Mom must have gotten a quick job. Sometimes she got calls from other ladies in the building to join them for a day’s work, usually doing something like helping a white lady in Brookline reorganize her closet or label a hundred jars full of homemade jam or whatever. My mom was the queen of random jobs. Once, she got a job from this lady who needed help making party favors for her four-year-old son’s birthday party. No joke! These jobs paid in cash, so Mom was happy. Thing was, she didn’t have a high school diploma. So it was hard for her to get steady work and still be home for us after school or at night or whatever. Plus, there was some issue with missing paperwork—something about she lost her original birth certificate and stuff in a fire when she was younger.
Dad was the one who’d had—HAD—a real job, like, one he went to every day, at a soda company warehouse. They even gave him a special belt that protected his back while he worked. You would think we would have gotten tons of free soda, right? WRONG. That company was mad cheap. Employees couldn’t even take a soda for their break, or they’d be fined, or even fired.
I microwaved some instant hot cocoa for the boys and me, then pulled the half-finished bakery from under my bed. I’d used an empty cereal box for the walls, painted them pink with some old nail polish. Made the walls nice and glossy. Now I cut up a tissue box and used those pieces to create some windows and a door. I flipped through some recycled revistas for a picture of a brick wall (which was really hard to find, in case you’re wondering). As I was writing Yoli’s Pasteles y Panadería on a rectangle of cardboard—I was going to glue it onto the front of the store—Benjamin came into the kitchen for more cocoa and asked what I was doing.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“You know what you should do?” Benjamin opened the refrigerator and stuffed a slice of cheese into his mouth.
“What?” I rubbed the glue stick on the back of the little sign.
He chewed with his mouth open. “You know how they have those wires at the top of buildings so robbers won’t jump over the walls?”
I looked up, picturing the barbed silver spirals that covered so many of the stores on Centre Street. “Hey, shut the fridge!”
“You should do that,” he said.
It was actually a good idea. “But what would I use?”
He didn’t answer. He shut the refrigerator door with his hip and ran back to his room.
Hmmm… I’d have to think on that one.
I was writing in my journal, ready for bed, when Mom finally came home. I expected her to head straight to the kitchen to heat up some frijoles or whatever. Instead she knocked on my door real soft. That made me instantly nervous. For years I’d tried to train her to actually knock on my bedroom door instead of barging in—so why was she finally doing it now?
“Come in,” I said, closing my journal and sitting up straight.
She perched on the edge of my bed. “How was your day?”
I shrugged. I got it. I got it; she was under a lot of stress. But she was going cray-cray. Still, I knew I probably should apologize for swearing the night before. Just as I was about to, she surprised me again by saying, “So… listen. I’m sorry about what happened.” She looked away. “I really am. It’s just that there’s a lot going on and I don’t know what’s going to happen.” And then—gahhh!—she was crying again!
No lie, I felt bad for her. “Dad’s not coming back, is he?”
She cried harder. “I don’t know, mija. I just don’t know.”
I rubbed Mom’s shoulder. She cried it out for another minute, then pulled a tissue from her jeans pocket and wiped her nose. “Liliana…,” she began. I knew what she was going to say.
“Mom,” I said. “I’ll try METCO.” We both knew that meant, I’ll do it, but I’m throwing in that “try” because I’m stubborn and we both know that I’m stubborn because I’m your daughter so let’s just leave it at that. K? K.
“Ay, mija,” she said, hugging me tight. Then her phone buzzed. It was probably Tía Laura. She’d been calling from Guatemala like every other day since Dad had left. Tía Laura had raised my father, so she was more like his mother than his aunt, which made her more like my grandmother than my great-aunt. She was sweet and all. Dad loved her a lot. I could tell from the way he made us clean the apartment like crazy whenever she visited, or how he insisted on Tía Laura getting the best seat on the couch. Mom glanced at the phone screen and bolted out of the room.
Huh. Lately, every time Tía Laura called, my mom took the phone into another room, and on top of that, she whispered. Something was up. Something was definitely up. And not just me, now going to METCO.
4
And after one more week of skyscraper-size butterflies in my stomach, I was on my way to Westburg High. When my alarm went off that first morning, it was still dark outside. I wouldn’t say I was 100 percent excited or 100 percent nervous. I was more like that scared emoji with all its teeth showing. Everyone else was still asleep. I kissed Mom good-bye on the forehead, and she opened her eyes long enough to smile and whisper, “Good luck, mija.”
“Thanks,” I said, pulling up her blanket. I looked at the empty other half of the bed. Dad didn’t even know I’d gotten into METCO.
I was heading for the front door, when there Mom was, in her wrinkled white robe.
“Jesus, Mom! I thought you were a ghost or something.”
“Here,” she said, handing me a warm ten-dollar bill. “I don’t know what they’ll have for lunch over there.”
She looked so sleepy.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said.
* * *
Most of the twenty or so other kids on the bus were asleep. The few who were awake listened to music on their phones or did homework. I could never do that—read or write on a bus. I would throw up all over everyone. I didn’t recognize anyone. They were mostly Black and apparently from all over Boston, not just my neighborhood. I wondered how long they’d been in the program. Some looked my age, some older. Were any starting today, like I was?
I was supposed to meet my METCO “buddy” at school, some girl named Genesis. Miss Jackson had explained that the buddy was usually a junior or a senior, also from Boston. The buddy would do stuff like show me where to sit at lunch and whatever. But last night, Genesis had texted to say that she was going to be absent on my first day—she’d meet me on Tuesday instead. So I was on my own. Great. I also had something called a host family, like a backup family in the suburbs. I wondered who my host family would be. Were they rich? The pamphlet had said: In case of a bad snowstorm, if the buses can’t get out of Westburg, it might make more sense for your child to spend the night with his/her host family. Now I was worrying about snowstorms—staying with some rich suburban family sounded totally awkward!
Yet I must have dozed off, because all of a sudden the sky was pink and orange and we were in the suburbs. I wiped drool off my chin with the back of my hand, hoping no one had noticed, and stuck a piece of gum into my mouth. There was actually traffic out here! Except no one was honking or cussing anyone out. People used their blinkers. Let each other turn at intersections. Crazy-nice cars too. Expensive-looking. The neighborhoods all had big houses. BIG houses. I also saw things I knew the words for but had never had a reason to name: sprinklers, landscape truck, dog trainer. No joke—a van with the words canine etiquette and paw prints painted on it drove past us. Who says “canine,” anyway?