America's Dream by Esmeralda Santiago

Author:Esmeralda Santiago [Santiago, Esmeralda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780061846946
Google: yAP8x7uvCS4C
Amazon: 0060928263
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 1997-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

tire gauge from his shirt pocket and showed her how to read the pressure. “The tires,” he said, “are the only contact you have with the road. Keep them inflated, and check frequently for wear.”

He took her on the narrow roads of Vieques and let her practice. “Step on the gas, and keep your speed constant. You shouldn’t let the engine struggle. Don’t ride the brakes, you’ll wear them out. Wash the car every week, the salt air is bad for the finish.”

When she got her license, he let her drive his car for practice and eventually gave it to her when he bought the first of his three Jeeps. But one day he came to the house and América wasn’t there. She had driven alone to Isabel Segunda, a twenty-minute ride to the other side of the island. When she returned, her arms laden with a week’s groceries, he beat her, saying that he didn’t teach her to drive so she could go running all over town. He took the car away and told her he didn’t want her driving anymore.

América sits at the wheel of Karen Leverett’s silver Volvo sta- tion wagon. She reflects that Correa also didn’t teach her to drive so that someday she’d be idling in the driveway of a mansion considering what to do with the rest of a cloudy Sunday afternoon in the middle of nowhere.

She takes a left onto the rutted dirt road. She has to slow down to let a group of riders on horseback line up single file so she can pass them. At the bottom of the hill she takes another left, toward the dry cleaners and the gourmet shop where Karen told her she always buys the coffee beans and extra-virgin olive oil she likes. Across from the gourmet shop there is a small movie theater.

Almost all of the rest of the storefronts on the street are real estate offices with photographs of million-dollar houses on the windows. She drives past a strip of stores with a supermarket at one end and a bank at the other. This is not where Karen said she should do the shopping, even though it’s the market closest to the house. Beyond it is a flower shop and a veterinarian, and around the corner from it, a twenty-four-hour gas station. She

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