A couple of pierced twenty-somethings walk hand in hand, and the girl studies me so hard that on reflex I touch my sunglasses to make sure they’re still there. When she also reaches up and fixes her side-swept bangs, I realize she was using my lenses as mirrors, and my shoulders drop in relief.
“Nice shades!” says a teen guy hanging by a doorstop with two of his buddies. “Can I try them on?”
I ignore him and keep walking, but in my periphery I see him and his friends start to follow me.
Fuck.
I never get hassled—have never even been noticed. Invisibility is pretty much my only talent. But my body’s been changing so much lately, I’ve noticed the side stares.
It’s these damn breasts. Especially during my cycle, when they puff up like balloons.
“Why are they mirrored?” He’s louder now. Not like he’s yelling, but like he’s catching up to me. “You a cop?”
I walk faster, and his hand closes around my arm.
I shove back with my elbow and jab it into his chest. He gasps like I knocked his breath away, and I sprint down the block without glancing back until I’m at the intersection.
I exhale in relief to see they’re not following.
And that’s when I notice the name of the beauty parlor behind me.
Doña Rosa.
6
I approach the glass slowly, in a trance. There are two grave-faced women inside waiting to be serviced, but no one is working the front desk or any of the four stations.
I pull open the door, and a too-loud bell jangles through the space, prompting the women to look up.
One of them is clutching a bundle of fabric to her chest, and when a small foot kicks out, I realize it’s a baby. The sound must’ve roused it, and as the baby starts fussing, its mom and the elderly lady beside her make soothing sounds to calm it down.
A middle-aged woman with a pink streak in her hair darts out from a back door and strides up to me, examining me through kindly brown eyes.
“Hola, señorita. ¿Tiene cita para hoy?” Her articulated Spanish is fluid, and her neutral dialect gives every syllable space, so she’s definitely not Argentine … Maybe Peruvian?
I answer, “No, I don’t have an appointment.”
“¿Qué estilo de servicio busca?”
As I consider her question—which service am I interested in?—it hits me that the women waiting look too anxious to be here for personal grooming.
The knot in my stomach may have formed before I walked in, but it’s the tension inside this place that’s tightened it. Something’s not right.
A scream rings out from the back of the parlor, and this time I recognize the voice intimately.
“¡MA!”
I push past Pink Streak and shove through the door she came in from, my pulse in my throat—
Two women whirl away in surprise from a small television where a fútbol match is being broadcast. The older woman is in a white lab coat and the younger one is … Ma.
“Manu?” She rushes over, wearing blue scrubs I’ve never seen before. “¿Qué pasó?” she asks, her concern so consuming that she doesn’t consider the scene from my perspective.
Pink Streak bursts through the door behind me as the words spill out: “Perla fell! I think. I heard her scream, and she was bleeding from the head when I found her, and I called an ambulance, but she wouldn’t let me stay—”
A sob chokes me, and I swallow it down, blinking quickly behind my sunglasses to stave off tears.
Ma’s hand covers her mouth, her own eyes glassy and round and unblinking. “Dios mío,” she whispers. The woman in the white coat squeezes her arm, and Pink Streak takes Ma’s other hand.
“Dime el hospital más cercano a tu hogar y yo te averiguo lo que está pasando,” she says. Tell me the hospital closest to you, and I’ll track down an update. The three of them speak in hushed tones as they form a plan of action, and I look around, surveying my surroundings …
I’m not in a beauty salon anymore.
This back area is twice as large as the front, and judging by the privacy curtains to my left and the medicine-lined walls to my right—not to mention the general antiseptic smell—I know it’s some kind of medical office. The privacy curtains are bunched up, revealing a couple of empty patient beds, and all around me is strange equipment I only recognize from television dramas—IV drips, needles, glass tubes, and a chest-high machine that rolls on wheels. There’s a hallway in the back corner, but from here I can’t make out where it leads.
The only thing that looks familiar is the small television.
It’s Perla’s old set.
Shock burns off quickly, exposing a heavier emotion simmering just beneath my surface. Ma isn’t a maid. She’s a nurse again.
At an underground clinic.
Pink Streak suddenly kisses my cheek. “Hola, Manu, soy Julieta. Tu mamá se la pasa hablando de lo inteligente que eres.” Hi, Manu, I’m Julieta. Your mom is always going on about how smart you are.
The fact that Ma has been praising my intellect even as she’s been manipulating me for years only accelerates the fire scalding my chest, bringing the flames closer to my throat and dangerously near my mouth.
“No te enfades con ella,” says Julieta, reading my face and coming to Ma’s defense. Don’t be mad at her.
“None of our families know.” Julieta sounds less confident as she switches into an accented English, like a person venturing across an untested bridge. “It’s a promise we make … so if we’re caught, the people we love can’t get blamed.”
I want to understand, but I can’t. These other families might operate on secrets, but the only thing Ma and I have is our trust in each other.
Had.
I guess Ma’s constant refrain is right: Our trust in each other is the only thing they can’t take from us. They didn’t take it—Ma did.
My mouth fills with all the hurtful words I want to hurl her way, but when our gazes lock, I swallow them.
I’ve never seen Ma cry. Not even when we lived in a shelter.
“I’m sorry, Manu,” she says as tears roll down, and Julieta backs away to give us space. “This was the only way I could … take care of you.”
It’s the pause in her words that tips me off. Like she was going to say something more specific but caught herself.
I scrutinize the room again for a clue, and somehow I know where to look. Scanning the wall of medicines, I spot the telltale blue bottle.
This is how Ma really gets me the Septis pills. It’s not through Perla’s insurance. Ma’s working here, risking everything again, for me.
Julieta cups my shoulder with her hand, and the woman in the lab coat offers Ma a tissue. She blows her nose.
“How about you get some rest on the couch in the office?” Julieta asks me. “We just finished lunch, and there are only two patients waiting. Let your mom work, and I’ll find out about Perla. Okay?”
I nod because it’s as much as I can manage.
“Are you hungry?”
“No, thanks.”
“Is it really so sunny in here?” She adopts a lighter tone, trying to crack the tension. “Would you like some sunscreen too?”