by Ibi Zoboi
He doesn’t have an answer for that question, of course. His jawline moves from side to side, and he looks over me, around me, and maybe even through me. Finally he says, “Well, I know when I’m not welcome,” and then he turns and walks back into his mini-mansion.
I stare at Darius’s back, my fingernails digging into my palms. I take a deep breath to release negative energy, like Madrina taught me to do. “Be like the river and go with the flow,” she says. The block party is only getting started, and I can’t let Darius Darcy and his stank attitude kill my vibe. I breathe out.
While I wasn’t looking, Janae went over to dance with Ainsley. She’s in a dreamy haze as he pulls her close. It’s all so corny, and Janae is falling for it. I cross my arms and narrow my eyes.
If Janae is the sticky sweetness keeping us sisters together, then I’m the hard candy shell, the protector. If anyone wants to get to the Benitez sisters, they’ll have to crack open my heart first.
Five
I’M SITTING ON the front stoop, and the words to this college application essay aren’t coming at all, or maybe they’re floating around my head and I just need to look up and grab each one.
Change. Money. College. Job. Space. Family. Home.
If I listen closely enough, I can hear Bushwick’s volume turning down real slowly. Getting quiet. My sisters don’t believe me when I tell them that even though it’s still noisy, our neighborhood is getting quieter and quieter every summer, as if the tiny musical sounds that fill up my hood are popping like bubbles, one by one, and disappearing into empty silence. Anybody who’s been in Bushwick long enough is like a musician, and when they leave, we lose a sound.
Nothing pours out of me. Nothing escapes through my fingers. I sigh and slam my laptop shut just as the front door squeaks open and out comes Janae, wearing strappy sandals and newly shaven, oiled legs. I don’t even have to look at her face to know that she’s got on her signature summer-shimmery-glow makeup and lip gloss.
“What you all dressed up for?” I ask.
“I’m not dressed up,” she says, playing dumb.
I only glance over at her to know that I was right. Janae doesn’t have anything planned for the rest of the summer—no job, no internship, so her butt isn’t going anywhere on a Monday afternoon in July. But her phone keeps buzzing, and she’s texting as if the world is about to end. Janae doesn’t have a lot of friends, either. Or rather, the two who she has are not in this neighborhood anymore, and her college friends are off traveling for the summer.
She glances across the street, and I let out a long, deep sigh.
“What?” she asks.
“You tell me what.”
“Fine. He invited me over.”
I clutch my laptop and stare at those wide double doors. I hate those doors. “Janae, I haven’t seen you in months. Can we do something? Take the bus downtown? The movies? The bookstore? Anything?”
“Yeah, of course. We got the whole summer, Z,” she says, smiling and staring at the house across the street.
“You’re going over there now?”
“Uh, yeah.” She gets up and smooths down the back of her sundress. “I wanna see what it looks like on the inside. To think, they turned that place around in, what, a few months?”
“Almost a year. I saw the whole thing. Every single day. I can imagine what it looks like on the inside. I’ll just draw you a picture if you want.”
She ignores me and steps down from the stoop.
“Papi’s not gonna like this, Nae,” I say as a last resort to keep her from ruining her life. My life. Our lives. Our family gets along with every single person on this block, which makes block parties run smoothly; which makes walking home when it’s dark real safe; which makes walking to the bodega in a night scarf and pajama pants not a big deal. The Darcys moving in changes all that.
“I need to see some design ideas for when I buy my own run-down house in Bushwick and renovate it,” she says in a dreamy, la-la-land voice.
“That’s not gonna happen, Janae, because people like them don’t wanna be around people like us,” I say out loud. “Especially Darius.”
“Zuri, you’re being ridiculous” she says, and sashays her round behind and short summer dress across the street.
“It’s about to rain, Janae!” I shout behind her.
“Good!” Janae says, without looking back.
I try to turn my attention to my essay. I try to not care. I force myself to write, and like always, broken words spill out. A rough, jagged poem, like the steps on this stoop, like the sidewalk in front of this building. Like everything around me right now.
Love is like my sister, Janae. She is springtime tulips
and pastel colors. She is sun rays beaming
through windows where dust particles dance and kiss
in the light. She is tender kissing scenes on TV,
and then afterward practicing on soft pillows
at night. She is the warm space between Mama and Papi
while they sleep and the bills are paid and the fridge is full.
She is made of honey and sugar and summer fruits
oozing gooey sweetness and catching
bees and flies. Buzzing. Annoying. Like the ones
in that house across the street.
Dark clouds over Bushwick have a kind of magic to the them. At least that’s what Madrina says. Clouds are never just clouds in my hood. So when the sun takes cover and the thunder rolls, I know something’s about to go down.
It starts drizzling, and in seconds, it pours. The house across the street tugs at me. Maybe my sister is wishing that I was with her to see the stainless steel appliances and the doctor’s office furniture. Or maybe she can’t stand being in there another second and she doesn’t want to be rude, so my coming over will be her saving grace.
My laptop is getting wet, so I tuck it beneath my shirt, as soon as I step out onto the sidewalk.
Neighbors are running toward their buildings, and puddles are starting to pool along the edges of the sidewalk. I don’t bother covering my head. By the time I reach the house’s gate, my hair is wet, limp, and heavy against my forehead and cheeks.
Those doors are even nicer up close, but I still can’t stand them because they’re like gates to a whole other world. There isn’t a doorbell, but there’s an intercom with a small screen. I press the button, and a warped black-and-white version of myself appears on the screen. I turn and look to see where the camera is located, but it’s well hidden. Of course these people would have a security camera at their front door, and probably an expensive alarm system too. Not even Hernando has his bodega on lockdown like this.
The door swings open and I freeze where I’m standing, wet and cold, with the cool laptop pressed against the bare skin underneath my shirt. It’s Darius who’s opened the door. I don’t dare look at his face. I look past him and into that sterile house.
“I came for my sister,” I say.
“Good. You can have her,” Darius says.
This time, I definitely have to look him dead in the eye. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously,” he says, looking back at me.
He opens the door even wider, but I don’t come in. He just stands there looking at me until, finally, he extends his hand as if reluctantly welcoming me to his humble abode.
I step right into that squeaky-clean living room with my wet sneakers. I can feel his eyes on me, and when I glance over, he’s staring down at the floor. Rainwater is dripping from my clothes and onto the shiny wood. I don’t care. I’m sure they’re paying somebody to mop it up.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Where do you think?” he says with a half smile.
“Janae!” I call out nice and loud, and my voice echoes throughout the whole house. The ceilings in the living room are high, there’s a staircase leading up to even nicer rooms, I’m sure, and at the far end of the floor is the kitchen, with tall and wide windows facing what used to be a weed-infest
ed forest. Fancy gold and bronze designs line the edges of the walls and ceilings, and this mini-mansion looks like it was built for princes and princesses. “Janae!” I call out again.
“Do you really have to yell out like that?” Darius says, and walks over to a small box against a wall in the living room and presses a button. “Ainsley. Her sister’s here.”
“‘Her sister’s here?’” I repeat. “I do have a name, you know. And so does my sister.”
“Zuri,” he says, nodding at me. “And Janae.” He extends his arm toward the stairs as if to say “after you.” But he doesn’t actually say a word.
“Oh, you’ve been paying attention,” I say, flashing a fake smile.
I pull the laptop from beneath my shirt, and he quickly takes it from me, setting it down on a small empty table near the stairs. I make a mental note to not forget it when I leave. I didn’t plan on going this deep inside their house.
When we reach the top of the stairs, I hear voices, giggling and talking. I hear Janae. But my eyes are surveying every single corner of this house. There are no dust bunnies, no clutter, no papers, clothes, or junk. Nothing, as if no one lives here. It’s a straight-up museum.
“Where’s all your stuff?” I ask as Darius leads me down a long hallway lined with closed doors.
“Stuff? We don’t have stuff. We have the things we need,” he says.
“You need all this space?”
“Space is much more valuable than . . . stuff.”
“Well, what’s the point of having all this space if you don’t have stuff to fill it with?”
He stops, turns to me, and cocks his head to side. “Have you ever been in a completely empty room, just sitting there to let your thoughts wander?”
I cock my head to the side too, and think of something smart to say, or to ask. Anything besides a simple no, which would be an honest answer, but he doesn’t deserve an honest answer from me. “What’s the point of doing that?” I ask instead. And as soon as the words fall out of my mouth, I want to scoop them back up and stuff them back in.
He sighs, rolls his eyes, and keeps walking down the hall.
He doesn’t get to do that. He doesn’t get to think that my question is a stupid one. He doesn’t get to ask me about sitting in an empty room when that’s probably what I want most in this world right now—an empty room without sisters and parents and stuff.
“That was a real dumb question, you know,” I say, trying to take back that moment because I have to have the last word.
But he doesn’t answer me, and we reach a wide-open room filled with L-shaped couches and giant pillows. I should’ve noticed the people first, but a huge flat-screen TV catches my eye. It takes up a whole wall. This room might as well be a straight-up movie theater, as big as that screen is. Ainsley is playing some video game, and the volume is turned down. There’s soft music I don’t recognize playing in the background, above us, below us. I can’t tell, because the smooth sound seems to come from everywhere. Then I spot Janae in a corner of the couch with her sandals off, her feet curled under her, and looking way too comfortable.
I pop my eyes out at her to let her know that this whole situation is not okay, but she’s smiling from here to Syracuse. She’s way too happy to be up in this house with some rich boy she just met. Janae is past thirsty at this point, she’s the Sahara Desert.
“Hi, you must be . . .”
I almost jump out of my skin because the girl seems to come from out of nowhere. I’m so fixated on Janae and that TV and the couch and that music and the room that I don’t even notice a light-skinned, straight-haired girl getting all up in my face to hold out her hand.
I only take the tips of her fingers. “Zuri,” I say, still distracted.
“Carrie. I go to school with Darius,” she says.
I glance at Darius without even looking at this girl Carrie, and I immediately know that this little exchange is code for “Don’t take my boyfriend.”
I want to tell her that nobody’s checking for her bougie man; instead I just reply, “Oh, that must be so nice for you.”
“You’ve come to hang out? Maybe you can get the boys to stop playing these stupid video games,” Carrie says. She plops down on the couch, opposite Janae. Carrie is kind of pretty in a typical magazine supermodel way; the type of girl these Darcy brothers would like. But my sister got her beat in the curves department. Still, Janae is not supposed to be here on a double date.
“Yeah. About that. Um . . . Janae?” I say, cocking my head to the side, winking, furrowing my brows, anything to let her know without my having to say a word that she has to get the hell up out of here.
“Take a seat, Zuri,” Ainsley says. He’s now sitting on the leather chair with one leg over his knee as if he’s the grown-up chaperoning this whole thing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Darius walking to the other end of the room, and that’s when I spot the pool table in front of a giant floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. A grand piano is pushed to the corner, and I can’t believe how much I couldn’t tell from the outside how enormous this house is.
“Or do you want a tour, uh, Zuri?” someone asks. It’s Carrie again.
“You live here?” are the first words to come out of my mouth. Clearly she doesn’t, but it’s as if she’s the queen of this place.
She chuckles. “No, but I’ve already gotten a tour. I can show you around if you want. You’ve never been in a house this big before?”
I must’ve blinked a hundred times in one second before landing my eyes on this Carrie. She saw it all over my face and tried to take back what she said.
“I mean, who lives in houses anymore? It’s Brooklyn . . . ,” she says. “You’re, like, in an apartment, right?”
I just stare at her for a long second before saying, “Yeah. And you’re right. I’ve never been in a house this big before, and I think it’s a waste of space. You can fit five families up in here and solve Bushwick’s housing problem in one shot. But . . . like your boy Darius said earlier, y’all don’t have stuff, y’all have things you need like pool tables, baby grand pianos, and giant flat-screen TVs.”
Carrie looks over at Darius, who is smirking, rubbing his chin, and staring at me.
“Touché, Ms. Benitez,” Darius says. “See? I remembered your whole name.”
Now it’s my turn to smile. “I’m not impressed, Darius Darcy. And I’m definitely not trying to impress you.” I cross my arms and put my neck and whole body into those words so they can sting him. Then I turn to my sister. “Janae, you ready?”
Now she’s popping her eyes out at me. She uncurls her legs from beneath her, and Ainsley turns to give her a pleading look. Janae only smiles as she gets up.
“I need help with my essay,” I say, to get her off the hook. I don’t want those boys thinking she’s rude, because she’s far from it. I’ll take the blame for messing up whatever she and Ainsley got going right now, as long as I can stop it.
“I got you, sis,” Janae says.
Ainsley gets up from his chair too. “I’ll walk you two ladies out.” He wraps an arm around Janae’s waist, and she leans into him.
“What are you working on?” Darius falls in line behind me as we walk down the long hallway.
“You heard me. An essay.” I ignore him and follow Ainsley and Janae.
“You’re going to summer school?” Carrie asks. I guess she followed us too.
Clearly they all want me to stay and chat. But I don’t even give her the benefit of an answer to that dumb question.
“Sorry about her,” Darius whispers behind me before we walk down the stairs.
“No need to apologize for your girl,” I say without looking back. But I can feel that he’s just a step behind me.
Darius doesn’t say anything, which lets me know that this Carrie really is his girlfriend. It’s not until we’re back down on the first floor heading toward the front door that I look at Darius. Our eyes meet. I quickly turn away.
As
Janae walks out, I catch Ainsley gently taking her hand, then letting it go. Janae smiles, and this whole moment settles in my belly like a piece of boiled batata. I can’t let her come here again. I can’t let this seed of a thing between those two take root, sprout, and become some sort of full-blown love affair. If I do, I’ll lose my sister for the whole summer.
Ainsley says something to me along the lines of goodbye and come again, but I ignore him and brush right past him.
We’re not even on our front stoop when Janae says to me with a giant smile, “He’s taking me out this weekend!”
No, he is not! I think, and roll my eyes hard at my big sister.
Six
“I SAW YOU!” Madrina sings as she sits on her leather armchair and wipes down her unlit seven-day candles with a Florida-water-dampened white cloth. The whole basement smells like that sweet cologne. If the roof of my building is where Janae and I steal quiet moments, then the basement is where I dive deep into my own thoughts and dreams with Madrina and her claims of comunicando con los antepasados. To Madrina, and all her clients, the basement is home to Ochún, the orisha of love and all things beautiful. For them, this is a place of magic, love, and miracles.
These spirits and unseen things, as Madrina calls them, don’t make sense to me. Of course they don’t. I can’t see them. But it’s Madrina’s wisdom that unties the tight knots of my life, so I play along with what she does for a living and try to believe in these spirits.
“You were running across the street in the rain to those boys’ house.” Madrina says this as if she’s a tattle-telling five-year-old, but I know she’s just messing with me.
“I was going to get Janae,” I say, pacing around the basement. After Janae told me she was going out with Ainsley this weekend, I came straight down here for Madrina’s advice.
The smoke from Madrina’s cigars, sage, and candles forms iridescent clouds all around the room. The tables are covered in statues of saints, colorful candles, black dolls in fancy dresses, crystal bowls of candy, bottles of perfume, and the shimmery gold and yellow colors that flavor the whole place. When it’s fully decorated, the basement looks like a giant birthday cake for some pretty girl’s quinceañera. Madrina laughs. No matter how big or small the joke or not-joke, she laughs that same hearty laugh. “So both of you were in that house? Bueno. You two don’t waste no time.”