'Exactly. And you should be prepared for some travel in the immediate future.'
'Paris?' Monica said hopefully.
'Among other places. I've got a new plane, you'll enjoy it. An Airbus A380.'
'Oh, that sounds like a dream.'
'One of the better ones,' Adrienne replied. 'Though nightmares have their charm.'
Me llamo Eusebia Graciela Conines Angeles. Nanotoca Eusebia.
'I name Eusebia.'
Cheba sat at her kitchen table, in her kitchen, in her house…in a country and state and town very, very far away from where she had been given her names.
'I am practice my English. I…I am practicing my English…?Que lengua mas estupida!'
Before her, scattered over the table, were books, a computer pad, notebooks and paper, all dappled with sunlight from the garden outside.
The building wasn't totally unlike what she was accustomed to seeing, nor ones that her mother had occasionally scrubbed floors in: rooms grouped around a courtyard, pale stucco walls, red-tile roof. Nothing like anything she'd ever lived in, of course. This kitchen was bigger than any house she'd ever lived in before; at least, it smelled more the way she was familiar with now, cinnamon, cardamom, of fresh peppers and the strings of dried ones over the stove, poblanos, pasilla, chipotle, serranos, negros. A pot of corn was boiling with a hint of cal, chicken bubbling in a stew.
Every detail was wrong, though. Better than the barrio, she had to admit. No wood smoke, no kerosene. The town wasn't big, but it made her feel alien and exposed.
As for what lived here Her hands began to shake, and she stared at them stubbornly until they stopped. She had not slept very well. You didn't, when you were waiting for…No.
Then she took up the pencil again. Her teacher had told her that handwriting was one of the best ways to make her new words sink into her brain.
'I'm not feeling very smart today.'
Early in the morning, well before dawn, Monica and her mother had had a screaming fight out in the street. Cheba hadn't understood much, but she hadn't been able to get back to sleep. It was best not to think about that. She frowned at the last sentence instead. It wasn't right. She tugged on the gleaming black curl she'd wound around her left forefinger. ?Ingles! she thought in exasperation.
It had auxiliary verbs. And they don't make sense! Oh! My, it is 'my' name, mio! And my fathers and my mothers.
The words hit her in the chest, squeezing, as memories opened and bled, and a single coughing sob burst out before she choked her lips shut. Images Father, happy drunk and mean drunk.
They'd lived with her mother's parents in a brightly painted little cinder-block hut, on the edge of a small village. The dusty unpaved steet outside ran from the tiny town center to the hot, humid green jungle. Her mother, Alma Marta, had been an only child, and her husband had expected to inherit the lands from his father-in-law. But it hadn't happened. The elders hadn't liked his drunkenness, or the slovenly way he worked the lands for his father-in- law, and a cousin of hers had been granted the lands by the ejido when her grandfather had died.
Unitario Cortines Cruz had left the village to find other work. She and her mother had stayed with the cousins.
The only thing Papa found was his way into the grille of a very large truck. And I cannot even pretend it wasn't his own fault. He was probably looking at it and laughing when it hit him.
That had been near Papantla, Veracruz. The news arrived at the village a few months later.
Alma Marta Angeles Zapatero had found only cold charity with her cousins. She and her surviving child had walked and hitchhiked to Tlacotalpan.
I do not remember the village all that well. We were hungry there, sometimes, yes. But it was not like the homeless camps and the shantytown. And selling those ugly baskets to the tourists for centavos on the peso didn't pay any better, and we had to buy everything. Everything stank of sewage. Even the sun and the rain were worse, all crowded together, and never any quiet, never a place to be alone even for a moment. Waking up and the bugs crawling on me and eating the calluses off my feet. I had to come to el Norte. The thieves, they were as bad as the bugs, and as many as the rats and pigeons and seagulls. The rats stole our food and the thieves stole our money.
'Mama, you saved everything, for years. Sometimes you would tell me you had eaten when you hadn't, so we could put a little more in the box.'
She squeezed her eyes shut again. The final day had been hot and muggy even to her, raised in the coastal lowlands; just like all the others before it, but worse. She had danced across the great highway first, carrying most of the baskets, the fresh straw smell strong as she peered around them.
I could see it on the men watching. They were looking at me, at my legs, and then their eyes went up and they saw behind me and they shouted.
Brakes squealing and engine roar and tires skidding across the hot asphalt screaming like a trapped rabbit. Her own voice shouting, No, no, as she dropped the baskets and turned. The heavy, meaty thump came through the air like a blow, like a fist in the belly. A crackling with it, like sticks being twisted off a bush. All that before she could even turn and see, see what she knew and would not believe even when she saw it.
There were baskets scattered all over the busy fairway, and she stood, teetering on the edge of the curb, watching the broken rag doll tossed into the air and rolling, bouncing and banging, under two more cars before traffic split about the shattered body. The screams of the sirens had echoed through her head, the flashing lights had played on her eyes as she stood frozen, watching the emergency crew bag the body up and bundle it into the back of the ambulance. The police had held people away, but they hadn't asked questions and the great truck was long gone.
Who cares for the death of one more useless old India? And now, I have my truck. Her name is Adrienne, she told herself mordantly.
The doorbell chimes startled her out of the fruitless reverie. Like everything in this maldito country; they were wrong! Who would have tooting, galloping horns for a knocker! She stumped through the living room and opened the door, scowling. Jose was there.
They try, she thought. They try to be so nice. And I try, try to be polite to them. She silently stood aside to let him in and waved towards the kitchen.
She frowned as he sat down; there was a blanched look to his skin, and the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were tight and tense.
'?Una chela?' she asked.
He nodded and wagged a finger at her. She stuck out her tongue, feeling as awkward as usual. He was Hispano like her, she should feel at home with him, but it didn't happen. He didn't feel like a bad man; she had experience enough and to spare with those, and you could tell. But he was different.
'?Una cerveza?' she asked instead.
He opened his mouth and then wagged his finger again. She sighed.
' Bien, bien. Do…you…like…the…beer?'
'Would you like a beer?' he corrected her. 'Don't sigh, Cheba. It's really important you work at fitting in. Yes, there are many who can speak Spanish in this town, more than in most places around here-'
'Why?' she asked.
'This was a rancho…hacienda…long ago, before the Americans came. Under Spain, under Mexico. After that it was out of the way, not close to any of the cities. Anglos settled here only slowly; then the Brezes came, long ago-more than a hundred and fifty years-and since then, not many people leave, not many come in, we are a bit apart from the world. But it is still California, and if you cannot speak English well you are like someone with only one eye or one leg. Also my tia Joan has spoken to me about you.'
Cheba went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of the beer with the pretty label for Jose and a Jarritos soda pop for herself.
'Your tia?. Is she a sister of your father or mother? And why does she care?'
He took a long gulp from the bottle. 'My father's older sister. As to why…Because…it's part of being human?'
Cheba snorted. 'Not like your tia Theresa?'
