What Can't Wait
Text copyright © 2011 by Ashley Hope Pérez
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Cover and interior photographs © iStockphoto.com/Juan Estey (girl); © Amy Nicolai/Dreamstime.com (butterfly); © Raul Touzon/National Geographic/ Getty Images (concrete).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pérez, Ashley Hope.
What can’t wait / by Ashley Hope Pérez.
p. cm.
Summary: Marooned in a broken-down Houston neighborhood—and in a Mexican immigrant family where making ends meet matters much more than making it to college—smart, talented Marisa seeks comfort elsewhere when her home life becomes unbearable.
ISBN: 978–0–7613–6155–8 (trade hard cover : alk. paper)
[1. Self-reliance—Fiction. 2. Family problems—Fiction. 3. Mexican
Americans—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: What cannot wait.
PZ7.P4255Wh 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010028175
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 – SB – 12/31/10
eISBN: 978-0-7613-7163-2 (pdf)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-6827-6 (ePub)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-3172-0 (mobi)
To my scholars,
for teaching me everything
about whatcan’t wait,
y a todos los que buscan su propio camino.
November
chapter 1
You’d think that by now I’d know how to get out of the house.
Easy, right? Scrape together an outfit, make Papi and Gustavo some breakfast, grab my books, walk out the door. Finding two people camped out in the living room shouldn’t change things much.
The snoring lump on the couch is my sister Cecilia, and the niña curled up on the couch cushions by the wall is my five-year-old niece, Anita. They show up like this whenever Cecilia has a big throw-down fight with her husband, Jose. He’s definitely the bigger jerk, but I don’t approve of all the screaming and door-slamming that she does in front of Anita. Or of how Cecilia drags her out of their apartment in the middle of the night, trash-talking Jose the whole time.
Cecilia is the last person that I want to deal with right now, so there are some simple rules I should follow. Don’t close the bathroom door because it squeaks too loud. Wait until Cecilia is in the middle of a good long snore before slipping past. Avoid saying anything that sounds even remotely like “Jose” (that always stirs up the demon in her). And definitely do not stand around watching Anita sleep when I should be walking to school.
But I can’t seem to help myself. Anita is the best thing that Cecilia ever did. Right now she’s curled up tight as a snail and sucking both her thumbs. A tiny strip of her tan skin shows in the gap between her pink tank top and her Dora the Explorer shorts.
I smile at her, which is a mistake. Because a smile has the same effect on Anita as whispering in her ear, “Hey, someone who loves you is awake. Don’t you want to get up too?”
So I’ve got only myself to blame when Anita’s eyes pop open and she kicks free of her blanket.
“Do you got any juice, Tía Marisa?”
“What do you say?” I scoop her up and swing her into the kitchen with me.
“Please do you got any juice?” She kisses me on my left cheek, aiming like she always does for the ugly, thumbsized birthmark I have there, which she says tastes like chocolate. Then she squirms away from me and starts to play hopscotch across the cracked kitchen tiles.
I pour her orange juice and set it down at the table. I’m watching her hop over when I notice a flash of something metallic between her lips.
“What’s in your mouth?” I ask her.
Anita pretends not to hear and clambers onto her favorite chair, the one with the yellow seat cushion and padded back that doesn’t match the others. I don’t know where it came from; it just appeared one day after one of the wooden chairs broke. Anita likes it because it’s the same bright yellow as a smiley face.
“Anita? Answer me.”
“Don’t want to tell.” She picks up a paper napkin from the holder on the table and drapes it over the bottom half of her face.
“Well, you have to.”
I lean closer, but Anita drops the napkin and shoots a hand up over her mouth.
“Déjame, chica.” I pry back her fingers as gently as I can and see silver caps on her two front teeth.
She looks like she’s going to cry. “We went to the denter and he put metal on my teeth.”
“The dentist? That’s all?” I flick her nose. “I thought you were eating nickels for breakfast without me looking.”
She giggles a little, then covers her mouth again. “My teeths is all ugly. I’m not going to smile no more.”
“No fair, I love that smile. What if somebody tickles you?” I wrap my arms tight around her and pull her halfway up from her seat.
“Suéltame, Tía!” she shrieks and slaps at my hands.
I shush her, but it’s too late. So much for the art of leaving.
Cecilia’s up. At least her feet are. I can see them through the doorway, groping for slippers that aren’t there. Time to get out.
I toss my lunch into my backpack and kiss Anita on the top of her head. “Te quiero. Be good, and don’t eat nickels.”
I slide out the back door and into the sticky Houston humidity. It’s like the air in a dryer full of wet clothes. It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving, but it’s not even cold enough for a sweater. Right now I’d like to fall right into one of those pictures from calendars that show pretty trees with their leaves all different colors and geese flying over nice clean ponds. The scrubby yards on our street are still green, and the only sign of wildlife is a pile of dog crap in the middle of the sidewalk. I notice it just in time to step around it.
I’m halfway down the block before I turn and look back. Of course, there’s Cecilia running up the driveway in her socks and ratty sweats. Once she sees me looking, she starts hollering my name.
God, she doesn’t even have a bra on under her stained Astros shirt. I’m not all proper about things like bras, so when I say my sister needs a bra, I mean she really needs one. Without it, there’s way more moving under there than anybody should have to face. I think about ignoring her, but I know if I don’t deal with her she’s going to make a scene for sure.
To give her a chance to catch up to me, I stop and pick up a Jumex juice box out of Mrs. Flores’s yard and toss it into a grimy recycle bin by the curb. There, that’s a good deed. If only I could be off the hook so easily.
“God, Mari,” Ceci wheezes when she finally reaches me. “You didn’t have to make me chase you. I don’t even got my shoes on.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got school. What is it?” I try to sound even more irritated than I feel. With Ceci you have to lay it on thick.
Cecilia rakes a hand through her hair and lifts it off of her neck. She exhales, and I catch a whiff of something foul, like month-old burrito and seaweed. Clearly yesterday’s visit to the dentist did not impress her with the importance of nighttime brushing.
�
�So get this,” she starts in, “last night Jose waltzes in at eleven all stinking of booze and has the nerve to ask me, ‘What’s for dinner, mujer?’ He knows how I hate it when he talks like that. Well, then the cabrón pulls out a joint and tells me I got to cook for him. Flat out like that. When it was his ass supposed to be home at seven o’ clock. And then . . .”
“Hang on,” I interrupt. Somewhere a lawn-mower engine starts up, sputters, then dies. “You don’t have to convince me he’s a loser. You’re the one who’s still married to him. So skip to the point.”
“What I’m saying is he crossed me one too many times. I mean it. Let him try to tell me to cook for him, wash his dishes! I’ll break a plate over his head before I wash it for him. I...”
“The point, Ceci. You’re making me late.”
She reaches under her shirt and pulls a business card from the waistband of her sweats.
GABRIEL REYNA
ATTORNEY AT LAW
Se habla español.
————————————
8360 HOWARD DR. #26A ♦ HOUSTON, TX 77017
713-555-2020 ♦ REYNA _ LAW@LJC.COM
“See? I got an appointment at nine thirty. Help me out with Anita, OK? Just this once.”
“This once?” I stare at her. Ceci hardly ever opens her mouth without asking me for “one more” favor.
“Yeah, just so I can figure things out.”
“You expect me to skip school so I can babysit for you? Don’t say another word unless you’re actually planning to do something. I want to know where divorce comes in.”
“Cállate! Somebody’s going to hear!”
It’s odd that Cecilia doesn’t mind going outside looking the way she does, but she’s suddenly paranoid about neighbors with superhuman hearing. The only person out besides us is somebody’s abuelita rolling her trash can back up the driveway across the street, and I’m pretty sure she can’t hear us over the racket the wheels make over the asphalt.
“Fine.” I start walking away.
“Hang on,” Cecilia says. She grabs the sleeve of my shirt. “Mira, the whole reason I’m asking you is because I don’t want Ma to know yet. But I’m serious about it this time, te prometo.”
“Fine, dime. What’s your plan?”
“I’m going to find out, for real, what it would take for a divorce. So me and Anita can start over on our own.”
I keep quiet, poker-faced. Ceci is probably conning me. I’m 99 percent sure that this is the case. But there’s also the chance that she really might get it together and leave Jose. It’s a long shot, but Jose’s ten kinds of bad, and I don’t want Anita to grow up like we did.
Cecilia goes in for the kill. “Just for a little while. Anita will be psyched. And you’re so smart in school it don’t even matter if you miss a couple hours.”
“You shouldn’t have left Anita alone,” I say finally, turning and walking back toward the house.
“That’s my sis,” Cecilia says. She hurries to keep up, and her socks scuffle against the sidewalk. “No more baby money going for weed.”
“I’ll take Anita to the library until one o’ clock. Then you pick us up and drop me off at school. I can’t miss calculus.”
“No problem, I got it.”
I push open the kitchen door and toss down my backpack. Maybe I get A’s in school, but I give myself an F in self-defense.
chapter 2
Over the weekend, the sign for our high school got vandalized again. Supposedly we’re the Loyal Lobos, but somebody’s not feeling that loyalty, because the friendly looking wolf now has a spray-painted mustache, devil horns, and an enormous penis.
“Here’s your stop, nerda,” Gustavo says. He pulls the truck over to the side of the road and throws it in park. Gustavo thinks that being my big brother exempts him from common courtesy. I don’t even bother asking him to drop me off at the actual entrance.
“Damn.” He sniffs and holds his nose between his grease-stained fingers. “This place stinks of all that teacher bullshit. Why show up when school’s already over?”
“Don’t get me started. Cecilia’s fault,” I say, jumping down from the truck. Ceci left me and Anita stranded at the library. After all her promises. I should have known better. I’ll bet she didn’t even go see the lawyer. Probably stood him up, too.
Gustavo pushes my backpack over to me. “Have fun, schoolgirl. I got to get back to the shop to finish some transmission jobs, so find a ride to work.”
I slam the door.
“Don’t be so serious,” he calls. “Senior year, lighten up!”
I use the side entrance to get to the math hall, and I’m just about to open Ms. Ford’s door when I see Alan Peralta sitting on the stairs a little farther down the hall. He has his head bowed over his sketchbook, and his shaggy brown hair hangs across his forehead. His lips are parted the tiniest bit, and a little pink triangle of tongue peeks out at the corner of his mouth.
He looks up and catches me staring.
“Hey,” he says. He flips the sketchbook closed, caps his Sharpie, and stands up. He’s about 5’11”, no giant, but tall for a Hispanic guy. We were in homeroom together freshman year, and I’m pretty sure we were the same height back then. Now I don’t even come up to his nose.
He walks over to me, looking delicious in a gray T-shirt and khaki cargo pants. “Brenda said you were stopping by here. I thought you might want the econ notes.” He fishes around in his bag and pulls out a sheet of paper.
“You mean Mrs. T. actually taught today?” I move closer, but I keep my head tilted just the slightest bit so that my birthmark is on the side away from him.
“Crazy, I know. Don’t worry, she only lasted about fifteen minutes, then she was back surfing the Internet. But she said this stuff would be on the quiz.” He shows me the notes, which only take up half of the page. The rest is covered by an ink drawing of a fanged wolf swinging a baseball bat. “Sorry about that. I’ve been trying to come up with a design for the team’s new spirit T-shirts. Jimmy’s been on my ass about it.”
“Drawback of having your brother as your coach, I guess. It looks good. You sure you don’t need to keep it?”
Alan taps his sketchbook. “I’ve got another one in here. That one was just a warm-up.”
His hand is so close to mine when he gives me the notes. Brenda would tell me to just grow some balls and touch his hand to show some interest. She’d finesse this moment, no problem. But I take the notes by the corner of the page, like he’s got leprosy or something.
“I’ll give them back in the morning, maybe before first period? In the cafeteria?”
He nods but doesn’t move. I hope he doesn’t think I’m trying to invite myself to his breakfast table.
His big hands toy with the worn cover of his sketchbook while I search for something else to say. It’s cool that you thought of me? You’re a great artist? You’ve sure changed since freshman year?
“Got to grab my calculus homework. It’s pretty terminal to miss Ms. Ford’s class.” Brilliant.
I cut my losses and duck into the classroom.
The problems are tough, but all I have to do to keep motivated is think of what my dad said when I told him and Ma that I signed up for AP calculus. “Girls and numbers don’t mix, mija. Leave the mathematics to the men.” Total bullshit. He’ll see when I pass the exam.
I’m packing up when Ms. Ford calls me over. Her glasses are always sliding down the bridge of her nose, and her blonde hair is half in, half out of its barrette. I hope she’s not going to say something embarrassing about “family problems.”
She shuffles through a mess of papers and hands me an envelope that says “The University of Texas” and, in smaller letters, “Recommendation for Ms. Marisa Moreno.”
I run my fingers over the letters and imagine a different envelope coming for me. I’ll pull out a letter and read, “Congratulations, Ms. Moreno! We are delighted to invite you to join our freshman class in the School of Engineering..
..”
But then reality takes a bite out of my little fantasy and leaves me remembering what happened when I told my parents that with my GPA and SAT scores I qualified for automatic admission to the University of Houston. My mom got up to throw another tortilla on the comal. My dad pointed his fork at me and said, “It’s only because some gringos want to feel good about themselves, want to feel like they’re helping out some poor mexicana. Don’t think that gets you out of working.”
And that was only talking about a college right here in Houston. Ever since I wrote “Engineering” as my career goal on some survey from the first day of school, Ms. Ford hasn’t stopped telling me how great UT–Austin is. Worldclass engineering program, amazing libraries, research opportunities with top faculty, big scholarships.
The truth is that I just picked engineering because it sounded good, better than being a nurse’s assistant or working at SuperCuts. I mean, engineers use lots of math and work in air-conditioning, right? That’s all I need to know for now. Sometimes Ms. Ford starts talking about civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering, but she might as well be talking about her three favorite poodle breeds for all it means to me.
If you put me in a world where all that matters is what I want, I’d go to UT and give engineering a shot. But that is definitely not my world. I can’t just peace-out on my family. If I repeated Ms. Ford’s ooh-la-la UT list to my mother, the words would hit her and bounce right off like rubber arrows. There’s no way they can penetrate the fortress of familia.
“You finished the essay?” Ms. Ford asks, holding somebody’s homework up in front of her mouth because she’s still chewing an Oreo from the package she always has on her desk. She’s always eating something.
I want to say, What’s the point, miss? But since Ms. Ford is seriously lacking in knowledge about Mexican families, I just say, “Not yet.”
Ms. Ford frowns down at her calendar. “Application deadline is coming up. I want to see an essay from you on Friday.” She pulls out her tutorial schedule. “How about bringing it by right after school?”