HIP-HOP PUMPED IN THE CHROME KITCHEN. LUZ SPRAYED BÉARNAISE sauce from a plate and then dunked the plate into a basin, the scalding water up to her wrist, and set the plate into a perforated rack to dry. How often she imagined her mother in that laundry in Las Monarcas. The late nights when Luz would lie awake in bed, waiting to hear the squealing of the building’s gate that meant that her mother was home. The hands Mamá flexed in the morning, grinning to hide the pain of her stiffening knuckles, before being able to lift her coffee to her lips.
Mamá, Luz prayed.
But Luz didn’t know what to say, what to request. Forgiveness, perhaps, first. The retribution Luz had been taught to expect had only arrived after she lost faith in it. She had been told, as a young girl, that this would happen, and worse. Abuela told her. Mamá, too, in her own way. Papá told her no such thing, but when could he have? Once Luz joined him in America, this was never a thing they discussed. From time to time he ordered her to stop seeing Jonah, but that was as far as it ever went. Nevertheless. She had been warned throughout her life, and in the end she ignored the warnings. There were things she had imagined that might have been possible. Lives she had allowed herself to dream. But now she couldn’t even imagine tomorrow. She rinsed and dunked another plate.
At the end of the night the chef and owner, a large man with earrings and a goatee, paid her and two of the cooks in cash. The rest of the staff would have their paychecks deposited. She folded the money and put it in the pocket of her jeans. The two cooks were also Mexican, she thought. Or Honduran, perhaps, but she’d never really spoken with them. That was the way her nights went.
When she went out through the service entrance Jonah was there, leaning against the brick of the opposing structure. She didn’t know what to say, but he pushed from the wall and she pressed into him, folding her arms between their bodies. Her hands throbbed, a raw feeling. She wished all of her could feel this way.
The streetcar jingled past before they could get there, so they sat to wait at the stop. The globe of the trolley’s taillight bobbed and receded through the dark like some kind of spirit. Jonah mentioned that he had been at the track meet.
“I had a bad day,” she answered. He wanted more than that, though, of course.
“You were in first for a while.”
“I know.”
“Colby thought you’d win for him, because he came to see you.”
The humor didn’t occur to her. “I ran too hard too early.”
They sat there. Luz knew she was not being herself, and she knew Jonah didn’t understand. One of the American cooks sat at the other end of the bench, palming his smartphone, a cigarette clamped in his lips. When the smoke wafted her way, an immediate nausea swept from belly to throat. She got to her feet. “Let’s go to your house.”
“You sure?” Jonah asked, opening his own phone to check the time.
“Come on.”
They crossed the avenue into his neighborhood. A corner saloon, iron bars across its windows. A food truck, the smell of barbecue, a gathering of men. They passed the whitewashed brick of the cemetery where Jonah’s parents and brother were buried. Palms arched out over the street, dead fronds underfoot.
Señora McBee, Luz prayed. Help me find the right words, help him listen. Please.
His bedroom was dark and cool. Luz closed her eyes. How to start? He kissed her, and she realized that she had been wrong in everything. There was no unique opportunity. There was no special consideration. What she had, in totality, was this singular moment, this lone moment with Jonah in which they could ascend together. Tomorrow, her being would shift. Tomorrow, everything changed.
Forget it, she told herself. Forget it, for just a while.
They lay afterward in the quiet, and Jonah was saying something. Luz’s mind swung wildly between a numb stasis and a jittering frenzy. Focus, she thought, listen.
“I haven’t wanted to say this out loud,” Jonah said. “I was worried how it would sound or I’d jinx it or something. But I keep thinking about the future and the old auto shop and how perfect it would be if I could get it open again. If I could make some money and, you know, we’ll be together. We’ll make a life together. That’s what I want.”
His words had come out quickly and now there was nothing. Luz realized she wasn’t breathing. His vision was the kind of thing she had wished for, too. The kind of good thing she had believed Jonah could fashion into reality. She heard him withering with doubt, and he started up again, fast, nervous.
“I mean, I know it seems impossible, but I’m gonna try to talk to Dex and see what he knows about loans and—”
Luz spoke into the dark: “I’m pregnant.”
A moment of absolute silence. She heard him swallow. He rolled toward her. She could hear him blinking. “Pregnant.”
“Yes.”
He began to stammer with questions. What? When? How? She told him she’d suspected it for weeks. She told him of the test that morning that confirmed it.
“Wow,” he said.
She had imagined him panicking, rattling off options in an attempt to fix it all at once. But to be quiet, to take it in—this was his way, and she loved him for it. She let him hold her. She told him she was staying the night. “What about your pops?” he asked.
“I’m not afraid.”
“Does he know yet?”
“I’m not afraid of telling him, either.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Jonah tried. She didn’t reply. He said, “I promise.” Then he said, “The auto shop stuff, that can wait. Colby and me, we were talking about the bonuses you get for enlisting in the army. Well, you know, he’s been talking about it. Thousands of dollars. I mean, I’ll do that with him. We’re gonna need something quick. We’ll be all right. We’ll be okay. I’ll help take care of everything.”
Luz listened to him dismantle his dream for them in a moment, and saltwater burned in her eyes, and she whispered, “Not tonight.” She wouldn’t let him hear her cry. She pressed into him. “Not tonight.”