After Mom went to bed, I texted Jade. No answer. I knocked on the window three times. Nothing. C’mon, Jade, where are you? I mean, holy shit. My father was deported. My father was deported. My father was deported. Was he coming back? Could he come back? What if he never came back? Would we have to move to Guatemala? Gahhh! My brain was in overdrive. No. Dad would find a way back to us. But would he have to hire a coyote? The first time I ever heard this word, I thought it was a reference to an actual coyote, as in the animal, but I’d since learned that in this case “coyote” refers to a person you pay mad money to sneak you across the US border.
My purple notebook stared at me, practically begging me to open it. Funny. On the bus home I’d been imagining writing all about Dustin.… Yeah, some people fantasized over the dessert they were going to eat later on; I fantasized over what I’d write about. But now Dustin seemed a million days ago. I picked the notebook up, put it down, picked it up again, and wrote Today. I wrote Today. I wrote Today like seventy-five times all on top of each other until I tore a hole right through the page. Plus my hands were doing this old-person-shaking thing. Dang it. Where was Jade? Her grandmother never let her stay out this late. I paced the room. My father had been deported. My father had been deported. Okay. It had never occurred to me that my parents weren’t citizens. I mean, why would it? And where was Dad staying, anyway? Was he getting food? Was he scared? Was he with family there, or did he have to like, hide? I had no idea. And how did they even actually deport you, anyway? March you to an airplane going to the country you came from, and push you on? Are you handcuffed? Oh my God! Thank God Jade finally replied to my text.
Me: can u come over NOW
Jade: k…
I raced to the bottom of the stairs so Mom wouldn’t hear the buzzer. “You okay, girl?” Jade asked as I swung open the building door. Then she gave me a hug.
I held on to her. She smelled like Ernesto’s cologne.
“Not really.”
Jade stepped back, really looked at me. “Liliana, what’s going on?” She wore summer on her body, a jean skirt and a peach halter top, hadn’t even taken the time to put on a jacket; it dangled in her hand.
“Nothing good. Come on up. I’ll tell you everything,” I whispered.
“Yo, I can’t. My grandmother will flip if I’m not back in five minutes. Spill!”
I looked up the stairwell, then leaned in close. “So… my father… he’s been gone for a minute because… he was actually deported.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “No.…”
“Yes. He got sent back to Guatemala.” Now I bit hard on my bottom lip because an ugly cry was coming.
“Shit—your dad?”
“I know.”
“You for real?”
“Yes, yo.”
An ambulance siren blared in the distance. Jade put on her jacket and crossed her arms. “That fucking sucks, yo.”
We talked for a few more minutes, but I don’t remember what we actually said. All I remember is that I felt a little better. Jade hugged me one more time before she left. As I looked out into the dark street, my head felt fuzzy. I prayed that Dad was okay wherever he was now. A streetlight flickered, then burned out. I must have stared at this street a thousand times, but that night it looked darker than all those other thousand nights stitched together. Yeah, pretty ironic.
Dad, he was never scared of the dark. He said you needed dark so that light could be light. One was nothing without the other. The hard times, he said, made you stronger. And, you know how you hear that stuff, and it all feels totally cliché? But then when you need it, it’s weird, yeah, I know, but it kinda helps. Still, I pictured Dad kicking a pebble down some lonely road somewhere thousands of miles away from our home. I sent him a hug in my mind, told him to keep going. And you know what? I kinda didn’t need to actually talk to him to know what he’d say to me. He’d tell me to keep going. He would tell me to stay focused, give METCO a shot, dig in my heels at Westburg. You do you, Dad would have told me. So that’s what I decided to do. No matter what.
8
With my new You Do You attitude holding my Where Is Dad Now panic attacks at bay, I admit I was psyched to see it was C day on the school calendar. This meant I had a double block for my English elective, Creative Writing. On my way into the classroom, I spotted Dorito Girl and another METCO girl—named Ivy, I think—clustered in front of the lockers. Ivy looked up and sort of smiled, but then Dorito Girl pulled her elbow and they were off. Fine, then. Maybe I’d make them villains in a story. For real, it would be great to roll up my sleeves and write. Except, no lie, Mrs. Grew didn’t exactly send out the creative vibes. At least not to me.
As I slid into a seat, I did a double take. Rayshawn was there, in the far back corner. Huh. I would have guessed he’d pick weight lifting or study hall—seemed more his thing. But there he was, in his navy-blue hoodie and basketball shorts. Different earring. His eyes were closed.
Mrs. Grew was telling everyone to settle down. Ha. Rayshawn couldn’t have been more settled. Then she told us to take out some paper as she scribbled on the board. I couldn’t resist peeking back at Rayshawn. He was pulling out a thin notebook and a pen missing its cap from his backpack. His earring caught the light coming in from the window and sparkled, but he looked totally beat. I turned back to the board.
Describe one of your worst fears and a time you overcame it. Show. Don’t tell.
“You have thirty minutes,” Mrs. Grew said, looking at her watch.
They didn’t play at this school. We were getting right into the work.
Everyone around me started writing feverishly, stopping only to click their mechanical pencils, releasing more lead. I stared at the pale lines on my paper. My worst fears? Well, I had a bunch, including two new ones: that my father would never come home, that my mother would also be deported, and that the boys and I would be left without our parents. Okay, that was three. And then there was that Jade and I wouldn’t stay best friends until we were one hundred years old, that I would mess up this opportunity to go to a school that had all these resources—including a pool. But right that very second my worst fear was writing this essay. That’s right. I had writer’s block. Bad.
“Is there a problem, Miss Cruz?” Mrs. Grew called out.
I shook my head, sank down in my seat. Began to write. I wrote something, something, something along the first two rows. Total waste of lead. But at least I looked like I was writing.
Barely fifteen minutes later, one girl raised her hand.
“Yes, Paula?”
“Can I share?” she asked. My eyes bugged. She was finished?
Mrs. Grew nodded.
“Then me,” said a kid in the front row.
“And me,” said another.
Really? These kids were all amped to share. Maybe they got extra credit for participation or something? I dug out the class syllabus and scanned it. YUP. Participation counted for 25 percent of your grade. I kept reading the fine print. Oh, wow. It also said that at any time the teacher reserved the right to collect writing prompts and count them as a quiz grade. I looked at my something, something, something. That wasn’t even F material. My bad for not reading the syllabus.