My mother brought me with her to work at the Texas Chicken. It was not as I had envisioned. My mother did not wear a banana-colored uniform. She wore elastic pants and a shirt that grew dirty as she stood over hot vats of oil transforming frozen things into hot, delicious things. Pieces of hair fell out of her net and she brushed them back with the top of her hand, but she could not stop working long enough to readjust the net or find a bobby pin. The sight of her cheeks growing red and the way her hair kept falling back in her eyes made me not only sad but actually sick, and I went into the bathroom and vomited. Then another Honduran woman came and cleaned the toilet with a rag and a bottle of sanitizer.
My mother was paid $7.25 per hour. She was allowed to pee twice during her eight-hour shift. My head spun when I thought about how long it must have taken her to earn the two thousand dollars I had given to the Snake. (Carlos told me later that she had sold her car to get the money, a car she had saved for years to buy.)
After my mother’s day at Texas Chicken, we rode the bus back to Room Sixteen. My brother and his friends and the other families were sprawled around the room like laundry. “Ma, you gotta pack me a better lunch than PB&J,” said Carlos, his voice loud and obnoxious. “I already told you I don’t like peanut butter!”
My mother nodded and smiled in an indulgent way, and I hated Carlos right then. I hated him even more when he made a mistake in his video game and said, “Fuck!” and threw the controller at the TV, making my mother wince.
I could not stay inside Room Sixteen, and I could not go outside Room Sixteen because the Ace Motel had some bad elements, my mother said. Her boyfriend, Mario, worked behind the meat counter at the HEB grocery store, and we did have plenty of meat that was still perfectly delicious even though the date on the package said it had expired.
My new sister, Marisol, was dreamy and sweet, an American citizen and someone who had never known anything sad or difficult besides how loud it was in Room Sixteen. She only had a few words and none of them were Spanish. She grabbed one of my three stuffed animals (the elephant), and when I asked for it back, Mario said, “Don’t pick on your little sister, Carla! For Christ’s sake, get over it, you’re twelve!”
Before work one day, my mother took me to a giant American high school. Carefully, she filled out the paperwork that would enroll me in sixth grade. I was too old to go to the elementary school with Carlos. When I told Carlos I was scared to attend the middle school and did not speak any English, so I did not know how I would ever know what the teachers were talking about, Carlos said, “You will learn, and I will tell my friends to keep you safe.”
I did not ask, What friends?, and I also did not ask, Safe from what?
One evening, we went to a green park. Mario brought charcoal and ingredients for a picnic. Carlos played futbol with older boys and then joined me under a live oak tree. “Can I ask you about my brother?” he said to me under the tree.
“He is my brother, too,” I said. I put on the sunglasses I had found on one of the tables at the Texas Chicken.
“I know,” said Carlos.
“He was sniffing the Resistol,” I said.
Carlos’s eyes bored into me. “How could you leave him behind?” he said. “I just don’t understand.”
I ripped a dandelion out of the ground. “He made it to Ixtapec,” I said. “I was caught and he ran away. I found him in a shelter there. A man offered a ride in a combi, and Junior was not there when the ride was leaving.”
“So you abandoned my brother,” said Carlos. He stared at me, waiting. When I did not respond, could not find words to respond, he stood up and ran to join the games with the other children who looked like me but who were nothing like me at all.
“He is my brother, too,” I told the live oak tree.
44
Alice
I BOOKED A FLIGHT home the next day. Jane was doing fine with her big and small boys around her, and I missed Jake and the restaurant and my friends and the swampy smell of Austin and its buttery, sumptuous light. When I called Jake to give him my arrival info, he answered his phone with a whisper, “Hey, can’t talk, I’m at Dillard’s.”
“What?” I said. “What are you doing at Dillard’s?”
“We already tried Forever 21, the Limited, and Macy’s,” Jake said. “Evian can’t find the perfect dress. It’s a freaking disaster.”
“You took Evian to the mall?”
“You weren’t here and her mom had to work,” said Jake matter-of-factly. “She can’t go to Homecoming in a sack.”
“So Marion’s going ahead with Homecoming?”
“I don’t know.” Jake’s voice dropped again. “But I don’t want to be the one to tell Evian, and that’s for damn sure.”
I heard Evian’s voice in the background, bossy and loud: “Jake! Are you even looking at this dress?”
“I am!” called Jake. “Hold the phone, Evian, I think that’s the one!” To me, he said quickly, “Got to run, honey. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay,” I said. “Jake …?”
But his attention was diverted back to Evian. “I’m not sure about the sequined headpiece,” I heard him say, and then the phone cut off.
Jake and Pete were waiting for me in the truck outside Austin-Bergstrom Airport. “I missed you so much,” I said, bending down to the passenger window to hug my dog.
“Hey,” protested Jake from the driver’s seat.
“You the most,” I said, climbing into the truck, scooting Pete to the backseat, and kissing Jake. He kissed me back, then handed me some pieces of paper stapled together.
“Hot off the presses,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “The Bon Appétit?”
He waited, his eyes bright and trained on me. I looked down. In the grainy mock-up his agent had faxed, there was my husband in jeans and a dark shirt, standing with his boots crossed next to the pit. The caption read, “Best Barbecue in America? Bon Appétit Talks to Jake Conroe, Rising Star.”
“Rising star?” I said. “My God, honey! Look at you! Look at your hair!”
“They did it for me,” said Jake. “That’s called ‘product’ in there.”
“I’m so proud of you,” I said. And I felt it, too, coursing through me—pride and gratitude. “You’re a rising star.”
“True,” said Jake.
A security guard rapped on the truck. “Move along,” she said.
I opened the window, holding up the fax. “Look!” I said. “That’s him! That’s Jake Conroe!”
“I don’t care if you’re Lyle Lovett,” said the woman. “Move along!”
“Take me to bed, hon,” I said.
“Whoa,” said the guard.
“You heard me,” I said. Jake hit the gas.
On the way home, I tried to apologize. “I’m going to try not to be such a …”
“Meddler?” he suggested.
“Jeez!” I said. “Such a …”
“Instigator? Tyrant? Stone-cold fox?”
“You know me pretty well,” I said.
“I do.”
“Jane’s sad, but she’s going to be okay.”
“How about you?” said Jake.
“It’s hard,” I said. “I still want a baby. I’m not going to lie to you, honey.”
Jake turned onto Mildred Street. “I know,” he said. “I still want one, too.”
“You do?” I said.
“Of course I do,” said Jake. “But you know …” His voice trailed off. “I don’t have a great statement here,” he said finally. “I don’t have a moving conclusion.”