We Run the Tides(9)

“He asked us for the time,” I say.

“And then what?”

“I told him the time. It was a few minutes after eight.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he thought it was later.”

“He thought it was later? That’s what he said?”

“Yes.”

“Did he suggest he’d find you or your friends later?”

“No.”

“Did he do anything inappropriate?”

“I didn’t see anything inappropriate.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“What did the car look like?”

“It was white, vintage. The window was down.”

“Was the door open?”

“The door was closed.”

“What happened after you gave him the time?”

“We turned and kept walking to school.”

“And that was it?”

“That’s when my friends said they had seen something. But I was confused.”

“Why were you confused?”

“Because I didn’t see anything.”

The headmaster thanks me, the police officers thank me. I wonder if they’re disappointed or relieved.

I leave the room and its cigar smoke, which clings to my hair. Waiting in the front office is Julia, who is about to be called. I don’t make eye contact with her but instead stare at her white K-Swiss sneakers.

That evening my parents ask about the encounter. The school has called them, of course. Mr. Makepeace has told them the cops aren’t going to pursue any action. He and the police believe my version of the morning’s events.

They believe me.





6


My mother skips aerobics that evening. I know things are serious when she skips aerobics. I joined her a few times at a middle school gym on Arguello and was startled by how many friends she had in the class. A muscular woman with an attached microphone danced energetically on a stage while almost a hundred women of all sizes faced her and mimicked her moves. The women wore leotards over leggings and at the end of the class they got down on the dusty floor and did leg lifts. I saw the wet stains around the women’s groins and I felt embarrassed for them, for myself, for the plight of women.

Instead of going to aerobics tonight, my mother cleans the already clean floors of the dining room.

“You know how this all started, don’t you?” she says.

“With a man in the car,” I say. I’m sitting in a dining-room chair. We only sit in this room for holiday meals or when we have company.

“No,” she says, and she wrings out her rag in the square white plastic bin she occasionally uses to soak her feet after a long nursing shift. She is on all fours and has one damp rag in her hand and another dry one under her knees. The floors are wooden and hard, and she needs the old rag, its texture bumpy like cottage cheese, to protect her. Most of my friends’ parents hire cleaning people. That’s what happens when you own a house in our neighborhood—you have cleaning people. But not my parents. They don’t believe in hiring people. Especially not cleaning people. Not when my mother can clean better than anyone.

She moves her rag to the right and then replaces her knees on top of it and continues to clean. “This is all because of those parent lectures they started at school last spring. The first speaker was this woman from Stanford.” My mother touches her nose and I know this means she’s saying this woman was stuck-up. Someone else might think she’s gesturing that this woman was a pig, but my mother grew up on a farm and doesn’t insult animals.

“This woman who came from Stanford”—she says it like Stan-fjord—“she said that she was going to share with us the secret to raising successful girls.”

“Really?” Like all thirteen-year-old girls I find the word secret intriguing.

“She said we should never tell our daughters they were beautiful. According to her, this was a terrible idea. And so of course every family has been following her advice because she’s a professor at . . .” My mother doesn’t even say the university’s name, she just presses her palm against her nose. “But since that day, all you girls have been seeking attention. You’ve all been looking in the mirror, wondering if you’re pretty. When I was growing up, we didn’t even have mirrors. We only had a lake.”

With that, she stands up, ventures into the kitchen, and returns with a bottle of Windex. She begins spraying the glass of the antique mirror with the gold frame. The mirror is from my dad’s antique gallery. Our entire house looks like the gallery, and I often wonder if it would have been furnished differently if my parents had had a boy. With girls you can keep fragile things.

I have a hard time focusing on my homework. I call my friends and leave messages for them. No one calls me back.

*

THE NEXT DAY I walk to school by myself—the other girls get rides from their parents. I pass the spot where the car was parked. It’s empty now. I stare at it as though it’s an archaeological site of historical significance. Then I turn and continue my walk to school, alone. In my locker I find a folded note addressed to Benedict Arnold, but his name’s been crossed out and my name’s been written on top. The note contains one word: “Traiter!” Maria Fabiola has always been a terrible speller.