Halsey Street

by Naima Coster

  When the bottle was finished, Marcello left, kissing Penelope on the cheek. Mirella blushed when he kissed hers. He said he wanted to leave mother and daughter time to themselves, to keep enjoying the day together as they had. He left without protest from either woman, stumbling in the dark, down the walkway, in roughly the direction of his house.

  “Nice neighbor,” Penelope said, and Mirella nodded.

  “Yes, he’s a nice man. Habla mucho, but he’s nice.”

  They didn’t mention the afternoon. Penelope pulled down another bottle of wine from the cabinet in the kitchen, uncorked it expertly, and poured two glasses without spilling a drop. They had a pizza delivered from an Italian restaurant in Sosúa. Mirella divided the slices onto heavy china plates, and they carried the box and the wine, the crystal glasses, out onto the breezeway. They ate overlooking the pool, a citronella candle burning between them.

  “This is different from Aguas Frescas,” Penelope said, pinching an artichoke heart between her fingers. “No stone kitchen.”

  “Thank God.” Mirella rolled her eyes at the mention of the mountain. She crossed one thin leg over the other. She spun the merlot in her glass.

  “Well, haven’t you arrived?” Penelope said smugly, but Mirella wasn’t sure what she meant.

  “Arrived where?”

  “Never mind.”

  They picked apart the pizza slices with their hands, the flour and oil sticking to their fingers. Penelope avoided the carrots; Mirella relished the olives. The pool hummed and a pair of frogs appeared, unafraid to be seen indulging in their nightly dip.

  “So, Marcello’s just your friend?”

  “Mhm.”

  “Is he your friend who you fuck?”

  Mirella set down her glass.

  “Penélope, I may be dead to you, but I’m still your mother. Even when I’m dead, I’ll still be your mother. So watch how you speak to me. What kind of words you use.”

  Penelope shrugged. “Somos mujeres,” she said. “We can talk about these things.” She almost seemed sincere in her drunkenness. She poured herself another glass.

  “And what about your friend? The one in the photograph in your maleta?”

  Penelope sat up straight in her chair, as if prepared to lash out at Mirella for snooping, and then she slumped back into the seat.

  “He’s a friend.”

  “A good friend who you fuck?”

  Penelope cringed. “Mami, please—”

  “Is he?”

  “It’s a bit late for you to begin worrying about who I fuck. That would have been useful earlier in life.”

  The women sat in silence, nursing their drinks.

  “He’s a good friend,” Penelope said finally.

  “Lo que tú digas,” Mirella said, although she couldn’t remember Penelope ever having any friends, good or otherwise.

  “Mami?”

  “Hm?”

  “I want the house.”

  Mirella set the wine down before she dropped the glass. “So that’s why you’re here.”

  “I brought the deed. All you have to do is sign the rights over to me.”

  “Does your father know about this?”

  “Pop agreed it’s best if the house is in my name, and my name only. He already signed his rights over to me.”

  Mirella laughed. “Of course he did. Now that he can’t live in the house, why shouldn’t you, his precious little Penny, get it all to yourself?” She began to feel the anger she had been staving off all day. It was like a sickness in her blood, recirculating, reclaiming every limb.

  Penelope was the calm one now, sitting with her elbows on her knees, a businesswoman making a pitch.

  “I don’t want the house for myself. I just don’t want us to lose it, like we lost the store. It will be like Pop never built anything, he never had anything at all—”

  “That house was mine, too.”

  “You haven’t lived in Brooklyn in years. You have your own house now. The only reason for you to hold on to the brownstone is so that if Pop dies, you can sell it and get your half.”

  “How dare you! How dare you accuse me of thinking like that! Of just waiting for your father to die!”

  “You’ve taken his money before—I know how you paid for this house.”

  “I worked for this house, Penelope. I saved for over twenty years! How little you know! You know nothing! Sinvergüenza! Babosa! Malcriada!” Mirella spat the insults at her daughter, leaning forward in her chair, but she didn’t stand up. “Who do you think you are? Coming into my house and telling me I don’t care about the man I married.”

  “Yo no nací ayer Mami,” Penelope said. “Whatever money you had when you came here isn’t going to last forever. You’re going to need more eventually if you want to keep up with Marcello and the rest of your neighbors.”

  “I didn’t take anything from your father! And I’ll find another way!”

  “I don’t care what way you find. I just want the house. It’s easiest if you just sign the papers.”

  Penelope reached into her purse, withdrew a creased square of papers. She unfolded them onto the table.

  “You just sign at the bottom, twice, and write your initials, and it’s done. You’ll see Pop has already signed.”

  “And what if I don’t sign?”

  “Then the house still belongs to the two of you. His disability checks and insurance are paying for the nursing home, but he can’t afford to pay the taxes on the house, too. It’ll fall to you. And since I’m—What was your word? Useless? An artist?—I can’t help with the payments. It will fall to you.”

  “Maybe I’ll sell the house.”

  “You can’t without my permission, and I am going to honor Pop’s wishes. He wants the house to stay in the family, even if that includes you.”

  “You’re doing this to hurt me.” Mirella strained her neck to keep her head upright; there was the haze of the wine over everything: her daughter, the pool, the palms swaying in the night breeze. Penelope seemed alarmingly sober, eyes alert, hands on her knees, sitting on the edge of her plastic chair.

  “Mirella, I didn’t come here to hurt you. And I’m not interested in taking away any of your pain either. I came here for the house. It’s all I want. Sign the papers.”

  How had Mirella missed the papers? Her hands must have passed right over them. The hardcover book, the short shorts, Ralph’s shirts, the panties, the Polaroid, not the pages, the contract, the deed. Was it the same one they had signed in 1992? Ralph wore a gingham shirt and jeans, the pen they had used tucked in his breast pocket. Mirella couldn’t remember what she was wearing, or even if Penelope was there, although she must have been, all dressed up, as Ralph would have insisted. Ralph had signed first, and then she had, Mirella Constanza Isabel Jiménez Santos de Grand, the comically long Dominican name Ralph had mocked her for—first name, middle, confirmation, and the two last names she had carried before becoming his wife. Her name had spilled over the line, but she had written it all, and it was done, the house was theirs. They were still in Brooklyn, but they had four floors, and a backyard. Ralph had turned to her and asked if she was ready to plant a garden, bring a bit of the island to the Republic of Brooklyn.

  Penelope stood and straightened her dress, smoothing the easy fabric with her brown fingers. She was an elegant, terrible stranger, her neck long and her hair wound up.

  “I’m leaving them here,” Penelope said, striking the folded square of papers once with her knuckles, as if Mirella could forget where they were. “After all you’ve done, it’s the least you could do.”

  Penelope turned and left, Mirella’s head spinning as she went. She didn’t hear the back door open and close, didn’t hear Penelope at all, just the crickets, screeching, and the hum of the lightless pool.

  Mirella watched the tops of the palm trees shift in the wind; they blew away from each other then sprang back together. They made a scratchy rustling sound over her head. The crickets played their nightly symphon
y, a few dogs somewhere down the road howled at each other, back and forth, from wherever they were fenced in. A tiny red spider made its way across the breezeway, crossing beneath the round table. Mirella let it crawl, didn’t smash it with her chancleta. She had been wrong about the postcard—her words hadn’t changed a thing.

  She tried to picture Ralph in a nursing home. She was certain she would recognize him anywhere, in any state, but she couldn’t imagine him in a wheelchair, not permanently. The days she had seen him hobbling around the apartment on Halsey, wincing when he tried to rise from the bed or bend down to tie his shoe, were so few compared to the years she had spent watching him circulate proudly among the aisles at Grand Records, march up the stairs from work, his jacket slung over his shoulder, carrying a bottle of rum and a bouquet of wildflowers on a day sales were particularly good and he was feeling romantic, the nights before Penelope when they would go dancing in the Village and Ralph would point his index fingers at her, and rock his hips from side to side, bobbing and dancing in his funny American way, and the mornings after when he would dash around the kitchen on Marcy Avenue, smoking his pipe and burning eggs, humming along to whatever record he was playing, tapping his foot sometimes for emphasis, as if it were a horn he could blow. What sort of Ralph was he now?

  Mirella left the pizza box, wine bottle, and glasses outside, even if she knew the leftovers would attract animals in the dark. She took the creased square of papers with her into the house and locked the door behind her. She stopped in the kitchen to wash off the scent of garlic and olive oil from her hands. She scrubbed her rubbery, golden, ringless hands together. Mirella dried her hands before she took up the papers again.

  If she ever went back to New York, it wouldn’t be to Brooklyn. She would go back as the tourist she never got to be. She would finally visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, just to say that she had been there. She had been to Central Park and Times Square and the waterfront on the West Side of Manhattan, but it would be different if she went back now. She wouldn’t be stealing time on her way to work or on her way back home from cleaning—she would be there just to watch, just to stand, just to be. She would stay in a hotel with fat bathrobes and tiny bottles of shampoo she could take back with her to DR. She wouldn’t need the house. That life was over.

  As she climbed the stairs, Mirella felt an unexpected relief that Penelope had wanted something from her—as long as she had the papers, as long as they were unsigned, the girl would have a reason to stay. Her daughter might not love her, but she was here, in her house. The deed was gold. Maybe she’d take Penelope to the beach tomorrow, to stretch what time they had. Hours at the beach often felt like days, and even if the girl hated her, wished she were dead, maybe she’d consent to go, if she thought it might convince her to sign. Mirella would take time, if Penelope wouldn’t offer anything else.

  The store closed on a Thursday. Mirella and Ralph emptied out the shop themselves, stacking the records that hadn’t sold into dozens of boxes. Ralph wasn’t sure where to put them all, and Mirella suggested the shed, which he agreed was a good idea. She swept the floors, and Ralph took the shelves out in the back, broke them apart with a long-handled hammer, then put the wood in the dumpster. The new shop owners were willing to buy the shelves, in case they would use them, but Ralph refused. They didn’t need them in the house, and they probably could have donated them somewhere—to a church or the Salvation Army on Quincy Street, but Ralph smashed them instead.

  Ralph drove the boxes of records back to the house on Halsey in shifts. Mirella waited for him to pick up the last load and her as dusk came over Lewis Avenue. She sat on the front steps and smoked her Parliaments, thinking about the store, and the stiff, empty look Ralph had worn all day, sweating and packing, climbing up ladders to take down framed posters, uprooting nails from inside the walls.

  Just one link in a chain of bad news, Ralph had said. Sheckley’s was already gone; the bar still had the same name, the same wooden shutters, but Lionel was gone, and the regulars—the ones who hadn’t moved away—didn’t care for the new craft beers, didn’t like being the only patrons who were old and local and black. Every block in Bed-Stuy was its own universe, the changes coming at a distinct pace on every street, but Ralph didn’t see the difference. Everyone was leaving. Everyone was gone. Nothing was the same. For him, if the shop was over, the neighborhood was, too.

  The rent for the store had been increasing steadily for the past seven years, but Ralph kept paying, finding a way not to dip into the red. Grand Records had been one of the first stores to open on this dreary strip in the seventies, leading the way for more and more shops to shoot up. Ralph hardly made a profit anymore, but the brownstone was all paid for, except the taxes, and he and Mirella didn’t need much. Penelope supported herself. And they kept the store because they could and they had to, Ralph said. The neighborhood needs its music.

  They were all right until someone offered the landlord double what Ralph was paying. A young couple from Seattle was looking to open a health food store. Ralph crunched numbers for weeks, tried to find a way to pay the new rent. He could lease out the other floors in the house on Halsey to make up the money they would lose, but Mirella didn’t want strangers living in their house. And even with tenants they would need sales to go up to cover the new rent.

  When the couple from Seattle offered double and a half, Ralph caved. He and Mirella were offered a large check to end their lease early so the Seattle couple could get in and renovate. Ralph and Mirella had witnessed an elderly Puerto Rican lady lose her bodega across the street. She had been priced out, no money to show for the years she had given, or the thousands spent out of her own pocket to fix the floors, the pipes, the leaky ceiling. They had replaced her store with a wine bar, taken down the “La Nueva Victoria” sign, and never put up another. This wine bar was unmarked, but the new clientele all knew how to find it. They could tell it by its tinted windows, the absence of a building number. Mirella encouraged Ralph to take the money so they wouldn’t end up like the old Puerto Rican woman from across the street. They agreed to the payout and lost the shop, a full five months before their lease was up again.

  Penelope sent flowers and a card, as if someone had died, and a mix CD. She put all her and Ralph’s songs on one disc, which wasn’t how he liked to listen to music, but he played it anyway on the stereo. It was an odd mash-up of Ralph’s tastes and favorite artists: Bill Withers and Herbie Hancock, Earth, Wind and Fire, Nina Simone, Public Enemy, Wu-Tang, Chuck Berry, Leadbelly, Billie Holiday and Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong. It was playing in the rented car when Ralph pulled up, his pipe in his teeth, the clouds of tobacco smoke drifting out the window onto the street.

  Do you have the keys? he’d said, and Mirella reached into her jeans, unjoined the store keys from the ring they shared with the house keys. Ralph got out of the car and slipped the keys into an envelope. He walked to the front door of the shop, tried the knob to make sure it was locked, and then slipped the envelope under a green mat the new owners had dropped off for the front entrance. WELCOME.

  Idiots, Ralph said, letting himself back into the car, where Mirella sat waiting. Fucking idiots. All it took was for one person to look under the mat, find the keys, and take the store apart, but they had wanted the keys under the mat. They would be by in the morning to pick them up. Idiots, fucking idiots, Ralph sang, driving to the gas station where they would return the car. It was all the way under the train tracks. They would make the long walk back to Halsey; Mirella hated the bus.

  In the days that followed, they didn’t talk about the future, although the check arrived. Ralph referred to it as “the blood money.” He looked over the check, made a note of the amount in one of his money books, and then left the tiny slip of paper on the nightstand. Mirella waited a week and then went to their bank downtown, the old Dime Savings Bank with the white pillars and dome ceiling. She made copies of the check and the invoice, left them in their safe-deposit box in the b
asement vault, then stopped by Junior’s to buy a whole cheesecake, two burgers with steak fries and pickles. The meat was cold by the time she got off the A train, but she and Ralph still ate the burgers together, sitting on the olive sofa in the living room. They listened to the mix Penelope had made. Ralph set the CD to loop.

  The days were indistinguishable from each other, and Ralph and Mirella slipped into a new routine easily. She was unaccustomed to the company, but it was nice when she turned over in bed and Ralph was still there, the covers rising and falling with his breath. She got up and made them coffee, went out across Nostrand to Delight, a bakery that had opened just a few months ago. It was the sort of place Mirella had always wanted to live across the street from, a café with black-and-white photographs on the wall, a glass display of fresh pastries every morning, and bright yellow paper cups filled with hardly any coffee, mostly foam. She bought hefty slices of cake, and Ralph rose when he heard her return. They ate the cake in bed, Mirella placing the cafetera on a cloth on the nightstand to cool, so they didn’t have to go into the kitchen for a refill. Ralph squeezed Mirella’s hand once in a while, and she squeezed back, and the crumbs gathered on their bedsheets, and in his beard. Mirella cleaned up and they watched the news, and then a game show, the shopping network, the news again. Eventually, they made their way out of the bedroom. They showered and ate again and made more coffee. Mirella worked in the garden, and when she came back to the house, she found Ralph poring over his money books, as if he would find something new there, or he would be listening to records or Penelope’s mix. In the evening, Mirella watched her novelas and Ralph sat with her, reading the paper. She translated the most dramatic moments for him, and he seemed to listen, his eyebrows perking up, as he followed her plotlines. This is the preacher, and here is his lover, she turns eighteen next week, and this is the girl’s fiancé, the mayor’s son, and her fiancé’s sister, who is a widow and the most beautiful woman in town and very devout, but she’s in love with the preacher who, remember, is the secret lover of her future sister-in-law.