A Handbook to Luck by Cristina Garcia Page A

she could wrap up a slice to take to her brother.
    Evaristo had returned home to live for a little while but he’d grown restless sleeping in a hammock and eating off a plate. Whenever a flock of doves whirred by, he would gaze at them with such longing that Marta gave up trying to convince him to stay indoors. Her brother was much happier in his tree. When the days were clear and bright, Evaristo felt a part of the hot, bleached skies. In the small hours of the night his tree’s hush and sway soothed him, and its waxy leaves provided camouflage. Plus he loved the smell of the night jasmine, saturating the air like the
putas
downtown.
    â€œWould you like to dance?” a young man asked Marta, catching her off guard. He had hazel eyes and was dressed more formally than the others at the party, with a button-down shirt and a skinny tie. His lips looked too pink for a boy.
    â€œEstá bien,”
Marta answered.
    The dance floor was crowded with middle-aged people, unfamiliar aunts and uncles from her stepfather’s family. The band rushed the hit song “Little Lies,” and the accordionist hammed it up with a flowery solo. Marta spotted her stepfather dancing with Mamá by the avocado tree. His hair was fixed with a glossy pomade and his machete was holstered at his side. They looked happy together for a change.
    Marta’s partner was a good dancer, confident and steady. His name was Alfonso and he worked in the office of a textiles factory in San Salvador. A shipping supervisor was what he called himself but Marta suspected that he was inflating his position like so many men did to impress a girl.
    â€œAre you wearing perfume?” she asked him, sniffing the air.
    â€œIt’s cologne,” Alfonso said, “from France.”
    There was that country again, Marta thought, the same one that made the naughty underwear the rich housewives wore.
    â€œWhere are you from?” Alfonso asked her.
    â€œNear San Vicente, but I’ve been living in San Salvador since I was six.” Marta watched him for any signs of arrogance. Country origins weren’t appreciated by most city folks.
    â€œI think your childhood is more like your country than your actual country,” he said.
    Marta stopped dancing for a moment to think about this. She liked the way it sounded, though she wasn’t sure what it meant. Behind them, the moon rose over the volcano. The band shifted to a slower, more romantic tune. Around them, the couples drew closer.
    Alfonso led her off the dance floor to a wooden bench where a young woman with a horribly swollen leg sat. Marta wanted to tell Alfonso how in the winter she and her brother used to make sleds from the leaves of the newly pruned coconut trees. The leaves were so smooth and wide that they whipped down hills faster than a sneeze.
    â€œHave you ever seen a volcano erupt?” Alfonso asked.
    Marta looked toward Izalco, big and purplish in the distance, and imagined sparks flying from its cone.
    â€œOnce I saw Conchagua go up,” he said. “It was at night and the sky looked like it was exploding with fireworks. And the earth went
brrrrrr, brrrrrr, brrrrrr.
”
    â€œWere you scared?”
    â€œI was too far away to be scared. In school, I read about a city in Italy that was buried in ash. Archaeologists discovered the people a thousand years later in the positions they died in—working the fields, or sweeping the kitchen, or taking a crap.”
    â€œI wouldn’t want to die like that!” Marta laughed. Then she grew quiet again. She envied the schoolgirls in the capital their blue-and-white uniforms and satchels of books. Why couldn’t she be one of them? There were so many things she wanted to know. Her cousin Erlinda had told her that one in a hundred girls was born without a navel
or
a womb. How could Marta be sure this was true?
    She reached up and touched her hair, wavy from the permanent Erlinda had given her. Her