The Book of Unknown Americans(52)

And then, the front door opened, and I snapped my head up to see who it was. The boy, I thought. I don’t know why. On the walk over, I had been convinced that he was following us, and I had peered over my shoulder, thinking I’d heard the clatter of his skateboard behind us, but all I saw was Arturo giving me a quizzical look. Now though, it was only a young mother who walked in, pushing her child in a stroller. I held the glass to my lips and took a deep breath.

A few minutes later, Arturo broke the silence that had settled over us like fog. “Well,” he said. “Nineteen years.”

“Nineteen years what?” Maribel asked.

“Nineteen years that your mother and I have been married. She was eighteen when I married her.”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “It makes me feel so old.”

“You are old,” Maribel said.

Arturo laughed.

“What’s funny?” Maribel asked.

“Yes, what’s so funny, Arturo?”

“Do you have … a joke?” Maribel asked.

“Your father doesn’t know any jokes,” I said.

“Oh, I know jokes.”

“Like what?”

“Here’s one I heard on one of the American late-night shows. Why did the bicycle fall down?” He scanned our blank faces, waiting for a response. When he got none, he said, “Because it had two tires.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said.

“Well, the audience laughed. Maybe the subtitles were wrong?”

“It was tired?” I said. “That’s why it fell down?”

“You think you can do better?” Arturo asked. “Let’s see you tell a joke.”

“A joke about what?”

“Anything.”

“Yes,” Maribel said.

I looked around the restaurant for inspiration.

“We’re waiting,” Arturo said.

“Hold on.”

“Maybe you can order one from the menu,” Arturo offered. “Waitress, waters for us and one joke for my wife. Skip the straw.”

Maribel smiled.

“I’m getting funnier by the minute, Alma. You’d better think of something quick if you want to keep up with me.”

I stared at the table and tried to concentrate. Finally, to satisfy them, I told the only joke I knew, one that had made me laugh out loud when I heard it, even though I’d never repeated it myself. I said, “Why didn’t Jesus use shampoo?”

“I don’t know. Why?” Arturo asked.

“Because of the holes in his hands.”

Arturo looked at me in shock. At the sight of his face, I crossed myself. God in heaven, forgive me.

Then Arturo started laughing. Even Maribel, who months earlier never would have been able to process a joke like that, put her hand over her mouth to hold in her laughter.

Arturo raised his glass and toasted. “To the funniest woman I know,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.

Arturo frowned. “Nothing about me?”

“Sorry. To the best man I know.”

“That’s more like it.”

“And the best daughter,” I added.

“The best!” Arturo said.

I looked at them both—the way Arturo’s mustache turned up when he smiled, the way Maribel’s face glowed.

“The best,” I repeated.


SEVEN MORE DAYS passed. Seven days of knocking on doors and making calls and begging with store owners and anyone who would listen. But at the end of it, Arturo came up empty-handed.

I found him in the morning, the day after the deadline, sitting in the thin blue light, his head bowed, his fingers entwined behind his neck. I went to him and put my hand on his shoulder with all the tenderness I possessed. I wanted to heal him somehow with my touch, to save him from feeling that he had let us down.

He said, “I’m sorry.”

“You did everything you could have done,” I said.

“If anyone finds out—”

“Who’s going to find out?”

“She would have to leave her school, Alma.”

“No one’s going to find out.”

He ruffled his hands up through his hair.

“We haven’t done anything wrong, Arturo.”

He didn’t respond.

“We’re not like the rest of them,” I went on. “The ones they talk about.”

He unclasped his hands and looked at me, his expression sad and weary. “We are now,” he said.


AT THE TAIL END of February there was an ice storm. That’s what Celia called it. I phoned her not long after it began, when the rapping against our windows got so bad I thought for certain those hundreds of tiny collisions would break the glass. I was home alone—Arturo was still searching for a job, not for our visas now, but because we needed money—and when I heard the light taps followed by great thwacks like horse hooves against the panes, the thought crossed my mind that it was kids in the neighborhood, tossing rocks against the window. But when I looked I saw a glinting silvery spectacle against a white sky. Splinters of rain.

When Celia answered the phone, she said, “It’s an ice storm. They’ll be sending the children home from school soon, I’m sure. Don’t go outside unless you want to fall and break something. The last time this happened, José’s walker slipped. He broke his wrist and had to wear a cast for six weeks.”