by Aida Salazar
officially a teenager
which makes me growl
at her under my breath.
Plus, she talks about bacteria
that lingers in your fingers
and though it grosses me out
I easily forget and I’m picking
at the little bits of skin
that hang from my cuticles.
Dr. Guillermo, my dentist,
said to put a bunch of sticky notes
around my house or in my books
to remind me to stop biting.
That’s how he gets his patients to
stop grinding their teeth.
I do it for a week but it’s no use.
I can’t explain it
biting my nails
brings me a comfort like
drinking hot chocolate
or eating warm handmade tortillas
for breakfast.
Monday morning before school, I can’t change
in our only bathroom, Mima’s in there
so I squeeze into the closet
to hide from Juju.
Papi comes in to call me for the
breakfast he always makes
but I stay quiet cool
I think I’ve escaped but soon Mima
comes looking and
opens the door
Ay, mija, I love it! she screams
for the whole house to hear.
I clutch at the new bra she bought me
roller-coaster twisted onto my chest.
The straps are tangled, let me fix it.
Sh sh sh, Mima! I whisper hard.
As she untangles, she calls for Papi,
Amor! Come see how well this bra fits Celi!
She shakes her head like she doesn’t believe it,
It’s amazing, just look at this muchachita, está floreciendo.
I hear Juju’s and Papi’s steps approach
their footfalls, a growing heated
pounding in my head.
I contort into a pretzel
inside that
shrinking
closet,
Mima! No!
Quieta, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, Celi—
it’s cause for celebration!
What? What’s a celebration? Papi asks.
Breasts, our girl is growing breasts!
Mima’s high pitch sears my ears.
Awesome! Juju chimes in.
When I’m eleven, will I grow some too?
Shut up! You little … I strike.
Celi, Papi warns, but then turns to Juju,
It isn’t likely, mijo. They’re mammary glands designed
to nurse young. Remember, like the mama goats we saw?
You mean, like goat teats? Juju cracks up
lets out his annoyingly loud goat bleat,
Celi’s got teats!
My skin swells with an out-of-control fire,
MIMA! I cry, as helpless as ash.
She hugs me so tight and kisses me
all over my sizzling face and head.
I’m just so thrilled for you, Celi. It really is a marvelous moment.
I jerk away and turn my back on all three of them
slip on my top, wishing to disappear into a flame.
When I turn around, Mima’s got tears in her eyes!
Vamos, Papi hugs and nudges her and Juju away,
Let’s give Celi some privacy.
I burst from that cramped space
breathing a burning anger in and out of my lungs.
My fiery eyes land on the picture
of my family and me in front of my
eleventh birthday cake and I take
scissors to their smiling faces
and mine
until
we
are in
a
million
pieces
like
my
locket.
At school
I am a puffer fish
slick new bra glistening
beneath my blouse
harmless
to those who don’t know
or don’t care what I wear
ever
like Magda
but chest expanded dangerous
to the first kid to dare ask,
Is that a bra strap I see?
After school, I walk seven steps ahead of Mima and Juju
to my ballet class at the Oakland Ballet Conservatory
only a few blocks from my house.
As my legs grow longer
my strides cover more ground.
I can’t be late or I’ll lose my scholarship.
Oakland
b
r
e
a
k
s
open before me
the sun sets brightly in this almost summer
it unfurls an orange-gray glaze over the city.
I pretend like I’m on my own.
Soon I’ll be able to walk to class
without Mima.
What could go wrong in three blocks?
For now, the wind brushes my curls
I can smell the exhaust of cars
mixed with the smell of sour grass
broken after mowing.
I pass a pile of baby gear
sitting on the curb with a sign
that says Free on it.
I slap at blades of foxtail shoots
and gather their feathery tufts
as I walk.
The man with the long ponytail
who’s always home
stands outside his house smoking
and his pit bull sits on the steps, off leash.
I hold my breath and slow my stride.
I don’t want the dog to come chasing.
I make a left on MacArthur
to find a tangerine sky
turn back to see
if Mima is still
behind
me.
I’m relieved that she is
because there are kids on MacArthur
getting loud with each other.
They gather at a bus stop
in their school uniforms
a flock of crows waiting to get home.
A teenage girl starts a fight with a boy
she swings her arms at him
while he walks backward into the street
and everyone’s screaming
phones are out.
I can’t tell if they are playing or for real
so, I slow down completely and grab Mima’s arm.
A bitter citrus cielo draped over us.
Then suddenly, they are all laughing
and cursing like nothing happened.
I wonder why they joke like that
and why they aren’t going
to a dance class like me.
On Thursday, I wait to see him
walk into La Peña Cultural Center.
Iván of the shy smile
light-bark-brown skin
dark bushy curls on top
that shape into a peak
like a growing tree.
Branch-like legs
and arms so lanky long
they r
each for the sun
when he plays capoeira.
I look for him in the studio’s big mirror
during my own dance class
talking to his friends
his gym bag strapped across his back
his skateboard in one hand.
He waits for my bomba class
to end and file out
and his capoeira class to begin.
He only waves, maybe says hi
every Thursday, no more and no less.
He seems to be getting to the other
side of growing up with that crackle in his voice
and the bumps sprawled on his forehead.
I pretend to gather my things slowly
my eyes strain to sideways stalk him.
In his class, he sways—a ginga—
his hands up, ready, like a boxer
graceful in that martial art
of fighting camouflaged by dance.
Last summer, we went to arts camp together
in the Redwoods
as far from Oakland as I go alone.
When we were there
we’d talk during lunch.
Once he told me he lived
with his mom and that his pop
wasn’t around much and that
even though he’s not Brazilian
playing capoeira helps him
keep his mind off missing his pop.
I opened my locket
a little too to say
though I’m half Puerto Rican
dancing bomba feels
like warm Caribbean water
swishing and swaying
happiness inside of me.
Which made him grin giggle
and made me want to bury
my blushing head in the dirt.
Though we are away from the forest now
I like to hear him say
hello in that broken way
that he does sometimes
and remember the smell of redwoods
and us together
for just a second.
Magda is better than my best friend
strange maybe
because we aren’t anything alike.
I wear my curly hair
cola de caballo long
or pulled back in a bun
and love the flowing cotton skirts
girls have to wear to dance bomba.
She wears her bright brown hair
short
T-shirt, jeans, and high-top Vans
skater boy style
and hardly dances.
She only drums.
She is a smaller
eleven-year-old than others
maybe because her growing
hasn’t kicked in yet.
But the power in her hands is so big
the sound bounces off the drum
fills the room
and sinks into your bones.
She’s by far the best drummer in our
bomba performance group, Farolitos,
and the best at smiling.
Magda knows how to work up
the crowd at shows
with a quick flash
of her wide white teeth.
I think I dance the best
when she drums.
When I make a move
and mark it with my twirling skirt, a piquete,
she hits the drum right at that moment.
Like an echo, but better because it’s as if
she can read my mind and finds
my next move before I do.
She is my best echo.
Immeasurable gratitude to my beloved mamá, Maria Isabel Viramontes Salazar, whose winged love always carried me. Thank you, Mami, for your gorgeous life—immigrant and dream-filled, joyful and strong, patient and faithful, truthful and giving, and always basked in tender and unconditional amor. My world will never be the same without you. Que sueñes con los angelitos.
My precious loves, John, Avelina, and João, thank you for teaching me the profound work of growing wings of my own. To my great big immigrant family—Papi, brother, sisters, nieces, nephews, in-laws, tías, tíos, and cousins, wounded as we are and as we’ve been by life and loss, I love you and thank you for everything.
Muchas gracias to Las Musas and to the Xingona Collective, your fire and your Latina word wisdom make my soul and writing strive to reach new heights. Special thanks to my dear friends and colleagues in the literary world, in my community, and in my close circle. Gracias for giving me important feedback and support, then ample space and love, while I re-wrote this book and cared for and then grieved for Mami. Les quiero con el alma.
Marietta Zacker, incomparable agent and amiga del corazón, gracias for being a pillow, a backbone, a bridge, a mirror, a springboard, a visionary, and a chola in all the best ways.
Nick Thomas, my deepest gratitude for believing in the importance of this story from the start, for your intelligence and remarkable generosity in editing this manuscript and for urging me to make Betita’s voice sing. Thank you Andrea Davis Pinkney and Jess Harold for picking up the baton with so much care and running with me to the finish line. To the phenomenal team at Scholastic: Lizette Serrano, Daniel Yadao, Emily Heddleson, Sydney Tillman, Amy Goppert, Melissa Schirmer, Rachel Feld, Julia Eisler, Lauren Donovan, Maria Dominguez, Ellie Berger, Dick Robinson, the biggest hearts in the biz, thank you for opening so many doors and for supporting my work with an unwavering spirit. Magical book designer, Maeve Norton, and cover and illustration artists, Quang & Lien, thank you for working so hard to make this book more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
My greatest respect and appreciation to immigration journalists, Tina Vasquez, Aura Bogado, and Roberto Lovato and immigration attorney, Fernanda Bustamante. Your work as Latinx folks documenting the migrant experience with dignity and being in the trenches fighting for immigrant rights have been a tremendous gift. This book walks in your light. Thanks also to Lily and Zoe Ellis, and Kaia Marbin, your “Butterfly Effect: Migration is Beautiful” nationwide art project to make 75,000 (and counting) paper butterflies in honor of every child held in detention is such an incredible example of how art can make a change.
Special praise for the activists, the fighters, the peacemakers, the resisters, the writers, the artists, and the dreamers standing up for justice and truth. Thank you for your struggle to make the world a better place. Onward!
My most heartbroken love for Jakelin Caal Maquin (age 7), Felipe Gómez Alonzo (age 8), Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez (age 2), Carlos Hernandez Vasquez (age 16), Mariee Juárez (age 20 months), Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle (age 10), and Juan de León Gutiérrez (age 17), who lost their young lives while in immigration custody and to the unnamed migrant children who have also died while incarcerated or while crossing the border, to those separated from their parents, to those who have been or remain incarcerated and endure(d) the brutality of that experience. You matter, and I am so sorry.
AIDA SALAZAR’S debut novel, The Moon Within, was called “a worthy successor to Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Kirkus Reviews in a starred review. Her work has been featured in the Huffington Post and Huizache magazine. Her short story “By the Light of the Moon” was adapted into a ballet by the Sonoma Conservatory of Dance and is the first Xicana-themed ballet in history. Aida lives with her family of artists in a teal house in Oakland, California.
Interior illustrations © 2020 by Quang & Lien
Text copyright © 2020 by Aida Salazar
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of th
e author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, September 2020
Jacket illustration © 2020 by Quang & Lien
Jacket design by Maeve Norton
Author photo by Roy Robles
e-ISBN 978-1-338-34390-8
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