I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter Read online

  As I spin around with a lady in a catsuit, someone taps me on the shoulder. A small woman, wearing a silver mask, tilts her head, as if she’s trying to figure out how she knows me.

  “Yes?”

  “Wait, are you Olga’s little sister? Julia?” she yells over the music.

  “What? Who are you?” I shout back, giving her major side eye. I have no clue who she is.

  “You don’t remember me?” She takes off her mask.

  “Obviously not.”

  “I’m Jazmyn, remember? Olga’s friend from high school. Look at you! All grown up.”

  Then it comes to me—Jazmyn, with the overbite and droopy eyes. I remember her name was spelled stupid, too. Even as a kid, I thought she was insufferable. “Kind of,” I say, uninterested. I don’t feel like talking to her. I don’t want to explain.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be at a party like this? How old are you again?” There are nosy people everywhere I turn, apparently.

  I pretend not to hear.

  “Oh man, I spent so much time at your house. Olga, Angie, and I were inseparable sophomore year. I remember you were such a sensitive little girl. Always crying about something.”

  I roll my eyes. Why does everyone remind me how much I sucked as a kid?

  “You know, I haven’t seen Olga in years. I ran into her when I was shopping a few years ago. She kept going on and on about this guy she was in love with. She was all excited. I had never seen her so happy.”

  The music gets louder, and I can feel the bass thumping throughout my body. “Wait, what? Do you mean Pedro the aardvark? Or was it someone else?”

  “What?” Jazmyn cups her hand to her ear.

  “The dude that looked like an aardvark! Pedro!” I use my hand to illustrate a snout since she can’t understand, but she is still confused. Jazmyn moves in closer. I can feel her hot breath on my face. “So how is Olga? We didn’t keep in touch after I moved to Texas. I come back every once in a while. This is my cousin’s party.” She points to Maribel, who blows us kisses.

  “She’s dead.” I refuse to say passed away, like everyone else. Why can’t people say what they mean?

  “What?” Jazmyn looks confused.

  “I said, she’s dead!” I feel the beer slosh around in my stomach. The room is twirling now.

  “I can’t believe this….We…we…were friends.” Jazmyn looks like she might cry. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her. “How did it happen? She was so young. Oh my God.”

  “She got run over by a semi. It happened in September.”

  I can’t go anywhere without talking about my dead sister, and every time I do, I think I might pass out or throw up. Jazmyn’s eyes well up with tears.

  I leave her standing there, and run to the bathroom. When I bend over the toilet, nothing comes out. I splash cold water on my face, which smudges my eyeliner and mascara. I try wiping my makeup with a piece of toilet paper, but I still look like the Joker. I’ll just have to put my mask back on. I take a few deep breaths before I go back outside. I’m having a hard time breathing at a normal pace, like my body suddenly forgot. Maybe Jazmyn wasn’t talking about Pedro. I rush out and look for her all throughout the loft. I even look outside, but she must have left. I don’t see her anywhere. I find Juanga and Lorena doing shots in the kitchen.

  “Here, take this. You need it.” Lorena hands me a glass.

  The smell of it makes my stomach flip, but I drink it anyway. It burns my throat and sends a pleasant warmth all throughout my body. My muscles begin to soften. No wonder so many people are alcoholics.

  —

  I’m drunk by the time Juanga and Lorena are ready to go home. I don’t know exactly how many drinks Juanga had, but I’m one hundred percent sure he shouldn’t be driving. What choice do I have, though? How else would I get home?

  I can barely keep my eyes open, but I can feel Juanga swerve all over the expressway. When we get off the exit ramp, he slams on the brakes so hard I nearly hit my head on the back of Lorena’s seat.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he slurs.

  I hope to God that Juanga doesn’t kill me, because then Amá would truly go crazy. It’s nearly time to wake up and start the day again. The sky is still dark, but it’s beginning to brighten. There are beautiful, faint streaks of orange over the lake. It looks like it’s been cracked open.

  I think of Jazmyn’s face when I told her about Olga. Everywhere I go, my sister’s ghost is hovering.

  EIGHT

  Amá asks me to clean houses with her today. Scratch that. She forces me to clean houses with her today. The lady she usually works with pulled a muscle in her back and can’t get out of bed. Not only that, Amá says I should earn my quinceañera, even though I would rather eat a bowl of amoebas than go through with it. Now that I’m almost a woman, it’s time I learn to be responsible, Amá says. Not exactly the way I want to spend a Saturday, but I have no choice. What am I going to say? “Go clean those mansions by your damn self. I feel like writing and taking a nap!” That would not be acceptable, especially since Olga, my angelic sister, was our mother’s reliable helper.

  All the houses we have to clean are in Lincoln Park, one of the richest neighborhoods in Chicago. The first one belongs to a man who isn’t home. It’s already spotless, so it only takes about an hour. Easy breezy. People really do spend money on the dumbest things.

  The second house is a few blocks away, and the owner is an uptight lawyer who peers over our shoulders the whole time, talking to us in her horrible high school Spanish, even though I can guarantee my English is better than hers. I hate her and her beige furniture from the start, but I just play along and pretend me no espeak English. Amá says it’s best not to talk to them if it can be avoided. It takes us three hours to finish because we have to do laundry, too. I don’t know why she can’t do it herself. I mean, she was there the whole entire time. Some people are so lazy.

  The last place is a two-story brownstone near the DePaul campus. The owner tells us he’s a professor of anthropology, as if we care. A real prig, too. He introduces himself as Dr. Scheinberg and uses the word propitious. I know what that means, of course—I read, duh—but why would you use words like that with a Mexican cleaning lady? As Mr. Ingman says, “Know your audience.”

  Dr. Scheinberg tells us he’ll be back in three and a half hours. When he says farewell instead of goodbye, I want to punch him right in the throat, but I just smile and wave back.

  The house looks like a museum. It’s filled with multicolored rugs, brown-and-black African masks, and statues of men and women in weird sexual positions. Everything looks like it costs thousands of dollars and belongs in a glass case. At first glance, it appears to be clean, but when you look closer, there are crumbs and filth everywhere—dust bunnies the size of rabbits.

  “Ave María purísima,” Amá mutters, and makes the sign of the cross. She probably thinks he’s a Satanist. She’s always assuming people are Satanists.

  Amá says we should begin with the most disgusting parts of the house—the bathrooms, better to get them over with. The master bathroom is covered with piles of wet clothes and towels. The sink is smeared with gobs of toothpaste and little black hairs. Gross. I kick everything to the side and approach the toilet. It only makes sense to start with the worst of the worst. I put on the gloves Amá gave me, take the brush from its stand, and hold my breath.

  “Go on,” Amá says.

  This is what I was dreading the most. I can deal with filth, but toilets…other people’s toilets always upset me. I once got a urinary tract infection after holding in my pee for hours because I couldn’t find a suitable bathroom. The other two we scrubbed today were easy because they were already relatively clean, but I doubt that’s going to be the case here.

  I lift the lid, and it’s worse than I expect. Much worse: a giant black turd. Is this real? Is this some kind of joke? Is there a hidden camera somewhere? I jump back and begin to gag. My eyes water. What the hell does this man eat? Co
al?

  “Don’t be so delicate! Flush it and clean it,” Amá says, rolling her eyes, as if she sees this kind of biological warfare on a daily basis. Well, she might, actually.

  I breathe through my mouth and try to clean it as quickly as possible. When we’re finished with the master bathroom, we move on to the guest bathroom, which seems like a walk in a beautiful garden in comparison. Thank God. Why does one man need more than one toilet? I have no idea.

  I’m afraid the bedroom is going to be full of sex stuff, but the grossest thing we find is crumpled tissue on the floor next to the bed and nail clippings on his dresser. There are clothes and shoes strewn everywhere, too. I thought I was messy, but this man is a complete barbarian.

  Next is the kitchen. The fumes burn the inside of my nose as I scour the stove. I wonder how many chemicals Amá is exposed to every day. I wish we had music because the silence is making me restless. All I hear is squeaking, spraying, and wiping. How does Amá do this day in and day out?

  “So…did Olga like to clean with you?” I don’t know what else to say, but I can’t stand that it’s so quiet.

  “Like it? Who likes cleaning? No one likes it. It’s just what you do.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry I asked.”

  Amá looks a little ashamed for being so harsh. “It’s okay, mija.” It seems like she’s really trying to think of something to say. “How is school?”

  “It’s okay,” I lie. The truth is that school is excruciating. I love reading and learning, but I can’t stand everything else. I don’t have many friends and feel lonely all the time. Ever since Olga died, it’s gotten even worse. It’s like I don’t know how to talk to people. That’s why I’m always trying to lose myself in books. “I love my English class. Mr. Ingman says I’m a good writer.”

  “Mm-hmm, that’s good,” Amá says, but she’s not paying attention. She doesn’t say much whenever I tell her anything about school. She doesn’t know a lot about it because she had to drop out when she was in eighth grade to help with the family business. Apá quit when he was in seventh grade in order to work in the fields. It’s strange not being able to talk to your parents about something so important.

  As I look at a painting of a woman with a large butt, hanging in the dining room, I remember Olga’s friend Jazmyn, who also has a large butt.

  “Amá, do you remember Olga’s friend Jazmyn?”

  “¿Esa huerca? How can I forget? She was always at our house, never wanted to go home. She drove me crazy. Why? What about her?”

  “I was just remembering her, that’s all. Do you remember her last name?”

  “Why? Did you see her or something?”

  I get a little panicky, as if somehow she can see inside my brain and know that I went to that party.

  “No, of course not. Didn’t she move to Texas? Where would I see her?” I probably sound too defensive. I let the silence hang for a while. With a repulsed look on her face, Amá dusts all of the statues.

  “Did Olga have a boyfriend?” I finally say.

  “The only boyfriend she had was Pedro, such a nice young man.”

  If by nice, she means ugly and dull, then sure.

  “So, she never had a boyfriend after that?”

  “Of course not. What kind of question is that? Did you ever see her running around with boys?” Amá looks annoyed, but I can’t stop asking questions.

  “Okay, okay, sorry. It’s just…how was it that she was twenty-two and didn’t have a boyfriend for so many years? That seems weird.”

  “What’s so strange about a young lady who doesn’t sleep around, who enjoys spending time at home with her family? Girls here have no morals. You’re the weird one, you know that?” Amá’s face is starting to get splotchy, and her big eyes look inflamed, so I shut up and keep cleaning.

  —

  Dr. Scheinberg arrives right as we’re finishing. When he hands us the money, he says, “Gracias,” and bows with his hands pressed together, and oh my God, he’s not even joking. I don’t like the way he stares at Amá when he says goodbye. There’s something about him that makes me feel as if I’m smeared in an awful, warm goo. No wonder he’s not married.

  It’s dark and the ground is covered with snow. Everything looks beautiful and still, as if it were a photograph and not real life. Usually, winter makes me glum, but every once and a while, moments like this are peaceful and pleasant—the icicles, the glittering snow, the silence.

  By the time we get on the bus, my back aches, my hands are cracked, and my eyes burn from all the cleaning products. I smell like bleach and sweat. I’ve never been this tired in my whole life. Who knew rich people could be so disgusting? Now I understand why everyone calls work la chinga and why Amá is always in a bad mood. I wonder what else she sees in people’s houses, and if other men look at her the way Dr. Scheinberg does.

  NINE

  I decide to go to the school dance because the after-party is at Alex Tafoya’s house. His parents are in Mexico for a few weeks, and Lorena says his sister, Jessica, who went to school with Olga, will be there. It might be completely useless—I’m not sure how well they knew each other—but I don’t know what else to do.

  Amá lets me go to the dance, which I think might qualify as a miracle, though she tells me I better not act volada, which means “flirtatious.” Every time she says stuff like this, I feel ashamed, and I don’t know why because I haven’t done anything.

  I have to buy a new dress, and Amá says she’ll take me to the mall. I hate shopping, but now I have no choice because I have absolutely nothing to wear—the only three dresses I have are literally falling apart. One has a giant hole in the armpit. Amá says it makes me look like an orphan, that I should throw it away, but I like the way it fits. She also says I can’t wear jeans or any of my band T-shirts she hates so much. No Chuck Taylors, either. I have to look like a “proper woman.”

  Thanks to my upcoming quinceañera, my budget is only forty-five dollars, practically nothing.

  The Sunday before the dance, Amá and I drive to the outlet mall in the suburbs. After driving west in snow flurries for about an hour, we finally arrive. I thought our neighborhood was bad, but if I had to live in the suburbs, I think I’d just lie down and die. I don’t care that the houses are big and expensive; everything is exactly the same, and the only restaurants I see are Chili’s and Olive Garden.

  The first store we go to is full of white women who look at us funny when we enter, which is already a bad sign. I glance at the price tag on a ridiculous pink sweater and see that it’s on sale for ninety-nine dollars. If that’s what they think a sale is, then we probably can’t even afford their socks. No thanks. “Let’s go,” I say.

  We walk around for half an hour, looking for a store that’s affordable, and I just want to give up and bury my face in a Cinnabon, even though they always make me sick. I sit down on a bench and tell Amá that I’m not going to find anything, that she can go on without me.

  “Come on,” Amá says, yanking me by the arm. “We’re going to find you something. Don’t be so dramatic. If not, we’ll go somewhere else.”

  “I’d rather buy the worst dress here than go to another mall. Let’s get this over with,” I say, getting up with a new sense of determination.

  After trying on about twenty dresses at five different stores, I finally find one I want. It has a black-and-red-checked pattern and falls right above my knee, which is the perfect length for me, because anything longer makes me look stumpy. The dress is what I imagine a career woman wearing when she goes out for drinks after work. I bet no one at school will have a dress like this. I’m lucky, too, because it’s a size 10 and it’s on clearance. At seventy-five percent off, it costs $39.99.

  When I come out of the dressing room, Amá shakes her head.

  “What?”

  “It’s too tight.”

  “No, it’s not. It fits perfectly!”

  “It shows your chest too much,” Amá says, scrunching her face as if she�
��s just smelled something gross.

  Amá hates it when women wear revealing clothing, but this dress is not sexy at all. It’s not even low cut, doesn’t show any cleavage whatsoever. Every time my parents turn on the TV, there are women dressed like strippers, even the news anchors, yet I’m supposed to be embarrassed of my boobs? I don’t get it. Even the time she found out I had shaved my legs, she was hysterical. Am I expected to cover myself with cloaks and let my body be covered in dark fur?

  “I think it looks good on me,” I tell Amá. “I like it, and it’s the perfect price.”

  “Why do you always have to wear black? Why don’t you try a different color, something nice, like yellow or green?”

  A woman comes into the dressing room with an armful of black pants. She gives me an awkward smile, as if she somehow knows this is torture for me.

  “Yellow or green? Are you serious? Amá, that’s disgusting.”

  “It’s not proper, Julia. Why can’t you understand that? I’m not going to buy it.”

  “So you will only buy me a dress that you like even if I hate it?” I should’ve known shopping with Amá would be a mistake.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I can’t believe this. Why do you always do this? Why can’t I wear what I want? It’s not like I’m wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes and a see-through tube top.”

  “Remember, you’re not the boss here. Why are you always making everything so difficult? Why aren’t you ever happy? I try to do something nice, and this is how you act? Dios mío, who would have guessed I would have such an ungrateful daughter?” Amá is highly skilled in the art of guilt trips. She could win a gold medal.

  “Jesus Christ, don’t buy me anything, then.”