Efrain's Secret

by Sofia Quintero

  Nestor doesn’t buy it, though. Still, he perks up and asks, “Yo, but did you hear about the time Method Man scared this White lady in a hotel elevator?” See how he lets me be? That’s why we’re boys.

  But when I first heard that urban legend a few years back, it was Kobe Bryant. And then it was Reggie Bush. The last time I heard it—from Nestor himself, in fact, only a year ago—it was Jay-Z. But I leap off the car and say, “Yeah, dude steps on with his boys, and she starts clutching her purse and whatnot because she doesn’t realize he’s rich and famous. Then later he picks up her dinner tab at the hotel restaurant, and the woman’s, like, Duh.” I feel my back burn, and I take a glance over my shoulder. Now Julian and Lefty are alone, both eyeing me from across the street and talking out of the sides of their mouths. I turn back to Nestor and say, “’Cept when I heard the story, the Black dude was 50 Cent.”

  “No! Whoever told you that done lied, bro. How is that story going to work with a cat like 50 Cent?” Nestor laughs. “If Fiddy stepped on my elevator, I’d grab my shit, too.”

  “What about Fiddy?” LeRon yells from his post. “You want to talk sideways about my boy, you need to kick rocks ’cause I love that nigga. No homo, though.”

  Nestor says, “You see, this White woman is staying at this fancy five-star hotel and gets on the elevator to go to the restaurant for dinner, right? …” As he recounts the legend, he walks toward LeRon, and I follow. The other guys in our posse crowd around Nestor, reacting enthusiastically to his story. As much as I want to go home and crawl into my warm bed with Candace’s voice in my ear, now is the time to close ranks. When Nestor gets to the part where the woman realizes that the Black “thug” she encountered on the elevator is a celebrity who just paid for her dinner, I laugh louder than anyone else. That’s the best way to show ’em you’re not shook.

  Sanguine 1. (adj.) consisting of or relating to blood 2. (adj.) optimistic

  Candace has family visiting New York City during the holiday, so we decide to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve Day. We sit on the floor in the living room by her tree while her sister Nia watches television a few feet away. Meanwhile, Candace’s mother, aunt, and grandmother throw down in the kitchen for all the guests they expect tomorrow. I hand Candace a large gift bag and say, “Ladies first.”

  She kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you, E.” Then Candace tries to tuck it under the Christmas tree.

  I reach out and clamp on to her wrist. “C’mon, open it now!”

  “No,” she says while making no effort to pull away from me. “We have to wait until midnight at least.”

  “But I won’t be here then to see the expression on your face.” This girl can be so stubborn! Katrina never stood a chance against her. I lower my voice and say, “Unless at midnight you’re planning, you know, to climb down a brother’s chimney….”

  Candace gently socks me in the knee. “Shhh!” She jerks her head toward Nia.

  “She can’t hear me.”

  “Yes, I can!”

  “Nia, stop being so nosy!”

  “You and Efrain stop being nasty!”

  Now I’m the one who tells Nia to hush. Then I say to Candace, “That’s your fault. You should’ve just done what I asked you.”

  Candace reaches inside the gift bag. She pulls out the large but thin gift box. When she opens it, peels away the tissue, and finds another wrapped box, I pretend to cough to cover up my laugh. Candace smirks playfully at me as she tears away the wrapping paper and opens the box. In the box is another gift bag. “Efrain!”

  “Blame my sister,” I say laughing. “It was her idea.”

  Candace opens the gift bag and pulls out yet another box. After unwrapping the gift box, pulling back the lid, and peeling away the tissue paper, she finally finds the envelope. “Oh, a gift card!” she says. “For where?”

  “Someplace you really love,” I say.

  She runs her finger under the triangular flap, tearing it away from the envelope. Then she pulls out the ticket. It takes Candace a second to read it and understand. “You bought me an airplane ticket to New Orleans?”

  “Round-trip. And it’s an open ticket, too, so you can leave and return whenever you want so long as it’s before then,” I say, pointing to the expiration date. “You still have to make a reservation in advance, but, you know …”

  “Oh, E….” Candace’s eyes fill with tears. Good tears. She leans forward and kisses me in a way she shouldn’t with a little sister and all those matriarchs only feet away.

  When we finally part, I say, “I have something else for you, but you have to wait until los Tres Reyes. I mean, Three Kings’ Day.” I know I should save every cent, but I can’t resist the desire to spoil her a little.

  “We celebrate the Epiphany in New Orleans, too,” says Candace. “My grandmother makes the best king cakes. She’ll be baking and mailing them from now till Mardi Gras, but I’ll save you a piece.”

  A dirty thought pops into my mind, but at least I know better than to say it with Nia in earshot. Instead, I say, “Thank you.”

  “No, Efrain, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie.” We sit there for a few seconds, our foreheads pressed together and holding hands, wishing each other a Merry Christmas just by breathing in time. Then I yell, “My turn!”

  Candace giggles and reaches under a tree for a small, flat package. “It’s not much, but I think you’ll like it.”

  The package feels hard in my hand. With no grace whatsoever, I rip away the wrapping paper. It’s a book called Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny. The Black dude on the cover looks mad familiar, too. “Is this guy on TV?” I ask.

  Candace nods. “Yeah, that’s Hill Harper. He’s an actor on CSI: NY, but…” She opens the book and points to the short biography under his photograph. “Not only did he go to Brown, he also has a law degree and a master’s in government from Harvard.”

  “Word?” As much as I like to read, I haven’t read anything unrelated to school and the SAT in a minute, so Candace’s gift is perfect. “I’ll probably read it in one night.”

  “Well, the gift receipt’s in there if you’d rather exchange it for a CD or something.”

  “You’re crazy!” I tease her. “Of course I’m going to like it. This brother’s been exactly where I’m trying to go.” Saying that makes me think of Chingy’s brother BK, the only person I know in college. I wonder if he will ask for me now that he’s home from the ATL. What will Chingy say? As lucky as I am to have Candace, I still feel a bit sad to not be hanging with my boy this Christmas, but it is what it is.

  “Efrain, what’s wrong?” asks Candace.

  “Nothing, boo,” I say. I don’t want her fretting over me, least of all on Christmas. “Thank you.” Then, just as I lean for another scandalous kiss, I hear my name.

  “Efrain?” Mrs. Lamb stands in the doorway of the living room, beckoning me to her. Candace shrinks as if trying to disappear herself by sheer will.

  “Told y’all stop being nasty,” says Nia.

  I jump to my feet but take a decade to cross the living room. When I come within reach, Mrs. Lamb takes my arm and leads me into the kitchen, which is now full of stovetop aromas and devoid of other people. The lady wants to hurt me for pushing up on her daughter, and made sure to clear the room of witnesses.

  “I have something for you, Efrain.” Mrs. Lamb hands me a small gift bag. “Promise me that you won’t tell Miss Candace.”

  “Wow, Mrs. Lamb, that’s so generous of you.” I try to hand it back to her. “I can’t accept this.”

  She pushes my hand away. “Yes, you can. You must.” Mrs. Lamb motions for me to sit down at the kitchen table. She leans forward to whisper, “Has Candace ever told you about the things we went through because of the hurricane? The things we still go through?”

  Not as much as I would like, but I answer, “A little, yes.”

  “And she probably talks about it more to you than to any of us.” Mrs. Lam
b points to the gift bag and says, “Even though we survived the hurricane, Katrina still killed my family. A family is a living thing where every person plays a role. Candace was our heart. She was our spirit, our hope, our jazz, and Katrina took her from us. We were broken, shattered, torn apart, in the same way the winds destroyed our house. For a long time, we were just the shell of family. A group of evacuees with the same last name. Then Candace met you, and you pumped life back into her. And by giving her back to us, you made us a family again.” Mrs. Lamb gestures toward the gift bag that I’m now clutching in my fist as if it were gold. “It isn’t much, but my mother, my sister, and I wanted you to have it. Open it.”

  I remove the tissue paper and find a jewelry box. Inside the box is a gold necklace with a pendant of St. Expedite. Expedite (v.) to execute promptly, accelerate the progress or process of, speed up. “The saint who never existed,” I say. They call him that because so little is known about him that the Roman Catholic Church refuses to officially recognize him. “People pray to St. Expedite when they need quick solutions to their problems. Especially financial ones.”

  “And he’s quite revered in New Orleans,” adds Mrs. Lamb. “He’s our unofficial patron saint.”

  To say that I’m moved doesn’t cut it. “I don’t know what to say except thank you, señora.” It hardly seems enough. “And please thank your mother and sister for me, too.”

  “Just keep being good to my Candace.”

  I want to make that vow, but I can’t find my voice right now. So I just nod and think, No doubt, Mrs. Lamb. No doubt.

  Relish (v.) to enjoy

  It takes only a few rips for my sister to see the Baby Phat logo. “Oh my God!” She tears away the rest of the wrapping paper and hugs the suede handbag to her chest.

  “No more Boo Boo Kitty for you,” I say as I wink at my mother. It’s not the iPod that I wanted to get her, but that would’ve drawn too much attention. Moms is busy, not stupid. That’s why, despite Nestor’s harassment, I refuse to get a cell phone. My mother bought Mandy an off-brand MP3 player from Yannis’s anyway.

  “I love it!” Mandy jumps to her feet and rushes to hug me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you, I love you, I love you!”

  I laugh. The telephone rings. “I’ll get that. Mami, open your gift already.”

  “No, I want you to be here when I open it.”

  “Nah, I don’t need all that mush.” It started when I was five and gave her a lumpy ashtray I made out of clay, even though Moms hasn’t smoked a day in her life, and it hasn’t ended. When I get to the kitchen, I recognize my grandmother’s number and jump on the phone. “¡Feliz Navidad, abuela!” Then I remember what I was taught to say as a little boy when I would visit her before she moved from the Bronx back to Guavate. “La bendición.”

  “Que Dios te bendiga, m’ijo. ¿Y cuándo vienes a Puerto Rico pa’verme?”

  Without giving it a second thought, I say, “En el verano.” Why not? In fact, I’ll take Moms and Mandy, too. Summer vacation in Puerto Rico is something that we all need and deserve. I’ll pretend I won a radio contest or something. Abuela proceeds to list all the things she’s going to cook for me when I visit her. Pasteles, arroz con gandules, lechón … She intends to fix a Christmas dinner in June to make up for our not being together now. The more I talk to my grandmother, the better my Spanish flows, and the more I miss her.

  She finally asks to speak to Mandy. When I get back into the living room, my sister is already taking a pair of scissors to an old St. Gabe’s T-shirt while following a pattern in 99 Ways to Cut, Sew, Trim, and Tie Your T-Shirt into Something Special (Moms’ alternative to all the designer clothes she wanted). Meanwhile, my mother still hasn’t opened her present, and I’m glad she waited.

  “Candace helped me pick it out,” I say.

  “I would’ve been happy just to have met her for Christmas,” says Moms as she peels away the wrapping paper.

  “Soon.”

  It takes only a peek at the burgundy leather to make my mother’s eyes water. “Efrain!” She pulls the jacket out of the box and slips it on as if it were made of delicate lace. “I had one just like it that I absolutely adored.”

  “I know,” I say. “I’ve seen the pictures.”

  Suddenly, my mother drops the jacket on her lap. “How did you pay for this?” My heart starts to pound. “You bought this off the street, didn’t you? Mandy’s bag, too!”

  I roll with that. “Mami, it was the only way I could get you something really nice.” This heat I can take. I don’t know which offers more relief—the fact that my mother isn’t slipping or that I’ve become so adept at lying. “The guy was parked in front of the school with a trunkful of them for almost nothing.”

  “What if you had been caught?” she scolds without yelling. “¿Y que ’taba pensando, chico? You haven’t been working so hard to get arrested for buying stolen property in front of your school, have you?”

  “No, señora.” How can I splurge on my girlfriend and not spend a little on my mother and sister? It’s the least I can do since I haven’t figured out a way to pay a bill here and there. Once I almost sneaked into the check-cashing place to pay the telephone bill and just pretend that Verizon made a billing error in our favor. But Moms is too honest. She’ll call them up and tell them they made a mistake, and then she’ll realize that somebody paid the bill. God help us all if she thinks it was Rubio! “But it’s not like I can return it.”

  As much as she tries to hide it, Moms is happy about that. “Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again, Efrain.”

  “I promise. Merry Christmas, Mami.”

  She motions for a hug. “Merry Christmas, Efrain.” As I smell the soap on her neck, I realize I miss her, too.

  Fidelity (n.) loyalty, devotion

  “Efrain, do you mind if I come in?”

  “Sure, Mami.” My mother peeks inside my room, and the smell of pasteles boiling in the kitchen wafts in over her head. I point my new digital camera at her. “Smile!”

  I wait for her to hide behind the door and fuss with her hair, but, instead, my mother curtsies and smiles for my camera. “So you really like everything?” she asks, pointing to the scruffy portable player (furnished three Christmases ago from Yannis’s Discount) as it plays one of the CDs she gave me this year. Moms closes the door and walks toward me with a lockbox under her arm.

  “Yeah, I’m going to take this on my college visits.” My mother always reminds me that, no matter how busy she is, she’s paying attention. Right now Chingy’s pretending to love some wack hip-hop albums that his mother chose for him simply because there’s no parental advisory sticker on them. I show Moms her photo, wishing she looked like this all the time. She had just turned twenty when she had me, but you’d never know with the streaks of gray in her hair and the frown lines around her mouth. But when Moms is happy like she is today, the gray and lines disappear. I point at the box. “What’s that?”

  “Another Christmas present for you.” She sets down the box on my dresser and turns the key in the lock. “I was saving this for your eighteenth birthday, but I figure you could use it now.” Inside is an array of forms, folders, and envelopes. She reaches for a business envelope, hands it to me, and fishes around for something else.

  The return address is from Banco Popular. I tear it open and pull out the letter. Attached to the bottom of it is a bank card with my name on it. “A gift card?” I ask.

  “No, sweetie, that’s the bank card to your savings account. Your father and I opened it when you were born, and whenever anyone gave you money—you know, for your baptism, your birthdays, your Holy Communion—we just deposited it. We never touched it, letting it grow and build interest. Anyway, you’re old enough now to use it as you see fit. Maybe buy your class ring or take Candace to the prom. Whatever you want. You’re a such good kid, honey, always working so hard at everything. You deserve to have some fun.” She hands me more papers. “That should be the PIN, and this
is the latest statement. I have the bank addressing them to you now.”

  I look at the balance on the statement, and I remember the years of spiced ham and cheese on Monday, peanut butter and jelly on Wednesday, and tuna fish on Friday. I remember the Medicaid days when Rubio’s auto shop was struggling and we lost our health insurance, so Moms took a day off we couldn’t afford to take Mandy and me to the enrollment office in the basement of Lincoln Hospital. Just like that, I’m fifty-five hundred dollars richer.

  But it’s never just like that, is it? Difficult as it may have been, Moms managed to save for my future no matter how bleak the present seemed. Meanwhile, Nestor has had bad credit since he was born because his trifling parents got a charge card with his Social Security number. And no matter how tough things were, Moms insisted my money stayed mine. How many single mothers in the ’hood can say they have a college fund for their kids? Not too many, believe that. Moms saved almost six thousand dollars over seventeen years while I have nearly as much sitting in my shoebox that I made in almost eight weeks. But she’s proud of her savings, and I’m not.

  “Please don’t tell Mandy about this,” Moms says. “When I tell her she can’t have those designer jeans or expensive shoes, I don’t want Miss Runway throwing in my face Well, what about my savings? Her money is not for things like that.”

  I laugh. “She wouldn’t do that.” Immature or not, she’s still my mother’s daughter.

  “Well, keep your mouth shut, and we’ll never know, okay?”

  “Okay.” I’m breaking in my new debit card by registering for the January SAT. “Thanks, Mami.” We stay quiet for a while. We seem to have so much more to say, but neither of us knows where to begin.

  Finally, my mother lays her hand upon my shoulder. “Look, Efrain, I also came to ask you a favor.” Moms sits down at the end of my bed. “Go with Mandy to see your father today.”

  “Why?” Bringing over my mother’s pasteles to Awilda’s place and watching Rubio play Santa for his new “wife and kids” ain’t my idea of a merry Christmas. “He put you up to this?”