CHAPTER 1
The Shelf-Life of Miracles
“Hurry up, Sourdi!” I hollered to my older sister. I was packing the spring rolls Ma had made before she left for work that morning so that we could sell them to the pilgrims lining up to see the apparition of the Virgin Mary on the freezer case at Mrs. Lê’s QuikMart. “If the taco trucks find out about the pilgrims, we are hella screwed!”
“You said a dirty word! You said a dirty word!” My little brother, Sam, started jumping up and down excitedly on the sofa bed that I hadn’t bothered to fold up since it was Saturday and Ma had to work all day and wouldn’t know. Plus, I was busy wrapping the spring rolls in Saran Wrap so they wouldn’t leak through the paper bags and ruin my T-shirt again.
“Shuddup, squirt. You’re not allowed to jump on the bed,” I snapped. “Come over here and help if you’re not gonna watch cartoons.”
“I’m watching cartoons,” he said and sat back down on the bed next to my younger sisters, the twins, Navy and Maly.
I finished packing the two grocery bags full of spring rolls when Sourdi made her entrance, emerging finally from our apartment’s lone bathroom. She’d reached the age where she liked to lock herself in there to do her eyes and cover her pimples with Clearasil—though I could still see them under the Cover Girl—and make movie star faces in the mirror. I know what she did, because she used to let me stay in the bathroom with her when she put on her makeup. But this summer, when I was eleven and she turned fifteen, she locked me out, too.
“’Bout time,” I said.
She ignored my sour mood. “Come on,” she said, picking up one of the paper bags. “Y’all behave while we’re gone, you hear me?”
“I’m in charge, I’m in charge!” Sam shouted, jumping again.
“Sourdi’s in charge,” I snapped. “Anything goes wrong while we’re gone, we’ll tell Ma.” Then I grabbed my own sack and ran out the door after Sourdi.
It was a typical hot summer day as we headed over to the QuikMart, four and a half blocks from our apartment. We only had the one dinky air conditioner in the window that didn’t work so good and two fans, so it actually felt better to be outside, although the asphalt was melting beneath our flip flops when we crossed the street. I turned to look over my shoulder to see if we’d left footprints, but Sourdi was impatient now, and tugged on my arm.
“Who’s the slow poke now?” she said.
“It’s just cuz you like Mrs. Lê’s stupid son, Than,” I said, and Sourdi pulled my hair, hard, so I stopped teasing her.
Then I could see them. Already snaking around the corner, two blocks from the QuikMart, all the Pilgrims come to see the Virgin, and my heart beat faster in my chest as I calculated how much more we could charge everyone, and I wished Ma had made more spring rolls. Sourdi ran ahead to get the Pepsis from Mrs. Lê. (She gave us a deal; she’d started charging admission so she was okay if we made a profit too. Maybe she figured if the people were fed and hydrated, they’d keep coming.) The Pilgrims were snaking down the sidewalk in an uneven line, some sipping from Icees and cans of Tab and thermoses of hot black tea, others just panting in the hot sunlight. Mostly the Pilgrims were older, people who had begun to fray around the edges, chipped teeth, thinning hair, liver spots, but there were a few families, women with squalling babies, and crippled people. A very few were just young, like the pair of round-faced nuns from India, their foreheads bright with sweat, smiling like happy Buddhas, who had arrived one Thursday and reappeared in line every day for a week. They remembered us, their bright black eyes lighting up and their tiny white teeth flashing in smiles as they waved me over, ready to buy their lunch. It was strange. They would wait in line all day, and then, just as it was their turn to go inside and see the miraculous appearance of the Holy Mother, they would give up their place and move to the very back. I asked Mrs. Lê about the mystery of it once, and she whispered almost in awe that it must be a form of penance. I nodded then sagely, even though I didn’t know what that meant.
“Spring rolls! Fresh spring rolls!” I called out, and a couple of old people pushing a listless looking young man in a wheelchair waved to me.
It was amazing how much you could charge people for simple spring rolls when they were hungry and hot and desperate enough to wait for hours in the sun to see a shadow on some permafrost on a freezer case. I would’ve said that was the real miracle. If anyone had asked me.
We made three hundred forty-seven bucks that day. So we treated ourselves to a six-pack of soda and a box of rocket pops for the kids waiting for us at home. We figured Ma wouldn’t mind if we spent a little of the money, since we were flush.
“She’s gonna be so happy,” I said to Sourdi as we walked home, sucking on our own popsicles. Mine was Green Apple, Sourdi’s Grape Surprise.
“Who will?”
“Ma! Who do you think?” I stuck my green tongue out at her, wiggling it for effect.
She returned the favor, flashing her purple tongue at me.
Sourdi was always dreamy after talking with Than, although they didn’t really talk that much. Mostly I talked to Mrs. Lê as she counted her money for the day while her husband restocked the shelves. Sourdi and Than stood there looking at each other like deaf mutes, until Than got up his nerve to say something dumb, like “Did you see that guy on ‘The Price Is Right?’ Man, what a freak! He thought the whitewalls retailed for three ninety-five! Three ninety-five for all four! Man, that’s lame! Those were Firestone, man. Major tread.” And Sourdi giggled, like he was so witty.
I had made gagging sounds then, but if she heard, Sourdi never let on.
Now as we crossed the street, the wind finally coming up, whipping loose plastic bags down the sidewalk, flinging them into the tree branches and on tops of fire hydrants, I tried to get Sourdi to stop thinking about Than.
“If Ma makes more,” I said, “I bet we could sell double tomorrow. It’s Sunday. All the church people will be coming in the vans, even from the ‘burbs. You think we could make a thousand dollars maybe?” I tried to imagine what that would feel like in my hand. A thousand whole dollars.
“I dunno,” Sourdi said, licking her popsicle daintily. “They bring potluck.”
That was true. I hadn’t thought of that. The church groups were organized in a way that the ordinary Pilgrims, who were just desperate and poor mostly, weren’t.
“Still. I think we could sell more than today,” I said. “It’s like the crowds are just growing. Mrs. Lê said when her husband opened this morning at six, there were people camped out on the sidewalk. Word’s spreading. They’re thinking of staying open twenty-four hours like the Hinky Dinky in Dallas.”
Heat lightning flashed in the distance.
“It’s going to storm tonight,” Sourdi said, as though she weren’t listening to me at all. “Good. It’s so hot. I can’t sleep lately.”
Then the first drops of rain hit the top of my head like pricks from an acupuncturist’s needle. I held my left hand out. Thick raindrops pooled in my palm. “Look!” I tried to show Sourdi, when, all at once, the clouds like a flock of angry hens dropped hail the size of eggs upon our heads. “Ow!”
“Run!”