After Adrian leaves, I see that I missed a call on my cell: Marissa.
I haven’t heard from her since she texted after the accident. Wait, that’s not quite true. I got a Rosh Hashanah card from her—yes, even though she’s not Jewish. Marissa is big on everyone’s “heritage,” as she puts it. My “heritage,” according to Marissa, is being Jewish. Hers is being Mexican American, at least on one side of the family. Her great-grandparents—her father’s grandparents—came from Mexico way back in the day.
Anyway, Marissa usually knows the dates each year for the High Holy Days—Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—before I do. Do you call someone when she sends you a Rosh Hashanah card? I did not.
I consider not calling her back now, too. But there’s her Rosh Hashanah card, this call, and the message Adrian relayed from her the day of Humphrey’s funeral—I can’t not call Marissa back. Unless I want to close the book on five years of flamenco-playing afternoons. I dial the phone.
“How are you?” she asks.
“You know,” I say. “Fine. Not fine. It depends.”
She murmurs sympathetically.
“Thanks for the card,” I say.
“You’re welcome.”
“And—thanks for calling today.”
“I should have called earlier,” she says. “I guess—I don’t know. We’ve grown apart. I wish we hadn’t. I don’t want to. But I felt like it would be strange for me to rush in as if—as if you needed me.”
“You texted me,” I say. “Thanks for that, too.” I pause. “I’m also sorry we’ve grown apart.”
We push through an I-feel-bad-no-I-feel-bad exchange, in which I cannot, cannot bring myself to mention, much less apologize for, last winter’s video game idiocy. She, of course, doesn’t apologize for the things she said about Adrian. Why would she? She has no idea that they bothered me. So we talk as if there was nothing in particular, no precipitating event that pushed us apart.
No particular precipitating push. Are you listening, Humphrey?
But soon we’re on the other side of all that, and talking about ordinary stuff. My school, her school. Movies. Music. She does ask about Adrian. I hesitate, then tell her about the jobs he’s been working and the restaurant, although I don’t fill her in on my parents’ reaction. She’s already heard from someone else that he moved out of our house.
“Wow. He’s busy,” she says.
“He really is.”
“How are he and your parents getting along?”
“Oh,” I say. “Pretty well. When he comes over, he cooks dinner, and it’s—nice.”
“He cooks dinner?” Marissa asks. “Has he become a good cook?”
“The best,” I say.
“That’s great.”
“Except that I miss having him around,” I say. “You know, you have brothers—they’re fun to have in the house.”
“Some of the time.” She laughs. Then, more seriously: “Most of the time. But at least you don’t have to be the peacekeeper between Adrian and your mother anymore. There’s a job at least as tough as being a plumber.”
Is that what she thought she saw me doing when she sat at our dinner table or joined us for post–hockey game pizza outings—peacekeeping?
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know about being a peacekeeper.”
“Okay, but something. Some kind of go-between.” When I don’t say anything in response, Marissa adds, lightly, putting on a fake accent, “And zat is zee doctor’s p-sychological analysis of zee Snyder family dynamic.” She laughs. “Because I’m such an expert on family dynamics.”
I laugh, too, relieved, somehow, that she backed off from telling me what role I play in my family. We move on to talk about her own brothers.
“Martin got his license last spring,” she says. “Which means Matt has to share the car he thought was his God-given birthright. You know how some families have ‘chore wheels’ up on the refrigerator, so everyone knows whose turn it is to take out the garbage? So, we have a ‘car wheel,’ to settle their arguments over whose turn it is to take the car. And a ‘gas wheel’ so they know whose turn it is to put gas in.”
I think about this. “What if it’s Matt’s ‘car wheel’ turn but Martin’s ‘gas wheel’ turn?” I ask.
“A gold star for you, Danielle! That is exactly the problem with this system,” Marissa says.
“I suppose then Martin could just give Matt money for gas,” I say.
“A reasonable person would suppose that.” Marissa laughs. “And yet, oddly, that is not how M&M interpret it.”
I have always liked hearing about her family. As you may have noticed, everyone’s name begins with M. With M-a-, to be exact. From youngest to oldest, Marco, Marissa and Martin—who are twins—Matt, Manny, and Malcolm. It matches their last name, too: Martinez. Yes, Marissa’s twin brother lives with the name Martin Martinez.
“I got my license over the summer,” she says, “and any day now they’re going to make new wheels for the refrigerator and put me on them.”
“It’s not really ‘their’ car. It’s the car that our parents don’t use. So it’s just as much mine.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, yes, I use their car.”
In this way, we circle around to the accident. Not the accident itself, but the fallout. Marissa is especially bothered by the illegal immigration issue, and not in the way you might think. She embraces the “Mexican” part of her Mexican American heritage—food, music, history, art. She’s a fanatic about the paintings of Frida Kahlo. But she’s also always been very clear about the “American” part, too. She’s proud of the fact that her great-grandfather, the one who came here from Mexico, fought in the U.S. Army in World War II and even got some kind of medal. His son, Marissa’s grandfather, joined the U.S. Army, too, and was in the Vietnam War. I can’t say that we’ve ever had a full-fledged conversation about immigration issues before, but today she wants to talk about it.
“Remember last year, when that gardener guy was arrested after he tied up some of his customers—all old people, living by themselves—and then stole things from their houses?” she asks.
“Vaguely, I guess,” I say.
“It turned out he was here illegally,” she says. “Mexican, I’m very sorry to say. He shouldn’t have been here, and he shouldn’t have had the chance to hurt those people.”
It’s hard to argue with that.
“And remember that accident, which was all over the news last year, where that drunk driver crossed into the wrong lane on the highway and crashed into a car being driven by a middle school teacher? And another teacher was the passenger?”
I do remember that. The teachers both died.
“That was awful,” I say.
“One of them used to teach at my school,” Marissa says.
“Oh my gosh,” I say. “Did you know him?”
“Her,” Marissa says. “No, she left before I started there. But Malcolm had her. Anyway, that driver was also here illegally. So, think about it. If he hadn’t snuck into the country—two times, the papers said—those two teachers would be alive.”
It’s hard to argue with this, too, but I feel like there’s some sort of disconnect about what Marissa is saying. The drunk driver wasn’t drunk and driving because he was here illegally, was he? If the guy were a legal U.S. citizen, it would be kind of like arguing that the teachers would be alive if the guy hadn’t ever been born. Which is technically true. But then what, would you say people who are going to grow up and become drunk drivers shouldn’t be born?
I am not sure that my arguments make any sense, either, so I just say, “It’s awful.”
“It is,” she agrees. “I don’t want to sound intolerant, but I’m starting to really kind of resent these people.”
“Resent?” I say. “Why would you resent them?”
“Because … my family followed the rules when they immigrated here. Everyone should have to.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be on the anti-immigrant side,” I say.
“Danielle, I’m pro-immigrant!” Marissa says. “How could I be anti-immigrant, with a name like Martinez? But the people who are here illegally hurt the legal immigrants. They make people think that all immigrants are bad news, because, honestly, who takes the time to figure these things out? All foreigners just end up with a bad name. All Hispanics, anyway.”
“I—I don’t think people think all Hispanics are bad news,” I say.
I hear Marissa exhale through the phone. “I shouldn’t get on a soapbox about it,” she says. “And you’re right: not all people think that. But I still don’t like knowing that thanks to undocumented immigrants, people with my family’s background are looked down on, even just by some people.”
“I understand,” I say.
“You probably would feel the same way,” Marissa says.
“I don’t know,” I say. Lightly. “Maybe. I mean, I understand how you feel, but I’m not sure how I would feel. Or how I do feel. I haven’t really been focused on the immigration status of the people in the car that … hit Humphrey.”
“No, of course not,” she says. “You’ve had so much to deal with. I’m just saying. It’s an issue you’ve ended up in the middle of because, as everyone now knows, those people are undocumented immigrants. I thought you might be thinking about it.”
“Marissa,” I say, “it’s great—I guess—that you’ve become an anti–illegal immigration activist. And—”
“I’m not an activist. I’m reading and thinking about things.”
“Well, okay,” I say, and add testily, “think away.”
Marissa does not like sarcasm. “I’m in favor of legal immigration,” she says. “Like how my family came here; probably yours, too. It’s not fair to turn it into something negative. Something anti. I’m not anti. I’m pro–legal immigration. I’m pro-immigrant.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “But I don’t have to become pro or anti anything just because the people who were unlucky enough to have hit Humphrey are here illegally.”
The air between us hums for a few seconds.
“I could send you links to a few very interesting websites,” Marissa says.
“That’s okay,” I say, meaning please don’t.
“This didn’t just happen to Humphrey. Or to you. It happened to the community,” she says.
Wow. That almost sounds like some kind of political campaign slogan.
We say good-bye quietly (“I have to go”; “Me, too”).
Marissa says she isn’t anti. She’s pro.
Well, I’m both.
Here’s what I’m anti: random deadly accidents.
Here’s what I’m pro: do-overs.
Send me the website for that.