Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco (4 page)

“It’s ridiculous, but all of the on-street parking is gone.
Somebody
wasn’t ready when it was time to leave.”

We climbed wide concrete steps to a big building. It
loomed
. Like a jail.

“Miss, what kind of meeting is this?” My voice sounded weird and high. I’d been so excited about going with Miss that I hadn’t stopped to wonder where she was taking me.

“It’s a
meet
. A gymnastics meet.”

I stopped. “
A what?
”

Feeling me tug on her hand, Miss turned. Lights from the building outlined her
silhouette
. Her face was a shadow. “Gymnastics. It’s a sport. Like — basketball. You know what basketball is?”

“Yesss.”
Does she think I’m stupid?

She started to move again. I yanked my hand away. “I don’t know how to play.”

Her teeth appeared in the dark. She was smiling. “We’re not going to play. We’re going to watch. It’ll be fun.”

I wasn’t having fun. Miss smiled because I didn’t know things. But I needed her to like me. When I’d talked to Mamá that afternoon, she’d reminded me that Angélica’s Amiga bought her shoes. “You need new shoes,
mija
.”

Heart pounding, I followed Miss inside.

Bright lights and the smell of nachos and popcorn pushed away the gloom and damp. People glanced at us.

Then they looked again, gaping at Miss.

She didn’t notice. She was used to being famous.

The lady taking tickets at the door of the large gymnasium spotted us. “Kathryn Dawson Dahl!”

She dragged Miss to the head of the line.

Heads turned. Instead of complaining about us taking cuts, people grinned. Some took pictures. Miss gave them her toothpaste smile. “Hello, everyone!”

“Is this your daughter?” asked the ticket lady.

“She’s a friend,” said Miss, still smiling for the cameras. So I did it, too. Like
I
was famous. I
had
been on television with her.

One of the men lowered his camera. “I’m glad you hired an attorney. That little blonde who replaced you is an airhead.”

I looked at Miss. Her eyebrows strained to touch in the middle. It hurt my own face to watch her clinging to her smile. “We’d better get our seats.”

“Goodness, yes! It’s about to start.” The ticket lady let us through, not bothering to take our passes.

Miss picked a row. As we squeezed past them, people pointed and whispered.

They think I’m the daughter of someone famous?

We plopped into seats as the lights went out.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” A game-show kind of voice echoed from the space above the crowd. “Michener University presents the postseason Women’s Gymnastics Exhibition!”

Sparklers exploded around the gym.

I jumped.

Girls wearing big smiles and tight, glittery black-and-yellow costumes bounced out of the dark. The girls flipped and flitted across the arena like bright little birds.
Gymnastics is nothing like basketball!

The voice boomed again. “Featuring all-around winner of this year’s N-C-double-A Gymnastic Championships! EVA CHÁVEZ!”

People leaped to their feet, yelling. We hopped up, too, but I couldn’t see over the lady in front.

“Stand on the bench!” Miss shouted.

So I did.

A brown girl stood in a light of her own. She was smaller than me, and almost as dark. The crowd cheered. Eva Chávez smiled and waved. Everyone sat down, but the noise continued. I slipped onto the seat and pulled on Miss’s sleeve.

“Is she famous?” I yelled.

Miss shouted back, “She’s going to the Olympics.”

I felt dizzy and happy. Like the cheering was for me.

Imagine girls flying without wings. That’s gymnastics. Like dancing in the air.

Like
magic
.

Driving through the dark on the way home, Miss yawned, but I couldn’t have slept if you’d paid me a million dollars. The entire night had been a happy dream.

Even without a sports car, Miss would make the best Amiga ever.

Better than Angélica’s Amiga, who wore glasses on a chain and smelled like baby powder.

I clutched my new Michener Mountaineers T-shirt. The gymnasts had thrown them into the crowd. Miss jumped on the bench to catch one. Then she gave it to
me
.

As we drove past a streetlamp, I held up the shirt, trying to catch some light in the darkness. I wanted to read again the words written on it.

Miss had interviewed Eva Chávez on TV once, so I got to meet her after the gymnastics. She kissed me. On both cheeks. Then across my new T-shirt, she wrote:

Somebody famous wrote that
I
was her
friend
.

She even had a Spanish name. Like me.

“Miss, how did Eva learn to do that stuff?”

“She’s been training since she was little. Younger than you.”

Younger than me? Could I flip around on skinny bars and walk across a narrow board? Would everyone cheer and call my name?

“I’d like to be a gymnast.” Two hours before, I hadn’t known the word
gymnast
. There I was telling Miss I wanted to be one.

But when Miss dropped me off, all she said was, “It was nice meeting you.”

Past tense
.

Nothing about being my Amiga, or seeing me again. The movie in my head ended
without
the princess getting the glass slipper.

When I walked inside, Rosa was slouched in front of the television. She looked up
expectantly
.

I didn’t shove my T-shirt in her face. I didn’t say anything about Eva Chávez, or sparklers, or even cotton candy. I went into our room and slammed the door.

SUELITA
wasn’t in the stroller — she was inside our apartment, having her diaper changed — so I didn’t care if the stupid thing broke. The night before had been so big, so wonderful, but it hadn’t changed anything. I let the stroller bang on every step as I dragged it up the stairwell.

At the top, grimy boots waited for me. Inside the grimy boots were the grimy feet of our apartment manager, Mr. Spitz. I
assumed
his feet were grimy. I lowered my eyes, glad not to look at his dirty T-shirt and fat belly.

“Hey, Rosa, where’s your folks?”

“I’m Jacinta.”

“Whatever.”

“Mamá and Papi are working.” This wasn’t a lie. Mamá just wasn’t getting paid.

He leaned toward me, and I smelled his chewing-tobacco breath. “Tell them to get the rent to my office, pronto.”

He didn’t scare me. We could never be evicted again. Papi had
two
jobs now. “Yes, Mr. Spit.”

“Spitz!”
He waddled away.

“What did he want?” Rosa carried Suelita, who wiggled to get down.

“Money.”

Since Mamá wasn’t around to clean houses, Papi sometimes had to avoid Mr. Spitz. But Papi worked a lot, and Mr. Spitz worked only when he felt like it, so avoiding him was easy.

Rosa inspected the stroller. “If you break it, you will carry Suelita to the food bank.”

“Why do I even have to come?”

“Why are you so lazy?”

“Maybe the food bank isn’t open.”

“Tía said it is open.” Rosa wheeled our sister down the driveway. I sighed and followed.

Tía Carmen always knew what days the food bank was open. Our aunt had two little kids and another baby on the way. She watched Suelita while Rosa and I went to school.

When Mamá was home, she and Carmen traded caring for Suelita and my cousins so they could both work cleaning houses. Having Mamá gone was hard on our aunt, too, since she had to stay home with the babies and couldn’t make money. Tía’s boyfriend, Victor, was sometimes too “sick” to work.

It was a long walk to the food bank. Summer hadn’t started, but somebody forgot to tell the weatherman. Sunshine bounced off the windshields of the cars speeding by, right into my eyes. I dragged a hand across my wet forehead.

The food bank stood behind a church with colored windows. To get there we had to cross
la línea
— the line. Americans lived on the other side. I didn’t like crossing
la línea
, but white people didn’t care if we went to the food bank. As long as we kept moving.

But once, Angélica’s cousin and some of his friends were just hanging around in the
barrio blanco
— the white neighborhood — and somebody called
la policía
.

When I told Papi about it, he said hanging out in the
barrio blanco
is just asking for trouble. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hang around the white neighborhood, anyway.

In our barrio you’d find your neighbors in the parking lot or on their porches, smoking or talking. Music poured from the open windows of pickup trucks. Kids laughed and shouted, chasing each other up and down the apartment staircases.

You never saw people in the white neighborhood. Sometimes a dog barked, but mostly it was quiet. Like a neighborhood full of dead people.

When we got close to the food bank, though, we heard music. Rosa and I looked at each other. We walked faster. The music got louder. We were almost running. Suelita leaned forward, her feet kicking the footrest as the stroller bumped over the cracks in the sidewalk.

The church parking lot was usually empty, but a million kids were crowded around the 5News truck as it pumped out music. The same camera guy took video while a mob swarmed around Miss as she signed autographs.

I pushed into the horde, trying to reach her. “Miss!”

She didn’t look up from the picture she was signing.

“MISS KATE!”

Her head came up. Her real smile inched up the side of her face. She nodded at me. Then she went back to signing her name.

It was enough. I wasn’t like every other kid, begging for her autograph. I was her
friend
. And I didn’t need her name on a photo to prove it.

But I got one anyway.

To show Angélica.

Rosa took Suelita inside to get our food, but I stayed in the scorching parking lot while Miss did her
live shot
. A bunch of us kids stood behind her and waved at the camera while Miss interviewed Miss Ordaz, the food-bank lady.

When the guy put his camera away, the crowd disappeared, but I stayed to watch Miss help him pack up. She struggled with a supersize suitcase that must’ve weighed a bazillion tons. “I’m too old for this.”

He said, “So quit. You have enough years to retire.”

“Two kids to put through college, and my ex’s alimony? The only one who gets to retire is my lawyer.”

Miss turned and gave me that sideways smile. Then her eyes moved to Rosa, who’d walked up next to me. Suelita hung on to her arm. Our food was piled in the stroller. Miss’s smile flickered. “You girls want a ride?”

Cool!
“In the TV truck?”

“No, in my van. I’m on my way home.”

Oh. Not so cool
. “Sure, Miss.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sure,” I repeated.

Rosa elbowed me. So I said, “Thank you, Miss.”

Instead of saying, “You’re welcome,” Miss just said, “Better.”

She opened the back of her ugly brown van so I could shove our food inside.

Suelita fought and cried while Rosa strapped her into a fold-down toddler seat. My baby sister didn’t want to go with Miss, and she didn’t like seat belts.

“Didn’t you say your boys are
older
than me?” I asked.

“That shows you how long I’ve had this van,” said Miss.

Rosa got to sit in front because she was fourteen. I got stuck in back with Suelita, who continued to scream, right in my ear. So when Miss pulled out of the parking lot, I didn’t hear what she’d said. But Rosa laughed.

The green beast clawed at my insides. I pushed the button to let Suelita out of the car seat so she’d stop crying. She scrambled onto the floor of the van.

Just as fast, Miss pulled to the side of the road. “Not okay.”

She got out, threw open the side door, and caught Suelita, who howled and screamed. Miss wrestled her back into the booster seat. My eyes popped. Suelita was
the baby
. We always let her have her way.

Rosa said, “Miss! I can hold her in my lap.”