They Could Have Named Her Anything

by Jimenez, Stephanie

  But rumor was simply rumor; rumor didn’t scare Rocky, and especially not after the lipstick scandal. She wasn’t a student at Bell Seminary then, and the Jesuit middle school she went to was fairly liberal and coed. In the single-stall bathroom after lunch, she had a stick of spearmint gum and three tubes of her mother’s lipstick, and she applied one modest layer, then another, but she wasn’t satisfied until she had mixed them all. Outside, Arnold anxiously waited until she opened the door and pulled him inside, and later, had it not been for the fact that they were singing her favorite song in chapel, Rocky would have never been caught. Wait, she had whispered, I actually love this one. Inside, “On Eagle’s Wings” played. She ambled in, holding his hand as she did. The teachers turned around, and when they noticed Rocky’s lips, the color of a Stemilt cherry, they took her aside after mass and called her apartment. Rocky stewed in anger: the two of them had snuck in together, and the teachers hadn’t thought to lift Arnold’s shirt, where the underside of his blue polo shirt was splattered with dark smudges like bruises.

  Rocky’s mother recognized this injustice and saw with clarity that her daughter had been singled out. When the headmaster explained what he thought he had seen on the face of the twelve-year-old as she trilled that final hymn in the chapel, her mouth big and sopping like the skin of an oyster, her mother immediately ended the meeting.

  It’s disgusting. It’s appalling, Veronica had said to the headmaster, Rocky wedged like a shift lever between them, that you or any adult in this building would project your own unresolved sexual feelings on an innocent twelve-year-old girl.

  That day, Rocky’s mother’s composure was statuesque; it was as if her face were carved from marble. But when Rocky reached for her mother’s hand as they quietly left the school, it fell limply away. The next year, Rocky was enrolled at Bell Seminary, and though she no longer snuck into the handicap bathroom during chapel, the brother school provided a limitless supply of hungry boys who hung around the gates of the all-girls school like a pack of mountain lions.

  Still, not all of them were ravenous. When Rocky found out that Facundo Hiciano didn’t date anyone who hadn’t been selected for him by his parents, she was infuriated. She had never heard of anything so absurd. It’s an Argentine thing, an insider told her. I think it needs to happen by bloodline, or something.

  I’m not trying to marry him, Rocky said. Are you sure he won’t talk to me?

  I promise, the insider told her. He’s not interested.

  As she sat waiting for her eggs Benedict now, the Bloody Mary half-drunk, the olive soaked at the bottom, Rocky rolled her eyes from behind her sunglasses as she listened to Laura drone on.

  “Seriously, Rocky. You won’t sleep with him now? Why’d you change your mind?”

  “Because,” Rocky started. Ever since Ricky stole the fur vest, Rocky had a different attitude toward Ricky; he no longer seemed like a box to tick or a line to cross off. He seemed more like something she might keep around, and she had read enough women’s magazines to know that sex, too early, would give him the power to leave her. She could titillate and tease him with other things, but the act would have to wait until he looked at her the way Matthew did, until he’d started calling her on the phone at night. And by that point, wouldn’t the goal have already been completed? What point would sex even serve?

  Laura stared at her expectantly. At some point, she wondered if she’d have to tell Maria the truth. Rocky had been to Maria’s house, and it was there that Rocky saw that Maria wasn’t as broke as she always made it seem, and her parents weren’t cruel like Maria always said. In the morning, they had all sat at the table and drunk coffee, and her mother had even left room in the mug in case Rocky preferred it with milk. Maria had so much, more than enough to share, and Rocky had never asked anything of Maria. She knew that it would infuriate Maria, but it didn’t seem fair—it seemed like she should at least be able to have this one little thing. The thing she wanted was Ricky, his warmth and affection. And not just once or twice. She wanted to have him and keep him.

  “But why not?” Laura demanded.

  “Because,” Rocky said, straightening her spine. “I feel bad for Maria. She still doesn’t know.”

  As soon as the two had parted, Rocky’s muscles relaxed. It had been impossible to admit to Laura that she had a crush on Ricky; she was even a little embarrassed to admit it to herself, because it put her in the terrifying position of possibly liking a boy more than he liked her. She knew from experience how pathetic it looked when there was an imbalance like that between people—it ruined everything, aesthetically and otherwise—and it was repulsive to witness a hope like that, like her father’s even, when it should have long been extinguished. Now, she reached for her phone, and after three rings, Ricky picked up, and moving something to the back of her throat, as if she were balancing the pit of a fruit there, Rocky forced her sultriest, most casual voice.

  “Free tomorrow?” Yeah.

  “Want to see me?” Of course.

  “Have you ever been to the Hamptons?” Never.

  Ricky agreed to go. On her satin ballet flats, Rocky skipped, her fingers grazing the pillars of brownstones on the street. She knew she shouldn’t feel so strongly about anything, but it felt so good to indulge. She was exalted. She was remorseless. She didn’t care that she relentlessly lied.

  Because what Rocky wouldn’t tell anyone, not Laura, not Maria—anyone—was that the reason she hadn’t had sex with Ricky was because she hadn’t ever had sex before. Not with Matthew, not with Duncan, not with Arnold—no one. She liked to kiss and caress wherever she wanted, but her virginity was something she needed to protect. It was like an Egyptian amulet, the kind she admired most in carnelian, the color of blood, at the Met. Whenever she visited the museum, this was where she came to worship. In front of the display’s divider, she closed her eyes to imagine holding it, and if she concentrated hard enough, she could feel a mass, fibrous and warm, begin to form in her hand. She gripped tightly before a security guard could order her to remove her forehead from the glass. But by then she’d already derived all her power, and she’d walk down the steps toward Fifth Avenue in an amber glow.

  If Rocky was honest with herself, she could admit that Ricky was unlike any other boy she’d ever met—he was unpredictable, yes, exciting, of course—but most of all, he didn’t know or speak to anyone that Rocky usually hung out with. In ancient Egypt, even young women had bronze nipples affixed to their mummified bodies for the enjoyment of sex in the afterlife. She didn’t need to be pure to be imperious, and if she lost her lucky stone, red as a beating heart, would anyone really know? Rocky had yet to encounter in life anything that had once been misplaced that couldn’t also be replaced.

  She grinned, stopping at a crosswalk. She nibbled absently at her nail, thinking of what she’d wear for the bus ride to the Hamptons tomorrow, something comfortable but relentlessly sexy. It was okay for her to be selfish this time. It was okay for her rules to change. She had held on to her stone for this long, and the truth was that she wanted to give it to Ricky. She had chosen him. Something in his eyes reassured her that it was something he would treasure, maybe even more than she did.

  It was Rocky’s turn to get what she wanted—Maria’s was long over.

  Maria received a text message at 8:00 p.m. One single word: Yo. When she saw the name of the sender, she typed out a hasty reply.

  Leave me the fuck alone, Andres.

  Listen, he responded, I seen your brother a few days ago with a girl again. A white girl.

  Maria was furious. Fuck you, Andres.

  Another text message immediately followed. Maria, be honest. Do you wish you were white? Does everyone in your family wish that?

  I hate you, she typed. I hope that you die. I hope that you never EVER text me again.

  When her phone didn’t vibrate ten minutes later, Maria didn’t despair. When it didn’t vibrate thirty minutes later, she was anxious, but not upset. When an hour passe
d, Maria cried, and she tossed the phone underneath her pillow because she knew he wasn’t going to text her. She imagined Chastity, and her perfect red nails, and the perfect way she did everything, the perfect way in which she effortlessly existed, the way she never seemed unsure. Maria didn’t want to be white; she wanted to be able to defend herself. Maria continued to cry until she soaked the pillow through with mucus and had to flip it onto the other side.

  Maria remembered that if she kept on like this, her eyes would turn puffy, and they’d stay that way for hours—through the next day. By the time she flipped her pillow back around, the wet side had dried, and she could feel with her fingers that her eyes were engorged. She was no longer crying, she was sick of all this crying—she wanted to save it just like her mother had said—but even so, her eyes were already packed and well on their way to swollen.

  CHAPTER 22

  Charlie turned the air-conditioning on and pressed a button to shut the windows, even though Maria would have preferred to keep them open and thrust her arms out into the wind. There was no outbound traffic on Route 27 from Manhattan to the Hamptons, Long Island, and the air was ripe for pummeling bare skin. Maria looked out the window longingly. In the station wagon with Ricky, they used to roll down all four windows and scream whenever their hands got too close to an oncoming freight truck.

  “Why are you grounded?” he asked in the unnerving silence. Maria felt like a frozen chicken cutlet, vacuum sealed into the car.

  Thinking of food nauseated her. Maria was never hungry in the mornings, and she had eaten only half of the bagel he brought when they first met at the garage. Now, she caught her reflection in the mirror of the passenger seat. Her eyes were rounded, like circles of blown bubble gum. She looked inside her bag for the purple sunglasses, wrapped inside some squares of toilet paper, since she didn’t have a case. Carefully, so that Charlie wouldn’t see how she preserved them, she unfolded the legs in her bag. She put them on and felt slightly better.

  “I think my parents found my lighter.”

  Charlie hunched at the steering wheel and glanced over his shoulder as he merged. Next to her uneaten bagel on the dashboard was his pack of Marlboros. He took one out, and finally he cracked open the window—hardly enough to squeeze a wedge of lime through it. The car imploded like a mushroom cloud in the smell of tobacco burning, and Maria held her cough in.

  “Do you want one?” he asked after he’d taken multiple puffs, as if he’d forgotten she was sitting there next to him.

  “No, thanks.”

  He looked at her from the screen of smoke he had placed between them. “You sure? I won’t tell your parents.”

  Charlie always ended his sentences with plaintive laughter. Maria understood, through his unvarnished jokes, he was only trying to be kind.

  “I’m fine.” Maria opened her window and reached for the other half of the bagel. As he brought the cigarette to his mouth, she wiped cream cheese off hers. “And you can call me Maria. Annie’s just my middle name.”

  They drove on, mostly in silence. He put on a CD that Maria had never heard of before.

  “Allman Brothers okay with you?”

  When she saw that his enthusiasm was sincere, Maria pretended to know who they were. She wasn’t sure if she’d convinced him, but the music drowned out whatever doubt might have remained.

  They arrived at the house within two hours, what Charlie called record time. He had to climb out of the car to walk up a gravel pathway and push a passcode into a small monitor. Another long path snaked up to the house’s main entrance, but they went in through the door in the garage. Maria followed Charlie, and she stopped when he did in the kitchen. He went to the fridge and scooped ice into a glass. Opening a cabinet drawer, he saw Maria looking at him.

  “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

  “Never,” Maria said, running her fingers along the edge of the rounded marble counter. But she could guess that the alcohol was in the cabinet Charlie had gone to, even before he opened it. That week, Maria had committed a new poem to memory, one from the book that her teacher had given her, the anthology of Latina poets. It was translated from Spanish and about hombres necios, or foolish men, and it came to mind as she looked upon Charlie.

  “What?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re smiling.”

  “Oh.”

  He took out a tall glass bottle, and when he poured, the liquid was brown. Only a slight trickle of alcohol came out.

  “Hm,” he said. “I thought I had more of this.”

  He took an indulgent sip. When he put it down, the ice cubes in his glass knocked into each other like bumper cars. Maria was leaning against the counter as he took a step toward her. He pushed Maria’s hair flat against her head with his palm, but she looked past him, over his shoulder, at the staircase.

  “We can go up,” he said, understanding. Maria nodded, leading the way.

  The master bedroom was on the second floor and overlooked the property. It was connected to a balcony that extended around the house, and the room was full of sunlight. Through the glass, Maria could see the pool like a mirror, a perfect reflection of cloud and sky, a ripple of blue and white stripes. Charlie went over to where she was looking and drew the curtains so the room became dark. When he came back to the bed, he tried pulling her over his chest.

  “Kiss me,” she said when his hands went down to the hem of her dress.

  He brought his lips to hers and positioned Maria onto her back. She heard his keys clinking in his pocket. His belt was heavy and kept pressing into her hipbone, and she was glad when he removed it.

  “Charlie,” she said, clenching her fists. Finally, the moment had come. “My parents aren’t doing well.”

  “They’ll forgive you.”

  He was wearing white briefs. She had never seen Andres wear anything like those before. She could make out the whole shape of him through the fabric. She averted her eyes.

  “I don’t mean being grounded. They’re having a hard time. Financially. Our house . . .”

  “Can we talk about your parents later?” Fold by fold, he slid her underwear down her ankles until they landed on the floor and coiled up like a sleeping bag. She looked at them, distractedly. Rolled up like that, they were so small.

  “Charlie,” she repeated, but again, she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t anticipated it would begin like this; she thought that at the least, there would be more time from the point when she was on her back to the point when he would rise inside her, but it was happening now, before she could stop it, and then, her breath was gone. She shut her eyes and watched as an image of Andres flashed like a camera before her. This was the beginning of something, she realized, as she felt his warmth spread over her, and in a conciliatory voice she hadn’t expected, she heard herself think: It’ll be over soon. She tried as hard as she could, but not a single line of poetry came to mind.

  But why was she thinking like that, as if she’d already resigned herself to the fact that coming up here had been a mistake? There were still all the things she needed to ask him. Would he help with the house? Would he help at all? But help—wasn’t that the wrong word? Was favor much better, though? The sooner this moment was over, the sooner she would know. But when would that happen? How soon? All animals are sad after intercourse, her freshman biology teacher had once said, but it wasn’t even over yet, and wasn’t that a ridiculous thing for an old man to say in front of a pack of incredulous girls who’d erupt in laughter in the hall after class—or what kind of reaction did he really expect?

  There was a sound like a latch coming down, and Charlie was on his feet.

  “What was that?” he said, raising his briefs. He had kept them around his knees. Maria sat up, picked up her underwear, and straightened the crease of her dress. Rocky was at the balcony door, and behind her, Maria imagined her brother. She stared at the glass door, unable to see who it was, this person pushing past Rocky, taking enormous strid
es. When she finally recognized Ricky, the only object in motion, she could also see the heat of his body as if it were a separate entity, and it shone so brightly it blinked like a siren and mirrored his movements like a shadow. Together, Ricky and Ricky’s aggrieved energy stormed into the light-flooded bedroom.

  As soon as Ricky crossed the glass threshold, Charlie was horizontal and Ricky was standing over him, his fists pummeling once, and then again and again, on Charlie’s neck and head. Rocky lunged forward and pushed Ricky back out of the balcony door, and Charlie clambered to his feet. Maria heard nothing but chimes in her ears until the sound of his words came clear like running water.

  “I’m calling the police!” Charlie said, covering his nose and stepping onto the balcony, but Ricky had already swung, and again, Charlie fell to the floor.

  “Stop!” Rocky threw herself against Ricky.

  Maria hadn’t moved from the edge of the mattress, and finally she stood. She went to the doorway with her hands over her face, as if it were still possible to hide. She suddenly had a strange thought: on the top of her head, she wore sunglasses that weren’t hers. She had forgotten they belonged to Rocky, and she’d been wearing them as if they were her own. She had the impulse of lowering them onto her eyes, as if they could make her invisible. She threw them onto the mattress instead.

  Rocky was climbing up Ricky’s back with her nails, leaving red spirals all over his skin. With one leg hardened around his waist, Rocky slapped his ear. The two of them spun in circles, Ricky swatting at Rocky with an open hand, but not hard enough to throw her to the ground. Maria watched and considered running at Rocky, but she found she was overcome with exhaustion. At that moment, her only desire was sleep. Her legs became wobbly, and the room was spinning so quickly, it threatened to launch her into the air. She would fare better up there with the stars, she thought sleepily. She would only need to go back to the bed. She wouldn’t leave that spot under the comforters, and she would have the most pleasant dreams.