The Heart Is Not a Size by Beth Kephart Read Free Book Online Page A

mixers? Where is all that supposed to come from?”
    Mack walked to the wall again, snapped on the light. He was ready for the question. He distributed the stack of papers that had been sitting there before him all along—architectural sketches, a series of lists, a page crowded with addresses and maps, health forms, permission forms, another list, this one a checklist. All you could hear for a time was the sound of paper rustling, the sound of sighs, whispers over sighs. The quietest person in the room was the biggest person in the room—a guy with a boulder for a head and with shoulders as wide as North America. He had these incredibly lovely eyes, and thick black hair that had fallen down across his face. I don’t think he moved so much as an eyelash. I looked at him, and then I looked down. The concrete would be hand mixed, I read. We’d each be bringing a hammer, a work apron, and gloves; we could forget about nail guns. A hardware store in El Paso would be providing the lumber, the cost of which was being covered by a sponsor. The pastor, who had helped to build a few buildings before, would oversee construction.
    “Look.” Riley banged her elbow into mine. Iregistered the pain.
    “What’s that?”
    “So much for our Juárez trousseau.” She was pointing to a subsection on a page of lists titled “Attire.” Beneath the heading were instructions about drawstring scrubs and slogan-free Ts, shoes with closed toes, no heels. “How very special,” Riley muttered after I turned to glance at her.
    “How not American,” I whispered back, but not softly enough, evidently, for Mack heard me.
    “Georgia raises a key point here,” Mack announced, and all eyes went first to me before they trailed back up to him. I blushed. “When we’re guests in a place like Juárez, we dial ourselves down,” he said. “We project decency, and caring. No T-shirts advertising favorite rap artists or award-winning beer. No snug-fitting pants. No flashes of skin or of wealth. Wherever we go, we leave a mark. Wearing the right things is one of the ways we leave the right one.”
    “You’re asking us to wear nurses’ pants?” Jazzy demanded.
    “You’ll be grateful for the cotton in that heat,” Mack said.

    “Happy for T-shirts?” Jazzy whined.
    “Better than spandex.”
    “And what about that heat?” Mrs. Marksmen asked in a tone that suggested that Mack should be doing something to fix it. “What about that ?”
    “We keep hydrated,” he answered. “We wear sunblock.”
    Mrs. Marksmen shook her head. She gave me a look that practically pleaded How could you? Riley laughed into her hand. Her fingers were the skinniest and most girllike I’d ever seen; somehow I’d never noticed. She should have been a dancer, I thought. She laughed as light as a breeze.
     
    Later that night, after a spaghetti and meatball dinner that Kev turned into the civilized world’s biggest mess—“They’re not softballs, stupid,” Geoff had declared, glaring; “No dessert,” Mom said, “if you can’t keep the meatball on your plate”—the house grew strangely still. All of us in our own places, with our own thoughts, even Kev somewhere off the trouble radar.
    I was taking a look at one of Geoff’s old SAT books, trying to pack in more vocab for one more round ofshow-me-you’re-smart testing, even though I knew that chances were I had all the words I’d ever learn already stuck up in my head. There’s just a certain amount that fits up there, in the landscape of my brain cells. Only a certain number of neurons that work; I was already packed to capacity. I was on my back with the book held above me. I was on my side, then, practically asleep. I was drifting off remembering Mrs. Marksmen with her perfect hand surf when I realized that there was someone at my door.
    “Your father has something for you,” my mom said when I turned and saw her there. She’d changed into her pajamas—old alma mater sweats from the U of Penn, a