Chapter 17 #2
Because that’s his takeaway. But maybe that’s the best I’m going to get from him, and maybe this is how you exist in a world like ours:
you admit you have no idea how to fly the plane, and you accept that most people are doing the best they can in turbulent
skies.
Maybe Efraín doesn’t want to argue with me any more than I want to argue with him.
“For the record. I’m sorry they said what they said.” I bite my lip. “I’m just sorry.”
“Are you trying to apologize for the existence of racism? Because that level of white guilt—”
“No. I’m not personally apologizing for a systemic and institutional problem, no matter how implicated in that system I may
be.” I offer up a wry smile. “But I am sorry that those men said that to you, here, today, and—” I consider my next words
very carefully, hyperaware of my stilted cadence. “I’m sorry if you would’ve preferred to handle the situation yourself. Tell
me if that’s the case. But I can’t promise I’d do anything differently if it happens again.”
Efraín quirks an eyebrow. “Not much of an apology.”
“Here I thought I was quoting you.”
Because we’ve been here before, in the aftermath of an unwanted rescue, trading not-apologies for near-recriminations, suffocated
by the knowledge that we will find ourselves here again, whether it’s next Tuesday or next month.
The only reason we haven’t been on these sides before is because I’ve never felt compelled on a cellular, biological, pure-instinctual
level to swoop in, clapping two coconuts together in place of the white horse I can’t afford.
This, I realize, makes sense.
The next time I see Efraín off the clock, he’s weeding the community garden.
I just happen to look up, straight through the Jellyby’s Books window as I’m sifting through fruit crates of used books, and I see Efraín perfectly framed. I watch him, distracted by the memory of him walking away yesterday afternoon, his half bun bobbing in time with his steps.
We never got another chance to debrief after the immediate aftermath of our run-in with the bigots. Business picked up, our
breaks never overlapped, and by the time I met Ma in the parking lot, Efraín’s bike was gone.
In retrospect, I missed him because I hung back in the cash room and mentioned the incident to Dan, who looked more serious
than I’ve ever seen him. Dan Guzman, with his punk rock laissez-faire approach to life and management, who has ambiguously
“olive” skin and a surname of Spanish origin, which could mean absolutely nothing or everything.
Dan said I did the right thing—that I should absolutely give guests the boot if I feel concerned for staff safety. He gently
chided me for not calling it in afterward, but he was so nonchalant that I didn’t realize I’d been chastised until three hours
later.
I thought about texting Efraín then—I thought about it incessantly all night—but the subject felt too delicate to broach over
text. What would I have said? Hope you’re taking care of yourself after all that bigoting those bigots did today!
A sharp sting yanks me back to the bookstore.
Paper cut. My carelessness has me bleeding over a pair of ’60s New Wave sci-fi magazines—so much for my weekly mantra that I will peruse the new used book arrivals without buying anything.
Of course, if that mantra worked, I wouldn’t bring my Jellyby’s tote each week.
When Mr. Brissenden finishes helping Mr. Xie buy enough books to start an avalanche, he grins at me and pulls out a thin volume
wrapped in kraft paper. Seeing what it is, knowing he put it aside for me and understanding he’s offering it to me for a fraction
of its worth—I’m glad I brought the tote.
With my haul tucked under my arm, I venture back out into the sweltering heat. I look out at the modest community garden.
The town council only approved a few raised beds for a pilot program three years ago—an initiative proposed by Efraín, naturally.
Despite its tiny size and California’s intermittent drought conditions, the garden is well-loved. Ma helps tend it, and Mom
set up the irrigation.
Today, Vanessa, the florist from Blushing Blooms, is pruning back some overzealous berry bushes. Joel the troubadour has traded
his guitar for a spade—though he seems to be doing an awful lot of flirting for someone who’s shoveling organic waste.
And then there’s Efraín, inspecting cherry tomato vines. He’s dressed in half-buttoned overalls, a muscle tank, and a straw
hat that he really shouldn’t be able to pull off. He’s the agrarian Adonis on every agitprop poster, the hardworking everyman
on an old wartime recruitment flyer.
It’s ridiculous. I can’t stop looking at him.
At what point does looking become leering?
He takes off his gloves and reaches for his water bottle, turning just so, and—
Yep, he definitely sees me.
I could wave and be on my way, head over to the Last Drip, and spend one of my days off reading my new finds by myself, like
I planned.
But when I look past the packaging, I see the ghost of the boy I worked beside yesterday afternoon. He acted like he was fine,
but how many times have I blown off microaggressions and said I was fine when I wasn’t?
Stanley said it’s about the little things, showing up each and every time.
I make a split-second decision—and look both ways before I jaywalk.
Efraín’s waiting by the tomatoes, dangling his water bottle strap between two fingers.
As I stop a judicious six feet away from him, I belatedly slide my sunglasses back on before my mild light sensitivity kicks
up a fuss. “Hi,” I say, totally casual.
“Hey,” he says, cocking his head. There’s a question there, probably along the lines of, What the hell are you doing here?
I wish I knew the answer.
This shouldn’t be so hard.
“Find something interesting?” he asks.
I have no idea what he’s talking about until he points at the Jellyby’s tote under my arm. “Oh, um, just People of the Fork.”
“Julie Molina’s memoir? Doesn’t the museum sell that?”
“It’s Judy Medina-Rhodes; you know that—” And it’s quite possible from the quirk of his lips that he’s messing with me. “It’s
signed.”
He’s quiet, his eyes shaded by that stupid hat, and I can already hear the earful I’m about to get about the commodification
of celebrity when Efraín says, “Cool.”
“Really?”
“It matters to you.”
I have no idea what to say to that, so I babble. “It’s mostly just essays about Hollywood, privilege—the elegies she wrote
for Sam Schatz and Victor Kane are buried in there, but, um . . .” I search for literally any detail that might matter to
Efraín. “The title comes from this Ladino phrase ‘djente de piron,’ which is an idiom about rich people. Literally, ‘the people
of the fork,’ meaning people who owned forks in addition to spoons? Obviously that wasn’t her background at all, so she was
just writing about growing up in a lower-middle-class Sephardic immigrant family and trying to navigate working with these
people who had silver spoons and forks and knives they used to stab people in the back and—”
“You’re telling me Judy Medina-Rhodes would’ve been on board with eating the rich?”
I laugh, surprised. “Yeah, probably.”
Efraín scratches his elbow, and God, he’s probably itching to get back to his gardening while I’m tossing idioms about cutlery in cryptic word salad.
My palms are sweating, and it’s nothing to do with the heat. I don’t know why I’m so bad at this.
I’ve seen this show a thousand times, but I never learned the script. Why can’t I initiate a conversation when it actually
matters?
Finally, I blurt, “Are you okay?” I can’t make out the tilde between his brows under the hat, but I’d bet my new prized, signed
edition of People of the Fork that it’s there. “I’m just trying to check in. About yesterday.”
The moment he gets it, he tenses—it’s only then that I realize just how relaxed his posture had been before. Voice tight and
clipped, he answers, “It wasn’t the worst thing anyone’s ever said to me. They weren’t even talking to me personally.”
I know it’s not the worst thing. I’ve overheard people say far worse things to him personally. Again, I remind myself what
Stanley said. Little things.
“It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t the ‘worst thing,’ ” I say. “It matters that it happened.”
Efraín looks away, past this garden that only exists because he, at fourteen, stood up in a town council meeting and said
it should be here.
He’s shielded by the brim of his hat and the shadows under it, but his jaw cuts as strong a line as always, and his Adam’s apple bobs against the column of his neck.
Then he turns back to me with a shrug. “I’m fine.”
“But are you okay? Because they’re not always the same thing. I mean, do you want to get an alternative-milk milkshake and talk about it?”
He looks at me askance, then gestures to his dirt-stained clothes. “Not dressed for it.”
“Lou’s doesn’t have a dress code.”
He gives me a look that says he’s not about to make more work for anyone by tracking dirt all over the checkerboard linoleum.
His mouth does something strange that I can’t begin to parse. “I’m okay, Elisha. Besides, I have to finish up here.”
Then I blurt, “What are you doing tomorrow?”