“It sucks.”
Alma had gone way off script. She glanced around the room at all of the earnestly smiling people.
“It totally sucks, but I can’t be here any longer. If this place doesn’t want me, then I don’t want it. I’m going home. I’ll finish this school year, and then I’m going back to Mexico.”
There. She said it.
It was a little weird that she was unloading this here since she didn’t have the nerve to tell Evan or any of her friends in Gilberton.
“And it will be good. I want to know more about my country, my culture. I’ve heard so much about it, but I’ve never been there—not since I was two. And my family can be together, and we won’t have to worry all of the time.”
She made the mistake of finding Mrs. King in the crowd. Instead of smiling encouragingly or scolding Alma with her eyes for ruining yet another opportunity, she was just staring at the wall behind Alma, tears streaming down her face.
Crap. Do not cry. You will not cry.
“It’s not fair, though. My dad and my brother and I, we have done everything right. We have followed all of the rules. But we’re being sent away while my tax-evading uncle and his good-for-nothing son get offered citizenship. It just doesn’t make any sense. But … whatever.”
Fantastic.
Not only had she said a sort of bad word in front of the scholarship people, she was rambling and divulging family secrets. Why couldn’t she just stick with the script?
Alma was the second of the three finalists to speak at the “Face of Promise” luncheon. The room was filled with business leaders, chairs of nonprofit organizations, and lots of other important people from across Georgia. They were here to listen to the heartwarming stories of “underprivileged” high school juniors who had overcome the odds. They expected to be inspired by teens who surmounted any obstacles that stood in their way. Alma had worked for weeks to prepare just such a story: nice young girl, the “model immigrant” sharing her tale of hard work and achievement.
Then, yesterday, she had met with Ms. Chen. The whole system seemed to be such a mess—random and unfair. This morning, Alma woke up furious. She had to do something. So she pulled out her speech and started to revise. She decided to tell everyone about her status—to “come out,” to quit being afraid and ashamed. She would win over the crowd with her story of hard work. But then she would ask them all to help her, and others like her, reach their American Dreams by seeking fair immigration laws.
She had a script. It was pretty good. But then Alma walked into the room and saw her—Evan’s mom, sitting front and center. How could Mrs. King not have warned her? Alma knew she went to lots of fund-raisers, but this one? She was falling apart, and her eyes wouldn’t focus on the words.
Alma had to find a way to get through this. She could not look at Mrs. King, and she would not dare look toward the front row, so she tried to make eye contact with a stranger in the crowd. Her gaze fell on a white-haired lady in the center row. Bad choice. She was wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. Alma looked toward the back of the room and saw another woman with tears in her eyes. She frantically searched for a man in the crowd, under the assumption that men are less likely to cry in public. No luck. The man she locked eyes with in the crowd was teary, too.
Damn. This was getting embarrassing.
“But it’s OK. In many ways, this country has been good to us. My brother and I got a great education. We got to live in a good house in a great neighborhood. We are bilingual and bicultural. And no one can take that away from us. We will be fine.”
A quiet sob escaped from Mrs. King’s lips. How could she do this to Alma? She was dependable, strong—a solid rock.
Crap. Crap. Crap. Alma was going to have to wrap up quickly—before any more public displays of sympathy.
“So, I invite you all to come and visit me in Mexico anytime!” She forced a big, friendly smile. “I’ll even throw in a free Spanish lesson.”
As she scurried back to her seat, Evan’s mom caught her gaze. The room was erupting into frantic applause, but Mrs. Roland just looked hard at her. She wasn’t teary; she wasn’t smiling. She showed absolutely no emotion at all.
* * *
Evan sat in the parking lot and tried to get up the nerve to go in. He ran himself through the pep talk one more time: You’re in Atlanta. No one knows you here. You don’t have to buy anything. Just go in and browse.
He took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. There were several other cars in the parking lot, so he knew the store would be busy, too busy for the salespeople even to notice him, right?
Wrong.
The glass door swung shut behind him. Evan looked up to see a dozen eyes on him. There was not a single customer in the store, and standing at attention behind the long cases that lined each of the store’s walls were six unoccupied salespeople. Their eagerness pulsed through the air like electricity.
Evan felt like he’d been thrown to the sharks. He locked eyes with the least threatening-looking of them, a compact Indian woman with long dark hair, and headed in her direction.
“I’m just looking,” he said.
“Ah, wonderful. Because I’m just here to help,” she replied cheerfully, in a lilting accent. “Do you seek a gift? Maybe something for a special young lady friend?”
There was a gentle teasing in her voice that made Evan squirm. Maybe he should have chosen the burly black guy at the counter across the room. He wouldn’t tease about a “lady friend.”
Too late.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m looking for a ring for my girlfriend.”
“Do you have anything special in mind? Her birthstone, perhaps?”
A plan took shape in his mind.
“Uh-huh. But, um, do you have, like, a birthstone chart or something? Uh, I don’t really know what her birthstone is.”
The truth was that he had absolutely no idea which month was assigned to the diamond.
She led Evan across the room, toward a display case filled with rings.
“That won’t be necessary, young man,” she said, shaking her head. “When is her birthday? I know these things.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” He looked down at his feet.
Feeling something nudge against his shoulder, he looked up to see the burly black guy thrusting a laminated sheet toward him.
“Here you go, man. This should help.”
It was confirmed. Evan definitely should have picked that guy. He frantically searched the sheet to find a diamond.
“April. Her birthday is in April.”
“Indeed? What a fortuitous coincidence. My birthday is also in April,” the saleswoman said, grinning broadly. “Which day?”
“Uh, the thirty-first.”
Alma’s birthday was August 31. He figured he could lie about the month but still be honest about the day.
“Hey,” said the helpful black guy, in a deep, sonorous voice, “I think you mean the thirtieth.”
Right. Of course. There was no thirty-first of April.
“In any case, perhaps you should consider a necklace with a lovely diamond pendant, or a bracelet possibly?” She pulled a gold necklace with a diamond chip from the case.
“Uh, that’s pretty. But, uh, she likes rings.”
What a joke. Alma wasn’t exactly into sparkly jewelry.
Another salesperson joined her behind the counter—a chubby woman in her fifties with perfectly coiffed white hair, pink lips, and lots of eye makeup.
“What she means to say, sweetheart, is that a diamond ring might give a girl the wrong message. Do you get my drift?”
“Oh, yeah. Uh … right,” Evan stammered.
“Ladies!” The black guy broke in, arms crossed on his chest and voice booming. “Enough. If the man wants to buy a diamond ring for his girlfriend, then show him some diamond rings, for God’s sake.”
Both women shot him a surprised look. Now it was their turn to seem embarrassed.
“Well then,” said the saleslady, “shall we take a look at the engagement rings?”
Without meaning to, Evan let out an audible sigh.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Let’s do that.”
* * *
Leaving the event in Mrs. King’s Buick, Alma broke the uncomfortable silence.
“I’m sorry.”
“For heaven’s sake, Alma, what do you have to be sorry for?” Mrs. King asked.
“You’ve worked so hard to help me, and I ruined it.”
“You did not ruin this. And while your speech may not have been pleasant, you were speaking from your heart. That’s always the right thing to do.”
“I can’t be the poster child, Mrs. King.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“I’m sick of it. I’m so tired of standing up there and acting all perfect, as if I need to earn the right to be here—as if my good grades and sweet demeanor make me somehow worthy!”
It felt good to get these nagging thoughts off her chest.
“Well, your good grades do in fact make you worthy of a scholarship, but as for your demeanor, I can’t say I’ve ever thought of it as sweet.”
“Well, I’m done,” Alma said. “This town’s going to have to find itself another model immigrant.”
“So, it’s decided?”
“What? That I’m leaving? I don’t have another choice. And even if I could find a way to stay…”
“And what does your Evan think?”
“My Evan?” She heard herself say. Alma closed her eyes and tried to push the image of Evan—fretting beside her in Ms. Chen’s office—out of her mind. “Oh, Mrs. King. I hope his mom doesn’t tell him! I just haven’t figured out a way to break the news, you know? He’s so determined to fix it. And he’s so damned naive.”
“Are you perhaps being a little naive, too, Alma? I mean, to think that you can make a life for yourself back in your parents’ hometown? It’s going to be hard.”
Alma’s voice rose to a shrill pitch. “Oh? And this isn’t hard?”
“Of course it is, Alma.” Mrs. King almost cooed her response.
She slowly eased her car into Alma’s driveway. Alma needed to pull it together. There was no reason to take this out on Mrs. King.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Alma asked. “Whit’s here.”
“I’d love to see Whit, but I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“I promise, it would not be an imposition. Abuela Lupe had nine kids, and she still cooks gargantuan amounts of food every day. I think Isa has gained fifteen pounds.”
Isa had definitely left her hunger strikes behind. Since the moment her parents left for Mexico, she had been making up for lost time. While stuffing her face, she was fond of proclaiming dramatically that, back in Mexico, they’d probably all be too poor to eat, so she might as well enjoy good food now.
“Well then, I suppose it’s my duty,” Mrs. King said, stepping out of the car.
Entering the house, they were greeted by an unusual combination of smells—burnt sugar, roasted tomatillos, and sautéed garlic, maybe? Isa and Selena were chasing each other around the couch, fighting loudly over the TV remote. In the kitchen, Abuela Lupe stood on one side of the stove, vigorously chopping onions. Their neighbor Señora Jimenez was sitting at the kitchen table with her three children, shoving their feet into an array of new shoes that were laid out across the table.
The sliding doors were thrown open to the deck, where Whit balanced in a headstand on his yoga mat. Since leaving rehab and moving into the transitional house, he had spent almost all of his free time here. Whit came out of rehab clean, centered, and with an obsessive need to practice yoga. His zeal for it was verging on evangelical, and he had Alma in his sights. The day before he somehow had convinced her, for the first time since elementary school, to plunge into a full backbend. According to Whit, this particular contortion promoted an attitude of surrender—openness to any circumstance.
He and Abuela Lupe immediately developed a strange bond over shoes of all things. Abuela Lupe was an entrepreneur. For the past dozen years, Tía Pera had been sending her clothes from the clearance racks in Gilberton, and Alma’s grandmother sold them for a profit in her little tienda in San Juan. When she came to Gilberton in December, she brought three suitcases full of leather shoes from Oaxaca—shoes that sold for practically nothing there. The first time Whit visited Alma after rehab, he saw the shoes, heard her plan, and immediately found a calculator and a pencil. He and Abuela Lupe worked profit margins together on a regular basis. According to Evan, Whit was the kind of guy who, at age nine, tracked the value of his stocks on homemade graphs posted on his bedroom wall. Alma didn’t know nine-year-olds could own stocks. She also wondered how he went from being that smart, motivated kid to becoming the seventeen-year-old addict sprawled on Evan’s lawn.
“See what I mean?” Alma asked Mrs. King, raising her arm toward the chaos.
Mrs. King chuckled and headed into the fray. Alma rushed into the kitchen and flipped a switch on the wall to start the vent, adding a loud rattling hum to the cacophony.
Then she texted Evan. She was going to have to get this over with—Alma needed to tell him before she did.
Come for dinner. Beef in salsa verde, your favorite.
* * *
Alma threw the door open and flung herself into his arms. She held on tight and whispered in his ear, “Mrs. King’s here, and Monica just came over.”
She took his hand and yanked him toward the kitchen, where a table was strewn with plates and cups. Mrs. King, Abuela Lupe, and Isa sat gathered around Monica, who was speaking rapidly in Spanish. Whit sat by Mrs. King and translated.
“He was fishing,” Whit said.
“Fishing?” Mrs. King asked, incredulous.
Alma leaned into Evan. “Monica showed up about fifteen minutes ago to tell us the news. Her uncle was picked up by ICE for fishing without a license.”
Evan stepped back. “Fishing? Are you friggin’ kidding me?”
Mrs. King looked over at him and shook her head slowly. She didn’t greet him. She was too focused on Monica and her seething anger.
“Yeah,” Alma said. “There’s this protest over at the North Georgia Detention Center. Padre Pancho told us about it. Monica wants to go, but she needs a ride. She’s pretty mad.”
Whit stood up suddenly and pushed his seat back from the table. “Let’s do it,” he announced. “I’ll drive.”
That was a very bad idea, but Evan wasn’t sure he knew how to stop Whit.
“Whit,” Alma said, glancing at the wall clock, “your curfew.”
“Oh, Christ,” Whit replied, reaching down to grab his yoga mat from the floor. “If I’m not back at the transition house in fifteen minutes, I’m back in rehab.”
He gave Monica a big hug and rushed out of the room.
Monica stood up and clenched her jaw. “We have to quit sitting here. We can’t just let this keep happening. We have to speak up!”
“Monica’s right,” Isa said. “I was watching TV, and there were a bunch of teenagers who called themselves DREAMers on Cristina. They said we have to quit hiding. They said we should come out of the shadows and just tell people who we are, you know?”
“Yeah,” Alma said, “I know.” She looked at Mrs. King and smiled, as if they had some sort of inside joke.
“All right then. What are we waiting for?” Evan said.
“Are you sure?” Alma asked, grabbing onto his hand.
Evan smiled and squeezed her hand. “As long as I can get my beef in salsa verde to go.”
Alma’s grandmother threw together two soft tacos and handed them to Evan wrapped in a paper towel. Alma, Monica, and Isa piled into Evan’s car, and they took off toward the detention center as he munched on the tacos dripping with green salsa. When they got to the parking lot where people were gathered, they headed toward a man standing with a bullhorn.
“We will walk in silence to the center,” he commanded. “And then we will stand in silent solidarity with our detained sisters.”
Alma whispered, “This detention center is just for women.”
“Is it a jail?” Evan asked.
“No. But it basically functions like one. You’ll see.”
They filed in line behind a man holding a sign. They walked for about twenty minutes, before arriving at a two-story building surrounded by a high fence. The building had no windows. They stood across from an empty parking lot. Then the man with the bullhorn crossed the street and stood at the gates.
“No more profits off our pain!” he called out. “Shut the North Georgia Detention Center down! Stop separating women from their children!”
Everybody just stood there for a few minutes, then walked back to their cars.
“That was kinda boring,” Isa said. “Can we go to Dairy Queen now?”
Evan pulled the car onto the highway and headed toward Dairy Queen. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from his first protest, but it wasn’t this.
That’s why he was so surprised the next evening when his mom freaked out on him.
Evan fumbled with the keys and slowly opened the front door, willing his mom not to be home. He moved through the quiet house and tiptoed up the stairs.
His mother’s cheerful voice broke the dense silence. “Pumpkin? Is that you?”
He slowly descended toward the kitchen.
“Hi, Mom.”
She stood at the door to the garage, surrounded by large shopping bags.
“I picked up takeout from the club. Are you hungry?”
“Sure,” he said, nervously fingering the soft velvet box in his pocket. He had left it in the glove compartment the night before. Now he needed to figure out a way to stash it in his room. “Any of that stuff for me?”
“Yes, sweetie. I got you some shorts—you know, the cargo shorts that you like—and a new tie for Easter, and a few button-down shirts.”
“Cool, thanks. I’ll take them upstairs.” Normally, it was only a little embarrassing that his mom still did all of his shopping, but today it made him feel different. Feeling the ring in his pocket and thinking about what it meant, he felt a nostalgic sort of sadness welling up in his chest.
“What’s your hurry, sweetheart? Let’s sit down and eat before our food gets cold.”
He pulled out a stool and sat at the breakfast bar while she pulled two takeout containers from a paper bag. She handed him a Sprite from the refrigerator and then poured herself a large glass of chardonnay. Evan opened the first container to find a dainty salad.
“This must be yours,” he said.
“Yes, sweetie. I got you a steak.”
She carefully transferred their food onto china plates and placed each on a freshly ironed linen placemat. They ate in silence. Evan wondered, not for the first time, whether this arrangement was better—not having his dad around. At least, between Evan and his mother, the silence was usually companionable. But tonight, his mom seemed different, as if there were something she wanted to say.
She stood up and poured herself another glass of wine. Then she pulled a newspaper from the drawer next to the sink and paused, her back turned to him. Evan’s mom wasn’t one to read the newspaper at all, and never during dinner.
“What’s up, Mom? Is everything OK?”
When she turned to face him again, he noticed it. Her eyes were rimmed with red. His mother had been crying.
She glanced down at her abandoned salad, barely picked over. “Your father will be here tomorrow afternoon. He looks forward to seeing you.”
“I won’t be here, Mom. I’m taking Alma down to see her dad. He got moved to the federal detention center.”
She took a long sip of wine. “Oh, Evan, pumpkin. That’s not a good idea. You need to stay here and go to church with us on Sunday.”
“Mom. I’m sorry, but she needs to see him before his court date. It may be her last chance.”
“Well, isn’t there someone else to drive her there? An aunt or an uncle? This is something her family should be dealing with, honey.”
“Maybe, but I’m going to take her. We’re coming back late tomorrow night.”
Evan figured now wasn’t the time to explain how all of her family and friends were afraid to drive down there, and terrified of going into the detention center with ICE agents swarming the place. Plus, it didn’t matter. He needed to be there, too.
“I have to be back to go to the tournament anyway,” he said. “Remember? The bus leaves Sunday at one. I’ll go to church with you and Dad if that’s what you want.”
So absurd. Evan didn’t understand why they had to keep up the whole charade, but this wasn’t the time to get into it.
“That’s not my only worry,” she said.
Evan’s mom picked up the open newspaper and placed it down in front of him.
“Evan, your uncle Sexton called me today from Washington. He’s very concerned.”
She pointed to a large photo on an inside page of the Gilberton Examiner. In the photo, Evan stood next to Alma and her friend Monica on a street corner. A hippie-looking guy with dirty long hair was standing behind her with a sign that read, “No human is illegal!” Monica was looking away, and Alma wore a calm expression. Evan looked sort of lost.
“Wow,” he said, trying to break the tension. “That’s kind of a bad picture of me, huh?”
He remembered the moment, but he hadn’t noticed anyone taking photographs. No big deal.
Except, apparently it was a big deal, at least to his uncle.
“Read the caption,” his mother said, icily.
Evan Prentiss Roland, nephew of U.S. Senator Sexton Prentiss, participating in a protest of federal immigration policy at the North Georgia Detention Center for Women.
He looked up at his mother. “Whatever, Mom. I bet, like, twelve people read the sixth page of the Gilberton Examiner.”
“Well, Evan, that’s not what your uncle and his chief of staff believe.”
He pointed to Monica’s image in the photograph.
“I don’t mean any disrespect, Mom, but do you see this girl?”
“Of course I do, sweetie.”
“Her name is Monica. A few days ago, Monica’s uncle was fishing down at Trout Bend Creek—fishing!—and the DNR officer asked him for his fishing license. When he said he didn’t have one, they threw him in jail and called ICE. He has three school-age kids who are citizens of this country, and he’s about to be deported for fishing. I mean, what is up with that?”
“Well, Evan, is Monica’s uncle an illegal?”
Now he was almost yelling at his mother.
“Do you know what they are saying, Mom? They’re saying that this new program is supposed to target people who ‘pose a threat to the security of our communities.’ Did you know that?”
“No, Evan, I didn’t.”
“Since when, Mom, does fishing threaten our safety?”
“Evan,” his mother said calmly, “you need to stop yelling. My point is simply that your uncle and his chief of staff are disappointed.”
He snapped.
“They’re disappointed?”
“Yes, Evan.”
“They’re disappointed. A few days ago, one of the coolest guys I know was dumped off an armored bus in some crappy Mexican border town and told, basically, never to come back. Now, I am about to take my girlfriend to see her dad, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, in a high-security federal prison, maybe for the last time in a decade, and they are disappointed?”
He was filled with such rage that he could barely see. He stood up and slammed his hands hard against the counter. A searing pain tore through his hand, still wounded from the bottle incident. He clenched his teeth and groaned.
“Evan, calm down,” his mother whispered, taking his good hand and pulling him back into the seat. “You need to begin the process of disentangling yourself from this situation. She won’t be a part of your life forever, Evan. You need to let her go.”
“You don’t get it, Mom. You just don’t understand.”
“We have asked you to do it, but now we are telling you. You have no other choice. Do you understand?”
“You know what, Mom?” Evan said, pushing his chair back again. “You can tell Uncle Sexton and his chief of staff that I don’t give two shits how they feel! And, no, I do not understand.”
He spun away as her arm reached out to touch him. Shrugging her off, he stalked out of the kitchen.
“Evan,” his mother called out in a pleading voice. “Evan, please.”
He didn’t turn back. Instead he bounded up the stairs two at a time.