I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter Read online

  I plop down on the couch before I go to my room and start my homework. Apá is watching Primer Impacto, that horrible tabloid news show that covers the most bizarre stories—Siamese twins, exorcisms, child abuse, hauntings, disfigured people. I don’t know why people watch that stuff. When the segment on the cockroach-eating baby begins, I go into the kitchen for a glass of water. Amá is hunched over the sink, scrubbing pans. I wonder what it’s like to clean houses all day and then come home and keep cleaning. I hate seeing her this way because it makes me feel so guilty—guilty for existing, guilty that she has to work like that for us.

  “How was school?” Amá asks, and kisses me on the cheek. Even when I’m punished and I’m convinced she doesn’t love me anymore, she still kisses me on the cheek.

  “It was okay.”

  “You look sick. Have you been eating junk at school?”

  “No.”

  “Are you lying to me?” Amá always asks so many questions. I feel perpetually interrogated.

  “I swear to God, I just ate a sandwich.”

  “I don’t like the color on your face.” Amá gets closer. She smells like dish soap.

  “What color?”

  “You look yellow.”

  “I’m brown, definitely not yellow,” I say, staring at my arm.

  “Well, you don’t look right. I might have to take you to the doctor. You can’t have a quinceañera looking like that, you know? You have to be pretty for your family. What will your sister think when she looks down on you from heaven?” The thought of Olga sitting in a cloud in the sky watching me is so stupid it almost makes me laugh. Does Amá actually believe she can see us?

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” she says, feeling my forehead.

  “I said no! Jesus Christ, leave me alone,” I snap, which surprises both of us.

  “You’re going to be sorry when I’m not around, you’ll see.” Amá turns back to the sink. She is always going on and on about how she’ll be dead one day. Do all mothers do that? It used to make me feel bad, but now it just gets on my nerves.

  Suddenly, I feel something gurgle inside me—a warm, stretching pain—but it’s not my stomach. When I go to the bathroom, I see a smear of reddish brown on my underwear. My period is a week early, but that’s what I get for lying.

  TEN

  Winter is finally over. Christmas and New Year’s came and went like a slow and anguishing blur. We spent the holidays at tío Bigotes’s house with the rest of the family. Though my aunts and uncles tried to make it festive with loud music and a giant feast of tamales and roasted goat, Olga’s absence floated silently around us. No one mentioned her, probably so Amá wouldn’t cry—which she did anyway when we got home—but we could all feel it.

  Every spring the teachers organize an outdoor field trip for each class. They’ve been doing it ever since Olga was in high school, maybe even before. I bet they feel sorry for us because we live in the city and never get to go anywhere. The only animals we see are pigeons and rats, which are essentially the same thing. Nancy from chemistry class told me she had never been outside of Chicago until two years ago, when she went to Wisconsin. I don’t even know how that’s possible.

  I guess these trips are a way of giving us poor kids a taste of nature. Last year they took us to Starved Rock State Park, which was beautiful. I spent the entire time alone writing in my notebook next to a waterfall. Some people made out in a cave all day. Another group just sat around looking at their phones. What a waste. I don’t understand how people can ignore beauty like that. I saw rabbits, beavers, toads, and all sorts of colorful birds. I saw a freaking eagle, which I wasn’t even sure actually existed. I started to wish that I could live alone in a cabin by myself, like Henry David Thoreau, but I’d probably start to get restless after a few days.

  This year after a never-ending bus ride, we finally arrive at the dunes. The sun is shining, and though it’s chilly, it’s beginning to look and feel like spring. The trees are growing leaves again, and some flowers are beginning to sprout. Not bad for April.

  Ms. López and Mr. Ingman tell us we have to meet near the bus at 2 p.m.

  “Under no circumstances will you leave the park. Do you understand?” Ms. López says, with her hands on her hips, trying to look tough but failing, because she’s probably not even five feet tall.

  As soon as we all mumble yes, Ms. López goes back to flirting with Mr. Ingman. I heard her laughing at all of his stupid jokes throughout the entire bus ride. I know both of them are divorced, and the way she looks at him makes me wonder if they’re boning.

  Lorena, Juanga, and I wander around the forest until it’s time for lunch. I still haven’t been able to shake him. He and Lorena are inseparable. I thought his charm would have worn off by now, but, no. The whole time he complains that he doesn’t have any cell phone reception. I try to block him out and focus on the buds on the trees, the smell of leaves, and the sounds of birds, but he’s so annoying that it’s almost impossible. I have to put up with him because I’m going to ask him to help me get in touch with Jazmyn through his friend Maribel. I keep wondering who Olga told Jazmyn about when she ran into her at the mall a few years ago. I mean, it’s hard to believe that she could have been talking about Pedro. How could anyone be excited about him?

  “Ugh, I hate nature,” Juanga says.

  “How can you hate nature?” I grow more exasperated by him by the minute.

  “I just do. It’s boring.”

  “So what do you like to do for fun? What is your idea of beauty?”

  “Shopping, partying, and…fucking,” he laughs.

  “That’s all you like? Do you have any sort of inner life? Do you even know what that is?”

  Lorena glares at me. “God, Julia. Shut up already, okay?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how a person can say they hate nature. It’s like saying you hate happiness or laughter. Or fun. I don’t get how someone could be so freaking vapid.”

  “I don’t know what that word means, but just stop.”

  Juanga looks like he wants to say something, but instead, he walks a few feet away from us and looks down toward the lake.

  “Okay, okay. I’m done.” I lift my hand to show that I give up.

  We climb to the top of the highest dune when it’s time for lunch. The view is incredible. The waves are splashing, and the white dunes against the blue sky are unreal. I had no idea something so beautiful was close to Chicago. Lorena sets the blanket down for us. Amá had to be all Mexican about it and pack me cold cheese-and-bean burritos. God forbid I eat a regular sandwich.

  Before we even start eating, Juanga, who is clearly obsessed with all things penile, starts talking about different shapes he’s seen in his life. The craziest one, he says, was long and pointy, which seems like something out of a horror movie.

  “That sounds terrifying,” I say. “I would have run out of the room screaming, worried for my life.”

  “It was ugly,” Juanga says, closing his eyes, then taking a small bite of his smelly tuna sandwich. “But it felt like heaven.”

  I shudder.

  “This one over here used to think that penises had hair on them. Not just the balls—the actual penis.” Lorena points at me and laughs.

  “What?” Juanga nearly chokes on his food. “How is that possible?”

  “I had never seen one, so I assumed,” I say, looking down at my cold burrito. “I mean, women have hair down there, so it made sense to me.” I don’t tell him I still haven’t seen one in real life.

  “Yeah, I had to be the one to break it down for her,” Lorena says, and Juanga laughs so hard, he almost spits out his Coke. “She’s a virgin, you know?”

  Juanga’s stunned. I had no idea that a fifteen-year-old virgin would be such an oddity. It’s as if Lorena just told him I had a sixth toe or something. She lost her virginity when she was fourteen and thinks she’s some sort of sexpert now.

  “So what?” I glower at her. I can
’t believe she’s embarrassing me in front of this idiot. I feel the burritos hardening into cement in my stomach.

  “I’m just saying that for all the shit you talked about your sister being such a saint, you’re really not that much different. You’re always so scared of your mother.”

  “Are you serious? Are you really talking about my sister right now?”

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Lorena is defensive, all of a sudden. We’ve argued about stupid stuff a million times over the years, but this feels different. We’ve never done it in front of other people like this.

  “And who is there for me to have sex with? Please, tell me. Am I supposed to just bang any loser I see?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.” Lorena looks frustrated.

  “Then what are you trying to say?”

  “Sometimes you’re kinda stuck-up. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t blame you. That’s how your mom is.” Lorena knows this is a low blow, and looks nervous right after she says it. Being compared to my mother makes me want to punch Lorena right in the mouth, but I do my best to control myself.

  “So I’m stuck-up because I don’t want to have sex with anyone? Am I hearing that correctly?”

  “No, it’s not even about that. That’s not what I’m saying. Sometimes it’s like you think you’re too good for everything. You’re too hard on people.” Lorena doesn’t make eye contact.

  “That’s because I am too good for everything! You think this is what I want? This sucks. This sucks so hard, I can’t take it sometimes.” I swing my arms, gesturing toward I don’t know what. I’m so angry my ears feel as if they’re on fire. “Just because you have sex with everything with a penis attached to it doesn’t mean you’re better than me.”

  Lorena looks hurt. Juanga pretends to be distracted by his phone, but I’m sure he’s enjoying every second of it.

  “Forget it. Sometimes I just can’t talk to you,” Lorena says.

  I throw the rest of my sad burrito into my backpack and run down the dune, nearly slipping on my way down. I’m sure Juanga would love to see me topple over and break my neck in front of everybody.

  When I get to the bottom, I kick the sand out of sheer frustration, and thanks to a gust of wind, some of it flies right into my eyes. I’m so pissed at Lorena, and I’ve had it up to my armpits with Juanga. Now I can’t even ask him for Maribel’s number. I don’t even want to look at either one of them. I walk farther away from everyone and decide to make sand angels to see if that will calm me down. I close my eyes. I’ve always loved the feeling of sand against my skin. We rarely went to the lake when I was a kid, even though it was close. They were some of the only times I’ve ever seen Apá happy. He built sand castles with us, and swam and swam until it got dark. He said it reminded him of swimming in Los Ojos when he was young.

  When I open my eyes, I see Pasqual standing over me. I nearly jump at the sight of his brown, pocked face.

  “What the hell, man! What are you doing?”

  “Watching you, duh.”

  “Yeah, I see that, you weirdo,” I say, getting up and dusting the sand off my clothes.

  “Your sister is dead.”

  “No shit. How do you know?”

  “Everyone knows. Do you miss her?”

  Pasqual looks like a nerd, but he’s not even smart, which is always disappointing. It surprises me every single time he opens his mouth in class. His clothes are so dorky they’re borderline offensive. He smells like basement and wears video game T-shirts, which he sometimes pairs with socks and sandals. Even his name is uncool—Pasqual is the name of an old Mexican man who sits on a dusty porch muttering about his lost chickens.

  “Of course I miss her. She was my sister.” I don’t know why I bother replying. I should probably just tell him to eat a bag of wieners.

  “Must be really hard.”

  I nod.

  “Was she pretty like you?”

  “Ew. Don’t even. Geez.” I wrap my jacket around me. A seagull squawks above us. I hate those things. They always look like they’re up to no good.

  “You don’t even know you’re pretty. That’s sad.”

  “Shut up. Leave me alone.” I walk toward the lake.

  “You shouldn’t hate yourself so much. Everyone is messed up, even when it doesn’t seem like it.”

  The wind is starting to provoke the water, and a big beefy cloud drifts toward us. I can see the faint and hazy Chicago skyline across the lake. It’ll probably rain soon, which will make this day even worse. Pasqual walks toward me, looking up at the sky with his mouth wide open, as if he’s never seen it before.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  “I do. And you know I do.” Pasqual puts his hands in his pockets and walks away.

  I sit down and pull out The Stranger by Albert Camus. I try to read, but I’m distracted because I’m still seething about my fight with Lorena. I just stare at the water and count the waves. When I reach 176, I hear someone yell behind me.

  It’s Mr. Ingman. “Hey!” he says, and sits down next to me. “What are you reading now?”

  I hold it up for him to see.

  “So, a light beach read?” Mr. Ingman chuckles.

  I nod. “I guess so.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  “It’s like nothing means anything. Nothing has a real purpose. I guess that’s how I feel a lot of the time. Sometimes I really don’t see the point in anything.”

  “Existential despair, huh?”

  “Yes, exactly.” I smile.

  “I really want to know that you’re okay. You keep telling me you’re fine, but I’m worried about you.” Mr. Ingman scoops sand with his hands and tries to form a pyramid.

  “I don’t know what okay means anymore. I don’t know what normal is.” What I don’t tell him is that I can hardly get out of bed most mornings, that simply getting through the day feels like a monumental task.

  “I think you should talk to someone. You can always talk to me, but I think you need a professional. I can try to find you a free program.”

  “That’s very nice of you, but no thanks. I’m fine. Seriously.” I’m a terrible liar, and I hope he doesn’t notice.

  “Okay. I’m going to trust you here. Please don’t let me down.”

  “I won’t.” I force a smile. “I promise.”

  ELEVEN

  We’re barely halfway through the second semester of junior year, and all I can think about is getting the hell out of here and going to college. I feel as smothered and restless as ever. It’s like I’m a wound-up toy with nowhere to move.

  I keep looking for the key to Olga’s room every time I’m alone in the apartment, which is rare these days. Either Amá or Apá is always home. It’s as if they don’t trust me to be by myself. Whenever they run out for a quick errand, though, I hunt for the key. I’ve even risked stumbling upon sex stuff in their room by searching all of their drawers. I found a key in a jewelry box once, but it didn’t fit. I’ve also thought about removing the lock with tools, but I’m afraid they’ll catch me in the act.

  Meanwhile, I don’t know what else to do to find out more about my sister. Angie isn’t going to tell me anything, that’s for sure. I think she might hate me, and I’m not even sure why. Olga didn’t have many other friends, except some from high school I haven’t seen in a long time. I also keep worrying that if Amá goes into her room and goes through her boxes, she’s going to find her underwear and keel over. I didn’t have a chance to take them out the day she caught me in there.

  All I can come up with so far is: 1) Go to Olga’s work; 2) Get her transcripts from community college; or 3) Swallow my pride and ask Juanga to get me Jazmyn’s phone number from Maribel.

  The more I think about it, the stranger it seems that Olga went to this school for years and never seemed close to getting a degree. What was she even studying? The few times I asked her she said business blah-blah, and since that is something I know abso
lutely nothing about and have no interest in, I never probed any further. I guess that’s typical of me.

  After school, I take the train to the college on the south side of the city. The building is so dreary and sterile that it almost looks like a prison. The outside is made of concrete, and the windows are only small, tinted slits. Amá is crazy if she thinks I’m going to go to a school like this. There are students all over the hallways, yelling and playing loud music on their phones. How can anyone learn anything in this place? This is not the kind of future I imagine for myself.

  Before I approach the Records and Registration desk, I practice my script in my head. I know that they might not want to release her records, just like at the hotel, but maybe if they feel sorry for me, they’ll give in. I have to emphasize how Olga is dead and how distraught I am. Maybe I should make myself cry.

  “Hello, my name is Julia Reyes, and my sister came to school here,” I tell the middle-aged woman at the desk. “I was hoping you could give me her transcripts. She’s dead.”

  “Who was her emergency contact?” She sounds as if my request were causing her bodily harm. Her expression is so sour I bet her mother might not even love her.

  “I don’t know. My mom, I guess.”

  “What was her name? What years did she attend? And how long ago did she die?” She types something into the computer.

  “Olga Reyes. She attended school here from 2009 to 2013. She died in September.”

  The woman knits her bushy eyebrows. “What years did you say?”

  “From 2009 to 2013,” I repeat.

  “Hmmm.” She looks at the screen again and purses her lips. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Why? Is it showing something different?”

  “I can’t give you that information.”

  “Why not? How are you going to say that and then not tell me why?” My ears grow hot.

  “We are not allowed to release any records until one year after the student’s death. At that time, the college will use its own discretion in deciding whether, and under what conditions, a student’s information will be released to survivors or third parties.” The woman sounds like a machine regurgitating information. I just told her my sister is dead, and she acts like a goddamn robot.