by then, maybe later. I dashed up to our front door, but it was still locked. Through the window, I could see that the lights were off. I turned and shouted again. “Maribel!” I thought someone would hear me and open their door—Nelia or Ynez or Fito if he was home—but to my dismay, no one did. I stood on the balcony and scanned the apartments, wondering if Maribel was inside one of them. Maybe someone had seen her and brought her inside. Celia, I decided. I should try her first.
I hurried so fast down the wet metal staircase that I nearly slipped, but as I started toward the Toros’ apartment, suddenly there she was. And right behind her, Mayor Toro.
I gasped and ran to her, lifting her sunglasses off, cupping her face in my hands, studying it for bruises, for anything that might seem amiss. She winced as I turned her head from side to side.
“She’s okay,” Mayor said.
“What were—?”
“I saw her when she got off the bus. I was just talking to her for a little while.”
“Are you okay?” I asked Maribel.
She nodded and stared at me with her wide owl eyes.
I felt the punch of relief, swift and firm to my gut. She was okay. Maybe it should have bothered me more, the thought of Maribel out here alone with Mayor. But as boys went, Mayor struck me as the harmless sort. Besides, I was so overcome with gratitude in that moment that there wasn’t room for much else. She was okay. I didn’t even have the heart to ask whether she was sure because I didn’t want to give her the chance to take it back. She had said she was okay and that was all I wanted.
Mayor
The Riveras started going to the same Mass as us, and afterwards my mom usually invited them over for lunch at our house. They protested the first time—“No, no, it’s too much, we don’t want to impose”—but my mom, who was always eager to make new friends in this country, wore them down eventually, and the three of them got off the bus with us and walked straight to our apartment, laying their coats over the back of the couch, getting comfortable on the chairs my mom pulled in from the kitchen and arranged around the living room.
My mom made sure everyone had drinks and then she got busy, week after week, making her special party food—ham sandwiches on white bread with the crusts trimmed off. She cut them into triangles and speared them with plastic toothpicks, then carried them out on a ceramic platter that she passed around to everyone along with square white napkins that we used to catch the crumbs.
My dad, on the other hand, didn’t let the presence of the Riveras interfere with his usual routine. He turned on the television, cracked open a can of beer, and put his socked feet up on the coffee table. He watched soccer if it was on, which inevitably led to him talking about Enrique and bragging about the latest goal my brother had scored against Georgetown or the assist he’d had in the big game against Virginia, which was Maryland’s main rival, and how almost every week Enrique’s name was inthe paper under the sports stats that were listed for every high school and college within a hundred-mile radius of us. “Mayor plays soccer, too,” he said. “But I haven’t seen his name in the paper yet.” He didn’t say it to be mean. It was the truth, even though not for the reason he thought, and he looked at me with pity. “But he’s getting better. Aren’t you?” he asked. And I struggled to nod through the rush of guilt I felt about lying to him and the humiliation I felt about sucking so bad.
When soccer wasn’t on, my dad turned to football. One week during an Eagles game when Sr. Rivera cheered Donovan McNabb on, my dad rode him, saying, “Arturo, it’s no use. I’ve been watching this game since I got to this country, and yes, the Eagles are a bird, but let me tell you, they no can fly.” He said the last part in English, to be funny, and even though I’m not sure Sr. Rivera understood him, he was nice enough to
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