Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole

crew placed them according to the design. I look around me. Everything’s a huge pile of trees, like a messy jungle.
    I adore trees. They lift my spirits with their green brilliance that helps choke back pollution so we can breathe cleaner air. I feel lighthearted, as if I’ve just hiked up a mountain and with every step, I’ve let my troubles slip away.
    Jaylene rubs the nubs on her head while everyone just stands around, as if waiting for instructions. I know they know what to do; they’re probably just testing me.
    I remind them, “My uncle Marco wants us to push the plants back and dig holes exactly where the plants were.”
    “¡Bárbaro !” Che grabs a shovel and gets to digging right away. He’s working next to me, showing off his scrawny, popped-out muscles. It’s strange to look at the girls on his arm. Every time a muscle moves, they squirm around. Maybe he gets more action from watching the tattoo than in real life.
    I dig a hole that’s three feet in diameter and depth, and stick a small bottle palm in it. I love the way the tree looks pregnant. I shovel the earth back into the hole and plant a bed of purple flowers around it.
    I remember the day my mom told my dad she was expecting over the phone.
    “We’re going to have another baby!” Six months later, my dad came home from working in New Jersey as a horse trainer (he was always away six months out of the year). When the doctor said my mother needed constant rest or she’d lose Pedri, he prepared dinners every night for the three of us after he arrived exhausted from work. “I don’t want your mom to move a muscle,” he’d say. On weekends, instead of our usual movie night, he’d rent DVDs. The three of us watched films cuddled on the couch. He was always spreading kisses, giving my mom foot massages, scrubbing, laundering and doing chores while whistling around the house.
    The night my mom’s water broke, my father ran out the door, climbed into his car, and started the engine without us—and with his pjs on! We brought him back indoors and helped him pick clothes to wear. His hands were shaking so much he could barely drive to the hospital.
    I stayed in the waiting room with my grandmother. My dad came out shouting, “It’s a boy!”
    Che nudges my ribs and releases the memory out of my head. He points to El Tigre. “For a whole year, that guy asked Cuban authorities to allow him to come visit his family here to no avail. They kept denying him because they considered him an ‘antisocialist blogger.’ He came in a balsa in shark-infested waters, in secret, without telling a soul. And that dumbo-eared girl with the guy’s haircut,” he juts his nose in Jaylene’s direction, “she’s into girls, guys and anything that moves.”
    “So what if she’s try-sexual?”
    “Oh. You’re one of those, too?”
    “I was joking.”
    “Well, if you’re not careful, Shai, she’ll soon be after your tail.”
    My heart beats fast. The palms of my hands get sweaty and I wipe them on my overalls. I stand on the shovel and jump on it a few times to loosen the earth under me. It won’t take this nosy guy too long to figure out my life. There’s no way I’ll even hint at having once been known to friends as a free-spirit, artist, free-thinking environmentalist who transformed into a specialized lying piece of shit nobody wants.
    “She won’t get my tail, that’s for sure.” The last thing I need is for Marlena’s uncle to find out about Marlena and me. He’ll realize what’s been going on under his nose whenever I sleep over at his place. I’m positive he’ll tell Marlena’s family and we don’t need more drama and heartache.
    I’ve got to make sure to keep my relationship intact and sacred.
    He whispers loudly so Jaylene, across from us, hears. “Don’t be fooled. Those girls will haunt you till they catch you . . .”
    I interrupt and catch him off guard. “Oh, so you’re saying they’re as bad as some guys?”
    He stares at