Page 4 of Catching Camila

Camila

Tuesday 9:35 a.m.

Camila tugged at the strings dangling from her jean shorts. The rich girls paid to have some poor Indonesian child distress their jeans, but Camila’s were homemade. She grabbed her work shirt off her bed. With Lizzy’s Ice Cream stenciled on the pocket, the Pepto Bismol pink tee was the newest shirt she owned.

Maybe when she got her first paycheck she'd have a little to spare. She sighed and checked her ponytail in the mirror. Probably not.

A glance around her room told her it was satisfactory. The hand-me-down floral bedspread was tucked around her mattress on the floor. In her closet, door-less since she'd inherited the room, her clothes hung in neat rows by color. The vanity she sat at was a thrift store purchase from Mama two birthdays ago. The varnish was chipped and peeling, but she loved the antique. The circular pink princess clock she’d been dying to replace said she was running late.

Suddenly she smelled smoke coming from under the crack in her door. Camila jumped up and yanked the door open, her heart pounding.

Twice this year Mama had almost burned down their trailer, her forgotten cigarettes smoldering on a pile of magazines.

And damn, if she wasn’t going for a third.

Searching the dark hallway, she saw no cloud. She sniffed again and there it was—something more than the Marlboro Ultras Mama chain-smoked.

Something was on fire.

Camila thudded down the hallway, dodging piles of clothes. She hurdled a rusted bike tire and a broken toaster, which balanced on a faded Barbie box. She plowed over a pile of baby shoes and felt something shatter beneath her foot. Ignoring the pain, she barreled into the living room.

Mama was the motionless lump on the couch. The TV light made her look skeletal, like a bony husk detectives would find on one of those C.S.I. shows she watched.

The acrid tang of burning plastic drew Camila’s eyes to the carpet. She spotted the smoke curling from the floor. The carpet was indeed on fire.

“Jesus!” Camila stomped out the butt with her already throbbing heel.

Mama’s eyes flew open. “Hijo de puta!” Mama muttered, her hand pressed to her chest. “Camila! Good God.”

Camila lifted her foot and inspected the damage. She ripped off the singed sock and tossed it toward the overflowing kitchen garbage. Her heel was red and sore, but no harm done. You couldn't say the same for the carpet. The three-inch burn looked like a horrible brown tumor. Not that you could see the carpet under all of Mama’s junk.

Adrenalin leaking out of her bloodstream, Camila sagged on the arm of the couch. One more crisis averted. She reached down and patted Mama's tiny hand, like bird bones wrapped in paper. “Mama, put the cigarettes out before you fall asleep. Our firemen aren't half as cute as that calendar Ms. K bought you.”

Mama waved a dismissive hand. “Pah. I wasn't sleeping.” Then she raised a black eyebrow. “Not as cute?”

Camila shook her head. “Not even close.”

“Damn.” Mama leaned back, letting her eyes trail back to the TV which was showing something about a meteor hitting the dog park. Mama’s unwashed hair stuck up in the back, a black and gray nest dented on one side from where it lay against the armrest. What would it take to convince Mama to take a shower? Those hot firemen probably.

Camila stood up, careful to avoid a bowl of bloated Cheerios in sour milk. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Mama shook her head, switched the channel to HSN, and watched the designer model a new handbag.

“Did you take your pills?”

Mama nodded, her mouth open, mesmerized as a woman slung another purse over her bony shoulder. In the TV light, Mama’s eyes looked sunken, her skin translucent. How much weight had she lost this time? Ten pounds? Fifteen?

Heavyhearted, Camila stepped over the piles in the hallway. She turned into the bathroom, clicked the door shut, and opened the medicine cabinet. She held the orange pill bottle up to her eye. Seroquel XR prescribed to Luisa Acha. She pressed her palm down on the white cap and the child safety lock opened with a soft pop. Camila dropped the pills into her palm.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…Shit.Mama had not taken her pill today.

Walking to the back of the trailer, Camila shot one last glance toward the living room, flickering in blue light. She smelled Marlboro Ultras. Her mother had lit another cigarette.

She shut her bedroom door and dug out the little piece of paper tucked in her pocket. Opening it, she eyed the name and phone number, penned in secret, scrawled while Mama was down the street visiting Ms. K. If Mama knew what she was about to do…. It didn't matter if Mama freaked. Mama hadn’t worked in eight months. The unemployment barely paid the trailer’s mortgage and Camila wasn’t even sure if Mama had renewed it last month. Camila had dropped out of junior college and taken the first job she could find, but soon they’d be evicted. Or they’d both died in a burning pyre of Mama’s own making.

She pulled out her cellphone and dialed the number with trembling fingers.

Camila pressed the phone to her ear until it throbbed. Please, please, please pick up. With her other ear she listened down the hall for Mama.

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