Burn Baby Burn

by Meg Medina

“I don’t have to understand any of your pressures and responsibilities, Papi. You’re the one who should have been worried about the pressures on us.”

  He starts to say something, but thinks better of it. Finally he leans back and stares at the ceiling for a long while. “What do you want from me, Nora?” he says at last.

  The question hangs there for a long time. Is it hypothetical, or does he really want to know? I have expected so little from him for so long that I really don’t know how to answer.

  “I want you to help Mima deal with Hector’s mess.”

  He throws up his hands. “Nora, do you know what you’re asking?”

  “Get involved for once,” I say firmly. “Mima can’t do this by herself, especially not now, and she shouldn’t have to. You’ve left her holding the bag for long enough, and I can’t fill in for you anymore. I’m eighteen now, Papi. I’m moving out and have to figure out how to survive on my own. College, rent, food — everything. Did it ever occur to you that maybe you should help with any of that?”

  I stand up and take one last look around at all his splendor.

  “Call Mima,” I say. “You owe her at least that.” And then I let myself out the door.

  I get back to the MacInerneys’ as the sun is starting to go down. I’ve missed dinner, but there’s a sandwich waiting for me on the kitchen table. A message is scrawled on the napkin that covers it.

  Keep up your strength. It’s Mrs. MacInerney’s handwriting. Make sure the door is locked!

  I bite into the chicken salad, but I’m so completely drained that I barely taste it.

  Kathleen is upstairs listening to music and packing. Half her room is already in boxes. Looking around, I can see that she’s leaving behind the little-girl things: her ballerina jewelry box, the old posters of Freddie Prinze, faded ribbons from the fifth-grade spelling bee. Maybe she’s leaving me behind, too.

  She looks up when she sees me in her doorway.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey.”

  “Where is everybody?”

  “Dad’s on his rotation. My mom is at some Abzug meeting.”

  There’s a long quiet, so she points to a stack of messages by her phone. “Pablo called you a thousand times. I didn’t know where you were,” she says. Again, her voice is an accusation.

  I glance in the mirror. My skin is shiny with sweat and my clothes are stuck to my skin. I look like I haven’t slept in days.

  “I went to the city. I decided to tell my father about Hector.”

  Kathleen stops folding and looks at me. She knows Papi has barely been in my life. “How did that go?” she asks.

  Normally I might shrug and make light of it, but this time it’s different. “I said what I had to. Now it’s up to him to decide if he’s going to give a shit. I have no idea if he’ll really help.” I sniff at myself. “God, I need a shower.”

  She tosses me a pair of shorts and a T-shirt without a sound.

  When I’m done, I find Kathleen sitting near her bedroom window. She’s got two beers perched on the windowsill, and the sash is thrown wide open, exactly the way her parents have forbidden us. Son of Sam is still roaming tonight, probably enjoying the fact that even though the city is broke, three hundred laid-off cops have just been rehired to find him.

  “Daring,” I say, swiping away some of the chipped paint from the sill.

  She shrugs. “Shit like this calls for a drink,” she says, handing me a beer. “Here’s to the worst damn summer ever.”

  We clink our bottles and take a long swig.

  I want so much to make up with Kathleen, to have one space in my life that feels secure. I pull up a box and sit next to her.

  “It was supposed to be our best one, remember? Turning eighteen, and everything.”

  “So much for that.”

  Kathleen looks so sad to me, and I hate it. She’s one of those people whose faces always look alive and bright. But now there’s so much hanging in the air between us.

  “I don’t want you to stay mad, Kathleen,” I begin. “I’m running out of repairs to make around here, for one thing, and my nerves are shot. But I want you to know that I didn’t cut you out because I don’t trust you. I just felt ashamed. Maybe you can’t understand that. But you’re from all of this.” I wave my hand around the room. “I didn’t think you’d really understand.”

  “I would have tried.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She looks at me sheepishly and takes another long pull from her beer. “Maybe I’m just mad at myself. How could I not notice what was happening with my own best friend?”

  I shrug. “Oh, don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m a pretty good liar when I have to be, right?”

  We’re quiet for another little while.

  “But now what?” Kathleen says. “You’re my best friend, and in two weeks I’m out of here. We’ve got to figure out what to do for you. I have to be honest, though, Nora. I’m coming up empty.”

  My eyes fill. The whole ride home from Papi’s house, I turned over my situation in my head.

  I need a home, a job, a whole adult life plan.

  Right now, though, I have exactly nothing.

  It happens so fast that no one can really believe it.

  Son of Sam got arrested.

  It’s all over TV and radio; his face is plastered on every newspaper. But still it doesn’t feel real. Maybe it’s the ordinary way it went down. The cops traced him to his address in Yonkers through a parking ticket, of all things. They picked him up as he was getting into his car with his .44 tucked inside a paper lunch bag.

  “You got me,” he said.

  Is it crazy to be disappointed by a monster? He’s nothing like what we’ve imagined. Flanked by two detectives, David Berkowitz is just a paunchy mail clerk with frizzy hair and girlish lips.

  I wonder if everything we fear is somehow the same as the unmasking of Son of Sam. Maybe the things that scare us seem more powerful than they truly are when we keep them secret.

  It’s Mr. Mac who spots Mima a couple of days later. He’s watering his garden while Kathleen and I sit at the kitchen table eating sunflower seeds and combing the classifieds. I’ve been here for over ten days with nothing much to do except help Kathleen pack and figure out my next move. Sal insisted I take a leave until things calm down. So Kathleen and I have been searching for cheap rentals and jobs that might make sense for me.

  Mr. Mac pokes his head in the screened window.

  “You have a visitor out front, Nora,” he tells me. “It’s your mom.”

  I walk out the front door and stare at her from the stoop. She’s waiting on the sidewalk.

  “Mima?” I say. “Are you all right?”

  She looks tired and unsure. “Your father says you went to see him,” she says.

  I shift on my feet, trying to read her. “He called you?”

  She nods, her mouth in a tight line.

  I walk over to her. “He should help, Mima,” I say quietly. “Now more than ever. I thought he should know.”

  Mima shrugs. “He’s calling a lawyer friend,” she says. “And a doctor he knows.”

  Her eyes get watery, but she doesn’t continue. Instead, she looks beyond me to the MacInerneys’ house.

  “When are you coming home? You can’t stay here imposing on strangers forever.”

  “They’re not strangers,” I say quietly. But that’s how Mima sees things, of course. There is blood family; everyone else is outside of our bubble. I take a deep breath. “I don’t think I am coming home, Mima.”

  She studies me for a long time. “Que libertinaje,” she mutters.

  “It’s not debauchery, Mima. It’s getting a fresh start on my own.”

  “A fresh start?” she says. “Running away from your responsibilities isn’t a fresh start.”

  “That’s just it, Mima. I’ve helped for a long time, but this is for you and Papi. You’re Hector’s parents.”

  “And you’re his sister.”r />
  “I need to figure out how to take care of myself right now, Mima. You don’t want me to cashier at Sal’s forever, do you?”

  Mima bites her lip. Then she holds out a large yellow envelope. “This came for you. He told me he was sending it.”

  I take it from her. It’s addressed to me in Papi’s handwriting. “What is it?” I ask, but when I look up, she’s already walking away. “Mima?”

  She doesn’t turn.

  I tear open the envelope and pull out what’s inside. At first, I don’t know what it is, but then I realize that the small plastic billfold is a Chase Manhattan checkbook. Papi has attached a note.

  Study hard, it says.

  I flip open the cover and stare at my name printed on the corner of the pristine stack of checks.

  The opening balance scribbled on the top line is $1,000.

  My mind starts to race. This is enough for a whole year of school if I decide to go. Tuition, books, everything.

  Mima has disappeared around the corner. My heart is pounding with excitement that I can’t keep inside.

  “Kathleen!” My acceptance letter is still tucked in the frame of her bureau mirror.

  Ms. Friedmor’s nagging voice echoes in my ears as I run back inside the house to show Kathleen.

  Reach, Nora. You’ll surprise yourself.

  People say that bad things happen in threes, but I say good things happen that way, too.

  Son of Sam got arrested.

  Papi came through.

  And now I have a place to live that I can afford.

  “You’ll be helping us,” Mr. Mac says when he suggests the plan. He’s waited until dinnertime to spring it on us. I should have known something was fishy. Mrs. MacInerney has been strangely quiet, even though Bella Abzug’s campaign is tanking. Normally we’d be having a long “discussion dinner.” Instead, she sets a bottle of champagne on the table.

  “I don’t have the time to keep up with the repairs on the bungalow, and the place sits empty all winter. You can house-sit for us and do repairs as a trade. All we have to do is winterize it a bit.”

  Kathleen beams a smile at me from across the table.

  “I’ll have you know, he had help with this amazing idea.” She kisses Mr. Mac on his freckled forehead.

  Mrs. MacInerney pops the cork, narrowly missing the window, and pours us each a glass.

  The Impala is packed to the gills.

  We have a shopping bag wedged between us filled with groceries and a bottle of chardonnay Kathleen scored to celebrate later. We’ve even brought Gloria with us for the adventure, since I’ll be her official caretaker for a while. Gloria’s cage is on the backseat. Her cheeks are overstuffed with pellets. She’s a nervous eater, I guess.

  “Adjust the mirrors,” Mr. Mac tells Kathleen, setting a big toolbox on the floor next to Gloria. “Move up the seat.”

  “I know how to drive, Dad,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Your precious car will be in good hands.”

  He ignores her. “And don’t leave the top down, in case it rains.”

  Mrs. MacInerney comes out of the house to save us.

  “Call when you get there,” she says. “Then I promise we’ll leave you alone.” She gives Mr. Mac a pointed look.

  “Sure you will,” Kathleen says, climbing in. Then she looks at me. “Ready?”

  I stand on the curb, looking at Mr. and Mrs. MacInerney. How do you thank people for being your family when they didn’t have to be? In the end, I give them a big, long hug and say nothing, hoping they will understand.

  “The insulation comes next week,” Mr. Mac says, clearing his throat. “After we drop Kathleen at school, we’ll get busy.”

  “Sure thing.”

  They wave at us from the curb as Kathleen drives us around the block to our first stop. We park outside my building and beep the horn at Stiller. She’s taping up a flyer for the next tenant meeting right over Son of Sam’s face.

  “Leaving already, huh?” she asks me.

  “In a little bit.” I glance at the agenda. Safety improvements in the building. New storage bins.

  “Keep giving it to them, Stiller,” I say.

  “You know it, sugar.”

  I look up and spot Mima watching for me from the kitchen window. “I won’t take long,” I call to Kathleen.

  I climb the steps to our apartment.

  Mima opens the door and motions me inside. The things I asked for are in a neat stack. My turntable — its lid cracked, thanks to Hector — and speakers. A box filled with my clothes, even my coat and boots for when the weather gets cold. It’s just like her: neat as a pin to the end. She’s even packed me some cleaning supplies of my own.

  “I put extra sweaters in there,” she says quietly.

  “Thanks.”

  She slips my apartment key back around my neck, too.

  “Why are you giving me this?”

  She looks at that key for a long time. Maybe she remembers the day she gave it to me all those years ago. Then she stiffens a bit. “I could have a heart attack here by myself. Who would be able to get in to help me? The Communist?”

  “You’d be lucky. Stiller would have your back,” I say. “But you’re not going to have a heart attack, Mima.”

  “How do you know? I got hired for one of the blackout cleanup jobs the city is offering,” she says. “I start next week. Who knows what I’ll have to lift and carry?”

  “Mima . . .” I say softly as I start to drag my boxes to the door.

  She peers out the window, thinking. When I’m done, I stand next to her to see what she’s watching. Down below, Kathleen leans against the Impala, talking with Stiller.

  “Your friend is waiting,” she says. “You should go.”

  “Yeah.”

  But I don’t move from her side. I keep my eyes outside on the car, my escape, surprised at how hard it suddenly feels to go.

  “There are so many sad things that happen to us in life, Nora,” she says after a while. “Sometimes it’s almost impossible to know what to do to fix them.”

  I shrug. “We do the best we can, I guess.”

  “Maybe. And then maybe forgive the people who have disappointed us.”

  I can’t look at Mima. I think about all the ways Mima, Papi, Hector, and I have hurt one another over the years, all the ways we’ve fallen short. Is forgiveness really possible?

  But when I turn to my mother, she looks so lost that I don’t ask. Without thinking, I reach out and hug her.

  “Cuídate,” she whispers to me. Take care of yourself.

  “Don’t worry, Mima. You’ll see; this is going to be a good thing.” When I pull away, her lips start to quiver through her frown, so I hug her again, this time a bit longer.

  “I am losing everything. Again,” she whispers. “First my country, then my husband, and now my children.”

  “But you haven’t lost me. And maybe Hector is lost just for now. I don’t know, Mima. Nobody does. We have to see what happens.”

  I take in my mother’s scent of bleach and sweat. Until right now, I never considered that maybe Mima couldn’t talk about the sad things in her life any more than I could talk about the sad things in mine. Maybe all those glowing reports about Cuba and my brother were just the best she could do in the face of things that hurt.

  We pull apart, and I walk back to the door to pick up my boxes.

  “I’ll call you soon,” I say before I go.

  Mima is still watching from the window when Kathleen and I pull away.

  Sal is crammed in his little office when I get there. He’s wrestling with a mountain of receipts and paperwork from the blackout. I stand in the doorway for a second, but he’s lost in his mess. We talked on the phone, but it isn’t making seeing him in person any easier.

  “You know, Pablo could probably do that better than he can stack lettuces. He is studying accounting.”

  My voice startles him. “Nora.” He moves folders off a chair and motions me to sit.

&
nbsp; “I’ll stand, thanks. I can’t stay long. Kathleen’s waiting.”

  He looks at me over his smudged glasses. “First, are you all right?”

  I shrug and look around the walls at his old business license, his favorite photos at Shea. “Better now that Son of Sam is done, right?” Sal still has the police sketch pinned to the corkboard, so I yank it down and toss it into the trash can. “How’s Mr. Farina?” I ask quietly.

  “Still not great, but home at least,” he says. “It’s a lot on an old guy.”

  I stare at my shoes. “I know I said it already, but I’m so sorry, Sal, for everything. I should have told you —”

  “It’s done. And I know it wasn’t easy to come clean.”

  We stay quiet for a while, and then he leans back and clears his throat. “So you’re sure about your decision?”

  I nod. “People are going to gossip about what Hector did,” I tell him. “You know how this neighborhood is. It’s going to be hard to hear it. Plus, you know, it might not be safe.”

  The last part is especially true. Who knows how Hector and Sergio might want to get back at me, and what kind of goon friends they’ll get to do their dirty work?

  “Safe? Nobody’s going to hurt you. Not with me right here.”

  “Or me.”

  That’s Pablo’s voice. I glance at the security mirrors and spot him sweeping just outside the door and eavesdropping. He waves at me shamelessly.

  “Get to work,” I tell him. Then I turn back to Sal. “It’s what’s best for me. Besides, where I’m moving is far. The bus ride would be too long every day.”

  He takes off his glasses and fishes in his desk drawer for my final paycheck.

  “I’m going to miss seeing you here, Nora. If you ever need anything, you send word. You know where to find me.”

  I walk to his desk and give him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Sal.”

  He blushes deep red. “Save that stuff for Romeo out there,” he says.

  “Yes, please.” Pablo’s voice again.

  I walk back outside with Pablo.

  “You need a hand unpacking your stuff?” Pablo asks when he walks me outside. He waves at Kathleen, who’s listening to the radio in the Impala. “I’ll be off in a couple of hours.”