by Alena Dillon
She pushed me back and made a clicking sound with her mouth. “When did my daughter become such an uptight gringa?”
She said that because she knew it was the meanest thing she could say to me, and she’s kind of a bicha.
“It isn’t my fault I never been to Puerto Rico. But that don’t make me any less of a boricua.”
She smiled like she felt bad for me. “Yeah, querida. It kind of does.” Then she pinched the side of my tit to piss me off. “So, you seeing Angel tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t tense up like that. You’ll get wrinkles.” She pressed her thumb into the spot between my eyebrows. “He isn’t perfect, but no one is. At least he makes that bank. With him as your man, you’ll never have to stand in the welfare line. And believe me. That ain’t nothing.”
My mom knew Angel kept putas on the side. “It’s just fucking,” she said. “As long as you’re still seeing that plata, that’s all that counts.”
My mom was what happened when you grew up poor in La Perla, and your bedtime stories were about life in the mainland, where streets were paved with oro. That girl fell asleep, dreamed in currency, and woke up a gold digger in her forties.
But I grew up different. Watching my mom drool over any chacho with a fake Rolex taught me there were more important things than money. Like self-respect. Dignity. Strength. This wasn’t Puerto Rico, and it wasn’t the fucking 1940s. You didn’t need a man anymore. Look at women who were so badass they only used one name: Selena, Oprah, Beyoncé. That could be me: Lucia.
I said that, but then I kicked it with a guy like Angel.
Maybe I liked him at the beginning because I knew it’d make my mom proud, and after years of banging one loser after another, searching for her ticket to a cushier life, she could use something good, I thought. And he was everything she ever wanted. Showy. His wallet was always fat. He wore bling, and sometimes clipped sparkles around my neck too. He smoked expensive cigars. He bought rounds for everyone at the club. But he also checked out asses right in front of me, even chatted up other sluts while I waited on the sidelines. And he didn’t even bother to hide evidence of booty calls in his apartment. One night in bed, I got some other puta’s thong caught in my toes. He didn’t even say sorry. He just laughed.
I was so pissed, I jumped out of bed and threw the thong in his face. “Stop laughing, you piece of shit!”
He didn’t like that. He crossed the bed and a shadow fell over his face. “Do you know who I am, traga leche? Do you know who I am?” He slapped my face. I’d never been hit by a man before. When I was a kid, my mom hit me all the time. But this felt different. While my mom hit me with everything she had, Angel was holding back. There was rumbling beneath that slap; it was warning of more to come, and that’s what scared me. He hit me again and said, “Tell me who I am.” I backed up against the wall and he slapped me again. “Say it,” he said. Another hit. “Say it.”
I was crying almost too hard to speak, but I said it anyway. “Angel Perez.”
“That’s right,” he said, and then gentler, “That’s right, corazón.” He swiped his thumb under my eye to wipe away my tears. “Don’t you forget that.”
When my friend Alondra saw my face the next day, she said, “Mierda, Lucia. Look at you. That motherfucking mamabicho.”
I touched my cheek. “It’s just an allergic reaction. New face cream. I guess that’s what I get for buying discount shit.”
Her mouth bunched up and she rolled her eyes. “That ain’t no face cream, and it ain’t the last time that’s gonna happen either. Trust me, my mother has been with her Angel Perez for ten years. I know. Do what you want, it’s your life, but if you ever want to get away for a little while, I know a place.”
“What do you mean, you know a place?”
Alondra stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Mira, this black chick from my block? She and her boyfriend were just chillin’ on the corner, and this cop starts giving them a hard time. He was all like, ‘This is why you people never amount to nothing, hanging around up to no good when you should be in school, bettering yourself’ or whatever. And when my friend steps up to him, just to tell him there was no school that day, he shoves her back against the wall. Then this chubby old lady comes out of nowhere, yelling at the cop like, ‘Get your hands off that girl! What’s her crime? Existing in your world?’ And she’s waving her arms and squawking like a bird. Turns out she’s a nun, not like in a habit or nothing, but still a holy woman, you know? And when the cop left, she told my friend if she ever had a hard time again, with the police or anybody else, there is a safe house for women in Brooklyn. Even if you don’t want to stay over or nothing, they can just give you advice. I can get the address for you if you want.”
I stuffed my fingers in the back pockets of my jeans. “Thanks, but I don’t need a safe house. My place is fine.”
* * *
As my mom and I were about to head out, one boricua in search of her rich chacho and one boricua americana returning to the one she had found, I felt like one of the cockroaches we caught on a glue trap on our kitchen counter. Stuck, its antennas reaching and twisting, probably looking for a way out, so blinded by its instinct to survive, it couldn’t even see there was no use. It was fucked.
“Say hi to Angel for me,” my mom said, and she tucked a loose curl behind my ear. “You’re lucky, you know that, nena?”
I nodded, but I didn’t feel lucky at all.
Chapter 6
Lucia twisted the front doorknob and triggered a bleep from the security system. The nuns flocked to her from separate corners of the house.
“Lucia, have you eaten breakfast? It’s the most important meal of the day, you know,” Maria chirped from the staircase.
“I don’t really eat in the morning,” Lucia said. Her wounded eye was beginning to purple, like a ripening plum. Bruises, like the abusive relationships that spawned them, worsened before they disappeared.
Maria stepped down onto the landing. “Well, have you met the other girls? Because we have a group talk session that starts in ten minutes. It’s the daily GIA, which stands for the Great I Am.” Maria accented each word by rocking her hips and pointing alternating index fingers like guns firing. “I came up with the name. It’s a biblical reference. Get it? But it isn’t necessarily a religious session. We focus on things we like about ourselves and about each other. It’d be a great opportunity for you to get to know your other housemates.”
Lucia shifted in her stance. “I’m just going around the corner to get some smokes. Maybe I’ll stop by after.”
“I have cigarettes,” Josephine said from the hallway behind Evelyn. Evelyn turned with a raised eyebrow. Josephine wasn’t one to share her nicotine, her most treasured vice.
“Thanks, but I like my brand,” Lucia said. She scanned the sisters’ faces wanly. “Look, maybe I’ll come back after. I’ll probably be back for chitchat time or whatever.”
After her long morning, Evelyn was too tired to beat around the bush. She stood in the living room doorway and huffed air out through her nostrils. “Lucia, I’m sorry but you just can’t leave.”
Lucia took a step back and grabbed the doorknob. “Why the hell not?” she asked, her lip curling.
“Because you came here for our help, and we have to give it our way.”
“I never said I wanted to stay, or that I wanted your help. If I knew this place came with strings and shit, I never would have come.”
Maria laid a gentle hand on Lucia’s forearm. “We’ve been doing this a long time. Please, trust us.”
Lucia shrugged her off. “I just met you. I don’t trust you for shit. Fuck it. I’m out of here.” She turned her back on the sisters, gripped the doorknob, and pulled—but the door didn’t budge. She tried again, tugging with both hands this time, but the door just rattled in its place.
Evelyn had wedged her foot in front of the door.
Lucia shot the nuns a look over her shoulder. Her expression wa
s warped by annoyance, but her eyes betrayed fear. Ashamed of herself, Evelyn retracted her foot.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Evie,” Josephine scolded. “The poor girl is terrified and there you are behaving like a child.” She shooed the other nuns back. “Listen, Lucia. We are so thankful you decided to join us here, and we are eager to help you. But we can’t ignore the dangers you bring with you because of your associations. And while we understand your reluctance to trust us, especially after we attempted to barricade you in without explanation,” she added with a snide glance back at Evie, “we are also reluctant to trust that your friends won’t come looking for you. If they see you on the street and follow you here, things could take an ugly turn for everyone. So if you want to stay at Mercy House, you have to literally stay at Mercy House. For the safety of both you and the other girls.” Josephine sighed deeply, revealing her exhaustion. “Stay or leave. Sadly, you cannot do both. Whichever you choose, however, is entirely up to you.”
“We hope you’ll stay,” Maria added.
“You came to us,” Evelyn said. “There must have been a reason.”
Lucia eyed the women. For a split second, Evelyn was convinced Lucia would reach for the door and flee, return to Angel, her abuser—accept the mistreatment she’d grown accustomed to—and there would be nothing the sisters could do about it. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d lost a resident back to a violent environment. But then Lucia’s arm dropped down to her side. “I’m leaving as soon as I feel claustrophobic again. So don’t crowd me.”
Maria clapped her hands at her breast. “GIA meeting!” she squealed loud enough for the other girls to hear. “GIA meeting!”
Aside from her bedroom, which held the appeal of being strictly hers, the living room was Evelyn’s favorite space in Mercy House. The fabric of the basil-colored armchairs was worn down to the webbing in places, but the chairs were overstuffed and easy to settle into. The gold and currant Oriental rug, salvaged from a flea market, was stained in spots where residents had spilled hot chocolate or coffee, but those marks were a reminder of the existence of human error and forgiveness—and God knew Evelyn had been the clumsy hand behind a spill or two. A large tapestry featuring Saint Joseph, a father who was not the father, wearing a crown of roses and holding baby Jesus hung over the mantel. It was a generous gift to the sisters from the parish’s priest and Evelyn’s friend, Father John. And best of all, the fireplace: a cherrywood mantel topped a slate hearth. With limited funds to afford oil for heat, the sisters kept the fire almost constantly ablaze throughout the winter months. Evelyn had become quite the Girl Scout.
They were blessed with an endless supply of wood, donated to them by Sal Faraldo, the Italian owner of a local salvage yard. Sal was a former parishioner; Evelyn had tutored him in Sunday school. Now he lived a life of luxury out on Long Island, which Evelyn suspected was not subsidized by his salvage yard business alone. While Evelyn didn’t encourage Mafia culture, she also wasn’t above accepting their donations. If they wanted to play at religion, who was she to judge?
“So, who would like to start us off?” Maria asked. She leaned back into a velvet armchair far from the crackling inferno. Perhaps because of her size, Maria overheated easily, and despite her strategic choice of seating, always left GIA meetings damper than when she arrived.
Although Maria coined the term “GIA meeting,” the gatherings were actually Evelyn’s idea, indirectly. Normally she wouldn’t condone a daily meditation on one’s own strengths—how vain could you get?—but the residents of Mercy House so often forgot their worth. They’d been emotionally and physically pummeled for so long, it was essential to force them to inflate their egos, even if superficially. So when the sisters were wondering how to make the girls feel better about themselves, Evelyn said, “It’s almost as if they should state, each and every day, at least one thing that makes them good.” Maria’s face had lit up at that. Perhaps with the acronym already in mind, she winked and answered, “How about what makes them great?”
“I’ll go,” Desiree said, raising a hand. Hair coiled into a dark cloud around her face, and she slumped across a majority of the two-seater couch, despite the fact that Katrina, whose hands were busy knitting, and Mei-Li, who had generously looped one of Katrina’s lumpier masterpieces around her neck, were relegated to the floor. Desiree’s knees were spread in a manner Evelyn’s mother would have called unseemly. “Great I am, great I am,” Desiree said, stretching each word like taffy to emphasize her contemplation. “Great I am at . . . blow jobs,” she finished with a declarative flourish. Lucia snorted from across the room.
Maria sighed. “You can’t use the same affirmation as yesterday, Desiree,” she said. “You know that.”
Desiree grinned. “Why not? It’s as true today as it was yesterday.” She nodded toward Lucia. “And just for your information, I’m as skilled at blow jobs as I am at speaking in tongues. Some people call me the twat whisperer.”
Evelyn rolled her eyes. This bodacious behavior was Desiree’s shtick, especially with newcomers, an exaggeration of her true self, or at least a singular perception of it. She was in your face so you wouldn’t bother getting close enough to examine her vulnerability. She pretended she didn’t take anything seriously so you wouldn’t detect what really mattered to her. She showcased her sexuality so you’d assume it was exactly where she wanted it—on display. But Evelyn had seen her stripped of pretenses, tired and withdrawn, persona unmasked, wrapped in the cocoon of a wool blanket, sipping tea and reading To Kill A Mockingbird by the fire, tearing up for Boo and Tom. Still, Evelyn never outed her performance.
There, in the living room, Evelyn played along, saying, “Lucia’s new to these meetings. Don’t scare her off.”
Desiree lifted her hands, feigning bewilderment. “Hey, I’m just marketing myself and my business. Isn’t that what those career counselor bitches you brought in last week told us to do?”
Josephine uncrossed her legs and then recrossed them. “We won’t even mention your crudity, but no repeats, Des. Rules are rules. You’ll have to be more inventive. Maybe you can share something you did in the last couple days? Something you are proud of?”
Desiree leaned forward and gripped her knees. “I just did.” She smacked her hands together, fell back on the couch, and wrapped her arms around her middle as she howled with laughter. The tight ringlets of her twist out vibrated.
By now, the other residents were unaffected by such histrionics. Esther’s nostrils flared and she shook her head. Mei-Li smiled vacantly. One of Katrina’s hands departed her knitting to finger the earbud wires hanging from her neck—when she felt anxious, she’d slip the buds into her ears and complete her escape.
“Hilarious, Des. Really. But we all know that’s bull. If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that Mercy House isn’t an aphrodisiac. No one here has gotten any in months,” Evelyn said, taking back control of the room. “But that’s good. It’s part of the healing process.”
“Since Desiree is having some trouble, maybe we can help her out. Can someone offer a positive affirmation about Des on her behalf?” Josephine asked. She clasped her hands in her lap as she surveyed the room with eyebrows raised, prompting contributions.
Mei-Li’s gaze drifted out the window, a stale smile still lingering around her lips. Esther examined her cuticles. Lucia’s forehead furrowed, as if disgusted by this process, or at least skeptical about it. Finally Katrina reluctantly lifted a hand from her knitting.
“She did a really nice job cleaning the bathroom,” she said as a soft offering. Desiree huffed her dissatisfaction with the comment. Katrina’s fingers grazed an earbud on her shoulder. “She also has really strong energy. It fills the room. I admire that. I’m so—you know—like, small.” She glanced in Desiree’s direction and smiled. Des’s head bobbed slightly as she glared back.
Evelyn could sense Katrina’s growing discomfort and was about to change the subject when Desiree’s expression cracked. “Thanks,
Trina. And listen, girl: You’re small, but so what? Shakespeare said something like, ‘Even though she’s small, she’s fierce,’ or some shit like that.”
Katrina allowed her smile to grow, and then her needles clicked back together.
“There you go,” Evelyn said. Gratitude for that interaction expanded in her chest and she raised her fist as if lifting a glass for a toast. “To fierce shit.”
Some laughter scattered around the room before the other girls echoed half-heartedly, “To fierce shit.”
The meeting proceeded without event, as the residents, as well as the sisters, took an hour to build up themselves and one another. Mei-Li relented that she had pretty hair. Katrina offered a watercolor she’d painted that week. Esther said she made the best chicken and cashews in Bed-Stuy, and the others made her promise to prove it that weekend. Lucia, after some prodding, shrugged and suggested it was pretty cool to be bilingual. Maria mentioned her singing voice—in her warbly croon that sounded like a dove cooing in protest. Josephine noted that she was proficient at mental math. And Evelyn, who enjoyed listening to everybody else’s affirmations but begrudged fabricating her own, said, “Someone once told me I have nice eyes. So maybe that’s true.”
After everyone shared a favorite quality, Maria clapped her hands together. “All right. Before we disperse, are there any final comments or questions?”
Desiree’s hand shot into the air, and although Evelyn knew the resident was bound to say something inappropriate, she couldn’t help but look forward to it. A benefit of Desiree’s plucky approach was her ability to establish intimacy with a person from the start, to break through someone’s protective armor by refusing to acknowledge it—to touch them without ever really touching them. She began her question before she was called upon. “I’m still trying to figure ya’ll out. Your rules are hella random. You don’t wear habits. But you still can’t fuck. And when Sister Maria’s hippie skirt bunched up yesterday, I saw her legs were mad hairy. So I was wondering, are ya’ll not allowed to shave because you’re nuns?”