Names I Call My Sister

by Mary Castillo

  “I’m not going back, Carl. I got a job at the casino.”

  “Yeah?” He smiled. “That’s great.”

  “Yeah?” That was Chris, eyebrows raised.

  After the door closed, Chris kissed my temple gently. “That was sweet. You got all teary because of your good deed.”

  I looked up at him. “I did, didn’t I? See, I’m not such a hard case after all.”

  He settled me into his arms again. “So you’re working at the casino?”

  “Well, the restaurant. They need an events coordinator, and I worked up a proposal and left it with the restaurant services manager after the granny breakfast fiasco, and they offered me a job.”

  “You work fast.”

  “At some things. Some jobs, you just have to take more time. Like this.” I reached down between our bodies and showed him. “And you were about to do this.”

  His smile got a little dazed. “Yeah, that.”

  I forgot about my sister after that. Susu would solve her own problems.

  Much later I lay awake caressing Chris’s short hair and thinking about my future. Susu and Carl would probably patch things up, and I had a job, but would I ever see Chris again?

  As if he were psychic, he asked, “Can I come visit you here?” He was looking up at me.

  “You bet. Slots are open 24/7. I guess I’d better hunt for an apartment.”

  “Then I can’t use my great good-bye line for you.” He nuzzled me, then rose up on his elbow.

  “You thought of a good-bye line? And they call me a drama queen.”

  “Watch who you call queen.”

  I tickled his ribs. “Okay, so give. What’s your great line?”

  He grabbed my hands to stop me and put on a Humphrey Bogart voice. “We’ll always have Paris.”

  “That’s it? We’ll always have Paris? How lame.” I wrestled free and tickled him again.

  He laughed and fended me off. “How about, ‘Here’s lookin’ at you, baby’?”

  “No, no. The line goes, ‘Here’s lookin’ at you.’”

  He pulled me close and kissed me, one of those long, deep kisses that make me dizzy. I was breathless when he finally pulled away and looked deep into my eyes.

  “Here’s lookin’ at you…” His voice was deep and full of promise.

  Who needed a line from an old movie? We had Paris right now.

  WHIPPED

  SOFIA QUINTERO

  Chapter 1

  Jennifer only agreed to do the workshop because she owes me. I know that, and so be it. I stopped feeling guilty for expecting quid pro quo from my sister when she won the St. Catherine’s Academy spoken word slam with a piece I wrote. Do you know how hard it is to turn the Stations of the Cross into hip poetry? But it was Jennifer who transformed it into theatre. I have to give her that. Even crispy Sister Rita Clare folded into tears when Jennifer reached the Agony in the Garden and grabbed the mic, rapping, “I plead take this cup from meeeee, deliver me from my enemieeees,” like she was channeling Tupac Shakur. I was so proud of her. And resentful. And, yes, jealous. I vowed then that if I were going to help my sister do anything—especially if I craved to do it myself as I often did—I would never again hesitate to demand a fair exchange.

  My sister owes me for helping move Rocco’s remaining things out of her East Harlem co-op to a Brooklyn storage facility. When her ex left to crash at a friend’s place in Fort Greene, he only packed one suitcase and his CF Martin acoustic guitar. I couldn’t believe it when Jennifer told me it was worth more than two thousand dollars. “Why can’t a guy who can afford something like that hire movers?” I asked as I hoisted a stack of barbells onto the U-Haul. “When’s Rocco coming anyway? He better not think he’s going to show up here at the last minute after we’ve done all the work. And I hope he brings some friends to help.”

  Jennifer dropped his exercise bench into a corner of the truck. “Rocco’s not coming.” She started to walk down the ramp when I grabbed her by the arm.

  “What do you mean he’s not coming?” Then it hit me. I thought it was highly unusual for my sister to devote a Saturday morning to help her ex move out of her apartment when, according to Jennifer, she broke up with him because she had lost all respect for him. I should have known she was up to her ball-busting ways again. “Jen, please don’t tell me Rocco has no idea we’re taking all his stuff to storage.”

  She wriggled her arm out of my grasp and headed down the ramp. “Of course he knows,” she said over her shoulder as I followed her back to the building. “I told him that if he didn’t get the rest of his shit by the fifteenth, I was getting rid of it. If he doesn’t realize I was serious until he gets the rental invoice, hey, that’s not my problem.” Jennifer held the door open for me, but I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “Bad enough that you do these things, Jennifer, but you rope me into them!” I never wanted to help Rocco move even if at the time I had nothing better to do. “This is so fucked up….”

  “You make it sound like I’m pulling a Bernadine,” Jennifer said, referring to the Waiting to Exhale character who piles all her cheating husband’s designer clothes and expensive toys into his BMW then sets them on fire. “Remember, I’m paying for all this. And I was nice enough to choose a storage facility near where he’s staying with whatever his name is.”

  “God, you so owe me!” I let her know.

  And last week I called in my chip and ordered her to be at the library on Wednesday by noon as the next speaker of my Power Lunch series. Of course, Jennifer hated the idea of having to travel uptown in the middle of a workday and tried to get out of it. She said, “Hey, let me see if I can get Priya to do it.” Priya is a senior partner at my sister’s law firm and her immediate supervisor. In other words, she’s also a prime target for Jennifer’s ass-kissing.

  “I don’t want Priya to do it,” I said. “I want you to do it.” Then I hung up, probably surprising myself even more than I surprised her. Oh, I challenge Jennifer from time to time, but for the most part, I hold my tongue and certainly never tell her what to do. That was the first time I thought to myself, Wow, this training I’m doing is really taking hold. Anything for these kids. They really need to meet someone like Jennifer, especially the girls. Any adult who believes teenagers have it easier than they did has no clue what it’s like to be a kid these days. They see all the technological wizardry—iPods, Side-kicks, TiVo—and think they live carefree. Their world may seem like a virtual playground to adults like my sister who’ve managed to graduate from adolescence with a sense of who they are or at least who they would like to become. But to a fifteen-year-old who’s still trying to figure these things out, there’s just too much stimuli out there and much of it’s pretty unsettling. Of course, she doesn’t see it that way until it’s too late. She sees nothing wrong with posting a picture of herself in a thong bikini on MySpace, adopting the screen name The !llest Beyatch U’ll Eva Wanna F?K!, and counting “models” such as Vida Guerra and Karrine Steffans among her heroes.

  This is why I piloted the Power Lunch series at the library this summer. Now that the kids are out of school, it’s harder to get them into the library, never mind pick up a book. The ones who live in this neighborhood are more likely to sit on their stoops or hang out at the park on a nice day. If they come into the library, it’s to escape the heat and peruse the free magazines. So every Wednesday, I buy a few pizzas or a six-foot hero (an exception I really had to fight for with my boss Elaine since no food or drink is allowed here) and host a speaker who answers questions about his or her job. As often as I can, I prefer to invite someone from the neighborhood, and so far I have a perfect record. I want the kids to see that you don’t have to be a basketball playing rapper or actress-slash-dancer-slash-“singer”-slash-serial monogamist to emerge successfully from the Bronx. The first speaker I invited was Tammi James, the formerly incarcerated and wildly popular self-published author of Every Trick Needs a Treat and its sequel, Tricks Ain’t for Kids. O
ne day nine teens came into the library asking if we had copies of Tammi’s novels. Not one of these kids had ever been there before. Furthermore, three of them were boys who only come to the library to get on the Internet, flirt with girls, or flirt with girls on the Internet. No matter how hard I tried to push Walter Dean Meyers and Ernesto Quinonez on them, I could never get them to pick up a novel. So I cringed every time a boy came in and asked if we had Every Trick Needs a Treat and heard Elaine bark, “No, we do not carry that,” then back away from them as if they were gun-toting gangsters.

  Each time I rushed over and said, “If you like stories like that, maybe you’ll like these.” I handed them my list of gangsta lit substitutes, which includes titles such as Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas and Native Son by Richard Wright. Still, I ordered a copy of Tammi James’s books for myself because I wanted to understand her appeal to the kids. Unlike some writers in the same genre, I found that she had a respectable command of the writing craft and truly wove her street life novels into urban morality tales that taught important lessons, as if she knew kids would be reading her adult fare.

  So I researched more on Tammi James and found out three critical things. She wrote Every Trick Needs a Treat while doing two years in prison for counterfeiting and extortion. Yes, she made fake cash even as she shook down people for the real thing. How can you not admire such ambition? After being rejected by over three dozen agents and editors, Tammi self-published the novel and hawked it out of the trunk of her Geo Metro. In less than a month she sold over eight thousand copies on the corner of Westchester and Morrison Avenues, only a crack vial’s toss from the slumlord’s wet dream where she grew up.

  Tammi was everything I needed to get the Power Lunch series off to a fantastic start. Not only was she known among the kids I was trying to reach, they idolized her. She had a glamorous job—at least, that’s what her fans thought, and their perceptions were all that mattered—at which she was tremendously successful. (Or as Elaine would crack, “Obscenely so,” with the word “obscenely” having more layers than baklava.)

  Most important of all, Tammi James was a local girl done good. Actually, she was a hood rat gone good because despite the prurient nature of her tomes, she said all the right things to two dozen kids—yes, she drew that many on a sticky afternoon in late June—who attended her talk. She answered all their questions with candor, humor, and most important of all, respect. Tammi inspired the birth of quite a few writers that day, and not a single one of them left with the idea that they had to drop out of school, do time, or suffer an abusive boyfriend—all of which Tammi had done and relayed—to feel they would have meaningful stories to tell.

  Of course, when I invited Jennifer, I let her think she was my inaugural speaker. She was actually the third. The second speaker was Ms. Woo, the Korean owner of the most popular novelty shop in the area. I didn’t expect her to generate the kind of attendance Tammi did, but after I did my research, I gambled that a respectable number of kids would show out of curiosity. Figuring that it would be a good idea to introduce the kids to a local business owner, I had asked them where they shopped the most. Of course, they mentioned places like Old Navy and Foot Locker, but I was looking for a mom-’n’-pop shop operation, not the local franchise of a major chain.

  “Yeah, but you’re not in Old Navy and Foot Locker every day,” I said to Echo and Cindi, my two favorite informants. For a while I couldn’t put my finger on why I liked them so much. It certainly wasn’t because they reminded me of Jennifer and myself at that age. More like Echo and Cindi’s friendship made me wish that Jennifer and I had been more like them when we were that age.

  Echo sucked her teeth and nodded at Cindi, “She is. She ain’t got no money to buy nothing, but she is.”

  Cindi gave her a playful slap on her arm. “Shut up, bitch.”

  “Shhh,” I said, more for Elaine’s benefit than out of any fealty to the reputed sacred silence of libraries. Never expect any publicly funded institution in the “’hood” to be quiet. I personally don’t care if the kids swear so long as they do so only in jest and avoid the strong stuff. “Where do you go to buy your knickknacks? Things for your hair, school supplies and stuff like that.”

  Echo and Cindi both said, “From Ms. Woo.”

  “Ms. Woo’s mad cool,” Cindi added. “We go to her place ’cause she doesn’t follow you around the store like she’s waiting for you to boost something.”

  “Yeah, and she got jokes, too,” said Echo.

  So I invited Ms. Woo, and, yes, she had jokes, not to mention wonderful anecdotes. She’d lived in our community almost thirty years and watched it transition from a predominantly Italian and Jewish community to a Puerto Rican and black stronghold to the Dominican and Mexican immigrant enclave it currently is. Only a half-dozen kids came to lunch with her, though, and I need a speaker who is more like Tammi James and less like Ms. Woo, so participation in the Power Lunch series doesn’t fade. Besides, Elaine is constantly complaining about the food (even though I pay for it and clean up with the help of the kids after every workshop) and threatening to cancel the program.

  I expected a good turnout for Jennifer, not only because she’s an attorney, but because I let the kids know that she was my sister. Not that I told her that the kids are more likely to come hear her speak out of a loyalty to me. Little did I know that what I did during the day would cast a spotlight on what I did at night, especially since I didn’t want anyone to know—least of all my sister.

  Chapter 2

  Just when the elevator reaches the lobby and I think I’ve managed to slip out undetected, who do I bump into when the doors open but my boss.

  “Hey, Priya,” I say. “See you in a bit.” I hope she thinks I’m just running out to grab a bite and that I’m coming back to the office within the hour. As I inch past her off the elevator and into the lobby, however, I can feel her eyes scrutinizing me.

  The elevator doors start to close behind me when Priya flings a well-tailored arm between them and they bounce open again. “How’s the Berman case?” A wall of men—not a single one under six feet—glare at her. By the stiffness in her posture, I can tell Priya is aware that they loathe her for holding them up, and she’s thinking, They can kiss my four-eleven ass. This is why I both worship this woman and would rather eat live scorpion paella than have her angry with me.

  “Plenty of progress to report,” I say as I make for the exit. “I’ll fill you in on everything when I get back.”

  As the elevator doors loom toward each other, Priya yells, “Okay, let’s say around four.”

  Shit. Okay, Jen, relax. If she’s watching you, it’s because you’ve been the first associate in the firm’s history to accrue the most billable hours in a month for four consecutive months in a row. Priya’s watching you because she likes you. She has no idea that you’re headed all the way to the northeast Bronx to speak to a roomful of teenagers as part of some Career Day workshop in the middle of the work week. Nor does Priya need to know. At least not until you show her all the progress you made on the Berman case so she knows that I committed this act of charity on behalf of the firm and still handled my business.

  If I don’t get back into midtown by three-thirty, I’m going to kill Michelle.

  I glance at my watch. A quarter to three. I clap my hands once and say, “So in conclusion, no matter what your interests are, you can find a way to relate it to the practice of law.”

  I glance at Michelle, who is busying around the back of the room, collecting soiled napkins and used cups and tossing them in a wastebasket. Michelle hounded me so much to say something to that effect, I told her that if she kept drilling the reminder into my head, the point would probably leak right back out of it. C’mon, now. If anyone knows how to command a room, it’s me.

  “You like music? Become a lawyer and work for a record label. You like sports? Become a lawyer and represent an athlete or maybe even an entire team. Becoming a lawyer doesn’t mean giving up your pas
sion for other things. It means translating that passion into a viable career that can last a lifetime.”

  A boy in the back of the room raises his hand. The brim of his baseball cap is pulled so low over his face, I swore he was sleeping throughout my entire lecture. While I’m glad to discover that I hadn’t lost his attention, I’m hoping his question doesn’t lead to an onslaught of interrogation. “Yes, you have a question?”

  “You said that being a lawyer is a secure way of life, but I thought there were more people in law school than there are lawyers in the streets.”

  “Where the he—” I catch myself. “Where did you get that statistic?”

  “That’s what Keanu Reeves says in The Devil’s Advocate.”

  “Stupid!” says his friend who sports his own baseball cap backward. He smacks the kid who asked the question on the back of the head, and for a second I wonder if I have telepathy. “Al Pacino said that, not Keanu Reeves.”

  A shrilly voice in the corner says, “I love me some Keanu.” I can’t tell if the voice belongs to a boy or a girl.

  Gee, thanks, Michelle.

  A pudgy girl raises her hand. I squint through my glasses to read her name tag. “Echo?” Naming your child after spirits, cars, nature, virtues, and scientific phenomena should be deemed a form of child abuse and rendered illegal.

  She lowers her hand and strokes the baby hair she plastered against her temple with God knows what slimy concoction. “I got a question.”

  Great. “Shoot.”

  “Me and my friends, we’ve been having a lot of problems with the cops ’round here—”

  “Yeah, in Harding Park,” says a girl with a name tag that says Cindi with a heart drawn over the second i. Is that a bow she drew through it, too?

  Fuckin’ wonderful. “Okay.” I glare at Michelle, who’s grinning and nodding, pleased that they were eager to take up more of my time by seeking free legal advice. Look, I wouldn’t mind if I had known. If Michelle had said, “I want you to hold a pro bono legal clinic,” fine. I’d have asked her to have patrons register, submit their queries in writing in advance, and then make fifteen-minute appointments. That way I could prepare to answer their questions in some way that might prove useful. They don’t get disappointed, and I don’t waste my time.