Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,61
played with him while they watched TV. Ramona, Shannon, and Lexi all came by to see him. Gil beamed at each visitor, as if he’d been expecting them.
As Sam was leaving the dorm a few hours later, she saw Gaby coming out of the ladies’ room by the front door. She was dressed to go home, in jeans and high-heeled boots. Her long hair hung at her shoulders.
“Hi, Gil!” Gaby called. She moaned. “Seeing him makes me miss Josie so much. By the way. Her birthday party is gonna be the second Saturday in November, at my house. Can you come?”
“Of course!” Sam said. She made a mental note to write this down.
“Great, I’ll text you the address.”
“I miss our Friday paycheck walks,” Sam said. “I feel like I don’t even know what’s going on with you.”
“I know. You’ve been busy,” Gaby said.
It was true, but it felt like an accusation.
“Sorry,” Sam said. “This nannying job has made my weeks so full.”
“And the boyfriend,” Gaby teased.
“Yeah. That too.”
“I miss having you in the kitchen. The other student workers don’t even look at me. I’m not sure they know I speak English,” Gaby said. “Or maybe they’re just scared of me.”
“That sounds more likely,” Sam said.
They laughed.
“What was going on earlier, in the kitchen?” Sam said. “That whole thing about Barney Reardon.”
“My aunt was pissed at me for telling you who we were talking about,” Gaby said.
“Why?”
“She doesn’t think it’s right to discuss our issues with the college in front of a student.”
“It’s not just some student,” Sam said. “It’s me.”
“I know, but Maria has her opinions on how things should be done.” Gaby paused, like she was considering whether or not to obey her aunt’s wishes. Then she said, “You know how only three dining halls on campus stay open June through August?”
“No,” Sam said.
During the school year, the college prided itself on offering dining in almost every dorm, so that students could eat where they lived, an approximation of home. Sam had never considered what happened in the summer.
“Well, they do,” Gaby went on. “Three dining halls, down from fifteen. Everyone scrambles to get a job in one of them. If you don’t, this cheap-ass place lays you off for the summer and rehires you at the start of the school year. Three months without pay or benefits.”
“Professors get paid for the summer months, don’t they?” Sam said.
“I mean, I think so,” Gaby said. “They must. Anyway. This morning Barney announced that, next summer, only one dining hall is gonna stay open. So, even fewer jobs. My aunt is freaking out. She’s too nice. She and my mom. They want to help everyone. They send money home to so many relatives, money they don’t even have.”
On one of their Friday walks last year, Gaby had filled in the gaps in what Sam knew of Maria’s story.
Along with her sister, Gaby’s mother, Maria came to America from El Salvador as a teenager, after her brother and father were murdered. She married an American, a guy in the military, whom Gaby described as a total scumbag.
Soon after they divorced, left alone with two young children, Maria fell in love with someone else. Like her, he was from El Salvador. They married. Through Maria, he got his citizenship. Then one day he told her he had never loved her. He had a family in Texas. A wife and kids. He only wanted his papers. He left, and Maria never heard from him again. Technically, they were still married. She saw no need to divorce because, from then on, she considered herself done with men.
It was hard for Sam to imagine Maria this way, as assertive and happy as she now seemed. She wondered where all those dark memories were stored. It was a bit like hearing stories of her grandfather going to war. Sam couldn’t imagine the old man in the armchair dodging bullets, even as she knew that he had.
Sam had once cried in Maria’s arms because her sisters had the flu and couldn’t come for Family Weekend. Maria had allowed this, had comforted her as if it was a problem worth mentioning.
Gaby told Sam that her mother and Maria were considered the lucky ones in their family. Their undocumented cousins, newer arrivals to this country, boarded vans before dawn each morning and were transported to local farms, where they worked for less than minimum wage, fourteen-hour days, seven days a week, with no overtime pay.