Surviving Santiago (10 page)

“These aren't supposed to leave the editing room. Ever.”

“I didn't take it. I just found it.”

He holds out his hand, like I'm supposed to give the blade to him.

I run my finger along the edge, not hard enough to slice skin or draw blood. I don't want to give up the blade; it would be way better than a knife for the puzzle.

“Hand it over,” Ernesto says. His voice is low, almost a growl.

Even if the equipment and records are secondhand, I don't believe that this radio station is so poor it can't afford to lose even one teeny razor blade. But I drop it into his hand anyway. He selects a key from the ring on his belt, strides out into the hallway, and unlocks the door next to a handwritten sign that reads
Sala de
Edición No. 1
. After leaving the blade on a table full of electronic equipment, he locks the door and rattles the knob to make sure it's shut tight. Then he goes into the other control room. He doesn't ask me to come along, so I open the door a crack to listen.

“I know you're new,” Ernesto tells the engineer. “Just don't do it again. There are people around here who shouldn't be near those things.”

Then it hits me who he's talking about.

Why did they all make me come here? And what does anyone expect me to do with a father I barely know and can't help?

Despite layers of clothing, I can't stop shivering. I wedge my body into a corner and pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my head, then over my face.

But Ernesto notices when he comes out. Like a favorite teacher, he seems to know that something bad has happened. But I don't think a teacher would ever tell a kid what he says next. About Papá's drinking, which got even worse after the plebiscite. About his writing for all those newspapers and magazines on top of his regular job with the radio station, to pay off the house. About the gun he tried to get, supposedly for self-defense.

“I never saw a gun.”

“That's because we never gave him one.” Ernesto leans against the doorframe next to me. “We set up a security detail so he's pretty much never alone and never with anything
that can do serious damage. He thinks we're protecting him from his enemies, but really it's himself.”

Before Papá got home from work every day, Graciela counted out his pills and moved them from bottle to bottle. I never thought anything of it before. “I guess that security detail means me, too.”

“We have it under control. You just be yourself.”

T
hat night at home, I slip into the kitchen as soon as Tía Ileana brings my semiconscious father upstairs to bed. I check all the drawers and cabinets again. I still find only butter knives and round dull-bladed dinner knives. But under the sink, there's a heavy lockbox, and when I rattle it, I hear metal scrape against metal.

The harsh, hollow sound echoes inside me and stays until sometime in the early morning hours I finally fall asleep. I don't dream of Frankie.

C
HAPTER
8

Tuesday, June 20: 62 days until I go home

Dear Mamá,

I hope you and Evan are having fun on your honeymoon. Things are really weird here. Like 24-hour-suicide-watch weird. Why didn't you tell me Papá has threatened to kill himself?

I want to come home early. Half the time I'm bored and half the time I'm scared I'll do the wrong thing and something bad will happen. I hardly ever see Papá because he's either working at the radio station or getting completely wasted. Tía Ileana's pretty cool, but she and Papá don't get along because . . .

I erase the last line and try again.

The only good thing that's happened is that I met this boy. His name is Frankie Zamora, and he's 18.
I erase and write
16
. There are things I don't want my mother to worry about.

I check my watch. Just one hour until Frankie picks me up. I fold the paper in half, slide it under the letter I just received from Petra, and stack books on top so no one can see it's there. I weave my hair in front into small braids like Petra does. Then I shake out the braids
because they look better with long natural-blonde hair than they do with layered dark brown hair. I think a ponytail would be more practical for riding Frankie's motorcycle, but it takes me three tries to get rid of the lumps.

Picking an outfit is even harder, and by the time Frankie rings the bell at the gate, rejected T-shirts and sweaters cover my floor. I kick them under my bed in case Tía Ileana looks in my room. I don't want her poking around my stuff.

Downstairs, Papá's already seated at the table, and Tía Ileana's putting two fish fillets in the microwave. I give my aunt a quick hug, then my father.

“Do I get to meet this boy?” Papá asks.

I sniff alcohol on his breath. “Maybe another day. We're rushing to catch a movie.”

Papá scrapes his chair back. “I'd like to ask him a few questions.” He starts to stand, but his face goes pale and he collapses back into his seat. “Leg spasms,” he says, his voice brittle. Tía Ileana rushes to him.

“I already talked to him, Chelo,” she says as she unsnaps his leg brace and massages his calf. He groans and writhes in his chair. My aunt turns to me. “Bring me his pills.”

The bell rings again. I grab the bottle that Graciela prepared that afternoon and hand it to Tía Ileana on my way to the front door. I poke my head out. “Just a minute, Frankie. We have a little problem.”

“Totally understand,” he responds.

When I get back to the dining area, Tía Ileana holds the bottle in front of my father's face. “It says take with food. If you go drinking with the guys after work, eat something or the new medicine isn't as effective.”

“I can't. My—” He sucks in his breath with a moan, then grabs his leg with his good hand.

“Chelo, I don't know what to do with you.” My aunt places a pill on his tongue and tips a water glass toward him. “Your stomach hurts because you drink and don't eat. You need to start taking responsibility for your own health.”

I clasp my hands in front of me. “Guys, Frankie's waiting. Can I go now?”

“It's all right.” Tía Ileana crouches in front of Papá. “Francisco said his parents voted for the ‘NO.' His father's PS,” she says, referring to the initials of the Socialist Party. “But not active because he's sick.”

Sick like Papá's sick?

Papá grips my forearm. “Fine, go. Home by midnight.”

Tía Ileana watches me leave. I know those same eyes will be on me when I walk back through the door tonight.

Outside under the streetlamp, Frankie kisses my cheek. “I'm sorry I'm late,” I say and switch to English. “My father had, like, this small seizure.”

“Es okay. You look beautiful.” Tonight he wears a green-and-white striped scarf over his leather jacket, and a white shirt underneath with a brown tie. Instead
of his usual blue jeans, he has on dark brown corduroy pants. My insides relax and my jaw falls slack. I didn't expect him to dress up this nice for me. And I don't feel like a kid in high school anymore.

I slip on my helmet. “Where are we going?”

“I know a good restaurant in Providencia.”

The Providencia neighborhood is a twenty-minute trip with stoplights and traffic. It was the fancy neighborhood when I lived here, and I'm guessing from the way Frankie is dressed that it still is. One- and two-story houses and low-rise apartment buildings give way to high-rises with plate-glass windows that reflect the light of old-fashioned wrought-iron streetlamps. The wide avenues here are clean and lined with trees. At night, this could be a fancy part of Chicago, except for the palm trees and the occasional older Spanish-style building. I orient myself using the huge illuminated statue of the Virgin Mary on top of the Cerro San Cristóbal. To get to the restaurant, we pass the hill.

Frankie pulls into a parking space on the narrow street just past the restaurant and tosses a coin to an old watchman with bloodshot eyes and a rotten odor. I don't think he'll be much use if anyone tries to mess with Frankie's
moto
. When he opens his mouth to thank us, I see that he has no teeth. Frankie grimaces and turns away.

I had expected Frankie to take me to a McDonald's, which they have here, too, or a local fast-food place—like
where I'd hang out with my friends at home. But this is a real restaurant, specializing in
asados
, different types of meat cooked over an open fire, which the waiter serves straight off the spit. I savor the aroma of all kinds of grilled meats mixed together. Most of the people eating here are in their early twenties. I see lots of couples.

This is a real-live date.
On the way to our table I redo my ponytail and straighten my sweater, conscious that I wore jeans instead of the clingy, knee-length 1950s-style skirts that seem to be popular here. On the other hand, I rode here on a motorcycle. They probably came in cars.

The table for two has a sheet of thick white paper covering the tablecloth. I've never seen paper over cloth, but Frankie says a lot of restaurants do this. I guess it saves on laundry, but he says it has to do with the customs of immigrants from the Basque region who settled in Chile.

Frankie scans the handwritten menu and recommends the pork. Then he asks me to translate the entire menu into English and listen to him repeat the words I say. He slides an empty wine glass out of the way, pulls a small notepad from his back pocket, and writes down words that he has trouble remembering. Some I can't translate for him because we don't have those dishes at home.

“How long have you studied English?” I raise my voice above the din around me.

“Five years in school. But school . . . not good.”

“How is it not good?”

“Classes very big.” He holds his arms outstretched. His shirt pulls tight against the muscles of his chest. He has great muscles, but if these are his best clothes, he's outgrown them.

“How many students were in a class?” I ask.

“Forty. Maybe more. But many no come.”

My classes have twelve to fifteen students. Lucky me, but it doesn't seem fair. “I hope you can come to the United States. You'll learn English fast. Just like I did.”

“I have to take test in English to come. And I need money.” He frowns.

“There are scholarships,” I say, in as cheerful a tone as I can manage. “My brother got a full scholarship to Georgia Tech.”

Frankie perks up, which makes me smile, too. “How?”

“They have a special program for Hispanic students to study engineering. He had good grades. And we didn't have any money, either.”

“No?”

I shake my head. “My parents split up three years ago. And my mother went back to school in the United States. All of us were students at the same time.” Even though we were poor, I liked that Mamá was in school along with Daniel and me.

“But you have a big house here.”

“Papá's only lived in the house four months. He saved the money from his job with the radio station.”

“What station?”

“Radio Colectiva.”