Risking It All

by Nina Darnton

  He was lucky. He was on the corner, walking toward Raul’s building, when he saw Julio coming down the stairs, two steps at a time. If Julio was there then Raul’s mother wasn’t, that’s for sure, Danny thought. The boys idolized Julio; he was cool and grown-up and had a faint whiff of danger about him. Just hanging out with him made them feel brave and rebellious. Danny waved to him as he got closer and Julio stopped. He didn’t smile or fist-bump like he usually did. He just stopped and stared for a minute. Something about him didn’t look right. His shoulders were slumped and his face looked darker, like he was mad about something. That’s how he acted too, like he was mad. He didn’t even say hello. He couldn’t be mad at him, Danny thought, he didn’t do anything—he’d just got there. Maybe he was mad at Raul. Or maybe he’s mad because I’m not supposed to be here, Danny thought, worried. He wondered if he should run away, but decided that would be bad.

  “Hi, Julio,” he said tentatively, feeling shy around him for the first time.

  Julio didn’t answer at first. He looked around nervously. A woman passed, pulling a grocery cart. Otherwise the street was empty.

  “Is Raul home?”

  “Yeah. The little bastard is home.”

  Scared, Danny put his head down and started to walk toward the steps.

  “Wait up,” Julio said. His grimace faded and he forced a tight smile. “Listen, kid, you gotta do somethin’ for me.”

  Danny stopped short and turned to him. Julio approached closer and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

  “This is a secret, you got it? You can’t tell nobody, not even Raul. Think you can handle that?”

  Danny nodded, flattered.

  “Remember when Raul didn’t wanna hang with you because his mama told him not to? What did I say? You remember? I said friends gotta look out for each other.”

  Danny nodded again, slowly.

  “So, we’re friends, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Julio looked around nervously again, and seeing a man in a black down jacket walking a dog he waited till he passed. Then Julio pulled a small cardboard box closed with masking tape out of his backpack. “Quick, put this in your backpack,” he said. Danny hesitated.

  “Do it,” Julio ordered. “Fast.”

  Confused and scared, Danny obeyed.

  “I’ll get it from you in a few days. Hide it in your house. Someplace cool where no one goes but you, got it?”

  “But how will I—”

  “I’ll find you. Don’t show nobody. Don’t tell nobody. You gotta show me you understand.”

  Danny nodded. Julio was even talking different than usual. It made him sound tougher, scarier.

  “Say it. Say ‘I understand.’”

  “I understand,” Danny whispered, trying really hard not to cry.

  “Now go home and put it away.”

  “But I want to see Raul. I gotta talk to him.”

  “Not today, kid. Today you go home and do like I told you.” His voice was hard, scary.

  Danny knew this wasn’t right. He knew it was probably really bad and he could get in a lot of trouble. But he didn’t know what to do and he didn’t have anyone except Raul whom he felt he could ask. And now Julio wasn’t even letting him talk to Raul. Julio took a $20 bill from his pocket and stuffed it into Danny’s hand. “Don’t take the subway. Take a cab and get off a block away from your house. Then walk home and hide it in the best place you can find.” He stared at him for a minute. His voice got softer when he said, “And after, when I pick it up, I’ll take you and your buddy Raul someplace cool, okay? You can make some money too. It’s just a few days. You’ll hear from me.” He turned and walked toward the subway, his hands in his pockets, taking long strides.

  Danny stood frozen after Julio left. Then he started to walk toward the corner but when he saw Julio disappear into the subway he turned back and ran to Raul’s house. He banged on the door and Raul’s father answered. Danny didn’t expect this and he worried that he’d be thrown out, but his father just glanced at him and turned back inside. “Raul,” he shouted, “it’s for you.” By the time he and Raul were alone in Raul’s room Danny had almost forgotten the reason he’d come in the first place. Now he wanted to talk about Julio. After begging Raul to swear he wouldn’t ever tell Julio that he was there, he told Raul everything that had just happened. Raul just shrugged.

  “Yeah. He tried to get me to hide it here but no way. My ma finds everything. I told him but he got mad.”

  “What’s in the box anyway? Did he tell you?”

  “Nah. But I know it’s something my ma wouldn’t like and neither would the cops. So hide it good.”

  Danny paused. He reached into his backpack and took it out. The boys looked at the sealed box and at each other, scared and excited at the same time.

  “Should we open it?” Raul asked, reaching for it.

  “I don’t know. What if Julio finds out?”

  “How could he find out?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to.” Danny grabbed the box and stuffed it back into his backpack. “I better do like he said.”

  Danny figured he had no choice. He started to think where he could hide it and then he remembered why he’d come to see Raul. It didn’t seem so bad to be going to camp anymore. It would get him away from Julio. He wouldn’t know where he was. Still, he told Raul about Marcia and Jeff and how Jeff did something that made Marcia want to divorce him but she said he could stay if he was nicer to Danny.

  “What did he do? Did he screw another woman?”

  Danny’s eyes widened. He knew that word, of course, the kids bandied it about all the time, but he’d never thought of it in relation to Marcia and Jeff. He tried not to sound shocked. “I dunno. I don’t think he’d do that.”

  “Why not? That’s what my uncle did. My aunt found out and he got in a lot of trouble ’cause he hit her.”

  “Who? The other girl?”

  “No, stupid. My aunt. She called the police.”

  “I don’t think that happened.”

  “I swear.”

  “No. I mean with Marcia and Jeff. Anyway, what should I do?”

  “I don’t know. You better go home and hide that box. That’s the first thing.”

  Danny bit his lip, stood up and grabbed his coat.

  “Yeah. See ya.”

  He decided not to take a cab and waste all that money. He might need it, he figured. So he took the subway like he always did, thinking the whole time about where he could hide Julio’s package. He got out at Ninety-sixth Street and was walking toward his house when he saw the cop on the corner, the one who had three times taken him home. He tried to turn around quickly to avoid him, but he’d been seen.

  “Hey, kid, Danny, how you doin’?”

  He stopped and turned to face him. He tried to smile and look casual but he was nervous and it showed. “I’m good,” he answered. “Just on my way home.” He waved and started to walk toward his apartment building.

  The cop looked at his watch. “School out late?” He sounded friendly but Danny thought he was suspicious. Danny looked at his watch. It was four-thirty. At normal dismissal, he would have gotten home an hour earlier. “Nah,” he replied. “I had to stay late.”

  “How come? Detention?”

  “No,” Danny said quickly. “I just needed help in math.”

  “Ah, well, that’s good. Never be afraid to ask for help.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  The cop reached toward him and Danny froze, but he was just putting his hand on his shoulder. “Well, be good,” he said as he squeezed it. “See you around.”

  The cop turned and sauntered jauntily down the street, and Danny walked as fast as he could to his house. He didn’t want to think about it but he couldn’t help imagining what might have happened if the cop had looked in his backpack. He would have found the box. Julio would have been really mad. Danny was scared. He didn’t even know what was in the box but no one would believe him, he thou
ght. He pictured Jeff yelling at him. He pictured Marcia crying. He pictured his mother up in heaven feeling so sad, and his eyes filled with tears. He put his hands in his pockets and felt the twenty-dollar bill. He should have taken the cab, like Julio said. Well, he didn’t but he was okay, he thought. He had made it so far. Now he had to get into the house and hide the box someplace good.

  He entered the apartment quietly but Berta and Griffin were right near the front door and saw him immediately. Griffin squealed with delight and held his arms out, but this time Danny just gave him a half smile and kept walking to his room.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Berta shouted after him. “Hang up your coat.”

  He sped up.

  “You had a bad day?” Berta asked, almost sympathetically.

  “Nah,” he mumbled. “I just got a lot of homework to do.”

  “That’s a first,” Berta huffed to Griffin, sitting him in a playpen with a pile of his toys. “Come get a snack,” Berta shouted. “It’s in the kitchen.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Danny answered, also shouting from behind his closed door.

  This caused Berta to walk to his bedroom and open the door. “Do you feel okay?” she asked.

  He had just taken off his backpack and thrown his coat on the bed. He was looking around his room trying to find a spot that no one would clean or look in. He was startled by the door opening and he jumped.

  Berta laughed. “You look like you saw a ghost. It’s just me.”

  “This is my room,” he yelled, furious. “You’re supposed to knock. Even Marcia knocks. She said you’re supposed to knock too. I’m gonna tell.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said in a huff, leaving the room. “I thought you was sick.”

  “Close the door,” he shouted after her. And when she didn’t, he slammed it tight himself.

  Berta returned to Griffin and picked him up. “He like a teenager now,” she grumbled. “Like we didn’t have enough troubles in this house.”

  Danny looked wildly around the room. He wished he had a lock on his door. He’d asked Marcia if he could but she said no. No one had locks on any door in the house except Marcia and Jeff, for their bedroom, and they practically never used it. He took his desk chair and propped it against the door under the handle like he’d seen on TV. Then he surveyed the room. He couldn’t use the closet or the dresser because Berta or Marcia were always going in there for one thing or another. He couldn’t just put it under his bed because Berta sometimes vacuumed there. He looked at the closet a second time. There was a top shelf which no one used—it had some cardboard boxes of clothes that didn’t fit him anymore and some stuff he took when he’d left his home, including some pictures of him and his mom when he was little. He considered that for a minute. No one would look there but him. No one cared about that stuff but him. He took the desk chair from the door and dragged it over to the closet, stood on it and pulled down the biggest cardboard box. It was heavier than he expected and when he dropped it the contents spilled on the floor. He glanced nervously at the door and quickly picked everything up and threw it back in the box, then placed the box on his bed and started looking through it. He hadn’t really been able to bring himself to look at any of these things before and his heart was beating fast. He pulled out a tin box from the bottom and opened it. There it was, right on top, his mother, staring up at him after all this time. She was smiling, looking at the camera. He remembered taking that picture. She had bought him one of those disposable cameras and he was fooling around with it, he remembered. It was just before Marcia and Jeff ruined his life, he thought, before he’d ever heard of them or Claremont or Raul. He felt a physical burn in his chest and he recognized it. It was the bad sadness. The kind he’d had almost all the time the first few months after his mom died. He didn’t want to look anymore. He had the weird feeling that his mom was watching him and was disappointed so he quickly put the cover back on the tin box. Then he took the box Julio had given him out of his backpack. It was kind of heavy, he realized, and he shook it to try to figure out what it was, but nothing moved inside. He pushed aside his old baseball jersey and his old cleats that didn’t fit him anymore, lifted the tin box and put Julio’s box at the very bottom. Then he stuffed everything else back around it and, struggling with the weight, he managed after a few tries to put it back on top of his closet. Satisfied, he moved the chair back to his desk and lay on his bed. He didn’t feel better. He felt scared and he thought he would go on feeling scared every minute of every day until Julio took that box away.

  27

  The first night Jeff moved back into their apartment, he brought her two dozen long-stemmed roses. It was a sign of how little she forgave him that she secretly scorned them. She preferred peonies. Or daffodils, she thought wistfully, remembering again the time Charlie, her first college boyfriend, had picked wildflowers and wrapped them in paper towels for her. Roses were so generic, she thought, so 1950s, so reminiscent of some cheesy movie about a romantic gesture from a repentant husband. The memory of Charlie brought a sweet smile to her lips and she pretended it was in gratitude for the roses. She swept the flowers into her arms and carried them to the kitchen, where she cut all the stems at a diagonal and placed them in lukewarm water in her favorite vase. She noticed that, as usual, they had no scent and, still awash in memories, she thought of the roses that grew in her family’s garden when she was a child, before her mother’s illness changed everything. Her mother prided herself on the perfect blooms of red and yellow, and Marcia still recalled how she would play amid the sweet scent they emitted. She sometimes went close to them to inhale deeper, and even though she was careful, and even though her mother always shouted from the back porch for her to watch out for the thorns, she always pricked herself and drew back sharply, sucking the drop of blood from her wounded finger. What happened to that scent? she asked herself as she bent again, inhaled and smelled nothing. Gone. Like so many things. She wondered if this was how it would be from now on with Jeff—a marriage that looked like a marriage the way these lifeless, odorless roses looked like roses but was false at the core, full of little lies and hypocrisies with few real intimacies.

  She had decided to try to stay with him simply because it was easier—she couldn’t face a court battle over Griffin, a bitter divorce, a rehashing in court of their lives together, ordained times when she could and couldn’t see her own child. And she wanted to protect Danny, whom she feared would come off badly in a legal battle. This way, if she could just get over her anger and jealousy, she might be able to salvage something that at least resembled a family, even if it wasn’t the marriage she once thought she had.

  He came up behind her and put his arms around her, and her body stiffened involuntarily. He had to have noticed, but he didn’t react. “I’m sorry I missed dinner tonight, but that won’t happen again. I’ll be here and we can have family dinners most of the time now,” he said. She smiled again, sadly, this time.

  “That will be great,” she said. But what she thought was, Too little, too late.

  But she had decided to move forward and that, she realized, meant trying very hard not to look back. He had given up Ilana, but he had never really renounced her. By seeking to justify his affair, to attribute it to Danny and her unswerving loyalty to keeping him rather than compromising in some way that Jeff too could have found satisfying, he ended up not sounding very sorry for what she viewed as an almost unforgivable transgression. He had broken his vows to her, he had lied and cheated, and although when she chastised him in her mind, she always said it was the lies and her subsequent lack of trust that were the worst, she knew that wasn’t true, not really. The worst was that he had wanted another woman and he had acted on it. She tried not to picture him with her, flirting first in that way she knew so well—did he tease her and make her laugh at herself the way he did when they first met? She tried not to imagine the intimacy that preceded the sex, the kissing and touching and finally the two of them in bed together. Some
of those nights he had come home after he’d just been with Ilana. How had he felt, crawling into bed with his wife, still smelling of his girlfriend, to have lain next to her, even made love to her sometimes, as though they were still married? Married. The word had meaning for her way beyond the legal ceremony and she knew it did for him as well. Or she knew it used to. Or he just said those things and didn’t mean them. That was part of the fallout of this affair; she didn’t know what to believe, what was real, what she could trust. It made her question not only their future but their past. They had discussed their ideas of marriage early on when they talked about whether they would take that step together, tighten their bond willingly and formally. It was a decision to enter into a sexual intimacy so exclusive it meant that each of them agreed to give up all others in order to maintain it, and so deep that they were each willing to promise it would last forever. “In sickness and in health, till death do us part”—those weren’t just old-fashioned words to her. She didn’t want to write her own ceremony, as many of her friends did; she wanted to say those ancient words, make those sacred promises. And she meant them, even during her anger at him over Danny, even when he hardly came home at night and when he did they were tense and unhappy. She always thought it was temporary. This hostility wasn’t real, it wasn’t “them,” it would change if she just held on. So when he had that affair, when he allowed another woman to invade that delicate space they had built together, she needed more than his agreeing to stop doing it. She needed true repentance and she didn’t think he felt that.