The Book of Unknown Americans(19)

After the bus bounced back onto the road, Maribel just stood in the middle of the parking lot in the drizzling rain. She didn’t move.

“Hey,” Garrett called.

Maribel turned.

“You remember me? I saw you a few weeks ago at the gas station.”

Maribel stared at him.

“What’s your name?” Garrett asked.

When she didn’t answer, he said, “What’s the matter? You don’t speak English? ?No inglés?”

She shook her head.

I watched as Garrett took a step back and surveyed Maribel from head to toe, nodding in appreciation. She didn’t squirm, didn’t shift, just stood there letting herself be ogled.

“Take off your sunglasses so I can see your eyes,” Garrett said, but instead of waiting for her to do it, he pulled her sunglasses off her face himself. When Maribel reached for them, Garrett held them up in the air where she couldn’t get them. Reflexively, Maribel put her hand over her eyes.

“What?” Garrett said. “Something wrong with your eyes?”

He pried her hand away and held on to it.

I cringed.

He snaked his head closer to study her face and then pulled back, looking confused. “Something wrong with you?” he said, dropping her hand like he’d just been burned. Then he whistled as if he’d put it together. “That’s why you were on that bus, isn’t it? You’re some kind of retard. How do you say ‘retard’ in Spanish? Hey!” Garrett said, waving his arm in front of her blank face. “I’m talking to you. Can’t you hear?”

I took a step, then stopped. What did I think I was going to do?

Garrett twirled her sunglasses around. “You need these back?”

When Maribel reached for them, Garrett tossed the sunglasses up in a high arc over her head and let them land on the wet pavement. Maribel bent down to get them, and Garrett crowded up behind her, settling his hands on her hips, drawing her against him.

“Hey!” I yelled.

Garrett whipped his head around like he’d forgotten that I was there.

“Leave her alone,” I said.

“Fuck you.”

“She hasn’t done anything to you.”

Garrett narrowed his eyes to slits and sauntered toward me, nudging his skateboard along with the toe of his shoe. My heart was thudding so hard it felt like it was taking up my whole chest, but at least I’d gotten him away from Maribel. Over his shoulder, I saw her stand and put her sunglasses back on, pushing them up the bridge of her nose with her finger.

“What are you? Her f*cking fairy godmother?” Garrett said. He was right in front of me now, a head taller and at least thirty pounds heavier. I should’ve just stayed out of it, I thought. Why, why, why didn’t I just stay out of it?

“No,” I managed to say.

“You wanna be a hero?”

I shook my head.

“Because I was just talking to her,” Garrett said. “That’s all.”

But that wasn’t all, and both of us knew it. “I saw you,” I said.

Garrett grabbed the collar of my shirt and twisted it into his fist, pulling me close. “Saw what, shitface?”

I didn’t dare look in his eyes.

“Couldn’t hear you,” Garrett said, squeezing my collar until it felt like a noose around my neck.

“Nothing,” I managed to get out.

It was probably only a matter of seconds, but it felt like a full minute passed, maybe more, before Garrett finally let me go, sending me stumbling back onto my ass.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Fucking none of your business.”

He kicked a spray of pebbles in my direction, then turned around and looked at Maribel, who was still standing basically in the same place she’d been the whole time. “I’m not done with you,” he called to her.

He picked up his skateboard and started walking out toward the road, through the gravel.

I brushed myself off and walked over to Maribel. “Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Don’t pay attention to him,” I said. “He’s a jerk.”

And then we were just standing there, and the rain was still drizzling like static, and I didn’t know what to do next.

“Are you going home now?” I finally asked after a traffic jam of silence.

“I’m waiting for my mom.”

I looked up and down the length of the building, but besides Maribel and me, no one was around. “Where is she?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Your mom.”

“She meets me at the bus.”

“Do you think she’s in your apartment?”

Maribel shook her head. “I’m meeting her here.”

What was I supposed to do? I didn’t really want to stand out in the rain with her for who knew how long. Maybe Micho or Benny would walk out and one of them could keep her company. After another minute, though, it was still just her and me, so I said, “Well, let’s wait on the fire escape at least. It’s covered, so we can get out of the rain.”

As soon as we sat on the metal fire escape landing, Maribel slid her backpack off and pulled out a green notebook. She snapped the cap off a pen and started writing, hunched over the paper.