Do I really have a choice? What kind of future waits for me or my brothers if I stay?
Think of your Tía Clara—her daughter married a man who works in New York, and every month he sends the family money. He never fails. They have a cement floor and a new bathroom.
I don’t want to cry. But I cry.
Oh mi’jita, please. Stop it. Now everybody’s looking at us. You’re being ridiculous. Look at those kids. You see those kids?
Mamá points at some barefooted boys carrying baskets of bags filled with peanuts and peeled oranges. Do you know what your brother Yohnny is doing every day while you and Lenny spend your mornings at school?
I turn away. Mamá grabs my chin and makes me look through my tears.
And as soon as Lenny can write his name and add his numbers he will be out there, too.
Yes I know. I know. Every day, I press Yohnny’s shirts, only so he can get them dirty again while carrying baskets twice his weight, then sitting by the road to wait for someone to buy Papá’s fresh meats and fruits. Knowing he’s not allowed to come home until he sells everything.
Please try and be happy. It kills your father to see your sad face all the time.
I refuse to leave Los Guayacanes without saying good-bye to Gabriel, who is the only one who actually cares about anything I have to say. The next morning, before Mamá wakes up, I prepare to go to school. Heat the coals for the morning hot chocolate, slice the bread. I let out the chickens, check their water and food. I envy their freedom. How they walk about without a care in the world. I sweep away the layer of dust that drifts into our living room while we sleep. Look over the two photographs we have: one of Papá and Mamá when they married, and a portrait of all the family by a tourist who took it and mailed it to us three years before. Our only photograph with all of us together.
The sun’s still low, the animals tucked under the trees and bushes. I slip into my Sunday dress and shuffle out.
I walk quickly, until my mother can no longer yell out my name to call me back. I carry my notebook and a sharpened pencil. I cut across the field of overgrown weeds and wild tobacco and skip over rocky patches of grass. I delight in the scrape of bushes and brittle branches on my arms, as if they themselves are saying, Good-bye, Ana, remember us. I recite my numbers and spell words in my head. D-e-s-e-o: Desire. A-l-t-u-r-a: Height. P-r-o-g-r-e-s-o: Progress. It’s all for the best. It’s all for the best.
By the time I arrive to the one-room schoolhouse I can’t breathe. I sit on the side of the road to reorient myself. Am I dying? An emptiness, deep in my gut. It hurts. I hunch over my legs to calm myself down. Breathe, Ana, Breathe. This cannot be my last day of school. How in the world does anyone say good-bye to everyone they love, to everything they know?
Soon after, Gabriel emerges from the sun, an out-of-breath angel pedaling up the hill. Sweat beads crown his temples.
You okay? he asks. His thick eyebrows come together.
Hoping he will understand, I say, I can’t be here. He stares at me and then my body bolts. I run away from the school in denial of the inevitable. I find an opening in the fields.
Let me go! I yell back to Gabriel. I’m marrying Juan, punto and final.
I run by men working in the fields, lifting their machetes, bending at the knees, chopping the cane close to the ground. Chop. Chop. Chop.
Wait up! Gabriel is standing on his bike, pedaling faster. There are snakes.
Where? I stop and yell, and jump.
Everywhere, he says, laughing as he reaches me. Better to leave before they find you.
That’s not funny.
Out of breath, I walk back to the main road. He trails beside me on his bike.
Let me give you a ride home.
No, just go away.
He takes my arm gently and pulls me so I look at him. It’s a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. The green foliage iridescent. If it were any other day I would shy away from him, but Gabriel’s persistence lifts my feet off the ground.
Wanna go swimming?
The beach is only a mile away, and yet I haven’t touched the sea in months. What a strange thing for him to ask. But not stranger than Juan Ruiz asking for my hand in marriage.
He says, I take care of this house with a pool, for some gringos. They let me use it when they aren’t there.
Is that true?
Yeah, man. They’re real relaxed.
Okay, I say, and hop on the bike. He pedals fast, cuts across fields, dirt roads. He tells me to hold on, and I grab his waist; our bodies bop and bump over pebbles and branches. He pedals up a hill I’ve never known of and behind a wall of fragrant flowers I’ve never seen. He parks his bike in front of a colonial-style house that stands overlooking the valley. There are iron gates everywhere with huge padlocks, and Gabriel has all the keys.
Been working with them for two years. You can’t tell anyone because once people know this house is empty, forget about it. They’re real nice gringos.
You sleep here too?
When they aren’t here, yes. I’m the watchy man.
Diablo, you’re good at keeping secrets.
He pumps his arms to show me his small muscles and says, Wanna check out my room?
I’ve never been alone with a boy that isn’t my brother. My mother’s voice rings in my ear: Don’t stick your foot in it. You can ruin everything.
I follow him on a tiled path around the house, and he unlocks a gate into the service room. It’s furnished with a twin bed, a table, a ceiling fan, a window overlooking the pool, a chair, bright red sheets, matching curtains. A small television, a shower stall and sink. The walls painted in a bright yellow and the concrete floors a dark red.
The service room is a far cry from the one I had to stay in when I worked for a family in San Pedro for two weeks. My room was in the back of the house. The bathroom had no door. The floors hadn’t been finished. They had asked me not to use the toilet in the main house. They assigned me my own dishes and glasses, explaining to the children how countrywomen carry illnesses because we live with our animals.
Gabriel even has a television. I haven’t known anyone with a television.
Maybe I could live in this room with Gabriel and cook and clean for the gringos …
The fabric on the bed is so soft, gringo sheets. What other secrets did Gabriel have?
Let me show you the pool.
Gabriel stands at arm’s distance, shy and gentlemanly, unlike brutish Juan, who pokes and pinches as if I’m some animal. I follow Gabriel, who caresses the pool water to check the temperature.
Still early, so it’s a little cold, he says. Then he takes off all his clothes except for his underwear briefs, and jumps in head-first.
You coming? He waves to me. I have swum in my underwear plenty of times with Lenny and Yohnny but not with a boy boy.
I won’t look, promise, he says, and turns around and waits.
I take off my dress.
Don’t look! I yell because I don’t own a bra. I jump in. The cold water slaps my skin. I yelp. Gabriel laughs. Backstrokes across the pool. He flips to swim on his belly. I watch him nervously. I only know how to float.
I’ll teach you, he says.
But then you can see me.
My arms and hands cover my breasts. They’re two small lumps, but I still cover them.
Not for nothing, says Gabriel, but I got more stuff to show than you do.
He flexes his pecs.