The Book of Unknown Americans(18)

I hurried so fast down the wet metal staircase that I nearly slipped, but as I started toward the Toros’ apartment, suddenly there she was. And right behind her, Mayor Toro.

I gasped and ran to her, lifting her sunglasses off, cupping her face in my hands, studying it for bruises, for anything that might seem amiss. She winced as I turned her head from side to side.

“She’s okay,” Mayor said.

“What were—?”

“I saw her when she got off the bus. I was just talking to her for a little while.”

“Are you okay?” I asked Maribel.

She nodded and stared at me with her wide owl eyes.

I felt the punch of relief, swift and firm to my gut. She was okay. Maybe it should have bothered me more, the thought of Maribel out here alone with Mayor. But as boys went, Mayor struck me as the harmless sort. Besides, I was so overcome with gratitude in that moment that there wasn’t room for much else. She was okay. I didn’t even have the heart to ask whether she was sure because I didn’t want to give her the chance to take it back. She had said she was okay and that was all I wanted.





Mayor


The Riveras started going to the same Mass as us, and afterwards my mom usually invited them over for lunch at our house. They protested the first time—“No, no, it’s too much, we don’t want to impose”—but my mom, who was always eager to make new friends in this country, wore them down eventually, and the three of them got off the bus with us and walked straight to our apartment, laying their coats over the back of the couch, getting comfortable on the chairs my mom pulled in from the kitchen and arranged around the living room.

My mom made sure everyone had drinks and then she got busy, week after week, making her special party food—ham sandwiches on white bread with the crusts trimmed off. She cut them into triangles and speared them with plastic toothpicks, then carried them out on a ceramic platter that she passed around to everyone along with square white napkins that we used to catch the crumbs.

My dad, on the other hand, didn’t let the presence of the Riveras interfere with his usual routine. He turned on the television, cracked open a can of beer, and put his socked feet up on the coffee table. He watched soccer if it was on, which inevitably led to him talking about Enrique and bragging about the latest goal my brother had scored against Georgetown or the assist he’d had in the big game against Virginia, which was Maryland’s main rival, and how almost every week Enrique’s name was in the paper under the sports stats that were listed for every high school and college within a hundred-mile radius of us. “Mayor plays soccer, too,” he said. “But I haven’t seen his name in the paper yet.” He didn’t say it to be mean. It was the truth, even though not for the reason he thought, and he looked at me with pity. “But he’s getting better. Aren’t you?” he asked. And I struggled to nod through the rush of guilt I felt about lying to him and the humiliation I felt about sucking so bad.

When soccer wasn’t on, my dad turned to football. One week during an Eagles game when Sr. Rivera cheered Donovan McNabb on, my dad rode him, saying, “Arturo, it’s no use. I’ve been watching this game since I got to this country, and yes, the Eagles are a bird, but let me tell you, they no can fly.” He said the last part in English, to be funny, and even though I’m not sure Sr. Rivera understood him, he was nice enough to laugh.

In the beginning I ate the crustless sandwiches and opened a can of Coke, then excused myself to my bedroom to do homework or to listen to my iPod. My mom would track me down sometimes and give a disapproving look and try to convince me that it would be nice if I came out and talked to Maribel because she and I were basically the same age and because she was new here so she would probably appreciate me talking to her. “Don’t you think that would be nice?” my mom asked. But I didn’t think so. I mean, maybe it would have been nice for Maribel, but otherwise what was the point? Looking at her, sure. I could have looked at her all day. But actually having conversations with her? That was a different story.

Then one week I was walking home from my bus stop in the rain when, from behind, someone said, “Where you going?”

I turned around and saw Garrett Miller grinning at me, his skateboard under his arm.

“Home,” I said.

“Back to Mexico?”

“I’m not from Mexico.”

“My dad says all you people are from Mexico.”

When I didn’t respond, Garrett said, “What are you looking at?”

Garrett didn’t have a single friend that I knew of. His older brother had gone to Iraq with the air force and had come back in a body bag. The rumor at school was that Garrett’s mom had a breakdown after that. She just couldn’t handle it, so she’d split and hadn’t been back since. Supposedly Garrett’s dad started drinking so much that he lost his job. They must have been living off benefits from the military or something. Or maybe they were on welfare by now. I didn’t know.

I started walking away. I could hear Garrett trailing me, the shuffle of his sneakers on the pavement, the drag of his jeans. What was I supposed to do? Was he going to follow me all the way up to my door? What did he want? And then I heard another sound—the low rumble of an engine. I looked back and saw a bus, Maribel’s bus, turning off the road. It drove past Garrett and me and pulled up in front of the building. I watched as Maribel got off, walking down the steps like a deer carefully picking its way down the side of a mountain. At the sight of her, I forgot about Garrett for a second. She might have been one of the Evers kids, but she was still the prettiest girl I had ever seen in real life.