by Meg Medina
I don’t move. I stink of BO and cut pine. My ponytail has slid to one side, and I’m pretty sure my breath is foul. But still, my blistered hand is definitely in his.
My mind races. I’ll have to sleep at Kathleen’s so Mima doesn’t find out. He can pick me up there.
“Sure,” I say finally, ignoring my next thought, which is the shooter.
He smiles brightly. “Great. I’ll pick you up for dinner around seven.”
You can’t trust love and happiness.
I once heard Mima say that to Edna on the phone. At the time, I wondered what kind of love she meant. Straight-up romantic? God’s love? Parents’? Did they all betray you in the end? Maybe. But Mima has never talked to me about love, exactly, except how to stay away from boys. She’s never even told me she loved me, to be honest. She’s not mushy that way, like Kathleen’s parents.
The sky is still dark as Mima tries to wake Hector for school.
“Vamos, vago. Me vas a demorar.” The clock says 6:45. She’s got only fifteen minutes before she’ll be due at her workstation. She must feel nervous if she’s rattling his cage this early. Mr. Small has been cracking down hard, and she can’t afford to punch in late. There was a time when things were better there. In fact, Hector and I visited after school a few times to wait for her shift to end. I remember that Mima showed me how to work the whirring machine that separated the huge spools of tape into smaller ones. She even let me help her pack the rolls into a teetering stack of boxes that reached almost to the ceiling. Hector couldn’t resist knocking them down like a set of blocks, though. That ended our visits. Mima gave me a key to our place on a long shoelace around my neck. “Don’t open the door to strangers, and don’t ever tell anyone you’re alone,” she said. “Some things we have to keep secret.” I still wear that key to this day.
Anyway, things have changed at her job, that’s for sure. Even Edna, who dates Mr. Small on the sly, is careful to get to work on time now.
I’m thinking about all that as I get ready for school in the bathroom. I hold my head upside down and put the hose of our bonnet hair dryer to the brush, trying to drown Mima and Hector out with pleasant thoughts of Pablo. Tonight is the big night. Our first date. I whip up my head and let the locks fall crazily around my shoulders. I pucker my lips in the mirror. I almost look pretty, but do I look like a college girl? Not really, I have to admit.
I come out of the bathroom in search of my jeans just as Mima tries again to pull the blanket from Hector.
“Get off me or I’ll break your legs!” he warns.
Those are just words, just expressions, but something in the sound of his voice makes me turn.
Instantly I think back to the day he hid in the clothes racks at Klein’s. Mima screamed his name and grabbed at strangers who might help us find her lost boy. She spoke even less English back then, so I had to “be her tongue” and explain everything to the men in uniforms. Turns out, Hector was only a few feet away the whole time. He’d heard Mima’s screams, but he didn’t move. “I’ll break your leg!” he shouted at the shocked security guard who finally found him in the coats. He kicked like a wild animal as they dragged him out.
“Mima . . .” I begin. I can feel something bad coming. He means it, doesn’t she know? Or is she walking into the land mine on purpose? But before I can stop her, she reaches out to shake Hector awake again.
Suddenly his foot swings out hard. It catches her in the upper arm with a sickening smack. Mima stumbles back against the wall, where paint flakes off the plaster.
“¡Animál!” she hisses, unhinged. “¡Demónio!”
“Fuck off.”
“Stop,” I say.
“Not even a saint could stand you,” Mima hisses. “No wonder your father left.”
I stand there, trying my best to be deaf and blind. No one moves for a second as her ugly words hang in the air. Usually I hate to hear her gush about Hector, but somehow this unmoors me.
Finally she turns and sees me in the bathroom doorway.
“Get him up,” she snaps, moving toward her bedroom. Tiny flecks of plaster are still in her hair. “You’re his older sister. Do something.”
Cochino. Pig. Es un loco, un malcriado. Crazy, spoiled brat. I hear the mumbled insults through her door.
Hector sits up before I have to do a thing. He storms past me and slams the bathroom door closed.
Mima finishes getting ready as I sit on my bed.
How have we gotten here? I think back to Dr. De Los Santos, who looked at us worriedly every time we had to get our polio boosters. It took both of them to force the dose down Hector’s throat. When they were done, Hector’s eyes were usually puffed and snot was all over his shirt. The office was a wreck. “Qué fuerte,” was all Mima would say even when Hector tore the blinds in the waiting room to bits in revenge. It was as though that kind of strength was a thing to admire.
It’s a relief when I hear Mima let herself out. She’ll have to rush to work, dash across traffic. Maybe Edna will take pity and punch her card in on time, maybe not. The whirring of the machines will start, and Mima can join the ladies in their endless talk as the bowling-ball thunder rumbles over their heads. “My boy hates to wake up in the morning. I don’t know what I’m going to do about him,” Mima might say.
But will she show them her arm, the bump that’s surely rising on her scalp? Will she tell them she called him a lazy pig, a demon?
I can’t say.
Kathleen argues with the bus driver to hold the door when she spots me running up the block. I hop in and flash my bus pass before heading to the back.
“Oversleep?” She looks at me knowingly. “Dreaming of the hunk? Tonight’s the big night!”
Right now, I hate her for her pretty smile, for that easy way of hers, for her glass half full. No one screams at her house. No one kicks in doors or overturns chairs to make a point. No one is a live grenade. There is no blanket of blame where she lives.
We ride in silence.
“Hey . . . you feel okay?” she finally asks.
“My period,” I whisper, a harmless lie.
She gives my hand a squeeze. “Womanhood can really suck,” she says.
I close my eyes and lean my head against her shoulder for the ride.
“You like the Eagles?”
Pablo rummages inside the glove compartment for his cassettes. We finished our dinner at the Villa Bianca, but it’s still early, and neither one of us really feels like going home yet. We drove around for a while until he suggested pulling over near the tennis courts at Kissena Park. Kathleen and I sometimes hit balls here, occasionally kicking some boy ass, good enough to make Billie Jean King proud.
But the courts aren’t lit, and this isn’t about tennis tonight.
I fidget a little, trying not to notice the obvious. This part of the park becomes lovers’ lane after dark. Several cars are already here, their windows fogged up, even though the news has been warning people to avoid “secluded places.” But where else would you go to make out?
I look around a little. Two of the girls were shot in a car with dates, too, but that was different. They were alone with their boyfriends. I’m here with lots of people around. We’re all safe.
“Yeah, I like the Eagles,” I say. “I didn’t take you for a rocker, though. I thought you liked disco.”
He pops in “Hotel California” and shrugs. “I’m into everything, really.”
Me? I wonder as the music comes on low. Are you into me?
So far, it has been a great first date, maybe the best one I’ve ever been on, even though my day started like shit. My dates are usually of the pizza-place variety, so it was nice to be in a restaurant with cloth tablecloths. Pablo held open the car door and paid for my meal. I had to watch him carefully for what to do, though. When the waitress asked him what he’d like to drink, he stuck to soda, even though he’s obviously old enough to get served. I know from Kathleen, who’s up on such things, that they card people at Villa Bianca. M
aybe Pablo knows that, too, and didn’t want to risk embarrassing me? Class.
Best of all, it hasn’t been as awkward as I thought it might be to talk to him. I had to put the morning completely out of my mind, of course, but I managed. I’ve learned to play my personal game of doctor, carefully cutting away thoughts of Mima and Hector whenever I want to have fun. We laughed about Sal and his crazy Korean War stories. Pablo told me about his family. His parents must have been kind of rich in Colombia. His grandfather was an attorney — and the town mayor on top of that. They had servants, drivers, and a cook. I wonder how they like things here. They live in Hollis, not really a fancy place or anything. Worse, he still shares a room with his little brother, too. Omar is twelve.
“He’s a big Shazam! fan,” Pablo tells me. “Christ, I hate that show.”
When Pablo asks about my family, I hesitate. I can feel Mima and Hector banging inside me to get out, so I keep it short.
“I live with my mom and my brother,” I say. “My dad and his wife are in the city.”
He’s quiet for a while, listening to the song. “You know, I’ve never dated a Latin girl,” he tells me.
Dated. We’re dating. Nice.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Not many at the Hirsch School, I guess. I really didn’t think you were Latin when I first saw you.”
I wonder if that’s good or bad. Sometimes it’s easier to let people think I’m Greek or Italian. People have funny ideas about people who speak Spanish, and it doesn’t matter where you’re from. Once I overheard a lady tell Annemarie that she was sending her kids to private school in the fall. Her zoned school had changed. The problem?
“There’s a terrible element now.” She lowered her voice. “Everything is en español.”
God. It was like listening to grouchy Ed from Chico and the Man, except without the laugh track. I gave her the change and told her to have a nice day. I still wonder why Annemarie didn’t say anything, and more, why I didn’t either.
I smile at Pablo. “So what do you think of Latin girls so far?” Kathleen would be proud of this sass.
Pablo leans back and laughs. “No complaints at all.” But then he stares at me for a few seconds.
“What?” Maybe I have food in my teeth? A booger?
“How old are you, again?” he asks. “You’ve never said.”
“Almost eighteen,” I say. “In June. Finally.”
“Finally what?”
“I don’t know. I guess, finally done with everything I’m sick of.” I hadn’t planned on baring my soul, but it’s easy to talk to him here in the dark. “I’m tired of school, my mother, just my life right now.”
“So, June . . .” he says. “When’s the big day?”
“June twenty-third. Kathleen’s is the next day, believe it or not. We’re going to celebrate big, too. We’ve had it all planned for years.”
“Skydiving?”
“Dancing,” I say. “All night long, if possible.” I stop myself from inviting him, but something in his smile makes me feel as though he might be thinking the same thing.
He takes my hand as we listen through the rest of the album and talk about everything and nothing. I love that he’s so easy and uncomplicated, unlike everything else in my stupid life. His hand feels big and warm over mine, and everything else seems far away. I don’t want the night to end, but finally, when the last song plays, Pablo leans over.
“I really like you,” he says seriously, “even if you can’t drive for shit.”
I give him a little punch, but then he pulls me toward him. The gearshift digs into my hip, but I don’t care. He isn’t awkward like Angel, who always pressed too hard and groped like a brute. Pablo makes no stealth moves. Instead, his lips move gently over mine.
We kiss and kiss until my lips feel chapped and I’m buzzed. When he nuzzles my neck, I feel as though I’m going to come out of my skin. One thing is for sure: my days of dating high-school losers are over. I’m floating as Pablo kisses me when there’s a sudden knock on the window. We jump apart. A blinding light flashes into the car.
“Jesus!” Pablo mutters.
A cop is outside, inspecting the dashboard from the driver’s side. My heart is still thundering in my chest as I straighten my blouse and scoot back to my seat.
Pablo rolls down the window.
“Nice evening,” the cop says, smirking. He looks over Pablo’s head at me. “Everything all right in here, miss?”
I nod and drop my gaze into my hands. My cheeks are blazing, wondering how long he was watching us.
He moves his light toward the backseat as he continues. “You need to move out of the park,” he tells us. “It’s closed after dark, the way the sign says. You can read, right?”
Oh, perfect. A smart-ass.
“We were just hanging out for a while,” Pablo says.
The cop flips off his light and shakes his head. “You go to school around here?”
“St. Johns, sir.”
“You’d think a big college man like you would know better. How can you read those fat books back there when you don’t seem to read the news?” His eyes drift over to mine. He doesn’t have to say anything about the shooter for us to know what he’s getting at. Finally he gives the roof a hard rap with his palm. “Go find somebody’s basement, buddy. Or better yet, take this girl home.”
Pablo glances at me as he starts the car. All around us, other cars turn their ignitions, too. Word spreads fast, I guess. The fun is over.
I look back at the cop and the long line of cars that follows us out of the park.
“It was getting late, anyway,” I whisper to Pablo. “I told Kathleen I’d be home by midnight.”
He keeps the cop in sight in the rearview mirror, and I’m sure I see a little disappointment in his face. Maybe he had more planned. College women don’t have curfews, I realize, and they don’t have to run their love lives in a park. They have their own dorms and apartments.
“Not a problem,” he says.
But as we pick up speed, I can’t help but wonder if maybe it is.
“I don’t like it.” Stiller’s eyes follow a cop car cruising along Sanford Avenue.
She’s waiting at the bus stop on Monday morning, on her way to housing court, where she’s a witness in a dispute case.
“Don’t like what?” Kathleen asks as the squad car disappears. “Cops?”
She nods slowly. “Surveillance.”
“What do you think they want?” I ask.
Kathleen and I exchange guilty glances. We don’t tell Stiller about our own encounter under the train trestle or mine at the park, but we’re both thinking about the killer. Could he be nearby?
“They ought to be looking for whoever broke into Mrs. Murga’s.”
That idea is no better.
A little jolt goes through me as I think about the radio buried in our closet.
“But for all I know, they’ve declared our tenant organization dangerous,” Stiller continues with a snort. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Intimidation tactics. I’ve seen those before.”
“You think they’ll find who did it?” Kathleen asks.
Stiller gives us a severe look. “Since when does the NYPD care about an old woman like Mrs. Murga! Wake up, honey. There are bigger fish to fry! She’s just a complaint number filed in a big box somewhere. Nobody is going to work that case!”
I step out into the road to see if the bus is in sight.
“It’s coming,” I say.
As much as I hate myself for it, I’m glad that nobody will ever find out who stole Mrs. Murga’s things. I flag the driver, relieved.
The racket in Mrs. Pratt’s class is deafening, thanks to the thirty students at their IBM Selectrics.
A few of the know-it-alls are way past The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Their fingers fly across the keyboard without even lifting their eyes from the page they’re copying. Among them is Ricky, whose current record is on the board. He can appare
ntly coast at sixty-one words per minute.
I, on the other hand, am plodding along, making full use of the correction key and my two index fingers.
“Hunt-and-peck is highly inefficient.” Mrs. Pratt has to shout at me over the clacking. “How is it that you didn’t take a single typing class in all of your time here, Nora? It’s a basic business skill that every young woman needs.”
Because I have no intention of being a secretary, I want to say.
“I’m almost done, Mrs. Pratt!” I shout back. I backspace and type the correction over my last misspelling. It’s almost dismissal time, thank God. It has taken me more than two hours to work on this stupid application, but what could I do? Mr. Melvin reminded me of our deal first thing this morning, and I owe him.
Ms. Friedmor comes through the door just as I’m pulling my application out of the carriage. She holds her ears as she walks toward me and drops a folder down at the desk where I’m working. I stop what I’m doing and flip it open. Financial-aid forms. Will the fun never end?
Suddenly a sharp whistle pierces the noise.
“Time!” Mrs. Pratt announces like a general. The whole place goes still all at once. “Calculate the words per minute and drop your work in my in-box on your way out.”
Ms. Friedmor looks relieved as she turns back to me. “I took the liberty of bringing these, too. They’re due Monday.” She holds up her hand as I start to protest. “Bring your mother’s W-9 later this week if you need help.”
I grab the folder and stuff it in my bag. I have to admit that typing my application was the only hardship; maybe the rest won’t be such a big deal, either. I start to put my application in my bag, too, but Ms. Friedmor plucks it from me.
“I’ll hang on to that so it stays safe.”
“Where is the trust?” I ask.
She smiles. “Did you pass my message to your mother, Nora? About coming to discuss your brother?”
She looks at me evenly, waiting. Can someone like Ms. Friedmor even imagine what it would take to truly discuss Hector? Mima still has a big bruise on her arm. She’s wearing sleeves, even as the weather gets warm.