I frowned at him, then shook my head. “You’re up early,” I said, pushing past him into the darkness of el mercadito.
As my eyes adjusted, he gave my shoulder a squeeze, then shut the door behind us. “Los mensajeros,” he said. “They just left.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. I was shameless, Solís. “Dame el chisme, Lito. I want to know it all.”
He chuckled at that, and I shuffled farther in. Ramona sold most of the food in Empalme; everything else fell on Manolito, who stocked anything a person might need. There was a stack of candles, in various colors and shapes, that sat alongside leather water bags. There were books, used and new, that Lito lent out to me if they’d not sold in a while, and I hoped he had something I had not read this time. Clothing, tools for hunting water, tools for hunting for food, building supplies, various pots and pans, rope—there was no real method to the way these things were organized. Despite that, Manolito knew where everything was.
I ran a finger over one of the shelves, and it came away coated in dust. “You need someone,” I said to Manolito. “Someone to get you to clean this place more than anything else.”
He grunted and walked slowly past me, toward the back of el mercadito, his shoulders hunched forward, his gait lazy. “There you go again, amiga,” he said, and he headed for the counter stacked high with mensajes. “Always thinking I need a woman.”
“This dust says it all,” I shot back. “You’re certainly not cleaning it.”
He looked back at me. “And if I fell in love with someone, they’d get me to tidy up the place? Or they would do it for me? Is that your reasoning?”
I flashed him a teasing smile. “Are you saying you wouldn’t like some company?”
He grunted and pulled the pile of mensajes—folded papers, stiff envelopes—into his arms and began to sort through it, quietly reading the names off the front. He handed me one for Mamá from her friend Xiomara, then asked me to drop off one for la señora Sánchez on my way home. When he put them down and gazed back at me, he groaned.
“I see that look on your face, Xo,” he said, wagging a finger in my direction. “I know what you want.”
“Tell me a story, Lito. Something new. Something I’ve not heard before.”
He smiled then, a tender expression. He grabbed a wooden stool from beside the counter and patted the top of it, urging me to sit down. I obliged, and I looked up at him with hope. We did the same song and dance every time, and maybe the details were different, but this was our thing. Ours.
Did Manolito ever know what he meant to me? What he gave me?
“I did hear something interesting this morning,” he began, and he would always stroke his mustache, pulling at the ends. “One of my mensajeros—Paolo, you remember him?”
“Tall, super skinny, looks like he could be a cactus?” I stood upright and still, my arms branched upward on either side of my head.
Manolito cackled. “I hate when you do that,” he said, “but you’re not wrong. Sí, him.” He took a long swill from a canteen on his counter, then wiped at his mustache. “I don’t know how true his stories are, but he says that miles from Obregán, deep in the desert, he discovered a land that makes your thoughts real.”
“Real? You mean like how Solís does?”
He shook his head, and a flash of worry flitted across his face. What is that about? I thought, but Lito continued. “No, not like that. He said there is an expanse, a flat land that shines bright as the sun, where everything in your heart spills forth into the sand.”
I chuckled. “Did he say it that dramatically?”
“Maybe I embellished a bit,” he replied, smirking. “But I’ve heard stories for years about all the strange things out there. Like las bestias that rule the desert at night. Maybe there’s some truth to it all.”
“You ever want to leave?”
He gazed at me, Solís, and the panic slipped back onto his face, a brief glimpse of something more, and he recovered again. “Maybe,” he said. “I like it here in Empalme. Could do without Julio and his gang, but I prefer standing out in a place like this than being drowned in Obregán. Too many people.”
He observed me, his warm, dark eyes tracing the lines of my expression, and he grimaced. “I know you want to go, Xo. It’s clear as Solís is true. And one day, you’ll get out of here, and you’ll change the world.”
“But why not now?” I said. “Why am I always too young to see more? To experience more?”
“You’re the eldest, Xo. Maybe your parents don’t want to let you go yet.”
I sighed and grabbed los mensajes for la señora Sánchez and Mamá. “Gracias, Lito. For listening.”
I made to leave and he cleared his throat. I watched him shift his weight to his other leg, his eyes downcast. I knew immediately what he wanted; I’d seen too many people treat me the same way. So I didn’t force him to say it.
“Today?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Is there any chance it can wait until tomorrow? I just listened to Rogelio yesterday, and I’m exhausted.”
“It hurts, Xo,” he said. “I can feel it. It’s close to breaking free, and … I’m worried.”
I stepped toward him. “About what?”
“What pesadilla Solís will show me.”
His shoulders were pulled in as if something were dragging them down toward the ground. And there, in the shadows of el mercadito, it hid. Behind a shelf. It was hunched over, shy and nervous, but it was there.
Its eyes opened. They were bright red.
“Can it wait until tonight?” I asked, staring at it. “We’re almost out of agua, and Raúl wants to go with me.”
Lito still wasn’t looking at me. “Por supuesto,” he said, his voice soft and afraid. “Gracias, Xo. I know this can’t be easy, but we appreciate what you do for us.”
Maybe that was the reason I liked Lito so much. He was one of the only people to say things like that to me and mean it.
“Gracias, Lito. ¿Hasta luego?”
“Until then,” he said. He raised his hand in farewell, and then he finally looked at me again.
He was terrified.
Something pulled me out of el mercadito. I knew what it was, and I scurried beyond the door, out into the heat, and to the place that would make me feel safe again.
The land spoke to me, called me forth, and even though I did not have a story to return to it just yet, it seemed to know that I needed the solitude after my interaction with Manolito.
I headed to the east first, toward a patch of mesquite that smelled rich and vibrant in the middle of the day. The sun bore down on me in an oppressive heat, but I was resilient. Alive. I stuck a hand into the waistband of my breeches, felt the edges of the brown leather pouch tucked there, and a thrill rushed up my arm.
I needed them. Again.
I had been doing this more and more lately. I would tell my parents that I needed to take a story, to return one to the earth, and I would be gone for hours at a time. They claimed to understand me, but they understood only the need for the ritual. They didn’t get how much I needed to be away from home; away from all the responsibilities and the sad, needy faces; away from feeling stuck in a life I never chose.