America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

Author:Elaine Castillo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

Ang Dalagang Pilipina

The next morning, Hero thought about calling the house in Milpitas, asking Paz or Pol to pick her up, sliding into Paz’s Civic or Pol’s Corona with her crusted underwear crumpled into her jacket pocket; thought about the questions they would think but not ask, thought about sitting in the passenger seat, hearing those silent questions and not answering. Instead she left Peter sleeping naked, put her own clothes back on, went to the small galley kitchen in the apartment, and paged Jaime 4379. HELP.

Hero understood that the code was perhaps slightly too dramatic for the situation and sent another page that said 015. OK.

The emotional jerkaround must have been too much for Jaime, because when he called back a few minutes later, sounding like he’d dragged himself out of bed, his first words were: If you’ve been ax-murdered and this is a ghost, I lose ten dollars to Janelle, so do me a solid and still be alive.

Once Hero made it clear that she was fine, Jaime said he’d pick her up at the Fremont BART station. I don’t know where that is, Hero said. Ask your man, Jaime countered. I’ll figure it out myself, Hero said just to hear Jaime laugh.

It was her first time on the BART, her first time really seeing the cities of the Bay, from north to south. There were several stations after Glen Park, which had been the station closest to Peter’s apartment. Only when they reached Civic Center did Hero realize they were going through the city itself.

After the train left Embarcadero station, the view outside the windows went pitch-black, and then they were going faster, faster, like they’d been gripped by a giant hand and were being dragged through a tunnel, the noise of the train screeching, reaching a volume that didn’t just deafen Hero but deadbolted her, trapped her in the cupped palm of its sound so she couldn’t get out and she knew she just had to wait there for the lifetime it would take to end, her eyes closed, grappling at any thought to hang from and praying her grip would catch, thinking of, of, of. Thinking of Teresa taking her to the gakit festival in Agandan, where the Gaddang people, who often used the gakit rafts to cross the Cagayan River, would build a ceremonial bamboo raft in an elaborate yearly ritual, and Hero, then a first-year cadre, confused about the meaning of the ritual, confused about how to impress Teresa, not yet aware that trying to impress her was the surest way of ensuring she would never be impressed, watched in dumb silence until Teresa held up her own arm, next to Hero’s, and used her free hand to clasp them both together, blood-warm and firm, locked at the wrists, strong enough to carry a man on, a life on, and said: That’s why people need a raft, donya.

It was only when the train surfaced again at West Oakland, the walls of the tunnel

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