And that was the last time I saw Justin.
Is what I fully expect as the bus carries him away.
Fortunately, my expectations are not met.
I have just settled in the seat on my own bus when I feel the phone vibrating in my jacket pocket.
Sorry.
No apology needed.
I think there is. But thanks.
If anyone understands how spooked you must be, it’s me.
I’m listening.
Not really textable. If that’s a word.
I’m listenable. If that’s a word. In person.
We meet at the park. I get there first, and when I see Justin hobbling along with his big hockey bag strapped over his shoulders, my heart goes out to him as if he were a little boy. What a weight that is to carry around.
“So,” he begins.
“So,” I say.
“Your friend Marissa and her interest in where I’m from,” he begins.
“You have to understand Marissa,” I say. “I started telling you, she has this thing about everyone’s ‘culture’ and ‘heritage.’ Including her own. You can expect to get a Cinco de Mayo card from her next year.”
“That’s Mexican, not Colombian.”
“What?”
“Cinco de Mayo is Mexican, not Colombian.”
“I know. Marissa is very into being Mexican American. Hence the Cinco de Mayo card. Actually, now that she thinks you’re a superhero, who knows what she’ll send you. A signed edition of a Gabriel García Márquez novel. The sky’s the limit.”
“Danielle, my point is that Marissa was on to something. My parents are from Colombia. It’s not just the place where my long-ago ancestors came from.”
“Okay. Your parents are from Colombia.”
“And they’re not here legally.”
I have to admit, I did not see that coming.
His parents came here, Justin tells me, fifteen years ago as graduate students. They came on perfectly valid student visas. Then when they were no longer students, they started taking steps to get documents—green cards—to live here permanently and one day become citizens. They needed to find employers to sponsor them, and they did. But then they both switched jobs before the papers came through, and had to start over again with different companies.
To finalize the whole green-card thing, they needed to leave the country, go back to Colombia, and reenter the United States with their new documents. That’s the way the rules said it had to be done, even though it sounds like a waste of a whole lot of airplane tickets. There was never a good time to do it. So they never did. Mr. Folgar’s company decided to look the other way, even though they could have gotten in trouble for employing an undocumented immigrant.
“I’m sorry, Justin,” I say.
I am. But I’m not getting why this would make him such a cranky superhero.
“And, see, about what happened today,” he says. “About hiding when the EMTs and cops came.”
When he says the word “hiding,” his eyes turn into two dark platters of pain. Pain and shame. I don’t like that he feels ashamed in front of me.
“My older sister and I, we were both actually born in Colombia. In Bogota,” he continues. “So …”
I suppose I’m really dense, but I can’t fill in the blanks at the end of that sentence. I’m not getting it.
“So that means we’re both here illegally, too.”
Okay. Really didn’t see that coming.
“But—” I say, and stop for a moment. I’m reviewing the conversation from early this morning. “But you told Marissa you’d never lived in Colombia.”
“No,” he says. “I told her I’d never traveled to Colombia. Which is true.”
True, in a hair-splitting sort of way.
“I don’t like to lie. It is true that I have never been back to Colombia. They brought me here when I was a baby. I have no memory of anyplace but here.”
I’m glad he doesn’t like to lie, but I think sometimes you’re lying even if you tell a technical truth.
I’m being too harsh. None of this is his fault, is it? And he has to protect his parents and sister, not just himself. Do they have an official Folgar Family Lie, a story that they all have rehearsed and consistently tell outsiders? I wonder how it feels to go through your life having to be always just a little bit dishonest.
“So—has something new happened?” I’m still not understanding why Marissa’s questions this morning have made him so upset.
Justin hesitates before answering. “It’s not really about Marissa’s questions. I’m explaining to you why I disappeared. Why I didn’t want to be around when the rescue squad came—because they almost always come with police.”
And he does not want to have any interaction with police. He does not even want to be a hero in the presence of police.
I feel like there’s more he wants to say. Although the gear shifts of Justin’s brain are not as transparently evident as the clickings and clackings of others, I’m feeling like there’s more.
“I’m so sorry, Justin,” I say. “If only—”
“If only my parents hadn’t let this become such a mess,” he says. “That’s the only ‘if only’ that counts. Two adults with master’s degrees who speak perfect English, and our life is a disaster waiting to happen.”
He sounds so bitter. So not Justin.
“I hate feeling like I have to hide. I hate that I ran away—and that’s after I did something good. I have to be invisible. Which is absurd, since the rest of them are so totally visible.”
Okay, now I’m back to not getting it again. The rest of them are so totally visible. The rest of who are so totally visible?
“Danielle.”
That’s my name, don’t wear it out.
“They were the ones in the blue minivan, Danielle.”
“They were in the car that hit Humphrey Danker.”
They were on their way back from a dance recital. Justin’s parents had left work early to see their two little girls up on stage. They had taken videos—of course—and were looking forward to sending the film to Justin’s older sister, the conservatory dance student. They were just promising the girls that they would transfer the video to the computer as soon as they got home, even though they needed to rush to get to a neighbor’s house for a dessert-and-coffee party. Justin would be staying home with his two sisters.
And then a little boy ran into their car.
“You were in the car?” I croak. I think back to that night. I saw the shadows of four people in the minivan, two adult-size shadows in the front seat, two little kid–size shadows in the backseat.
“No. Oh, God, no. I wasn’t in the car. I was hanging out with my friends. I needed to be home by eight thirty to babysit my sisters.”
I’m going over the time line of our so-called friendship in my mind.
“So when we first met in the park,” I say, “you knew who I was … and what happened.”
We’d joked about it, hadn’t we? Like: ha-ha, you’re stalking me, what a nutty idea.
“No. No. That was my park, too, you know. I’d seen you there with Humphrey, like I told you. But when you and I met there, I was just there—because. It’s a place I like to hang out.”
“But,” I say, “you knew! You acted like you didn’t know who I was, but you knew.”
“I wasn’t sure at first. I wasn’t sure if the girl and boy I saw in the park were the girl and boy involved in the accident. I was afraid you were—but I couldn’t be sure until you told me.”
“Right—and I told you,” I say. “But you said nothing to me!”
He looks away from me.
“And I don’t get it,” I say. “The articles I read said the family in the blue minivan had two daughters. Not two daughters plus an older son plus an older daughter.”
“They were wrong,” Justin says. “But it’s not the sort of mistake that my parents were going to write a letter to the editor to complain about. My older sister and I aren’t exactly standing up to be counted. We’re trying to stay—invisible. That’s what my parents want.”
This still isn’t adding up. The newspaper said the people in the blue minivan were named Guzman. And Justin’s last name is Folgar. At least that’s what he told me.
“Another thing they didn’t get quite right,” he says. “Another thing we saw no reason to correct. They did, at one point, say my father’s name is Eugene Folgar Guzman, which is true. But then they only called him Mr. Guzman. He’s not Mr. Guzman. We’re not the Guzman family. Hispanic names don’t work like that. He’s Mr. Folgar Guzman, or—to make it easier—just Mr. Folgar.”
“How could you say nothing to me!” I say. “We see each other, we talk, and you’ve got this huge secret!”
Now Justin turns to look me full in the eyes. And he looks so forlorn.
“I didn’t want to ruin it,” he says.
“Ruin it? Ruin what?”
“I didn’t want to ruin us,” he adds. “I know I was wrong.”
Wrong? Not just wrong. Something deeper than wrong. Did he become my friend—excuse me, my “friend”—just to get the inside scoop on what I was telling the cops? To see if he could find out what the authorities knew—whether they knew about the existence of him and his older sister, the dancer?
“Wrong” doesn’t begin to describe it.