The Book of Unknown Americans(15)

Celia told me about the provisions we would need for winter—heavy coats and a stack of comforters and something called long underwear that made me laugh when she tried to describe it—and about a place called the Community House where they offered immigrant services if we needed them. She gossiped about people in the building, telling me that Nelia Zafón was in a relationship with a gringo half her age and that, when they first came here, Celia’s husband, Rafael, thought José Mercado was gay. Celia said, “He and Ynez have been married for more than thirty years!” She laughed. She told me that Micho Alvarez, who she claimed always wore his camera around his neck, had a sensitive side, despite the fact that he might look big and burly, and that Benny Quinto, who was close friends with Micho, had studied to be a priest years ago. She said that Quisqueya dyed her hair, which was hardly news—I had assumed as much when I met her. “It’s the most unnatural shade of red,” Celia said. “Rafael says it looks like she dumped a pot of tomato sauce on her head.” She chortled. “Quisqueya is a busybody, but it’s only because she’s so insecure. She doesn’t know how to connect with people. Don’t let her put you off.”

Celia began telling me about when she and Rafael and her boys had come here from Panamá, fifteen years ago, after the invasion.

“So your son, he was born there?” I asked.

“I have two boys,” she said. “Both of them were born there. Enrique, my oldest, is away at college on a soccer scholarship. And there’s Mayor, who you met. He’s nothing at all like his brother. Rafa thinks we might have taken the wrong baby home from the hospital.” She forced a smile. “Just a joke, of course.”

She stood and lifted a framed picture from the end table. “This is from last summer before Enrique went back to school,” she said, handing it to me. “Micho took it for us.”

In the photo were two boys: Mayor, whom I recognized from the store, small for his age with dark, buzzed hair and sparkling eyes, and Enrique, who stood next to his brother with his arms crossed, the faint shadow of a mustache above his lip.

“What about you?” Celia asked. “Do you have other children besides your daughter?”

“Only her,” I said, glancing at my hands around the glass. The perspiration from the ice had left a ring of water on the thigh of my pants.

“And she’s going …” Celia trailed off, as though she didn’t want to say it out loud.

“To Evers.”

Celia nodded. She looked like she didn’t know what to say next, and I felt a mixture of embarrassment and indignation.

“It’s temporary,” I said. “She only has to go there for a year or two.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“She’s going to get better.”

“I’ve heard it’s a good school.”

“I hope so. It’s why we came.”

Celia gazed at me for a long time before she said, “When we left Panamá, it was falling apart. Rafa and I thought it would be better for the boys to grow up here. Even though Panamá was where we had spent our whole lives. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what parents will do for their children?”

She put her hand on mine. A benediction. From then, we were friends.


I WAS TIRED of going to my usual places, so one rainy morning I went instead to the Community House, just to see what they offered.

I took the bus Celia told me to take and walked into a building filled with white tables and chairs. Beige computers sat on some of the tabletops and a row of beanbag chairs slouched along one wall like giant gumdrops. The receptionist asked me in Spanish, “Are you here for the English class?”

“English class?”

“I’m sorry. Our new session starts today, so I just assumed that’s why you were here.”

I was about to say no, but I stopped myself. Maybe it was luck that brought me here, or maybe it was providence. I envisioned myself in the school uniform I used to wear when I was a girl—the starched blue shirt and navy vest, the pleated skirt, the knee-high socks—and all of a sudden I liked the idea of being a student again. Maybe I would even learn enough to be able to help Maribel with her homework.

“Yes,” I said. “I am.”

The woman directed me to a room behind her.

A few people were already inside, seated at desks, and they glanced at me as I walked in. I smiled at them and sat with my purse on my lap, fiddling with the clasp until the teacher entered. She strode to the front and grinned at us with big horse teeth.

“Welcome, everybody,” she said in English. “I’m your teacher, Mrs. Shields.”

Of course, at the time I didn’t understand what she was saying. I only learned it later. That first day, the words were merely sounds in the air, broken like shards of glass, beautiful from a certain angle and jagged from another. They didn’t mean anything to me. Still, I liked the sound of them.

No one in the class said anything in return.

The teacher, in Spanish this time, said, “Hola a todos.”

“Hola,” a few people replied.

She put her hands on her hips. “We need to wake you people up,” she said in Spanish. “?Hola!” She cupped one hand to her ear.

More people responded this time.