The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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    Oscar! I screamed but it was too late. My mother already had me in her hands. She looked so thin and worn, almost like a hag, but she was holding on to me like I was her last nickel, and underneath her red wig her green eyes were furious . I noticed, absently,that she had dressed up for the occasion. That was typical. Muchacha del diablo, she shrieked. I managed to haul her out of the coffee shop and when she pulled back her hand to smack me I broke free. I ran for it. Behind me I could feel her sprawling, hitting the curb hard with a crack, but I wasn’t looking back. No—I was running. In elementary school, whenever we had field day I was always the fastest girl in my grade, took home all the ribbons; they said it wasn’t fair because I was so big, but I didn’t care. I could even have beat the boys if I’d wanted to, so there was no way my sick mother, my messed-up tío, and my fat brother were going to catch me. I was going to run as fast as my long legs could carry me. I was going to run down the boardwalk, past Aldo’s miserable house, out of Wildwood, out of New Jersey, and I wasn’t going to stop. I was going to fly .
     
    Anyway, that’s how it should have worked out. But I looked back. I couldn’t help it. It’s not like I didn’t know my Bible, all that pillars-of-salt stuff, but when you’re someone’s daughter that she raised by herself with no help from nobody, habits die hard. I just wanted to make sure my mom hadn’t broken her arm or cracked open her skull. I mean, really, who the hell wants to kill her own mother by accident? That’s the only reason I glanced back. She was sprawled on the ground, her wig had fallen out of reach, her poor bald head out in the day like something private and shameful, and she was bawling like a lost calf, Hija, hija. And there I was, wanting to run off into my future. It was right then when I needed that feeling to guide me, but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. Only me. In the end I didn’t have the ovaries. She was on the ground, bald as a baby, crying, probably a month away from dying, and here I was, her one and only daughter. And there was nothing I could do about it. So I walked back, and when I reached down to help her she clamped on to me with both hands. That was when I realized she hadn’t been crying at all. She’d been faking! Her smile was like a lion’s.
    Ya te tengo, she said, jumping triumphantly to her feet. Te tengo.
     
    And that is how I ended up in Santo Domingo. I guess my mother thought it would be harder for me to run away from an island where I knew no one, and in a way she was right. I’m into my sixth month here and these days I’m just trying to be philosophical about the whole thing. I wasn’t like that at first, but in the end I had to let it go. It was like the fight between the egg and the rock, my abuela said. No winning. I’m actually going to school, not that it’s going to count when I return to Paterson, but it keeps me busy and out of mischief and around people my own age. You don’t need to be around us viejos all day, Abuela says. I have mixed feelings about the school. For one thing, it’s improved my Spanish a lot. The ——— Academy is a private school, a Carol Morgan wannabe filled with people my tío Carlos Moya calls los hijos de mami y papi. And then there’s me. If you think it was tough being a goth in Paterson, try being a Dominican York in one of those private schools back in DR. You will never meet bitchier girls in your whole life. They whisper about me to death. Someone else would have a nervous breakdown, but after Wildwood I’m not so brittle. I don’t let it get to me. And the irony of all ironies? I’m on our school’s track team. I joined because my friend Rosío, the scholarship girl from Los Mina, told me I could win a spot on the team on the length of my legs alone. Those are the pins of a winner, she prophesied. Well, she must have known something I didn’t because I’m now our school’s top runner in the 400 meters and under. That I have talent at this simple thing never ceases to amaze me. Karen would pass out if she could see me running sprints out behind my school while Coach Cortés screams at us, first in Spanish and then in Catalan. Breathe, breathe, breathe! I’ve got like no fat left on me, and the musculature of my legs impresses everyone, even me. I can’t wear shorts anymore without causing traffic jams and the other day when my abuela locked us out of