it because she went to a rally with Aunt Lilly one time and shouted, “Get your laws off my body”? Because she did consulting for an organization trying to secure safe abortions for victims of rape and incest? Now she’s being accused of trading in fetal tissue and selling babies for the Red Market mafia? Sincerely?
“And what about my father?” I asked. “Has my father been detained?”
Javier shook his head. “Police say Mr. Sherman is helping with the investigation.”
Helping with the investigation? I’ve barely seen my father since the beginning of eighth grade. Sushi dinner every few months and only because my mother bribes me with Sephora. I cannot look at him, my mother’s soul mate—he used to say that all the time—without seeing the biggest hypocrite on the planet. I hate hypocrites more than anything. And he’s the worst. A straight-up liar who lies. My father knows nothing about me now. How in the fuck could he be helping with the investigation?
“Please don’t call my father,” I said.
I had no doubt that Javier knew what had happened between my parents. People knew. After they split, Sherman married someone semi-famous, so his wedding was semi-news.
Javier nodded. “I won’t call your papá.”
“We can stay?”
He pointed outside. “You can stay in the shed tonight. Tonight only. If someone comes—if they find you—nunca he visto.”
“Gracias,” I said. “Javier, I’m sorry to…but I have to…Is your wife awake?”
He looked at me strangely. “My wife? No esta. She is deported.”
Fuck. That was sad to hear. Plus, this made my next question super-awkward, because I couldn’t figure out a way to describe to this savior of ours my urgent need for a sanitary napkin and my hope that his deported wife might have left some in the bathroom.
I looked at Fee, dead pale and clutching her gut, but somehow she had my back. Or my vadge in this case. We tried to string together the Spanish words—not in this order—woman—rag—pad—blood.
Javier took a hard look at Fee beside me and said, “You don’t speak Spanish?”
Fee shook her head tragically. “No hablo español.”
I explained to him in Spanish, but I’ll write it here in English. “Her mother is a housekeeper and Feliza was raised with an English family since she was a baby. She grew up with us in Hidden Oaks. She doesn’t speak much Spanish.”
But Fee somehow remembered the Spanish word for bandage. “El vendaje,” she offered, pointing at me.
I remembered a word too. “Putacachuca.”
Years ago, my parents had a client who shot her husband in the foot for calling her a dirty putacachuca. My mother, hearing the word but not the definition, thought it’d be a cute name for a cat. Mommy.
Javier made me repeat—twice—”El vendaje para la putacachuca?”—just to make sure he was hearing right. Rough translation? A bandage for my whore’s vagina. Then he checked the sky, black and empty but for the moon and stars, opened the screen door, motioned to the shed and said, “Go now.”
We ran.
He could have been a rich man right now if he’d shot us, or tied us up and called the authorities, instead of giving us shelter, even if it’s just this dirty toolshed. Plus, he waited out a search copter arcing over the mountain toward the beach, and then he ran out to the shed with two old blankets, and a sleeve of Saltines, and two bottles of water and a paper towel roll with, like, five one-ply sheets left. His wife had left no stash of la venda para putacachuca.
Before he closed the door, Javier warned us in no uncertain terms not to leave the shed. Then, pointing to the silver Airstream trailer next door, he warned, “Don’t let him see you.”
Fee and I both drank the water Javier’d brought us in one long gulp. Fee’s came right back up. All of it, in a foamy mess on the ground beside us.
I was seriously about to cry, for the first time all night, because hiding in a shed and menstruation and my mother’s detained and Fee’s puking, but the shed door creaked open, scaring the shit out of me. It was Javier again. He pulled the pink laptop I’m typing on now from under his arm, saying, “The signal reaches out here. Puede ver todas las noticias. It’s better to know. Don’t try to contact anyone. No use sus medios sociales. They’ll track you here if you do.”
I figured the laptop must belong to one of his kids, because pink, and then I flipped it