Irises (18 page)

“I don't know if we can live by ourselves. Don't we need an adult living with us?”

“I guess your sister will need to be declared your guardian. She's an adult. You're not
legally
an adult, but you're old enough to take care of yourself, or you should be, anyhow.” That was Aunt Julia's way of joking.

“Promise me you'll think real hard about staying with us.” Mary looked at the envelope on the table. “We can live off the insurance money and maybe even pay you for taking care of Mama while we're away.”

Aunt Julia's eyes lit up for a brief second. “Oh no,” she said quickly, “I wouldn't do it for any money.”

“But you promise me you'll think about it. Really conside
r it
.”

“I promise. But maybe you should have asked your sister first. I'm not so sure she would like the idea of living with me on a permanent basis.”

“Kate likes you, Aunt Julia. She has a lot of pressure on her right now, with school and everything. And
.
.
. our papa just died. People mourn in different ways. Kate may seem distant and even angry sometimes, but that's just her way of dealing with sadness.”

“I guess you're right. And who can blame her for being gloomy when the church where your father worked for twenty years is putting you out on the street?”

Mary looked at Aunt Julia without any expression on
her face
.

“Oh, go on, change and go paint. My favorite show is coming on.”

Mary put on an old T-shirt and her painting overalls and then went to check on Mama one more time. She reminded herself to move and massage her legs in an hour or so.

Out in the backyard, Mary stared hopelessly at her painting of the irises. A sinking feeling came over her every time she looked at it. Where did the pleasure of painting go? Who took it away? It made her angry to feel that way about painting. She wished she could feel excited about painting, the way she used to feel.

She had just begun to listlessly mix colors on the palette when she heard a whistle from the Domínguezes' house. She took a deep breath. She wasn't in the mood to make conversation with anyone, much less with nosy Mr. Domínguez. But when she turned around, she saw Marcos instead. “What are you doing there?” she asked.

“I saw you from the street.”

“You saw me from the street? You can't see my backyard from the street.”

“Yeah, you can. If you drive real slow and lean your head way out of the car, you can. I saw you coming out of the shed.” He grinned. “I was driving by to see a friend who lives over o
n Dale.”

“You don't have to come through my street to get to Dale.”

“Your street?”

“That street.” Mary pointed toward the front of the house. But he stood there very sure of himself, as if he was waiting for Mary to realize that he had come looking for her. “And why are you in Mr. Domínguez's yard? Do you just walk into people's yards whenever you want?”

“I'm not hurting anything. I'm just standing here talking t
o you.”

“What if Mr. Domínguez comes out?”

“If he comes out, he comes out. He's not going to shoot m
e, is he?”

She reached down to the ground and picked up the wooden box with her paint tubes and brushes. Then she stood there not knowing what to do. She looked at the painting and realized she was not going to paint. “You just — shouldn't do that,” she managed to say.

“Can I come over?”

“Where?”

“There.” He pointed to where she was standing.

“Here?” She looked down at her feet. She could hear her heart thump. “Why?”

“Just in case the guy that lives here decides to shoot me.” He sounded as if he was teasing her.

“Why did you come here? Really.” She lowered the paint box to the ground.

“Okay, so I wasn't on my way to see my friend. I need to ask you something. But I don't want to talk to you from someone else's backyard. What I need to say won't take long.” He sounded sincere.

“Ask me what?” Was he going to ask her to go out with him?

She must have had a very scared look on her face, for he said, smiling as if he had read her mind, “Don't worry. It's business.”

“Business?”

“It has to do with painting,” he said.

She hesitated and then gave in to a new and unaccustomed impulse. “Okay.”

She started walking toward the gate to the backyard, but he took a few steps back and then leapt over the fence. “
Ay!
” h
e sa
id as he landed in front of her. There was a mixture of self-satisfaction and pain on his face.

She stepped away from him. “That was silly,” she said, even though she was amazed by his feat. The fence stood as high as his chest.

“Is there a place we can sit down? I think I just twisted something.”

She pointed to the wooden chairs under the willow tree. He limped toward them and sat down. He took off his black shoes. “Look,” he said, pulling down his sock, “the ankle's starting to swell. Would you get me a bag of ice?”

“I don't think so,” she said.

“Oh. Okay.” He rubbed the ankle.

“What is it you wanted to ask me?”

“You seemed nicer that day when I drove you home.”

She remembered that day and that ride with him. “I didn't mean to be,” she said.

He tried to stand up, grimaced with pain, and sat back down. “I can't believe I landed crooked. Usually I clear fences without any problem.”

“When you're running from the police?”

“You're funny,” he said, grinning. “And strange.”

“Strange?”

“I mean you talk strange. Most people would say ‘cops,' but you say ‘police.' You don't use words like other kids.”

She stayed quiet. She always stayed quiet when people called her strange. Kate thought they were weird too, because they didn't talk like anyone else. But what was strange about saying
police
instead of
cops
?

“I didn't mean to offend,” he said. He stood up. He had left his shoe off and was now holding it in his hand.

“I don't hear you using the words kids use either, whatever those are.”

“That's cause I try to clean up my act when I'm around you.” He took a step on the bad foot. “Ouch!”

“I'll get you some ice,” she said.

“No, really. I'll drive home. It's my left ankle, so I can still push the accelerator and the brake with my right foot.”

He began to hop to the gate. Mary blurted, “You didn't say why you were here. You said you had something to ask me.”

“Oh yeah. To be honest, part of the reason I came was because I wanted to see you, you know, kind of get to kno
w you.”

She tried to hide any expression that she was flattered. “And the other part?”

“The other part is kind of hard to explain.” He was havi
ng troub
le keeping his balance on one foot. “Mind if I sit down again for a second?” He hopped back to the chair, s
at d
own, and looked up at her. “It's real hard to talk to you when you're way up there.” He reached out and moved the other chair toward her.

She looked at the painting of the irises on the easel, then walked over slowly and sat down. He was looking at the space between his feet, and he began slowly, like he was embarrassed about what he had to say. “Turns out that I was told I have to do a mural on one of the outside walls of this community center over in Socorro.” He waited for her to ask him a question, but she didn't. “Anyway, I never done a mural before. All I've done is these drawings and some
.
.
. you know, signs and stuff on walls.”

“You mean graffiti.”

“Yeah. Anyway, the reason I came, part of the reason I came”
— he smiled
— “was to see if you could help me with the mural, you know, give me some pointers. I'll do it. I mean, I got to. But I don't even know where to start.”

Mary could see Aunt Julia standing behind the screen door, snooping. From the expression on Aunt Julia's face, she wasn't sure what to make of Mary talking to a boy, especially a boy with only one shoe. Mary stared at her until she disappeared into the house. “Why do you have to paint a mural?”

Marcos turned to follow Mary's gaze, but Aunt Julia was no longer there. He sniffed and then cracked his right index finger with his left hand. “This judge told me I had to.”

“A judge? So it's like a sentence,” she said.

“You mean instead of like going to jail? Kind of. I guess I could have gone to jail. Turns out graffiti is a felony in Texas. The judge gave me a break.”

She paused to look at him closely, perhaps more closely than she had ever looked at him before. He was a weird mixture of childlike interior and tough-looking exterior, and all the pieces fit together and contradicted one another at the same time. “That's so bad.” Her voice trembled a bit.

He must have noticed the flash of fear in her eyes. He said, “Don't worry, it wasn't anything obscene or violent.”

“What difference does it make what you sprayed?”

His ankle was slowly turning purple. “It was the name of a friend of mine. His name was Carlos.”

“Why did you do that?”

“He was killed a month ago by the Calle Cuatros.” Marcos grabbed the bottom of the chair with both hands. “I
— You probably won't understand this, but marking that bus was something I needed to do.”

“Why?”

“I owed it to my friend. I wanted him to be remembered somehow. It's the only way I knew how. Do you understand?”

She thought about the portrait of Mama she had painted before Mama's accident. “Why are you painting that? I'm s
o ugly
,” Mama had said after Mary had finally gotten her t
o pose
.

“You're beautiful, Mama, and I want to always remember you that way.”

“Do you think I'm going to turn ugly?” Mama had objected, laughing.

Mary turned to Marcos and answered his question. “Yes, I understand,” she said softly.

“Even if I didn't want to do it, I'd have to.”

“Last time you said you had no choice about being in a gang. Now you have no choice about spraying buses. Do you get to choose anything for yourself?”

“You wouldn't say that if you understood.”

“I guess I don't understand, then.”

“Being in a gang is the best way some of us have to survive. You don't know,” he said quietly. “There's not a whole bunch of choices where I live.”

“I know there's always a choice,” she said.

“Yeah, you're right.” There was regret in his voice. “It was
a mistake
for someone like me to come here.” He started to lift himself out of the chair, but he stumbled and grabbed on to her.

She held on to his arm for a few moments until he steadied himself, her heart suddenly thumping again. Then she let go of him. She stood up and walked to the gate with him, far enough away that he wouldn't think she was encouraging him to lean on her. When they got there, she opened the gate. He stepped through and then she asked, “What kind of help were you looking for? For the mural?”

He stopped hobbling. His eyes lit up for an instant. “I was hoping you'd take a ride with me to Socorro some day after school or a Saturday and give me some pointers. I'm good with spray cans, but I don't know anything about brush painting. I think the mural needs to be done with brushes because the wall is big and we'd need about a zillion spray cans to spray-paint it.”

“Did they tell you what to paint?”

“The guy who runs the community center says it's up to me, so long as it's clean and I tell him what I'm going to do beforehand.”

“Well, what are you thinking of doing?”

“I don't have the slightest. I'm not good at drawing people
. I l
ike to draw the kind of designs I showed you back in school. I'm going to stay away from people if I can
.
.
. and horses.” H
e grinned
. “Maybe some mountains with a lake a
nd some boats
.”

“Are you sure that's appropriate for El Paso?” she said. “It's all desert around here, remember.”

“See, that's why I need someone like you, to help me come up with some ideas and then tell me how to do it.”