by Tami Charles
“But I’m not a student—”
“Yet,” Nasser jumps in. “She’s registering for classes…today.”
“I am?” I cough the words out, but I’m no idiota.
Nasser purses his lips and gives me a shut-yo-mouth-and-play-along look. And on the inside, half of me is screaming at the other half. You knew exactly what you were doing when you packed your stash.
Okay, I guess I’m enrolling in dance classes. Money ain’t the issue. Time is. I don’t have time to dance, be in a gang, and take care of Mami.
Señorita Amaro hands me the paperwork with the requirements and fees, which I fill out before pulling out a wad of cash and forking over the tuition like it’s nothing.
Both she and Nasser look at me with the same question painted on their faces: Where the heck did you get all that money?
“Oh, this?” I point to it and quickly start up my lie. “I work at my mom’s bodega and today was payday.”
Señorita Amaro puckers her lips, almost like Abuela does, and throws in a stern, “See you next week…on time.”
It’s almost nine o’clock when we leave the dance studio. Buses are running less often by then.
“I can drive you home,” Nasser says.
It is a little cold. And I’m exhausted as all get-out. Maybe I can take just this one ride. “Okay, cool.”
We walk to his car, and I realize it’s not a car. It’s a yellow taxi. “Umm, Nasser?”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll tell you all about it. Hop in.”
Nasser revs up the engine and pulls off under a full moon. I’m not sure why, but when he asks me for directions, I give him all the wrong ones that take us the extra-long way. I have him drive me all through Branch Brook Park. The trees are especially pretty in the moonlight. His super-white teeth gleam as he smiles while talking.
“You sure you live in Newark?” Nasser asks. “Because I don’t think it takes forty minutes to get around the city…not that I’m complaining or anything.”
I just smile at him, and then he turns up the music on the radio. New Edition’s “Cool It Now” comes on.
“What’s your story, Beatriz?”
“I don’t have one,” I respond.
“Everyone has a story.”
“Okay, so then tell me yours, Mr. Taxi Man.”
Nasser Moreau speaks three languages—English, French, and Creole (and is learning Spanish)—and is damn near perfect at math and dancing and reading and basically breathing. But he doesn’t actually say that last part. I already knew that from watching him at school.
“My parents left Léogâne in Haiti to come to the States so my sister and I could make something of ourselves. The taxi belongs to my dad, and my mom is a home health aide. They bust their butts so I can have a shot at this thing called the American dream.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re Haitian?” I scan his face, not really sure what I’m looking for. Something familiar? But I come up empty.
Out of nowhere a cat bolts across the street, making him swerve the car a bit. It distracts him, I guess, because he never answers my question. So I try another one.
“When did you say you moved to Newark?” I ask.
“I finished out my sophomore year in Miami, and then we came here over the summer.”
So he wasn’t here in April. Could he still be connected to the Macoutes somehow?
“I didn’t realize that introducing myself as Haitian was a necessity around these parts. Where’d you think I was from? Don’t tell me—”
“Jamaica,” I blurt. Laughter spills out of his mouth like a rushing waterfall.
“And let me guess the other one: Africa?”
I nod shyly and feel like my intelligence level lowers five points.
“That’s like saying Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are the same.”
“Two different places, idiota!” I slap Nasser one good time on the shoulder.
“Bingo!”
Ahead the light turns yellow, and he slows the car and stops by the time the red light appears. He turns his face to mine, the rows of street lamps glittering in the darkness of his eyes.
“Is it a problem that I’m Haitian?” he asks.
I try to stop the oversize lump lodging itself in my throat. Try to block out the words I’d heard Abuela say over and over back in Aguadilla: mejora la raza. Translation: Don’t even think about getting with someone with dark skin. Life is hard enough when you’re dark. So why make it harder? I never understood that backward thinking, especially since Abuela is dark herself.
“No, I don’t care where you’re from. Far as I’m concerned, you’re my Caribbean brother.” I hold my hand up for a high five, and Nasser’s smile spans the perimeter of his whole head.
I change the convo real quick. “So what you wanna do, like after you leave Barringer?”
“That’s the problem. There’s so much I want to do. I thought about being a lawyer because I love history—”
“And words,” I add.
He starts laughing. “Yeah, that too! I like the arts—dancing, poetry, singing, guitar. And I already told you how I go to town in the kitchen.”
“What’s your specialty?”
“Oh, I make rice and beans like you wouldn’t believe!” He grins and those teeth gleam.
“And what do you sing?”
“Anything.”
“Then sing a song for me.”
He shakes his head, puts the signal on, and turns onto Broadway. As we draw closer to home, I know my time is almost up. I point to Grafton Ave and ask him to turn there because I know for a fact that if any of the guys are standing in front of the bodega, this scene won’t play out too well. I can just picture it now, the Diablos threatening Nasser to stay away from me, even though there’s nothing going on between the two of us. I think.
“One day I will sing a song for you, Beatriz Ayita Mendez.” The smile in Nasser’s eyes glows.
We sit parked in the taxi at the bottom of the hill near the train tracks. Random people knocking on the window asking for rides. He turns every one of them down. The saxophone intro for “Caribbean Queen” rolls in through the radio speakers.
I’m sitting there trying to think of what to say next. Err, see you at school. Umm, thanks for the ride.
But all I can do is stare at the halo of moonlight that frames his face. Julicza and Maricela were right. Damn, this boy is fine. Make that foyne.
The memory of us standing at my locker comes flooding back. Him saying I was a vision of pulchritude, which, it turns out, is derived from Latin, meaning “beautiful.” Thank you, Merriam-Webster dictionary!
But I also remember him floating away and what happened when I opened my locker.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to show you something.” I pull out the Polaroid picture from my bag.
Nasser turns on the light in the car to get a better look. “Whoa! Who took this photo?” He looks at me, puzzled.
“I think I’m the one who should be asking you that. My friends think maybe it’s for the yearbook or something.”
He shrugs his shoulders.
“Any idea what it says? You’re the one with the international vocabulary.”
“Kisa ou vle. It’s written in my native language, Haitian Creole. It says ‘what you want.’” Nasser’s voice rises above Billy Ocean’s soulful melody.
“What I want? You mean, like, what do I want?”
“No, this is a declarative, not an interrogative,” he explains.
“You’re killing me, bro.”
“The words are telling you this is what you want. And judging by the picture, I’m guessing whoever wrote it is trying to say you want…me?” His voice turns soft.
I snatch the picture out of his hand. Why is this note written in Creole, Nasser’s language—the same lan
guage of the Macoutes?
“But I don’t want you.” And as soon as I say that, my shoulders cave in. “What I mean to say is, I don’t want anything.”
Except for my life and my mom and my brother back.
“Whoever took the picture must think I like you or something,” I blurt out.
Nasser’s mouth spreads wider than the Passaic River behind the projects. “Well…do you?”
If there was a way to disappear into thin air, now would be the time.
“You’re different, Beatriz.”
“How so?”
“I can’t put my finger on it, but I just know you’re not like any girl I’ve ever met. For starters, you’re not one of those wannabe gangsta girls starting drama—”
The ball growing in my throat feels too big, too unmanageable.
“And your face…” His voice drifts off.
I pull my hair forward to cover what others say is no longer there, though to me, it remains as clear as the day it was bashed in.
“It’s unique. Like a piece of art.”
You mean the abstract kind, where colors and lines are thrown together and nothing makes sense?
“I, um, had an accident a few months ago. Before that, my face was different…better.” And that’s all I’m sharing.
“Well, I’m glad I met you with the face you have now.” He smiles, and I swear I want to hear him say that a hundred more times.
“So about me and you?” Nasser leans in a little closer to my shoulder.
I peep those eyes, that neck, that chin once more, looking for a reason to run away. There’s no tattoos, no battle scars, not a single thing that screams, “I’m in a gang.”
I know what’s coming next. Please don’t ask me out. Please don’t ask me out. But this little voice inside says, Please do.
“Are we going to audition for Fame or what? Those casting directors won’t know what hit them.”
My belly becomes a pit of relief and disappointment. “Yeah. Audition. Um, sure, but let me talk it over with my mom first.”
“Do you think your father will be okay with this? I can talk to him if you’d like, so he won’t be perturbed.”
“My dad is back in Puerto Rico.”
Saying those words reminds me that he is anywhere but here. And in that moment the memory of his face appears. A reminder of what love and hate looks like, all wrapped in one.
“Oh. Well, now you have to audition and make it in, so he can see you on TV!” Nasser’s all hyped up again.
My skin turns hot, and suddenly I’m ready to go. What if I do make it on Fame and Papi sees? Will he come running back, apologize, and make everything right? And as for Nasser, can I even trust this guy? I mean he’s nice and all, but everybody’s got a hidden side.
“I’ll let you know. But right now, I gotta go.” I slam the door behind me and pretend I live in the projects, walking farther down the hill, past the train tracks. The last thing I need is for him to see me at the bodega surrounded by a bunch of Diablos. Especially if it turns out that he’s a Macoute after all.
* * *
Track Three: Dance the Cha Cha, 1977
Tonight’s dream starts with boobs.
I am pressed against the softness of Mami’s chest. Mami tiptoes past Papi snoring on the floor, Junito glued to her side, as she gently closes the casita door. I hear the rhythmic crunch of coconut leaves beneath Mami’s feet—and the call of the coqui in the distance.
“¿A dónde vamos, Mami?” Junito whispers through the darkness.
The soft hum of a car engine sounds off in the distance, and the car flashes its lights to make itself known. Mami speeds her footsteps at the sight. The faster she moves, the more I become aware of my surroundings: the way the frogs sing ko keee!, the stars glittering the sky, the sound of salsa swelling in the barrio.
Mami kisses my forehead before answering Junito. “Todo va estar bien, mi’jo. This will be over soon.”
Tío Luis, Mami’s brother, steps out of the car to help Mami put us and the bags in.
Junito and I sit in the back of Tío Luis’s Toyota. It’s the same car Tío drives to pick me, Junito, and all my cousins up on Thursdays to go to the playa and buy us limber de coco. We always devour our frozen treats, coconut juice dripping down our chins, feet sinking in the sand. We dance, sing, and play in the ocean until the sun kisses the sky good night.
“Now remember what I told you,” Tío whispers, not realizing I am awake.
“Tía Inez’s friend Lucy will have her husband, Ronaldo, pick us up at Newark Airport, yes?” Mami replies.
Newark? Is that a town in Puerto Rico? Junito gently squeezes my hand. The moonlight pours in through our back windows, shining a spotlight on his mouth. That last fight at the arena left him with an extra lip.
“Exáctamente. Ronaldo speaks Portuguese, but it’s close enough to Spanish. You should be fine. He will take you to their apartment. They already have a spare room set up for you and the kids. It’s not much, but you will be comfortable.”
“¿Y no tengo que pagar nada? Are you sure?” Mami sounds scared.
“Lucy is family. She won’t charge you a penny. Inez took her in when Lucy’s mother died. She took care of her until she got on her feet. That’s when she met Ronaldo and married him. Lucy is more than happy to return the favor. Just use the money our mother gave you to get you and the kids started.” Tío Luis is patient.
A tear crawls out from Mami’s swollen eye.
Tío grabs her hand and presses it to his chest. “Te lo prometo, hermana. They will help you find a job. Lucy works at a hotel and her husband works at some department store called Bamberger’s. They’ll help you get the kids into school. You’ll be on your own before you know it.”
“What if the schools don’t let them in? It’s already December. Luis, nosotros no hablamos bien el inglés. What if I can’t find a job? What if the kids fail?”
Now Mami is really crying. “You gotta turn back,” she tells Tío Luis. “This is going to break his heart. And Beatriz! You know how much she loves her papi. Voy a hablar con él, Luis. I can get him to stop drinking and stop—”
“Hitting you? ¿Y Junito? And meanwhile Beatriz sees all this every day como si fuera normal? That’s what you call love? Is that what you want for your children? To let them grow up thinking it’s okay to let your husband beat you?” There is anger in Tío’s voice. It’s deep, and it’s enough to make Mami stop talking.
By the time we get to the airport, it’s almost four in the morning. Tío parks the car at the terminal, and Junito and I immediately pretend we’re sleeping when he turns around to check on us.
“Remember who you’re doing this for. Todo por ellos.” I can tell he’s pointing straight at us.
“He’ll come knocking on your door the second the rooster crows,” Mami warns.
Tío slaps one fist in the other hand. “Lo espero.”
Mami gets us up while Tío pulls our belongings out of the trunk of his car. Three bags, one for each of us. That is all we leave with that night. Three bags, lots of tears, and an endless supply of island memories.
The pain of it all swirls inside my head and jolts me awake. My eyes scan the darkness, confused, trying to forget the life that once was, wishing for a different life that could’ve been.
MAKING THE CALL
“DO YOU HAVE THE VALUE of the variable, Ms. Mendez?” I smell Mr. Hankerson’s breath even before he gets up next to me. A disastrous mix of wet dog, sweaty locker room, and a pinch of caca.
I sit up in my seat, and the whole class turns around to look at me. This right here is why I hate school.
“I’m not sure I heard the question,” I say.
“One more time. What is the value of n in the following equation: 4 + n = –5 + (–9)?”
I want to understand him, but this m
an is speaking Russian or something.
“Yo, this is wack!” Julicza blurts out, and the whole class starts dying laughing. The bell rings, thank God, but as everybody darts out the door, Mr. Dragonbreath tells me to stay behind.
I can see that Julicza and Maricela are waiting for me in the hall.
Mr. Hankerson walks over to his desk and pulls out a folder with my name on it. “You know, Beatriz, Mrs. Ruiz from the guidance department came around here asking about your grades and how you’re doing, and this is what I had to show her.”
He whips the folder open with copies of my tests, decorated in red Ds and Fs.
“I’m gonna start studying more,” I say quickly.
“We’re already at the end of October and the marking period will be over before you know it. You rarely come to class, and when you do, I’m not getting much out of you. Don’t you want better for yourself?”
That seems to be the question of the year. I did, once upon a time. But I say, “I do want better.”
“I’d like to recommend a peer tutor for you. She’s a senior, new to the school, a real math wizard. You can sign up in the guidance department. Here is her name.” Mr. Hankerson pulls an index card from the drawer and writes down “Amy Marcel.”
I remember Mrs. Ruiz saying something about a peer tutor a while back. I’ve been glad she’d forgotten about it. But I guess I wasn’t escaping after all.
“Do you know her?” he asks.
“Um, no.” There’s a sapo concho in my throat. “I don’t. You know Barringer’s such a big school and all. And like you said, she’s a senior.”
Straight up, that name sounds like a white girl. I’m already rolling my eyes. The last thing I need is some chick, especially some blanquita, thinking she’s better than me. But I don’t say any of that because I know where that card is going. Straight to the basura.
“What about a different tutor?” I blurt out.
“Ohhh?” Mr. Hankerson draws out the word until the fumes almost burn me to ash. “Who’d you have in mind?”