by Meg Medina
“You’re welcome,” Darlene calls.
I hurry down the hall.
There are two little rectangles of glass on the classroom door, both covered with black construction paper. Through a space at the edge, I look inside. According to her schedule, Yaqui has health this period.
I’m almost giddy standing there. My head is starting to thud at the temples, a faint beat getting louder by the second until at last I recognize what’s sneaking out through my brain. It’s the steady clave of a salsa, a classic two-three beat. Pa-pa/pa-pa-pa/Pa-pa/pa-pa-pa. The band in my aching head is waiting to play so Yaqui and I can go mano a mano in our dance.
What am I going to do, now that I’m standing here? What do I tell the teacher? That I need to talk to Yaqui Delgado? And if I do get to talk to Yaqui, it will be to say what, exactly? Give it back, you thief? The whole plan suddenly seems stupid.
“Where are you supposed to be?”
Ms. Shepherd has come out of nowhere, and when I turn around, I find her pointing at me with the antenna of her walkie-talkie. She’s on hall duty, looking for skippers like me, and she’s even wearing sneakers for the occasion. It occurs to me now that I’ve never skipped before. Ms. Shepherd looks surprised when she sees me at first, then just disappointed.
“Piddy?”
I don’t answer, but not because I’m being rude. It’s as if she’s talking to someone else. I don’t feel anything like the kid Ms. Shepherd hoped for a few weeks ago. The fact is I’m losing my shine in her eyes, the same way I’m losing it for Mr. Nocera and all my other teachers. I didn’t turn in my English homework yesterday, another dent in my shiny armor. Somehow, I couldn’t find the energy to care about participial phrases.
“What are you doing out of class?” she asks.
My head is swirling, and it feels as if she is talking to me from far away.
“Are you all right? You look sick.”
“I thought I had health, but I made a mistake,” I lie.
She puts her finger on the walkie-talkie’s button and taps the antenna to her lips. She could check my schedule in a second and bust me right here. “The bell rang six minutes ago.”
“I had to stop in guidance first. To pick up magnet-school stuff.” I hold up the stapled application to show her.
She nods, thinking.
“Piddy, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your work in English.”
Before she has a chance to say more, I take a step back.
“I’ll do better,” I mumble, losing my nerve completely. “I should get to study hall.”
The beat in my head is threatening to split my skull wide open. I make my way down the hall, but when I get to the stairwell, my eyes become glued to the exit door. I don’t have the courage to face Yaqui, and now I can’t breathe in this school. I can’t see who I am or hear my own voice. I’m already late, and who cares if I’m marked absent and unexcused from study hall? I reach for the side doors and push myself into the quiet world outside. The cold sunshine is blinding.
I don’t go home. Instead, I walk two blocks to the bus stop and climb on the next bus to kill time. This one is headed toward the subway, but in the middle of the day, it’s nearly empty. I settle in at the back.
She stole my elephant necklace. I type the message to Mitzi into my phone and wait for her reply as I ride. Ten whole minutes go by and nothing.
I stare out the window, brooding and feeling ignored. The bus skirts the projects where Yaqui lives. Tall buildings and tagged benches with guys just waiting for nothing. I look high up as we go by, trying to imagine from which ugly window Yaqui looks out onto the world.
Up at the front of the bus, a man signals for a stop. He’s about Ma’s age, tall with salt-and-pepper hair. A folded newspaper is tucked under his arm. I can’t help it; I start to play my old game. He likes plátanos fritos and cheeseburgers like me, I decide. He likes nature shows. By the time he’s climbed down to the sidewalk, I can almost imagine his voice deep and calm in my ear as he tucks me into bed.
“Piddy, I’m so sorry for everything. I’ve thought of you all these years. Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe. And here, I’ve written a song just for you.”
I ride to the bitter end of the line, thinking of my imaginary father and humming his made-up tune.
“You’re not doing your work?”
Ma’s voice is tight as she sits down at the kitchen table while I’m trying to do my homework. The fried steak and white rice I made for her is still wrapped on the stove. She hasn’t touched it.
Instead, she’s staring at the progress report from Daniel Jones that arrived in today’s mail. Had I known that DJ mails home interim reports, I would have watched the mailbox more carefully, maybe bombed it with firecrackers or set it on fire the way Joey does to his. Now Ma’s mad, and she’s asking questions. She rubs her shoulders and frowns as she reads in her heavy accent.
“The student is inattentive. The student has missed assignments.”
“Ma —”
“The student is not working up to his or her potential.”
She puts down the page and gives me a disgusted look. Then she counts the row of zeroes on the computer printout with her pinkie.
“It says here you have six zeroes. Seis.”
I don’t answer. My head still hurts, and Ma’s voice makes my shame worse.
“Well?”
“It’s a hard school,” I explain. Hard to survive. Hard to be left alone. I stare at my math book and try to look busy. I haven’t paid attention in class all week, and now I have no idea how to apply this stupid theorem. I read the directions over and over, but nothing penetrates. Ma doesn’t make it any easier with her eyes boring into me.
“A zero doesn’t mean something is hard, niña,” she says. “It means you’re lazy. It means you’re not studying. Nada. !Qué vergüenza!”
Ma sits down across from me. “You should be ashamed. You used to be an excellent student. Now this. Do you want to end up a little lowlife? Eh? ¿Una chusma? Look at you! You’re practically playing the part.”
She points to my new T-shirt that I got when I went shopping with Lila. It’s a little tighter than I usually wear, and it has a V-neck. Lila said it showed off my figure.
“I bought it with my own money,” I point out. “I can’t dress like a ten-year-old my whole life.”
Ma sighs. “So what if it’s your money? A shirt like that sends a message, oíste? What? You want people to think you’re no good like your father?”
“I wouldn’t know about my father, would I?” I mumble.
“Eh?”
“I said, ‘I wouldn’t know.’” I reach for my necklace to comfort myself, but of course it’s not there. It’s like a phantom limb on a soldier. Bile rises into my mouth. I feel sick. Why can’t she leave me alone?
“What do you mean?” she says.
Ma scoops out some Iodex and rubs the ointment into her neck as she waits for my answer. Her Attronica name tag is pinned on crooked, and there are sweat stains under her arms. For a second, I can see her the way her boss does at the warehouse: just another nobody loading boxes, and I hate her for it.
I grip my pencil until I feel like it might snap.
“It means you don’t bother to tell me anything about my father, Ma. How would I know what he was like? I don’t even know what he looks like thanks to you. I have to hear about my own life from other people at a friggin’ hair salon.”
She stops rubbing and gives me a careful look.
“Oh? And who has been talking about us at the salon?”
“Forget it.”
She wipes her hands clean, shaking her head in disgust. “That place is like a radio station, you know. It broadcasts everything.” She crosses her arms. “So, what is it, then? Somebody is spreading gossip about me and Agustín?”
I ignore her.
“What have you heard?” she asks louder. Her oily hand covers up the words on the page and makes a mentholated stain on the problem
I’m trying to work out. “¡Contéstame!”
I snatch the book away and glare.
“Do you want me to do my homework, or do you want to bother me all night? Jesus, Ma, you’re such a pain! I can’t stand you!”
The minute I say it, Ma flinches, and I wish I could eat my ugly words. I’ve never been so mean to her, but now all I want is to make her feel small. I need her company down here at the bottom of this pit, where maybe she can hug me and tell me it’s all right. But she’s made of sturdier stuff. She doesn’t fall after me the way I want. Instead, she sits back and arches her brow.
She lets out a deep laugh, shaking her head, as if I’m the stupidest little kid she knows. Then she folds the progress report carefully, her hands barely trembling as she leans in.
“You know what, Piedad Maria Sanchez? This has nothing to do with Agustín. It has to do with you. You’re going to do better in school, you hear me? You’re going to do better, or I’m going to go down and see what’s so hard for you at that new school. Understand? I didn’t sacrifice —”
I slam my book shut and head for the door. It’s dark outside, and it’s me who’s shaking now.
“Where are you going all alone? It’s dark,” she says.
“Away from you!” I shout.
I ring and ring at the lobby doors, but Lila is not home. The apartment looks dark from the street. She is probably out dancing with her William Levy look-alike. The whole idea makes me even angrier. Worse yet, I didn’t grab a coat, and now I’m shivering under my sweatshirt. I rattle the door to see if someone might have left it loose, but it’s locked tight.
I’m just about to turn back for home when somebody opens an apartment door inside. It’s Joey Halper. He’s holding his boots in his hands and his army jacket over his shoulder. He looks surprised to see me. Then he stops on the other side of the glass door, cocks his head, and smiles.
“Trying to get in, Toad?” he asks.
“Open up.”
“You have to tell me the secret password.”
“Is it ‘Shut-up-and-open-the-door-Joey ’?”
He snorts and shoves his bare feet into his unlaced work boots. Then he opens the door.
“She ain’t home,” he says as I start to storm past him. He knows exactly who I’m looking for, of course. From the hall, I can hear the canned laughter of the show his father is watching on TV. Joey walks out to the stoop and looks up at the sky as he puts on his coat. The stars are already peeking out. “Come on,” he says.
The cellar door is around the back of the building, right next to the super’s apartment. The basement has always been creepy, and not just because of the super. It has cracked cement floors and those little windows that only show you people’s feet as they go by. When we were little and bored, Joey and I would play hide-and-seek all over the building, but this was the only place I wouldn’t come to find him, even if I knew for sure that he was here. The super had a rule against kids playing in the basement, and I was scared he’d shut me in that cold, dark place forever if he caught me playing there. That feeling never went away. Even when I got old enough to know better, the padlocked door at the far end always scared me. It led to the storage units for each floor, but you could probably hide a body in there and nobody would ever be the wiser.
Joey unlocks the door and lets us in. My teeth are practically chattering from the cold, so he fishes in his pocket for a few quarters and turns on the old dryer. In a few minutes, it gives off heat and a musty odor laced with a touch of bleach. It’s strangely comforting as I press my hands on the sides to warm them. He climbs on top of the dryer as if it’s a chair and gnaws on his cuticles, waiting for me to warm up. Little white puffs of his breath explode from his lips with each pull. One of his wrists is swollen with new ink, I notice. It says: HOMEMADE PAIN.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” I ask. Last summer, he showed me his tattoo tools: a cigarette lighter, a sewing needle attached like a harpoon to the eraser end of a number-two pencil, and a jar of India ink he swiped from the art room.
He shakes his head.
“I take it like a man.”
“Sure,” I say.
“I’m going get a good one when I’m eighteen. A cobra right here.” He lifts his shirt to show me his hip. His jeans sit just under his navy-blue boxers. The skin on his stomach is smooth and tight, and the slope of his hip bone disappears inside his pants in a way that makes me blush.
Suddenly Joey hops down from the dryer and heads for the storage area. In no time, a dim light is switched on, and I can see one of the rusty doors is hanging open. He’s gone for a long time.
“Joey?”
No answer.
I know I should go home. I should say sorry to Ma. Still, one foot moves in front of the other until I reach the doorway. The ammonia smell that greets me is overpowering.
A bare bulb swings from a chain on the ceiling. There’s an artificial Christmas tree in one corner and stacked boxes. Joey is sitting on a striped mattress on the floor. He doesn’t look up when I step inside. Instead, he keeps staring at something in the corner. That’s when I see an old laundry basket lined with a towel. Inside is the mother tabby suckling two kittens. It’s not ammonia I smell. It’s cat piss. My heart gives a jump. They’re only palm-size, and they’re just fluff with big heads and eyes still closed to the world. They can’t be more than two weeks old. As they nurse, they jerk their paws and heads in blind clumsiness; the orange one even rolls off its mother’s teat helplessly. Joey gets up and picks the kitten up carefully, putting it back near the basket as the mother hisses.
“Shut it,” he tells her.
“Oh, my God,” I say, getting next to him on the mattress. “Where did you find them?”
“Last week, behind the dryer,” he whispers. “I put them in here and feed them, but I let the mother out at night to hunt so she doesn’t get bored.”
“Aren’t you scared the super’s going to catch you?”
Joey smiles. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
Neither one of us speaks for a long time as we watch. After a while, he lies back with his hands folded behind his head. I try not to look at him lying down that way, even though I can feel him staring.
“You glad you moved, Toad?” he asks finally.
From here, it’s as if his eyes are glowing like a cat’s. For once, he isn’t wearing one of those grins. He looks just the way he did when we were ten, soft and open. I look down at him and shake my head slowly.
“No. It’s horrible.”
Joey takes his jacket off and puts it around my shoulders. Then he presses me back gently until he’s on top of me, and his lips are brushing mine. His body feels warm in a way that I need. He cups my face with his tattooed hands, and when I close my eyes, he kisses me.
The super’s TV is a hum in the background as Joey explores my mouth. Over the dryer, I can also hear the angry rise and fall of Mr. Halper’s voice, surely the start of another argument, but Joey doesn’t seem to pay attention to the sound of chairs being dragged, maybe tossed over. Joey runs his lips along my bare neck and nuzzles me like one of the kittens as I take in the smell of his dirty hair. He moves his hands over my bottom until I’m twitchy with need. I don’t know how long we lie there kissing, but when he finally starts to slide his chilly hands inside the back of my pants, I push him and sit up, afraid. My mouth is still tingling; I’m dizzy.
The dryer has stopped, and the cellar is silent and cold as a tomb. I slide off his jacket, but he doesn’t reach for it. Joey turns on his side and stares at the sleeping kittens as I head for the basement door.
“I have to go,” I mumble.
Joey doesn’t say good-bye.
“I’m sick, Ma.”
Lying here in bed, I feel broken into a million pieces. My head is a brick, and my legs don’t want to take me to school. I hold the covers around my chin as Ma frowns and feels my forehead. I can still feel Yaqui’s friends smacking the back of my head.
“That’s wh
at happens when you go out at night, desabrigada with no coat,” she says. “It’s a miracle you didn’t get pneumonia.”
I don’t say anything. Who wants to fight again?
According to her palm, I might have a small fever. Ma hurries off to the kitchen and comes back with a cup of tea, aspirin, and a jar of Vicks VapoRub that she sets on the floor by my bed. I’m too old for her to take a sick day for me. Besides, she never takes a day off unless it’s an emergency — like when I had to have my appendix out. And now it’s getting close to the holidays, and the back room at Attronica is becoming a maze of boxes, floor to ceiling, in preparation for the season.
“I’ll call you at lunch. Stay in bed.” She pulls on a jacket. “Lila’s home if you need something,” she adds before she heads out the door.
Relief washes over me as she leaves for the bus stop. Staying home means Yaqui doesn’t have to exist today. I don’t have to disappoint my teachers. I don’t have worry about my shaky ass or anything at all today. I close my eyes and turn over, nestling deep inside my covers for a rest, when I hear the bus pull away from the curb. I’m already drifting off.
I am beautiful, riding on the neck of a huge, jeweled elephant. She’s massive and graceful, and her skin is the mottled green of jade. She trumpets and flaps her ears to warn onlookers to stay back. I can feel people’s fear and respect as we go by. They marvel at my long hair, which trails down my back, at my legs, my balance, my total control.
I ride down Parsons Boulevard; there are no cars. No one bothers me out here. Crowds stare and applaud. Joey Halper calls out my name. Agustín Sanchez plays a piano on the rooftop just for me. He hits a high C on the keyboard again, and again, and again . . .
Someone is leaning on the doorbell.
My clock says eleven thirty; I’ve been asleep for three hours. I crawl across my bed to the window and peek out through the blinds. Lila is staring at me from below. When she spots me, she waves a white paper bag above her head.