thousand dollars on that TV show for the funniest home movie. For one moment, her icy look was frozen. Then it melted. She collapsed on the stairs, laughing. Not her airy snort. A laugh that echoed off the building and filled the whole night sky.

I sat on the step next to her, and she pulled me close. She gasped out, “You never cease to surprise me!”

So
I
started giggling. Then Miss’s laugh exploded again. And that made me laugh even harder.