More Than Allies Page 8

  At the end of the skits, awards were presented. It was so hot in the gym, and the show had gone on so long, Dulce was half-asleep when she heard her son’s name. Gus Quirarte. She opened her eyes. She leaned forward to watch him walk up to the stage from his place with his class down below. Was this something he had competed for? His expression was one of delight, and surprise: I won something! it said. But what? He was awarded the Language Camp Scholarship. There was much applause. He descended the steps, clutching a certificate, and scanned the audience, looking for his mother. She waved quickly, just above her head. Later he said he wasn’t sure what it was for. Learning Spanish, that was all he knew. He liked that. He liked Spanish. He had learned a lot from Lupe’s family, from Hilario. “The teacher said it comes to me naturally,” he said. He smiled a smart-aleck smile.

  Thursday she cleaned eleven rooms at the motel, then drove home slowly. The car was making strange noises. She said Jesus, Mary, Joseph over and over even though she knew she was silly. She changed and went over to the school as the kids were being dismissed. Mrs. Cecil wasn’t in the office. The secretary said she was somewhere in the building, and paged her. Dulce sat on the chair by the principal’s door. She didn’t cross her legs. She folded her hands in her lap, and sat up straight. She wondered how many more times, good or bad, she would have to come to her son’s school. She wondered if she would ever stop feeling out of place.

  Across the hall, Maggie is in conference with Jennifer, the counselor. Earlier in the afternoon, she was summoned to school to collect Jay and take him home. He had excused himself from class to go to the bathroom, then had gone outside and let the air out of nine bicycles before someone happened to notice him down on his knees busy with mischief.

  Now, as requested, she has returned to talk. Jay, deeply sullen, has hidden himself in his dad’s old room and refused this very thing, talk. Polly has been oddly silent, offering little comfort and no advice, though she says she’s making spaghetti, and could Maggie pick up French bread? Maggie left Stevie peering into the baby’s crib while Polly held her hand and explained the baby was resting. She felt extra, not quite necessary. It was somehow her fault that things were going wrong for Jay. As if accused, she felt hot with resentment.

  Jennifer says she wonders if there is some particular impulse for Jay’s behavior. Maggie considers the word, impulse. It does seem relevant. Mo’s impulse to flee. Polly’s impulse to mother. Jay’s impulse to be trouble. Maggie’s own lack of impulse. She knows what she does not want to do—does not want to leave Lupine, does not want to be without Mo, does not want to talk to Jennifer, does not want to take hand-me-downs or advice from her friends. It is a humiliating word for Maggie, impulse. It suggests energy, rhythm, getting-off-the-dime. Maybe Jay’s impulse is to get his mother moving? Maybe Jay’s impulse is to demand that something be done? But what?

  Maggie knows that this woman Jennifer means well. She is a little older than Maggie, maybe thirty-two or -three, a soft-spoken but efficient professional, with notes and brightly colored files in a plastic stand behind her. She has already added up a few things: Jay’s declining performance in school, the acceleration of his bad moods, his withdrawal from his friends.

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” Maggie interrupts Jennifer’s monologue. “The part about his friends. I think he feels they’ve deserted him. Gus, at least. They’ve played together the last couple of years. Now Gus is busy—this new boy—” She thinks Jennifer would be full of advice, if only Maggie told her how things are, but Maggie doesn’t think Jennifer can understand. How simple it would be to say, Jay’s angry because he got left out last night. He’s hurt because his best friend is otherwise occupied. He’s lonesome for his dad, and hey, he hasn’t even been able to buy the high-top athletic shoes he’s wanted for months.

  “Maybe Jay and I can repair the bicycles,” Maggie says. She has never pumped a tire, but surely she can learn fast enough.

  “Don’t worry. One of the teachers and a couple of sixth graders took care of it. There was no harm done, really. He just unscrewed the caps and pushed the plungers—”

  “He’s never done anything like this before.” Maggie feels helpless and accused. She wishes Jay had thought about what he was doing, what it would mean for her. Of course he probably did think. He thought: I hate them all. Or: Take that.

  “I want to show you something,” Jennifer says. She turns and takes a piece of paper from one of the files behind her. It is a drawing. She hands it to Maggie. “I was in Jay’s class last week. Sometimes I do little exercises. I try to give them a chance to talk about their feelings. This time, I asked them to draw their houses. You see what he’s done.”

  Maggie, whose vision is perfect, holds the crayoned drawing in front of her face as if it is a difficult puzzle, so that Jennifer is talking to the back of it, unable to see either Maggie or the picture.

  There is Polly’s red house, and garage, and behind, the cottage. “My house,” Jay has labeled the cottage. Beside the garage he has drawn something, then scribbled it out with black crayon.

  “I asked him about the marked-out part,” Jennifer says.

  Maggie lays the drawing on her lap and lets Jennifer tell her what she has already figured out. “It’s his dad’s truck. He says that’s where he always parks it when he’s home.”

  “What do you want me to tell you?” Maggie says quietly. “If you’ve figured everything out?”

  Jennifer blushes. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “A little boy is hurt and confused. He’s a child. Why did his teacher throw him out of Spanish night? What did he learn from that?” She stands up. “I’ll take this,” she says, shaking the drawing slightly, “back to Jay.” She is thinking maybe he should send it to Mo, but she doesn’t say that now, to Jennifer.

  “Maggie—” Jennifer is on her feet. She reaches out, but stops before she actually touches Maggie. Maggie’s hand trembles visibly. She puts her arm down alongside her thigh.

  “I need to ask your permission—your advice—” Jennifer does touch Maggie, gently, on her elbow, but only for a moment.

  “Permission for what?”

  “There are still two weeks. We have groups. Jay. He could share his feelings. He could find out how other kids are feeling about these same issues. I think it would help.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s a question of which group. The anger group, or the loss group? The anger group would help him get a handle for now, but the other—I think he might do better with those children—”

  “I’ll have to think about it.” Maggie backs toward the door. “I’ll talk to his dad. I’ll talk to Jay.”

  Outside, she makes it to the corner of the building before she begins to cry. She stops, leans against the brick wall, thinks of other things she might have said. She wishes Polly had come. She wishes Jay had not messed with the bikes.

  “Are you okay?”

  She jumps. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. At first, she doesn’t know who is there, then she realizes it is Gus’ mother. Dulce.

  “Are you sick?”

  “No. Upset.” She tries to smile. “Called to school, you know.”

  “Yeah. It makes me nervous to come. It made me nervous, every day I ever went to school.”

  “I’m okay. Thanks.” She points to the parking lot. “My car’s over there. Are you going that way?”

  “No. I’m walking.”

  “Want a ride?”

  “That’s okay.”

  “No. Really. Let me give you a ride, Dulce. Listen, would you want—could we get a cup of coffee or something? I just have a little time, but—well, would you?”

  They go to the Coffee Bliss. It looks as if half the town has picked now to take a break. There’s no place to sit. Dulce says, “I just live behind, in the trailer court. Why don’t we go there? You’ve never been to my place. It’ll be quiet. Gus won’t be home yet.” She looks around.

  “Let me get our
coffee,” Maggie says, but when Dulce lays two quarters on the counter, she doesn’t object. She would like to pay; she is never the one to pay. Polly pays. Her friends pay. She would like to pay, but maybe Dulce, like her, never pays. Maybe it’s better to bear one’s own cost.

  The first thing that strikes her, once they are inside Dulce’s trailer, is how much like the cottage it is. The compact kitchen, the slightly shabby couch, obviously used as a bed—a pillow and blanket are piled at one end—and the sense of efficiency, of fitting in the space you happen to have.

  Drawings are scotch-taped to the walls. “Gus’?” she says, touching one. A knight on a horse leans over to slash with his sword at a scaly monster.

  “He’s always at it.” Dulce arranges chairs for them at her small table. They pull the caps off their coffee cups and drink. Maggie feels shy, but comfortable, too. It doesn’t seem necessary to find something to say right away.

  Near the edge of the table is a stack of more drawings. Idly, she touches the edges, lifts the top—a moat, and trees—and sees, below it, an odd map. “It looks like Texas,” she says, though she can see that the map shows castles and lakes, mountains and forests, a land of dragons.

  Dulce slides the drawing along the table closer to her and studies it for a moment. “He creates these kingdoms,” she says. “He reads fantasies. Or used to. He hasn’t been doing it so much lately.” She places the paper back on the stack, face down.

  “Is it just the two of you?” Maggie asks. She is slightly embarrassed. Jay has talked about Gus for a couple of years, has been to his home, swapped comic books, but Maggie has, at most, spoken to Dulce a few times on the phone, said hello at school events, passed her without attention at Rachel’s, and never had the slightest curiosity about her. Yet she has extraordinary looks: amazing hair and eyes, a voluptuousness that she seems to take matter-of-factly, and a way of regarding you, a gaze, that calms and invites confidence, without giving anything away.

  Dulce nods, looking away slightly. “For a long time,” she says. She gestures toward the upside-down drawing. “That’s where his father is now. Texas. The map. I guess he’s thinking about his dad.”

  “Oh!” Maggie exclaims. A chill runs down her neck. “That’s so strange!”

  Dulce regards her passively, but Maggie rushes to explain. “Because that’s where Mo is, too. Jay’s father.” Dulce gives the slightest nod, asks nothing, and sips her coffee, but Maggie rushes on as if commanded to give details. “He has a friend there, from the army. He has this job—” On and on she goes, like a toy wound tight, talking and talking, as Dulce calmly finishes her coffee. “Jay is so upset.” She recounts his recent misadventures. “I don’t know what I should do. Maybe Mo will come up to get him. I didn’t want to go to Texas. I don’t think I want to go—I don’t know what I should do—”

  She hears herself babbling. “Do you know what time it is?”

  Dulce turns around to read a little clock on the stove. “A quarter to five,” she says.

  “Oh no, I’ve got to go. My mother-in-law—there’s this other baby—”

  Dulce gets up with her. “Texas is not the end of the world, is it?”

  “But it has dragons, remember?” She has a fierce urge to hug Dulce. Then she thinks: “You never said why you were at school. Was Gus in trouble, too?”

  “They want to send my son to the college for three weeks to study Spanish,” Dulce says. “They want him to be Mexican.” For some reason, that makes her laugh. “I might as well send him to Texas, too.”

  “Oh Maggie!” Polly says. She looks more frazzled than Maggie can ever remember seeing her since Mo’s father died. Stevie is on the living room floor, nested in an enormous pile of toys and pots, bowls and books. The baby, in the hall crib, cries in shrill bursts, stopping to gulp, whimper, then explode again. “All I asked you to do was pick up a loaf of bread!” Maggie turns and runs to the car. When she comes back with milk and bread and a quart of strawberries, Polly is draining spaghetti, and Jay is setting the table. Stevie is in her high chair, chewing on a chunk of cheese. The baby is asleep. Maggie has decided that the best thing is to pretend that nothing is wrong. She doesn’t know what else to do.

  Polly empties the spaghetti into a dish and comes to put her arm around Maggie. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she says. Maggie squeezes her waist. The bad moment is gone, but the baby is not. Polly had to know this would happen, but it didn’t keep her from taking the baby.

  Polly turns the TV so she can watch the news as they eat. Jay moves his spaghetti around with his fork and steals glances at Maggie. Maggie makes much of helping Stevie with her messy meal. Then she takes her children to their own beds in the cottage, opens a book she is too sleepy to read, and waits for Mo to call.

  “What do you think?” she asks him when she has explained about the counseling groups.

  “I think I should come soon. They mean well, but we need to solve our own problems.”

  “I wish we were in a book with a really good ending.”

  She’s glad he doesn’t make fun of her.

  He just says, “Maybe we are.”

  Dulce reads her dream book, and tells herself she will know what to do, when it’s time.

  Gus is working on his map. He has to know she can see it, see that it is Texas, so he probably expects her to say something, but unless she’s angry, she is a person who holds her opinion close and waits until she knows the best thing to say. She washes and dresses for bed. “Don’t stay up too late,” she tells her son. He tells her good night and raises his face to her kiss.

  She has an idea. “What will you be doing Saturday?”

  He shrugs. “Hanging out.”

  “With Hilario?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you ask your friend Jay along? Is there any reason you couldn’t do that?”

  Gus shakes his head, but it isn’t really an answer. “He’s really weird lately,” he says. He considers the matter a moment longer. “Sure, okay.”

  He waits until she is in her room to say one more thing. “I’m going to write Dad.”

  She nods, even though he can’t see her. “You should,” she says. And so should I.

  Dulce says she dreams tales she knows her father told her when she was a small child. Like the chicken party.

  The boy’s grandmother tells him to kill a chicken for dinner. He creeps out to the yard in front of their house where the chickens scratch in the dirt. All over the yard he runs, until he is tired and excited, until the chickens, too, are tired, until they run together in a huddle like turkeys and make a mound, their black chicken eyes fixed on him. He has never killed a chicken, but he has watched his abuela and his mama, and he knows he must wring the neck. From inside the open door of the small house, his grandmother calls out, Salvador, bring me the chicken. He reaches into the mound, and the world blurs with flying feathers. The air fills with the sounds of squawks and flapping, and when he is done, he has killed eight chickens.

  Oh now his mama will say his name shamefully, and his grandmother will put him on his pallet all day and all night. He weeps over the chickens at his feet. He cries, so sorry! I feel it so much! But when the women come from the house and see what he has done, they hold their sides, laughing. They cry out, Oh no, Salvador, all the chickens? They call their neighbors on all sides, they make a feast.

  Dulce says: When I wake from such a dream, I can remember my father the boy, but I cannot well remember the father of the girl Dulce. When he left, I was younger than Gus is now. He went away, back to Zacatecas, because his mother was dying. Like Hilario’s father, in May; oh, now that made me remember lying on my bed in the dark, listening for his step. He went away, and he never returned. My mother never spoke of it. She’s smart, and she worked hard. She learned to be a medical clerk in a hospital. She said, we speak only English now. When I was thirteen, she married a man she met at the hospital, a respiratory therapist. When I was sixteen, and she was pregnant with my sister, I met
Gustavo. He had come up for the pear harvest. He had long silky hair and he said things to me in Spanish I had never heard. He said he would be my lover and best friend, my father and my brother. He said he would take me away from my Anglo stepfather’s house, to my own house, and I believed him.

  When I dream of Gustavo, he sings to me. When I dream of Papa, he is a boy.

  Dulce heard Gus let himself out quickly. She looked at the clock. Eight-fifteen. She had no work today—no paid work—but she had promised Lupe she would take her and the babies to the Clínica in the next town. (Lupe loved the U.S. idea of the well-baby checkup.) She should wash clothes, shop, mend. She wanted to cook a special chicken dish for supper, simply because there was time. Maybe a movie. Like a holiday; after all, it was Friday. Maybe there would be time for a nap. She stretched. A nap would be so pleasant—she had to laugh—even if she was just getting up!

  She fluffed her pillow and checked inside the case for the two hundred dollars Gustavo sent her. She had not decided what to do with it. Her car was falling apart, her stove had only one burner, Gus needed jeans and shoes, but the money wasn’t quite real. She didn’t know if she would need it more, later. She had sent him a postcard recently:

  Gustavo, the money is here. I am glad you are with

  your family. I will write, but I need time.

  She washed her face with cold water and brushed her hair with long hard strokes. All week she wore it in a long braid, but at night, and on a day like this, a day of her own, she brushed it out and felt it on her shoulders and back and around her face where the short wisps escaped. Gustavo used to run his hands over and through her hair. He used to bury his face in it and take deep draughts of its scent. He bought her shampoos that smelled of flowers. He said he loved her right away for her hair, though her hair had been bound up in a net the first time he saw her behind the counter at the cafe.