“I thought you were looking for a different job that gives you more hours or at least better than minimum wage. We talked about this last week.”
And the week before. I bite my lip before answering. “It’s just that the Breeze Mart is easy. I can do my homework there and my shift ends in time for school.”
I do miss Mama fiercely. I just wish we could talk about something else when she calls. But we have to get this business of work out of the way first. Money is, after all, the main thing that’s separating us right now.
“Homework?” She makes a tsking sound into the phone. “Carlotta Jasmine Vega. We’ve talked about this. The most important thing right now is getting your family back. Then you can finally meet your brother and sister.”
“I know.” Of course I want my family back. Of course I want to meet my brother and sister. But keeping my grades up and getting a scholarship is the only way I’m making something of myself. And isn’t that what they were trying to do when they came to the States? To make something better of themselves?
She wants me to find a job with more hours, to save more money, to get her here sooner. But more hours means less time for homework. Less time for homework means my grades get flushed. I’m not the kind of student who can pass without studying. I’m the kind of student who barely holds on by her teeth and almost cries when she gets an A. The Breeze Mart keeps me on the honor roll, in a way.
And without the honor roll, I’m not getting any scholarships. Without scholarships, I don’t get to be the first person in my family to go to college. All I have to do is survive this thing called high school—and keep up my grade point average while doing it. One day, with a degree, I’ll be able to provide for my entire family.
Besides, it’s not like I’m not contributing to the family fund now. I keep ten dollars of my paycheck—a girl needs nail polish sometimes—then I hand the rest to Julio every single week. Bringing that up again is not going to win me any points. “I’ll keep looking for a new job,” I tell her obediently. What I don’t tell her is that it has to be exactly like the Breeze Mart only with more pay or I’m not taking it.
“That’s my good girl. When I get back, you can cut your work hours and I’ll teach you how to cook. How does that sound?”
When I get back sounds delightful. “You need to teach Julio too. You should smell what he’s got in the slow cooker right now.”
Mama laughs.
Feelings of selfishness and guilt knead knots in my stomach, making me question whether or not I’m doing the right thing by not finding a better job. I’ve missed Mama’s laugh. Her eyes almost disappear into her face when she smiles. It’s beautiful. I know it’s important to have my family back. I’ve been yearning to hug my mother since the day she was deported three years ago.
But it’s important that we have security when they get here too. And an education can provide that security.
Mama chatters on then about the latest antics of Juanita and Hugo, my younger twin siblings (she was pregnant when she got deported), about her neighbor’s daughter getting married, about a house down the street catching fire. Some things are new, some things are repeats from last week’s conversation, but I relish it all, because the sound of Mama’s voice soothes me. It always has.
With a frown, I remember the way Julio hung up the phone the day he got the devastating news that my parents had been in a car accident. My father had rear-ended another vehicle, and though no one was hurt, it was a major ordeal because he didn’t have a driver’s license—or insurance. What’s worse was that they were stuck on a traffic-jammed bridge and had nowhere to flee. The responding cop picked them up and called Immigration as soon as he found out they were here without proper documentation. We didn’t even get the chance to say good-bye in person. My parents didn’t want to risk the Department of Children and Families taking me from Julio, so they didn’t mention that they had kids at home. And besides, that was the rule: If you get caught, you don’t give any names. You just suck it up, and go back to Mexico.
And then you try to get back again.
“Has Julio mentioned how much is in the fund?” Mama asks, drawing me away from my bitter line of thought.
“Julio never tells me how much we have.” And I don’t want to know, mainly because I know that however much we have to pay El Libertador—that’s what the guy calls himself to keep his real identity a secret, I guess—to get my family across the border will make me sick. Thousands of dollars each, but how many thousands I’m not sure. And that’s just ensuring they get across the border. Getting them across the Chihuahuan Desert safely is all up to us—unless we want to pay extra.
“Tell him to call his mama when he gets home from work, yes?”
“I’ll tell him.” Julio misses Mama too. It’s evident by how much he tries not to show it.
“Your brother is a hard worker, Carlotta. You could learn a lot from him.”
I know he’s a hard worker. He works five days a week in construction and then washes dishes at a seafood restaurant on Highway 98 in the evenings and on weekends. Tuesdays are his only nights off. And even on his night off, he feels the need to prepare something in the slow cooker for us to eat and scrolls the Internet on the computer I borrow from school for odd jobs to pick up.
I want to be more like my brother. I do. And I’m trying to be—just in a different way. I can’t wait for the day when I can come home to Mama and Papi and tell them I’ve got a high-paying job that will get us out of this trailer park and into a brick house on a real foundation—maybe even in a gated community. One day she’ll see that all my hard work in school will have paid off. She’ll see it, and Julio will see it. He quit high school to take care of me. One day I will pay him back.