by Naima Coster
“Then make me laugh,” Gee said, flirting before he knew it. It wasn’t a line, and he wasn’t imitating anyone. It had slipped out of him. It was what he had wanted to say.
Noelle smiled at him. “Too much pressure. Besides, I think it’s your turn.”
Linette returned, and Gee was relieved to see her. Looking at her dissolved the heat he was feeling all over, the heat he worried Noelle could sense radiating off his body. He was loose and buzzing, happy. He wanted her to stay, but Noelle announced she ought to head back. Linette offered to drive her, and she said she’d make her own way. She hugged Linette as if they were old friends, and waved good-bye to Gee. She started walking slowly uphill, along the old baseball field, dusty and fenced in, back toward the school.
Lacey May was waiting for her in the parking lot. She yelled at her for a good long while, and Noelle looked at her serenely, refusing to say where she’d been.
“You knew I had a meeting. You knew, and you held me up on purpose.”
“A meeting?” Noelle said innocently. “What kind of meeting?”
“You know what kind.”
“The campaign is dead. It’s October. It’s too late. What are you going to do now?”
“We’re talking strategy.”
“You going to make your signs and stand in front of the school yelling at all the black kids? Is that your plan?”
“You get in this car right now,” Lacey May ordered, and although Noelle obeyed, Lacey May knew that she had lost.
They sat, waiting for the engine to warm up, and Noelle extracted a big stack of papers from her backpack, and started sifting through them. She was pretending to go over the pages.
“You have no idea what’s going on,” Lacey May said. “You’re focused on this dumb play, and your life is hanging in the air right now.”
“Is that cause of the transfer kids or cause of Papi?”
“You shut up,” Lacey May said and yanked out of the lot. She tried to focus on the road, the wheel, the pattern of clouds overhead. If she didn’t fill her mind with something, she’d lose control and slap Noelle, and the girl was too old for that. She wouldn’t stand for it.
“You shut your mouth,” she said again.
She hadn’t spoken to the girls about everything that had happened, but she knew they’d overheard her talking on the phone to Robbie and Ruth and the lawyer. It was her mistake not to keep it a secret. She’d been too caught up in her anger and confusion. She should have explained it to the girls after everything was settled. She should have been calm; she should have comforted them. But Lacey May hadn’t been thinking of the girls, even if she’d held on to the house for them, their inheritance. She’d mostly felt pity for herself, pity that Robbie had wronged her, again, and that she’d become a woman so scarcely loved.
When she had confronted Robbie, he played dumb. He said he didn’t know what she was talking about, he hadn’t been the one to sell the house. It had been the same way when she figured out he was using. He’d denied and denied, tried to make her feel the fool. She left his apartment, crying, in a rage. He called her a few days later, high, and she went during her lunch hour to see him. She found Robbie curled up on the floor of his kitchen, weeping. He told her the truth. He said he was sorry. He owed rent, he owed other money, he was in trouble. He’d needed it. She had held him, and he’d wet her work vest with his tears. No one else knew what it was to see a man you loved so reduced, to be in the presence of the one you’d chosen and still to feel him as an absence, a missing thing, although you had him close. The last thing he needed was to be punished, no matter what Hank or Ruth said. Every time she punished him, she punished herself, the girls. Hadn’t the years taught her that?
She had kissed him once, softly, and then again. She stopped before he could get the wrong idea, before she could get carried away. It wouldn’t take much. His smell, his warm skin, his yawning need—it tore through her. Maybe that’s what it was like with his drugs. If she gave in, she knew she would never be able to say no again.
At home, Margarita and Diane were watching a teen drama with their arms wrapped around each other. The show was about teenagers climbing into each other’s bedroom windows, and Lacey May didn’t have the heart to object. Hank was in the bedroom avoiding her, Noelle already downstairs. Lacey May poured herself a coffee, lit a cigarette. She called Ruth just to have someone to speak to, but no one answered.
Margarita pretended not to watch her mother from the couch. She had never known her mother to smoke inside the house; she didn’t rise to crack the window. The teenage couple was kissing on the screen, and Margarita tried to focus on memorizing their movements, one lip sliding under another, a mouth opening wide, a flicker of a tongue.
Jenkins wobbled into the room, and Diane patted the couch, called for him to jump up. The old dog couldn’t manage it, so she scooped him up between them. The girls watched one of the rebuffed lovers—he’d caught his girlfriend and his best friend kissing—row across a creek.
“We should go get Noelle,” Diane said. “She’s missing it.”
Margarita rolled her eyes. “Noelle doesn’t know what’s good. I don’t know why she’s in that play. She doesn’t even like TV.”
“She’s the stage manager.”
“That’s cause Noelle always has to be the boss.”
“So do you.”
“Shush.”
Margarita snuck another glance at her mother at the kitchen table. Lacey May had her eyes shut, the cigarette pressed between her lips, her head tilted back.
Margarita leaned to whisper in her sister’s ear. “Mama would have been a good actress.”
“How come? Cause she’s pretending she isn’t mad?”
“Because she’s beautiful,” Margarita said. “Even when she’s sad.”
Hank made dinner: steak smothered in onions, with buttered peas and carrots. Noelle didn’t come up when they called, so the four of them sat at the table, shoving food around their plates. Even Hank didn’t try to close the silence, and it worried Diane. Maybe he was going to leave them, too. They were at the table when they heard the high pitch of Robbie’s whistle from the front porch.
“You invited him?” Hank said.
“Of course I didn’t.”
“Well, something you did must have made him feel welcome.”
“Girls, go downstairs,” Lacey May said.
“But Papi—” said Diane.
“Right fucking now.”
The girls left in a flurry. Margarita climbed onto her bunk bed, and Diane nestled next to Noelle, who was on the pullout, flipping through a stack of papers. Margarita could tell Noelle wasn’t really reading. She was doing what they were all doing: straining to listen to what was going on upstairs.
“You skipped dinner,” Margarita said.
“I already ate.”
“With Duke?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t like him anymore?” said Diane. “But he’s so tall.”
“Did you know love changes your brain, chickadee? I don’t want to have a brain like Duke’s. Besides, I like someone else more.”
Margarita cackled from her top bunk. “Your life is like that show.”
“No, their life is like that show.” Noelle pointed up at the ceiling. “It’s a soap opera.”
“That’s not funny,” Margarita said. “Papi has nothing. He’s all alone. And now Mama is going to send him to jail.”
“Papi’s going back to jail?” said Diane.
“Oh, shut up. You watch too many shows,” Noelle said.
“And you’re a big old slut.”
Noelle sprang up as if she might slap her, and Margarita jumped down from the top bunk to show she wasn’t afraid.
“Girls!” Lacey May called from upstairs. “Your father wants to speak to you.”
They found Robbie by the front door, as if he hadn’t moved any farther into the house since he arrived. He was wearing a red shirt, unbuttoned too low. A gold chain
swung from his neck. He smiled at them, and he was missing a tooth: his left canine. Margarita and Noelle hung back while Diane fell into him, wrapped her arms around his waist. Lacey May and Hank left the room.
“Mis hijas!” Robbie said. “It’s been so long. Have you missed me?”
The girls murmured their assent.
“I brought you presents. Come sit down.”
They saw then the large paper bags on the couch, Jenkins prostrate between them.
“That old dog doesn’t recognize me,” Robbie said, sitting beside him, ruffling his ears.
“We haven’t seen you in weeks,” Noelle said, but Robbie seemed not to hear her. He picked up one of the bags.
“First, Diane—I got you something, preciosa.”
Robbie placed her palms, faceup, on his knees, and handed her a long, shimmery box. He told her to open it.
A gold medallion hung from a chain so thin Diane worried she’d break it. The medallion looked misshapen, like an oblong coin. A pale green stone glittered at the center.
“It’s an esmeralda,” Robbie said. “They’re from Colombia. I used to have one—a ring, but it was stolen. But that won’t happen to you. Not with the life you’ll have, mi niña.”
He took up the necklace, and Diane bowed her head solemnly so he could fasten it. She held the medallion between her fingers, turning the emerald in the light. He called Noelle next, and she stepped forward, her arms crossed in front of her.
Robbie shook a jacket from one of the bags. It had boxy shoulders, a few tortoiseshell buttons, the leather pebbled and black. He held it against Noelle’s body, and it was so long it reached her knees. Noelle started shaking her head. Robbie went on smiling at her.
“For your concerts,” he said. “So you can look like those roqueros you like to go and see.”
“How could you steal from us?”
Robbie held up his hands plaintively. Noelle stomped her foot, repeated herself.
“The house is mine, mi hijita. I paid for it. You all lived there, but I paid for it.”
“That’s not true. Mama’s been finding renters.”
“You don’t know how grown-up things work yet, Noelle. That’s why you’re so angry, because you don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. I know what you need the money for.”
“Your mother and me, we worked it out.”
Noelle picked up the leather jacket, stuffed her face into it, and screamed. Then she flung it to the floor and ripped out of the room. They heard the basement door slam. Robbie picked up the leather jacket, folded it neatly, and set it on the couch.
Margarita was the only one left, and she felt her whole body pulsating. She was furious, but she wasn’t sure with whom—Noelle for being a brat, her mother for leaving them alone with Robbie, or herself for being the last to get a gift.
“And for you, pepita,” Robbie said, “I got half a present.”
Margarita felt herself sink. Of course she would get only half. Of course she was the one who would be forgotten.
“Now, now,” Robbie started. “You know I love all my girls. I love you all the same. But you, Margarita—you’re the one who when I look at, I see myself. I look at you and say, There’s the one who came out like me.”
Robbie opened the box in his hands, lifted out one gold ring, and then another. The first was small, and he pushed it onto Margarita’s ring finger where it spun, so he moved it to her middle finger. It was a signet engraved with an R. He slipped the other ring onto his pinkie; it was engraved with a cursive M.
Margarita held her ring aloft, watched it gleam in the pale light. How had her father known? The way she saw the two of them? The way she saw herself? Noelle and Diane were both so clearly made of their mother, not just in terms of their looks, but in their temperaments. But every time her father left, she fought the feeling that she should have been going with him, that they belonged together. She was his blood, and he was hers. All along, without saying so, he had known.
She went to thank him but couldn’t speak. She felt that she would burst.
“You keep that one,” he said. “And I’ll keep mine. That way no matter where I am, I’ll be with you. That way we’ll always be together.”
After Robbie left, the girls went back to their TV, and Lacey May climbed under the sheets. She didn’t want to talk to Hank, and he huffed around the bedroom, putting on his pajamas, straightening things, until he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.
“We could use that money, you know. Your daughters could use it one day.”
“Robbie promised to give me some for the girls.”
“And you believe him?”
“Stay out of it, Hank.”
“I’m your husband.”
“And so was Robbie. I’ve got my business with him, and I’ve got my business with you.”
“You’re going to lose them.”
“Is that right? But if I take Robbie to court and ruin his life, I’ll get to keep them?”
“You’re focusing on all the wrong things. That campaign. Helping Robbie. Your girls need you.”
“That campaign is for the girls! One day, Margarita and Diane will go to that school. I’m doing this for all of them. To protect them.”
“Maybe they don’t need protecting anymore. You got them out. Maybe their futures are already fine.”
“A woman’s future is never fine,” Lacey May said, and left the room.
Margarita and Diane were sitting on the couch, the dog at their feet, as if Robbie had never shown up, and there had been no disturbance at all. They were wearing their new jewelry. Noelle was nowhere to be found, but this time, Lacey May knew not to go looking.
She sat beside her daughters, reached her arm around their shoulders. To her astonishment, they nuzzled close.
On the screen, a flimsy blond girl was throwing men with bloody jowls against brick walls in an alley. The girls leaned toward the glowing set. The blond girl onscreen yanked out a pointy stake from the sleeve of her leather jacket, turned toward her assailants, blew them to dust, one by one. The girls gasped; they clapped. Here, it was plain to see: her girls wanted a hero. How could Hank ever expect her to step away and leave them be?
During commercials, a preview aired of the late-night news. There had been a drive-by shooting on the east side. A house party, a teenage girl struck dead through a window, someone who had nothing to do with the dispute. They showed her picture, the big purple scrunchie in her hair, her face too young. Lacey May sucked her teeth, and shook her head, but before she could say anything out loud about girls at parties, crime in the city, she had an idea. It was fire bright, the kind she’d been needing all along.
At the next rehearsal, Noelle didn’t sit with Gee in the audience. Instead she left the auditorium during the breaks and wandered back in right before Mr. Riley called them to scene. She seemed distracted, missed giving a few cues. Gee wondered what was wrong with her, but she didn’t meet his eyes when he looked in her direction.
Mr. Riley seemed to sense her malaise, the way it penetrated the room, because he cut their rehearsing short and suggested they play an energizer to end. It was a half-hearted round of Zip Zap Zop, and Adira stood next to Gee, whispering in his ear.
“You like her. And if she doesn’t know already, she’ll know soon. You keep staring at her.”
“I don’t date white girls,” Gee said, as if it were policy, although he’d never dated anybody.
“She’s not a white girl. Her last name is Ventura.”
Gee shrugged, zinged one of his castmates.
“Don’t be so backwards. I’ve never seen you talk so much to anybody.”
“She’s the one who does most of the talking.”
“Unh-hunh.”
“And she’s not talking to me today.”
They were still playing when the auditorium doors burst open and Noelle’s boyfriend swooped in. He was a tall boy who wore rubber bracelets, his red hair sculpted into spikes. H
e had on a pair of reflective shades, even if they were indoors. His knee-length jacket fanned behind him; a wallet chain swung from the belt loop of his pants. He sat in the front row, as if his presence wouldn’t perturb them, disrupt their flow. He was skinny and menacing and pale.
It was Noelle who eventually said, “Mr. Riley, it’s ten past,” and Mr. Riley looked deflated, told everyone they were free to go.
Noelle met Duke, and he shoved his face at hers to kiss her, slipped a hand into the back pocket of her jeans. It was territorial and nasty. Gee looked away. Adira caught him and raised her eyebrows at him. Her face seemed to say, Yeah right, you don’t like her.
Adira linked arms with Shawn, and they walked out of the auditorium together, laughing. Somehow, they had coupled up. Gee had missed the signs. Maybe it was the real reason so many of them had joined the play. When it came to love, few people could resist. Everyone wanted it badly, whether they said so or not. Even his mother was different when it came to Ray: his memory, his name. But even that love hadn’t lasted; she had put him away like a secret. People loved each other for a while, then they forgot; they buried one another.
It was funny that Gee had been cast as the only man in the play who was really loved. Angelo and the duke both wound up with women, too, but those couplings were strange. It was one of the reasons Mr. Riley said Measure for Measure was a problem play; it ended with marriages instead of deaths, so it wasn’t a tragedy, but it was too dark, too unsettling, to be a comedy either.
Gee was the last to leave, and he slipped out the back door so he wouldn’t run into his castmates on the front steps, hanging out and making plans for Cedar’s or the mall. He’d sneak out to the parking lot and find Linette, ride home, race up to his room, where he’d lie down first thing and rub himself fast and rough, a picture of some nameless woman in his head, one with big nipples, an open mouth, one who was saying his name.
He was starting his daydream, the illusion keeping him company, when he ran into Noelle, crouched against the side of the school building. She was poking a twig at the underside of her big boots, scraping off grass and congealed dirt. Her mouth was twisted into a frown, and she was red-faced, as if she’d been screaming.