Make Your Home Among Strangers

by Jennine Capó Crucet

  —I promise it’s not scary, she said. It’s really powerful. We all feel so strong together. You’ll see it. Come, I’ll wait for you to get your things.

  I tried to hide my mouth from Leidy’s view, but the apartment was so small, I knew she could hear me. I said, Okay.

  Mami laced her fingers with mine and squeezed so hard my fingertips throbbed.

  —I’m going to shower, she said. I need to shower. Get ready fast, okay?

  Even from all those feet away, I saw over my mom’s shoulder Leidy’s nostrils flaring, her head jutting forward as if ready to ram me.

  —I’m happy you’re here for this, Mami said, reaching for my hair and pulling it over my shoulder, fixing it a little with her fingers. I’m proud you’ll be part of this with me.

  —Of course, I said. Me too.

  I caught only the tip of Leidy’s ponytail snapping out of view as she ran away, the bedroom door slamming a second later.

  Mami didn’t even turn around. She only said, Your sister’s got the baby.

  She hugged me then, pulled me into her and rubbed my shoulders. She let one hand slide down to the small of my back, where she rubbed a wide, warm circle—a motion she’d always done when we were sad or sick and bent over a toilet, a small solace as our bodies convulsed with a stomach flu or shook with despair at the way we’d let some stupid boy hurt our feelings. I felt my back rest at the familiar touch, at the comfort her hand there still sent through me. She gave me a kiss on my forehead as she pressed one last circle and then let me go.

  —The baby keeps her so busy but that’s how it is, isn’t it? she said as she walked to the bathroom.

  Once the water in the shower was running, Leidy came out and went for my arm as I stepped around her and into our room to pack some things. I smacked her hand away.

  —Don’t play around with this shit, she said.

  —I’m not, I said like a reflex. Dante was asleep in his crib, but I was the only one who lowered her voice. What was I supposed to tell her? I said.

  She looked at the crib, then snorted through her nose.

  —In case you’re wondering, she said, this is why I don’t tell you anything.

  I dropped to her bed, which still held the chaos of my accidental nap, and stared up at the ceiling, the texture of it blinking back with hints of glitter to make it seem nicer than it really was. She walked to her dresser and grabbed her purse, slung it over her shoulder. Then she picked up Dante from his crib. He murmured but managed to stay asleep.

  I pulled at the crown of my hair the way Ethan would—my forehead was shellacked in sweat left over from the conversation with my mom—and said, Leidy. Come on. Please don’t be mad at me about this. Do I really have a choice?

  But she was at the bedroom door already, Dante perched backward on her hip with his limbs dangling away from her, his eyes closed. I jumped up and followed her through the apartment, said, Where are you going, when she opened the front door, the exposed fluorescent tube lights in the apartment’s hallway buzzing low under my voice.

  —Don’t worry about it, you’ve got enough going on, she said.

  After the slam came Dante’s crying, high and receding as Leidy bolted down the stairs. I ran to the window: Leidy strapped Dante into his car seat, then stomped to the driver’s side. She rested her head on the steering wheel for a second and then turned the key in the ignition. She didn’t look up at the window, not even once. Behind me, the shower shut off, and I scrambled to my room, to the things I was supposedly gathering.

  I dumped everything in my book bag out onto Leidy’s bed, then put certain things back inside: my toothbrush, my wallet, a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for sleeping in, underwear, a small towel of Dante’s I grabbed from the dresser. Focusing on packing for the sleepover aspect of the vigil made what I’d be doing that night feel more normal. This was what I’d come for—to face this head-on and drag my mom away from it. The word infiltrate hovered in my mind, somehow feeling more cumbersome than the betray betray betray my dad had thrown around a year before. I tossed my deodorant back in the bag. I looked at my pillow and wondered if I could cram it in there.

  Mami came into my room with her hair wet, but she wore the same black shirt and loose black pants she had on before. Did Leidy leave? she said. I told her yes, but Mami didn’t seem at all worried. She looked at me—she’d redone her eyeliner—and said, Don’t be so worried, your sister knows what she’s doing. I let myself believe her, made myself remember everything Leidy had kept from me over these last weeks. Mami checked the buttons on her blouse and said, Ready? And I slung my bag over my shoulder and moved and we were out on the street, the moon low in the sky, Mami not even looking twice at the vacant parking spot, our steps falling into the same rhythm.

  32

  I WANTED TO ASK HER a million questions. How often do you sleep there? How much work are you really missing? But each one seemed too pointed, too worried, too quickly exposing why I’d ditched Leidy to come along with her. We passed the now-smaller circle of women praying outside of Ariel’s house. She waved to them but we didn’t head over to join it, and I asked her why not.

  —Your clothes, she said.

  My jeans were a little thin at the knees but clean, my T-shirt maybe a bit tight across my chest. She lifted the latch on the chain-link gate surrounding the house across from Ariel’s, the one I’d seen in pictures on the news with the white tent covering the lawn.

  —No, it’s just you’re not wearing black, she said. Come on, you can stay inside.

  —Was I supposed to –

  —It’s fine. Just come inside.

  —I can go back and change, I said, still standing outside the gate.

  She climbed up the three concrete steps to the house’s front door and pushed it open, waved for me to follow.

  Once inside, it was hard to remember we were only a couple blocks from the apartment. The overhead lights of a small kitchen bled out into what looked like the dining room. Every window was covered with sheets and duct tape, but the sheets hung loose at the bottoms, allowing people to look out when they needed or wanted to. The house was packed and loud with talking. Right away I almost lost my mom in the crowd; she slipped between men and women she seemed to know, touching their shoulders as she passed. I tried to stay close, though my book bag made it tough to squeeze around people. When she stopped, I pushed up right behind her. We were stuck against a long table loaded with food: a platter piled high with grilled chicken drumsticks, pink and brown juices pooling beneath them; aluminum trays filled with yellow rice next to stacks of Styrofoam plates; hunks of Cuban bread cut from a long loaf and then sliced in half again. I was about to ask if I could grab a piece of the bread—I was starving—when my mom handed me a plate. She forked a couple slimy plátanos onto it.

  —Eat something, she said.

  I slid the bag off my shoulder and tucked it between my feet.

  —Where’d all this come from? I said.

  —Everywhere. People bring things, places donate things.

  Someone pushed by me to stab a chunk of avocado from a bowl on my right—a younger guy with dark hair and a thin beard. He looked like someone I could’ve gone to high school with. My mom continued to load my plate for me—rice, chicken, tostones, black beans drenching all of it. The guy did the same thing, grabbing a handful of forks and stocking his plate mostly with sharing-friendly foods. My mom nudged the plate into my hand and said, Hi Victor, and the guy said, Wassup Lourdes. He leaned away from the table and bent behind me, kissed my mom on the cheek while chewing. I watched him leave, and he only looked back at me once—with green eyes so surprising they looked misplaced, transplanted into his head from some long-lost Cuban cousin of Ethan’s—just before he looked down and hid them and pushed his way into the crowd, his plate of food held high over his head.

  —You know him? I said to Mami.

  She used a new, empty plate to gesture around the room.

  —I know everybody.
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br />   I nudged my bag a foot or so along the floor and turned to lean against the table, my butt pushing over a stack of napkins. As I shoveled rice into my mouth, I saw the things I’d expected to see: banners with too many words on them, their messages confused and in two languages; Cuban flags propped in corners; women standing in pairs, bent in to each other, holding hands and praying. But it was creepy because it was not that creepy. People smiled, people laughed. People weren’t posing; they had no clue how crazy the cameras blasting their images around the country made them look. My mom asked, You okay here for a second, and before I answered she left for the kitchen.

  Near the house’s rear entrance, in what was once a back porch now converted into a full-blown room, the guy named Victor and other younger guys—guys my age or a little older—stood on the brink of the cinder-block-walled backyard, the people outside smoking cigarettes, their caps backward or to the side, the smoke pouring from their nostrils as they talked at each other. I ran my tongue over my teeth, hoisted my bag to my shoulder, lifted my plate over my head, and moved toward them.

  I stood just inside the house, eating and listening for a minute to the guys outside. People speared food off Victor’s plate, but he didn’t acknowledge it. He just stared at me with his borrowed eyes, with no shame in a way that made me nervous. He chewed and swallowed. Crickets cut in and out between the words of another guy’s story about how he’d almost punched a reporter, and in the middle of all that, Victor blurted out, I know you.

  The other guy looked at him but kept on with his story, turned a little to push Victor and me out of it.

  Victor forced his way closer, came up a step to stand next to me inside the doorway. He pointed his fork in my direction.

  —You went to Hialeah Lakes, he said.

  He leaned against the doorframe and slipped another chunk of avocado in his mouth. I reached up and back with the hand holding the fork to tug my ponytail forward and drape it over my shoulder, but I accidentally poked myself in the cheek with the fork’s tines.

  —Yeah? Yeah, I did.

  Having gone to the same high school didn’t mean much when a few thousand people a year could say the same thing: he might as well have said, I know you, you’re from Miami. But he still hadn’t faltered in his eye contact. He didn’t seem to need to blink. His chewing looked more like teeth grinding, the small silver hoops in his earlobes dancing a little with the motion of his jaw. Thanks to the help of the streetlights illuminating parts of the backyard, I made out the surprise of red hair glinting from his chin.

  —Oh shit! he said. He repeatedly stabbed his fork into a greasy plantain and smiled. You used to go with Omar, right? You’re that smart girl.

  —I’m not that smart.

  I’d said this too many times to guys from Miami, though the reflex had never kicked in up at Rawlings, didn’t show up, for instance, when I talked about lab with Ethan.

  —But yeah, I said, I go with Omar.

  —Oh so you’re still going with him?

  I rolled my eyes, mostly to see if I spotted my mom anywhere. She hadn’t turned up behind me, and I didn’t hear her voice in the crowd. Victor stroked his chin in mock concentration. His fingernails were ringed with dirt, and I imagined his hands wrist-deep in a car engine. I let my bag slip off my shoulder, let it dangle in a way that I hoped looked casual and that tugged down my shirt a little from the side.

  —No, I said. Sorry, I meant what you said. Used to. See how I’m not smart?

  He laughed like fast hiccups—too rough—but still stared at me while he jerked his shoulders and bent forward. I decided to think of him as intense—as one of those intense guys looking always for the one woman who gets them—and made myself stare right back at him. He picked up the plantain he’d basically shivved and flung it in his mouth, all without looking at anything but me.

  —So you know my mom? I said.

  He shook his head no.

  —I know of your mom. Like how I know of you.

  I nodded and said, Okay. You know of my mom.

  —Don’t change the subject, he said. You’re that girl that went to New York for some scholarship.

  I smiled, said, Yeah.

  He made ticking noises with his tongue. So did you cheat on Omar up there?

  I squealed What? as my bag swung and hit the doorframe. Rice spilled from my plate.

  —I see it all over your face, he said.

  He laughed again, big stuttery bursts, shoulders jumping. Then he finally looked away and down at his plate, mumbled, I’m-kidding-I’m-kidding.

  He smashed an avocado piece into mush under his fork tines. I decided to laugh, too, giggled a halfhearted Whatever, bro as I lowered my bag to the floor.

  —Why have I never seen you here before? he said.

  —I’m just down for the weekend. Just visiting.

  His face snapped back up and I tried to match his new stare without smiling but couldn’t hold it back. My teeth came out like a white flag.

  —Oh so you’re a visitor, he said. I got it. Hey guys, she’s visiting.

  But no one outside even looked at him. He lowered his voice and said just to me, You might want to visit the beach too. While you’re visiting. Fucking ghost.

  —Funny, I said.

  He used the edge of his fork to nudge a single grain of rice around his plate. He pushed the grain all the way to the plate’s edge, then laughed at it for a few seconds.

  —So! he said. He dropped his head down so that it was closer to my face, gave me an exaggerated scowl. You think Ariel should go back or stay here?

  He reached out with his fork and stole a piece of avocado from me even though he had plenty on his own plate. I knew I should just say Stay here, but I still thought maybe we were flirting, the green eyes making me feel like we were someplace else.

  —Why are you asking me that? I raised one side of my mouth. Why do you think I’m here? You know my mom is –

  —I know of your mom. Get it right.

  He pointed the fork at my face again and closed one eye, shifted his weight to his other foot.

  —No wait, he said. Why are you here? That’s actually a good question.

  He chewed like the cows on the farms lining the one major road into Rawlings. I started to answer, but with his mouth full he blurted out, Because you left once, right? You’re already a sellout, right? So what makes you think you can just come back like nothing? With no consequences?

  My mouth went dry, and I could taste and smell my own sour breath despite the bits of food. I remembered I had on no makeup—no eyeliner, nothing on my lips. My hair was frizzy, freaked out by the sudden onslaught of Miami humidity, the ponytail on my shoulder fluffing up like a squirrel’s tail. There was no way I looked pretty enough to flirt with. He reached for another avocado chunk from my plate. He pressed down harder—much harder—than he needed to snare it.

  —I’m not a sellout, I said.

  —So what, are you doing like a report for school on this?

  He held his fork up and lassoed the air with it. A couple of the other guys turned and flicked their eyes over my body, waiting for me to say something.

  Victor said, You like a little baby reporter? You reporting on us here, Smart Girl?

  He bit his bottom lip—a chipped and turned-in front tooth flashed out like a warning—and lifted his chin. Stray grays sat shrouded among the reds I’d noticed before. He was older than I thought, maybe much older. The skin circling the base of his earrings, I saw now, was blue-black, the holes ragged and peeling. I fixed my bag on my shoulder, grabbed the strap with my free hand.

  —I have to go look for my mom, I said.

  —You do that. Say hi to Omar for me.

  —I won’t, I spit over my shoulder, trying to move away fast.

  —Good, because I don’t fucking know him or his stuck-up ex-bitch.

  I pretended I didn’t hear him or the snorts from the few guys who’d started paying attention to our conversation. I shoved my way in
to the crowd and moved in the direction of the kitchen, leaving my half-empty plate of food on a picture-lined table behind the couch. I pulled the rubber band from my hair and ran my fingers through it, arranged it on my shoulders, smoothed my thumb over each eyebrow. I lowered my head and pinched each of my cheeks as hard as I could stand it, trying to force some color into them. When I passed the bathroom, I ducked inside and slammed the door, the sound lost under the tumult of voices. I sat on the toilet and cried without wanting to, without letting myself look in the mirror at any point. I didn’t want to know what a sellout looked like.

  * * *

  That guy Victor took off not long after I emerged from the bathroom. He waved at me before leaving like nothing had happened and said, Good talking to you, as he held two fingers and his thumb like a gun in my direction. He kissed my mom goodbye, hugged the owner of the house on his way out. I worked up the courage to ask my mom, How do you know that guy, and she said, His abuela spends the days down here. I think he went to your high school, but a while ago.

  She watched me as I stared at the front door after he left. He’s not for you, she said.

  The crowd inside the house continued to thin as the night deepened, which was sort of a relief, but sort of not: with fewer people there, you could tell I wasn’t talking to anyone, just standing around with my bag on the floor next to me or between my legs as I pretended to be part of conversations about the Easter march and how well negotiations were going, about the mayor’s leadership and whether or not the attorney general was a lesbian, me just eating grains of rice one by one in an effort to look too occupied with food to chime in. My mom floated around the house talking to people, making them laugh, bringing them cups of water or soda or café, like she was part of another family’s Noche Buena, a family she liked more and wanted to be in, one that understood her better.

  Around midnight, she came up to me and said that anyone still there would be staying the night (most were women, most were dressed in black). I thought of them as the core; I recognized some of them from TV or from news stills, where they’d stood in Ariel’s living room and prayed through phone calls, prayed before and after press conferences, put their hands on lawyers and blessed them.