The Almost Murder and Other Stories (4 page)

I barely made it to the commode before vomiting. Sweat stuck my braid to my neck; my head pounded. Afterward, I tried to stand, but was ill again. I heaved until finally nothing came out.

Shaking, I slid to the floor, curled in a ball and prayed to Jesus for strength. Someone knocked on the door, so I grabbed the commode's lid and pushed up to my knees. I flushed the toilet and clutched my pounding head at its roar, then rose shakily.

I got to the sink, leaned on it, then pumped pink soap into my hands, scrubbing them almost raw. I pulled out some rough brown paper towels and wiped the toilet. Then, after rewashing my hands, I left the restroom. A middle-aged woman glared at me for taking so long.

I shivered in the chill ice-creamy air and walked past the counter. A red-haired teenage boy in a huge white apron stared up at me as he scooped a cone. He had huge metal braces, top and bottom, and splotchy skin, but his
eyes held sympathy. I nodded my thanks to him for his simple look of kindness and left.

Outside, I stared in each direction. The blonde girls weren't in sight. People acted as if nothing had happened. Nothing had, to them.

I was a different person on the walk home—no spring in my step, no arms swinging happily. I jammed my hands into my pockets, fingering my unspent twenty-dollar bill. As I trudged along, head down, I saw a splotch of vomit on my shoes and cringed. Three blocks seemed like thirty.

Finally, I was home. My hands shook so much, it took forever to fit my key into the lock. Finally, I opened our front door. Mom was just inside. Seeing my chalky face, she called for Dad, who popped out of his den and helped her hustle me to bed.

I sobbed until there were no tears left, then told my parents everything. My dad was furious. He paced back and forth, muttering in Spanish, while Mom listened, consoled, and tried to explain prejudice. I clutched Lia, my rag doll, and fell asleep to the hum of their worried voices.

Lydia and Jorge Gonzales, my parents, are first-generation Americans. They met and fell in love as UCLA law students. Soulmates. Just after graduation, they were married at La Misión San Fernando, right here in the Valley.

My folks skipped a honeymoon and instead used wedding gifts and a small business loan to open a bilingual law firm in Van Nuys. Working like crazy, they succeeded. Soon, they paid off their debts and bought our house, a beautiful three-bedroom in Encino.

Unlike their siblings, my parents waited to start a family, deciding to have just one child. They wanted the best for their only
hija:
me. I was born when Mom was thirty-five, considered old to become a first-time mom by her relatives.

We were a family of three. I loved it and never longed for a sister or brother.

My parents worked hard at the firm, but showered me, their flower, their angel, their sweet
cariñosa,
with boundless love and attention. Intent on giving me the finest education, they enrolled me in Fairview Hall, an exclusive, academic prep school. I was Fairview's token minority.

Home was a haven, but Fairview was hell. I hated it. My grades were high, but I was a brown-skinned outsider. Teachers appreciated my mind and grades, but the students left me out. I was different: dark, quiet, fearful of Anglos. My social life was nil.

I was overwhelmed by the sea of Aryan faces in the corridors. Most called me “that Mexican” behind my back, or even to my face. I overheard this often and thought of them as
las blancas
, the white girls. They loved to shop, sneak cigarettes and gossip. We had nothing in common.

On weekends, I hung with my cousins in Van Nuys. The Three Ts, Tomás, Timothy and Trinidad were streetwise, regular kids, who teasingly called me
princesa
, but loved and accepted me. We talked, played games, rode bikes and went to movies or watched TV. Normal things. I loved sharing their world, so unlike my own Monday-through-Friday white one.

I loved looking like those around me, relieved that in Van Nuys, just a few miles from my home and school, I didn't have to act the role of a perfect Latina, as was expected at Fairview. With
mis primos
, I ran with the wind, shouted
en español
and felt free.

My parents refused to send me to Catholic school with my cousins, although I begged them daily. I suggested a public school gifted program, where other bright minority kids went. Still, they said no, adamant that I stay at Fairview. They insisted that my ethnicity wouldn't stop me from attending the best private school around.

During my junior year, my parents' enthusiasm for Fairview was tested. At a fund-raising luncheon held at school, a new student's father mistook Mom for a server as she returned to our table from visiting with our headmistress.

Irate about his undercooked chicken, the man confronted Mom, ordering her to go “back to the kitchen” to fetch him a replacement.

I wanted to tell that creep off right then and there, but my parents knew better. Dad shook the man's hand, introducing us all a longtime Fairview family. Mom offered him their business card, mentioning that they'd been members of the California Bar Association for decades.

“Mr. Ellison,” as his nametag read, was also a lawyer. Mortified, he apologized and slunk off to his own table.

My parents were right. Our family kept its dignity; we remained at the hundred-dollar-a-plate luncheon. We even won the raffle prize: a big-screen TV, which we donated back to the school.

There were other incidents, too. A coffee-colored girl in a pale white world, I was a target for ignorant remarks. I'd respond with stone-cold silence. Later, at home, I had migraines that sent me to bed. Racism literally made me sick.

Throughout my childhood and teens, prejudice was the bane of my existence. Now, I'm grateful for the way in which it strengthened me, for I'd soon need courage to call upon.

On my sixteenth birthday, my parents took me to The Great Greek, our favorite restaurant. We had birthdays there always—our tradition. After a great meal, and “Happy Birthday” sung in Greek, we drove up Ventura toward the freeway and were blind-sided by a huge Navigator. The driver was so drunk, he still can't remember it.

From that night on, I've had far more to contend with than whether my skin is dark or fair. Racial issues fall away when you're fighting for your life. Scars are scars, no matter who you are or what your background is.

I woke up in ICU post-op. Lights and monitors winked and beeped. My face was wrapped in bandages. I remembered what had happened, but couldn't speak. Mom, red-eyed and pale, stroked my hair. I drifted away.

I was in and out of consciousness for two days. My parents took turns holding my hand, moistening my cracked lips with a glycerine swab, murmuring “I love you” into my ear.

Our family priest, Father Solor, came to give me the blessing of the sick. I thought this meant I'd die that very night and felt no fear.

In the morning, I was still alive and hurting. Despite my gripping pain, I was upgraded from “grave” to “serious but stable” and transferred out of ICU.

I was wheeled into a regular room on a gurney. Inside, I was greeted by a kaleidoscope of flowers, stuffed toys and balloons. So many gifts, there was barely room for me. Mom pointed at each, telling me who'd sent it, and how much I was loved. She acted giddy, nervous, eager to please.

That same morning, a wound-care nurse changed the dressing on my face and neck for the first time. Even morphine didn't help the savage pain. As she pulled my bandages off, I howled, nearly crushing Mom's hand in mine. When they were off, Mom's stricken face told me I looked as awful as I felt. Probably worse.

“Mirror,” I croaked. My voice was back, but raspy.

“Wait,
mija
,” Mom urged. I was in too much pain to insist.

The nurse re-bandaged my face, said I'd been good, and left the room. Exhausted, I let myself drift on a morphine cloud and slept.

I woke up and remembered Mom's shock at the sight of me.

I felt curious and repulsed by my scars even before seeing them. Each time I asked for a mirror, the answer was, “Wait.” Tethered to the bed, I couldn't get to a mirror on my own.

One part of me was grateful for the wait, another part furious.

My first meal was breakfast. I wolfed down eggs, toast, juice, tea. My appetite hadn't changed. Soon afterward, I was contorted in pain and begged for a shot. Morphine gave relief from pain and worries—I loved it.

I prayed in silence, not in gratitude at being alive, or for a full return to health, but for the scars to go away, for it all to have been a nightmare. But I'd open my eyes, and nothing had changed. I was a freak, reminded always by the taut stitches tugging at the flesh on my face … my face.…

Nurses came and went. I usually had Delgado, a Salvadoran RN who always wore a huge gold cross around her neck. She had boundless energy. She'd coax me to talk, to sit up, saying “Be grateful you're alive.” I would ignore her.

One day as she took my vitals, Delgado said, “I dare you to smile.”

I scowled at her instead.

Who was this plump brown lady, insisting that I smile? I had nothing to smile about and told her so, my voice like ice.

Delgado said, “You have much to smile about: your parents love you, and
Dios
saved your life.” I glared and asked for my meds.

She left briefly and returned with a syringe. Morphine, injected into my IV, sent me far away into surreal narcotic dreamland. I sank into this altered state.

I awoke to find my parents looking worried and shell-shocked. I knew I was a monster, a freak, but didn't say so.

The flowers and balloons, which shouted “Get well” and “We love you,” irked me. They looked festive; I felt dour.

Mom took a leave from work to stay with me nonstop for the first week. She cried so much and looked so helpless that I urged her to go back to the firm. I lied, saying that I felt fine and just needed rest. I wanted isolation.

I remembered that before the crash, I'd been an outsider because I was Latina. I smirked at the thought, my taut stitches pulling and sore from my facial movement. I used to feel sorry for myself over being brown in a white world. Now, I was a monster … in any world.

Nurse Delgado was assigned to me most days. Even when she wasn't officially my nurse, she'd find time to march into my room anyway.

“Just checking on you … ready to smile yet? Want an attitude check?”

I felt she was taunting me for not being the perfect patient—the perfect victim.

I'd glare at Delgado, in no mood for her cheer or insistence that I get myself “an attitude of gratitude.” Her suggestions came rat-a-tat in English and Spanish, annoying me in both languages.

“Cheer up, work harder in physical therapy and thank your family,” she'd pester. Like my parents, Delgado suggested that I see a shrink, right there. I adamantly refused. My parents didn't push it.

Delgado brought me self-help books from the hospital library. I tossed them on a bedside table, where they remained.

I slept, ate and watched TV, rarely bothering to change the channel. Whatever was on was fine with me. Anything to escape my own reality.

Once, when my parents were at work, Delgado picked up my remote and turned the TV set off.

“Can't you see how lucky you are?” she demanded.

“Lucky?” I snapped. “Are you blind, lady?”

Delgado said, “God saved you for a reason. A lot of people have it worse. Think about helping others.”

“Yeah, right,” I mumbled, “I'll be the poster girl for freaks.”

She left in a huff, calling me a brat.

That afternoon, the surgeon, Dr. James, came to remove the stitches on my face and neck. Other scars on my body had sutures that would dissolve on their own.

Dr. James had called my parents to be there. They arrived, both nervous. After mom's first glimpse the prior week, I'd asked them to leave when my dressings were changed; they'd complied. Neither had seen my scars since then.

Delgado hadn't started her shift; another nurse gave me morphine. Even with the drug in my system, the pain hit hard. I howled as the doctor snip-pull-swabbed, snip-pull-swabbed his way across my face and neck.

Afterward, an intern sprayed the newly unstitched wounds with several solutions. All of it hurt. Finally, butterfly stitches and steri-strips were placed at various points.

When he was done, the doctor cleared his throat, examined me closely, and said, “You've healed nicely. I'm very pleased.”

Pleased? The idiot was “pleased.” I let out a groan of exasperation.

Mom said, “It's not so bad,
mija
, much better than it was before.” Her voice was hollow, and I saw how tightly she gripped Dad's arm. She was freaked, and I knew it.

I asked for a mirror in the most adult voice and manner I could muster. The doctor suggested I wait a week until the swelling went down.

I yelled right in front of him, “I have to see myself—I have to! Mami, give me the goddamn mirror.”

I'd never cursed in my life, let alone at my mother, who put her hand to her face as if I'd slapped her.

Words gushed out of me, “
Perdóname,
Mami, but please, let me see myself.”

She looked to Dr. James, who shrugged, leaving it up to her and my father. Dad thanked him and he left, saying he'd be back the next day.

Mom asked, “Are you sure you want to see?”

Again I shouted, “I NEED to see.” Now, I burst into tears, sobbing and begging her to get me a mirror.

The noise brought in my nemesis, Delgado, who'd just started her shift. She told Mom in Spanish that my imagination was worse than the reality, and it would be good for me to start “to adjust.” Delgado said I was a strong girl; she felt I could take it.

Mom agreed. Delgado left the room. I steadied my breathing, in search of calm.

Delgado came back to the room carrying a big, chrome-rimmed hand mirror. I was sweating; my face and neck throbbed. Before she handed it to me, I asked her for a shot of morphine.