Prologue
Gloria collects the mangoes from the tree in our backyard once they’ve fallen but before the birds or bugs can get to them. She cuts them into cubes and lets me nibble on the pepa and then she packs them into my lunch in a little Tupperware with a spoon. When I get home from school the first thing she always asks is, “Did you remember to bring back the Taper?” Then she washes the container by hand and leaves it to dry facedown on the kitchen counter.
In the mornings I help her pack me and my brother’s lunches while I wait for my mom and dad to get dressed. I cut our sandwiches into triangles and put them in ziplocks. I put the cold cuts back in the fridge and wipe the counter. Somehow, Gloria always sneaks in a note on my napkin. I know I’m too old for them, but they’re funny, usually some pun having to do with my food. Like with the mangoes, she’ll write, “Man, go eat some frut!” She always spells fruit like that. She’s learning and she’s trying; but it’s the words that are similar in English and Spanish that trip her up. She even has a language app on her phone that she plays in the kitchen while she cooks, but only if my parents aren’t home yet. It makes her say things like, “The mountain is too far to walk,” which cracks me up because there’s not a single mountain in Miami, unless you count Mount Trashmore, the landfill we pass on the highway anytime we go to Orlando.
The morning after Papi dropped his bombshell of a plan on our futures, the papaya tree in our neighbor’s yard had yielded fruits the size of footballs. It’d grown at an angle so that one of the fruits dangled over our side of the fence. Gloria ran across the grass to get it before the neighbors could see her. That day at lunch, along with a Tupperware full of diced papaya, I got a napkin that read, “Papá ya agradeció a los vecinos.”
Dad already thanked the neighbors. It’s a play on words, so it loses all its humor in English, which is what I said to Zoey, who speaks so little Spanish that the joke was entirely lost on her.
“Papá and ya mean ‘Dad already.’ Gloria just likes to make double meanings with different words for food,” I said.
“It’s not that funny if you have to explain it,” Zoey said.
Vivi and I locked eyes and smirked when she wasn’t looking, a silent acknowledgment that we, of course, had gotten it. Even though she teases me about the notes being childish, Vivi also thinks they’re cute “in a charming retro kind of way.” I told her about the stolen fruit and the mango tree that’s ours and how Gloria jokes there’s so many mangoes, we should sell them off the side of the road. Vivi only laughed and said, “Oh my god, Mari, that’s so reffy.”
Papi got home late that night, so we waited for him to eat because he kept calling to say he’d just left the office, he was just five minutes away, he was just eight minutes away. When he arrived twenty-five minutes later, I got so upset watching him take off his tie and unbutton his shirt at the table that I blurted out, “Oh my god, Papi, that’s so reffy.”
He stopped and gestured to me with his right hand balled up in a loose fist, his thumb sticking out. “Mariana. We do not talk like that in this family. What would people say?”
People. He’s always saying that, like there’s some invisible audience watching us at all times. When I was little I thought these people were on the other side of every mirror in our house, even the bathrooms, so I’d never undress in front of them. I’d brush my teeth, twenty seconds on each side of my mouth exactly, just like the dentist ordered, thinking people were judging my every move.
“Why not? What does it mean?” my brother asked. Ricky’s seven years younger than me, but his question made me realize that I didn’t know what it meant either. Not really.
Mami cleared her throat and wiped her mouth with the napkin on her lap. This is her not-so-subtle way of warning my father to be careful. I’ve gotten this look so many times, it might as well be a neon light flashing CUIDADO across her forehead. “It’s . . . it’s a horrible thing to say about people who’ve been through difficult times.”
“It’s short for refugee,” Papi added harshly. “And very insensitive.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“You know better than to be so careless with your words,” he said.
“That could be your grandparents,” Mami added. “They fled Cuba not even a week after they were married, leaving everything.”
My dad set his hand on the table, rattling our silverware, the salt and pepper shakers. “We don’t make fun of people like them.”
When Papi says people, there’s a hierarchy: first it’s his campaign manager, then his biggest donors, then the news anchors and Twitter and Facebook and, basically, the entire internet. People we can’t see but who can see us. People I’m devoting my life to, he always says.
That’s why my father’s running for president.
To make things better for everyone.
Except, it turns out, me.
one
“I’m Anthony Ruiz.” My father pauses, widening his smile. “And I approve this message.”
From behind the camera, the director says, “Just a few more times.”
“I’m Anthony Ruiz, and I approve this message.”
Someone holding a light over me and my family coughs. Papi leans forward and looks across the couch at Mami before trying again. “I’m Anthony Ruiz and I approve this message.”
“Not so fast, Tonio,” she says.
“I’m Anthony. Ruiz. And I approve this message.”
Ricky tries to keep from laughing, but ends up sounding like he sneezed with his mouth closed. I shoot him my most stern don’t-laugh-at-Papi look, but I fail miserably at keeping a straight face.
“You sound like a robot, Papi,” he says.
“It’s super unnatural,” I add.
“I’ll try it one more time. We don’t have all day,” he says, but I think he’s trying not to laugh too. The dimple on his left cheek—the one that, according to Mami, makes the focus group of women her age melt—starts to peek through.
“Actually, this is going to make great blooper reel footage,” the director says. “The PACs will love it.”
At the mention of PACs, my mother clears her throat and turns her nose up, away from the director. It’s no secret that she’s not comfortable with what we’re doing. When I asked her why before the shoot, she said that Political Action Committees can help the candidates they’re supporting, but they can’t donate more than five thousand dollars directly to their campaign.
“It’s to keep super-wealthy people from buying influence in an election,” she said. “But outside of that five thousand, PACs can do other things with the money they raise, like make ads and buy airtime on TV for their chosen candidate.”
“So we’re shooting these videos for the PACs,” Ricky said matter-of-factly. I raised my eyebrows and gave him an encouraging smile. It’s cute how he acts like he knows what he’s talking about, even though I suspect he thinks there’s a giant yellow Pac-Man doing Papi’s bidding. Still, he catches on to more than my parents give him credit for.