Dallas bounced out of the train on Thirty-fourth Street, walked into Macy’s and through the coat section, which had shrunk to half its size to make room for the spring and summer collections. She found the jacket she had been eyeing throughout winter, which she was hoping her mother would buy for her. It was 50 percent off on the clearance rack, plus another 15 percent off with the coupon they sent in the mail. She tried it on. The smell was strong, pungent, new. It made her look sophisticated. Different. Like she belonged in a magazine ad, with some cute guy asking her for a cigarette. Except Dallas didn’t care for cigarettes, maybe a martini with an olive. She had never tried one, but it looked good on TV. It had to be better than beer. The jacket was butter-soft leather, genuine, Italian, and would have to be taken care of. She would let no one else wear it. Maybe Hush. But only when they were together and she could watch over it.

—Can you put this jacket on hold for me? That way I can bring my mother to pay for it, she asked the short, stocky saleslady, who must’ve started working in Macy’s when it first opened.

—Yes, dear. We hold merchandise for one week. What’s your name?

Dallas felt very grown up when asked the question.

—Dallas Colón.

The woman stared at her, waiting for a real answer.

Dallas showed her the school ID card.

—Oh, the saleslady said and nodded and put Dallas’s leather jacket on a special rack. —We’ll see you soon, dear. Have a nice day.

With Esperanza working so many hours, Don Chan began to pick up the mail. He went through the mail as if expecting a letter. In the five years he had lived in Nueva York, no one had sent him anything. No one called, except for Miraluz from time to time. She’d call and tell him that she had checked up on his little house in Los Llanos, that the land had become quite savage since the death of Doña Caridad. But everything was fine. —You know how nothing changes here, she said. —En la lucha, como siempre. She told him about the nest of hummingbirds on a tree nearby and the wall of roses that was coming up on the side of his shack, which would please him. But it did worry Miraluz, because it meant bugs would start to eat up the wood beams. Unless she found someone to paint it.

—Is that it? he’d ask her, knowing that there had to be more. It was Los Llanos after all. What had happened to all the land? The people? The Invisible Ones?

—People are busy, Don Chan. —I lost my reception job at the hospital after the strike.

—There was a strike?

—Isn’t there always? But don’t you worry, I’ve been working in la Zona Franca, it’s awful with this heat, but prices are going up here so fast, I had to do something. I said I never would go there, but, Don Chan, at my age…they don’t hire women my age anymore. Those overseers want young girls to ogle. The only reason I got work at the factory was because, remember Ernesto Santa María Delosquesaben’s uncle, Chucho?