Mother and
Daughter
by Gary Soto
1.
Yollie’s mother, Mrs. Moreno, was a
large woman who wore a muumuu and butterfly-shaped glasses. She liked to water
her lawn in the evening and wave at low-riders, who would stare at her behind
their smoky sunglasses and laugh. Now and then a low-rider from Belmont Avenue
would make his car jump and shout “Mamacita!” But most of the time they just
stared and wondered how she got so large.
2.
Mrs. Moreno had a strange sense of
humor. Once, Yollie and her mother were watching a late-night movie called
“They Came to Look.” It was about creatures from the underworld who had climbed
through molten lava to walk the earth. But Yollie, who had played soccer all
day with the kids next door, was too tired to be scared. Her eyes closed but sprang
open when her mother screamed, “Look Yollie! Oh, you missed a scary part. The
guy’s face was all ugly!”
3.
But Yollie couldn’t keep her eyes
open. They fell shut again and stayed shut, even when her mother screamed and
slammed a heavy palm on the arm of her chair.
4.
“Mom, wake me up when the movie’s
over so I can go to bed,” mumbled Yollie.
5.
“OK, Yollie, I wake you,” said her
mother through a mouthful of popcorn.
6.
But after the movie ended, instead
of waking her daughter, Mrs. Moreno laughed under her breath, turned the TV and
lights off, and tiptoed to bed. Yollie woke up in the middle of the night and
didn’t know where she was. For a moment she thought she was dead. Maybe something
from the underworld had lifted her from her house and carried her into the
earth’s belly. She blinked her sleepy eyes, looked around at the darkness, and
called, “Mom? Mom, where are you?” But there was no answer, just the throbbing
hum of the refrigerator.
7.
Finally, Yollie’s grogginess cleared
and she realized her mother had gone to bed, leaving her on the couch. Another
of her little jokes.
8.
But Yollie wasn’t laughing. She
tiptoed into her mother’s bedroom with a glass of water and set it on the
nightstand next to the alarm clock. The next morning, Yollie woke to screams.
When her mother reached to turn off the alarm, she had overturned the glass of water.
9.
Yollie burned her mother’s morning
toast and gloated. “Ha! Ha! I got you back. Why did you leave me on the couch
when I told you to wake me up?”
10.
Despite their jokes, mother and
daughter usually got along. They watched bargain matinees together, and played
croquet in the summer and checkers in the winter. Mrs. Moreno encouraged Yollie
to study hard because she wanted her daughter to be a doctor. She bought Yollie
a desk, a typewriter, and a lamp that cut glare so her eyes would not grow
tired from hours of studying.
11.
Yollie was slender as a tulip,
pretty and one of the smartest kids at Saint Theresa’s. She was captain of
crossing guards, an alter girl, and a whiz in the school’s monthly spelling bees.
12.
Tienes que estudiar mucho,” Mrs.
Moreno said every time she propped her work-weary feet on the hassock. “You
have to study a lot, then you can get a good job and take care of me.”
13.
“Yes, Mama,” Yollie would respond,
her face buried in a book. If she gave her mother any sympathy, she would begin
her stories about how she had come with her family from Mexico with nothing on
her back but a sack with three skirts, all of which were too large by the time
she crossed the border because she had lost weight from not having enough to
eat.
14.
Everyone thought Yollie’s mother was
a riot. Even the nuns laughed at her antics. Her brother Raul, a nightclub
owner, thought she was funny enough to go into show business.
15.
But there was nothing funny about
Yollie needing a new outfit for the eighth-grade fall dance. They couldn’t
afford one. It was late October, with Christmas around the corner, and their
dented Chevy Nova had gobbled up almost one hundred dollars in repairs.
16.
“We don’t have the money,” said her
mother, genuinely sad because they couldn’t buy the outfit, even though there
was a little money stashed away for college. Mrs. Moreno remembered her teenage
years and her hardworking parents, who picked grapes and oranges, and chopped
beets and cotton for meager pay around Kerman. Those were the days when “new
clothes” meant limp and out-of-style dresses from Saint Vincent de Paul.
17.
The best Mrs. Moreno could do was
buy Yollie a pair of black shoes with velvet bows and fabric dye to color her
white summer dress black.
18.
“We can color your dress so it will
look brand-new,” her mother said brightly, shaking the bottle of dye as she ran
hot water into a plastic dish tub. She poured the black liquid into the tub and
stirred it with a pencil. Then, slowly and carefully, she lowered the dress
into the tub.
19.
Yollie couldn’t stand to watch. She knew
it wouldn’t work. It would be like the time her mother stirred up a batch of
molasses for candy apples on Yollie’s birthday. She’d dipped the apples in the
goo and swirled them and seem to taunt Yollie by singing “Las Mañanitas” to her.
When she was through, she set the apples on wax paper. They were hard as rocks
and hurt kids’ teeth. Finally they had a contest to see who
could break the apples open by throwing them against the side of the house. The
apples shattered like grenades, sending the kids scurrying for cover, and in an
odd way the birthday party turned out to be a success. At least everyone went
home happy.
20.
To Yollie’s surprise, the dress came
out shiny black. It looked brand-new and sophisticated, like what people in New
York wear. She beamed at her mother, who hugged Yollie and said, “See, what did
I tell you?”
21.
The dance was important to Yollie
because she was in love with Ernie Castillo, the third-best speller in the
class. She bathed, dressed, did her hair and nails, and primped until her mother
yelled, “All right already.” Yollie sprayed her neck and wrists with Mrs.
Moreno’s Avon perfume and bounced into the car.
Mrs. Moreno let Yollie out in front of the school. She waved
and told her to have a good time but behave herself, then she roared off, blue
smoke trailing from the tail pipe of the old Nova.
22.
Yollie ran into her best friend,
Janice. They didn’t say it, but each thought the other was the most beautiful
girl at the dance; the boys would fall over themselves asking them to dance.
23.
The evening was warm but thick with
clouds. Gusts of wind picked up the paper lanterns hanging in the trees and
swung them, blurring the night with reds and yellows. The lanterns made the
evening seem romantic, like a scene from a movie. Everyone danced, sipped punch,
and stood in knots of threes and fours, talking. Sister Kelly got up and
jitterbugged with some kid’s father. When the record ended, students broke into
applause.
24.
Janice had her eye on Frankie
Ledesma, and Yollie, who kept smoothing her dress down when the wind picked up,
had her eye on Ernie. It turned out that Ernie had his mind on Yollie, too. He
ate a handful of cookies nervously, then asked her for a dance.
25.
“Sure,” she said, nearly throwing
herself into his arms. They danced two fast ones before they got a slow one. As
they circled under the lanterns, rain began falling, lightly at first. Yollie
loved the sound of the raindrops ticking against the leaves. She leaned her
head on Ernie’s shoulder, though his sweater was scratchy. He felt warm and
tender. Yollie could tell that he was in love, and with her, of course. The
dance continued successfully, romantically, until it began to pour.
26.
“Everyone, let’s go inside—and,
boys, carry in the table and the record player,” Sister Kelly commanded.
27.
The girls and boys raced into the
cafeteria. Inside, the girls, drenched to the bone, hurried to the restrooms to
brush their hair and dry themselves. One girl cried because her velvet dress
was ruined. Yollie felt sorry for her and helped her dry the dress of with
paper towels, but it was no use. The dress was ruined. Yollie went to a mirror.
She looked a little gray now that her mother’s makeup had washed away but not
as bad as some of the other girls. She combed her damp hair, careful not to
pull too hard. She couldn’t wait to get back to Ernie.
28.
Yollie bent over to pick up a bobby
pin, and shame spread across her face. A black puddle was forming at her feet.
Drip, black drip. Drip, black drip. The dye was falling from her dress like
black tears. Yollie stood up. Her dress was now the color of ash. She looked around
the room. The other girls, unaware of Yollie’s problem, were busy grooming themselves.
What could she do? Everyone would laugh. They would know she dyed an old dress
because she couldn’t afford a new one. She hurried from the restroom with her head
down, across the cafeteria floor and out the door. She raced through the storm,
crying as the rain mixed with her tears and ran into twig-choked gutters.
29.
When she arrived home, her mother
was on the couch eating cookies and watching TV.
30.
“How was the dance, m’ija? Come watch the show
with me. It’s really good.”
31.
Yollie stomped, head down, to her
bedroom. She undressed and threw the dress on the floor.
32.
Her mother came into the room.
“What’s going on? What’s all the racket, baby?”
33.
“The dress. It’s cheap! It’s no
good!” Yollie kicked the dress at her mother and watched it land in her hands.
Mrs. Moreno studied it closely but couldn’t see what was wrong. “What’s the
matter? It’s just little bit wet.”
34.
“The dye came out, that’s what.”
35.
Mrs. Moreno looked at her hands and
saw the grayish dye puddling in the shallow lines Of her palms. Poor baby, she
thought, her brow darkening as she made a sad face. She wanted to tell her
daughter how sorry she was, but she knew it wouldn’t help. She walked back to
the living room and cried.
36.
The next morning, mother and
daughter stayed away from each other. Yollie sat in her room turning the pages
of an old Seventeen, while her mother watered her plants with a Pepsi bottle.
37.
“Drink, my children,” she said loud
enough for Yollie to hear. She let the water slurp into pots of coleus and
cacti. “Water is all you need. My daughter needs clothes, but I don’t have no
money.”
38.
Yollie tossed her Seventeen on her
bed. She was embarrassed at last night’s tirade. It wasn’t her mother’s fault
that they were poor.
39.
When they sat down together for
lunch, they felt awkward about the night before. But Mrs. Moreno had made a
fresh stack of tortillas and cooked up a pan of chile verde, and that broke the
ice. She licked her thumb and smacked her lips.
40.
“You know, honey, we gotta figure a
way to make money,” Yollie’s mother said. “You and me. We don’t have to be
poor. Remember the Garcias. They made this stupid little tool that fixes cars.
They moved away because they’re rich. That’s why we don’t see them no more.”
41.
“What can we make?” asked Yollie.
She took another tortilla and tore it in half.
42.
“Maybe a screwdriver that works on
both ends? Something like that.” The mother looked around the room for ideas,
but then shrugged. “Let’s forget it. It’s better to get an education. If you
get a good job and have spare time then maybe you can invent something.” She rolled
her tongue over her lips and cleared her throat. “The county fair hires people.
We can get a job there. It will be here next week.”
43.
Yollie hated the idea. What would
Ernie say if he saw her pitching hay at the cows? How could she go to school
smelling like an armful of chickens? “No, they wouldn’t hire us,” she said.
44.
The phone rang. Yollie lurched from
her chair to answer it, thinking it would be Janice wanting to know why she had
left. But it was Ernie wondering the same thing. When he found out she wasn’t
mad at him, he asked if she would like to go to a movie.
45.
“I’ll ask,” Yollie said, smiling.
She covered the phone with her hand and counted to ten. She uncovered the
receiver and said, “My mom says it’sOK. What are we going to see?”
46.
After Yollie hung up, her mother
climbed, grunting, onto a chair to reach the top shelf in the hall closet. She
wondered why she hadn’t done it earlier. She reached behind a stack of towels
and pushed her chubby hand into the cigar box where she kept her secret stash
of money.
47.
“I’ve been saving a little every
month,” said Mrs. Moreno. “For you, m’ija.” Her mother held up five twenties, a
blossom of green that smelled sweeter than flowers on that Saturday. They drove
to Macy’s and bought a blouse, shoes, and a skirt that would not bleed in rain
or any other kind of weather.
source: http://www.syracusecityschools.com/tfiles/folder716/Mother_Daughter.pdf
