Barbara the Slut and Other People

I looked at the menu and didn’t know what any of the fish were except for camarones, and I hate shrimp. “I don’t know what to get,” I said in English.

“The pulpo, it is very good,” said Martin. “This is octopus.”

“A ella no le gusta comer pulpo,” said my mom. “Mija, te encantaría el pargo de piedra.”

“Okay,” I said.

While we were waiting for our food, Martin asked me what I was studying in school. I gave him the speech I give strangers about my research—how there’s so much information about lead poisoning in paint, but almost none about lead in soil, and kids are so much more likely to eat soil, and the community where I’m doing research relies on its gardens for food.

“This is very interesting,” said Martin. “Your mother has not told me about this.”

“Te lo he dicho,” said my mom. “Pero es tan complicado y ella es tan inteligente.”

They talked to each other in Spanish for the rest of the dinner, about me and stuff that I did when I was a kid, like one time in San Francisco when I kept catching fish and no one else caught any and they thought I could talk to animals. My mom said she knew I was going to be a doctor or a scientist. I tried to laugh at the right times but I had trouble following what they were saying.

After dinner we said good-bye to Martin and he walked in the other direction. On the way back to the motel, my mom told me that Martin didn’t know about Grandpa or Grandma or that she had lived in the States with me and Dad. She thought he wouldn’t think she was interesting if he knew that Grandpa was rich and not Mexican, and that Grandma came from a government family and was legally Mexican, but genetically at least fifty percent Spanish, and emotionally one hundred percent white. My mom didn’t want Martin to know that she spoke English and went to Berkeley and lived in California for fourteen years and drove a Mercedes and then a Range Rover, so she told him she lived in Mexico City the whole time and drove her old VW the whole time, and I went to live with my dad in the States so I could go to a good school. My mom said the first time they met, Martin told her he loved her simple life, and she didn’t want to tell him about me at all, but then she had to because I was coming.

When we got back to the apartment my mom kept her sandals on.

“Baby, you’re just going to go to sleep, right? Would you mind if I went to Martin’s apartment to say good night, and I’ll come right back?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Are you just going to go to sleep?”

“I think so,” I said. “I’m exhausted.”

“Okay baby, you go to bed then. Do you have everything you need?”

“Yeah.”

My mom left and I took off my dress and put on a tank top. I washed my feet in the shower and brushed my teeth with her toothbrush. I got into bed with my book but when I put my head on the pillow it was all I could do to reach over and turn off the light before I fell asleep.

• • •

When I woke up it was early. The light coming into the room was white but not hot. I looked at the clock and it was seven twenty. I didn’t want to wake up my mom so I read in bed until seven forty. Then I really had to pee, so I left the room quietly and was about to turn into the bathroom when I realized there was no one on the couch.

“Mom?” I said.

She wasn’t in the bathroom and she wasn’t in the kitchen, and I figured she must be in the office doing an early checkout or something. I peed and put on shorts and a T-shirt and went downstairs, hoping that no one would see me.

She wasn’t in the office and she wasn’t outside the office and I didn’t see her going in or out of any of the guest rooms. I went back up to the apartment. I had a feeling she was still at Martin’s, but what if she wasn’t? I started to feel sick. I sat down in one of the chairs in the kitchen. What if something happened to her when she was walking back from Martin’s? There was this town in Maine where I went with my dad and his girlfriend a couple of summers in high school, and every year when we got there, there had just been a murder on the beach. The murders were never premeditated; they just happened because drunk people got knives, or people with knives got drunk.

I was sure my mom was fine but my chest felt tight. I picked up my book to distract myself but I couldn’t read. I felt like I should eat something but I wasn’t hungry. Finally I did the kind of breathing my doctor taught me to help me sleep at night, where you breathe in and breathe out and you don’t think about anything else, which I now know is called meditation. It never worked that well for me but I didn’t know what else to do. I thought I should call Martin, but I didn’t have his number or know where he lived.

Instead I called Dana from the phone in the office. I hoped it cost a million dollars.

“Hello?” said Dana. “Lala!” I had woken her up. “Did you do it?”

“What?”

“Did you tell her?”

“What? No. I don’t even know where she is.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know where she is. I think she’s at her boyfriend’s house. But she never came back last night.”

“Oh my god, Lala, that’s horrible.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be home any minute.”

“God, I hope so,” she said. “Are you going to tell her when she gets back?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course, I’ll tell her right away.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Maybe I’ll hide in the kitchen and when she comes in I’ll jump out and shout, ‘I’m gay!’”

“You’re being sarcastic.”

I told Dana I had to go. Even when I found my mom, I wasn’t going to tell her. Maybe I would tell Dana that I did it and that my mom and I both cried, and my mom told me she knew all along and she loved me no matter what. I didn’t think it would count as lying because it didn’t really matter if my mom knew or not.

I hung up and dialed my grandpa in Mexico City.

• • •

I heard the office door open a little after nine, and I heard my mom’s sandals on the stairs. I went into the living room as she opened the door to the apartment.

“Baby,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be up.”

“Where were you?” I said. I didn’t want to touch her but I gave her a hug because I wanted to feel that she was okay.

“I stayed at Martin’s. I thought I would get back before you got up.”

“I got up really early,” I said. “I had no idea where you were.”

“Oh baby,” she said.

“I thought something bad happened to you on the way back last night,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry. Let me make you something to eat.”

She went into the kitchen and started cutting up fruit and I went into the bedroom and started packing my bag.

When I went back to the kitchen she said, “What do you want to do today, baby? Do you want to just lie on the beach? You’re so pale.”