A Song for Bijou

by Josh Farrar

  I think about calling Nomura but decide not to.

  I check the time. It’s 3:59. Dolly could be home any minute, and as soon as she is, it’s going to be tough to find the privacy to call. If I go to my room, I’ll have to close the door, and if I close the door, she’ll ask me what I was doing in secret. And if she starts grilling me for answers, she’ll wind up guessing what I’m up to. It happens every time.

  Ack, I should just call! Bijou’s just a person, like me.

  It’s 4:11. I should call, already.

  Calling is something the old Alex Schrader would never dream of doing. But maybe it’s time for a new Alex, I think, a more courageous Alex who doesn’t let his mom buy his jeans for him. Who talks to a girl off the top of his head instead of looking at notes on index cards. Who actually, in Ira’s words, goes for it.

  At 4:17, I punch in the number:

  718-555-6566

  I stare at it for a full sixty seconds, knowing that as soon as I press the button, my life could drastically change again within moments. I feel like the president of the United States, with my hand hovering over The Button, wondering whether I’m really ready to set this chain of events in motion.

  I press call.

  13

  Haitian, Haitian, Go Back to Your Nation

  It’s lunchtime. Mary Agnes, Maricel, and I are walking down Montague Street with our sandwiches. Just strolling, enjoying a bit of nice weather, at last. It’s almost the end of March, and this is the first day since I moved here that I remember the sun tickling my skin. Ah, I hope this means spring is here.

  “Did you know they have a playground up there?” Maricel asks, nodding upward.

  “Who?” I have no idea who she is talking about.

  “The boys, silly,” Mary Agnes says. “St. Chris’s.”

  Maricel points, and I follow her finger to the rooftop of the school, where I see a fence that extends up past the top of the building by at least the height of a full-grown man.

  “Alex and John and Ira are probably looking down at us right now,” Mary Agnes says.

  “That is a bit … how do you say? Creepy?” I say.

  “It’s not creepy,” Mary Agnes says. “It’s cute.” But to Mary Agnes, everything is cute, no?

  “Why can’t they be friends with someone else?” asks Maricel. “Someone attractive? Who’s not my brother?”

  “Feeling left out?” Mary Agnes teases.

  “Alex likes Bijou, and you like Nomura,” Maricel says. “Who have I got to like? Nobody.”

  I repeat the phrase in my head: Alex likes Bijou. I like this. I like this being liked. What I don’t like, though, is not knowing what it means, where it will lead. I can never be with this boy, can I? It seems so impossible.

  “Someone’ll come along for you, Mari,” Mary Agnes says. “But let’s get back to Bijou.” She turns to me and raises an eyebrow. “Alex does like Bijou. But does Bijou like Alex?”

  I can’t believe she is asking me. “This is silly,” I say. “Of course not.”

  “Look at her,” says Maricel. “Is she blushing?”

  “She totally is,” says Mary Agnes. “Because she totally likes Alex Schrader.”

  I have finished my sandwich. I roll the plastic wrap into a ball and put it back in the paper sack. “All right,” I say. “Maybe a little.”

  They both laugh.

  “Very nice,” Mary Agnes says. “Everything is going according to plan.”

  “How do you mean, ‘according to plan’?” I ask.

  We walk by a brownstone stoop, only a block away from St. Catherine’s now, which is good, because we have only three minutes before lunch is over. What is less good: Angela Gudrun and Jenna Minaya are sitting on this stoop. As we walk by, they stare at us, and we stare at them. Then, as we pass them, they follow directly behind us.

  “What plan is that, Mary Agnes?” Angela asks.

  Mary Agnes says nothing. It’s the best thing to do when these two are around: just ignore them, and they will walk away soon enough.

  “I’ll bet it has to do with Alex,” Angela says. “You know, Mr. Index Cards.”

  “Right, him,” Jenna says. “He’s kind of cute, but he acts like he’s still in sixth grade.”

  “Try fifth,” Angela says. “Zero confidence.”

  I can feel Mary Agnes, to my right, about to say something. Her whole body is as tense as stretched wire. I touch the back of her elbow, a signal: Don’t do anything.

  Then, from nowhere, Jenna says, or actually, sings: “Haitian, Haitian, go back to your nation.”

  At first, I do not even understand her words. But I follow my own advice. I don’t say or do anything.

  Jenna laughs at my silence and repeats the rhyme again, like a chant: “Haitian, Haitian, go back to your nation.”

  She says it three times, and Angela joins her the last time, laughing so hard she can barely say the words.

  Finally, I cannot stop myself. Only a few meters from the school steps, I stop, turn around, and look directly at her. “Stupid girl,” I say, pointing my finger at her, “do you even have any idea of the words you are saying?”

  “What did you call me?” Jenna asks, taking a step closer.

  Before I can respond, an entire fifth-grade class comes running down the steps, some of them slipping between Jenna and me. I look up to see Miss Williams, who is peering down at us, trying to see what’s going on.

  “Everything okay down there, Ms. Minaya?” the teacher asks.

  “Yep!” Jenna says brightly. Then she whispers under her breath, “We’ll settle this later,” and runs up the steps, two at a time.

  Sometimes I do not understand people. I do not understand them at all. Why would she tell me to go back to my country? Isn’t America supposed to be the place where everyone comes from somewhere else?

  Once we are inside, Jenna and Angela walk in the opposite direction.

  “Bijou,” says Mary Agnes, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” I ask. “You didn’t do anything.”

  The first time we visited America, Maman told me there might be people in America who would not like me because I am black or because I am Haitian. She told me that for most Americans the word “Haiti” means only three things: vodou, the way it is seen only in movies, with snakes, little dolls, and evil curses; poor people, like the ones who lived in poverty well before the earthquake; and that murdering disease AIDS. She said that some people think like this because they are ignorant, and it makes them feel better about themselves to look at me in this way. To insult me to my face so that they might feel better about their own sorry selves. But this is the first time that I see it is actually happening.

  It is one thing to think about the possibility of something happening, and another, quite different thing to actually have it happen. Oh, how I wish Maman were here. Or Jou Jou. Or even Tonton Pierre.

  “How was school, my love?” Marie Claire asks when I get home.

  “Very good, tante,” I say, lying. “I’m going to go and do some homework now.”

  She smiles at me so peacefully that I almost believe my own story, and soon enough, I am doing my prealgebra problems, almost able to give the boring work my full concentration.

  In ten minutes, the phone rings. My uncle, he has a cell phone, but still he keeps also the old phone. He says you never know when there might be an emergency and we need this phone.

  I never answer it, though—only once, last week, Mary Agnes called me to say hello, but other than that, I never get calls—so I stay in my room. It rings and rings and rings.

  After the fifth ring, I hear Marie Claire pick it up. I go back to my homework.

  In another moment, though, Marie Claire knocks on my door.

  “Bijou?” she calls. I run to the door and open it. Marie Claire puts her hand over the phone and whispers, “C’est un garçon.” It’s a boy.

  She looks at me as if I have brought a boy in the house and am hiding him under the
covers. I say nothing but plead with my eyes: Don’t tell Tonton. I did not ask this boy to call. It is not my fault.

  Marie Claire shakes her head, looking truly sad. She hands me the phone but goes nowhere. Isn’t she going to give me any privacy? She’s not just going to stand there, is she?

  Marie Claire does not move.

  “Hallo? Who is this, please?” I look up at my aunt. She raises her eyebrows: Get on with it, child.

  “It’s Alex,” he says.

  I say nothing.

  “You know, from yesterday? In the park?” he asks.

  “I know, I know, of course,” I say. I try to sound stern and upset, the way Pierre would expect me to. “But how did you get this number? And why are you calling me here?”

  “C’est pour école,” I say to Marie Claire. “Oui, c’est un garçon, mais c’est pour lycee.” Yes, it’s a boy, but it’s for school.

  Oh, why did he have to call? Doesn’t he understand how much trouble I could get in for this?

  “Alex, thank you for giving me the assignment,” I say, hoping that Marie Claire will believe this silly lie, or at least ignore it.

  “What assignment?” he asks. I hope she didn’t hear that. I just keep talking.

  I continue, “But you cannot call me at home. Ever.”

  “Oh no. I’m really sorry.”

  “It is all right. But you understand now, all right?”

  “Sure, sure,” he says. “Hey, I hope … I’m really—”

  But I hang up before he finishes. I have no choice. I will have to explain later—and hope that he understands.

  14

  Project Bijou

  It’s been a week since the phone call, and I’m thinking of Bijou a little less each day.

  That’s a total lie; it’s the exact opposite. It’s actually getting worse.

  Every day, all day, I go over each detail of the dance, of the nightmarish call, and think: What could I have done differently? And how could I have shown myself to her in a way that would make her like me?

  I told Nomura that I’d had a “feeling” talking to Bijou at the dance, before everything went wrong, and at the park. And I did. I can’t put it into words, but even though I seem to be jinxed every time I try to move this thing forward, I still can’t help but have the feeling that Bijou came into my life for a reason. A feeling that we are going to be part of each other’s lives in some little way.

  Does that make me crazy? Or a stalker? Please, God, tell me this is a feeling I can trust. Because if this doesn’t work out, I’m going to put my feelings away for a nice, long time.

  Adios, feelings. Or better yet: Au revoir, sentiments.

  This morning, I grab my gym bag from my locker just before PE, and a small envelope falls to the floor. Someone has folded it in half and pushed it through the vent. My last name is written on the front, carefully constructed in large block letters and viciously underlined three times. I rip open the envelope and unfold the note, which has been printed ultraneatly on unlined paper.

  Don’t waste your time on that stupid girl. She’s a liar.

  That’s it, just those two sentences! Like a character in a movie, I look one way, then the other, like the person who wrote this could actually be stupid enough to wait and watch me open it. Everyone up and down the hall is going about their regular business, of course, not paying attention to the fact that my jaw is scraping the floor. That stupid girl? Who do I know who would write this? Rocky? Trevor? Maybe, but why? Why not say it to my face?

  I fold the note and tuck it into my pocket, then close my locker and go to PE.

  “What’s wrong?” Nomura asks, chewing what looks like one of those date bars they sell at every Brooklyn bodega. We’re eating our lunches on a bench on the corner of Henry and Clark, looking at all the college kids flowing in and out of an NYU dorm building. Half of them are holding hands, gushy-gushy in love and practically skipping down the sidewalk. It feels like they’re purposely mocking me, rubbing my failure with Bijou in my face.

  “You okay?” Nomura asks. I don’t tell him I’m sad about Bijou, and I don’t tell him about the note. If I don’t tell anybody about it, then the only two people this is real for are the guy who wrote it and me. And for now, that’s exactly how I want to keep it.

  Anyway, Nomura’s busy telling me about his Theory of Fate.

  “You’re a fatalist,” he says.

  “A what-alist?” I say. “Chew your food, and then talk, man. I can’t hear a thing you’re saying.”

  “Things don’t work out so great for most people who believe in fate.”

  “Bijou and I would work out great, if only she’d give me a chance. I can feel it.”

  “Look at Tchaikovsky. Or Baudelaire. You don’t want to go down that road, believe me.”

  “I don’t want fate; I want a date. And so far, by the way, all the wisdom you’ve got about how to deal with girls has been completely wrong. The index cards, the phone call …”

  “I’m just the facilitator.” Nomura’s phone rings. He checks a text and puts it back in his pocket.

  “Speak English, please.”

  “All I’ve done is make suggestions and given you a friendly push here and there.”

  “Well, it’s not working.”

  “Fair enough.” He takes one last gulp of mango-coconut water, tipping his head back and tapping the bottom of the bottle to make sure he doesn’t miss a drop. “I do have one more trick up my sleeve, though.”

  “Oh yeah?” I can’t help but smile. Even in the lowest of times, Nomura entertains me. He just does. “When am I going to see this trick?”

  “In about fifteen seconds.”

  “What?”

  “It … well, she, is walking right at us.”

  It’s Mary Agnes, her eyes sparkling with ambition as she approaches our bench.

  “Hi, guys,” she says.

  “Hi,” we both answer.

  “Well, Alex, are you going to move over so I can sit, or are you going to keep staring at me like I’ve been beamed down from Mars?”

  “Sorry,” I say, moving to the right so that she can sandwich herself between us.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” she says. “Bijou likes you.”

  “Really?” I get so excited, I almost stand up. Nomura gives me a look, like, That was embarrassing, you’re so busted.

  “Well, she might not know it yet, but I do.”

  Oh, great. Another know-it-all. Another Nomura. “What exactly does that mean?” I ask. “What did she say, exactly?”

  “She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to; I can tell.” She thinks for a second. “But she can’t go around blabbing about it, because in her culture, dating is totally not allowed. And I mean, like, forbidden.”

  “Yeah, I’ve gotten that. I actually tried to call her. It … didn’t go well.”

  “Like the forbidden fruit,” Nomura says, savoring the words. “Like the apple that Adam and Eve couldn’t resist taking a big, fat bite out of.”

  “Huh?” Mary Agnes asks. Neither one of us has any idea what Nomura’s talking about. “More like something that is so off-limits that she needs to figure out for herself whether it’s worth the risk. And by the way, calling her at home? That wasn’t a great move.” I flash Nomura a look of my own: Thanks a lot.

  “So how, exactly, do they keep boys and girls from hanging out?” I ask. “I mean, look at us. We’re on a public street, just talking. No illegal activity taking place here, right? Nothing scandalous?”

  “Bijou says the only times she can even talk to a boy she’s not related to is at church, at school—as in, within the actual, physical walls of the school building, which is pretty much impossible given that there are no boys allowed in St. Cat’s—or at a school-sponsored event.”

  “And it’s not like I can just walk into a Haitian church in Flatbush,” I say, “and tell everybody that God spoke to me in a vision and told me to join up.”

  “True,” Mary A
gnes says, laughing.

  “Well, there’s not another dance until May,” Nomura says. “But Musicale’s on April twentieth. Maybe you guys should do something for it.”

  Spring Musicale is the one nondance opportunity each year for us to do stuff with the St. Cat’s girls. Cross-school collaborations are allowed, even encouraged, so each year dozens of kids sign up. St. Cat’s lets us use the rehearsal rooms in its basement, and supervision is relatively hands-off, so each Musicale team usually signs up for hours and hours of so-called rehearsal. Really, though, it’s a chance for the boys and girls who like each other to hang out.

  I hadn’t even thought of Musicale as a possibility. Perhaps because I can’t act and have no musical talent. Or any talent, for that matter.

  “That’s your grand plan?” I say. “Bijou and me, doing something for Musicale? What would we do?”

  “Maybe we could all do something together,” Mary Agnes says. “You and Bijou, me and John.”

  For a second, I don’t know who she means by “John.” But then I see her looking at Nomura. She’s biting her lip, waiting for him to respond. Could Nomura actually make Mary Agnes nervous? Could Nomura make anyone nervous?

  “Maybe,” Nomura says, rushing. “But no, Alex, that’s not the grand plan. The grand plan is a date. A date with you and Bijou.”

  “Didn’t we figure out that there is no way whatsoever for that to happen?” I ask.

  “We did,” says Mary Agnes.

  “But now you’re saying there is going to be a date after all?”

  “Yep.” Mary Agnes positively glows with this news.

  “We found a work-around,” says Nomura.

  “Yeah?” I say. “I’m waiting.”

  “A chaperoned date,” says Mary Agnes.

  “What’s that?” I ask. “Like a group date? Like you guys come, and Maricel and Ira?”

  “No, man,” Nomura says. “You’re not getting it. It’s not just boys she can’t see. Maricel and Mary Agnes are as off-limits as you and me.”