“Roman? You’re kaduka.”

Teresita and Roman have most classes together. “All day at school, he asks about you. Do you think Isabel will run for fiesta queen? Do you think Isabel is studying algebra in school? Maybe she can help me. Do you think Isabel will be working at the store today?”

“What do you tell him?”

“I answer, ‘Absolutely no.’ ‘I have no idea.’ And, ‘Of course.’”

“Just because he asks those questions doesn’t mean anything.”

She pokes me in the ribs with her elbow. “Yeah, he likes you, Isabel.”

I glare at Teresita, but all I can think of is that I don’t have room in my life for anyone else.

Suruhana

Auntie Bernadette’s back porch is her office. A bed is out there for patients to lie on. Blinds hang over the screens, blocking the bright sun, and a small rotating fan stirs the heat.

Today she watches the clock with one eye while she rubs herbs on the old man’s throat and massages it with a spoon.

“Watch, Isabel, watch carefully,” she tells me. “One day it will be you standing here.” She says this like it’s a great honor to be a suruhana.

I don’t want people knocking on my door day and night, asking for me to heal them. No way.

But Auntie Bernadette tells me, “You’re destined for this.” Her mother, my grandmother, was a suruhana, as was her mother before her. Then she adds, “You were born feetfirst.”

Her words sting. She might as well have said I was born with a huge purple mark on my cheek. At least then no one would expect me to heal them.

Auntie Bernadette talks faster about the night I was born, but my mind blurs and her voice becomes a hum. I concentrate on the sounds of the ocean crashing against the huge rocks outside her screen porch. I try to ignore Auntie’s jars of dried herbs along the wall and her chickens prancing in the backyard that she raises just for their feathers, an added ingredient to some special cures.

I stare at the old man with the wrinkled back. His skin is yellow like chicken fat. Surely this isn’t my destiny. Auntie rubs the spoon deeper into the back of the man’s neck.

“Ay-yi!” The man arches his back, his eyes wide.

“Almost done,” Auntie says, pushing him back down.

Again she looks at the clock. Finally I realize it’s Wednesday, bingo night. She doesn’t want to be late.

Bingo and Cockfights

“Do away with all gambling,” Auntie Bernadette often says. “The greyhound races, cockfights, but not bingo.” Bingo used to be sponsored by the Catholic Church, and Auntie Bernadette believed it was her duty as a good Catholic to support the church. After so many people lost their grocery and rent money on bingo night, the Catholic Church stopped sponsoring the games. But Auntie Bernadette still goes every Wednesday night.

I’m not allowed to play, but I’ve gone with her. She knows all the games—double bingo, crazy kite, broken picture frame, and many more. She plays five cards at once and when she wins, she jumps and waves her good hand in the air. “Bingo! Bingo!” she shouts.