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I’m not sure if the shop is open. It looks like its lights are off. So I’m squinting, trying to see it clearer, when I hear voices behind me — girls’ voices. None of them sound familiar, so I don’t bother looking back. Half of them are laughing, drowning out the words of the others.

Like someone has just reached into me and ripped out my soul. The usher is talking to me, asking questions, but I don’t hear her. I am not thinking in words. I am seeing red and black. I want to run after those girls and pull out their hair, throw them against the brick wall, make them feel how I feel.

But they’re far away now, weaving down the street — fast. They’re laughing and slapping each other five. They’re not even looking back over their shoulders. It’s like I don’t exist. I was a game. A distraction.

To them, I am not even a person.

And then suddenly I see

All I can think is what took you so long? Where were you? But I don’t say it.

He and the woman help me up. I try to tell them what happened, but I can’t. I’m bad enough with words to begin with. Now they’re all slipping and sliding out of my mouth with no sense.

The worst part is the spit. I mean, I’m not normally grossed out by blood or body fluids. But when I felt that spit on my cheek I almost threw up.

It’s not the saliva. It’s what it means. Spit is a waste product. It belongs in a toilet or a sink —

or the gutter or a sewer. Not on a human being’s face.

It feels like it’s still there, Nbook.

Like I’ll never get it off.

Saturday, 6/5

6:17 A.M.

Isn’t this the worst irony? I finally crash at 2 and now I’m up again, ready to go.

My nightgown is soaked. I wake up in a sweat. I’m dreaming I’m in Dr. Fuentes’s office but my hair is dyed blonde and I’m slapping thick base on my face. Very light base. The girls from last night are looking at me through a two-way mirror and laughing like crazy. I can hear them and so can Dr. F but I put on the makeup anyway.

It’s a dream, it’s not real, I remind myself.

I wish all of last night were a dream, Nbook. I could forget about it then. But it’s stuck in my brain, and I can’t stop thinking of those faces, those leering faces looking at me like I’m some thing, like an old shoe or a dead pigeon.

I don’t look at anyone like that. Do I? No one’s supposed to treat another person that way.

What did I do? What did I say?

WHY DO I KEEP ASKING THAT?

I didn’t do anything. I was there, that’s all.

I was Latina. I am Latina.

I mean, yeah, OK, this stuff happens. I know that, Nbook. I’m not stupid. My eyes and ears are open. I read papers and magazines and I watch the news. The reminders are all around, every week. The way Papi is treated sometimes by the people at his company. The way that patient of Mami’s sneered and said, “Vargas? I thought that was Italian,” and never came for a second session. And all the other small, daily stuff at Vista like the girl who talk one way with white girls and a whole other way with me. The jokes that suddenly get cut off when someone sees me.

It’s bad. It’s wrong. But you live with it. What else can you do? You tell people when it bothers you. You love your family and friends, you do your best, and you realize the world ain’t perfect and never will be. That’s all any of us can do.

I know that.

But they spat on me, Nbook.

They knocked me down and spat on me and walked away.

And they were proud of it.

Then what? What do they do when they get home? Brag to their moms and dads? “Well, let’s see, we went out and had a really good pizza with pepperoni, saw a great movie, beat up this wetback, and stopped in at the ice-cream shop.” Is that what they do?

Got to calm down & try to figure this out.

Got to leave this bedroom. Go to a new place where I can think better. Hang on.

7:07 A.M.

In the kitchen

That’s better.

No one’s up. Isabel’s making a funny noise in her sleep. Kind of a whimper-snore. Guess her dreams aren’t so terrific either.

OK, I said I’d try to figure this out. Which means writing about what else happened last night.

I don’t want to, Nbook — but if I don’t, it’ll just feel worse.

Be glad you’re not a human being. It’s hard.

Anyway …

My legs are shaking as I leave the women’s room. Walking in I’d been straight and steady, but walking out I’m like jelly.

The usher — what was her name, Nbook? I wish I remembered! — she sits me down and gives me a soft drink and some candy. I drink but I have no appetite.

I can’t sit still for long and I’m dying to get out of there, out of that neighborhood, out of town. I want to crawl into the backseat of a car and ride and ride for weeks without stopping.

That’s when we hear a loud knock. It’s Isabel, pressing her face to the glass door of the cineplex

[sic], looking all worried and guilty about being late. Simon is behind her.

I don’t know why I’m not mad at them. I should be. If they’d been there on time, none of this would have happened. But I’m just so happy to see her. I jump out of my seat and run to the door. The usher opens it, and I fly into my sister’s arms.

“What happened?” she asks.

I’m sobbing. My eyes are soaking Isabel’s new white cotton blouse, but she doesn’t yell at me, she just calmly strokes my hair, the way she did when I was little. “Just take me home,” is all I manage to say.

The usher is pretty wet-eyed too. She stuffs a couple of free movie passes into Brendan’s hand.

“For another night,” she says, “on me. And you look after her.”

In the car, I sit in the backseat. Brendan tries to put his arm around me but I push it aside. I don’t feel like being touched right at that moment. I tell Isabel the whole ordeal — and this time I’m making more sense.

She listens and listens. When I get to the part about the spitting, suddenly she steers over to the side of the road and stops.

The tears convince her, I guess. We drive home, almost totally silent. Brendan tries to put his arm around me again, and this time I let him. He doesn’t say much, but I guess that’s OK. It’s important to know how to be quiet with someone. You know what I mean, Nbook.

Frankly, it feels good to be held. Just held.

Isabel drops off Brendan first. He says a quiet, gentle good-bye. Then we drop off Simon. He’s sweet, reassuring me, telling me that the girls were sick and strung out on alcohol, that I shouldn’t take it personally, that if I ever see another one of those girls, just let him know and he’ll make her life miserable.

Now I’m alone with Isabel.

She’s driving way too fast. She’s muttering angrily, suing words I wouldn’t dare repeat on your pages, Nbook.

She is so upset that she runs a red light. Right through it. I mean, if another car had been coming along, we’d be dead meet.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I scream.

“Sorry,” Isabel mutters.

“Can’t you slow down? What are you angry about?”

“I’m angry at those girls.”

“It didn’t happen to you.”

“You’re my sister.”

My heart is thumping. I shut up so she can concentrate. We both fall into kind of an exhausted silence.

As we pull up to the house, only the porch and front-room lights are on. Mami and Papi’s bedroom is dark.

I feel relieved. I don’t want to talk about what happened. I don’t want to get them upset. All I want to do is go right to sleep, clothes and all.

I stumble into the house behind Isabel. But she’s running toward the stairs, shouting, “Mami?

Are you still awake?”

I chase after her. “Don’t! Isabel, they don’t need to know about this!”

Isabel looks at me as if I’m nuts. “Amalia, you can’t just let this drop.”

“It’s not that big a deal — ”

“It was a huge deal. Those girls were racist!”

“They were drinking. They didn’t know what they were doing. They probably won’t even remember what happened by tomorrow morning.”

“So what? What’s that got to do with it?”

She pulls away and races upstairs. I sink into a kitchen chair and fiddle with a napkin. My hands are shaking and I can’t control them.