* * *
Two hours later, I’m walking out of my boxing gym in Hell’s Kitchen. It used to belong to Frank, a gristly old dude who took me in when I got out of juvie. I started fighting in detention, but it wasn’t until Frank took me under his wing, gave me a job and a room to sleep in so I could stop being a burden to my mother and start helping her, and started training me to boot, that I really grew up. He died a few years ago, and I miss him like crazy. He was the closest thing to a father I ever had.
After he died, Nate, one of the fighters Frank used to train, bought the place. I was his sparring partner when he got a title match and won back in the day. You could say he’s grateful. I have free access to the gym for as long as Nate owns it.
I’m out just in time to meet my mom and sister for lunch, but the workout has done nothing for my mood. After beating the shit out of a heavy bag for two hours, my fists are still balled up at my sides. Every few minutes I’m taken back to that terrible day last May, when I tore into that shitty apartment uptown and let loose the rage I’ve managed to beat into submission at the gym since I was eighteen. It’s still simmering now, and every time I see Layla’s face, I want to break out some vigilante justice on this city. Track down that asshole and do the job the police are taking their sweet fuckin’ time with.
Whoa. I can practically hear K.C. sitting on my shoulder, saying slow down, papi. I shake my head and pull out my phone. I could use some sense talked into me right now. If anyone can calm me down, it’s K.C.
“Acho, what the fuck? It’s before noon, asshole. You know what time I got in last night? It was light outside, that’s what time. This morning, that’s what time.”
Shit. Of course. I knew K.C. was spinning last night, like he does just about every Friday and Saturday. He wouldn’t have gotten home until close to four or maybe even five. And if he brought home company like he usually does…
Right on cue, there’s a very female voice purring in the background.
“Nah, honey, it’s all good. I’ll be right back. Go back to sleep. Or, you know, don’t.” Then, to me: “Hold on, man.” The sounds of movement filter through the speaker as he switches rooms. “All right, cabrón. What the fuck is up that got you pullin’ me out of my beauty sleep?”
I sigh. “I’m sorry, man. We can talk later. I’m about to get some lunch with Gabe and las gatitas anyway.”
“Well, fuck that. I’m up now, so you better tell me why you’re walkin’ around Hell’s Kitchen instead of holin’ up with your girl this weekend. Everything okay with NYU?”
I swallow. That’s the thing about best friends. They always know.
“She’s…” I sigh, staring down the busy street.
K.C. just keeps talking. “I’m surprised you’re even walkin’ around right now. If I went as long as you without gettin’ that cookie, mano, I’da gone full Cookie Monster, y’know? I’da torn that up—”
“That’s enough,” I bite through his words. I open my mouth to tell my friend what happened last night, but then pause. I’m not sure I want to share Layla’s secrets when I’m not actually sure she has any. Right now, this is just a gut feeling. So I tell him the other truth instead: “Her roommate just arrived. They needed some space, so I went to the gym.”
“Is she hot? The roommate?”
I roll my eyes. And just like that, he’s distracted from the fact that I am definitely not where I should be right now. “Don’t you have a girl in the other room?”
K.C. clicks his tongue suggestively a few times. “Eh. She can wait. Answer the question.”
“It’s just her friend Shama,” I say. “Indian girl from New Jersey. I don’t think you ever met her, did you?”
“Don’t think so…she sounds worth meeting, though. Hot girls always run together, am I right? Maybe I need to come with you to pay NYU a visit. Make sure the apartment is safe and all.”
I chuckle. “We’ll see, man. I don’t need you getting me in trouble with Layla’s friends.” Something else occurs to me. “Hey, you gonna be at your mom’s tomorrow?”
I can hear K.C.’s brain churning on the other side of the phone. “Yeah, I was planning on it. You gonna bring NYU?” He doesn’t ask about Shama, but that’s no surprise. K.C. doesn’t like to mix his, ah, personal exploits with his family.
Leaving Layla here was the worst mistake of my life. The consequences almost cost Layla her life, and she’s still paying for it psychologically in some ways. I just want her back. I want us back. I don’t have much to give a girl like her, someone who comes from money, but I do have family and friends in spades, and all of them are ready to welcome her with open arms.
For the first time this morning, I feel like I have a plan to help.
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s coming. I’ll mention something to Alba too for Sunday. Let’s make it a thing, all right? Welcome her back the right way.”
I come to a stop in front of my family’s old apartment building on Forty-Ninth Street, the one where my mother lived up until last year. The one where K.C. and I grew up together. The vigilante thoughts disappear as I look at the crumbling bricks that now have a demolition notice in front of them. Looks like Mr. Pineo finally sold out to a developer. It’s a shithole, but for a long time, this place, the people in it, they were home. Until I met Layla. I may not be able to give her much, but I can at least give her that. Family. Home.
“All right, man,” I say. “Go back to your, ah, morning. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I keep walking until I get to the pizza joint where I’m meeting my siblings for lunch. Ma is taking my niece, Allie, for the afternoon, giving us some time to get together without her knowing. According to Gabe, there is some stuff to go over.
“Hey,” I say as I slide into the booth my sisters and brother have staked at the end of the restaurant. “I’m starving. Did you order a pie, or do I need to get a couple slices?”
“I’m on a diet,” Selena says, twirling her curly hair, which she’s letting grow natural now. “I’m doing a cleanse. I can’t eat anything but fruit for a week.”
“So basically, you’re planning to gain ten more pounds at the end, right?” Maggie retorts.
“Maggie, be nice,” I say. “Sel’s an adult. She can eat fruit all day if she wants to. It’s just more pizza for us.”
“I’m only telling the truth,” Maggie says. “It happens every time she does one of those crazy diets. Lose five, gain ten. Maybe if you just ate normal, you’d lose your spare tire instead of adding to it.”
“Gata, don’t be sayin’ shit like that,” I cut in just as Selena starts spouting a round of expletives.
Gabe just rolls his eyes at them and purses his lips like he’s whistling. His expression is bright through his smudged glasses. For a second, I smirk. My little brother has turned out to be such a damn brain—he finally had to get some specs this year. I won’t tease him though. He’s killing it in school, and I couldn’t be prouder.
“We ordered a pie,” he says, finally answering my question. “And in the meantime, maybe we can stop talking about Selena’s dumb diet. This came in the mail yesterday.”
Gabe drops a thin white envelope in the center of the table, and his hand shakes a little. I glance suspiciously at him, but then I see the words “U.S. Department of Treasury” printed in the return address.
“Coño,” Selena mutters to herself while Maggie looks at me expectantly.
“Well, open it,” she says. “We’ve been waiting since yesterday, and it’s addressed to you, big brother.”
A little over two months ago, the four of us were crowded with Ma in the office of Ileana Perkins, the immigration worker helping with Ma’s case. Up until last spring, none of us thought there was any hope for our mom, who was born in Cuba, but immigrated illegally to Puerto Rico as a toddler. Her father drowned during the voyage, taking her documentation with him (or so she thinks). After being taken in by K.C.’s grandparents and flying with them into the country, she spent the rest of
her life dodging authorities, mistakenly operating under the assumption that as a Cuban citizen without a birth certificate, she was not ever going to qualify for amnesty.
Shows what we knew. It nearly cost her life to tell us, but as Layla learned in one of her Latin American history classes last year, there were ways for us to return to Cuba to get our mother’s birth certificate. Maybe it was even possible to get relief without it, but Ma was always too scared to try. And as a Cuban citizen who has been in the U.S. for a lot longer than two years, she would automatically qualify for permanent residency.
That said, the textbook chapter that Layla read us was a little misleading. Cuba doesn’t require documentation to enter, but the U.S. government sure as fuck does, and weirdly, it’s the U.S. Treasury that processes the licenses to go. That’s right. It all comes back to the money. According to Ileana, money is the real reason family visitations to Cuba were cut off at the knees this past June.
“They decided that U.S. visitors were spending too much,” she told us when we met her in June, literally a few weeks after a new law was passed making it even harder to go unless you had an immediate family member still living there. “Freakin’ Bush and his cronies. They just want all the money to stack in their coffers, don’t they, the vultures?” she spat as she helped us fill out the application for a general license for me to travel to Santiago.
I didn’t know what to say. Ileana is nice, but she’s definitely a type: about as liberal as you get, ready to denounce any politician she sees, and certainly no fan of the president. I’m fine with that, even though I don’t really know anything about politics. Her taste for vengeance is going to help my mother get her freedom.
The pizza arrives, stacked on an elevated plate. But we don’t touch it, staring at the letter in the middle of the table. I pray to God it contains what we need. I’d like to wipe that scared look off my mother’s face too.
“Well, what does it say?” Maggie asks as I tear open the letter.
I scan the short paragraphs, and my shoulders drop.
“What does it say?” Gabe asks.
“Fuck,” I say as I drop the letter into the middle of the table. “We’re fucked.”
Maggie snatches up the letter and reads it out loud:
Dear Nicolas Soltero,
This is in response to your application dated May 24, 2004, requesting authorization to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba for the purpose of a family visit.
The Cuban Assets Control Regulation 31 C.F.R. Part 515 (The Regulations) prohibits all persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction from dealing in property in Cuba unless the Cuban National has an interest, including all Cuba travel-related transactions for the purpose of visiting a member of a person’s immediate family who is a national of Cuba.
We have reviewed your application and determined that the issuance of a specific license is inconsistent with current U.S. policy because there is no record of the family member you have listed as a Cuban national. Accordingly, your request is hereby denied.
We note that, consistent with §515.561 (a), it would be inappropriate for you to make an application with the Office of Foreign Assets Control for a specific license to visit a member of your immediate family without documentation of the relation.
Sincerely,
Ethan Farrow
Sanctions Coordinator (New York)
Office of Foreign Assets Control
“What?” Selena glances around at us. “What does that mean?”
Gabe reads the letter, mouthing the words softly to himself. “Inappropriate?” he scoffs. “Who the hell are they, your homeroom teacher? Are they gonna send you to the principal’s office?”
I snort. “No. They’re gonna stop me from going to school in the first place.” I drop my head into my hands and groan. “Fuck. Fuck. What are we gonna do?”
But when I look up, my sisters and brother have no answers. The pizza sits on the table, growing cold while they look to me for the next steps.
I got nothing. No ideas. Nada.
It’s a feeling I’m really getting sick of.
Chapter Eight
Layla
“What about this one?”
I turn around to look at the futon Shama’s pointing at and shrug. “It’s all right.” I sit down and immediately scowl. “Okay, I wouldn’t want to have a movie marathon on it, though. You try that.”
Shama flops down on the mattress with me and shakes her head. “Don’t people sell discounted furniture that’s actually comfortable?”
“Maybe we should try that craigslist site instead.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to get ax-murdered.”
I giggle, but she has a point. We get up and start looking around the other selection of couches. We have a small allowance, supplemented by Shama’s parents and my mom, that’s supposed to help us furnish our living room. But I can’t help but notice that my friend hasn’t been that interested in picking out couches. Or unpacking her bags. Or really looking for anything.
“So…I saw Quinn and Jamie last week. We went to lunch.”
I pretend to be interested in a really ugly pink sofa. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Jamie says hi.”
I narrow my eyes. It doesn’t escape me that Quinn didn’t say anything at all. Jamie, on the other hand, has disappeared from my life, like a distant relative you keep forgetting to call back.
“For what it’s worth, I do think Quinn feels bad about everything,” Shama remarks as we both flop down onto a very brown couch. “This one is comfortable.”
“This one looks like a cow pie,” I reply, making Shama laugh. “And that’s great that she feels bad. But I still think it’s better if we’re not friends. I miss J. I miss our group, actually. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that maybe it wasn’t good for me to be around Quinn.”
Last spring wasn’t just about extracting myself from one toxic relationship—it was about getting out of all of them. With her constant belittling and negativity, Quinn definitely qualified as toxic. I need people in my life who can be supportive and constructive. People who don’t have to cut down others to feel good about themselves.
“I just hate that it puts you in a weird position,” I say. “Jamie sort of peaced out over the summer and ended up taking Quinn’s side. I think when she really saw how bad things were, it freaked her out.”
Shama nods. “Well, it was pretty crazy to walk in on you like that. But it’s not like it was your fault. I think Jamie at least knows that.” She sighs. “I remember when I was going through everything with Jason…”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more,” I say. I squeeze her wrist, and Shama gives me a sad smile.
“Yeah, well. You had your own stuff going on.”
“Quinn and Jamie were there?”
She shrugs. “Jamie was. Mostly. Quinn, you know how she is. She had a lot to say about it. Mostly criticizing why I let him come back so many times.”
I nod. “Yeah, I do know how she gets like that.”
“Yeah. Well. One day they are going to have hard shit to deal with too. They think they’re above it, but they’re not. You and I are just early bloomers.”
We collapse together, giggling, even though the casual mention of her heartbreak cuts me through again. I really wasn’t there for her the way I should have been. I’ve been a pretty awful friend.
“What about Romeo?” Shama asks. “He’s been around a lot? You guys pretty much back to normal?”
I shift uncomfortably, and Shama raises a black brow.
“Dish,” she says. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say lamely. “I just got back. Everything is fine.”
“You’re such a terrible liar, Lay. What is it?”
I give a heavy sigh. “It’s not him. It’s me. I’m…I’m still so messed up, Shams.”
“What do you mean?”
I pull absently at my hair. “It’s weird. We started hooking up. And
it’s like it always was, you know? That crazy chemistry.”
Shama smiles dreamily. “Yeah, you guys always had that going for you. Damn, if I could get a guy to look at me the way he looks at you, I don’t think I’d ever be walking.”
I giggle. “That’s how I usually feel. I met up with him last night at AJ’s, and dude, we couldn’t stop. I practically chased him into an employees’ bathroom.”
“Sounds good so far,” Shama says.
I nod. “It was. In the beginning.” That familiar chill hits. “But then…we almost got to the end, and he lost it, slammed his hand into the wall. And it…it freaked me out a little, that’s all.”
“Just the one time?”
I sigh. “I…no. The rest of the night, it was like, we’d get to a certain point, and he’d start to get, you know, really, um, passionate.”
“Like, toss you against a wall and screw your brains out?”
Sometimes I really think my friend is psychic. I sigh. “Well, yeah.”
“Good. You gotta put those muscles to good use, right?”
I smile to myself. “He’s good at…letting go.”
Shama leers. “Oh, I know. I shared an apartment with you before, remember? Lafayette had reeeeeally thin walls, my friend.”
I blush. “Are you serious?”
She nudges me in the shoulder. “Please. You never cared. We had headphones.”
I’m surprised by how un-embarrassed I actually am. But that really was how Nico and I were with each other. Anytime. Anyplace.
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I freeze.” I stare at my hands, now clasped in my lap. “One second he’s making me lose my mind, like he always does. And the next, I’m a scared rabbit, in full-on flight mode. I just want to stop.”
Bad Idea: The Complete Collection Page 79