Behind
THURSDAY. A NORMAL DAY. Back at school. At the end of the day when I met Sam at her locker, some asshole walked by and gave her this really lecherous look. I flipped him the bird and stared him down.
“You’re feisty today,” Sam said.
“I don’t like the way he looked at you.”
“So you’re paying attention to assholes these days?”
“Sorry, Sam.”
“Things didn’t use to bother you.” But then she must have seen something written on my face. “And you didn’t use to beat up on yourself either.”
“Maybe I did,” I said. “Maybe I just hid it well.”
“Aww, Salvie.” She leaned over and kissed my shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
Home. That’s where Mima was. She’d come back home to Las Cruces.
Sam and I were settling back into the school-routine thing. We were behind, so we had a lot of homework. We stayed up late every night to catch up, and somehow homework helped us both. Sam was fiercely determined to keep up her GPA. She was little bit crazy. “No B’s,” she said, “Just A’s.”
“I’m good with B’s,” I said.
“Don’t settle,” she said.
“I’m not settling,” I said. “I just don’t want to make myself crazy.”
“I’m already fucking crazy.” She flipped the page on the book she was studying. “And you’re not far behind.”
“LOL,” I said. It was no use talking to her. I wished she’d go back to buying shoes or something. She was all over the map with those emotions of hers. Studying helped her focus. So I guess it was okay that she was diving into the waters of homework. At least she knew how to swim there. And somehow, because she was all over the map, it helped me not be all over the map. That didn’t make sense, but me and Sam, what we had, well, it had a logic all its own.
Dad had been working a lot. Said he was behind. Yeah, behind—everyone was behind.
And it had been really cold—which wasn’t normal for this time of year. What was up with the weather? No bueno.
I watched Sam as she read. Her eyes were as sad as they were fierce. Dad was talking to Mima on his cell. He was wearing a look. I have a word for that look: concerned. And I was wondering what kind of look was on my face. I didn’t have a word for the day.
Other People’s Tragedies
SAM WALKED INTO THE KITCHEN as I was having a cup of coffee. “It’s Saturday,” she said.
“Yup.”
“New phase.”
“New phase?”
“Pawnshops.”
“Pawnshops? You’ve already gone through that phase.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes phases boomerang back.”
“Fun. History repeating itself. It’s called recidivism.”
“A word I taught you.”
“A word you live.”
“Shut up, Sally. I’m going to ignore your lack of enthusiasm. I won’t interpret it as a lack of empathy for a person in my situation.”
“Sam, sometimes you really are shamelessly manipulative.”
“Let’s just get to it, Sally. Dave’s Loans on El Paso Street. That’s our destination.”
“The one with Elvis standing out front?”
“The very one.”
“Why back to pawnshops?”
“Because, as I’ve tried to impress upon you in the past, there’s a sad story behind every item that’s for sale in pawnshops.”
“Impress upon me,” I said. “How could I forget? So we’re into sad. No, even worse, we’re into voyeurism? Looking in on or making up other people’s tragedies. Great.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“You’re weird. Fantastically weird.”
“I’m fantastically everything.” She shot me a fake smile. “Humor me.” Then she texted me. I reached for my phone and gave her one of my looks. I read her text: I’m grieving. U can deny me nothing.
I texted her back: U need a therapist.
She read the text and smiled—then put down her cell. “No,” she said. “I need other people’s tragedies.”
Mima
I WAITED FOR SAM to get ready to go to the pawnshop. She always had to get ready. “What? We’re going to run into some bad boy you may want to flirt with?” I got the look.
I decided to call Mima. I hated the waiting thing. I heard Mima’s voice.
“Hi,” I said, as if nothing were wrong.
I could almost see her smile. “I was wondering when you were going to call me.” She said things like that when she missed me.
“Sorry, Mima.”
“It’s okay.”
And then we just talked. I told her everything I could remember about what happened to Sylvia and how Sam was living with us now and how she was sad and about how I didn’t like death, and she just listened and she told me that she was sorry and that it was okay to be confused and that I should trust in God—and even though I didn’t like God lectures, I didn’t mind them when they came from Mima. Then I finally got around to asking her how she felt, was she okay, and she said she was tired all the time, and I asked her again if she was afraid.
“No, I’m not afraid.”
And then there was a silence on the phone and she said, “I want you to take care of your father.” And I wanted to say Isn’t he supposed to take care of me? but I didn’t. Then I got mad at myself: When are you going to stop being such a boy? Then I heard Mima say, “Your father is very sad.”
“I know.”
“Your father has a soft heart.”
“I know.”
“I’ve always worried about him.”
“Why?”
“Your father knows how to give. But sometimes he needs someone to give him something too.”
“Like what?”
“Love.”
“But I love him.”
“I love him too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I’m gone—”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Salvador, everyone dies. It’s a very normal thing.”
“It doesn’t feel normal. When Mrs. Diaz died in a car accident—that didn’t feel normal.”
“People die in accidents all the time.”
“That’s what Dad said.”
“Your father’s right.”
“I don’t like that. I want you to live forever.”
“Then I would be God. I don’t want to be God. That’s a sin, to want to be God. Ay, mi Salvador, we’ve talked about this before.” Mima got very quiet. Then she said, “It would be a curse to live forever. Vampires live forever. You want to be a vampire?”
We both started laughing.
And then we just started talking about other stuff. Normal stuff. What I wanted to tell her was that I didn’t care about sin or about God. I wanted to tell her that God was just a beautiful idea and I didn’t care about beautiful ideas and that He was just a word I hadn’t run into yet, hadn’t met yet, and so He was still a stranger. I wanted to tell her that she was real, and she was so much more beautiful than an idea. I know she wouldn’t like what I had to say, and I didn’t want to argue with her, so I didn’t say any of those things.
“You have to have faith,” she said.
I wished that word were my friend. “I’m trying, Mima.”
“Good,” she said. “Tomorrow, when you come, tell Samantha I want to talk to her.”
“About what?”
“I just want to talk to her.”
That meant she wasn’t going to tell me. And then I got a little upset. There was that left-out thing that was living inside me. “I’ll tell her.”
I think she could tell I was upset. “She doesn’t have her mother anymore.”
“That’s sad.”
“Just like you.”
“I don’t really remember her.”
“That’s okay. You were little. But she was beautiful, your mother. It’s hard to lose your mother.”
I thought about my letter.
“But I have Dad,” I said. “That’s enough.” I wasn’t sure that was the truth—but I wanted it to be.
“Yes, you have your dad. But he’s lonely. Did you know that?”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He doesn’t have to tell me. I’m his mother. I can see.”
When was I going to learn to see?
Me and Sam (and Pawnshops)
WHEN I TURNED off my cell, I noticed Sam in the room. I looked up at her. “Eavesdropping?”
“A little bit. I hate to see you sad,” she said.
“I hate to see you sad too,” I said.
“We can do this,” she said.
“You believe that?”
“Yes,” she said.
Faith. Sam had faith. She just didn’t let herself in on that secret.
There it was, that dorky Elvis with a microphone, greeting us outside Dave’s Loans. Sam took a selfie of her and Elvis. “Come on, give him a kiss.”
“Nope.”
“C’mon.”
“Nope.”
“My mother died.”
“Don’t start.”
“Well, she did.”
“Mine died too.”
She gave me a look. Then I gave her a look. We were definitely two very weird human beings.
So we walked into the pawnshop. It was littered with junk. Sam went straight for the jewelry. “Look at that ring.”
“Looks like an engagement ring.”
“Yup. That’s what it is. Bet she hocked it after she dumped his ass. I bet he was cheating on her.”
“Well, maybe she’s still married to the guy and they just needed the money. Maybe they lost their jobs. People are sometimes down and out.”
“I like my story better.”
“Yeah, it’s more tragic.”
“No, it’s probably closer to the truth.”
“You don’t have a high opinion of human nature, do you?”
“Your problem, Sally, is that you think everybody is like you and your dad and your Mima. I got a news flash for you.”
“Your problem, Sammy, is that you think everybody is like the bad boys you like to date.”
“For one, I don’t date bad boys anymore. And second of all, the world is full of a lot of screwed-up people.” She turned around and searched the store with her eyes. “See that? It’s a laptop. I bet some druggie stole it and hocked it.”
“That’s not legal, is it?”
“Okay, let’s say some druggie was jonesing—”
“Jonesing?”
“You know, craving his next hit.”
“How do you know these things?”
“You really do have to get out more.” She gave me one of her smirks. “You make me want to smoke.”
“Bad idea.”
“So this druggie had to pawn his laptop so he could get another hit. Either that or he owed his dealer money.”
“You really are going to be a writer.”
“Well, there are a lot of sad stories in the world.”
“And you’re going to give it your best shot at telling all of them.”
“Nobody wants to read happy stories.”
“I do.”
Then her eye fell on a tennis bracelet. “Look at all those diamonds.”
“Why do they call them tennis bracelets?”
“Because you can play tennis and not have to take it off.”
“Is that true?”
“I have no fucking idea.” She laughed.
“Man, the F word has come into your mouth with a vengeance.”
“My mother died.”
“Stop.”
She kept staring at the bracelet. “My mother had a bracelet just like that one.”
“Well, they all kind of look alike.”
“No, they don’t.”
“So?”
“I’m thinking that bracelet might have belonged to my mother.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Why is it crazy?”
“It just is.”
“Well, her bracelet wasn’t in her things.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave me a look.
“Maybe she lost it.”
“That’s definitely a possibility. One time she lost a pair of four-hundred-dollar shoes.”
“She spent four hundred dollars on a pair of shoes? That’s crazy.”
“She was like that.”
“How do you lose a pair of shoes?”
“She went dancing with some guy. She took them off. She forgot them. When she went back, surprise surprise, they were gone.”
I thought of Mima and her story of the stolen shoes. The shoes thing. Lots of tragedies in lost shoes. I kept shaking my head. “Let’s go.”
She gazed at the tennis bracelet again. “Maybe she lost it and some guy hocked it.”
“Really? Look, let’s just get out of here.”
On the way back home I kept thinking that the world was not only crazy, it was super crazy. Laptops and tennis bracelets and four-hundred-dollar shoes. Crazy. Nuts. I guess I was thinking out loud, because Sam said, “Four hundred bucks for a pair of shoes isn’t so crazy.”
“Too much money for shoes, Sammy. Did you know that when Mima was a girl, she only had one pair?”
“But that was the Stone Age.”
“You calling my Mima a dinosaur?”
“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. The world was different back then; that’s all. Today four hundred dollars for a pair of shoes—that’s nothing.”
“Well, all I can say is that I could do lots of stuff with four hundred bucks.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Stuff. I mean, I’m not into buying things.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re a cheapskate? I hate cheapskates.”
“I’m not a cheapskate. I just don’t care about money. And I guess I’m not into spending. And besides, my dad buys me everything I need. Well, some things I have to buy myself. I just don’t care. There something wrong with that?”
“Well, I’m way into spending.”
“Yeah, the whole world knows that. That’s why you never have any money.”
“Yeah, not like you, who hoards all his cash.”
“I don’t hoard it. I save it.”
“You have a bank account?”
“Yup.”
“How much money do you have?”
“Oh, I dunno, about four or five thousand dollars.”
“Holy shit!”
“I told you—I don’t like to spend. When I get money from my uncles and aunts and Mima for my birthday and Christmas and stuff like that, I put it in the bank. And my dad gives me money when I need it. I keep some of it and put the rest in the bank. I mean, it adds up. I’ve been doing that since I was about five. Saving my money.”
“God, you’re a fucking old man.”
“Stop it. Look, if you want it, I’ll give it to you.”
“I don’t want your money, Sally.”
“I’m just saying I don’t care. I’ll give it to you.”
“You really would, wouldn’t you? You’d give me all that money?”
“Sure I would.”
“You are exasperatingly sweet.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Too bad you’re not my type.”
“At this point it would be more like incest.”
She laughed. “I know. Yuck.” She gave me another one of her looks. “You are sweet,” she said. “But—”
“But what?”
“You don’t have to be sweet all the time.”
“Good, cuz I’m not.”
“But you beat yourself up over it.”
“Are you gonna be a therapist or a writer?”
“Whatever I’m gonna be, smart-ass, I’m always gonna be your best friend.”
Me and Sam and Maggie
I WAS SLEEPING WITH Maggie again. I heard Sam crying. Her room
was right across the hall, and my door was open. So Sam was close. She was close and she was far. I couldn’t stand lying there listening to her soft sobs. Dad had told me it would be that way. Up and down and up and down with the emotions thing. I got out of bed. “C’mon, Maggie.” She followed me, and I opened the door to Sam’s room. “Go on, Maggie.” Maggie walked into Sam’s room, and I shut the door.
Sam needed Maggie more than I did.
Reading Faces
I WOKE UP REALLY early. It wasn’t so cold outside, even though it was late October. The weather had more or less returned to normal. El Paso was like that. I was surprised to find Sam sitting at the kitchen table.
“You look like crap,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“I have an idea, Sammy.”
“What?”
“Why don’t we start running every morning? You know, it would be good for us.”
“Really?”
“Remember how you were great at soccer?”
“I was great.”
“And you almost tried out for the track team. Except you said you didn’t like the coach. Maybe it would be good for us to get moving. Makes sense.”
Sam was thinking. I liked her thinking look. “You know, that sounds okay.”
“Just okay?”
“Why the hell not? Let’s do it.”
That’s how it all started, the running thing. Sam ran a little ahead of me. I thought maybe she was crying as she ran, but I thought that was a good thing. I mean, she had a lot to cry about.
When we got back home that Sunday morning from our first run, I smiled at her. We sat on the front steps of the porch and let our hearts slow down. “You know,” I said, “you don’t really look like crap.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s impossible for me to look like crap.”
Suddenly I saw a familiar figure walking up the sidewalk. “Is that you, Salvador?”
I studied his face for a minute. He hadn’t changed very much. He had salt-and-pepper hair, and the last time I’d seen him, his hair had been dark, with no sign of aging. But his face hadn’t changed. “Marcos?”
“You remember? God, you’re practically a man.”
“I’m practically lots of things,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. Sam was rubbing off on me.