My cousin Victor is turning seven today, and my tío Bigotes (yes, “Uncle Mustache”) is throwing him a big birthday party to celebrate, but I think it’s just an excuse for him to get drunk. As Amá is brushing her hair in the bathroom, I tell her she looks pretty and ask if I can stay home. I want to figure out how to get back inside Olga’s room. The key must be in the apartment somewhere. But Amá says no without even bothering to look at me. Maybe she thinks that if she leaves me alone, I’m going to orchestrate a giant orgy or overdose on heroin. I don’t know why she doesn’t trust me. I keep telling her that I will never get pregnant like my cousin Vanessa, but it doesn’t matter to her.
Even if I don’t find the key, at least I’d be alone. I’m hardly ever by myself in the apartment because Amá is always all up in my business and won’t leave me behind. Sometimes, when my parents go to bed, I open all the windows—which Amá hates—and let the breeze flap the curtains open. I sit in the living room with a cup of coffee, journal, book, and reading lamp. I like the late-night sounds of traffic, even if they’re disrupted by the pops of gunshots.
I decide to keep begging. “Amá, please. I just want to stay here and read. I hate parties. I’m just going to sit somewhere by myself. I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“What kind of girl hates parties?”
“This kind,” I say, pointing to myself. “You know that.”
—
Tío’s house always smells of old fruit and wet dog, which I don’t understand because Chómpiras has been dead for three years. The
stereo is blasting Los Bukis, and screaming children are running in and out of the house. Though I really hate kids, the part I hate most about these parties is arriving and departing. If I don’t kiss each and every relative on the cheek hello and goodbye, even if I don’t know them, Amá calls me a malcriada, a badly raised daughter. “You want to be like those güeros mal educados?” Amá always asks. In that case, yes, I do want to be like an impolite white person, but I just shut my mouth because it’s not worth arguing about.
I kiss everyone in the house hello, including tío Cayetano, even though I can’t stand him. When I was a kid, he used to stick his finger in my mouth when no one was looking. The last time he did it was during Vanessa’s communion party when I was twelve. I was in the bathroom while everyone was in the backyard. As I came out, he forced his finger in my mouth much deeper than the times before, so I bit him. I clamped my mouth and wouldn’t let go. I think I wanted to reach bone.
“Hija de tu pinche madre,” he yelled. When I finally released his finger, he walked back outside, shaking his hand, letting the blood drip onto the floor. He told everyone the dog had bitten him and left the party with a paper towel wrapped around his finger. I sat in a corner for the rest of the night, drinking cup after cup of pop to get the salty, metallic taste of his blood out of my mouth. I wonder if he ever did anything like that to Olga.
Tío Bigotes’s wife, Paloma, rushes to get us some food once we finish greeting every single person at the party. Tía Paloma is a woman so big that her stomach hangs low and everything wiggles when she walks. Every time I see her, I wonder how she and tío have sex. Or maybe they don’t even do it now that tío has that new mistress we’ve heard rumors about. Amá says Paloma has a thyroid problem, and I feel bad for her, but I’ve seen her eat three tortas in one sitting. Thyroid, my ass.
After I finish eating, I’m so full, my pants nearly cut off my circulation. I’m uncomfortable no matter how I sit or shift. I almost want to lie down and let the food spread out. I don’t know why I do this. Sometimes it’s like I’m eating to drown something yowling inside me, even when I’m not really hungry. I pray that I never get as big as tía Paloma.
“Buena para comer,” tía Milagros says, eyeballing my clean plate. Normally, I wouldn’t be offended by a comment like this— Mexicans are always saying that about kids. It’s meant as a compliment. “Good eaters” are people who’ll eat anything put in front of them with no complaints; they eat with enthusiasm. It means they aren’t picky or entitled brats. But this time, I know it isn’t meant as praise because tía Milagros is always talking shit. I used to like her when I was younger, but she’s become a bitter, resentful woman over the years. Her husband left her for a woman half her age a long time ago, and she’s been salty ever since. It’s hard to take her seriously, with her red perm and eighties bangs, but it pisses me off that I’ve become a target of her passive- aggressive cracks. Something about me just makes her angry. She is always sucking her teeth at what I’m wearing or making some comment about my weight, even though she’s more floppy and misshapen than a sack of laundry. She loved Olga, though. Everyone did.
I watch my cousin Vanessa feeding her daughter mashed-up beans. Only sixteen and she already has a baby. That would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but Vanessa seems happy somehow. She’s always giving Olivia kisses and telling her how much she loves her. I wonder if she’ll ever finish high school. What kind of life can you have when you live with your parents and have a baby to take care of? Olivia is cute and all, but I never know what to do with babies.
I walk outside and see my cousins’ cousin Freddy and his wife, Alicia, arrive as the piñata is being set up. I’ve always been fascinated by them. Freddy graduated from the University of Illinois and works as an engineer downtown, and Alicia was a theater major at DePaul and works at Steppenwolf. They are always dressed like they stepped off a runway. Alicia has the most interesting outfits—dresses made of bright, crazy fabrics and earrings that look like they belong in museums. Today two silver hands dangle from her ears. Freddy wears dark jeans and a black blazer. There’s no one in my family like them. No one has ever gone to a real college. I always want to ask them a million questions.
“Hey, guys. How are you? What’s new?” I feel like a frumpy dork when I talk to them because they seem so sophisticated. I get shy.
“We’re good,” Freddy says solemnly. “I’m so sorry about your sister. We were in Thailand and couldn’t make it to the funeral.”
Everyone in the house begins to come outside for the piñata. Victor suddenly starts crying because it isn’t ready yet. Jesus, what a baby.
“Yeah, we’re so, so sorry,” Alicia says, taking my hand.
That’s what everyone says about Olga. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I never know what to say. Is thank you the right answer?
“Thailand! How cool. What’s that like?” I don’t want to talk about my sister.
“It was beautiful.” Freddy smiles.
I see tía Paloma wiping Victor’s face with the end of her blouse.
He’s hysterical.
“Yeah, we got to ride elephants,” Alicia adds. “It was a-maz- ing.”
“So what are you thinking for college?” Freddy looks uncomfortable. He can probably sense that they shouldn’t talk about Olga anymore. I think I might visibly recoil every time someone says her name.
“I don’t really know. I want to move away to New York, I think. Somewhere with a good English program. But my grades haven’t been great lately, so I’m kind of worried. I really have to get my GPA up, or else I’m screwed.” When I remember the C I got on my last algebra test, it feels like snakes hatching and slithering in my stomach.
“Well, listen, if you ever need help with your applications or have any questions, please let us know. We need more people like you in college,” Freddy says.
“Totally.” Alicia nods, her silver hands swinging. “I can probably get you a summer job at my company when you’re old enough. It would look great on a college application.”
“Thanks,” I say. I don’t know what Freddy means by people like me….What am I like? Why would anyone care if I go to college or not?
There’s no one else I feel like talking to, so I go to the living room to read The Catcher in the Rye, which I had to smuggle in my bag because Amá always complains when I read at parties. Why do I have to be so disrespectful? she wants to know. Why can’t I just be at peace with my family? But I don’t feel like talking most of the time, and today everyone is going to be asking about my quinceañera. Besides, all of my little cousins are still trying to break the piñata, and I doubt anyone will notice that I’m gone. I just hope tío Cayetano doesn’t come in here when I’m alone.
I get to read for a solid half hour before I’m interrupted. When I get to the part where Holden drops and shatters his little sister’s record, my dad and uncles pile into the dining room to bust out the expensive tequila from the liquor cabinet. I should’ve known. This happens at every party.
Today the bottle tío Bigotes takes out is bright green and shaped like a gun. Like always, they sit around the dining room table, passing the tequila and talking about how great it was to live in their hometown of Los Ojos.
“How I miss my little town, chingao.” Tío Octavio closes his eyes and shakes his head, as if reminiscing about a lost love.
“Remember how we used to skip school and go swimming in the river?” tío Cayetano asks as he pours himself another shot.
“I wish I never would have left,” Apá says quietly.
If they love that town so much, why don’t they just go back and live there? I wonder. Always crying about Mexico as if it were the best place on earth.
I go back to my book, but tío Bigotes motions for me to come near him. “Come here, mija.”
I walk to the table and stand a few feet away, but he tells me to get closer. He pulls me toward him and puts his arm around my neck. His breath smells like tequila, cigarettes, and something deeper and more disgusting I can’t figure out. I try to pull back subtly, but it’s no use—his arm is locked around me. I wish Apá would save me, but he just looks down into his drink.
“What were you doing here in the living room by yourself?” “I was trying to finish my book,” I explain.
“What do you want books for at a party?” he slurs. “Family is what’s most important in life, mija. Go outside and talk to your cousins.”
“But I like to read.” “For what?”
“I want to be a writer. I want to write books.”
Tío Bigotes takes another gulp of his drink. “Are you excited about your party?”
“I guess.”
“What do you mean, you guess? You should be excited. Your parents are making a big sacrifice for you.”
Right, a sacrifice I don’t want.
“You know, without family, you won’t make it in this life. And now that you’re older, you have to learn how to be a nice señorita just like your sister, may she rest in peace.” Tío nods his head dramatically, then looks me straight in the eye to see if I’ve understood his point.
“But I want to finish my book, tío.” I stumble over my Spanish and feel my face get hot.
Tío Bigotes takes another shot of tequila and lets go of my neck as Amá comes into the living room. She purses her lips like she’s just bitten into an onion and calls them all a bunch of sorry drunks.
“Look at this one.” Tío Bigotes ignores her and gestures toward me with his glass. “With a cactus on her forehead, and she can barely speak Spanish. This country is ruining your children, sister.” He points at Amá as he gets up from the table.
No one seems to know what to say. Apá is still looking into his drink, as if searching for some sort of answer. Amá crosses her arms and glares at tío Bigotes as he walks out of the room. Tío Cayetano pours himself another. This is number four—I’ve been counting.
Everyone is silent until we hear the violent puking coming all the way from the bathroom. I touch my forehead and imagine a spindly cactus pressed there, my face bloody, like Jesus.
—
That night I dream I’m sleeping in Amá’s old room at Mamá Jacinta’s house when it catches fire. I run out into the street barefoot in a bright blue nightgown before it all burns down. I stand there watching the house as it crackles and sputters, the cool mud under my feet. Suddenly, Papá Feliciano, Amá’s dead father, is standing behind me holding a dead goat in his hands, its head hanging from its neck by a long, thin nerve. There is blood splattered all over his face and clothes.
Everything is off, in the way dreams are—the house is much bigger than I remember, and there are giant oak trees everywhere. Some things are in reverse or upside down, like an empty car driving backward. I know I’m in Los Ojos, but it is so different, so deserted. The house across the street has been replaced by a field of sunflowers.
“Where is Mamá Jacinta?” I scream at my grandfather, but he doesn’t answer. He offers me the limp goat in his arms. I scream and scream while he stands there, blinking at me. I don’t know if Mamá Jacinta is dead or alive.
The fire begins to grow, so I run toward the river. I feel the heat on my back, singeing the ends of my hair. Rocks cut my feet. It’s night, but the sky is still bright somehow. The sound of crickets is almost deafening. It smells like wet earth.
I jump into the water when the fire finally reaches me, near the abandoned train station. When I open my eyes, the water is thick and dirty, and a group of mermaids tangled in garbage and seaweed swim toward me, their long hair floating all around their faces. Their tails are iridescent green, and their breasts are small and bare. The one in the middle turns toward me and waves. It’s Olga. She has the same smile she had on her face when she died, and her skin is glowing, as if something were lit inside her.
“Olga!” I yell, my lungs filling with cloudy water. “Olga, please come back!” The other mermaids gently take her away. I try swimming toward them, but my legs won’t work. It’s as if they’re chained to the bottom of the river. I wake up crying, gasping for air.
