This Is Not Chick Lit

by Elizabeth Merrick

  She smiled, too. “I like how you put that.” Then she glanced out the window again, as she tended to do, before turning to me and saying, “You should sit with me on the bus instead. Tomorrow, will you save me a seat? At least then I’ll have someone to talk to.”

  I nodded, half of me sinking in disbelief, the other half of me floating with joy.

  “Good,” she said. “So what now?”

  “I guess we meet again next week.”

  In school, news that Gabriella and I were sitting together on the bus got around fast, and reports that I was tutoring her one afternoon a week followed close behind. Guys like Jaime and Ricardo who had always teased me in the past were giving me a second look, wondering what I had that they didn’t. But they couldn’t figure it out, and truthfully, neither could I.

  Gabriella and I fell into a sort of friendship. She didn’t seem to mind that I was a bit of an outcast. We met every Monday in Profesor Treviño’s room and talked—we had long since stopped studying—until the janitor came with his rolling bucket and dingy mop and told us to get lost. Then Gabriella popped up and bade me good-bye.

  I hardly remember now what we talked about for so many afternoons except that once, she told me why she didn’t let on that she was as smart as she was: her mother wanted her to get married. I asked what that had to do with it. Gabriella said that her mother had drilled it into her since she was little that finding a good husband was the best thing a woman could do for herself. Forget about schooling. Find a decent man.

  “Do you really believe that?” I asked.

  “Why not? It doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “But why can’t you do both—school and marriage? Why does it have to be one or the other?”

  “Guys don’t marry smart girls.”

  “I would marry you,” I said. I trembled as the words came out. It felt like my big confession to her.

  “You’re different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know.”

  “What?”

  “Forget it,” she said.

  “I really would. I would marry you.”

  “Thanks,” Gabriella said, unfurling a soft laugh.

  The next few months were torment. If anyone had asked me then, I would have told them: Gabriella was my every breath. She was my beating heart. I felt as if every moment of my existence was spent trying to figure out how to stand next to her in the hall, deciding whether I should take a chance and hold her hand on the bus. Watching her longingly from afar as she hung out with her girlfriends, I was terrified to make my move.

  In April, two months before graduation, I received a letter of acceptance from the Universidad Tecnológica. To celebrate, my mami threw me a small party. Gabriella had told me she would come. I was standing on the patio when I saw her walking down the street, dogs barking at her from behind driveway gates. She had on white linen pants and a tank top, and I realized I had never seen her in anything but her school uniform. Her hair was pinned back on one side with a jeweled barrette, and there was gloss on her lips instead of her usual pink lipstick. She looked spectacular.

  “I’m glad you made it,” I said as she stepped onto our patio.

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” she said.

  She looked around. Most everyone was inside, dancing to an old Willie Colón album. There were pasteles on the TV tray my mami had set on the porch.

  “Looks like a nice party,” she said.

  I nodded, and took a step closer to her.

  “So you must be excited,” she said. “It’s a good university. You’ll do well.”

  “Gabriella,” I said, and then found I didn’t have the rest of a sentence.

  She looked at me and smiled. She put her hand on the side of my face. “You’ve been a good friend to me, Nestor. I thank you for that.”

  “It was no problem,” I said, my voice teetering on a whisper.

  Gabriella dropped her hand and gazed at the floor. She turned her gold bracelet in a half-circle. I was desperate to tilt her face back up to mine, to kiss her finally, when she said, “I have a lead on a guy from Guatemala. Larissa, from my circle, knows him and hooked me up. We’ve written to each other a few times and talked on the phone once. He seems like a good guy. I’m going to Guatemala tomorrow to meet him. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. It depends on how things go.”

  “What?”

  “I haven’t told my mami yet. I don’t want her getting all excited in case it turns out to be nothing.”

  “You never said anything.”

  She shrugged. “I have to see how it turns out. It might not be a big deal.”

  She fixed her eyes on mine and we stared at each other for what felt like a long time. I wanted nothing more in life right then than to hold her, but she had other plans.

  Finally, she broke her gaze and said, “Okay, Nestor. This is it, then.” She gave me a hug. I was acutely aware of the warmth of her body against my chest and the soft brush of her hair against my chin.

  When she pulled away, she offered a half-smile and then a wave as she retreated down the steps of our house and back up the street to her own. Everything emptied out of me. My mami came out while I stood watching Gabriella’s white linen pants swish down the street.

  “What are you doing, hijo, just standing there?” She flicked my shoulder. “Bring the rest of these plates to the sink. I’ll wash them.”

  When I didn’t move at first, she asked, “Are you okay?”

  I nodded and started collecting the stray plates and the glasses with melting ice, fighting through my stinging sadness as I worked.

  II

  I started college in March. The university was in the city, so I was able to live at home. I walked a kilometer to the edge of our neighborhood and then took two buses to get to classes every day, but it was worth it. College felt like what I had been waiting for my whole life—getting deeper into my studies; no one goofing off, running around, throwing vegetables like hand grenades over lunch tables. I’m sure there was some of that, but overall the atmosphere was earnest.

  I majored in physics. Academically, I was steady. I kept my nose in my books, went to lectures on magnetics and energy, and even got a job in the library, checking people’s bags as they left. It was an easy gig, and since things were slow a lot of the time, it gave me time just to study and do homework.

  At home, I kept my mami company and made dinner on Sundays, my specialty of arroz con guandu and plátanos en tentación. I sat on the patio in the evenings, watching the geckos dart along the stucco exterior of the house and listening to dogs howl while I paged through textbooks in my lap. The air was full and sweet and always I hoped that Gabriella would show up, that she would stroll down the street to say hello, returned from Guatemala at last. Always I was let down.

  In between classes, when I had an hour or two to spare, I went to the library to read. I found a table on the third floor, in a corner behind the stacks, where I liked to go. I sat with my back toward everyone and, when I got tired of doing physics problems, I worked on the day’s crossword, which I would bring along. One day I was studying for midterms when someone came up behind me and put their arms around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. I turned quickly to see a guy, whose mouth dropped open at the sight of me.

  “Hey!” I said loudly.

  The guy covered my mouth with his hand. “Quiet,” he said. He uncovered it just as quickly. “Sorry, hombre,” he said. “I thought you were someone else, you know.” He held up his hands in defense as if he thought I was going to punch him. “I’m really sorry,” he said again.

  I was breathing fast. Adrenaline, I guess, and something about him. “It’s okay.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and hurried away.

  I sat there for a long time, stunned. I had never been kissed anywhere by anyone other than my mother. It was incredible, by the time I stood up, how much I wished I had been the right person.

  The next week in my thermal-physics class, I
saw the guy again. It was a big lecture class, and that day he sat in front of me. I could smell his hair gel, a minty scent. It sounds like the stupidest thing—being turned on by the smell of a man’s hair gel—but it got me. The whole period I kept thinking I would tap his shoulder and say, “Remember me?” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I kept thinking about how it had felt when he put his arms around me the week before, and I got pissed off that I kept thinking about it.

  When class was over, I stayed in my seat. He started packing his things and looked back at me. He nodded. When I still didn’t leave, he said, “You have a bunch of friends waiting for you after this class? You guys all gonna jump me as soon as I walk into the hall?”

  “No,” I said.

  He eyed me skeptically.

  “I swear.”

  “What’s your story?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  After a second, a smile lit up on his face. “I got you, man,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “My name’s Nestor,” I said.

  “Wise one, no?”

  “What?”

  “ ‘A lie will Nestor not utter, for he is wise indeed.’ Homer’s Odyssey, man.”

  I nodded, though I didn’t know the quote. I was impressed anyone would.

  “You panameño?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Cubano. My name’s Reynaldo.” He adjusted his bag. “So I’ll see you tomorrow, Nestor.” I watched him walk out of the lecture hall.

  When I stepped into the light of day, I was shaking. I skipped my next class, hurried home, and cured myself with a cold shower. In the shower, I kept asking myself: How could I be thinking about another hombre like this? My mind sped back to Claudio Garces in his gym shorts and I started crying. Right there in the stall. My mother’s shampoo bottles toppled when I crouched in the corner. I covered my face with my hands, leaned my back against the slick tile, and sobbed.

  Every day after that Reynaldo sat in front of me, close enough that I could breathe him in. We talked briefly—he turned around once and asked for a sheet of paper, smiling at me for longer than seemed normal before facing front again—but I wasn’t sure what any of it meant. To him or to me.

  Then one night Rey came to the library during my shift and asked me to a movie. I said no. I said it quick and looked around to make sure no one else had heard. Rey was leaning against the tall checkout desk. He asked if he could walk me to the bus at least when my shift was over. I said no again. Pointing to a chair he said, “I’m going to wait for you here until your shift’s through. Then I’m going to ask you one more time. If you tell me no again, I won’t bother you anymore.” He sat. At the end of my shift I said yes.

  On the way to the bus stop, Rey tried to hold my hand. He said, “You’re into this, aren’t you?” and I didn’t know what to say. Because there was no doubt I loved the feeling of our hands touching, that the nearness of him thrilled right through me, but if he was asking was I gay, I didn’t know the answer to that. I stopped walking.

  “Look,” he said. “I thought you knew I wasn’t just looking for a friend.”

  “I knew,” I said. The city was still wide awake—dim car headlights cut through the darkness, tinny horns honked, buses churned their engines, sending exhaust into the air like dirty bombs.

  “So then what?” Reynaldo asked, his tone patient.

  “I don’t know what’s going on. I never felt like this about a guy before.”

  “Consider yourself lucky. Where I come from you’d get a fist in your face for even saying that. At least Panama is easy. A hell of a lot easier.”

  I was quiet.

  He smiled. “Have you ever felt like this about anyone before?”

  It took me a few seconds to say it. “A girl. In high school. Her name was Gabriella.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I don’t know what that means. I’ve been trying to sort it out, but I think I’m just fucked up.”

  Reynaldo laughed. “Nah,” he said. “I’ve seen this before. You only think you loved her. At the time you knew her, subconsciously you knew you liked guys. You knew it. Only you didn’t want to admit it. You weren’t ready to be it, you know. So you talked yourself into loving this girl, to make yourself seem more normal, to make yourself feel more normal. It’s a classic reaction. Happens to a lot of people.”

  “No, I really did love her,” I said.

  Reynaldo shrugged. “Well, then, you really did love her. If you say so. But ask yourself whether you can imagine ever loving another woman again.”

  “No.”

  “Even being turned on by another woman?”

  I shook my head.

  “And how about a man? Any number of men? Me, for example?”

  I nodded.

  “So forget about it. You are what you are. She was just one woman. She must have been a damn special woman, but she was probably the only one in your life. One person doesn’t change who you are.”

  I decided to get my own apartment. I told my mami I was tired of the commute, but in truth I wanted to get away from my old life.

  “You can’t leave me,” she said. “Children are supposed to stay with their parents.”

  “I have to, Mami. I just have to.”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head at me. “I know there’s something going on with you,” she said.

  “No, Mami. I just want to be closer to the school.”

  She took my hand in hers. “You still come for Sunday dinners, though.”

  “Of course.”

  My apartment was small—one cutout in the middle of a high-rise—and the toilet tended to overflow, but it was mine and I loved it. I took more shifts at the library to help pay the rent. I told Rey I had moved and he brought me a small mola in a wooden frame as a housewarming gift. “Isn’t this what Panamanians hang in their houses?” he asked. He told me he had taken a bus to Panamá la Vieja, the old city, and watched a Kuna woman layer the fabrics over one another and cut them out into a pattern that looked like a fish with colorful scales. He went and had it framed, too. I hung it above my desk.

  I invited Rey over to watch movies (I insisted we not go to the theater together because I was afraid of being ridiculed), and we watched them on my secondhand couch, Rey’s hand on my stomach under my shirt. We kissed in the flickering darkness—they were the first kisses I had shared with anyone—and his lips were soft and warm. He always tasted like a mixture of beer and popcorn.

  After a while, Rey started spending the night. The first few times, I got in bed fully clothed while he stripped to an undershirt and boxers. He had played fútbol in his youth and his legs were strong. The sight of him sent my heart racing. He said, “Those are your pajamas?” and raised his eyebrows in amusement. But when I nodded, he let it go. Usually, he talked until I fell asleep. We were two grown people crushed into a twin bed, which often meant one of us woke up with a sore neck or a numb arm, but we didn’t mind.

  Once, in the dark, after we’d been kissing, he asked me, “Was it like this with the girl?”

  “No,” I said. I was trembling a little with joy. “That was something else. That was not this at all.”

  During the day, both of us went to classes as usual. I was light with the feeling of having found someone. And, I guess, of having found myself.

  On the weekends we mostly stayed in, saving our affection for private moments and private spaces, although once Rey talked me into going to a fútbol game, saying that we would be safe from scorn because we would look like any two friends together. It was Panama versus Cuba and I could tell it meant a lot to him, so I said I would go. Panama lost, as usual, but there was something exhilarating about being there with him, about knowing we were more to each other than met the eye.

  Another time, Rey invited me to take a weekend trip to San Blas.

  “Before I came to Panama,” he explained, “everyone told me it was one place I had to go. What do you think?”

  �
�I’ve never been.”

  “I already made us a reservation on the plane. It’s small. Just a thirty-minute flight. Do you have a bathing suit?”

  I smiled and put my arm around his waist. “Why?”

  “Good one,” he said.

  When we got there, we dropped our things in our room and walked barefoot until we found an uninhabited stretch of pale sand and crystalline water. We didn’t have to walk far. We stripped off our clothes, leaving them in one pile on the shore, and dove in naked, grabbing at each other’s ankles and laughing as we spiked our wet hair into short Mohawks. We swam out until we could barely touch the bottom with our feet and held each other in an embrace under the water, both of us balancing on our toes, every gentle wave making it feel as though we might float away. When we were exhausted, we climbed back onshore to find our pile of clothes inhabited by sand crabs. They scattered like feathers tickling over the sand when we shook them out. Rey and I spent the next two days lying on towels on the beach, drinking beer, eating chicken at an outdoor restaurant, and swaying in the hammock in our bungalow, which hovered over the water on stilts. The evening air was humid, and I had my head in the crook of Rey’s shoulder as the hammock rocked slightly. I felt a tugging at my scalp. I raised my head to see Rey sucking on a piece of my hair.

  “It tastes like salt,” he said, grinning.

  I tightened my arms around him.

  III

  Only a few months after I would’ve said to anyone that I was over Gabriella Díaz, she came back into my life. Out of nowhere, she called me on the phone the first week of my sophomore year. I hadn’t heard anything from her or about her in over a year, and the only people who called me were my mami and Rey, so when I heard Gabriella’s voice, it jolted through me like lightning.

  “Nestor?” she said. “It’s me.”

  “Gabriella,” I said.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m studying. Where are you?”

  “Are you busy?”

  “I can’t believe I’m talking to you. It’s been so long. How are things going?”

  “Nestor, I’m in your apartment building.”