Side Chick Nation

by Aya De León

  “I’m here in Santo Domingo,” he said. “Did you get my text?”

  Dulce looked at her phone. He had texted a picture of his suite. Probably a five-star hotel. Dulce felt a mixture of emotions. She didn’t know shit about how to be a girlfriend. But she definitely knew how to come when a powerful man called.

  “Sounds good,” she said. “But I’m with my cousin.”

  “I’ll come get you,” he said. “Tell him I’m your uncle on the Cuban side.”

  She couldn’t have said whether it was the five-star hotel, or the entitled way he directed her, or the fact that he was just a wealthy man. But the next thing she knew, she was telling Zavier that her Cuban uncle had called. And her aunt wasn’t doing so well. She needed some urgent medical treatments, and her uncle was going to come pick her up.

  Zavier’s eyes were concerned. He took her hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “She’ll be okay,” Dulce said. “But I ougtta be there.”

  “You’ll miss the interview with Ibeyi later tonight?” he asked.

  “Damn,” she said, recalling the Cuban singing duo that would have been her first celebrity interview.

  “Family comes first,” he said.

  “Right,” Dulce said. “Family.”

  And then, without even realizing it was coming, Dulce started to cry.

  Zavier came around the table and put an arm around her. Which only made her cry harder.

  The more he was kind and concerned, the worse she felt. Like he was showing her every bit of his sweetness she could never have.

  And then Dulce was waving goodbye to Zavier, as she walked toward the businessman’s Mercedes.

  And Zavier just waved back, a frown line of concern between his eyes.

  Before they had even taken off in the car, the businessman’s hand was on her thigh.

  She was wiping her eyes.

  “Nice touch with the tears,” he said. “Way to sell it.”

  She resisted the urge to look back at Zavier.

  “Let him go,” she told herself. “That was never really going to happen.”

  She took a deep breath and inhaled the new car smell. New luxury car. She looked at the leather and wood upholstery, she touched the luscious fabric of his suit. She felt the purr of the engine beneath and all around her. She had made the right choice. The only real choice for a girl like her.

  Chapter 8

  Dulce always remembered how she was fourteen and wearing a Minnie Mouse t-shirt when she met Jerry. She and her friend Valeria were smoking some cheap weed in the park when he came up to them. He was a tall hulk of a man. She found his size a little intimidating, but also powerful. Sort of like those superheroes who are so much bigger than the women they rescue. But whereas those men were broad shouldered and narrow-hipped, Jerry was thick all over, and wouldn’t be caught dead in a skintight outfit or a cape. He had on a bright, oversized jeans outfit when he approached the two of them. It was just before noon, and she was cutting class.

  “How are you fine young ladies doing today?” he asked.

  Valeria just shrugged. She was used to getting that kind of attention. She had straight, medium brown hair and light green eyes.

  “Fine,” Dulce said. She had the kinky hair and the brown skin. The crooked teeth and the dark eyes. She was getting a big ass, but that didn’t seem to translate into a boyfriend. Rather men yelling at her in the street and boys who barely had three words for her before they made it clear that they wanted to fuck her.

  Maybe Jerry had been looking at Valeria at first, but then he smiled at Dulce. There was an intensity to his focus that she had never felt before.

  “Too cool for school, huh?” he asked.

  “Too bored,” Dulce said.

  “Come on Dulce, let’s go,” Valeria urged.

  “Of course your name’s Dulce,” Jerry said. “You’re the sweetest thing in the whole neighborhood.”

  Dulce smiled and rolled her eyes.

  “Can I buy you some lunch?” Jerry asked. “The McDonald’s isn’t far. And my car is right here.”

  “What? You gonna offer us candy?” Valeria said. “We’re not getting in your car, viejo.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Don’t get in my car. Meet me there.”

  “We’re not hungry,” Valeria said.

  Which was a lie. Dulce was particularly hungry, since they’d missed the school breakfast, and the only reason they were going back to campus was to get the free lunch.

  “Meet me there for lunch tomorrow,” Jerry said. “At noon. Don’t leave me sitting there all lonely, Dulce.”

  Dulce giggled as Valeria took her hand and led her away.

  “You’re not thinking of meeting him, are you?” Valeria asked, once they were out of earshot.

  “Don’t act like you’re not sick of cafeteria food, too,” Dulce said. “He’s offering us a free meal.”

  Valeria shook her head. “With a guy like that, nothing is free.”

  * * *

  Years later, Dulce would look back and realize that the direction of her life had pivoted on the fact that she had English before lunch that year. She loved her English class. Mr. Quiñones was the one teacher who made learning fun. She did her homework and raised her hand in his class. He said she was a really good writer. English had always been her best subject. Especially that year, because they were doing expository essays. She could write down things about her life. Or things that she thought. He would ask questions to help draw out her opinions. And it didn’t hurt that Mr. Q was young and handsome.

  If Mr. Quiñones’s class had been after lunch, then Dulce never would have cut school and gone to meet Jerry. But she had English during third period, and there was nothing to look forward to at school after lunch.

  When Dulce arrived at the McDonald’s, Jerry had a red rose for her. The bottom was in a small plastic container with a rubber lid that held in the water around the rose’s stem.

  “I don’t really like McDonald’s all that much,” Dulce lied.

  “Where would you like me to take you?” Jerry asked.

  Dulce named an Italian chain restaurant in the neighborhood. It was a sort of test. Her sister had said that if a guy took you to a nice restaurant, it meant he was more serious.

  “Sure,” Jerry said. “You’re Dominican, right? I can tell from your accent.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But my father’s Cuban and I was born in Puerto Rico.”

  “So technically, you’re Puerto Rican, just like me,” he said. “And a citizen?”

  “Yeah,” Dulce said. “But none of the rest of my family is.”

  She told him about her brother getting deported for selling drugs. Her mother being disabled. Her sister with a baby and no job.

  If she met him now—at twenty—she would probably notice that he wasn’t listening. That his responses were platitudes: “yeah, things are tough all over.” Or “right? One fucking thing after another.” But at the time, the fact that he was just quiet and let her talk—that the adult man yielded the floor so the young girl could speak actual words—seemed like listening. It was more listening than she’d had from any adult in recent years. Except Mr. Q.

  Jerry bought her lunch and even got a pizza to go.

  “Take this to your family,” he said.

  It was the pizza that did it. Jerry wasn’t just another one of these boys trying to fuck her. He was a man who was thinking about her whole family. He had heard her. He understood.

  The next day at school, Valeria asked, “Did you meet that old guy? Is his name Jerry? I asked around and I heard he might be a pimp.”

  “He took me to a real restaurant,” Dulce said.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Valeria demanded. “Pimp?”

  “You said he might be a pimp,” Dulce said.

  “Are you saying it’s a chance you’re willing to take?” Valeria asked.

  “You’re so lucky,” Dulce said. “Your parents are still together. They both work.
”

  “They got no papers,” Valeria said. “They don’t hardly make shit for money.”

  “Better than my sister’s food stamps,” Dulce said. “Now that my brother got deported, we’re living off that and a little bit of cash that he left.”

  Her brother had gotten arrested for selling drugs. ICE sent him back to the Dominican Republic.

  “If my sister doesn’t find a job this month, we might be on the street,” Dulce said.

  She had hoped that this crisis would churn her mother into motion. But the depression continued to enshroud her, thick and humid as fog.

  “If I have a boyfriend with money,” Dulce reasoned. “Then we’ll be okay.”

  “Boyfriend?” Valeria asked, bewildered. “You don’t really think that old man is trying to be your boyfriend.”

  “I think he took me out,” Dulce said. “I think he wants to see me again. He talked about being my boyfriend.”

  Valeria paused and looked at Dulce, as if taking the measure of her for the first time. “All these years we been knowing each other, you been complaining about how your mom and your sister get all caught up in these men and it’s like they’re brain dead. And I been telling you not to let these stupid boys fuck you, but you’re like ‘It’s nothing. I’m just having fun.’ But it don’t look like no fun when you’re getting called a slut at school, ’cause these boys got no respect.”

  “No,” Dulce said. “But Jerry isn’t a stupid boy like them.”

  “That’s right,” Valeria said. “And he can see a value in you that you don’t even see in yourself. When your so-called boyfriend asks you to fuck some other guy, and there’s some kind of money involved, I want you to remember this moment in time. The moment when you became just like your mother and sister and didn’t even realize it.”

  “You don’t know,” Dulce said.

  But Valeria had started to walk away.

  “You’re just jealous,” Dulce said. “Because for once a guy wanted me more than you. A guy with money. A grown man.”

  Valeria continued to shake her head, but Dulce wasn’t sure whether her friend had heard or not.

  * * *

  The first time Dulce and Jerry had sex, he had told her that he loved her. In retrospect, she knew something had always been off about it. If she had just seen the video of his face speaking the declaration, if there had been no sound, she would never have imagined those words. Maybe “Is this seat taken?” or “Please pass the salt.” His eyes held no hint of even a smile.

  The next day, Dulce sat in geometry class, daydreaming. They were learning that three points can determine a plane, and a plane is infinite.

  Pizza. Boyfriend. I love you.

  From those three points, Dulce was able to extrapolate an infinite love. An impending rescue.

  Her sister Yunisa didn’t find a job in time. They illegally subletted the apartment to some artists. Yunisa and Dario moved in with her baby daddy for a while. Their mom went to sleep on a cousin’s couch in New Jersey.

  The day before they had to be out, Yunisa was packing. “Are you coming with me or Mami?” she asked Dulce.

  The baby was screaming, and Yunisa was trying to jiggle him on her hip as she dumped crumbs and wilted leaves out of the bottom of the boxes they’d gotten from behind the bodega.

  “I can stay with a friend,” Dulce said.

  “Valeria?” her sister asked.

  Dulce shook her head. “Someone else,” she said as she packed her clothes into one of the boxes.

  Under any other circumstances, Yunisa would have scrutinized the answer more. Even though the two of them weren’t close, it was an older sister’s duty to look out for her younger sister.

  But the baby was screaming, and the taxi was coming, and the artists were late to pick up the key.

  So her sister just nodded and kept packing.

  A month later, Yunisa would have a job. Three months later, they would move back into the apartment. But that would come too late.

  While Dulce was living with Jerry, while she was totally dependent on him, he asked her to fuck another guy. His brother.

  They lived with his brother, and Jerry sold it like he needed her help. He was in between jobs and rent was due and his brother thought Dulce was so beautiful. And his brother was so jealous that Jerry had a girlfriend like her. Would she? Could she do him this favor? Jerry’s brother would pay the rent this month and it would be just this once.

  In that moment, she thought of Valeria. But she clung to the idea that her friend didn’t understand. Dulce had the power. She could help him. He loved her.

  And it turned out that Valeria was wrong. Everything didn’t change the moment that Jerry asked her to fuck someone else. It didn’t even change when Dulce said yes.

  It all changed when Dulce came out of his brother’s bedroom and Jerry explained that it had all been a test. That she had failed. That this proved she didn’t love him. That she was just an ungrateful slut who didn’t deserve to be treated well. That he was a grown man and didn’t need a little girl to do him any favors. That he was the one doing her a favor. Except he yelled it at her. And slapped her.

  So by the time he moved her into his other apartment in the Bronx, where his other girls lived, it didn’t matter anymore that he had stopped saying he loved her. And that he didn’t often have sex with her, but had a much more steady stream of “friends” having sex with her. It didn’t matter because the facts had already been established. He was doing her a favor and he didn’t love her anymore because she was a disloyal slut, and it was all her fault.

  * * *

  About a month later, her sister had banged on the door of the apartment in the Bronx.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” she asked. “I thought you were with Valeria this whole time. I tried to call but their phone was cut off. I finally had to go by the school. Which you apparently aren’t attending.”

  “Valeria and I haven’t been talking lately,” Dulce said quietly.

  “Well I don’t know who the fuck these friends are,” Yunisa said. “But pack your shit. We’re going back to Washington Heights.”

  Jerry had walked out into the living room as her sister was speaking.

  “Bitch,” he bellowed. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you need to get the hell out of my apartment. Dulce isn’t going any fucking where, you got that?” He slung a heavy, possessive arm around Dulce. “Besides, she likes it here. Isn’t that right, baby?”

  Dulce nodded best she could with the crook of his arm around her neck.

  “Don’t fuck with what’s mine and don’t piss me off,” Jerry said. “And then we won’t have any problems.” With every word, he tightened his grip on Dulce’s neck.

  Stunned, Yunisa backed up to the front door and fled.

  * * *

  A week later, when Dulce went to the corner bodega, her sister pulled her into the narrow aisle between the canned foods and the sodas.

  “Come on,” Yunisa said. “I can take you home.”

  Dulce blinked. She couldn’t meet Yunisa’s eye. She tried to imagine her life back in Washington Heights. How could she return to school? Valeria might have told everyone. She would have no friends. She would be worse than a slut now. A ho. And if that didn’t kill her, Jerry promised he would kill her if she ever left.

  “Did he threaten you?” Yunisa asked, as if reading her mind. “We’ll protect you.”

  Dulce could’t picture it. Her sister, all five-foot-five of her, taking on Jerry, who weighed more than three hundred, easily, and was over six feet? Who did her sister have for backup? Their depressed mother who barely got out of bed? Her baby boy?

  “I’m fine,” Dulce said, eyes on the stacked up Goya cans of guanabana juice.

  “Luqui, please,” her sister looked upset, scared. But Dulce just shook her head.

  Reluctantly, her sister left.

  A week later, two police officers appeared at the door of the apartment. Jerry sent the girl
s into the back room and invited the officers into the kitchen. Half an hour later, Jerry and the two men were laughing, and Jerry went to get something from the safe. Then, he invited the two officers to meet the girls. Did they want to get to know any of them better?

  They picked two of the girls to take into the bedroom. One picked the girl from the Philippines. The other one picked the girl from Haiti.

  Jerry was jovial until the cops left, but then he turned to a rage Dulce had never seen. Her sister had called. It was Dulce’s fault that he had the cops in his house. It was Dulce that had cost him the hundreds to pay them off. He would take it out of her hide, he said, as in, beat her ass. Four days later, he moved with all the girls to a different apartment.

  Chapter 9

  Dulce sat in the five star hotel and reminded herself to think of Phillip Gerard by his name and not as “the businessman.” She called him Phillip, because he told her to. But he was definitely old enough to be her father. Internally, she thought of him more as Mr. Gerard.

  The hotel where he had brought her was even more amazing than in the photo. He took her to the shops and bought her a new outfit, tall black sandals, a floral bikini, a jacket, and a form fitting lime green dress.

  The quaint touristy shopping area reminded her a little of her first date with Zavier. She felt a pang in her chest.

  “I like the baby blue color on you,” Gerard was saying, bringing her back to the present.

  Dulce smiled. “Then I’ll take the baby blue dress.”

  She consoled herself with the luxury of shopping. Nice clothes that someone else was paying for.

  Gerard made suggestions for the rest of the wardrobe, but not the lingerie.

  “Whatever you like,” he said.

  He had the dresses altered to fit her curves perfectly, and arranged for it all to be sent up to the room. While they waited, he had her soak in the deep Jacuzzi tub. Then he brought up a masseuse for her. She fell asleep on the table.

  She woke up when she heard a knock at the door. It was the dress.

  “I can’t wait to see this on you,” he said.