The Secret Side of Empty (9 page)

“What ever happened with that business your parents were building in Argentina?”

“I don’t know.”

“You always told me they were sending all their money over there and that’s why you couldn’t . . .” Suddenly she looks embarrassed. She just says, “Remember?”

“No.” But that’s a lie. I do remember.

When I was little, my father would come home and hand his tips over to my mother. Before they started cutting off the electricity. Before my father started staying away more and more hours. Before he started walking in through the door like his feet weighed a ton. Back then, my mother would take his tips and put them in a big old metal box that was drilled into the wall in a kitchen cabinet, because my mother said thieves never looked in the kitchen. The box was hidden behind bags of lentils and some cans.

One day, my mother and father took all the money out of the box and handed it over to their friend, whom I called Tio Roberto. He used to come over for dinner every Sunday and they would talk for hours about the business they would build back home. Tio Roberto was going to be their partner. The business would make us all rich and would help us move back to be with the family my parents always missed so much.

It must have been about a year after that when I walked into the kitchen to see my father holding his head in his hands, his elbows on the chipping table, my mother’s arms around him. I must have been about nine, because I remember it was one of the first times I was allowed to walk home from school alone.

“What happened, Ma?”

“Nothing,” said my father.

“We might as well tell her, Jorge.” Turning to me, she said, “It’s Tio Roberto and the business. Our business is gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“Gone. Just . . . Tio Roberto stopped calling us and stopped answering when we called. And today we sent my sister’s husband over to talk to him and the business was closed down. Just gone. Everything.”

My father made a weird noise, his head still in her arms.

“But he has to give us our money back, right?”

“We can try, but I don’t think so,” said my mother. “I don’t know what we can do from so far away if we can’t even find him.”

“Are we moving back to Argentina now? Maybe you can find him and make him give us back our money.”

“We can’t go back like this,” said my father, muffled.

“Like what?” I said.

“We came here with nothing. We can’t go back with nothing after all these years.”

“Monserrat Thalia, don’t worry about it. Go do your homework,” said my mother.

And that was the last I ever heard about our business. But I don’t want to tell Chelsea any of that.

She’s still talking, keeping both hands on the wheel as a giant tractor-trailer passes by us. Chelsea says, “I can’t tell you how many times I went home and cried to my mom about all the times you told me you were moving down there. And she always used to tell me that if you really moved, we’d visit you.”

“I never knew that.”

“Yeah, well, if that’s what you wanted to do, I wanted to be happy for you.”

“You’re crazy. I’m not going anywhere.” I wonder if I told her the truth now how she would react. I want to tell her. I start to figure out the sentence in my mind. But I can’t get over the thought that she would pull back in disgust that she’s been having a sneaky little illegal in her life all this time. That somehow I’ve infiltrated her pure, perfect, charmed life and made it dirty.

“Not even college, apparently.”

“Ooooh, burn. Score one, Miss O’Hara. What’s with all the parental college pushing?”

“It’s just going to be so weird not being together next year. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I think.”

“Plus you’re so smart. I just want you to . . . you know. Whatever. You force me to sound like a dweeb.”

I poke her with my elbow affectionately. “To be honest, it doesn’t take that much forcing.” She laughs. “Come on,” I say. “We need some sugar.”

“Agreed,” she says, as I reach into the backseat to the giant stash she brought and breathe a sigh of relief that she’s letting us drop the school conversation.

I
T
’
S
ABOUT
6:00
P
.
M
.
WHEN
WE
FINALLY
ROLL
THROUGH
THE
HUGE
STONE
GATES
.
For a minute, it looks like we’re really in a Disney princess movie or a medieval fairy tale. The buildings all look like perfect Gothic castles, tall spires reaching up past postcard orange and red trees. I love it so much I hate it.

The Red Bull I had on the way in the hopes of getting myself more “up” for this is making my heart pound. Siobhan is waiting for us in red Abercrombie sweatpants and a hoodie. She hops in the backseat.

“You made it,” she says. “I’m so excited! We’re going to have a great time!” I think I like her even less when she’s happy. It’s like watching a reptile dance.

Then she spots my Red Bull and points to it. “Do you love Red Bull? I love Red Bull. I don’t think I’d be surviving college without it. You know?” Then she grabs my forearm and talks ten thousand words a minute like she’s just had twelve Red Bulls.

At least someone will be jumpier than I am.

“So first, there’s this a cappella thing that I said we’d go to. My boyfriend’s in it; you can meet him. Then there’s the party at Psi. But we can’t stay out late because I’ve got class tomorrow morning. You coming . . . M.T.?”

Eeek. She’s trying.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Awesome! You’re going to love my professor. She’s the coolest.”

She shows us where to park and puts a visitor’s pass on the dashboard, and we take the long walk to her dorm room. I’ve never seen a college campus before and it makes me ache more than ever to know I won’t be able to go. The buildings are even prettier up close, with gargoyles and architectural details in stone, statues that look a gazillion years old. We walk up to a building with ivy growing up its walls—ivy, of course—and Siobhan leads us inside.

At least the inside looks like it’s seen better days. It gives me a flash of wicked satisfaction. The overhead fluorescents are awful, and the paint looks as bad as any apartment I’ve ever lived in. The industrial-strength carpet is worn through in the middle of the path, mysterious black stains spotting it. Siobhan leads us through the maze, left, then right, no views of the outside world, until I have no idea which direction I’m walking. Then she stops at a door that looks like every other door, covered with a message board with things stuck and drawn on it. Siobhan’s says: “Hi Cuz!!” and “Hello, Siobhan’s Cousin!” and “Study group changed to 11:00 tomorrow,” and “Tracy let me borrow your charger. Come snatch it back. B.” and “TB, your band blows.” This last one Siobhan rubs off with her index finger.

“Home sweet home,” she says, swinging her door open and letting us in first.

Inside, it’s like you’d expect Siobhan to live if she got sent to white-collar prison for starving her slaves or something. She’s got cinder-block walls, but she’s made them fashionable some-how. There’s a Monet and an inspirational quote. She’s got very clean-looking white curtains. Her desk is immaculate, with color-coordinated accessories, like
Better College Dorms and Desktops
is on its way for a photo shoot. It’s tight quarters, but everything is in matching Container Store so-chic plastic boxes of various sizes. You can see a mile away that she’s gotten Top Bunk, because her beige comforter with tiny pink roses is neatly spread over it.

“Sorry about my roommate. She’s such a slob,” Siobhan says, kicking some shoes under the bottom bunk. The bottom bunk has a camouflage bedspread and a poster that says, “My karma ran over your dogma and your dogma had to be put to sleep.”

I like the roommate already.

“Where’s your other roommate, Siobhan?” asks Chelsea.

“The other one went home for the weekend,” says Siobhan. Her ears flame red again in a flash and I remember the Spanish roommate from the Bronx. Her bed is covered in a plain blue comforter that looks too short. A chunk of bare sheet shows at the bottom.

Siobhan and Chelsea are off and running talking about holidays, dinners, family stuff. I take a minute to look around the room. I get a wild urge to put my nose up against her walls and take a long sniff, to inhale them, to suck this place in, to make it live in my lungs when I get found out for the imposter I am and get escorted off the premises, out of the state, and out of the country.

“So, do you, M.T.?” It’s the first time I’ve heard Siobhan say my name not-reluctantly.

“Do I what?”

“Do you need to take a shower before we go out?”

“I . . . guess.”

“I hope you brought flip-flops like I told you to. Those swim team girls are brutes with mushrooms growing between their toes.”

I don’t own any flip-flops. Maybe not so much with the shower, then.

“It’s okay, M, you can borrow mine,” says Chelsea.

We shower and change into jeans and T-shirts with hoodies. We’re only a couple of hours north of the city, but it’s way colder, and the damp spot in my hair by the nape of my neck gets icy cold on the walk from Siobhan’s dorm, across the quad, down a path behind some buildings, around a bend, and into a building and a big, vaulted ceiling room. It looks like a church gone rogue, all the architecture but none of the statues designed to make you feel guilty. There is a fire burning in an enormous fireplace tall enough to walk into.

There is a little wooden stage and a bunch of uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs arranged facing it. A cluster of guys is standing between the stage and the chairs. Siobhan goes all “happy girlfriend” mode on us. “There’s Josh,” she whispers, like she’s just told us the juiciest secret ever.

I can only describe Josh as a blond bear, with a big, almost squarish chest and beady blue eyes. It seems he is covered with blond fur. I’ve never seen a blond furry person. I associate furry with dark hair.

Blond Bear walks over and intertwines his fingers with Siobhan’s effortlessly, almost like scratching his forearm. A couple of his friends follow him. They’re all in white button-down shirts.

“Josh, this is my cousin Chelsea and her friend M.T.”

“Chelsea.” Josh nods in her direction. Then he looks at me. “Empty?”

The friends make that weird man-giggle that guys do. I know Josh is not being particularly nice, but I kind of like “Empty.” I’ve never thought of that before, surprisingly. For all my stellar grades, I actually stink at word games and figuring out what initials stand for. I seriously think it’s, like, the one “English-as-a-second-language” quirk I’ve got. I’m a little disappointed in Quinn “Is-her-name-Mousy-Rat” Ford and her crew for not coming up with this one.

Empty. It could mean a lot of things. Devoid. Unburdened. Without baggage.

“Yeah, it’s a big, existential statement, my name,” I say.

Chelsea says, “M. Period. T. Period.”

“Oh, so you’re, like, too T. S. Eliot to have a whole name?” says one of the friends.

“Maybe you just haven’t scored high enough to hear it yet,” I say, deadpan.

The friends laugh nervously, and one of them backhandedly smacks Josh in the chest and says, “Let’s go, it’s time to get started.”

Siobhan grabs Chelsea and drags her to the front row. I follow reluctantly, only because I know I won’t be able to find my way back to Siobhan’s dorm on my own.

In a little bit, the white-shirted bunch gets up on the wooden stage. It’s only about as tall as a milk crate. It creaks.

They begin. Some of them start saying, “A-wee-mah-weh, a-wee-mah-weh, a-wee-mah-weh, a-wee-mah-weh.” Some other guy starts wailing, “Weee.” All of a sudden, Josh belts out with something about a lion and a jungle.

I sideways glance at Siobhan. She’s got a rock-star-is-in-the-house glow in her eyes.

There’s an awkward retro weirdness to the whole thing. If I didn’t want to leave so much, maybe I’d think it kind of sounds cool. It’s amazing how they all sing different parts but sound like one whole song, almost like an orchestra of voices. But what kind of guy wants to sit around with a bunch of other guys and sing without instruments? If you can sing, shouldn’t you do some kind of chick-magnet rock-band thing? Instead of this barbershop quartet, super-unhip gig? I glance around as much as I can without moving my neck to see if anyone is laughing at them, but everyone seems to be into it.

Strange land, this college.

I will always be a stranger everywhere. With my parents, I am too American. With Americans, I am a spectator with my nose pressed against their windowpanes, watching their weird rituals and rites of passage, never quite understanding them completely. A little chunk of me will always be a stranger everywhere, different chunks of stranger in different situations.

They do a pretty cool “Bohemian Rhapsody” and a downright sweet “California Dreamin’.” Nothing from this century. Finally they step off the stage and there is some polite clapping. I am surprised at the little flame of “Come back” that jumps up in my heart before I remind myself how stupid the whole thing is.