Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful (48 page)

The winds blew hard that night. My bedroom faced the back yard and I was awakened by the noise of something walking on the roof. I crept from my room through the hallway to the door. I stepped out to the patio and into a warm breeze that pressed a dry kiss against my skin. The moon was low; streamers of light peeked through the tree branches. One avocado fell onto the roof, followed by another.

The wind blew around me, above me, over my ears, and down my neck, and in and out of the spaces between my toes. I felt warmth under my feet and knew it was truly the very breath of the Devil. Leaves hovered in the sky like hummingbirds. I heard an echo in the canyon and imagined that the canyon was Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers’ new stadium.

I leaned forward and felt the wind hold me in an unnatural tilt. I could fly, I thought, with the Santa Ana winds lifting me into the air. I ran to the chain-link fence and back to the patio, then tried running from one side of the yard to the other, but I couldn’t gather enough speed to take off.

I knew now that I was in the presence of magic, and I did not want that magic to end. “Never,” I said aloud, as I plucked an eyelash and let it fly away into the night because Mama used to say that wishing on eyelashes made things come true.

In a while I went back to my room. I pulled my diary from its new place under the mattress and started another in a series of imaginary correspondences. “Dear Maury,” I wrote, and when that didn’t sound right, I changed it to “Dear Maurice.” I chewed the end of my pencil and thought. “I will show you how to fly,” I wrote, “and maybe you could teach me how to run.”

After breakfast, Pammy and I dressed and put on our thongs to go out into the yard. The air smelled of eucalyptus, a medicinal scent, only faintly distasteful. We saw hundreds, maybe even thousands of avocados on the ground, shiny skins, bumpy and green. Our yard had never looked so alive. I pretended money had fallen from heaven as I skipped through the yard, kicking avocados out of my way. “Fastball,” I said, and threw one at Pammy, barely missing her. She grabbed an avocado and beaned me on my head.

That made me cry, which brought Daddy out. He hadn’t finished eating and his yellow paper napkin was tucked inside his collar. He glared at Pammy with his concrete-gray eyes. A wad of toilet tissue covered a red spot on his chin.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he said. “I’ve got to get to work. I can’t be bothered with you.” He looked at the yard. “What’s happened here?” he said.

“It’s the wind, Daddy,” Pammy said, using the haughty tone she’d recently adopted.

“You making fun of me, girl?” he asked. “You think I don’t know that?” He narrowed his eyes. “What’s that on your face?” he said. Pammy reached up to wipe away her lipstick. “I know you been using my razor,” he said. “Who you showing off for, Pammy? You think I don’t know what goes on here when I’m gone to work?”

“All the girls my age shave,” Pammy said. “Wear makeup, too.”

“You hear that?” Daddy said to no one. “What a place Los Angeles turned out to be.” He threw his napkin to the ground and stormed over close enough to grab Pammy’s hair. He shook her head back and forth.

Daddy swatted her belly, then switched to the small of her back. Pammy cried out as he smacked her cheek. He raised his hand again. If Mama was there, she would have told him, “Not in the face.” That was what Mama always said since reading about the child whose face was paralyzed by a slap to the head. But Mama wasn’t there, she was inside, still asleep.

Pammy cried out, “I can’t see. Stop it, Daddy!”

Daddy held her chin in one hand and lifted his other hand to hit her.

I yelled, “Not in the face! Not in the face!” He was breaking our family rule, one that even Mama believed.

“You shut up,” he said. “This is none of your concern.”

“I can’t see, Daddy!” Pammy said. She was bawling.

I felt scared. I was the one who had wished for the winds to continue and now our yard was ankle-deep in debris and Pammy was getting a beating. I should have been more careful after Maury Wills was caught at second.

“Stop,” I said. “Please, Daddy. Not in the face.”

Daddy stopped and stared at me.

“You telling me what to do?” he asked.

“No, Daddy,” I said. I hoped it wasn’t too late to save Pammy. “Hit me instead,” I said, thankful when he walked my way because I thought I could take anything.

At that moment I understood what it meant to see things crystal clear. The winds trickled to a breeze while the fury in Daddy grew. The air was clean and I saw the world as it was, with all the haze stripped away. Daddy raised his hand to strike my backside and I knew all at once that he wasn’t even mad at me. Daddy didn’t care who he was hitting. Just knowing that made me feel strong, because I loved him and I wanted him to love me. I let my body take the beating while my thoughts floated up with the leaves, tiny magic carpets on the wind.

After a while Daddy stopped and rubbed his hands together. He said, “You girls stay in the yard, now. I don’t want any boys coming to the house.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I said in a whisper. I didn’t know why Daddy was so afraid of boys. Pammy knew, but she wouldn’t tell me.

“And clean up this mess,” Daddy said. He left us to go to the job he hated.

Pammy held her hand against her face. She blinked hard. “I’m okay,” she said. It was already hot outside, but she was shivering. “Why did you do that for me? Why’d you take my punishment?”

“I couldn’t watch,” I said. “Anyway, it really don’t hurt that bad, so long as you don’t keep your mind on it.”

Then we heard Mrs. Garcia call, “Good morning,” from her yard. There was an urgent questioning in her voice and I froze, not knowing how long she’d been there. Pammy bowed her head.

“Everything okay?” asked Mrs. Garcia. She fingered her crystal necklace.

“Just fine,” Pammy answered, but there was a hard edge to her voice.

“You’re sure?” Mrs. Garcia said. She stood just on the other side of the fence and slipped her fingers through the wire. “You’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do.”

“We’re fine,” said Pammy, her voice breaking.

Mrs. Garcia narrowed her eyes and I knew she didn’t believe that we were fine. After a while she said, “Look at all those avocados. What a waste.” She shook her head. “What a waste,” she said again, but she was looking at Pammy and not the avocados. “Must be fifty dollars worth, at least. Maybe it’s time you girls got out of that yard. At the same time, you might as well try to make some money.”

Pammy made her way toward the fence. “Will you help us?” she asked, and Mrs. Garcia agreed.

“Don’t worry anymore,” she said. “I’ll do whatever you need. Let me bring some orange crates for the avocados.”

“I don’t think we should do this,” I said. “We’re not supposed to leave the back yard.”

Pammy gave a sideways glance to me. She rubbed her cheek and I saw how the redness had given her a look of defiance. “Daddy will never know,” Pammy said, “unless you tell him.”

Mrs. Garcia set up a card table and two folding chairs on the sidewalk. Pammy and I each filled a crate full of avocados. We carried the crates to the table and sat facing the street. Mrs. Garcia left us, saying she’d tack up a sign announcing our sale on the street corner.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I said. I had to go to the bathroom, but didn’t want to leave my sister alone.

“Go on and tell Mama, if you’re so worried.”

“I’m not worried,” I said, looking back at the house.

After a few minutes a battered green station wagon pulled up and a young Mexican boy with smooth skin and shiny black hair stepped from the car. His car keys jingled from his pinkie. He walked close to Pammy’s side of the table.

“Good morning, young ladies,” he said. His shirt was open to the second button; a few curly hairs poked through. He tipped his blue baseball hat as he nodded his head.

Pammy smiled. “Good morning,” she said. “Are you interested in any avocados?”

He kneeled beside the table and set his elbow down, near Pammy’s tanned arm. “How much you want?” he asked.

“Twenty for one dollar,” Pammy answered without lowering her gaze.

The boy pursed his brown lips and pushed out his breath. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said, “but I’ll pay you five dollars for the two boxes.”

“What will you do with them all?” Pammy asked.

“My father’s restaurant,” he said. “They’ll ripen and we’ll freeze what we don’t use right away.” He handed the five-dollar bill to Pammy. I saw her red cheeks blush even darker as he folded his hand over hers.

He walked over to open the back of his station wagon. “Help me empty them into my car,” he said to Pammy.

A hot wind blew against my chest. I tried to say, “No,” but the wind had sucked away my breath.

Pammy put her arms around one crate to pick it up. The boy walked close and pressed his hip against hers. They carried one crate to the station wagon, balanced it on the edge of the car door until the boy tipped the crate on its end and let the fruit roll out. They did the same with the other crate.

“May I have a glass of water?” he asked, tipping his head toward me.

Pammy ordered, “Go on. Get him something.”

“No,” I said. “I won’t do it.”

“You’d better,” she said, “or I’ll tell Daddy about your diary.”

“Go ahead,” I said, but she gave me such a look that I said, “Okay. I’ll get it.” I ran through the front yard to the house, flung the door open, and ran to the kitchen. I picked up Mama’s dirty glass from next to the sink. I didn’t worry that it was too nice a glass for a Mexican to use and that I’d get in trouble, should my parents find out what I had done. I filled the glass with water, and ran back outside.

The boy was sitting in my chair beside Pammy, his arm over her shoulder, his head bent close to hers. I hurried to him. “Here’s your drink,” I said, thrusting the glass forward. The water splashed on the table. The boy licked his lips and said, “Thanks.”

Pammy was hiding something from me, something big. I looked down the street toward the intersection Daddy would turn from when he came home from work.

After a while, the boy said, “I should get going.” He set the glass on the edge of the folding table, stood up and pushed me out of his way to walk to his car. He pulled away from the curb.

I punched Pammy’s arm, and the motion set the table rocking. The water glass tipped and rolled to the edge of the table. I reached out, but I couldn’t grab it in time, and the glass fell to the ground—Mama’s crystal—shattering into rainbows.

I collected the shards and stacked them in a pile on Mrs. Garcia’s table. I couldn’t speak for a long time, but finally I said, “Didn’t you notice that boy was Mexican?”

“I noticed,” Pammy said, and she was smiling. “I think he likes me.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I said. It was clear that Pammy already knew this boy and I sensed that what Daddy was afraid of happening was going to happen to Pammy, soon. “We’re going to be in really big trouble,” I said.

“Not me,” said Pammy. She picked up an empty crate and headed for the back yard to pack more avocados. I hurried after her. “You promised you’d take my punishments from now on,” Pammy said. “I’m not ever gonna get in any trouble again.”

In a while, Mrs. Garcia came out to check on us. She saw the broken crystal, now a pile of rainbows, on her table and put her hand on my shoulder. She leaned close enough to whisper and before I knew it, she had her arms around me and was hugging me tight. I didn’t mean to do it, but in a few seconds I was also hugging her. “Don’t worry. Things will turn out okay,” she said. “You must believe that.”

Mrs. Garcia gathered up the broken crystal and dropped the shards into her purse. She handed me one nearly round piece. “Keep this,” she whispered, “and don’t ever lose it. When you look through crystal, you can see the different facets of the world. Whenever you can’t bear to live in one of those facets, I want you to look through your crystal and find another. And then I want you to take a step and go into that world.”

She left, but came back in an hour with an unbroken crystal glass in her purse. “Here,” she said, “good as new. Go on. Put this in the kitchen where it belongs.”

When I looked through the crystal glass I saw one place where the glass was dull, a circle where no rainbows formed. I hid my tiny piece of crystal in my shorts pocket, but still felt its warmth through the fabric. When I pulled out the crystal I saw the sun’s reflection, red like the edge of fire.

The last of the windfall fruit began to ripen by the end of the week. Pammy warmed a can of cream of mushroom soup for lunch, but I was hungry again by late afternoon. I picked up an avocado and felt its bumpy skin, then pushed in with my thumbs to check the softness. I found one I wanted and dug my nail into the skin. I peeled back a raspy slice that tickled me like a cat’s tongue. The avocado was wet, lush and smooth, the Devil’s fruit. I put my lips to the hole I had made and stuck my tongue inside to lap up the fruit.

“Is there a game today?” Mrs. Garcia said when she came into her yard.

“Starts in five minutes,” said Pammy.

“I’m going out,” Mrs. Garcia said, looking at Pammy. She cleared her throat. “Is there anything else you need?”

I started to say, “No, thank you,” but Pammy answered, “Yes. There is something,” before I could speak.

Mrs. Garcia nodded and stared at us both for a minute before leaving.

I gripped my hands into fists. “What are you up to?” I asked.

Pammy ignored me and painted on a fresh coat of lipstick. She turned away, and looked back toward the house.

Something bad was going to happen, but I didn’t know if it would happen to Pammy—or to Maury—or to me.

The game started. We listened to the top half of an inning that was over one, two, three. Then commercials, then the bottom half of the inning.

“Maury Wills steps out onto the plate. And the first pitch is high and inside. Ball one.”

I heard Pammy say, “Hello.”

I turned and saw the Mexican boy in the side yard.

Pammy stood and took a step toward him. “We have to hurry,” she said. “I have money.”

“The throw is low and Wills checks his swing. Marichal doesn’t believe it and asks for a ruling. Did Wills hold up in time? . . . Ball two!”