The Sigh of Joshua Trees

By Iris Green

We waited for the old yellow school bus, hoping to see it shimmering in the lazy heat from a distance, to save us from baking. Nina stood next to me, licking salty lips, and every so often gathering her thick dark hair, twisting it into a bun, and then just releasing it out of exhaustion. With tank tops and shorts no higher than two inches above our knees, we girls plastered water- and sweat-drenched paper towels on our foreheads and necks, just to cool off. Any other time, I would have thought I was one of the lucky ones. I normally sweat very little, just a bit on my forehead and on my nose. But this time I stared with envy at the other girls, sweat rolling off temples and chins, generating minute relief from the sun-singed wind.

"I wish the guys would share," one of the girls said.

We all turned around to see what she was talking about. The boys were gathered in a circle, which was a little odd, and I watched with curiosity and jealousy as one of them guzzled down a long wet swallow of icy soda. I imagined feeling the fizzles and the tingling sensations rolling down my throat. But my interest peaked when Davis, the cutest guy on our bus route, looked in our direction and smiled.

It was obvious whom he was smiling at.

Nina seemed oblivious to the stare, or pretended to be, her attention focused on her little pink pencil pouch. It was made of a soft plastic, and on the front there was an animated kitten character with balloon-bloated words that spelled out HELLO underneath it. With a trim index finger, nails bitten to the nubs, Nina traced the outline of the kitten character and began humming.

"Yes?" she asked.

"What?" I replied, irritated.

Nina was the only person in the world who could get away with calling me that. Yes is not a name but an affirmation. Positive. Void of negative. But for her, it's my name. Period. When we were little, Nina couldn't pronounce Yesenia, and by the time her mouth allowed its pronunciation, Yes stuck. Nina held on to that name with the stubbornness of tightly rusted hinges.

But the name didn't sound as bad when Nina said it. Her voice always held a girlish drawl to it. Coupled with twin dimples that accented each cheek, no matter whom she was talking to, she was able to charm anyone.

She never got to finish what she was going to say, because it was then that Davis approached us. I could tell from the beginning that it was Nina he wanted to talk to, but out of politeness he acknowledged us all.

Everyone said their hellos. I only gave Davis a smiling acknowledgement.

"Can I talk to Nina for a minute?"

The rest of us watched as Davis pulled Nina to the side. I don't know what he was saying, but I wished I was up on lip reading. Nina said very little, but every once in a while she smiled, and her dimples bloomed. We watched as Davis handed a Sprite to Nina, then walked away.

"Wow," I said when Nina returned. "He must like you a lot."

"No, it was meant for all of us," she said.

I knew there wasn't any truth to that statement, but Nina offered us girls a sip of the soda, and eagerly, we swallowed its wet coolness.

"Here you go, Nina. We don't want to hog it all," said Sasha, one of the girls in our circle of friends.

Our school bus just arrived. We clamored on single file, and Nina spotted a seat in the middle of the bus. We were one of the first students to get a seat, but already the bus held a stifling musty odor, coupled with cheap perfume. I wondered if the smell was an imprint left over from our morning ride.

Nina and I edged our way into our seats in the middle of the bus. We were all going to go home first, settle and get our swimsuits on, and then head over to Sasha's house for an afternoon swim.

Normally we would sit with Sasha and the others in the back, but not always. The popular kids sat back there, and while Nina and I had made names for ourselves, we were flexible. Fluid, like water. We fit in with the "in-crowd" or we could move on to others. Either. Or. It didn't matter. Like chameleons that blended in or blended out.

Sometimes Nina and I sat to ourselves. Those were days when neither of us
was talkative, as if our jaws insisted on having a rest. It was those quiet rides home, Nina sitting by my side, the window on my other, that made those times so memorable. I would stare out the window and watch the desert landscape pass us by.

The Joshua trees, with their brown dry skin and multi-limbed hairiness, resembling sun-parched cactuses, growing only an inch every one hundred years, according to legend. There were trees that were many feet tall or wide, as if they had grown out to escape the boundaries of their roots. Thousands of years old. One inch every one hundred years. It made me think of eternity.

At other times on those quiet rides home Nina and I would read a book together. Her favorites were from the Sweet Valley High series; mine were from the Babysitters Club series. We would take turns reading either series during a given week. And then we would talk about the drama of it all, as if discussing the who's-sleeping-with-whom of the soap operas.

Nina nudged me. "Drink more of the Sprite. I don't want to be like hogging it all."

I gripped the soda and took a swallow. I looked at the dewy can. There were little muddy puddles on the surface, results of Nina and everyone's dirty hands.

The bus began making its stops, and I watched as Davis filed past our seats to get off. Nina was fidgeting with some papers, so she didn't notice when Davis smiled and blew her a secret kiss. I saw and wondered what it would be like for a guy to look at me that way, and make me feel special.

A number of kids were still on the bus in the back. There appeared to be a little commotion going on behind us, and I glanced back to see what the slightly-out-of-normal ruckus was all about.

Sasha nudged Nina to attention. "Here, you dropped this," she said, and quickly hid her mouth behind a cupped hand.

"Oh! Thank you," Nina smiled, her dimples showing. "I didn't even realize I had dropped it."

Nina looked down to her pencil pouch, given to her face down. She was still smiling, but when she turned the pouch over, her smile faltered like a dead-end street.
The little kitten cartoon character was still there, but the ELL of the HELLO was scratched out, leaving only the "H" and the "O." HO. As in Whore, Slut, Tramp. Nina must've sensed my blood turn thick as I readied to challenge our friends, to find out who would do such a thing.

"Yesenia, no," she whispered. She held her head down, as if in ceremonial reverence.

I couldn't see her face because her thick hair, like a veil, shielded her expression from view. What I did see were the tears falling on the pencil pouch, covering the little animated kitten. Dropping on that vile word. Washing. Cleansing. Purifying.