[SHORT STORY – Published in the Washington Writers’ Publishing House
anthology This Is What America Looks Like, 2021]
By Garine Isassi

“First you name me ‘Hripsime’ and now this!”

“’Hripsime’ was a saint and a martyr. Get your feet off the dashboard.” Her mom swatted at Ripsy’s shins with her non-driving hand where her legs bridged between the passenger seat and the glove compartment.

“She was a victim of sexual harassment and murder.”

“Well, Ripsy, they didn’t call it that in ancient Armenia.”

Ripsy pulled her feet down. She twirled the graduation mortarboard hat between her index fingers. The tassel caught in the elastic of the facemask that dangled from her wrist like a Courtier’s handkerchief.

Since all high school graduation ceremonies were cancelled, Ripsy’s mother, Sophie, had a grand idea to dress Ripsy up and parade her under the famous street sign, named after great-grandfather Levon of Simonian family lore, at the crossroad of Simonian Lane and Love Street. Mom would subsequently mortify her by posting it publicly on social media with a variety of hashtags. Mom, like all moms, didn’t seem to understand that when she tagged Ripsy’s twitter name, @PippyRips, her schoolmates also saw it – some of whom followed twitter accounts specifically for ammunition to cause social demotion at Quince Orchard High School.

Besides, Ripsy didn’t feel like celebrating. The COVID-19 lockdown voided all the fun stuff too– no prom, no spring track team, no banquets – and left her with nothing but a 10-week stream of homework to finish out her high school years.

They turned off Route 15, onto Sabillasville Road, also known to Rispy and her brothers as ‘Nowhereville Road.’ It snaked through Catoctin Mountain Park, location of the famed Presidential Retreat, deliberately hidden in this podunk patch of Maryland so as not to be easily found. You couldn’t even get cellphone reception here.

“So, do you think Camp David is that way?” Ripsy waved her hand across her mother’s field of vision, with her middle finger shooting the bird.

“Stop!” Sophie cried, swatting again. “There’s probably spy gear along here.”

“Nowhereville Road” took them to open farmland on the other side of the park, almost to Pennsylvania, but not quite.

It had been over two years since they had come out here. Ripsy knew that when her mom was a kid, the family took a yearly photo under the signs. Once Ripsy and her bothers were born, they were dragged out here periodically for additional cheesy family endeavors. The only other time there was a solo photo of Ripsy in this backwater, was from her kindergarten graduation. Obviously, her mom would juxtapose the two graduation photo shoots against each other on social media, for heightened cuteness factor of the little girl and the big girl – #AllGrownUp!

“C’mon,” Sophie cajoled, rolling down the window to let in the warm air. “It’s fun. God knows we need something fun right now. “

Ripsy rolled her eyes, which sent her mother into lecture mode.

“My grandfather escaped a Stalinist work camp as a teenager – your age! Immigrated to the U.S. and built his farm up here with his own hands. He and my father worked hard to build the grocery store chain from nothing! He was so honored when they renamed the street after him.”

Ripsy joined into her homily, so in unison, they said, “It was the first time Pop ever saw his father cry.” Ripsy pulled the top part of her graduation robe away from the back of her neck. “Geez, this robe is itchy.”

Her great-grandfather Levon began Smart Fruit Grocery as a stand next to his small farm. He priced on a sliding scale for local sharecroppers, wealthy travelers and the poorest vagabonds. Nobody mentioned that the only reason his produce ended up labeled “organic” was because he was, at first, too poor and then, too cheap to invest in pesticides and farming chemicals. Ironically, now, Smart Fruit catered to the most affluent customers in the trendiest neighborhoods. Each store pretended old world charm with market-researched, homey interiors and depression era photos of Levon at his fruit stand everywhere.

The tiny country crossroad was not only the site of the first Smart Fruit Stand, but also the first meeting of Pop and Nana, Sophie’s parents. Nana and her family stopped to buy cantaloupe on their way to Harrisburg, immediately discovered that the Simonians were Armenian too, and the rest is history. They’ve been together for 73 years and even now, held hands like they were still 12 years old on the fateful day they met.

As they turned on to Simonian Road, Sophie gasped and slowed the car. The vines and scrubby shrubs along one side of the road had been cleared. Orange cones and an electrical line took the place of the disappeared greenery.

“Mom? What the hell?”

“Sweetie, please don’t curse,” her mother distractedly advised.

Within 15 feet of the intersection to Love Street, a parade-style barricade blocked Simonian Lane. Beyond it, the tree line along the right side turned into a chain link fence. Both Sophie and Ripsy leaned forward in their seats as the car rolled to a halt.

“What the hell?” Sophie said. She grabbed her iphone from the drink cup holder and checked for cell service, which she found.

In mirrored synchronization, they exited the car and walked to the barricade. Ripsy still had the mortarboard in her hand. The unzipped graduation gown billowed out behind her in a light breeze.

Where there used to be land behind a gentle line of trees, there was now an active farm behind a metal fence, topped with barbed wire. Ripsy followed her mom around the barricade as if in a trance. At least 20 people dotted the field, bent over spring-high corn stalks, apparently weeding the rows, their dark heads bobbing as they pulled unwanted seedlings of clover or dandelion.

“This isn’t right.” Sophie said. “Why wouldn’t they use a tractor and soil cultivator?”

As they walked to the crossroad, watching the field, Ripsy realized that these workers were not normal farm hands. Many of them had long hair. They were silent, small and narrow shouldered. They were children.

Sophie ordered Ripsy to stand under the sign, as she fiddled with her phone.

“Are you kidding? Isn’t this beyond weird? Mom?”

“Don’t you see the truck?” Her mother cast her eyes up Love Street, stepped back and ordered, “Smile!”

Ripsy turned to see a white Jeep Wrangler with a wide green stripe along the side coming toward them. Then she was distracted by one of the kids in the field standing up to full height. Then, all of them were curiously looking toward Ripsy and Sophie.

Ripsy heard the click of her mother taking a photo or a video, then another and another. Ripsy turned and put on her graduation cap, doing dramatic, fashion poses, even though she knew her mother was not focusing the lens on her. After each shot, Sophie fiddled with the touch screen.

“Mom,” Ripsy’s voice cracked a little, through the fake smile she held on her face. “What should we do when they get here?”

Sophie stepped up close to her, taking her hand. Her mom was shaking slightly, even in the springtime sun.

“Follow my lead,” Sophie pleaded, staring straight into Ripsy. “Like when we haggle with that farmer’s market woman.”

Ripsy nodded. Then Sophie began taking more photos, this time focusing on Ripsy with the phone, clicking away as Ripsy continued to smile and turn her head this way and that.

The jeep rumbled up and two uniformed ICE agents got out. Both wore facemasks.

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” the taller one addressed Sophie, standing stiffly. “You are not supposed to be here.” The shorter agent had freckles around his eyes and he watched Ripsy as she covered her fake smile with the facemask that had been on her wrist this whole time.

“Oh!” Her mom put on her ditsy voice. “We’re just taking some photos,” She swept her arm toward Ripsy. “We love that this is called ‘Love Street’” She smiled at the man. Ripsy noted how her mom was the only one bare-faced of the four of them standing there.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he relaxed slightly and said jovially, “My mom took a lot of photos when I graduated. May I see?”

He politely opened his palm toward Sophie, who stared at it a moment. Ripsy’s heart raced. Sophie slowly handed over the phone, glancing back at Ripsy. The second agent stepped closer to look. Sophie leaned in too.

Ripsy took the chance to turn her back on them, keeping her head up, looking over the field, while reaching one hand through the black folds of her graduation gown to her own phone in her pants pocket.

After a moment, she heard Sophie say, “This one’s cute, isn’t it?”

The taller agent seemed startled and quickly said, “Ma’am, this is a restricted area and we have to ask you to delete some of these photos.”

“Oh no! I hope not this one?”

“These that show our facility in the background. I’m going to delete them.” Which he immediately began to do, even clearing the backup folders in the phone’s memory.

“But then we won’t have any full shots with the signs!” She feigned a whiny demeanor.

“Mom,” Ripsy echoed the same whine, for full effect. “Did we come all the way out here for nothing?”

The men looked at each other, with smirks in their eyes.

The agent holding her phone made an offer. “I’ll take some of you together!”

Sophie clapped her hands, “OK!” she exclaimed. “Sweetie, come stand over here.”

Ripsy came. They stood under the sign as the young officer turned his back to the field. The weeding activity resumed in the cornfield but Ripsy saw the furtive glances in their direction. He took photos with the opposite side of the street in the background – green trees, even some wildflowers – and the street signs.

He then walked away from them, toward their car, which appeared abandoned on the other side of the barricade. It seemed to be their cue to follow. He was flipping through the images as he walked. Suddenly he stopped and stared at the phone. Ripsy’s stomach knotted. She and her mom halted beside him.

“Here! You both look beautiful in this one!” He held the screen toward the mother and daughter, seemingly very proud of himself.

“Wow,” Ripsy’s clenched stomach turned. She was genuinely surprised, peering into the phone. “That is a great picture! Weird. . .” she trailed off.

“Well, thank you so much!” Sophie swiftly took back the phone back. “I guess we’ll just head out now.” Ripsy grabbed her mom’s free hand and they sped-walked together around the barricade, only parting to dash into the front seats on either side of the car. As her mom turned the engine, she waved at the two men, who continued to observe them. She did a slow three-point turn and cautiously drove away.

Ripsy and her mom both sat stick straight in their seats, alternately breathing hard or not at all, and saying nothing. As Sophie turned back on to Sabillasville Road, she drove exactly the speed limit while Ripsy vigilantly watched the side of her mother’s face.

As they left the no-cell-service zone of the park, Ripsy’s pulled her phone out of her pocket, ready to show her mom the photos she secretly took of the kids in the field and even some of the agents during the two minutes they were occupied with deleting everything on Sophie’s phone. Instead, it began to ping repeatedly. A flurry of twitter and instagram messages tagged with @PippyRips popped up, along with the hashtags #migrantchildrenarechildren, #wherearethechildren and #familiesbelongtogether.

“Holy shit, Mom! What did you do?”

Sophie pulled into the Sheetz gas station, lurching to park at the far side of the lot.

She turned to Ripsy, her lower lip trembling and said, “Sweetie, please don’t curse.”

Then Ripsy watched in stunned silence as her mom stumbled out of the car to the grassy area beyond the curb and threw up.

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