Brighter Than the Sun, page 8
I step into the kitchen to find Papi standing in front of the grill.
“Can we make quesadillas fritas?” I ask him.
“No, we can’t,” Papi barks at me, leaning away as he sets down a piece of raw chicken over the fire, where it starts sizzling and smoking.
“It’s for Ana Sánchez and her family.”
He lets out a loud breath. “Está bien. Yes, tell her I’ll make them. But I can’t promise anything other than cheese and mushrooms.”
I go back out and tell Ana’s daughter that we can make quesadillas after all. Everyone is so excited about this last-minute addition to the menu that they all decide to order them. And later, while they’re eating, turning toward me every few minutes to ask for extra salsa, and more napkins, and another round of drinks, I start to feel longing for what this place once was—and for what I know it can become once we’ve rescued it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SIGHT OF THE SETTING SUN ON SUNDAY EVENING brings deep sadness to my chest. No matter how hard I’ve tried to slow down time, my weekend in Tijuana is nearly over.
“What are you thinking?” Diego asks me suddenly. He and I are in the living room, watching an old Pixar movie. Neither of us has said much since we sat down an hour ago, but he must’ve noticed the way I’ve turned away from the TV—the way I’m staring at the orange sky through the window.
“Nothing,” I answer quickly. “Just wondering when Papi and Luis will be home.”
Diego nods. He turns his attention back toward the movie, but barely a moment later, he clears his throat and says, “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Where would you rather be? Here or there?”
Many people have asked me this question over the past couple of years, but I don’t think anyone in my family ever had. They haven’t really seen the point, I guess—not when we’ve all known from the moment I was born that I was destined to live in the United States when I got older. Even though Mami and Papi didn’t plan for me to be an American citizen, they knew from the start that this would open doors for me that they never even dreamed of themselves—the opportunity to build something for myself beyond anything anyone in our family has ever built.
“Here,” I answer, just as I have every other time I’ve been asked about this.
The truth is, I don’t think this is the answer anyone expects to hear. For many people, Tijuana is a halfway point, a place of waiting, a gateway between two worlds. For as long as I can remember, we’ve heard the stories of people coming here from all over Mexico and Central America, hoping to cross into the United States. Stories of asylum-seeking families who have been through hell and back only to get to this point in their journey and be told that this is as far as they can go. Stories of those who have been deported from the US, who are forced to settle in Tijuana temporarily while they wait to find out if they’ll be able to go back to the lives they’ve had to give up. Stories of people who, if asked the same question, would always answer “there.”
To me, though, Tijuana is home. And it doesn’t matter how much time I may spend away from here. There will always be something about its streets, and its sounds, and its colors that will make me feel safe in a way that no other place ever could.
“Good,” Diego says, crossing his arms.
I keep waiting for him to ask me something else, but he doesn’t. Maybe this is all he needed to know—that, when given the choice in a few months, I will pick Tijuana over San Diego. That I will come back as soon as I’ve made enough money to help Papi and the restaurant, just as I promised I would.
After a while, I reach out and squeeze his arm, trying to remind him that I’m here, even if I can’t be with him in the same way I used to be.
He turns toward me and smiles, which brings warmth to my heart. My biggest hope is that, by the time I return to San Diego tomorrow, at least some of the loneliness he’s felt over the past week will have vanished. If I can just accomplish that, then this weekend will have been a success.
Abuela and I do the dishes after dinner. At first, we work in peaceful silence, and it’s almost easy to pretend that nothing has changed—that tonight is just a regular Sunday night. But then, suddenly, she looks up from the sink to stare at me through her glasses.
“You look different,” she says.
My first instinct is to lift a hand up to my hair. I’m not sure what she could possibly mean, because I haven’t changed a single thing about my looks.
“I don’t mean it that way,” Abuela says. “There’s something different in your eyes.”
Maybe she’s right. It’s only been a week since I left, but I already feel like a different person. Who that person is, well… I have no idea. I don’t even want to find out what it is that Abuela can see in my eyes, so I just look away, staring down at the cloth I’ve been using to wipe the kitchen counter.
“I’m worried about Diego,” I say. “Papi is too harsh on him.”
Abuela lets out a long sigh. “Tu papá y él son como el agua y el aceite,” she says. He and Papi are like oil and water.
We’ve known this all along. Diego and I have always been more similar to Mami—more sensitive, more aware of our feelings—whereas Papi and Luis… well, they’re the opposite. They’re used to bottling it all up, and letting it out only when it starts to reach a boiling point.
“Can you promise me something?” I ask, squeezing the cloth tightly in my hand. “If Papi ever says anything harsh to him again, can you just… can you step in? Diego told me some of the things Papi said after he got in trouble at school, and—”
“I will,” Abuela answers as she rinses a dish. “You know I will, mija.”
I hold her gaze for a moment. I know she means well, that she will try her best to keep her promise, but I just hope she’ll actually be able to do it. I hope she’ll find a way to give Diego the comfort he needs, that she’ll manage to stand up to Papi in the moments when it matters the most.
Abuela places the clean dish on the rack. “I understand why you’re worried.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do, mija. Diego needs your mom more than any of us do. And, as hard as you or I may try… we’re not her.”
“No,” I answer. “We’re not.”
“But that doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I just… I keep thinking about how much he’s changed since Mami died. He’s growing up so quickly, and if he starts going off in the wrong direction…”
Papi has always worried about Luis. He used to tell him to be careful who he hung out with, and what he did after school, because he’s seen how easy it can be to take a wrong turn. Despite the things that show up on the news, most people in Tijuana know that trouble doesn’t usually come unless you go looking for it. But for a boy like Diego, the opposite can be true—sometimes, trouble does come looking for kids who are feeling a little lost, who aren’t quite sure where they fit in, who are looking for a place to belong.
“That’s why we’re here,” Abuela says slowly. “We’re all here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Again, I know she means well, though I can’t help but worry that we’re already on the wrong track—that my brother is starting to slip between our fingers.
“How are you, mija?” Abuela asks me after a moment of silence.
“I’m good.”
“How are you really?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. “This week was so… long. I can’t believe it was only five days. And now the weekend’s over, and tomorrow…”
“You’ll have to do it all over again.”
“Exactly.”
Abuela smiles at me. “It’ll get easier,” she says. “Life will start feeling normal before you know it.”
“I hope so,” I say, even though I don’t really mean it. In the back of my mind, I don’t want this life to ever feel normal. I don’t want to ever give up on the idea of coming back home for good, because that is one of the few things I have left to hold on to.
“Have you all been eating well?” I ask. Tonight’s dinner was small, but at least we each got a few strips of chicken and some soup. I’m not really hungry, but I’m not full, either.
“We’ve been eating enough,” she replies. This might be another good thing about me not being here during the week—with one less mouth to feed, they must all be getting a bit more food than usual during dinner.
“Papi told me he’s cutting back on some expenses.”
Abuela nods. “He changed the phone plans. He also wanted to cancel the Netflix subscription, but Diego and Luis begged him not to.”
“That must’ve been an interesting conversation.”
Abuela raises her eyebrows at me, making me laugh.
“I’m not sure what else he’s gonna change, or cancel, or cut back on, but I’m certain there are many things he just hasn’t thought of yet,” Abuela says.
“I’ll get my first paycheck at the end of this week. Once I get that money, maybe we can—”
“It’s like I told you last week, Sol,” Abuela interrupts me softly. “Focus on what matters—going to school, and doing a good job at the store, and getting that paycheck. Whether we cut back on things here and there… well, that’s your father’s problem.”
I nod slowly at her. I want to say that what goes on at home when I’m not here matters way too much for me to shut my eyes and ears to it. But it’s also true that I’m tired, and I still have some homework to do before I go to bed, and I need to be up early tomorrow to return to California.
And so I go back to wiping the counter, scrubbing on something sticky that won’t come off, doing my best to remind myself of what Ari said to me on Friday—that sometimes, letting go is much better than trying to be in control.
“Great job,” Nick says to me during my shift on Monday evening.
“Thanks,” I say, trying not to blush as I lift up one last sparkly dress and hang it on the rack. It took me over an hour to work through just one crate of women’s evening wear, but there’s no judgment in his voice.
We turn back toward the big table, and I help Nick pop the lid off a crate full of children’s clothes. Now that I’ve started my second week of work, my training is technically completed, so he’s no longer responsible for showing me the ropes. Still, we’ve been working side by side, and I’ve been asking him questions every time I’m unsure about something, which he’s been more than willing to answer.
“Do you remember what I mentioned last week?” he asks. “About how the hangers and tags are different in the children’s department?”
I nod quickly.
“So… you up for the challenge?”
“I think so,” I answer, feeling myself smiling.
I’ve only just started tagging a pair of pants when Bill’s voice booms across the warehouse, and everyone turns toward him at the same time.
“Who put this here?”
Looking over my shoulder, I find Bill standing by the racks, holding one of the dresses I just sorted.
“It might’ve been me,” Nick says immediately, even though we both know that’s not true.
Bill’s eyes travel toward me, as if he can see right through Nick’s lie. “I expect better from you, Nick. Donna Karan always goes in modern. I don’t want ever to find it in the classic rack again.”
“I hear you. Won’t happen again.”
When we both turn back around, Nick shoots me a quick glance from the corner of his eye.
“Don’t worry about him too much,” he says in a whisper as he inserts a tag into a coat. “Bill’s just… Bill.”
“Is he always this awful to be around?” I ask. The second the words leave my mouth, I fear I’ve overstepped, but then Nick’s face crumples up into a thoughtful frown.
“Yeah,” he says.
I let out a small laugh, which I quickly try to pass off as a cough. I wouldn’t want Bill to hear me laughing after what just happened.
“He’s worked here for over ten years,” Nick says. “It’s taken him a very long time to become a manager, and you know how it is… when someone’s had a tough time making it to the top, they either try to make it a little easier for the people who come after them, or they try to make sure everyone pays for it as much as they did.”
“That’s what it is, then? He just wants newer employees to have a hard time because he had a hard time?”
Nick hunches his shoulders slightly. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“I’m glad you’re not like that.”
“Well, I’m glad you think I’m not like that.” He smiles at me.
The children’s clothes turn out to be simple enough to work on. After dealing with the long gowns and the delicate fabrics from the last crate, I find the small pants and shirts way easier to handle. I’ve gotten through nearly half of this crate when Nick clears his throat loudly.
“So, what’s your story?” he asks.
“Huh?”
“Your story,” he says. “I was thinking over the weekend about how we trained together all of last week, but I still don’t know much about you.”
Nick lifts his eyebrows hopefully at me, and something starts fluttering around in my stomach as I realize two things. The first is that he just admitted to thinking of me outside of work. The second is that he seems genuinely interested in learning more about me.
“Uh… I’m from Tijuana,” I reply, blurting out the first thing that comes to my mind. “Well, not from there. I was born in California, but I grew up in Tijuana.”
“Interesting,” he says.
“How about you?”
“Me?” he asks, almost as if he didn’t think himself worthy of my curiosity. “San Diego born and raised. Same as my parents and grandparents.”
“That’s nice.”
“That’s what most people say,” Nick answers. “That San Diego is a nice city. I’m just not sure I believe them. I guess I’d need to compare it to other places to really know.”
“You’ve never been outside of San Diego?”
“I mean… I’ve been to LA a few times. But I’m sure there are way nicer places.”
“Yeah,” I say. Even though I’m used to traveling across an international border every day, I’ve wondered about this a few times before—about what other parts of the world might be like. The only other place I’ve seen is Mexico City, which is where Papi is from, so we would spend a week or two there during the summer when we were younger. I always enjoyed seeing our family—all the tíos and tías and primos whose names we’d heard before but whose faces we’d never quite learned to recognize. When it came to the city itself, though, I’ve never really understood how anyone could be comfortable living in the middle of all that noise, all that traffic, all that movement.
“And why Wallen’s?” Nick asks me.
“Why I got a job here, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
A part of me doesn’t want to admit the truth. It might be easier to brush off his question and tell him my best friend referred me because I just wanted to find an after-school job to get some extra cash. But then, when I meet his big brown eyes, I can’t help but feel as though he wants to hear the real answer—as though I can be honest with him.
“My family’s going through a rough time,” I say. “We need the money.”
“I get that,” he says, his eyes focused on the t-shirt he’s stickering.
“You do?”
He nods, still staring down at his hands. “It’s the same for me, kinda. My mom got sick earlier this year, so she’s had to take some time off work. That’s why I took the job here.”
“Is she… okay?” I ask, my voice coming out a lot weaker than I intended it to. Suddenly, I feel what other people must’ve felt when I told them Mami had cancer—the awkwardness, the pity, the uncertainty about what to say next.
“She needs a transplant,” he says. “Kidney transplant. But the doctor says she should be okay once she gets it.”
“I hope she’s able to get it soon.”
“Thanks,” he answers. “Me too. We’d been waiting to see if she could get it before the school year started, but the call didn’t come. So I had to skip senior year so I could pick up extra work hours.”
“You had to drop out of school?” I ask, feeling a little breathless all of a sudden. That has always been one of my biggest fears—not being able to finish high school, not getting into college. After all the dreaming Mami did on my behalf, and after everything I’ve done to get the education she so desperately wanted me to have, I can’t even picture the idea of not getting my degrees.
“Without my mom’s job, I didn’t have much of a choice. It’s been just the two of us ever since I was little,” he says. He must notice the way my eyes have turned sad, because he clears his throat. “On the bright side, though, I’ve gotten to meet cool people around here.”
“Really?” I ask.
“You’re one of them,” he adds. “You’re pretty fun to be around, you know?”
When I look up, he’s smiling at me, and so I smile back, thinking about what he said on the elevator during my very first day of work: I’m your friend.
I don’t think I believed him then—not entirely—but I do now. I’m just not used to making friends this quickly, this easily. I’m not used to being described as fun, or to anyone trying to get to know me better.
As I finish up the crate of children’s clothes and move on to another, it occurs to me that maybe the best types of friendships happen like this—quickly, effortlessly. And when they do, there’s no point in questioning them. Maybe we’re just meant to jump in headfirst and trust that the other person can feel the same connection, and that they’re also a little less alone because of it.
CHAPTER NINE
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT KNOWING THAT I HAVE A new friend at work that makes my week much brighter and easier than the last. With Nick standing by my side, the hours in the stockroom go by quicker, the lights hanging overhead seem softer. Even the walls seem to have come just a bit closer together, so that the place feels smaller and warmer than it did before.
