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Sketchy Tacos

By Meg D. Gonzalez

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Cheery bells push at the fog of my sleep. I must still be dreaming. For seventeen years, no bells have chimed outside my window. It faces a cornfield.
With a slow roll to my side, I nuzzle my pillows and will myself to return to the dream world in which such music plays. Light dances across my eyelids and nudges me to wake, but it’s summer. I refuse to get up before Mom makes me. The chimes fade, and my hand searches the cotton covers for Shelby, my supersized puppy, who inhabits one side of my bed. Her lazy kisses usually help me fall right back to—
I bolt upright in bed, adrenaline pounding through my system.
A grin splits my face. The bells. I know why there are bells.
I’m in Mexico.
Collapsing into the narrow bed, I bite my lip to hold back a delighted giggle. My eyes trace the constellations formed by glow-in-the-dark stars pressed into the high ceiling. In the silence of the room, I wiggle between the sheets in a happy dance. After a year of begging, my mother let me go. I am free!
Elation spreads to my fingers and toes with each celebratory pump of my arms in the air.
“Is this normal in the US or should I worry?”
The disembodied voice causes me to scream. My legs curl into the blanket, and my torso swivels to the side. Who’s there? What did they see? I try to sit up, but the swirling cloth pins my arms to my sides. My limbs writhe. I look like I’m having a seizure. Please tell me no one is watching. With a final yelp, I twist out of the pale yellow sheets. Right onto the hardwood floor.
Pain blossoms at the top of my skull. Several seconds pass before my vision clears and focuses on Rosa, my host family’s sixteen-year-old daughter, lying on the ground, inches from my prone body. Her face is rosy in the morning heat of the air-condition-less house. Stuffed animals surround her petite frame.
“Why are you on the floor?” I pull a purple monkey out from under my shoulder and lie flat. My spine pops and readjusts
A fluffy tiger and an elephant covered in rainbow polka-dots press against her flawless caramel cheeks. The animals glare at me while she rubs sleep from her coffee-colored eyes. “Good morning to you too, Mila.” She stretches. “My uncle couldn’t bring the second bed until tomorrow.”
She glances at my expression and a tinkling laugh spills from her narrow lips. Though I don’t move a muscle, the sensation of falling whacks me again as she laughs at me. This time there’s no soft place to land.
“We share a room,” she says. “Mama told you last night.”
“I was so tired I only heard half of what she said.” A yawn punctuates my statement.
“Do you do that every time you wake up? Is it some kind of American yoga?”
Heat starts at my collarbone and creeps up my neckline. I tell myself to shake it off. I can recover from this. “No, it’s—”
Isabel Vasquez bursts through the door, armed with a metal spatula dripping red sauce. Her ebony hair flies behind her in thick waves. I jump off the floor and stand at attention by my bed. Rosa’s middle-aged mother searches the room’s nooks and crannies. The flowers on her colorful apron contort around her curvy figure as she checks under the now destroyed bed. She speaks so fast her Spanish slurs. The gears in my head whir, but in the early morning fog nothing clicks.
She slows to my turtle speed. “¿Qué pasa? ¿Estás bien?”
Angie, the youngest daughter, peeks her pert nose between her mother’s legs. Two teeth are missing from her mischievous smirk. Wonderful. A larger audience.
My cool fingers press against my flaming cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know Rosa was here, and she startled me.”
Isabel glares at the room through heavily lined lids like she might find “startled” hiding somewhere. She snaps, “¡En Español!”
My heart slams against my ribs. Of course in Spanish. How stupid can I be?
“Perdón,” I say. “Estoy bien, gracias.”
That’s the best I can do? Three years of straight A’s in Spanish class should enable me to craft a better sentence than, “Sorry. I’m good, thanks.” My first impression crashes and burns. My throat burns along with it.
A more coherent explanation trickles off my tongue at a snail’s pace. “Olvidé que estaba en México. Cuando recordé, ¡bailé porque estoy emocionada de estar aquí!” My confession is as feeble as my voice.
Isabel and Rosa nod. Hope tingles in my arms. Maybe I can do this.
Santiago appears behind his wife and child, arms crossed. Retreating to the bed, I clutch the plush monkey to my chest, too conscious of my lack of bra beneath my thin, striped pajamas. The animal’s silky fur turns slick beneath my sweaty palms. Santiago’s bushy mustache twitches, and he scratches his grey-washed hair. The bass notes rumble when he asks why I screamed. Words flee from my mind.
The silence stretches, each second like a pinprick. The words have to come back. If I screw this up, they could send me home. Then I won’t receive the credits. Spanish IV will fill the final slot in my schedule instead of Advanced Drawing. And my mom…
I don’t even want to think about what she’d do.
Rosa answers for me. Many of the words she speaks sound familiar, but I can’t match meaning to them in time. Perspiration wets my forehead even more than the afternoon rain daily flooding the streets in Mexico’s summer months.
She finishes and the family’s heads turn to me with questions burning in their eyes. Is this how the Aztecs viewed the conquistadors?
“Perdón,” I say again.
Angie, who can’t be more than five, slips into the room and jumps on my bed. I pull my knees to my chin. She climbs over them, her hand tiny pads of pressure no bigger than Shelby’s paw, and kisses me on the cheek. Her hair, so like her mother’s, clogs my nose, filling it with the scent of strawberry shampoo. While Mrs. Danphe, my Spanish and Sunday school teacher, told me to prepare for hugs, this stretches far beyond my comfort zone. I’m not even dressed yet.
Holding my face between her sticky fingers, Angie chatters and giggles. When her babbling dies away, she hops to Rosa and cradles the downy tiger.
Rosa translates. “She says you scream louder than the rooster.” Angie bounces on her lap.
“¡En Español, Rosa! Mila no va a aprender si no practica.”
Mom’s voice rings through Isabel’s words.
No, I won’t learn if I don’t practice.
If they just have patience with me, I swear I’ll improve. I tell them so… at least, I hope that’s what I said.
Isabel says, “Claro, mami.” She waves the reddened spatula, and the smell of fresh cilantro is so strong I can almost taste it. Her expression softens for the first time since she appeared in the door.
Hope ignites once more.
The matriarch pats my shoulder and kisses my forehead. Within an instant, the soft expression dissolves. “Vamonos!” Her fingers snap a hollow note. The sharp tone grates on my ears. “No quiero que mi desayuno se quema. Vas a ir abajo rapidamente, no?” Isabel’s harsh words hang in the air.
Those black-lined lids continue to narrow until I say, “Okay.” I pray it’s the correct response.
She stomps off down the stairs. The rest of the family gawks at me—the screaming oddity. Then they shuffle out. When their backs turn to me, my stomach sinks. Is this what I can expect from everyone this summer?
Rosa pokes her head through the door and smiles. “Come on, Bailarina.” She spins in a dainty pirouette. “We’re waiting for you.”

****

While the phone rings, I repeat my mantras. “Get in, get out, go on with your day. Short and sweet. Sticks and stones.” I hike the phone up my shoulder and trace the pattern on the living room sofa with my free hand. The soft fabric is worn thin from years of use. “You can do this.”
“This is the Gulick residence. Trisha speaking.”
“Hi, Mom. It’s Mila,” I say. Three, two, one.
“Mildred!”
And the cringing begins. After seven years she still refuses to call me Mila. I jump off the couch and pace. Fuzzy rug gives way to hard wood beneath my bare toes.
“Why didn’t you call last night? I told you to call when you arrived. You have arrived, haven’t you? Are you stranded somewhere? Flying on your own was clearly a bad idea. I should’ve flown with you. Then I wouldn’t have been awake half the night with worry. And I could’ve checked out the family and the area. Are they a nice Christian family? Mrs. Danphe promised me. Have you even met them yet? Where are you calling from?”
With each question, the tension between my shoulder blades increases. I swear I’ll have serious back problems by the time I’m twenty. “I’m calling from the Ramos Vasquez house.”
“Is it a nice house? A safe neighborhood? What do you think of the family?”
My mind returns to this morning. When Rosa beckoned me, I followed her to the kitchen and stood by the table like an idiot. I had no clue where to sit. The silence in the kitchen wrapped around me like a Mexican black king snake.
Isabel stood at the stove. She supervised the sizzling pans, spicy scents rising to prickle my nose and water my eyes. Rosa handed her father the next section of the newspaper and resumed a thorough study of her dual-toned nails. Angie chewed on a matted strand of her wavy hair.
Chasing me to an empty seat, Isabel set a plate drenched in green sauce and wet nachos in front of me. The only thing wet about breakfast should be syrup. Though I wanted to push the strange food away, I didn’t allow myself to hesitate before taking a bite. Flavors I couldn’t name danced over my tongue in a lively salsa.
When Isabel sat at the table, Santiago tucked the paper away, the kids sat straight, and all four began to talk. The conversation flew from person to person. I tried my hardest to keep up, but I distinguished just a few words—enough to guess what the conversation might be about—before it took another turn.
Throughout the whole exchange, they smiled at each other and talked freely. I haven’t done that with my family since the second grade. Their interaction was easy and beautiful. I longed to be a part of it.
“They’re nice,” I say. “They get along well.”
Mom pauses, which means she’s satisfied with my answer. I take this moment of peace to examine the multi-national trinkets on the glass table in front of me. A bright mosaic bull sits near an iron recreation of the Eiffel Tower. With my outstretched hand, I caress a wooden crab painted with painstaking detail. The piece is so light I fear it might crumble at my touch.
“How is your Spanish?” she says.
I recoil. While I can’t lie to her, the truth is not an option. She would be outraged by my failure.
“Are you practicing?” she continues. “Your dad and Mrs. Danphe convinced me to let you go because of their argument for academic improvement. Though I’m still not sure why you couldn’t just take Spanish IV with everyone else. I hope you make the most of it.”
Her speech causes my fingers to curl into a fist. What makes her assume I would waste this opportunity? I worked hard to convince her to let me come. Every moment of freedom is precious.
“I am practicing. Isabel makes me speak in Spanish.”
“Isabel? I don’t remember an Isabel. There’s a Rosa and an Angelina, but no Isabel.”
“It’s the mom, Mom. She asked me to call her by her first name.”
She sniffs on the other end of the line. I can almost see her I-smell-something-bad expression. In the Gulick house, propriety is law. “If she asked, I suppose it will have to do.”
I sink into the couch. The silence drives needles into my skin. Years ago I learned not to offer any unrequested information.
“What are you going to do today?” Her questions cut worse than the silence. “Are you familiarizing yourself with the culture? That was the main point of this immersion program if I recall.”
“Isabel told me at breakfast she’ll take me to the market this afternoon. Afterward, I’m not sure what we’re doing… today.”
It is the truth. I’ve no idea what else we’re doing today. But I do know what I’m doing tomorrow.
In the pre-breakfast quiet, Rosa picked at the glitter on her nails. “I think I’m going to a party tomorrow night.”
I waited for the barrage of questions from her parents. “Where is it? Who will be there? What time does it end? Which adult will chaperone?” And my favorite: “Are you bringing your pepper spray?”
Isabel nodded from her place at the stove. Santiago didn’t move.
Rosa’s chestnut eyes flicked to me. “Want to come?”
Excitement spilled through me at her invitation, bringing with it an edge of what I can only call rebellion. Mom would kill me. She does not approve of parties. But I left the house to escape the minuscule world she’s created for me. I want to witness spectacular sights and make exotic friends. What better way than at a party with kids my age?
“You don’t have any type of schedule?” Mom’s question snaps me back to the conversation. “That’s not responsible.”
My lips mash together to keep my retorts locked inside where they belong.
“Responsibility” has been a constant topic this past year. If I err for even a moment—forget one homework assignment, can’t find my phone for five minutes, fail to put a dish away—I’m hopeless and irresponsible. It’s one of the main arguments behind her push for me to stay at home and attend community college.
“Make sure you stick with Isabel at the market. Remain with the family at all times. I don’t trust you out there on your own.”
And therein lies the problem. Trust.
My unpainted nails dig into my palms until the urge to speak passes.
Lord, please give me patience.
It’s a prayer I’m sure He’s tired of hearing.
“Have you accomplished any items on the list?” she says. “Don’t forget to write a brief essay on each point.”
I cannot believe her sometimes.
“No, I haven’t yet. I just got out of bed an hour ago.” The vein at the base of my neck throbs. Too much information.
“It’s twelve o’clock.” Her voice pounds through the line in a roar. We do not sleep in in the Gulick household. “Your father and I did not pay hundreds of dollars for you to sleep through Mexico. You are irresponsible. And you question why you’re not ready to leave for college? How will you finish your work if you sleep until noon?”
“Yesterday was a long day.” The words push through gritted teeth. She’s the one who woke me up at 3:00 a.m. to drive me to the airport.
“And will ‘a long day’ be justification to skip classes?”
“Maybe if I’m stuck at community college.” Oh. No. I said that out loud. What happened to my grip on my tongue?
“I’m sorry.” There’s no possible recovery. “But our community college is not much more than a glorified high school. Most of the kids from my school go there. There’s no chance to start fresh. And the classes they teach are not interesting.”
“Interesting?” She spits it out like a dirty word. “I’m concerned with useful. A skill to help you support yourself. You can’t live with your dad and me forever. Besides, why pay for a four-year university when you don’t even know what you want to do?”
Mom’s words sink a punch into my gut. Worse, I have no comeback.
“I did not sleep until noon. I slept until ten. You’re an hour ahead.”
Her disapproval buzzes through the line. “This is exactly why you need the list. Without some kind of structure, you’d fall apart.”
Julia, my best friend since preschool, jumps to my mind. A miniature cartoon of her in a hot pink top and dark wash skinny jeans sweeps away my mother’s angry words with a broom. A chuckle rumbles through me; to my knowledge, Julia’s never touched a broom. Her caricature continues to clean away the cobwebs of hurt until none remain.
My friend and my mother are at constant odds. When Julia saw my mom’s list, she decided to make some additions. Her glittery purple gel pen scrawled over the crisp black laser print.
Mom would be horrified.
Her irate chatter continues, causing the phone to vibrate on my collarbone. Prints of two masters’ paintings hang on the walls above the couch. Brush strokes swirl in the original hanging above the fireplace. The oil paints depict a woman holding flowers. She looks identical to Isabel.
When my fingers unclench and lie flat by my side, I raise the phone. “I need to get off, Mom, Isabel is waiting for me. Have a great day. Love you, bye.”
The stiffness refuses to ease even after rolling my shoulders and neck. I love my mom, I repeat to myself. She’s never satisfied. I love my mom. Whatever I do is not good enough. I love my mom. Our conversations set my teeth on edge. I love my mom.
I wish a hot bath could soak off our talk, but it doesn’t work. I’ve tried.
Maybe if I can prove myself this summer—improve my language skills, finish her objectives, and manage to hold my tongue while she berates me—then she’ll trust me. Maybe then I can choose a college and study what my heart desires.
Whatever that is.

****

My breath catches in my throat. The market is unlike any place I’ve seen before. I itch to run my fingers across the colors and textures spilling out of the stalls.
Isabel stops just in front of the entrance and faces me. “You want to explore while I shop?” she says to me in Spanish.
A fresh, fruity aroma surrounds me and tempts me. But Mom told me to stay with the family. The language and the area are foreign to me. Dark corners litter the marketplace. Something tugs at me deep inside. “Is it safe?”
She glances at the stands and purses her lips, which doesn’t reassure me.
“Yes. Don’t wander too far. I will meet you there.” Isabel points down the line to a stall covered in thirty shades of leafy green. “In fifteen minutes. Is okay?”
I nod. I can handle fifteen minutes on my own, no matter what Mom says.
Once inside the crowded fruit stand, I freeze in awe. Metal shelves and cardboard boxes overflow with massive pineapples, strawberries, raspberries, avocados, mangoes, and oodles of fruits I can’t name. People push past me on either side in the narrow aisles. Heat radiates from their skin. My fingers glide across the polished surface of a half-green orange. If summer had a smell, this would be it.
Drawn by unfamiliar sights and scents, I cut deeper into the market. Sausage and other unidentifiable meats crackle on open grills. Men, women, and children eat while sitting on colorful plastic chairs and sip sodas I cannot pronounce. When they stare at me, I smile and nod, and they return the nicety.
Eight minutes pass. See, Mom, I can do this.
A boy of six or seven years rushes to me and shoves a bag of garlic in my face. He speaks and rattles the garlic. Desperation colors his voice and expression. Though Isabel warned me it’s just an act, it chills me just the same. His appeals reach a pitch worse than nails on a chalkboard. I want to help, but I don’t have any money yet.
“No, gracias,” I say. He pushes the bag at me once more, and I shake my head. The boy rushes away to rattle his garlic at someone else.
Grabbing my sketchbook, I sit on the curb and prop it on my knees. There was something about his eyes. My pencil hovers above the page. In his few years, he’s observed more of the world than I have in my sheltered seventeen. Those eyes are haunted with a knowledge of hunger and poverty I hope to never learn. I put pencil to paper farther down and outline his thin cheeks. His strong cheekbones elongated when his face lifted to me. My pencil skims the page, and the eraser soon follows. If I ever hope to hang my art on a wall someday, it must be perfect. And perfect practice makes perfect. Maybe then I can show it to Mom.
The soot on his chin swims across my vision, but the darkness of shading does not fit with my light picture. I almost wish for my watercolors to capture his faultless brown skin and the sweat-drenched evergreen of his t-shirt. However, I seldom use paints. They’re much harder to control.
“¿Qué haces?”
I jump at the unknown speaker and snap the book shut. A boy not much older than me peers over my shoulder. His broad grin displays a mouth full of crooked teeth. My legs propel me off the curb to face him. Julia, my best friend, would flip her hair and flirt. Warning signals flare in my brain. Why are you on your own? Do not talk to him. What were you thinking? My mother’s voice screams in my head. The beat of my heart crescendos until it reverberates in my toes.
The boy speaks phrases I don’t understand. Words spin around my head until one thought engulfs them all: Will my blood join the stains on his jeans when he drags me behind the stalls and kills me?
“¿Cuál es el problema, bonita?”
Bonita means pretty, but this compliment smacks of a threat. He narrows the space between us. My limbs won’t respond. Even if I ran, I wouldn’t make it to the street before he caught me.
He steps closer, his dirt-streaked hand outstretched.
“Miiiilllllaaaa,” Isabel calls. “Mila, there you are. I worried about you.”
At her voice, my knees start to buckle, yet I still can’t turn.
Isabel bustles beside me and waves away my would-be murderer. “Pietro, return to your mother. She looks for you.”
My jaw goes slack. “Do you know him?”
“Since he was a baby.” She squeezes my shoulders and leads me away, her grip firm and sure.
I was safe? How, when panic still chokes my throat?
Then again, it’s no wonder. My mom taught me to perceive danger around every corner. Under her guidance, of course, my mind flew to the worst scenarios. My breathing slows.
While it's important to be cautious, I cannot let fear run my life. I will experience the world and make friends in it... maybe just girlfriends, though. They seem less likely to, you know, lead me to my kidnapping or death. But maybe that's just me.

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