Back in the day, our building sounded more like San Juan than the mainland, but that’s changed a lot as the neighborhood started to gentrify. Still, most of the people here are still like Ma. People who came here scared, many of them maybe legal, maybe not. People who never quite shook off that fear and the hardness that comes from it. I know that at some point we’re going to have to figure out a different situation for her. One day this place will be sold out from under her to some high-rise developer, just like all the other buildings in Midtown, and she’ll have nowhere to go. I only pray I’ll know what to do when it happens.
But things are a little better now. For one, she doesn’t have to worry about raising kids anymore now that we’re all grown. There’s no more asking K.C.’s mom to sign parental consent forms as our guardian, or latching onto less-than-nice dudes to make ends meet when she was in between odd jobs. The first thing I did when I started at FedEx was to transfer her lease under my name and start paying the rent. But she still won’t open the door to people she doesn’t know. Which means when things break, it’s still up to me to fix them.
“Ven, papi,” she beckons me to a spot on the couch, the same faded, flowered sleeper we’ve had since I was a kid. For a long time, this couch was my bed.
I sit down. “Que pa’o, Mami?”
“This girl?” she asks. “The blanquita Gabe was talking about? Who is she?”
I frown. Blanquita isn’t exactly the nicest word for what Layla is: a rich girl, probably a white girl. Someone who thinks she’s better than everyone else. Stuck-up.
“Did Gabe call her that?”
Ma shrugs, but shakes her head. Which means it was probably one of my sisters. Maggie, I’m guessing.
I chew on my lip, a habit I get from my mother, but I can’t will away the tight feeling in my chest when I think about Layla. We’ve texted a few more times today, and honestly, I’m dying to get back down there, even if it’s just to kiss her goodnight. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to go without telling her just how I feel.
“I see...” my mother says as she watches my face.
I sigh. My mom’s always been able to read me like a book. So I shrug. There’s no use hiding it.
“She’s nice,” I say. “She’s smart.”
Ma doesn’t reply. Not all Puerto Rican women are loud and obnoxious. My sisters have no problem fulfilling that stereotype, but my mother is the quiet type. Her silences speak just as loudly, and right now, this one is screaming doubt.
She hums a little under her breath and nods. She pushes back her hair, which is coarse, threaded with gray through the black, and tied into a little knot at the back of her head. It sticks out around her face a little, just like always. She could never afford to have it done when we were kids, and she refuses the money I give her for it now. Stupid, she says. Waste of money.
“Gabe said that she goes to college,” Ma states. “She’s white?”
I swallow roughly. “No. She’s Brazilian. Her dad’s from Rio, I think.”
I don’t answer the question about her family’s money. I know my mother. She’s had a hard life. Her whole life, she was the kind of person who cleaned other people’s houses instead of having hers cleaned. Layla hasn’t said much about her dad’s family, but she said she drove through the slums in Rio. She didn’t get out and stay.
Ma just wrinkles her nose. “They don’t speak Spanish.” It’s not a question.
I roll my eyes. “No, they don’t. But she doesn’t really speak Portuguese either, so...”
My mother’s big eyes flash dangerously. Fuck, that was the wrong thing to say. To someone like my mother, that right there is a sign that Layla really is a blanquita, no matter where her dad was born. And from what Layla has told me, her dad is exactly the kind of man my mother despises. The kind of man who turns his back on his own.
I sit silently. There’s no use arguing about it with her. My mother is stubborn, completely immovable. I know she’ll love Layla when she meets her—one day, maybe, in the very distant future. But for now, maybe it’s easier to just pretend things don’t matter.
“It’s no big deal,” I mutter in English, sitting forward and examining my hands.
“‘No big deal’,” Mom repeats in her thick accent before reverting back to Spanish. “What does this mean? Is this ‘no big deal’ the reason you are not going to Los Angeles?”
I look up sharply. When I broke the news earlier today that I was staying, Ma was so happy she cried and made arepas. No one else knows yet, but it’s different with her. She’s my mother.
“She—I—”
The words won’t come out the way they’re supposed to. I want to say no, say I decided I was better off staying here. I want to say Layla had nothing to do with it, even though she had everything to do with it.
My mother puckers her lips and makes a sort of squeaky sound between them while she raises her almost non-existent eyebrows. It’s a look I know well. It means I’m full of shit.
I hang my head.
After a few moments, I feel a hand on my back, urging me to sit up. Ma cups my face with her hand and runs her coarse thumb over my cheekbone.
“My beautiful boy,” she says. “If you reach too high for the stars, you’re going to fall.”
My throat feels thick. This is not what I was expecting her to say, but I shouldn’t be surprised. “But—”
“Mira,” she commands. “I didn’t want you to go to move away, but I knew it would make you happy. This girl, I don’t know her, but I don’t think she will. Too different. You need to be your own man now. You don’t need her to hold you back and hurt you later when she becomes tired with you.” She clasps my hand. “Believe me, papito. I know. That’s what they always do.”
A hundred things fly through my head. That Layla would never do that. That she’s not like the assholes that used my mother and left her worse off than she was before. That when I’m with her, I don’t feel like some loser from the barrio, or some brown-skinned guy she wants to get off with, but just me, just Nico.
But Ma has always had the ability to puncture fantasies. If I’m being honest, it’s probably one of the reasons I’ve been trying to leave for so long. As much as I love my family, I wouldn’t mind taking a break from people who have a tendency to shoot each other down, even if it is out of a sense of survival.
“Okay, Ma,” is all I have to say in the end. “I gotta go. I have to be at work in a few hours.”
I lean down and deliver kisses on both my mother’s cheeks. She clasps my face tightly before letting me go. We don’t say I love you before I leave. Those are not words my mother uses lightly, if at all.
Long after I leave, her words echo through my head. Somehow, someway, they hit their mark. And when I get on the train, I go uptown to my empty apartment instead of downtown, where Layla sleeps, thinking I’ll be back.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Layla
“Oh, shame take all her friends then! But howe’er
Thou and the baser world censure my life,
I’ll send ‘em word by thee, and write so much
Upon thy breast, ‘cause thou shalt bear ‘t in mind:
Tell them ‘twere base to yield where I have conquer’d.
I scorn to prostitute myself to a man,
I that can prostitute a man to me:
And so I greet thee.”
Quinn intones another quote from the massive English study packet. My British Literature exam is next week, and it won’t be easy. I’m terrible at memorizing texts verbatim, and it’s ten times worse when it’s for a class that, up to now, has focused almost solely on medieval epic poetry and Renaissance literature. I thought that Nico would be upset that I had to forgo our usual Friday night date, but he immediately switched nights with the other doorman at AJ’s so we could go out tonight instead. Seriously, he’s almost as bad as Quinn about making sure I do my schoolwork.
The last few weeks haven’t been as bad as I thought. I
spent a little over a week recovering and forcing Nico to stay at his place instead of mine, and since then, I’ve taken an extra week off on the doctor’s orders to avoid a relapse. No late nights. No long days walking around the city. Class, studying, and only on the weekends is Nico willing to hang out for more than an hour, usually bringing me up to his place to hole up for a movie night. It’s been nice. And then it got boring. Fast.
Seriously. I didn’t move to New York to watch reruns of You’ve Got Mail. And there is no way that Nico’s not bored either. I’m pretty much done with him treating me with kid gloves, and I think it’s been affecting our normal rapport. I can’t really tell you why, but something’s different. Little things. I’ll catch Nico looking out the window, gazing off into space in the middle of a conversation. Or maybe his mom or one of his siblings call, and he looks like he’s in pain. Nothing big. But I can’t help but feel like I’ve only added to his burdens.
Well, no more of that.
“Ooh, an easy one,” I say. “That’s The Roaring Girl, by Middleton and Dekker. Published in 1611. It’s about a crossdressing chick named Moll, and that’s the scene where she basically tells the guy to fuck off, that she can be the seducer, and then they sword-fight. I love that play.” I chuckle. “Some days I’d love to toss these stupid binding things we have to wear, and be all, fuck you, I can be a man too! I could even get a sword and take up dueling.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing you wielding a rapier,” Quinn remarks as she marks the passage, indicating I know it. “You probably shouldn’t say ‘fuck’ in your exam, but otherwise you got it. That’s the last one. You’re getting better at this, babe.”
“And it only took me two whole days!”
I’m finally starting to feel caught up with the classes I missed while I was sick. Quinn and I have been quizzing each other on and off for the last forty-eight hours, and we’ve earned a much-needed night out. I’m rallying with an extra Diet Coke while I wait for Nico to pick me up. My doctor gave me the okay to drink caffeinated beverages again (thank God), but I’m supposed to keep it to two a day for a while. I’ve been saving this one.
Nico and I haven’t really been able to go out go out since I was in the hospital, so tonight he’s taking me to one of those huge midtown clubs where celebrities are always in the VIP rooms, and where I never go simply because I can’t afford a thirty-dollar cover. He used to work there, so we can get in for free. I’m excited to see what this kind of place is like, considering I’ve generally stuck to the small bars and cabarets that proliferate downtown Manhattan. But mostly I’m excited because K.C., the K.C., is spinning there tonight, and I finally get to meet Nico’s very best friend.
That is, if Nico actually shows up.
I glance at the clock on my desk, which reads 10:09. Nico’s very late, over two hours, in fact. According to a rushed call at eight, he had dinner with his family and lost track of the time. He had to take the train back up to his apartment, and then he was coming back downtown to pick me up. There have been no phone calls since.
One by one my roommates have left, not wanting to spend our one night out this week sitting around waiting for my boyfriend to show up. Shama took off at about nine to hang at Fat Black’s with Jason, and Jamie followed about twenty minutes later after hearing that Jason had brought friends.
“I think that’s enough,” I tell Quinn.
She sets the study packet down. I can tell she’s feeling antsy too. Out of the four of us, she’s easily the best student, and has been saying “no” more often than not to going out in order to get an A in her Organic Chemistry class. Tonight is also her much-needed break too, and I know she doesn’t want to miss it.
I lumber off my bed to check my appearance again in the full-length mirror we keep by the door. This is the fifth time in an hour I’ve done this.
“Babe, you still look gorgeous,” Quinn says from her bed.
Quinn’s got her second-best dark jeans, a gorgeous green shirt that brings out her eyes, and her new designer heels that she bought with some of the money her dad sends her each month. I try not to stare enviously at them; my own shoes, which I bought in Brazil two years ago, were beautiful when I bought them, but the heels have definitely seen better days.
I’ve still stepped it up a notch, since I’m supposed to be going to such a high-profile club. I borrowed a gold, sequined-covered mini-dress from Shama that she bought at a sample sale last year, which I’ve paired with my black strappy stilettos and a vintage black clutch. Jamie helped me teased my curls out Beyoncé-style. I look approvingly at myself in the mirror. While I was on bed rest, Nico and the girls have been stuffing me silly, and I’ve finally gained a bit of the weight back that I lost. I fill out this dress the way I’m supposed to, and I look appropriately diva-esque for a nightclub. Too bad there’s no one here to take me.
“You sure you don’t want to go to the club too?” I ask. “It would be better than Fat Black’s again...”
“I...yeah. Probably not,” Quinn says as I turn around. “I won’t leave you here by yourself, babe, but I don’t really want to be the third wheel either. Unless you wanna just say ‘fuck him’ and come with me?”
I purse my lips, considering. It’s a tempting thought. I’m trying not to be too pissed about Nico’s disappearance, but the truth is, I’m starting to feel stood up. He should have been here a long time ago. Shades of Teddy, my asshole of an ex who used to skip out on our dates all the time, are also messing with my mind.
“No,” I finally say with a shake of my head. Nico’s not the type to play me like that. “Something has probably happened. But, Quinn, don’t waste your night. You should go ahead.”
I sit back down on the bed and gather up my study materials, trying my hardest not to glance at the phone that has been sitting silent on my desk.
“Are you sure?” Quinn’s asking to be nice, but she’s already standing up.
I smile. “Of course. I have this to keep me company.” I hold up the study packet, and Quinn makes a face. “You go have fun. I’ll be fine.”
She evaluates me for a second, then grabs her coat and purse off her bed.
“Give him hell,” Quinn says as she passes by, her heels clicking on the wood floor. The clock now says it’s closer to ten-thirty. Yeah, I think to myself, I probably will.
* * *
It’s almost eleven by the time my phone finally buzzes next to my feet on the coffee table. I almost fall over in my frenzy to grab it: a text message from Nico, asking me to meet him on the street. I sigh.
For the last half hour, I’ve been alternating between pacing around the apartment and watching crappy television, finding it difficult to evict the nasty suspicions that have gotten stuck in my head and won’t leave. New York’s an easy place to lead a double life—most people who live here rarely venture outside of where they work and live, so getting lost in the eight million people who live here is as simple as taking your date to a different neighborhood. People get conned every day. Jamie once went on a blind date with someone who faked losing his wallet at the restaurant, then talked his way up into our dorm so he could make out with her and leave, but not before stealing her cell phone and Discman. Two weeks later, Shama spotted him at a local Starbucks, giving other NYU students a totally different name.
By the time Nico pulls up in a cab, I’m standing in the lobby of my building literally tapping the sole of my sandal on the hard linoleum. The weather has warmed up a bit during the days, but it’s still cold at night. My head, however, has been getting hotter and hotter with every minute. Once I knew Nico wasn’t maimed or disfigured, my imagination spiraled out of control. There’s a surprising amount of pessimism I can develop in just twenty minutes.
I get into the cab without touching Nico or looking at him, trying not to be affected by the scent of his body wash or the fact that he looks really freaking good dressed up in a pair of slim black pants and a fitted gray shirt. No hat to cover up his thick black hair that he’s a
ctually styled a little for the occasion.
I stare at my lap. He might look like a million bucks, but that doesn’t make him any less late.
“Fifty-Seventh and Eighth,” he calls to the cabbie before turning to me with that hundred-watt smile that seems to glow, even in the dark cab interior. “Hey, baby,” he says. “Damn, you clean up nice. This dress is crazy sexy. I haven’t seen you like this in a while.”
I feel the wall of irritation and suspicion start to crack as he scoots closer to give me a kiss on the cheek and rests one warm hand on my knee, causing unsolicited tingles to ripple up my thigh. I almost return the kiss—I know the addictive softness of those lips, and I haven’t been able to feel them since Monday. I miss him.
Then I remember that he’s almost three hours late. And that he’s been acting kind of weird in general. One phone call. That’s all I got.
“Where were you?” I ask before he manages to brush a kiss across my lips.
Nico pulls back, his dark features twisted with confusion. “What do you mean? I called to let you know I was going to be late.”
I look down at where my hands grip my black velvet clutch and rub my thumb over the vintage ball clasp, avoiding his gaze.
“That was two and a half hours ago, Nico. You couldn’t have called again? When I wasn’t imagining you dead, I thought you were standing me up, and so did my roommates.”
I can’t bring myself to tell him I have also been imagining him with another woman for a lot of that time.
Bad Idea: The Complete Collection Page 30