I turn over the wraps, reading the labels on what’s left. Papi has a way of knowing things, even if you don’t come out and tell him. They don’t call him El Jefe for nothing.
A woman with two boys gets on. One’s about Robi’s age. His mami sure is giving us the stink eye. Her nose hides in her sleeve. Yeah. Yaritza’s cooking isn’t shy in the smell department. But what are we going to do? We’re starved from an hour and a half of drills. And a two-hour game.
The train swings into Dekalb. Danny hoots as Bryan stands and lifts one foot. The fool keeps his balance as he chomps what’s left of his tortilla like he’s a gator in some cartoon. I lean back in my seat, stretching my legs. Train’s only going to get more crowded. The boy who looks like Robi digs into the shopping bag his mami’s holding. He comes back out with a baseball cap. Not Mets. Yankees.
I lift off my own cap and push back sweat-drenched hair. I tug down the brim and meet the boy’s smile with my own. My hat doesn’t have an N or Y on it. The letters AHH are stitched into the navy fabric in the same font as the Yankees’. We’re still in Brooklyn, not Washington Heights, so not everyone is going to recognize it stands for Alexander Hamilton High. But if you know about high school baseball and you recognize the names of two Hall of Famers and three Rookies of the Year, you will. The boy’s mami stops fussing with the younger boy. Her eyes flit from Danny to Bryan to me. I know what she sees—three morenos in dirt-stained sweats taking up a row and a half of seats. She tugs at her son’s sleeve till he looks away. Guess she doesn’t know what AHH means either.
The doors crash open. Folks pile in.
“Muévete.” I slide over the empty seats between us and push Danny toward Bryan. Bryan’s standing, one cleat still off the floor, taco held high like he means to mash it into the ceiling. I rise and snatch it away. I hand it to Danny who downs it before Bryan can grab it back. Bryan knocks Danny’s cap clear across the car. Danny dives for it. He pops back, hat pulled nearly down to his nose. The brim doesn’t cover his upper lip, one side smooth, the other bumped with a red line snaking down from his nostril. But it hides his eyes so he can’t see people looking at him. His abuela’s still angry his mami didn’t bring him to New York right after he was born. She’s always going on about how if he’d had the surgery here instead of in DR it would look better. Bryan and I tell him it’s not so bad. But still, he never takes off that cap.
“Y tú. Siéntate.” I hold the last of the tacos. I don’t hand them over till Bryan takes his seat like I asked. I keep the suadero for me. The boy who looks like my baby brother isn’t there anymore. The mami’s moved them to the other end, as far from us as possible. I concentrate on the warm fold of corn and grilled meat. I chew and close my eyes again. Bryan’s telling some story about when he and Julissa went to some party. He reminds me if I ever went with him, Kiara would be waiting for me and I wouldn’t have a girl problem. I take another bite. The top of a Yankees hat sticks above a cardboard box. The hat tips forward as if the boy is looking at his hands or his feet or the ground. It’s just like Papi said. If that mami had seen us on the field, it’d be different. She’d be wanting her sons to be us instead of trying to keep them away. I could make a fist, stick out my thumb, then count on that one hand the number of times someone’s met me not on the field, not in uniform, and actually respected me. Baseball is what makes people take notice of me.
•••
“Alex, montro, come on!” Danny’s calling me from the door. I snap up and follow him to the platform.
“What you dreamin’ about?” Danny cranes his head back to me as we aim for the tunnel to the 1, 2, 3.
Bryan jabs me with an elbow. “Not what. Who?” He smirks. “Kiara, right?” I wave him off but show him a grin. They both start hooting. The local and the express come at the same time. Bryan goes for the express but I jerk my chin at the local.
We get on, the conductor screaming at us to wait till others get off. It’s crowded, so we’re stuck by the doors.
“Why you don’t want the express no more?” Bryan’s question is an accusation. “You do know it’s faster, right? That’s why they call it the express.”
I give him my back. I gaze out at rainbow graffiti on concrete walls. I trace the curves of balloon letters on the glass. Bryan likes to argue. I don’t.
“Manito, to ’ta frio. We got to change at Ninety-Six anyway,” Danny says.
Bryan’s reflection scowls. He likes to get his way. And he doesn’t like to be ignored. At the next stop, Bryan mutters as he squeezes in tight next to me and Danny. At Fifty-Ninth, a couple people get off. None get on. Bryan rolls his shoulders and adjusts his cap. “Been meaning to ask, why don’t you ever take El Jefe up on his offer to stay with him and Yaritza on the weekend? Bet Robi would love that. And maybe then he wouldn’t make us run all those extra drills.”
I have spent the night with them. Robi’s mostly the reason I do it. But me staying over doesn’t guarantee Papi’ll be in a good mood. Plus, I don’t like leaving Mami alone in the apartment all night. Unlike Papi, Mami doesn’t have anyone else. Bryan lives with his abuela. Danny too. They’d understand if I told them. But I don’t.
“What, and miss riding the train with you pendejos?”
Danny chuckles. Bryan barely cracks a smile. He’s still angry about taking the local.
“Hey, Bry, how ’bout you and me head to Hood Park when we get back?” I nod at my ball bag.
“You kiddin’? We just finished practicing.” Bryan rubs his thumb into his palm. “Yo, chan, I need a rest. Plus, I got someone to meet. And before you ask me, it’s not Julissa.”
Danny tsks. He bumps Bryan with his arm. “Don’t you got work to do?” He peers at me. I have a science lab to write. But practicing the new pitch Papi taught me, showing Papi I’m serious, is more important.
I hold up the ball, two fingers on the red seams. My thumb cradles the bottom. “This is work.”
Danny looks down and shrugs a shoulder. “I’ll go.”
He’s not as good a catcher as Bryan. But I only need someone to toss the ball back to me. I wait for Danny to look up then give him my winner’s smile. His face lights like he just got named MVP. We’re coming up on Lincoln Center. I scan the platform, hoping Bryan and Danny don’t notice. The door opens. I duck out, make a show of letting others in. Some girls with buns get on the car next to ours.
I jump back in. The train pulls away. I walk toward the next car.
“Hey! Alex!”
I ignore Bryan, even though he hates that.
I jerk the handle to open one door, do it again to open a second.
The next car is just as crowded. The three dancers hang close to the door. The one with blond hair is facing away. I hold my breath and wait for her to turn. She catches me staring and frowns. I look down. It’s not her.
I head back to Danny and Bryan. Words on a poster confront me. I’ve seen this poem before. “Lost” is the title.
“What was all that about?” Bryan accuses.
“Nada. Thought I saw someone is all.”
“Who?” Bryan presses.
There is only one name that’ll make him back off.
“Kiara.” I lazy-smile at them as they catcall and punch my arm. I stare out the window as patches of spray-can art zip by. The words from the poem fall apart. In my head, I reassemble them.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2
ISA
I’m holding five leotards (three navy for Technique, Pointe, and Adagio, and two white for Variations and Character class), twelve pairs of pink tights (they always run), one navy skirt, two white skirts, two sets of hairpins (I tend to lose them), two hairnets, and sparkle hair gel (whoever decided to add the sparkle to gel is a genius).
“Oh good, you saw the hair gel too!” Chrissy sashays toward me, her arms heaped with fabric. Her squeal makes a few customers turn. Chrissy drops the clothes in a chair, slides out her phone, turns the hair gel bottle upside down, and opens her mouth. She makes exaggerated gulping s
ounds and takes a selfie. She taps at her screen, no doubt posting the pic, then starts jumping up and down. “I am so pumped we get to take Variations this year! Aren’t you?”
I nod. I should be excited. I mean, I am excited. It’s just that Mom decided to come this afternoon instead of telling me to use her credit card like she did last year. Part of me grew a few inches and beamed when Mom grabbed her bag and followed me out. The other part is freaking.
I head toward the shoe section, glancing past Chrissy. My mom’s still leaning against the wall next to the changing area. She’s fingering the fabric of a leopard-print miniskirt as she talks on her cell. It must be Dad, because Mom doesn’t look angry. If she were speaking with anyone from the boards of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program or the Art and Architecture Museum, I’d be able to hear what she was saying from across the room.
I stretch my neck, relaxing my back and shoulders. Mom can’t get into too much trouble if she’s on the phone. I drape an arm over my pile while I wait. I don’t want anyone to think it’s unclaimed. In sixth grade, I’d gathered almost my entire wardrobe and left it with Mom while I went to try on a different style of leotard Chrissy was raving about. When I came out of the dressing room, Mom and my stuff were gone. Mom had taken a call and wandered away. All the clothing and accessories had been reshelved. Dance is your hobby and you have to take responsibility for it, Isabelle, she’d shrieked. She was right. I shouldn’t have let my things out of my sight.
“Size?” A woman with dyed black hair pulled into a severe bun peers over small square spectacles at me. Her hand juts out for the sample shoes I’m holding.
“Um.” I give her the pointe shoe and the pink ballet slipper with the split leather sole. “I was a seven last year, but do you think you could measure me? Over the summer they started to feel tight.”
“They’re supposed to be tight.” She has the slipper right up under her nose, trying to read the style number printed on the inside. Her accent is Russian. Or Ukrainian perhaps.
“Yes, but would it be OK if we just checked?” My Peds-clad foot is already on top of the metal measuring contraption. “I don’t want to make a mistake.”
The sales lady crouches beside me and adjusts the marker against my toes. “I will get you seven and half. And seven.” She marches to the back, the ribbons from the pointe shoes trailing behind her.
“What’s her story?” Chrissy puts her hands on her hips. She scowls as she climbs over the bench to sit beside me.
“I’m thinking failed trapeze artist.” It’s a game I made up to pass the time when Merrit was in the hospital. “She escaped a household of seven older brothers, three of whom ended up inheriting their mother’s lycanthropy. Before she found out if she was going to turn into a werewolf too, she ran off with the circus.”
Chrissy’s grinning. “So why did she fail? At trapeze, I mean.”
“Well, in Paris, she was courted by a renowned acrobat from India and they started a torrid affair. Photos of them kissing midswing, knees locked around their own trapezes, plastered the city papers.”
“Ooh! Like Greatest Showman!” Chrissy clasps her hands together and sighs.
I nod and pause, thinking of the worst thing that could happen to my character, who I’ve named Tatiana. “They were going to marry, but she made the mistake of telling him about her unstable family. Ajay left her and followed his troupe back to Mumbai. Poor Tatiana was heartbroken. She moved to New York and never touched another trapeze again.”
Chrissy looks toward the open doorway that says EMPLOYEES ONLY. “No wonder she’s such a bitch.”
I go to smack Chrissy with a packet of tights, but she scoots out of the way. She turns over the shoe she’s holding and makes a face at the price tag.
“Honestly, I don’t know why you don’t buy your shoes online. They’re so much cheaper. And then you don’t have to deal with Ms. Trapeze Wannabe Werewolf over there. What? You know the real reason she’s so uptight isn’t because she didn’t get the guy. It’s because she never got to throw her head back and howl.” Chrissy puckers her ruby-red lips. She always wears that same lipstick, with thick black eyeliner and fake lashes. Otherwise strangers on the subway would still be asking her if she lost her mother and needed help getting home.
I nail her in the face with tights as a long “Arh-ooo!” comes out of her. I check to make sure Mom hasn’t heard her. Chrissy’s mom, Mrs. McCallum, has cornered a sales associate next to the cash register. Thankfully, our moms haven’t seen each other. A giant display of mannequins clad in tulle stands between them.
The lady who was helping me—“Tatiana”—comes through the doorway, a tower of boxes obscuring her face. Chrissy makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a woof as the woman lowers the boxes to the ground. Tatiana removes the first shoe and holds out a hand for my foot, just as a voice booms behind me.
“Well if it isn’t my second-most-favorite ballerina in the whole world. How are you doing, sugar? Stand on up and give us a hug.” Chrissy’s mother holds out her arms.
Tatiana frowns. “I have shoes here. Hug can wait.”
“Goodness me, that can’t be right. There’s always time for a hug.” Mrs. McCallum pats her ample bosom as she steps in front of the store lady. I rise and put my arms around her, bending my head a bit. My mom never hugs Chrissy like this. She never hugs me like this.
Tatiana click-clacks away to help someone else. Chrissy’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.
“Ruh-ude,” she warbles, giving the word two syllables. “Though maybe this is good. I’ll take a pic of the pair you like and we can buy them online after all.”
“Oh, yes. That is a fine idea,” Mrs. McCallum whispers. “Isabelle, dear, is your mother here? I should go find her and say hello.”
I nod. “She’s over by the dressing rooms.” I glance at Chrissy, worried. Mostly I want to protect her mom from my mom. But also, I don’t want them talking about dance. I didn’t tell Mom I’m taking ten classes instead of eight this year, because I don’t want her to flip out.
“Mama?” Chrissy flashes her angel smile. “Could you find me some of those little sticky pads that go over your nipples? I’m almost out and I know you don’t want me high-beaming everyone when I’m on stage.”
Mrs. McCallum’s eyes grow huge. “Oh no! That would be something, wouldn’t it? Where do you think they are, honey?”
Chrissy points to the corner of hair accessories, even though the nipple pasties are next to the cashier’s desk. Mrs. McCallum gives me a wave before wading through the racks of sequined dance dresses.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Chrissy lifts the cover off one of the boxes and wiggles a pointe shoe at me. “No probs.” Chrissy insists she doesn’t mind my mom. But we’ve been dancing together since fifth grade so she knows how my mom can be. “Mama will probably come back with a Pinterest post about how to make a tiara out of rhinestone bobby pins, ain’t that right, sugar?” Chrissy grins as I laugh. She’s good at that, attacking my family stress with humor.
I take the shoe as Chrissy tugs stuffing out of the other one.
“Are we almost done here? Oh, hello, Chrissy.”
“Mom!” It’s an out-of-breath gasp. I didn’t see her coming.
“How are you, Mrs. Warren? Isa’s almost finished. She just needs to settle on shoes.” Chrissy puts a hand on each of the two towers of boxes.
Mom looks Chrissy up and down. I fight the urge to grab my friend and push her behind me. Please don’t say anything, Mom. Don’t say a single thing.
“Chrissy, you look wonderful! Your calves are so sculpted. And your arms . . .” Mom lifts one of Chrissy’s hands, inviting her to twirl. “Have you been doing pilates this summer?”
Chrissy spins, her mouth stretching ear to ear. “Nope. Just dance.”
“I’ve always said dancing makes the most beautiful bodies. Right, Isabelle?”
She’s never said that to me. Not one time. I nod and smile anyway.
> Mom’s eyes come back to me and the shoe boxes. “Do you have to try all of them on?” She looks at her watch. “It’s quarter to six and I have a board meeting at seven thirty. I’d like to see your father for more than ten minutes before I have to go.”
“You know, Mrs. Warren”—Chrissy flips her auburn curls over one shoulder—“you could start checking out.” She gestures at my pile of dance-wear, then looks at me. “By the time they ring everything up you’ll be done with the shoes, right?”
Mom doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Where do I pay?” She’s come with me to this same store at least four times, but Mom hates this stuff. She can’t help not remembering it.
“I’ll show you.” Chrissy leaps up, grabbing the leotards, skirts, and tights. “Oh—I love these skirts! Don’t you?” She holds up a hanger, letting the white gauze sway. “I’m so glad we get to wear them this year.”
Mom picks up only the hairpins and follows Chrissy to the register.
I’m battling with a pointe shoe when Chrissy returns. “Thanks,” I murmur, as I lace it up.
“Hey, what else am I here for? Any sign of my momster, by the way?”
I rise up on pointe and draw my knees to my chest in sharp, short jerks, turning in a slow circle. The added height gives me a good view. “She’s over by the tutus.”
“Ha! I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist!”
Rising voices come from the direction of the checkout desk. Mom is arguing with the sales lady. I’m about to yank off my shoes and sprint over there when I notice a boy about my age standing by the windows facing Seventh Avenue. He’s flipping through a rack of pants in the men’s section. His white shirt hugs his body, showing the movement of his muscles underneath. An older woman approaches, speaking to him in Spanish. He laughs and lets out an, “Ay, Mami!” He turns and puts his arm around her. It’s not Chuck, the guy from the subway. I’d thought maybe it was.
Chrissy takes the box of slippers from me. “These are the ones you want, right?” She eyes my right foot, then my left. “Those two feel the same?”
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