Carmela Full of Wishes

Carmela scootered along the uneven dirt path, watching men stoop to work with their hands, her birthday bracelets jingling and jangling. The thick greenhouse air smelled of marigolds and overturned earth and fresh manure. Carmela knew exactly what manure was, but she didn’t want to think about that. Not today.

Today she awoke to candles in her pancakes, and her mom sang, “Happy birthday to you!” and told her, “Go on, mija, make a wish!” But Carmela’s wish had already come true. She was finally old enough to go with her big brother.

Carmela followed as he cut back onto the street at Freedom Boulevard, past the crowded bus stop and fenced-off repair shop, past the old folks’ home where two hunched old women waved smiles, past the huge home improvement store where her dad used to stand around weekend mornings, waiting for work. Carmela tried to make small talk with her brother as their metal cart rattled, but her brother didn’t make small talk back. He didn’t want her tagging along. Too bad! she told him with her glare.

Just outside the Laundromat, she picked a lone dandelion growing among the concrete weeds. She pulled a breath and leaned toward the fuzzy white bulb, but just before she could blow, her brother butted in. “Did you even make a wish? You’re supposed to make a wish. Everyone knows that.” “Of course I made a wish,” she told him. But it was a lie. Carmela didn’t know.

Carmela helped her brother sort colors one-handed, helped him load the washers one item at a time. While their clothes spun, her imagination turned, each new thought ushered in by a jingle of bracelets. Her brother found the sound annoying and shot her a dirty look. Too bad! she told him with her glare.

She jingled her bracelets as she rode up to Miss Maria’s vegetable stand, imagining a machine built into her bedroom wall, one that would spit out anything she could think of. But mostly candies.

She jingled her bracelets in line at the locksmith shop, imagining her mom sleeping in one of those fancy hotel beds she spent all day making for fancy guests.

She jingled her bracelets at the bodega down the block from their old apartment building, imagining her dad getting his papers fixed so he could finally be home.

She jingled her bracelets outside the pharmacy, eyeing the shiny new bikes in the window. Her brother stopped in his tracks. “Why do you have to be so annoying?” She thrummed her bracelets at him and said, “It’s a free country.”

The only time she didn’t reach for her bracelets was when her brother ducked into his friend’s house. Carmela slumped down on the curb, silently imagining all the things she could turn him into. The slimy pink tail of a rat. A cockroach scurrying away from the light. A wheelbarrow full of manure left in the sun. She stared down at the dandelion in her hand. It seemed so much more important now that she knew it was a place to put her wishes. What if she made the wrong choice?