by Tami Charles
“You do want this handled, right? The timing is right. I already got our Diablos in lockup on alert. They’re just waiting for my word.”
My shoulders begin to shiver. “Haven’t we got enough blood on our hands?” I ask.
“Sometimes blood is needed to send a message.”
I look up at DQ, feel my eyes start to water up, but I don’t want him to see me like that. So I bury my face in my hands and force myself to breathe. Inhala, exhala.
This whole time away from the Diablos, I shifted my focus, watched DQ do all the things Junito did and more. Is this what DQ wanted all along? To be the one in charge? But then I shake those thoughts out of my head real quick. DQ ain’t been nothing but good to me and this family. No matter what Abuela says with her old-school island thinking.
I consider telling DQ about the girl I saw after school, but maybe I really was trippin’. Sleep hasn’t exactly been my friend these days. But I decide not to.
I let DQ out and settle in for my nighttime Monday routine. Make dinner—piñón, Mami’s famous Puerto Rican lasagna; green salad; and flan for dessert—and wait for Abuela to come upstairs from the bodega. Together we’ll eat and watch Mami pretend to eat. This time a little more than the last, we can only hope. Flip on the television at eight o’clock to watch Fame.
Take in the magic and wonder that is Debbie Allen. Lose myself in the way she moves. It’s like her every arabesque and pirouette become a necessary part of being alive. I imagine what my life would be like if I had a teacher like that. Someone who could see the dreams building up inside me. But instead all I see is myself, sitting in the four corners of my home, wishing for what could’ve been. And I see the glow in Mami’s eyes for that whole hour too, like she’s right there, stuck in the vision with me. But it’s my eyes that glow when this week’s episode ends with a picture of Debbie and the cast and a voiceover announcement.
Calling all tri-state area dancers! Do you like to dance? Do you want fame? Audition to be an extra on the hit show Fame! Open to ages 13 to 25, all experience levels welcome! Auditions will be held Friday, November 9, 1984, at 7:00 p.m. at the Haaren High School building, 10th Ave. & 59th St., in Manhattan.
Join us for an opportunity of a lifetime!
Mami squeezes my hand real tight and looks at me with desperate eyes.
Translation: You have to go, Beatriz.
“¿Que dicen ellos en la televisión?” Abuela wants me to translate.
“Nada importante.” I’m not getting into it with her, so I hop up from the couch and flick the television off before that nosy old lady asks anything else.
* * *
Track Two: Dance of the Plena, 1976
Tonight’s dream fast-forwards two years from the last one.
I sit across from Abuela, Mami, and Junito at the table, squirming as Mami applies ice to Junito’s bloody mouth. It swells larger with each passing moment.
It took some time, but as promised, Papi signed Junito up for the street fights, knowing he never stood a chance. Each loss gets harder, wears down the confident, carefree Junito I once knew. It’s like a little piece of him dies every time he loses. The pain of seeing Papi walk away from the fighting square in disgust. The agonizing silence of seeing Junito walk through that door, alone and broken.
“Mami, can you take me to a doctor?” Junito asks, wincing in pain.
“Nonsense.” Mami applies ice to the split on Junito’s top lip. “These are just a few scrapes.”
“Not for that, Mami. To fix me. Como estoy por dentro.” Junito places his hand over his heart.
Mami stands upright, bringing the ice pack with her.
“Juan Luis Mendez”—she always says his full name when she’s mad—“there is nothing inside of you that’s broken. You hear me?”
“Then why does Papi call me a maricón? If you take me to a doctor, lo cura todo, yes?” Junito asks as his rib cage deflates.
“There’s no such…well…it’s not a disease….” Mami stumbles through each word.
Junito lifts his face to meet Mami’s eyes. “But I am gay, right?”
“Am I a maricona?” I chime in, too young to know what I’m really saying. Not fully understanding the meaning behind the word, the hurt that comes with it.
Mami and Abuela exchange hardened looks.
Abuela says, “Hush, the both of you. You don’t know what you are yet, or what you will be in life.”
“Ooh, ooh, I know! ¡Quiero ser bailarina!” I get up and do a pirouette.
That makes Junito smile, just a little.
“And it doesn’t matter what you are or aren’t,” Abuela adds. “It only matters that you’re a good person with a pure heart.”
Junito sighs.
“Don’t worry about your father, mi’jo,” Mami says.
“Maybe if I change, Papi will love me?” Junito looks at Mami and then at Abuela.
Neither of them answers. Abuela grabs Mami by the shoulder and pulls her away from us so we don’t hear what she says or does next. Little does she know, I have bionic eyes and ears.
Abuela pulls out something from the bra under her bata. A brown envelope. Thick with green, stacked like an American dream. Those crisp, new dollar bills make their way down from Mami’s water-filled, fist-cushioned eyes and straight into her pale, shaking hands.
“Mirta, you can’t go on like this….”
Abuela’s warning plays on repeat. Each time ringing louder and louder.
My eyes open and all I’m left with is Mami’s silhouette in the moonlight. She’s sitting up in the bed next to me, hunched over, face buried in her knees, whimpering softly.
“It’s okay,” I whisper through the darkness. “You just had a bad dream.”
And I’m not really sure if I’m saying that to her…or to myself.
FINDING MY WAY
ALMOST TWO MONTHS IN, and I think I’ve figured out how to manage going to school while keeping Dr. Brown off my back. It turns out the security guard, Raymond, has himself a little reefer habit. And who better to supply him with the good stuff than the princesa? He hooks me up by letting me leave without ratting me out, or sometimes if I show up late, he lets me in through the auditorium door.
We got an understanding, the two of us. Keep our mouths shut and we both get what we need. Keeping a low profile is the way to go. Most of the teachers take attendance by passing around a sign-in sheet. There’s at least a couple of Diablas in all my classes, so they cover for me when I’m not there. Besides, the classes at Barringer are so overcrowded, half the time I doubt the teachers even notice.
Halloween’s coming up, and everyone’s all excited. They got the school decorated with posters for the Halloween dance on the twenty-sixth. I have zero intention of going, even though most of the Diablos are gonna go. Just before the last period of the day, I stop at my locker. The halls are empty, and the bell hasn’t rung yet.
I see a guy walking down the hall toward me, and what do you know, it’s Señor Sabe’todo. He’s wearing a bow tie and argyle sweater, looking good and ready to recite some hard-to-pronounce word, probably derived from some country I never heard of.
“Always a pleasure to run into you, Beatriz Ayita.” I smell him before he even reaches me. Soapy, pine-tree-like, intoxicating. And suddenly I can’t remember the combination to my locker.
I don’t have time for this right now. “Yeah…hey.”
“Miss me in gym?” he asks, and I got no clue what he’s talking about. It’s been a good while since I’ve been to that class.
“Um, yeah.” I shrug.
“Guidance transferred me out of gym to honors math. Had enough PE credits from my last school. But I do miss dancing with you. Well, trying to, at least.”
He smiles that too-white smile, and I swear my cheeks start turning red.
“Are you sick or somet
hing?” Nasser asks.
I drape a thick handful of hair over my face. My eyes scan the floor, looking for something to say. For some reason, I’m acting all punk-like, and I can’t stand it one bit.
“No, not sick. Just…busy. And you’re right, gym isn’t the same without you.”
“Well, if that’s the case you’re really gonna miss me during the last two marking periods.”
“Oh yeah?” I smirk. “Why’s that?”
“Mrs. Ruiz has a few of the honors students applying for college prep classes at Rutgers downtown, so if I get accepted, I’ll be there a few days a week. By the time I graduate from Barringer, I’ll already have some college credits.”
Of course.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he says.
I look at my watch. Time is money. “Sure. What’s up?”
“I was checking out some of the other programs in the guidance department, and I saw this.” Nasser flashes the flyer Mrs. Ruiz gave me on the first day of school. The one about the NAACP. It says ACT-SO Competition on it.
“You said you used to dance. You should go for it,” Nasser says.
Yeah, that. Confusion and desire start a secret battle inside me, and suddenly I blurt out, “Look, I don’t have time for—”
“Ain’t nobody here gonna give you a chance.”
The earth stops turning on its axis. “Excuse me?”
Nasser moves in close to my face, all dramatic, and starts walking in circles around me in his shiny penny-loafer shoes. “You’ve got to take your chance, if you’ve got guts,” he says in a low voice.
That’s when I realize this boy is quoting from the first episode of this season of Fame!
“Oh, I got guts, all right!” I play along. “I got more guts than anybody in this whole doggone school.”
Nasser’s breathing blends in with mine as he struggles to remember the next line. His staredown lasts for all of three seconds before we both lose it. He laughs. I follow. And for that short moment, life feels so good.
“Did you see the call for auditions on TV? Fame tryouts are coming up on November ninth,” Nasser says.
I’d blocked that out of my head since I heard the announcement on television a few weeks ago. Avoided Mami’s every-now-and-then pleading eyes, the excited whispers at school.
“Come on…this is Fame. I know I’m not missing it. You shouldn’t either, Ayita.”
The way he says my middle name makes my blood race. But I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.
“Well, I haven’t danced in a while. I’m too rusty.” I throw in that excuse to seal the deal.
“Tell you what. Come take a dance class with me downtown this Friday. You can practice for the audition there.”
“But Fridays are…” Gang meetings. I seal that last bit in my mouth.
“This is Fame…. You know, Debbie Allen, Gene Anthony Ray, Janet Freaking Jackson! You said you used to dance, right?” He’s getting all hyped up, no surprise.
“Well, not anymore.” I got nothing else.
“No excuses. Meet me Friday. Six o’clock, Newark Community School of the Arts, downtown on Lincoln Park.”
Nasser writes down his phone number and the address on a piece of paper, folds it up, and eases it into my pocket. That one touch sets my whole leg on fire.
I think of all the snapbacks I could say to this dude. Like, who do you think you are? With your perfect words and your pearly teeth and that old-man sweater, and what’s with the fancy shoes all the time? I don’t need your help with a damn thing. I’m a Diabla! But he reminded me of those two magic words: Debbie Allen. And that’s enough to make me rethink my decision.
“You should smile more often, Beatriz Ayita Mendez. It’s quite the vision of pulchritude.” He turns to go.
The bell rings just as I’m ready to ask pulk-uh-who?
But Nasser Kervin Moreau is already moving through the swarm, and I’m standing in the crowd, watching him float away.
My locker combination appears in my brain like magic. When I open the door, something falls out. I bend over to pick it up. It’s a Polaroid picture of me and Nasser during gym, dated September 18, 1984. The picture isn’t the best quality, and whoever took it didn’t get very close, but there I am standing with my nalgas hanging out of my shorts. Eyes fixed on the floor, while Nasser has his hands on my shoulders, begging me to dance.
Right beneath the picture there are words written in a language I don’t recognize: Kisa ou vle.
Maricela snatches the picture out of my hand from behind before I can figure out what it means.
“Ooh, let me find out you got a novio writing you notes in…what is this, Swahili?”
Then here comes Julicza, grabbing the picture from Maricela. “This is definitely French. I should know ’cause I’m taking it. See, the first word means kiss. I’m not even gonna tell you what the rest of it says, ’cause it’s just nasty!”
I snatch the picture out of Julicza’s hands, but it’s too late. She’s already wrapping her arms around her back, gyrating her body, and making kissy sounds.
“Whatever,” I snap.
“That’s the new kid from the junior class? Nasa? Nassau?” Julicza finally stops cutting up.
“It’s Nasser.”
“Well, excuuuse me!” Maricela says.
“Guys, I don’t know why this is in my locker.”
It’s strange because I doubt Nasser put it in there. He was walking from the opposite direction when he spotted me. Then again, he could’ve gotten there before I did. But how would he have gotten a picture of the two of us?
“I’m not trying to push up or nothing, but dork boy is foyne, okay? Not just fine…but foyne!” Maricela slaps fives with Julicza.
“And don’t try to act like you didn’t notice, Beatriz,” she adds.
“He’s…all right, I guess.”
But my insides are screaming: the boy belongs on the cover of Essence magazine!
“Beatriz ain’t trying to lose her focus. She’s got her priorities straight, right?” Julicza adds.
I nod as air traps itself in my throat, but I give her a high five anyway.
Yes, Nasser Kervin Moreau is one tall, dark drink of agua fresca. He’s smart and well-spoken and everything I am not, nor will ever be. And that is exactly why I cannot and will not even consider stepping to him.
I don’t tell the girls that he invited me to take a dance class with him on Friday, when I probably should be going to the Halloween dance with my crew. I won’t tell them that a part of me wants to ditch our weekly meeting, hop on the bus, and head straight downtown early to meet up with this guy. Instead, I tell myself that it’s strictly business. No one needs to know. It’s just a class. One class. That just so happens to be with the cutest nerd I’ve ever seen at any school I’ve ever attended. I promise all that inside my head, knowing darn well I can lie to everyone like a master. But the one person I’ve never been able to lie to is myself.
ACT TWO: AWAKENING
SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES IS A SPARK,
A MEMORY,
TO CRASH INTO US,
REMIND US OF THE WHAT-IFS,
UNLEASH WHAT SIMMERS BENEATH THE DEEP,
AWAKEN THE GHOST,
AND GIVE DREAMS A SECOND CHANCE…
FROM: DANIEL MARTIN
TO: MIRTA MENDEZ (AND ANYONE ELSE WHO’LL LISTEN)
FOUND BY: BEATRIZ IN MAMI’S BATA POCKET WHILE DOING LAUNDRY
PRIORITIES
BY THE TIME FRIDAY COMES, I’m questioning my every move. Do I go to school? If so, I’m gonna have to see Nasser with his fancy vocabulary and those begging brownish-greenish-golden eyes. Maybe it’s better if I stay and help out at the bodega. Yes, that sounds much better.
As I’m helping open up the store, Abuela asks, “¿No tienes escuela?”
“B
arringer is closed for teacher workshops,” I lie.
“¿Y los niños afuera con mochilas?” She gestures out the glass door.
Busted. But before I can even say anything, here comes Ms. Geraldine all off topic: “In the Philippines, education was a gift.”
I about cut that woman with my eyes. The longer she hangs around Abuela, the more Spanish she’s picking up. It’s starting to feel like I got two old ladies all up in my business.
I finally get a word in. “Those kids go to a different school. Only Barringer is closed.”
Abuela mumbles an mm-hmm to Ms. Geraldine, twists her lips at me, and walks away.
I spend the first couple of hours working at the counter, restocking shelves, and going outside to check on Mami. I haven’t seen Mr. Martin in a bit, and judging by the look on Mami’s face, I think she’s been searching for him.
I grab an extra milk crate, sit next to her, and start talking to her just like I seen Mr. Martin doing. I wish I had a book of poetry or something. But all I have are my own words.
“I miss hearing your voice, Mami. Te quiero.” Two words left unspoken for so long, and I don’t know why. Of course I love her. But this sense of duty has taken over, robbed me of the ability to feel anything other than responsibility.
DQ, Paco, and Fredito are a few feet away from us, playing dominoes. Slamming the table, taking turns getting all riled up.
“I’m thinking about dancing again,” I whisper, not wanting the others to hear.
Mami’s eyes get real big, and then she grabs my hands tight. It’s that same look she had when I told her I was auditioning for the pageant last year, that same look as when I started taking dance lessons once we got settled in Newark.
“Don’t get too excited, Mami. I said I’m thinking about it.”
Mami shakes her head like she don’t wanna hear nothing else but a yes.