—But then the bosses will know it is us, and we will get fired from la Zona Franca.

—We won’t need the job once we start to sell the panties. Yes, at first we will take a big risk, but if we call our families and ask each of them for thirty dollars, there are twenty of us here. That would be six hundred dollars between all of us. That means that maybe four of us can take one to two months off to work on El Secreto de la Victoria.

—But what about the other women who need jobs in la Zona Franca? What if the factory goes to Mexico or Thailand, then what?

—Mujeres, don’t you see, we have to stop thinking like that. They want us to be scared. We have to think, what if for every label a woman at a sweatshop has to sew, there is a revolutionary label to compete with it? What if those who have the money to shop, shop from the companies owned by women like us?

7

Nueva York

1998

Don Chan sat at the kitchen table, organizing his newspaper clippings. He stapled them together by day, paper-clipped them by week, rubber-banded them by month, and boxed them by year. Seven boxes piled up in a corner in his bedroom. The eighth one on the floor by the kitchen table as he sorted out the last few weeks. He was falling behind. Sometimes he forgot to clip the headlines and had six days for one week. So he had to look through the dates and make sure they were all in order. It helped him sleep to know that the weeks were complete, and if not, he would put a note that one day was missing to fill in for the lost day.

—What are you saving them all for? Hush walked into the kitchen and sat down. She was seven months big and the baby was pressing against her bladder.

—Who are you? Don Chan kept counting the days. —Seven, he said and stapled them at the ends, making sure they all lined up on one side. The clippings were different sizes, from biggest to smallest.

—La Virgen, Hush kidded and rubbed her belly, wondering what it would be like to have a child outside her body. What would she do with it?

Don Chan laughed. —So you’re a comedian?

—Only during the day. At night, I guard the sofa in the living room so no one will steal it.

Don Chan continued to count the clippings. When he held a month in his hand, he became overwhelmed by all the information in them. When he dug his hand in the boxes from years before, he reassured himself of the passage of time. Each piece of paper made his days count.

—Can I make you some café? Hush asked Don Chan. She wanted to make herself helpful.

The way she said it shook Don Chan in a way that threw off his count and had him start all over again. —Caridad, don’t you know I don’t drink coffee at this hour?