The Same Sky(59)

“We’d like to offer Conroe’s for the dance,” said Jake. “We’ll cover the food, and I’ll find a DJ. If you want it, you can have it.”

I wasn’t the only one who broke into a stunned smile. People exchanged glances, excitement gathering. “So the question, I guess,” said Jake. “The question is, do you want it?”

“Hell, yeah, we want it!” yelled a tall, skinny man in a T-shirt that said “Austin Fest.”

“We want it!” echoed another.

The room erupted in cheers. Jake made his way back to me and took my hand. “I think these people want a party,” he said.





47




Carla


IN MY LAST weeks of pregnancy, I was fired from the Texas Chicken for being too slow and needing too many bathroom breaks. I started taking long walks around Austin, Texas, just to get away from Room Sixteen. When the baby came, I would spend all my time in there, I knew. I would be trapped in the Ace Motel until the baby was old enough to be left in one of the day cares near the Ace Motel, and then I would go back to work lifting metal baskets in and out of boiling oil, if not at the Texas Chicken then at another restaurant. I supposed I should be thankful. I supposed this was the American dream.

It was fall. Most days I wore large T-shirts from Savers with a pair of elastic-waist shorts and sneakers. I was sweaty all the time. I understood I could never go back to Humberto—that beautiful, imaginary life was a mirage. I tried to accept my fate.

The baby turned somersaults inside me. It didn’t know it was destined to grow up in Room Sixteen. Maybe the baby would have a better future than me, as we were allegedly in the land of limitless possibility. But when I was out of sight of anyone who knew me, I cried, my grip on any sort of faith weak.

My family treated me like the burden I had become. Carlos was embarrassed to be seen with me, and Marisol steered clear and did not return my stuffed elephant. My mother said that the baby could sleep next to me in my Dora the Explorer sleeping bag. She took me to parenting classes, where I knelt next to other girls and women and learned how to swaddle a plastic baby, how to burp it and change its diapers.

I didn’t want the baby. But when I told my mother once, she said, “How dare you say that! This is God’s plan for you, and you will make the best of it.”

So I walked. As invisible as if I were magic, I passed houses, restaurants, and schools. I spoke to no one, but I felt every person’s pain. The man waiting for a bus was disappointed. The girls playing jump rope were hungry. The woman in a brand-new minivan stared at her Internet phone while her children hollered from the backseat, hoping she would notice them. The dog tied up outside a fancy coffee shop looked at me, and I felt its misery as if I were the one yoked to a utility pole.

One night I smelled something wonderful. I was near downtown, east of Interstate 35. This was a part of town that was interesting to me—some blocks looked expensive and were filled with white college students who had funny hairstyles and beautiful clothes, and then right down the road would be a cantina with ficheras as covered in makeup as the ones I had seen in Ixtapec. Italian scooters were parked next to trucks with Mexican license plates. Although I felt like there was nothing new to see sometimes, in this part of Austin I was sometimes surprised.

It was nighttime. My back was not hurting as much as usual. I bought an agua fresca from a street vendor and approached the building that smelled so delicious. It was a barbecue restaurant. Inside, I could see people dancing.

I drew closer, holding my breath. I could hear music from a DJ table in the corner. At the doorway to the restaurant, older people stood in throngs, laughing and sipping from plastic cups.

I was still in the dark. No one could see me. At times like this, I felt that I barely existed, my visions simply a fever dream. Only the thumps of my baby’s feet could bring me back to myself. On this occasion, my baby was motionless, and must have been asleep.

A girl stepped outside the barbecue restaurant. She was a few years older than me, her dress the bright pink of a hibiscus in bloom. She wore a plastic tiara and a sash that spelled out “Chávez Memorial Homecoming Queen.” In her hand was one long-stemmed rose.

I wanted the girl’s hair. I wanted the lipstick that matched her dress, I wanted the dress. I wanted her slim ankles and her silver shoes and her big metal earrings. She thought she was alone, and she held the rose to her face, inhaling, looking heavenward. She was thanking God, I knew.

I began to cry. My own hair was dirty and fastened with a rubber band. My shoes were hideous, my T-shirt enormous. I had come so far on the strength of my will, but there was no way I could be Homecoming queen unless I gave up my baby. There was no way my baby would be Homecoming queen if she grew up in the Ace Motel with a mother who did not want her.

I knew how it felt to understand you had ruined your mother’s life.

I thought of my grandmother and grandfather, who had raised their baby in a small shack on the outskirts of Tegu. My grandmother had scarcely been apart from my mother for an hour before my mother left for America. This was how it should be: a mother and child, enough food, time for kindness. A mother’s lilting song as you fell asleep on the pallet, her hands scooping you up if you fell walking to the market, an orange shared at the table during a lazy afternoon, each bite the taste of sunshine. A mother who looked at you as if you were her happiness. This was what I wished for my baby—this was what I wished for myself.