Diary Three Read online

  My nightgown is soaked. I wake up in a sweat. I’m dreaming I’m in Dr. Fuentes’s office but my hair is dyed blonde and I’m slapping thick base on my face. Very light base. The girls from last night are looking at me through a two-way mirror and laughing like crazy. I can hear them and so can Dr. F but I put on the makeup anyway.

  It’s a dream, it’s not real, I remind myself.

  I wish all of last night were a dream, Nbook. I could forget about it then. But it’s stuck in my brain, and I can’t stop thinking of those faces, those leering faces looking at me like I’m some thing, like an old shoe or a dead pigeon.

  I don’t look at anyone like that. Do I? No one’s supposed to treat another person that way.

  What did I do? What did I say?

  WHY DO I KEEP ASKING THAT?

  I didn’t do anything. I was there, that’s all.

  I was Latina. I am Latina.

  I mean, yeah, OK, this stuff happens. I know that, Nbook. I’m not stupid. My eyes and ears are open. I read papers and magazines and I watch the news. The reminders are all around, every week. The way Papi is treated sometimes by the people at his company. The way that patient of Mami’s sneered and said, “Vargas? I thought that was Italian,” and never came for a second session. And all the other small, daily stuff at Vista like the girls who talk one way with white girls and a whole other way with me. The jokes that suddenly get cut off when someone sees me.

  It’s bad. It’s wrong. But you live with it. What else can you do? You tell people when it bothers you. You love your family and friends, you do your best, and you realize the world ain’t perfect and never will be. That’s all any of us can do.

  I know that.

  But they spat on me, Nbook.

  They knocked me down and spat on me and walked away.

  And they were proud of it.

  Then what? What do they do when they get home? Brag to their moms and dads? “Well, let’s see, we went out and had a really good pizza with pepperoni, saw a great movie, beat up this wetback, and stopped in at the ice-cream shop.” Is that what they do?

  Got to calm down & try to figure this out.

  Got to leave this bedroom. Go to a new place where I can think better. Hang on.

  7:07 A.M.

  In the kitchen

  That’s better.

  No one’s up. Isabel’s making a funny noise in her sleep. Kind of a whimper-snore. Guess her dreams aren’t so terrific either.

  OK, I said I’d try to figure this out. Which means writing about what else happened last night.

  I don’t want to, Nbook—but if I don’t, it’ll just feel worse.

  Be glad you’re not a human being. It’s hard.

  Anyway…

  My legs are shaking as I leave the women’s room. Walking in I’d been straight and steady, but walking out I’m like jelly.

  The usher—What was her name, Nbook? I wish I remembered!—she sits me down and gives me a soft drink and some candy. I drink but I have no appetite.

  I can’t sit still for long and I’m dying to get out of there, out of that neighborhood, out of town. I want to crawl into the backseat of a car and ride and ride for weeks without stopping.

  That’s when we hear a loud knock. It’s Isabel, pressing her face to the glass door of the cineplex, looking all worried and guilty about being late. Simon is behind her.

  I don’t know why I’m not mad at them. I should be. If they’d been there on time, none of this would have happened. But I’m just so happy to see her. I jump out of my seat and run to the door. The usher opens it, and I fly into my sister’s arms.

  “What happened?” she asks.

  I’m sobbing. My eyes are soaking Isabel’s new white cotton blouse, but she doesn’t yell at me, she just calmly strokes my hair, the way she did when I was little. “Just take me home,” is all I manage to say.

  The usher is pretty wet-eyed too. She stuffs a couple of free movie passes into Brendan’s hand. “For another night,” she says, “on me. And you look after her.”

  In the car, I sit in the backseat. Brendan tries to put his arm around me but I push it aside. I don’t feel like being touched right at that moment. I tell Isabel the whole ordeal—and this time I’m making more sense.

  She listens and listens. When I get to the part about the spitting, suddenly she steers over to the side of the road and stops.

  The tears convince her, I guess. We drive home, almost totally silent. Brendan tries to put his arm around me again, and this time I let him. He doesn’t say much, but I guess that’s OK. It’s important to know how to be quiet with someone. You know what I mean, Nbook.

  Frankly, it feels good to be held. Just held.

  Isabel drops off Brendan first. He says a quiet, gentle good-bye. Then we drop off Simon. He’s sweet, reassuring me, telling me that the girls were sick and strung out on alcohol, that I shouldn’t take it personally, that if I ever see another one of those girls, just let him know and he’ll make her life miserable.

  Now I’m alone with Isabel.

  She’s driving way too fast. She’s muttering angrily, using words I wouldn’t dare repeat on your pages, Nbook.

  She is so upset that she runs a red light. Right through it. I mean, if another car had been coming along, we’d be dead meat.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I scream.

  “Sorry,” Isabel mutters.

  “Can’t you slow down? What are you angry about?”

  “I’m angry about those girls.”

  “It didn’t happen to you.”

  “You’re my sister.”

  My heart is thumping. I shut up so she can concentrate. We both fall into kind of an exhausted silence.

  As we pull up to the house, only the porch and front-room lights are on. Mami and Papi’s bedroom is dark.

  I feel relieved. I don’t want to talk about what happened. I don’t want to get them upset. All I want to do is go right to sleep, clothes and all.

  I stumble into the house behind Isabel. But she’s running toward the stairs, shouting, “Mami? Are you still awake?”

  I chase after her. “Don’t! Isabel, they don’t need to know about this!”

  Isabel looks at me as if I’m nuts. “Amalia, you can’t just let this drop.”

  “It’s not that big a deal—”

  “It was a huge deal. Those girls were racist!”

  “They were drinking. They didn’t know what they were doing. They probably won’t even remember what happened by tomorrow morning.”

  “So what? What’s that got to do with it?”

  She pulls away and races upstairs. I sink into a kitchen chair and fiddle with a napkin. My hands are shaking and I can’t control them.

  I realize I’m embarrassed, Nbook. I feel like a little kid who did something wrong. Like I shouldn’t be there in the kitchen, all dirty and beaten up. If I’d done the right thing—gone into the cineplex instead of staying outside, or fought back better, or run away, anything but what I ended up doing, which was nothing—I’d be fine.

  Of course Mami and Papi come running down the stairs to see if I’m all right. And I start crying all over again.

  I expect them to get angry or worked up, but they don’t. They just hold me and comfort me. Papi starts asking about the girls, what they looked like, etc. I try to answer, but I get about as far as the part where they called me names, and I start to break down.

  He just backs off, holding me and saying he’s glad I’m home. “You used good sense,” he says. “The worst thing would have been to try to fight back.”

  “You’re here,” Mami says. “You’re safe. You’re still you.”

  “And we love you,” Papi adds.

  I sob and sob. And all I can think is, I DID try to fight back. I could have gotten myself hurt. AM I CRAZY?

  OK. Sorry, Nbook, I have to stop. My fingers are cramped and my head hurts. Maybe I’ll go back to bed.

  10:44 A.M.

  I wake up with my heart pounding. It�
��s 9:30. I’ve only been asleep a few minutes. It feels like a whole day has gone by.

  I go to the kitchen, feeling spooked. Isabel is eating cereal and reading a magazine. I say hi but it comes out a grunt.

  “You look awful.” She puts down her magazine and frowns at me. “You didn’t sleep well, did you?”

  I shake my head.

  “You know, you really should have called the police.”

  “Maybe.”

  “If it were me, I’d be at the station house all night if I had to. Then, when they caught those animals, I’d march over to their houses and spit in their faces.”

  Right.

  I ignore her. I look in the cupboards, but nothing interests me.

  Now Papi’s shuffling into the kitchen in his pj’s and robe. “Hey, who wants frittatas?” he calls out.

  “I already ate,” Isabel says.

  “No, thanks,” I say.

  Papi pats my shoulder and asks me if I’m OK. I say yes, but I don’t fool him. “Sit,” he says. “Relax. These’ll be so good you won’t be able to resist.”

  I try to have an appetite. I tell myself how much I love Papi’s frittatas. And he really does them up. He’s throwing in green peppers and cheese and spices, dancing and singing.

  But my stomach is like a tight fist. Thinking about food, I feel nauseated.

  I get up from the table, just as Mami comes down to the kitchen. She tells me that Ducky and Maggie both called while I was out last night. She apologizes for not mentioning it.

  Under the circumstances, I totally understand.

  I want to call them. But I can’t.

  Maybe later.

  7:01 P.M.

  Still haven’t called.

  Can’t move.

  Feeling really tired. Didn’t do much today except go shopping with Isabel.

  I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave the house.

  I am so totally not excited about this party now. Don’t know why.

  Anyway, Isabel and I go to Leo’s and order food for the party. After we’re done, outside the store, Isabel suddenly grabs my arm. She’s looking at a girl across the street. She says, “Is that one of them?”

  My heart starts pounding—literally. I can feel my shirt moving.

  I can’t tell if the girl is one of my attackers. She might be. I kind of stutter and say I don’t know, and the girl’s already halfway down the block.

  Isabel seems impatient. “You can’t be scared of them, you know. They feed off the fear.”

  Before this, I am feeling fine. But now, as we get into the car, I’m paranoid.

  Next we stop off at Winslow Books. Isabel wants this book about party planning.

  While she’s looking, I spot the travel section. There are no books about western Massachusetts but plenty about New England. So I pick one up. And as I’m reading, I see

  Suddenly I feel like I’m going to throw up. I go to the bathroom.

  I’m hanging over the sink and the nausea’s slowly going away—and soon Isabel’s inside, looking at me like I’m insane.

  I tell her why I’m there. Her eyes flare. And she marches out of the bathroom.

  This is awful, Nbook. So embarrassing.

  Why did this have to happen now?

  Why did this have to happen at all?

  I have to study.

  Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel better.

  Saturday night

  No, Sunday morning

  Whatever

  It’s late.

  Can’t sleep. Again.

  Every time I feel myself drifting off, I go

  Oh. Guess who’s fast asleep on my floor right now?

  How, you may be wondering, did this happen?

  She phones around 8 P.M. She asks why I haven’t returned her calls.

  I remind her she only called once.

  She replies, “Isn’t that enough?”

  She’s in a foul mood. She launches into this speech about how much she hates the movie business. Why? Because Tyler’s going away on location for three weeks—to replace another actor who backed out of a movie. Turns out he knew he might have to do this, but he didn’t mention it to Maggie until last night—over the phone! She feels totally betrayed.

  So what does she do? Hangs up on him and yells at her dad.

  Naturally he yells back. Then she tells him he doesn’t understand. And he storms away.

  Life at the Blumes’.

  Anyway, she’s mad at the world. And she wants to come over here.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “And how was your date?” she finally asks.

  “I got beaten up,” I reply.

  Long silence. “You what?”

  I go through the whole story. I hear her muttering “Oh my God” every few seconds.

  I’m exhausted when I finish. I’m crying. She’s crying too. She says she’ll be right over.

  Right over means an hour later—in Ducky’s car, with Sunny. Yes, she’s called and told them every-thing (Dawn knows too, but she wasn’t home).

  Maggie has flowers. Sunny has ice cream. Ducky has a CD.

  I feel like it’s my birthday.

  Sunny and Ducky want to hear what happened, so I tell them. Maggie holds my hand. She says it’s good to talk these things out. It makes you feel better.

  Fat chance. It feels just as horrible the third time as it did the first. But I guess it is nice to have friends around. At least when you cry you’re not the only one.

  Eventually Ducky manages to change the subject. He has an update on the Dawn party.

  Friday in school Sunny started stressing over the bowling party (she says it’s because she’s never bowled—Ducky says she’s worried about her nails), so they were talking about it in the school hallway, hidden away near the custodial office.

  So…there’s a new plan now—an ocean dinner cruise.

  OK, Nbook, I’m feeling a little better.

  It’s 2:17.

  Time to sign off and try to sleep.

  Wish me luck.

  Sunday, 6/6

  8:10 A.M.

  Did it.

  More or less.

  Bad dreams again. Don’t want to write about them.

  Maggie still asleep. Hasn’t moved.

  12:35

  When Maggie finally wakes up this morning, she’s alert and cheery. I’m a dishrag.

  We eat breakfast (well, she does).

  We try to study (well, she does).

  I can’t concentrate at all. Too tired to focus, too wired to sleep.

  She keeps asking if I’m OK—if I’m still thinking about the “incident.” That’s what she calls it.

  I can’t bear to talk about it. I change the subject and ask about Tyler.

  Her face tightens. She’s still mad at him, for many reasons. I hear all of them.

  Soon Dawn comes over. She brings me a big white floppy hat, some homemade pie, and photos of Gracie. I feel like someone recovering from some illness in a hospital.

  Of course she needs to hear every-thing. This time it’s not so easy to change topics.

  She’s sympathetic.

  I’m just pathetic.

  I try to be a good friend. I try to let her cheer me up. But I feel nothing.

  Around noon, Reg picks up Maggie. Takes Dawn too.

  Alone again.

  Back to the books.

  7:30 P.M.

  The mice are attacking, Nbook.

  At least that’s what it sounds like. While Mami and Papi are at a church meeting, Isabel’s trying to do a high-speed cassette dub—the best hits of Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, all the good old stuff that the relatives like.

  Tomorrow after school we’re shopping for party goods. Then we’ll hide them at Simon’s.

  I should be so excited about this party.

  I’m not.

  What will the neighbors think?

  What are we doing, Nbook?

  Is this party a good idea?

  Here? In Palo City?


  Why are we asking people we love to come to a place like this—

  a place where you can’t even stand on a public sidewalk without being assaulted?

  I’ve learned something, Nbook. I’ve learned I’m a fool.

  I trusted too much. I let myself be a target.

  I didn’t realize that people will hate you for no good reason, and you can’t control it. It doesn’t matter who you are, how you dress, what you sound like, what’s in your brain.

  It’s how you look. Period.

  And if you run into people whose minds work that way, ain’t nothing you can do.

  So my question to you today, Nbook, is, How many of them are in Palo City? Is it 5%? 20%? 75%?

  Are those girls the only ones, the only racists in Palo City?

  Yeah. Right.

  They had to get their attitudes from somewhere—parents, brothers, sisters, friends. Anti-Latino sites on the Web. Whatever.

  It took me awhile to realize how bad it is. But now I know. It can happen anywhere, anytime.

  How long will it take for it to happen to Abuela Aurora? Or Hector or Cristina?

  Maybe while they’re walking through the airport.

  Maybe on Sunday morning, when Abuela takes her traditional walk to the bakery for fresh rolls.

  I have this creepy feeling, Nbook, that we should cancel.

  9:17

  Nguyen.

  Asami.

  Jose.

  Kareem.

  Asif.

  Luis.

  Benazir.

  Do you know who these people are, Nbook? They are characters in the math word problems.

  Now, I never really noticed these names before. But today I do. And I think, Hmm, the writers are really trying to make people of color feel included.

  “People of color.” Those are the exact words that pop into my head.

  And here’s what I realize: That is the world’s stupidest expression.

  What does it mean anyway? Of color compared to whom? Who isn’t of color? Everyone I know is—brown, tan, pink, yellow, olive, beige.