She couldn't wait for school to start. Other kids looked forward to the long summer, but she imagined they didn't spend their days following their mother around the house and taking care of the little ones.
The house wasn't much better than the one they'd left. It kept the wind out better though, and true, it had a floor.
Her mother filled every minute of the day with work. The floor, the walls, the ceiling scrubbed and scoured and dusted. The windows squeaky clean on the inside.
She did not venture outside. Outside the beer cans and chickens and stray dogs and small brothers careened about the yard in the dry wind. Dust and bird shit crusted the windows. Corn and tomatoes struggled to grow along the walls.
And so by September Marisol was an expert at making tortillas. She could sit like her mother by the propane burner and slap and pat the dough into flat seven inch circles. She could cook them lightly over the burner. The burns on her hands taught her well. Yes. By September she was deft and quick.
The worst thing of all was laundry day. Two times a week she walked with her mother to the laundromat. She carried the detergent and softener. Her mother walked ahead with a great bundle of laundry wrapped in a sheet balanced on her head. Her mother walked with the assurance and grace of long years of experience. She walked fast and smooth and her arms were free and to her the load was light.
Marisol walked behind and lingered all she could. She looked about her like a stranger and pretended she did not know this woman who carried burdens on her head as no woman of this country ever would.
The return journey was worse. They did not pay to dry the clothes. They brought them home wet and hung them outside to dry quickly in the wind. But the wet clothes were heavy. Even for her mother the laundry was heavy and they would stop and rest along the way and her mother would put the bundle down and they would stand together for a while and watch the world around them.
``Marisol, are you ashamed to be seen with me?''
``Yes mother.''
``I too was ashamed of my mother who smoked cigars in the plaza long after other women no longer did so. I was so ashamed.'' She took some change from her purse.
``Go get a Pepsi. We will share.''
She helped her mother get the load balanced on her head once more and they continued on, passing the Pepsi can back and forth. Marisol drank straight from the can. Her mother had to use a straw.
``it is a useful thing.''
``A useful thing?''
``To be able to carry loads on ones head.''
``A load on your head and a baby on your back and another in your belly. No thanks,'' thought Marisol.
Back at school there were friends to talk to. She had to work a little to get the English words out good and not mix them as she and her brothers did at home. And the teachers thought her smart and seemed pleased with her progress. The boy JT worried her. His hair was bright orange and his skin was white with orange spots and his eyes were blue and his eyelashes caught the sun almost white and his lips were too red. He would pinch at her when others did not see. Once scratched her with something sharp. She did not see what. Now he was telling the kids that she walked around with laundry on her head.
She could have denied but she didn't. Just looked at him without a word.
``Can you really do that?'' Jennifer asked, ``that must be so cool.''
``My mom can. I can't.'' She got to thinking. Maybe it would be good to be able to do such a thing. She would ask her mother to teach her.
But at home her mother said ``I did not learn to smoke cigars in the public square like my mother because no one else did it. You should not learn to carry loads on your head in a land where to do so makes a spectacle. There is much else to learn.'' She went outside to pull the laundry off the line.