Read first excerpt here: “The Salton Sea, Southern California”
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Twenty-Five Years Ago
In the dilapidating house beside the Salton Sea, Mal and Esteban are camped out in her room where he’s snuck in contraband. They are seventeen and sixteen, in high school, and Esteban has gotten cool, but he doesn’t care. He’s still the best brother in the world when he feels like it. He’d be a better brother if he helped Mal more with chores and dinner.
“Hey, Mallow Mar! Look what I’ve got.” Esteban grins, the peach fuzz on his 17-year-old upper lip coarse. They didn’t have many nights left before he’d turn into a man and go in search of whatever it is men search for. Soon their late-night junk food sessions will be obsolete. He’ll go off to college, and she’ll—she has no idea what she’ll do. Where would she get the money for college? Esteban will go on a scholarship.
He pulls out a bright yellow package of Hostess Ding Dongs and a colorful box of Razzles. In a mock-deep voice, he says, “First, it’s a candy.”
Pause.
They both say through their laughter, “Then, it’s a gum!”
They watch too much Nick at Nite—all those old-fashioned commercials, cheesy, but they love them. No one understands Mal like Chuy. Everyone else thinks she’s a dork. A weirdo. They’re both nerds, but Chuy can pretend otherwise.
She peels back the tinfoil around the chocolate, stuffs the soft little cake into her mouth.
He gapes at his sister’s puff-adder cheeks, wide-eyed.
It takes a while to chew her way through it, but eventually, she swallows the sponginess and gifts him a chocolate-covered grin. The cream squishes between her teeth. “Beat that!” she whisper-shouts. Slam, bam, takedown.
He accepts the challenge with forced stoicism. His dark eyes focus. He sucks in an epic breath and opens one tin foil wrapper then another and another. He holds all three cakes in his palm, darts Mal a pointed look, then shoves the Eiffel tower of Ding Dongs into his open maw.
Mal stifles a guffaw, so she doesn’t wake Elena across the room and have to share this junk food extravaganza with their snooty sister.
Or worse, wake Mami. Wait. She’s not here anyway. She’s out again, wherever she goes.
And Elena sleeps like the dead.
Esteban’s cheeks puff like a chipmunk as he struggles the sweets down.
“Don’t choke!” she whispers, ready to swat his back if he does start choking.
Finally, he takes a last thick swallow, his Adam’s apple jutting with the effort, and pumps his fists into the air, triumphant. Then he reaches into the backpack he brought into her room and pulls up two bottles of Coke, pops the caps on the windowsill, and hands Mal one.
“You’ve got the corner shop back there?” she laughs, swigging hers down. It fizzles inside her. “Where’d you get all this?”
He grins over the rim of his own bottle, drinks the Coke halfway down, then pins Mal with a more serious expression that reverberates the bubbles. “It’s the least I can do, sis.”
It’s the first time she can recall he’s acknowledged in any way—besides slapping Mami’s hand so it can’t reach Mal’s face—the scales in their home are skewed. If they’re dipping in your favor, why speak up? But Mal knows that’s not what keeps him quiet. Mami’s their mami. Papi treats her like a queen—and so, she is.
A boom shakes the night. They regularly hear military drills in the Chocolate Mountains, their bombings reverberating through the desert and sending a ripple through the Sea.
“Did you hear that girl Noemi went missing?”
Mal nods and Esteban looks away.
“Papi says it’s a chupacabra. Or La Siguanaba.”
“What?” Mal’s pulse unspools, threads wild at her wrists and neck.
He is sheep-faced, embarrassed, as if he can’t believe he’s spouted such nonsense.
“Nevermind, forget it.”
“Chupacabras eats animals, right? Not people.”
“Yeah. No, I’m being stupid. I ate too much sugar.”
He slugs Mal playfully on the shoulder. “Finish your Coke.”
The fizzy coolness slushes down her throat, expanding her ribcage with the carbonation. Mal pictures the chupacabra’s fangs as it slogs into her sugar-filled stomach into that pit.
“And anyway, it’s weird. Which is it? An animal-eating beast? Or a horse-headed woman? Like, the MOs are different, right?”
Before he can answer, Elena’s sitting up, her hair a mess, her face all scrunched. “Would you two shut up? I’ll tell Mami…”
“Oh, give it a rest, cabrona,” Chuy says. “She’s not here?”
“Fine, I’ll tell Papi.”
“What, that we’re eating candy? What’s your problem?”
“No, that you’re not letting me sleep. I have cheer practice early in the morning.”
She throws a pillow at him but it falls to the floor, missing by several feet.
“You sneak out all the time late at night so don’t act like you’re all innocent,” Chuy prods. “Besides, Papi’s not here either.”
The soda and sugar fizzle in Mal’s gut. “Where’d he go?”
Chuy shrugs, then scratches his face, which he always does when he’s nervous or upset. “Out looking for Mami. You know… to drag her home.”
He’s been doing that a lot lately. He’s been drinking a lot more too.
“At least give me some candy, then,” Elena says, and Chuy throws her a bag, but she doesn’t eat it. Just tucks it under her pillow and turns back over.
Later, once Chuy’s gone to bed, Mami staggers through the front door, drunk and obnoxious. She stops in Mal’s room, spies the candy wrappers, and starts slapping, no questions asked. Her breath reeks of something sweet and acidic at once. Candy gone bad. Elena’s deep breathing stops. She’s awake again. But she does nothing.
Mal’s trying to pull herself into a ball to avoid the hardest slaps. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Babosa! Cochina! Stuffing yourself with junk and soda! You fat pig!”
Tears are leaking down Mal’s face, the skin where Mami’s hand meets her own, smarting and tender. “Just leave me alone.”
A hand grabs Mami from behind. At first Mal thinks it’s Papi, taller than Mami and strong enough to pull her away.
But it’s not. It’s Chuy.
His face is fire, Mal can see how angry he is even in scant hallway light fizzling into her bedroom. She wipes the snot from her face, watching as Mami turns in horror to see her son, still grabbing tight to her wrist, admonishing her, warning her.
“You need to leave her alone,” he says like he’s the man of the house because the real man of the house has changed and none of them knows why.
And Mami does leave Mal alone. At least for that night. But she’s wary afterward, never as quick to lay a finger on Mal again—at least while Chuy’s around. Mami’s accountable to someone in the family. Not everyone’s under her spell. Someone’s watching out for Mal.
