JERRY THOUGHT that she and Constanza must have been quite a sight. The mute girl in her unfashionably long skirt that had once been one half of some mother-daughter matching ensemble that her own mother had gotten up for them, and the old lady in her Navajo hat and tall walking stick. Of course Jerry’s skirt was not nearly as long as it had once been. She had grown a lot since then, but it still looked dumb. Unfortunately the waist had an elastic waistband and the nuns kept letting the seams out and the hem down. It was as if Jerry could never outgrow or get away from this skirt, or for that matter any of the ugly clothes that came out of the homes’ charity bins. She had actually borrowed a work shirt of Constanza’s to wear over the skirt, which diminished to some degree the stupid Little House on the Prairie look that her mother had loved.
Jerry did not like to think much about her mother. She had managed not to for a while, but wearing these clothes brought unpleasant thoughts. Her mother—Moon Lady, as she sometimes called herself—was a fashion schizophrenic. She either dressed like a Plains Indian in buckskin, beads, and feathers or in her Little House on the Prairie clothes. Jerry’s mother had been nuts for Laura Ingalls Wilder. She had been nuts for a lot of things—Harleys, guys who rode Harleys, white zinfandel, grass, and of course her dolls. How could Jerry forget those damn dolls that her mother dragged with her everywhere. She didn’t like to think about the dolls.
She distracted herself now by trying to keep within Constanza’s shadow. She was tipping out of it, though. She watched the shadow of her aunt’s hat slide across the shadow of a cactus. There was a split second when her aunt’s shadow and the cactus’s and her own dissolved into one black pool in the morning sun.
As they walked into the school, Jerry kept her eyes down because she was simply too embarrassed to look up and see the other kids staring at them. Constanza asked where the office was.
The principal came out as soon as they were announced. “Oh yes, Ms. de Luna, we were expecting you and your niece. Actually the guidance counselor is waiting in his office for you now. And I believe you have all the paperwork?”
“Paperwork?” Constanza said. “Oh, you mean Jerry’s records.”
“Yes, yes, the Department of Child Services is supposed to send it, but you know bureaucracies.” Constanza nodded. Jerry could not imagine that her aunt knew bureaucracies at all. Jerry knew bureaucracies! She’d been through them all: Department of Child Services, Catholic Charities, something called Helping Hand, a state and federally funded program. They were led into the counselor’s office. On the glass was the name Henry Gilroy. A thin little man came out from behind his desk. “Welcome, Jerry. Welcome to Juan Lopez High School. Good morning, Ms. de Luna, a great fan of your bread, great fan.” Mr. Gilroy offered them a seat and Constanza handed him the papers. He put on some black-framed glasses that looked much too heavy for his face. In fact, with his thin, pale yellow hair and small oval face, Mr. Gilroy reminded Jerry of a melon seed.
“Well, well.” Mr. Gilroy seemed to be talking to himself in a low voice as he glanced over the papers. He looked up brightly at Jerry and said welcome a few more times. Finally Constanza said, “She’s quiet.” Mr. Gilroy raised one nearly transparent eyebrow and looked down at the sheet in front of him. He must be looking now at the part about elective mutism, Jerry thought, and he must be thinking that her aunt’s remark was the understatement of the century. “Yes, indeed, but it does not seem to have impaired your academic experience. You’ll be taking geometry. Oh yes, of course. And then you will be taking your social studies unit. And then English literature and a life science requirement. Most freshman take the biology course and then the health and hygiene course.” Constanza nodded as if she was as completely familiar with the freshman curriculum as any bread dough recipe.
“And that about does it except for an elective. There’s art, ceramics, photography, sewing.” Jerry raised her hand slightly. “Sewing, does that interest you, Jerry?” She nodded slightly.
“That’s a good choice,” Constanza interjected. “I’m going to take her to buy some new clothes. But it would be nice if she could make something that she would really like.”
“Well, terrific. Now I’m going to call one of the freshman girls who has a similar schedule, and she’ll be your guide. Show you about the place.”
Why am I pressing my lips together? Jerry thought as the guidance counselor introduced her to Sinta Garcia. I want to talk. But the words won’t come out. They are just sucked away. Sucked up like the dust in those whirlwinds. Please! Please let this girl understand. Maybe they had told her. Maybe Sinta came from a long line of mutes—selective mutes—and had been the first one to speak. Maybe this was in fact the exclusive club, and that was why Sinta had been selected as her guide in school.
She looked at her, trying not to stare. Sinta was very tiny and compact. Not stocky. She had a very stylish asymmetrical haircut with bangs that flopped over perfectly to one side. There was something slightly Asian about her eyes. Her skin was not perfect. She had one zit on her chin and another coming on her cheek. But she was pretty.
“Well, let’s go!” Sinta said cheerfully. Too cheerful. She’s faking it, Jerry thought, and followed Sinta.
Their first class was geometry. Luckily Mr. Kolberg, the geometry teacher, kept them late so they had to run to health and hygiene. There wasn’t time really to talk to anyone. A few rushed introductions that Jerry could nod her way through. They slid into their seats with Sinta whispering about how this was the stupidest, most boring class in the world and that they only talked about washing your hands after going to the bathroom and before eating the seven basic foods and they couldn’t talk about sex and condoms and AIDS because the school board said no.
Of course the class was not that boring to Jerry because she worried about lunch period, which would happen next. “Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous. Lunch at ten forty-five. Like you’re really hungry. No one eats. They just talk,” Sinta said blithely as they made their way to the cafeteria. “Get something now that you can sneak a bite of later when you really do get hungry. Actually the grilled cheese sandwiches don’t taste that bad cold. Grilled cheese and a Twinkie usually do me. Quiet food, if you know what I mean. Not crunchy or crackly like an apple or chips.”
They sat at a table with mostly girls. Sinta introduced her and once more she nodded and gave a small almost smile. “She’s in sewing with us, Jessie,” Sinta said to a girl across from her. Jessie seemed not to pay attention. Another girl asked her a question and Jerry just shook her head no. It was funny with kids. They always caught on right away that she just didn’t talk. No explanation necessary and that was it. But it didn’t make it more comfortable. She hated herself all the more. She hated that they got her so quickly. That she couldn’t change it with them. She had sat at so many lunch tables so silent for so many years. The kids didn’t taunt her. They just forgot she was there. She just became—what?—Quiet food—a cold grilled cheese, a Twinkie. On the outside she was very silent and would grow more and more still just like in the cars with all the mirror eyes, but inside everything raced. Words stormed; they beat themselves bloody in her head. Funny, it hadn’t been this way in the beginning. It had been cool and safe. When had the silence turned?
Lunch lasted seventeen minutes. It felt like seventeen hours.
“Your aunt is Constanza Delivers? Wow!” Sinta exclaimed as the truck pulled up at the end of school. Jerry nodded and smiled. It wasn’t a Harley, but she supposed it had its own kind of style. “We love her bread.”
Jerry wanted to say, “You should taste her pastries,” but as usual she just stood very still and said nothing. Sinta walked up to the truck with Jerry. “Hi, Miss de Luna. Jerry needs to buy about two-and-a-half yards of fabric for sewing class and some thread.” Constanza nodded. There was an awkward pause. “Well, good-bye,” Sinta said. She waved and walked off toward the school bus.
First they went and picked out the fabric. Then Constanza turned to Jerry
and looked her up and down. “You need some new clothes. Let’s go in here.” She nodded toward a store with a sign that said Southwestern Fashions. Constanza walked up to a salesgirl. “This is my niece. I know nothing about what kids wear these days. Could you help her get some stuff for school?”
“Of course,” the young woman said.
“Great. I’ll go to the hardware store, Jerry, and meet you back here in half an hour at the cash register.”
Jerry felt panic rise in her. The salesgirl was already battering her with questions. Did she want jeans? Skirts? T-shirts? Somehow Jerry spotted a skirt rack and walked to it. She started picking out several skirts. The salesgirl got her and stopped asking questions and instead started to give answers. “There are some cute shirts that go with that. And oh, these new pants and blazer are really cool.”
It was when Jerry was trying on the jeans in the dressing room that she realized that never in her life had she tried on clothes in a dressing room alone without her mother. This was new. There was no one saying that this will look “adorable” on you and really meaning it looked exactly like something her mother wore. And of course usually her mother didn’t buy stuff for Jerry in stores. Usually her mother took something of her own and cut it down to fit Jerry.
Jerry had taken in a pile of jeans, some nice corduroy trousers with a matching blazer, two cropped tops, a couple of shirts, a sweater, three skirts—short skirts that didn’t drag in the dust! She tried on a short skirt first. This looks good, she thought, really good. She turned slowly and watched her reflection in the mirror. She blinked. It was only a split second, but she saw two reflections in the mirror—hers in the slim, short, denim skirt and her mother’s in a long flower-print one smiling her sweet, spacey smile. Within the split of that second, it was as if Jerry had fallen into a deep crack in time. The voice came like a wind from a distant canyon.
“You made a picture of me in that long skirt, sweetie, on the Harley. Remember how careful you were to put on the helmet, and you even drew in my eyelashes? Remember you, me, and Dad on the motorcycle all the time?”
And then the words stormed silently inside Jerry’s brain. “No, Mom, you don’t remember. It was not ‘all the time.’ Dad left when I was what? Three weeks old, but we always tried to say a month. Remember The Day Hammerhead Left. Now go away.” Jerry stared into the mirror and willed her mother’s reflection away.
There was indeed a time when Jerry loved that story her mother had told her about riding on a Harley when she was two days old, leaving the hospital after she was born. All three of them rode off on the big shiny motorcycle. Therefore Jerry might be the youngest kid ever to have ridden on a Harley Davidson. That counted for something! In the first grade, when they had to draw a picture and tell the teacher a story about it, Jerry had drawn a picture of a big old Harley—a hog, that’s what the bikers called them—and she had a lady sitting on the back in a pretty dress and a helmet painted with flowers. Wrapped up in blankets was a little baby wearing a little baby helmet. And big eyelashes. Jerry had been one of those kids who never forgot to draw in the eyelashes. She did the whole bit, really. No little round o’s for eyes. Her eyes had irises and pupils. Sometimes she made the lashes spiky and sometimes long and curly and sexy. “But you’ve forgotten the driver, Jerry?” the teacher had said. “Who’s driving the motorcycle?” Silence. “Your dad?” “I guess.” That was in the days when she still talked. She just preferred not to talk about her dad because then she would have to explain how he disappeared three weeks after she was born and how her mother never stopped talking about it. The Day Hammerhead Left—it sounded like a title for a bad movie trying to be an epic. “Why don’t you put in the driver?” the teacher suggested. “Yes, ma’am.” Jerry drew in a stick figure. But she was in a hurry and just put dots in for eyes, then at the last minute decided to add some lashes. Poor driver looked naked without them.
By the time she met her aunt at the cashier, she had two pairs of jeans, a skirt, several tops, and the pants with the matching corduroy blazer. She began to unfold them to show Constanza.
“Oh, child, don’t ask me. What do I know about fashion? I’m over ninety.”
Jerry heard herself gasp. She knew her aunt was old but not that old. How much over ninety? she wondered.
Then Constanza, as if reading her mind, said, “Ninety-four and a half.”
Jerry opened her mouth. “A half?” but the words had been spoken by the sales clerk at the register.
“Oh, it’s nothing so astonishing. Women in our family live well into their hundreds.”
Chapter 4
JERRY HAD WORN the denim skirt to school the next day, but she had not tried on any of the clothes in front of the mirror. Now she put on the blazer with the faded jeans. It was silly, she knew, but she was almost scared to look in the mirror. She didn’t want to see her mother’s reflection. She knew it was stupid. It had only been a momentary thing. It wasn’t even like a ghost thing. It was actually more her mother’s voice in her head than a real image. She had read once that a person’s memory for voice is a lot more vivid than their memory for face, and that when a loved one is lost it is easier to retrieve the sound of that person’s voice than her face. But she had not retrieved the memory of her own voice.
Now she heard the rasping outside in the cook yard. Her aunt was raking out the ashes from the cold hornos in preparation for the next day’s fire. It was a nice sound. One that she listened for at this time in the late afternoon. Cautiously she slid her eyes slowly up before she looked directly in the mirror.
This was the coolest blazer. Jerry turned and looked at herself from the back. It fit great. The corduroy was the color of tobacco. With the washed jeans it was perfect. And she loved her new running shoes. She had never owned a pair of running shoes, not even those little Keds sneakers that kids always wear. She looked at herself steadily in the mirror and lifted her heavy, dark hair. That was it! She had to wear her hair up. She looked so much better. Taller, less stocky. Now if only she could talk. It was Friday night and Sinta had invited her to go to a party. It was a party with older kids. There would probably be beer, Sinta said, but she didn’t drink…well, sometimes…but it would be fun. She had gotten through the week all right, especially with Sinta at her side. Sinta had come over after school two days in a row and they had cut out their projects for sewing class together. Jerry felt comfortable with Sinta. But she didn’t want to monopolize her. It was tough being monopolized by someone who couldn’t speak. No, there was no way that she could go to that party. She didn’t want Sinta to feel responsible for her. Jerry knew what it was like feeling responsible for someone. She had spent a lifetime feeling responsible for her mother. But it wasn’t only that. Jerry didn’t kid herself. No. She was a freak. And freaks didn’t go to parties. She shook her head no.
Jerry suddenly tried to imagine the sound of her own voice. She tried to imagine herself speaking to Sinta. She closed her eyes as she stood in front of the mirror and attempted to visualize the words. But they didn’t come out as words, not letters, not sounds, just some amorphous shapes, almost transparent like bubbles. They floated off noiselessly, leaving her throat dry. Did her voice really sound like what she thought it must have been? It had to have changed. It had been so long. She felt the funny feeling beginning in her throat. Why wasn’t it comfortable anymore? Now it felt as if the words couldn’t get past her throat. She wasn’t really gagging. No, it was more as if there were a trap down there.
She cut off her thoughts and turned away from the mirror. It was almost dinnertime. Just before she walked out of her bedroom, she stole another glance at herself in the mirror. She must hunt around in Constanza’s kitchen for a rubber band to put her hair up.
She stopped short as she came into the living room. What was that old lady doing now? Constanza’s back was to her and she had changed her dress before dinner. Something she had never done. On her head was a shawl, perhaps silk. It looked old but expensive. Her aunt was stan
ding in front of two candlesticks and she had obviously just lighted the candles.
Constanza turned around. She seemed surprised to see Jerry there. “Oh! I’m usually alone when I do this.” The old lady’s mouth settled into a grim line. Jerry felt as if she had indeed intruded on some private ceremony. Constanza seemed to read the question in Jerry’s face. “It’s to remember the death of Christ. Especially important to do it during Lent.” Even if Jerry could speak, she felt it was maybe something she shouldn’t ask about. Her aunt was strange. Leave it at that.
The candles stood on a table in front of a window. In the distance were the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. At this hour, however, they did not show the blood tinge of their name but were the color of old bruises against the sky. In the last flare of the setting sun, smoldering clouds streaked with lavender gathered above the mountains. What her aunt had just said made no sense to Jerry. She had heard of giving up things for Lent, and she knew that when she was at the Catholic Charities homes the sisters spoke to them about performing an act of penance during Lent, and that on Lenten Fridays no meat was served; but she had never heard of this candle routine. How did abstinence or penitence fit with lighting candles? There were good things cooking, that was for sure. She would have offered to set the table, but it was already set. A fresh cream-colored cloth had replaced the oilcloth. The good pottery that had been displayed on the shelves in the living room was now on the kitchen table, and there were flowers in a ceramic vase. Why all the fuss? she wondered.
Constanza came into the kitchen. From the oven she took out a pumpkin that had been baking. “Can you put together a salad, Jerry? The lettuce is washed.”
Jerry moved off toward the refrigerator. The baked pumpkin smelled delicious. Just before they sat down, Constanza said, “If you want milk, you can get it. No meat in this pumpkin dish, you know, because of Lent. Just blue-cornmeal dumplings, peppers, and carrots. I think I’ll have a bit of wine.”