“I’m staying with you,” I say firmly.
“No.” Now she tries to move, and more blood trickles out from her wound.
“Perla, por favor, no te muevas,” I say, my voice growing shrill.
“Tenés que … irte,” she says, and her face turns toward me. “Buscá a tu madre. Ahora.” You have to go. Find your mother. Now.
“I can’t leave you,” I say, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Go. Now. For me.” She seems to have expended the last of her energy because her eyes close again, and a terrified part of me can’t help wondering if they’ll ever reopen.
I can’t leave her here. But I also can’t disobey what might be her last wish.
I hear the wail of an ambulance in the distance growing closer. I don’t have much time left. If they find me, they could ask questions I can’t answer. Ma and I could be discovered. Then I would be the reason we’re deported.
Perla must not want that on her conscience either.
“Perdoname,” I whisper, apologizing to her for doing as she asked, and I drop her hand as I dash to my room to trade my low-cut tank for a round-necked white tee that won’t draw attention. On my way out, I kneel to kiss Perla again, her eyes still closed, and I thank her for everything she’s done for us. “Te quiero, Perla. Gracias por salvarnos y por darnos un hogar y una familia. Ahora tenés que luchar—”
The words die on my tongue when I see it.
The red smoke I was convinced I’d imagined in the stairwell earlier … It curls past me, and I run my fingers through it. The vapor vanishes.
But is it real? Or are hallucinations a bonus this lunaritis?
I shove on my sunglasses, grab my bus pass, and race out of the apartment, leaving Perla and Mimitos behind. A couple of elderly neighbors are in the hallway, searching for the source of the scream, but I don’t slow down to explain. I leave the door open so the paramedics can get to Perla without delay, then I duck into the stairwell and soar down to ground level.
The bus stop is at the end of the block, so I don’t have to go far. Ma gave me Doña Rosa’s address when she started working for her. She told me Doña Rosa warned her against bringing her child to work, so I buried the directions in the back of my mind and promised to only go in case of a life-or-death emergency. This will be my first time.
The street seems quieter than usual as I twist the bus pass around and around in my hand. I’m drenched in sweat from the brew of heat and nerves, and I try to keep calm by reviewing Ma’s instructions. Instead of the #29 I take to the library, I’m getting on the #21, toward the nicer neighborhoods. I’ve never gone in that direction before.
When Ma and I first got to the States, we lived in a motel. Ma cleaned rooms for cash, and we stuck it out as long as we could—until the owner’s sexual advances became too aggressive for Ma to ignore.
We spent a year shuffling between shelters, then Ma met Perla. The latter was crossing the street when a guy on a motorcycle zoomed past and yanked on her purse, and Perla fell facedown on the concrete. Ma helped her up, escorted her home to El Retiro, and tended to her injuries.
Maybe it’s because we’re from the same country, or maybe she just realized she needed help and couldn’t afford it, but basically Perla invited us to live with her. We could share a room in her apartment, free of charge, in exchange for looking after her. She also recommended Ma’s cleaning services to people she knew so we could earn money. And when she realized I was eight years old and couldn’t speak or read English, Perla made my education part of the bargain.
Please let her be okay.
She has to be okay.
PLEASE.
I rush onto the bus the instant its doors open, and I take a seat at the very back, where there are fewer people. The passengers stare at my face as I pass, but Ma says it’s not me they’re looking at—since my sunglasses are mirrored, people only see themselves.
I’m invisible.
The bus pulls away just as an ambulance wails onto the street, its siren singing too loudly in my tender ears, and I hope it makes it to Perla in time.
I’m jostled as we rumble down the pothole-strewn streets, and it makes me think of all the times I’ve ridden the bus with Perla. She often spent the whole ride railing about the shape of these roads, complaining that our area is too poor to be prioritized by politicians; and if people glared at her to shut up, she only raised her voice louder.
I can’t believe I left her there, lying on the floor.
Ma’s going to be furious at me for breaking our promise, but she has to forgive me when I tell her what happened. I press my nose to the glass, by now expecting to start seeing the smooth streets and manicured gardens of a comfortable community. Instead, the bus is rolling through a bustling district of discount businesses, and when we get to the stop Ma told me would be Doña Rosa’s, we pull up in front of a convenience store.
This can’t be right.
Still, I step off the bus, and the sweltering heat swallows me whole. I touch my sunglasses to make sure they’re still on. I no longer know if the reflex is cautionary, obsessive-compulsive, or superstitious. Everything else is a carefully calculated choreography: I keep my movements small and inconspicuous, my face mostly averted.
Sandwiched between street vendors and squat storefronts, I walk half a block before I stop in my tracks to survey the grimy and congested sidewalk around me. Panic pricks my belly, its poke shockingly sharp, as I suck in a would-be calming breath that’s deep-fried in the cooking oils of churros and empanadas and tostones.
The greasy air does nothing to quell the queasiness in my gut.
There’s no way Doña Rosa’s nice home can be on the next few blocks. I must have memorized the wrong address years ago. Or maybe the memory just got misshapen over time. Where do I go now?
I don’t register the woman hurtling toward me until the wheels of her stroller are inches from my foot, and I duck out of the way before we collide—stepping right in front of a deliveryman. After dodging him, I realize I’m drawing too much attention just standing in place, so I join the flow of people walking.
I pull myself together enough to resume my carefully crafted movements, gliding like a ghost down the squat city blocks as I weave around the afternoon foot traffic. I check out the addresses of the storefronts around me and head uptown to hunt down number 21280. Might as well see what it is now that I’m here; it’s not like I have any other leads.
Panic pumps harder with every step, like it’s hitched a ride with my blood. I stride past a shoe repair place, a pawnshop, a hair salon, a dentist’s office, a counter service Mexican joint …
“Oye, come here!”
“¡Mira qué chévere!”
“Por favor, niña, no tenemos tiempo para eso.”
Different dialects of Spanish and Spanglish fill the air, and I stick to the inside of the sidewalk, taking up as little space as possible, trying to avoid getting roped into conversation.
Outside a carnicería, a man in an apron and bandana blows secondhand smoke in my face, then a pair of women in dangly earrings and stilettos sashays past, dispersing the smoke with their floral perfumes. A pack of teen boys skates down the sidewalk, inconveniencing all of us, but most of all an elderly lady pushing her cart full of groceries. One of the boys tosses an empty plastic bottle into her things, and she mutters something that sounds a lot like boludo—a distinctly Argentine dig that means idiot. Under different circumstances, I might laugh.