Color Me In

by Natasha Díaz

  “My father never learned to write or read. He was a building super, and I had to go with him on jobs toward the end in case the device being installed was modern and required reading the instructions rather than building it on instinct and experience—that’s how I came to be so handy.” He winks at me and Zoila snorts with perfect timing, like we’re on a multicamera sitcom.

  “He didn’t need much to be happy: just pastelón, beisball, and Iluminada.” Junior holds his beer up in honor of his late parents. “To we DeSantos men, we know what we want.”

  Zoila rolls her eyes again, but this time with love.

  Once most of the food has been devoured and we all sit in our post-pastelón daze, she rises to clear the plates. I stand to join her, but Zoila snaps and points down to my seat.

  “No! You are a guest.”

  I get the impression that Zoila is the Anita of this house, which means what she says goes and there’s no point in arguing.

  “Okay.” Junior hoists himself from his seat, his eyes laden and glassy. “Why don’t you take Nevaeh out to the backyard,” he tells Jesus before kissing his head and walking to the living room.

  Jesus’s lips are pursed. I brace myself for the truth to fly out of him and his parents to kick me out of their home, but he stands and walks to the back without a word.

  The backyard looks so much larger without the buckets of booze and drunk kids hanging off the railing and around the grass. The flowers have also bloomed, filling the manicured bushes with bursts of wonder.

  “Did you know I’m the captain of the Ultimate Frisbee team at school?” he says to me, looking out onto the yard.

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “Or that I got the perfect test score to get into Stuyvesant, but I chose to go to Bronx Science because they have a more diverse student body? Or that I applied early decision to Fordham University and I want to be a lawyer like my dad, so I can represent immigrants and dreamers? My father worked his whole life to make sure Abuelo’s sacrifices weren’t for nothing. He met my mom at Columbia. She worked the desk where students went to replace lost keys on Friday nights, when everyone else on campus was out partying. She was goofy and sarcastic and a little scary if you tried to steal a sip of her cherry cola. One night over pizza slices and lukewarm rum, he asked her what she wanted to do in life. She said she wanted to help her community. She wanted a brownstone and a kid and not a day to go by when she wasn’t grateful.

  “Papi says he had never believed the story Abuelo told about how he knew he was going to marry Abuela the first day they met, until that night. He knew right then that my mom was the one, and he spent the next two years waiting for her to figure it out.”

  He turns to me.

  “I want to be exceptional. I want to go to college and get a job and be great, not great despite where I’m from. I want to make a person feel so loved that they aren’t afraid to share everything, even the ugly, dirty parts of life that no one wants to admit. I want that moment when I know that I have found the one to be how it was for Abuelo and Papi, without any doubts or hesitation.”

  The wells of my collected tears expand as he reveals his own wet eyes. This whole time I have kept him at arm’s length, afraid that if I let him any closer he would leave. But by doing that, I missed out on really getting to know him. All he wanted was for me to let him in. I was so wrapped up in myself that I couldn’t see that he wanted the real me all along.

  “You saw me,” I explain, “when all I was, was a shell of a person, hiding in the shade. With my parents’ separation, I’ve had to redefine what love is, unsure that everything around me isn’t just another illusion. You’ve been good and kind and honest and I told myself that if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t want me. I am so sorry I lied. I understand if you can’t trust me.” I take his hand. “But if you asked me what I want right now, I would say that I want to tell you everything.”

  Jesus pulls his hand out of mine and walks down the stairs to the gazebo, turning his back to me and my apology. I should have known it was too late. The sadness is all-encompassing. I have to make it out of the house before I break down, so I shuffle toward the door. It opens with a creak, rusty from the spring rain we received earlier today. My foot barely crosses over the threshold inside when I hear him whisper. The words fall off the tip of his tongue, so soft and light they could have just as easily been a daydream.

  “Nevaeh?” he says. “Then tell me.”

  Chapter 35

  Remnants of a recently finished egg salad sandwich crust the corners of Mr. Bowels’s mouth. It’s Monday, and his cheeks are already shaking with exhaustion from holding up his big fake smile.

  Abby sits at our table with her things spread out, leaving me barely enough room to take out my laptop.

  “Sit down, sit down. We’ve got a fun day planned that will really put us in a good place for our final projects,” Mr. Bowels announces with rehearsed enthusiasm.

  The chalkboard is covered with a tarp, which he pulls off dramatically to reveal Biology Jeopardy!

  Just then the door slams open and plastic Mardi Gras necklaces fly into the room, sliding across the floor with a hollow crash that jolts everyone from their seats. A slender young man carrying a sousaphone enters, playing a single note repeatedly to set the tempo. He is followed by a marching band consisting of kids with two trombones, a saxophone, a trumpet, a snare drum, and someone on the tail end shaking a maraca. Four bikini-clad women with huge feather headdresses walk in next, each with armfuls of the same beaded necklaces. The beads vary from blue to green to purple, but they all have a large pendant that looks like a gold coin with a giant Jewish star engraved in it.

  I sink into my chair as the band forms a line in the front of the classroom, and with each moment that passes, I die a little more inside.

  The women shimmy, rattling the beads on their barely covered chests, and begin to pull the necklaces off to throw at my classmates. They urge us to cheer and make noise as the band gets louder. One necklace falls into my lap.

  Join Samuel Levitz as his daughter,

  NEVAEH LEVITZ,

  is called to the Torah

  as a bat mitzvah,

  Saturday, June 9, 2018

  The Village Temple, 12 p.m.

  #BettaLateThanNevah

  “BETTA LATE THAN NEVAH! BETTA LATE THAN NEVAH!” the dancers chant as the band winds its way around the room and continues to play on its way out and down the corridor.

  Abby immediately jumps out of her seat. “You are pathetic,” she tells me. “Using my exact same invitation service. And a bat mitzvah instead of a sweet sixteen? You think that’s going to make people want to come? You can’t even get your best friend to hang out with you.”

  When I look at Abby now, I see the early signs of despondence in her bright green eyes.

  “Oh, just shut up, Abby. You want to believe that we’re all jealous of you. The truth is, you’re the one who’s jealous. You’re a fraud, just like your mother.”

  Shame floods her perfectly painted face with pink. No one heard me. Everyone around us is dancing to the music and taking Snapchats, but I know immediately I went too far.

  “Big mistake,” she hisses, and then she storms out.

  Chapter 36

  Every class I walk into for the rest of the day greets me with a loud “Mazel tov!”

  The never-ending chorus is helmed by Abby, who makes sure to place herself front and center each time to enjoy my discomfort and embarrassment. Which means come lunchtime, I eat in the nurse’s office, where it’s safe. I wonder if Stevie thinks the invitations were my idea and that I’ve turned into Abby, but I don’t text him; I need to get used to being in this place alone.

  “Party’s over, kiddo.” The nurse finally evicts me when some kindergartners from the lower school are brought in. The kids shuffle past me
, cranky and blotchy from the first signs of chicken pox.

  “She’s the old one having a bat mitzvah.” A little redhead points me out to her companion as the nurse shuts the door behind me.

  * * *

  —

  By the time the last bell rings, I’m ready to bust out of this place, steal a car, rob a bank, and never come back. I’ll settle for as far away from here as possible that has pizza readily available.

  “Nevaeh!”

  Jesus makes his way from the street to the front steps of Pritchard. I watch my classmates stare as he passes them, half because he’s gorgeous and half because they’re uncomfortable with an unknown young Black man on their territory. His perfect white teeth catch the sunlight and cast a halo around him as he walks by some seniors who up until this very moment thought they were hot shit.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, running over to him with joy.

  Jesus grabs me around the waist and kisses my neck, spinning me in circles. Once he puts me back on the ground, he hands me a letter.

  Dear Mr. DeSantos,

  Congratulations on your acceptance to Fordham University, class of 2022! In addition to your undergraduate admission, you have also been awarded the prestigious Presidential Scholarship, comprised of financial assistance for full tuition and room and board. The Presidential Scholarship is offered to only the top percentage of our applicants as a reward for outstanding academic achievement and demonstration of personal excellence. Enclosed please find more detailed information on guidelines for the scholarship as well as a welcome packet.

  We look forward to seeing you in the fall.

  Sincerely,

  Steven Hillard

  President, Fordham University

  “You got in!” I scream.

  Jesus sweeps me up in his arms one more time and I whisper in his ear over and over, “You deserve this.”

  My bag crashes at our feet from the step I abandoned it on, spilling its contents everywhere and ruining the moment.

  “Aw! Is this hoodrat Romeo come to save his wannabe ghetto Juliet?”

  Abby and the Bomb Squad stand behind us, but when I turn to face her, I notice that her human shadows are keeping a bit more distance from her than usual. She must be terrorizing them as well these days.

  “Damn, you weren’t playing. They really do talk like outdated Gossip Girl!” Jesus whispers, unable to stop himself from laughing.

  “What are you celebrating? Found out you are the father after all?”

  Abby hops down the steps covering me with her shadow, so it feels like it is just me and her.

  “Abby, don’t,” I caution, meeting her gaze.

  Her eyes are determined as she takes her cell phone out and pushes a button, grinning at something on her screen.

  Every phone in our vicinity beeps, and people start to point in my direction and laugh. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I take it out to see what’s going on. One of the topless photos I let Abby take while we were drunk has been posted on Instagram. To add insult to injury, little Star of David emojis cover my nipples, and every person in my grade has been tagged. I hide the screen from Jesus.

  “Babe, let’s just go. Don’t listen to this noise,” Jesus urges, carrying my refilled bag in one hand and holding out the other like Aladdin offering Jasmine that first magic carpet ride.

  I want to be the bigger person and walk away toward our future and a snack and his lips, but my feet are weighed down with anger and shame and exhaustion. It’s not just the day that I’ve had or the fact that I practically disavowed my father over the weekend or that his mistress has bulldozed my social life into the ground or that my only friend is moving to Europe or that it seems like I’m always going to be at war with myself; she has to take this moment away too.

  The rage I’ve felt for so long bubbles over, and the avalanche of emotion is almost impossible to withstand. I want her to know that her words don’t disappear when they leave her lips; they create tiny invisible lacerations, reminders that the sum of my parts will never be sufficient. I want to stop being expected to give people the benefit of the doubt as I take a seat at the table I would never have been invited to if I were three shades closer to my mom. I want to stop feeling like an imposter in my own skin, undeserving of my rich blended heritage.

  I want to punch her in the face, so I do.

  Hitting people is not as easy as it looks. You need to make sure you’re at the right distance and swing at the right angle. You have to make sure your feet are steady, and that you put your weight behind your elbow and that you protect your wrist. Having never hit anyone before, I do exactly none of these things. My unimpressive jab is all Abby needs to go on the attack, and she uses every inch of her power to swing and claw and pull at me. People stand around us filming on their phones, and Jesus pushes through the crowd that has surrounded us to pull me away, but Abby and I are locked together, me holding two bunches of her loose hair and her punching my gut.

  “EVERYONE, HANDS UP!” a voice roars.

  Abby drops her fists and my eyes trace upward from the large waxy black shoes in front of me, past the dark gray uniform, to the white security guard who stands before us.

  “What’s going on here?” he demands as his eyes swoop past Abby and me to Jesus, his gaze landing on my purse in his hands.

  I almost grab the bag from Jesus, but something tells me not to move.

  “Hands. Eye contact. Listen. Be calm,” I say under my breath over and over, and hope Jesus can hear me.

  This guard is new and a bit older than the ones Pritchard has hired in the past, and he seems a little out of his element. He keeps looking around at our audience, uncomfortable without backup. The security guard focuses his attention on Abby, who is massaging the back of her head and whimpering.

  “Miss, are you okay? Did he jump you?” he asks, taking a step in her direction. Abby looks up at him with tears in her eyes, scared.

  “Things just got a little out of hand, but we’re fine,” I say, filling the silence.

  “YOU NEED TO SHUT UP!” he yells back so loud that I jump.

  “I didn’t touch her, man, this is bullshit!” Jesus shouts, furious at his assumed guilt and unfair disadvantage. “Don’t listen to this punk rent-a-cop. Let’s—”

  Before the last word comes out of Jesus’s mouth, the guy has him by the back of his neck. A sharp inhalation ripples through the crowd like at a movie theater when a major plot twist is revealed, except this is real and happening to my boyfriend and no one is doing anything.

  “Get off him!” I scream, and pull at the guard’s arms, but he knocks me to the ground.

  “Is that your bag, miss?” he asks Abby, dragging Jesus with him.

  Abby’s whole body is rigid except for her chest, which is heaving so quickly that she might pass out.

  “Please, Abby, please tell him everything is okay.” I find her eyes and beg with mine, but she shakes her head, unable to speak.

  “It’s my bag, sir,” I tell the guard. “This is my boyfriend. He’s not involved. I did it, I hit her.”

  His fingers are red up against Jesus’s neck, his dirty fingernails digging into his skin.

  “You let your girlfriend fight your battles?” he says mockingly to Jesus. “Who’s the punk now?” His eyes bounce between the two of us as he tightens his grip. “Were they attacking you?” he probes Abby further, in a way that implies he already knows we were.

  Abby opens her mouth, but nothing comes out, or maybe something does but we don’t hear it because someone shouts, “STOP!”

  And everything goes black.

  * * *

  —

  The Mourner’s Kaddish is a Jewish prayer that is recited to honor those we have lost. The reading of the prayer is somber as each syllable drops to the ground, laden with despair.
Together a group of individuals recite these words in unison, missing their loved ones and acknowledging their continued grief. The prayer was the first thing I learned during my lessons. I don’t know why, but for some reason it just stuck. I never understood the point of saying something that sounds so sad when that is already the way you feel, but it makes sense to me now—the words offer a momentary distraction, something to focus on other than the loss I have suffered. With my eyes clenched shut, I begin to say the prayer under my breath. The words echo inside my head, and I let myself escape into them until Jesus grabs my hand.

  “Baby, open your eyes.” His voice shakes as I slowly unclench my eyelids.

  Mr. Bowels stands in front of us with his arms out to make sure we’re protected.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he shouts at the security guard with more authority and power than I have ever heard come out of him in front of the classroom.

  “This guy was attacking them. I had to step in,” the guard lies. “I’ve seen his type before.”

  The guard’s eyes burn through Mr. Bowels’s frame and onto us.

  “Leave. Get off this campus and never come back,” Mr. Bowels says firmly. He points to the sidewalk just a few yards away.

  “You’ll be hearing from my union rep,” the guard shouts.

  “Everyone, go home. NOW!” Mr. Bowels bellows, and the crowd disperses like water bugs scurrying from the bathroom after the light switches on.