by Tami Charles
The curtains close, just in time to hide my smile that is fading fast.
The sound guy hands me my tape and says, “Good job.” I’m sure I don’t even answer him back.
I walk farther backstage, past the other contestants, smiling, whispering, congratulating me. But none of it matters. What I felt a minute ago when I saw Nasser made the whole earth stop. And even though he didn’t stay, he saw me in my rawest form.
I find my dance bag lined up against the wall in the hallway beside the auditorium. As soon as I bend over to grab it, I hear the clack of hard shoes. See the shiny penny loafers strolling my way. And when I stand all the way up, he’s already here. In my face. Smiling.
“That was amazing, Beatriz.”
I feel stars burst beneath my feet, if there ever was such a thing.
“Thank you. I didn’t think I’d see you in the audience. Did you compete yet?”
“Sure did. Recited my poem for the judges in the art room, right before you went onstage.” He grins.
We stand there, silence lingering between us. Seconds pass. Our hands become magnets. Two months. That’s how long it’s been. Two months of barely seeing each other at school. Barely speaking. Just a “hello” here and a “have a nice day” there in between bell rings on the days he did have class at Barringer. Once, maybe twice a week. Two months since the last time I felt his touch.
“I’ve missed you,” I say. My hands clench his shirt, pulling him forward, praying he doesn’t pull back like last time.
He doesn’t.
“Missed you too, Beatriz. I didn’t think I would. But I do.”
Those lips hover a few inches above mine, waiting for me to stand on my tippy toes to reach them. And I swear it’s just like a scene out of a telenovela, where the violins come in all romantic and junk and the trumpets scream, the door busts open, and the whole familia ruins the moment.
Because that’s exactly what happens next.
“¡Dios mío, qué talento!” It’s Abuela’s show now, with her fast feet and her big voice echoing down the hallway. My whole entire crew is scurrying behind her in order to keep up.
“I’m so proud, mi’ja.” Mami hands me a bouquet of tulips soon as she reaches me.
More hugs. More compliments. From everybody. Even Mr. Stoneface Martin himself.
In a perfect world, this should be a Polaroid picture. A complete circle, with me standing in the middle, surrounded by pieces of a puzzle that, from the outside, look like they wouldn’t fit. But somehow they do. And oddly enough, there’s not a Diablo anywhere.
“Guys, I’d like to introduce you to—” I start.
“Nasser, amorcito lindo!” Abuela interrupts me, screaming.
And the Academy Award goes to Abuela. Except this performance seems real as hell. Nasser’s eating it up too, hugging her back. Like him and her been homies forever.
Mami steps in. “We got to know your friend very well at the hospital.”
Dr. Brown reaches through the crowded huddle to shake Nasser’s and my hand. “Well, you’ve certainly made Barringer proud, Beatriz. You too, young man. I was able to catch your performance right before Beatriz’s. Great job on your poem.” Then he zips up his jacket.
“Where are you going, Dr. Brown?” Nasser asks.
“Yeah, you should stick around for the awards. I mean, I’m not sure if I’ll win,” I say.
Mami slaps me on the shoulder. “Don’t talk like that!”
“Well, I don’t know if my poem will get anything either,” Nasser says.
Mami gives him a whack too.
Dr. Brown checks his watch. “I have to head home. But when you two get to school on Monday, be sure to stop by my office to show me your medals.”
He winks at us both and walks down the hall, past the auditorium, and straight out the exit doors.
ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER SHOT
I NEVER THOUGHT I’D spend my fifteenth birthday staring down the barrel of a gun, let alone hearing the sound of a single shot that killed my brother. I didn’t expect to spend the time after his death living for him, for his purpose and not my own. I never really chose to become a Diabla, selling poison in the streets and in my school. The dance floor was my calling—the passion that was sealed for me long ago when I used to dance on the sandy beaches of Puerto Rico.
It’s been almost a year without Junito. Each day has been different. Some beautiful, some more painful. All three of us—Mami, Abuela, and me—have spent days and nights, in our own way, crying for him to come back, until there were no tears left. We lost count of how often the sun turned to moon and the moon became sun, and we yelled at God for doing what comes naturally—taking life away to begin fresh. It took some time for the three of us to realize that what we have now is what we had all along: strength, unity, amor.
I am silent as I kneel at the altar between Mami and Abuela. All three of us dressed as if we’re going somewhere fancy—Mami’s request. I knew better than to fight back when she handed me a blue velvet swing dress and a red rose for my hair.
Today is not about me. This is for Junito.
Abuela clutches her rosary, whispering Spanish prayers of peace on this one-year anniversary of the shooting. I glance at Mami as if I’m waiting for her to relapse, for her voice to shut off like a light switch, like it did when the doctors broke the news. I also wait for tears. The rushing rivers that I haven’t seen fall from her eyes in months. Perhaps the tears have been relieved by my return to dancing, or her running the bodega again, or the poetry styles I share with her from my new class at school, even though she refuses to follow the rules. ¿Quién necesita las reglas cuando tienes corazón?
And while I’d like to think that I’ve found my healing in dance, I’m sure that Mami has found hers in those beautiful, speak-worthy, rule-breaking words she records in her journal.
Mami turns to today’s latest poem. A Spanish haiku of sorts that she wrote as she sat outside the bodega when the sun rose. She tapes it to the wall next to a picture of Junito’s smiling face.
Tu ausencia
es temporal mi hi’jo
tu amor…es eterno
This simple poem, breaking the haiku pattern, is probably her best one yet. I translate it in my head into English. Your absence is temporary, my son; your love is eternal. I repeat the poem aloud in Spanish, counting the off-beats in a whisper, praying Junito hears and feels every single word.
Mami leans over the altar and blows out the candles.
“¡Ven, Beatriz! I have a surprise for you,” Mami says.
She reaches for my hand to lift me off the floor, and then I do the same for Abuela.
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking at Abuela for an answer, but all she does is laugh and say, “Yo no sé nada.”
Together we walk down the stairs. Me in the middle, one hand clutched to Mami and one to Abuela like an unbreakable chain. Mami opens the door and the sun pours in, almost blinding my view of Nasser standing there, holding three single, wrapped roses. Two yellow. One red.
“Happy birthday, Beatriz Ayita,” he says, handing the yellow roses to Mami and Abuela and the red one to me.
My stomach pulls and tugs in every direction.
“¡Amorcito, qué bello!” Abuela doesn’t even give me a chance to say anything to Nasser. She can’t stop herself from squeezing his cheeks, telling him how handsome he looks in his khaki pants, bow tie, and grown-man shoes.
Mami grabs me by the shoulders and commands, “Go out and enjoy!”
That stomach thing starts up again, and I know exactly why. “I can’t leave you alone. Not today of all days.”
Mami looks at me with hopeful eyes. “You turn sixteen only one time, mi’ja. Today we all get out of the house. Abuela and I have plans too. Come back and we have cake and sing. Together, como una familia.”
“Okay, I’l
l be back by nine. And there’s something I need to do tonight.”
Mami gazes deep into my eyes, like she knows.
Abuela winks at me. “Now, he take you to dinner.”
“El carro te espera,” Nasser says, pointing to the taxi.
That sends Mami leaping a bit, her yellow rose still pressed close to her chest. “¡Ay! He’s learning Spanish so nicely, Beatriz!”
“Words are his thing, Mami. I’m sure he’ll master it soon and move on to German by next week.”
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea!” Nasser lifts a finger to his temple.
He escorts me to the car and opens the door for me. Mr. Martin’s car pulls up right behind Nasser’s taxi.
I wave at Mr. Martin, and when he waves back, I don’t know why, but it sends my hopes soaring.
Nasser and I pull off down Broadway, with the cool spring breeze sifting through the crack in the window. We zoom down the Garden State Parkway, far away from our world in Newark, and get off the exit for Clark.
Clark is a suburb. The chances of seeing Bigfoot outweigh the possibility of seeing any black or brown faces roaming these streets. When we pull into a restaurant parking lot, I just about drop my mouth on the floor. Nasser Kervin Moreau is taking me on a real date, to a real fancy joint. Friendly’s. There’s waiters and tables where they come up to us and ask us what we want to order.
“What will you have to eat, young man?” The waitress speaks to Nasser first.
“I’ll have the steak with fries.”
“And how would you like your steak cooked?”
“Medium well.”
“And for the lady?”
“Don’t be shy, Beatriz. Order whatever you want. It’s her birthday,” he tells the waitress. She announces it to the whole restaurant and everyone starts clapping.
I order the chicken salad, chicken and broccoli cheese pasta, and a Coke with lemon.
“I’m not sure what I did,” I tell Nasser.
“Did for what?”
“To deserve you.” I move my hair to cover my face.
“You don’t have to do that. You’re beautiful just the way you are.” Nasser sticks my hair behind my ear. I leave it right there where it belongs.
Dinner is delicious and when we’re done with it, the staff brings out a brownie sundae with a candle lit, and they sing “Happy Birthday” to me. After dinner Nasser drives me to this beautiful park called Warinanco in Roselle. The sun is falling just as we arrive. We take a walk around the lake, throwing pieces of Nasser’s leftover fries to all the ducks. Finally we settle on a big rock near the weeping willow trees beside the lake, where we talk about our lives until we chase the sun from the sky. His stories, my stories intertwining, like tracks on a mixtape playing on repeat.
“Speaking of music, I have a surprise for you,” he says.
Nasser takes his guitar out of its case and positions the strap around his shoulder. He strums the guitar and two chords in, I already know.
“You learned how to play my song?”
Señorita Amaro has been teaching me a new dance for the ACT-SO national contest: “Out Here On My Own.”
I love this Irene Cara joint from the Fame movie.
“Dance for me,” Nasser says, so smooth, so sweet, I just about lose it.
He plays and with each chord, I begin to move like nothing else matters. Knees close together for a perfect backswing, careful of my lines, just like Señorita Amaro taught me. I try my best to remain poised through each movement, press down the excitement that’s been building inside ever since I saw that newspaper article.
In a few months I will dance for Debbie Allen.
Once upon a time, I really did wonder who I was, where I fit in. But not anymore. Nothing and no one will take away my chance. These days, the inhala, exhala feels easier.
Especially since I know what’s coming next. Tonight’s the night.
Nasser and I play and dance to his guitar version of the song until the moon takes its place in the sky.
As he strums the last chord, I take a bow, envisioning the hundreds of people in the audience at nationals. I want to stay right beneath the moon, beside this lake, wrapped into arms where I finally feel free.
A soft kiss on my forehead breaks me out of my vision.
“I’m not going to leave you. We can do this together,” Nasser whispers in my ear.
We’d talked about how this would play out again and again. He begged, bargained, pleaded, but I stayed true.
Some burdens are meant to be carried alone.
We head back to the taxi and cruise back up the Parkway, his one hand on the steering wheel, the other gripping me tight as though the pressure is enough to change my mind. We take the long way through the winding Branch Brook roads lined with cherry blossoms, past the bright lights that line Route 21, until we reach the front of the bodega.
Nasser puts the car in park. “Let’s get this over with once and for all.”
“No, I got this.” I graze my fingers across Nasser’s face. It stops him from taking off his seatbelt.
“Will you be okay?” he asks.
“I’ll be just fine.”
He cracks his knuckles. “And if something happens…”
“You’ll be the first person I call.”
And with that promise, I kiss him good night, sneak past Geraldine, slip to the basement unseen, prop open the back door, and wait. The wait’s not long. Soon everyone shows up.
* * *
Track Six: Dance of La Salsa, 1974 (A Wish)
Later that night, I’m exhausted. Sleep comes fast and it brings a new dream. A new track.
We are back where we started. Right in the barrio, in front of our casita in Aguadilla, playing with our cousins. Mami and Abuela are pinning up wet clothes on the laundry line, where they will bake under the Caribbean sun and dance in the afternoon wind. We sing our song while jumping rope. Junito is with us, laughing, carefree and singing, bouncing to the rhythm.
Papi pulls up in a car with our tíos. He is not drunk. Not an ounce of alcohol on his breath. He jumps in the rope and sings along with us.
Mi madre y mi padre
viven en la calle
de San Valentín
número cuarenta y ocho.
Our voices fold into each other as we sing a sweet song about where our parents live. And when Papi’s brothers start to make fun of Junito—the fact that he doesn’t play with the other boys in the barrio, but instead chooses to jump rope with his primas and hermana—Papi does not care for one second.
“Leave my boy alone. He’s perfect the way God made him.”
Suddenly my heart explodes with the heat of a million suns.
The sky darkens a bit just as Mami finishes cooking dinner. She props the radio on the windowsill and turns up the volume when “Indestructible” by Ray Barretto comes on. The wooden claves take over, dominating our hands, hips, feet, and heart. Papi, my cousins, my uncles, Junito, and the whole barrio begin to move. Fingers clasped, spinning with the earth, melting into the magic that is la música salsa. The lyrics bleed true: when you go through a hard time in life, in that moment…take fate into your own hands. And that’s exactly what we Mendezes will do. We’ll be indestructible, together.
The song ends and Mami calls us inside, where we will feast on tonight’s spread: pork chops, rice and beans, and tostones, of course. Junito holds my hand as we walk inside, and he whispers to me, “I’m okay now. We’re okay. I can be who I want to be. And I want you to do the same.”
I turn over in my sleep. My every dream from this night will be filled with sweet thoughts like this, even if they are a figment of my imagination.
TAKING FLIGHT—THREE MONTHS LATER
AFTER MY BIRTHDAY NIGHT in the park with Nasser, I waited down here in the storage room of the basement. Held
one final meeting. They all showed up too, even with DQ gone. I looked every single Diablo in the eye. Told them I was done. I didn’t care about the money, wearing the flyest gear, how my family would get by. We’d known rock bottom before. We’d come out of this better, stronger, indestructible.
I waited for a reaction. Blood in, blood out, right? Those were the rules. But one by one, every single Diablo walked out of the room, a series of whispers trailing behind them.
“Better watch your back, princesa.”
“We don’t need you. We’ll do our own thing.”
And finally a squeeze of a hand and the softest whisper of all: “I get it. Happy birthday, though.”
That was the last time Maricela and I spoke.
And I swear I heard Abuela in my head that night in both Spanish and English: A veces se pierde amigos en el camino al éxito. Sometimes we lose friends on the path to success.
Not one Diablo touched me that night or anytime since, and I knew that had everything to do with Junito. My guardian angel still looked over me, people still loved and feared and respected him, even from the grave.
I didn’t quit the Diablos because I stopped loving Junito. It’s because the longer I hung on, the more I realized that I was losing the love I once had for myself.
My time as a dealer is over. I had enough of seeing it, knowing how it affected the people of my city. Walking away was the only way to discover who I was meant to become: Beatriz Mendez, NAACP ACT-SO gold medalist, fourth marking period “Most Improved” freshman at Barringer High School, future dancer headed for fame.
I haven’t seen or heard from Amy since all those months ago when we fought on the train tracks. I sent help but when cops searched the scene, all they found was a blonde wig, a Polaroid camera, and a picture of me running, looking scared as hell.
Sometimes I wonder where Amy is, where she went that night, and how she’s living now. Did she eventually go back to Haiti? Is the emptiness still there? ’Cause sometimes it’s still in me too. Living and growing, though, I’ve found a way to rise above it. In a lot of ways, we are alike. Caught between two worlds, trying to find a way to prove ourselves and make it in a new place, even though memories of our islands, both sweet and bitter, are still ingrained in our minds. Feet planted here, hearts left behind in the Caribbean. We both lost brothers. I’m glad she didn’t lose both of hers, actually. And now we have to learn how to become and how to overcome all at once.