The Secret Side of Empty (12 page)

My left eyelid does a little twitch.
Let’s please not start with immigration
. Not today.

“Can anyone name any famous descendants of immigrants?”

Is she kidding?

A hand goes up. “John F. Kennedy?”

“Yes, very good. The Kennedy family emigrated to the U.S. in the nineteenth century. Anyone else?”

“Rudy Giuliani?”

“That’s right, Mr. Giuliani is second-generation American. Anyone else?”

I try to control myself, but I can’t. I blurt out without raising my hand, “Ummm . . . everyone?”

“What’s that, dear? Speak up.”

“Everyone? Everyone is an immigrant.”

“Yes, dear, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is who is a descendant of immigrants who came over in the big immigration boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” She starts looking around for another raised hand.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what, dear?”

“Why do we only want to hear about them?”

“Because that’s what we’re studying right now.”

“What about immigration today?”

“Oh, it’s dire straits that we’re in today, I can tell you that.”

Now I want to pick a fight. “Why?”

“Immigrants today are just not like what they used to be in our grandparents’ time.”

“How’s that?” Heads start to turn in my direction. It is extremely not like me to get up in a teacher’s face, little NHS, straight-A me.

“Well, they don’t want to learn the language, for one,” she says. “And they just don’t have the work ethic. Just waiting for a handout. Take John F. Kennedy’s grandfather, P. J. He left school at fourteen to go work on the docks to help support his sisters and mother, and died a rich man.”

“And his son made his money in bootlegging and slept with movie stars although he was married, right?”

“Young lady, that’s hardly relevant. What we’re talking about is that our system today is overloaded and we can’t keep taking all these people who are sneaking across the border like thieves in the night. If they could just do it like our grandparents did—”

“I’m not feeling well, Ms. Cronell, I’d like to go to the bathroom.” It is a statement, not a request, and as I grab my bookbag, I nearly tip my desk over. I right it as I walk out of the room, fifteen pairs of eyes following me.

I go sit in the library and pretend I’m doing work. No one questions me. I don’t know what else to do, so I fire up the dic-tionary.

Parochial—[puh-
roh
-kee-uhl]

1. -Of or pertaining to a parish or parishes.

2. -Of or pertaining to parochial schools or the education they provide.

3. Very limited or narrow in scope or outlook; provincial.

“
S
o, Friday . . .” I say to Chelsea.  “Yes. We should just be at the mall and then you go meet him for the movie.”

“But not with you? That feels weird.”

“Yeah, we’ll shop, then I’ll leave and you meet him. But I’ll wait in the parking lot for a little in case he turns out to be . . . I don’t know. Whatever. In case you need a ride home.”

“He won’t turn out to be whatever.”

“I know,” she says, and squeezes my hand.

I write Nate on Facebook from Chelsea’s computer. “How about the theater at the mall? More options.”

The reply comes right back. “Sure. What do u want to see?”

“I don’t know. The sappiest chick flick they have.”

“Ummm . . . :-( ”

“Kidding.”

“How about the alien movie?” he writes.

“With that guy who was dating the chick with the tattoo on her face?” I ask.

“I’m not familiar with his love life. ;-)” He uses a lot of emoticons for a guy.

“Anyway, yes, I’ll watch the alien movie.”

“Okay, cool. Want me to pick you up?”

“No, I’ll already be at the mall.”

“K, see u there.”

On Friday, I wear jeans and new shoes I bought on the strip with my tutoring money. Chelsea drags me to the Macy’s beauty counter and chats up the makeup lady so that she’ll do my eyes. To keep her motivated, Chelsea buys three lipsticks and a stick of glow lotion that costs enough to keep my family in lentils for a year. She hands the credit card over to the woman behind the counter and turns to study my eyes.

“They’re perfect. Catches all the green on the edges, makes them all sparkly,” says Chelsea.

The makeup counter woman puffs up and smiles. It surprises me. She’s looked like kind of a hard-ass until now with her frown and her harsh-sounding Eastern European accent. She says, “Perhaps some of the gloss? We have this wonderful new one that makes you look like you’ve had lip injections.”

My lips are inadequate. Of course.

Chelsea squints at it. “No, not the lip-puffers, M. They burn like you just spread hot sauce on your lips. Which normally I would allow as an acceptable price for cute lips, but not when there might be kissing in near future.”

“You think there might be kissing?”

“Kissing is definitely an option,” she says. She grabs a different gloss and hands it to the woman, who dabs it on me. Chelsea buys that, too. She turns to the makeup counter woman and says, “She’s going on a first date.”

The makeup lady smiles again. “He is a lucky one,” she says.

I look at myself in the lit-up round mirror. I hope so.

We walk halfway to the theater and Chelsea stands in front of me. “My work here is done,” she says. “You look awesome.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’ll have him drop you off at my house, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you can tell me every little thing. I would hug you, but I don’t want to mess up any of this perfection you’ve got going on.” She waves her hand in a big circle in front of my face, then hands me one of the bags from the makeup counter.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“The lip gloss. Some eyeliner, I don’t know, a couple of things. In case you need to refresh.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“You can’t show up there empty-handed. You have to look like you were having a busy day and then just happened to pop over to watch a movie.”

“You’re funny.”

“Go!” she says, turning me around and giving me a little shove.

“See you later,” I call over my shoulder.

I see Nate before he sees me. God, he’s cute. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, which I didn’t expect, and a leather jacket and jeans.

“Hey, Facebook friend! It’s nice to finally see you in person again,” he says.

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

“You ready for some exploding aliens?”

“You know it.”

He buys our tickets and waves away my money when I try to offer it. I watch him and hope he doesn’t pick up on me staring at him. If he was staring at me that way, I think I’d feel it with my peripheral vision. But he seems intent on being nice to the ticket lady. Inside, he buys me popcorn and a soda, plus Twizzlers to share.

He hands me the tickets and picks up all our stuff.

“You want me to get some of that popcorn?” I ask.

“Nope, just lead the way.”

“Okay,” I say. No one has ever carried my popcorn for me. I’m in a little bit of a fog until I’m standing by the front row of the movie theater.

He wrinkles up his nose a little. “Do you really want to sit this close?”

I look around, finally noticing where I am. “No, not really. Just wanted to see . . .” I don’t even want to explain that I was too busy thinking about how he was carrying my popcorn and being so nice to me and totally forgot to look for seats.

I walk back about ten rows. “How about here?”

“Perfect. You like it in the middle?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. You sit down and I’ll hand you your stuff.”

There is a little part of me that is expecting a camera crew to jump out and everyone to start laughing because I am the unwitting victim in a show called, “Did You Really Think He Was Being This Nice to You for Real?” But he waits while I take off my jacket and sit down before gently handing me my popcorn and drink and letting me hold the Twizzlers.

The trailers start and I have no idea what any of them are saying. I am throbbing with the proximity of this very sweet, very polite boy. I can smell the laundry detergent on his clothes and something else . . . what is that? Is that cologne? Or maybe just his deodorant. I do a slight swoon at the idea of him getting all nice-smelling for me.

This is a date, right? It’s officially a date. It’s only the two of us here. I shovel popcorn in my mouth. God, he must think I’m a pig. I wonder what I smell like. I hope I don’t smell sweaty and disgusting. I hope I’m not breathing funny from my heart pounding this way. I hope I . . .

I finish the popcorn by the first explosion, right before the opening credits. I put my hand on the armrest. I feel electricity shooting from my hand to him, like those glass balls you put your hands on and the plasma makes shooting purple streaks to your hands. I can feel him, the cells of him. Can he feel me? He seems very cool and collected.

He moves his hand and intertwines his fingers with mine.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

Oh.

My.

God.

I briefly consider whether my heart will stop from all this galloping.

“Yes.” I smile.

We hold hands for the whole movie. I have no idea what the movie is about. But that hardly matters. He picks up every bit of trash and walks it over to the garbage can when the movie is over.

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
AFTER
COMING
HOME
FROM
C
HELSEA
’
S
,
I am sitting at the kitchen table watching Jose stare at his dry toast when my father walks in and says to me, “So I guess you’re not going to school anymore.” Almost like he’s happy about it.

“What?” I say. It makes me so mad and scared I forget that my usual way of dealing with him is to ignore him all together.

“Jorge, let’s not start with this again,” says my mother, not looking up from the stove that she’s scrubbing to oblivion.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Those nuns raised the tuition again.”

“Yeah, so?” I say.

“So we haven’t paid them since last April. So they’re threatening to not let you take any more tests until we pay.”

I feel the magma rising up my legs and my belly and to the spot where my ribs meet in the middle.

This is not a new phenomenon, my parents being behind on tuition. In fact, I can’t remember a single year of Catholic school that I haven’t been called down to the principal’s office over the intercom and given a letter with red late stamps to give to my parents. But somehow, they’ve always figured it out.

This seems different.

“I don’t understand. So what’s going to happen?” I ask. My torso starts to shake.

“Jorge, not now,” says my mother, with a bit of a growl I’ve never heard in her voice before.

He says, “Why not now? What’s going to happen?” Then he turns his head to me. “You’re going to stay home. That’s what’s going to happen.”

“It’s my senior year. I can’t stay home.”

“Or you can go to Argentina now.”

“I’m not going to Argentina.”

“Listen, you better not start smart-mouthing me.”

“I’m not smart-mouthing you. I’m telling you I’m not dropping out of high school.”

“High school? What good is it going to do you? What do you care if you stop going to school now or six months from now? School is over for you. You’re done.”

“Jorge, if you just picked up another shift—”

He raises the volume. “No, I don’t need to pick up another shift. What shift? There are no more shifts.”

“Another restaurant, then—”

“Listen, I don’t need you nagging me. And you.” He looks at me. I brace for the smack, but it doesn’t come. “You little spoiled brat. Demanding things.” He turns back to my mother. “It’s this country, you know. This country makes kids snotty and disrespectful. In Argentina, if you acted like this you’d learn really quick who’s the boss.”

“I’m not demanding anything.” Maybe if I stay calm. Maybe if I reason with him. “I’m just saying that I can’t drop out of high school. I . . . what would I do?”

“Oh, please, you don’t need the garbage those nuns are poisoning your mind with. You can learn on your own. Education is not about school, let me tell you that. You don’t need a fancy degree to be somebody.”

“It’s not that, it’s . . .” If he doesn’t get it, I am out of words to explain it to him. I consider screaming, too, but this is beyond screaming.

I go stand by my mother, who is scrubbing the stove like she’s about to peel off the paint and find a treasure map under it. “Are you just going to let him do this?” I ask.

“Don’t worry about this, Monserrat Thalia, okay? Go to your room.”

I don’t trust that I will be able to control myself if I start yelling, so I listen to her and go to my room. I am too mad to kick things, or to move. I look at Jose’s
SpongeBob
pillow, the one I bought him with my tutoring money. He’s written his name on it in marker on one corner. It makes me want to cry.