The Book of Unknown Americans(46)

“Give it gas!” I said, affecting the voice of Mr. Mason.

“Both of you,” my dad said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I hope we don’t see anyone we know,” my mom said.

“We’re on the highway, Celia, not at a party.”

“This is so embarrassing!”

“No one we know even has a car,” my dad pointed out.

“We’re not going to have one for much longer either if you don’t go faster.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“It’s dangerous, Rafa! Everyone has to go around us.”

I had been glancing out the back window every now and then, watching people switch lanes and flash their headlights at us. At that moment, I saw a car that had been coming up behind us in our lane swerve out to the side just before it reached us. The driver hadn’t realized until too late how slow we were going, or else he had miscalculated how fast he would catch up to us. He skidded onto the shoulder as my dad, totally unaware, kept moving us forward. The driver righted the car, put on his turn signal, and shot back into the traffic at the first opening. He careened around us and, as he passed by, yelled out his open window, “Learn how to f*cking drive!”

My mom slumped in her seat. “Ay Dios,” she said.

“It’s a good thing Enrique’s not here,” I said.

“We would never hear the end of it,” my mom agreed.

“We’re almost there,” my dad said.

“Where?” my mom asked.

“The exit.”

And when we pulled off, two and a half miles later, my dad expertly brought the gears down to first, to idle at a red light. My mom sat up.

“You don’t understand,” my dad said. “They stop you.”

“Who? What are you talking about?” my mom asked.

“That’s why I was being cautious.”

“Who stops you?”

“The police. If you’re white, or maybe Oriental, they let you drive however you want. But if you’re not, they stop you.”

“Who told you that?”

“The guys at the diner. That’s what they say. If you’re black or if you’re brown, they automatically think you’ve done something wrong.”

“Rafa, that’s ridiculous. We’ve lived here for fifteen years. We’re citizens.”

“The police don’t know that by looking at us. They see a brown face through the windshield and boom! Sirens!”

My mom shook her head. “That’s what that was about?”

“I didn’t want to give them reason to stop me.”

“You were driving like a blind man, Rafa. That will give them reason to stop you.”

“Everybody else just has to obey the law. We have to obey it twice as well.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to go twice as slow as everybody else!”

The light turned green and my dad brought the car out of first. We cruised under the overpass, a shadow draping over the car like a blanket.

“Next time, just try to blend in with everyone else and you’ll be fine,” my mom offered.

“The way of the world,” my dad said.

“What?” my mom asked as we emerged back into the sunlight.

“Just trying to blend in. That’s the way of the world.”

“Well, that’s the way of America, at least,” my mom said.


EVEN THOUGH the general mood in our house had lifted, I was still grounded, which meant that I hadn’t seen Maribel since Christmas. I had told her back then that it was going to be a while before I could come over again. She’d been getting better about remembering things—I didn’t have to repeat myself as often anymore and sometimes she even referenced things we’d talked about days before—but I wasn’t sure if she remembered this thing, and I hoped she didn’t think I was just ignoring her or that I’d lost interest. If anything, the grounding just gave me time to miss her, and I’d sit at home most afternoons depressed, staring out the window through the frost creeping in around the edges, hoping to catch a glimpse of her getting off her bus. And then I would walk away, because I knew if I saw her, it would be torture. And then I would go back, because not seeing her was torture. And then I would try to steer clear of the window for a while and make myself do something else like take a shower or read or play a game on my phone, but it was no use. I just paced around in anguish, not knowing where to look, not knowing where to go, and feeling like I was about to lose my mind.

At school, things were no better. I sat at my desk, drawing hats and mustaches on the people in my textbooks while I thought about Maribel. I wondered what she was doing, if she was as miserable as I was, what her hair looked like that day, what she was wearing. Anytime a teacher called on me, I had no idea where we were in the lesson. I’d just say “Huh?” and usually, after getting a disappointed look or even more often, a surprised one, I’d slump down in my seat and feel like crap. I went to the nurse’s office and complained that I had a stomachache or that I had a headache or that I was pretty sure I had the swine flu so I needed to go home. The nurse would take my temperature and send me back to class every time.

Sometimes when I got home from school, one of my mom’s friends would be in our living room, sipping freshly brewed coffee out of the Café Duran mugs my mom liberated from the cabinet only for guests. Occasionally, I was greeted by the sight of Sra. Rivera, whose company my mom coveted, and anytime she was there, I would linger in the hallway outside the kitchen and eavesdrop, waiting for her to say something about Maribel. Once, my mom mentioned my name and after a pause Sra. Rivera said, “He seems to like Maribel, no?”