Side Chick Nation

by Aya De León

@ThatGirlNashonna:

  “This girl’s running so fast, no time for love.

  Running so fast no time for love.

  Love tries to slow me for a kiss and a hug.

  If love wanna catch me, love better speed up.” (1/1)

  She stayed up for hours, watching the phone. In case he was still up and would respond. But by four in the morning, she gave up. Why would he be up at this hour? She snorted to herself. Why was she still awake? She climbed back into bed and fell asleep.

  Chapter 10

  Phillip went out early the next morning, something about riding motorcycles. Dulce smiled and pretended to pay attention, but after he left, she crashed out again. When she woke up, she felt around the bed for her phone to see the time. She realized that she had slept for most of the day, and she had a text from Zavier. She vowed not to read it or to check twitter. Instead, she searched for the most recent episode of A Woman’s Dark Past.

  On the night before her wedding, Xoana is alone with Izabel.

  “First you took my mother away from me and now my boyfriend?”

  “Izabel, you left for a year. You didn’t send more than a few postcards. Besides, you never loved Guilherme.”

  “I was naïve,” Izabel says. “I didn’t realize how cruel men can be. That soccer player lied to me.”

  “What about how cruel women can be?” Xoana asks. “How cruel you were. Guilherme was heartbroken.”

  “Well, you didn’t waste any time picking up the pieces.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Xoana says. “Not at first.”

  “Well you can’t seriously mean to marry him in a white dress tomorrow,” Izabel says.

  “Of course I will,” Xoana says. “We haven’t even had sex yet.”

  “But I’m sure you’ve come close,” Izabel says.

  “That’s not your business,” Xoana says.

  “I’m not talking about Guilherme,” Izabel says. “I’m talking about your past.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t play innocent with me,” Izabel says. “I read my mother’s notes about you. She rescued you from a brothel. Don’t tell me you were a virgin there.”

  “That was different,” Xoana says, tears springing to her eyes. “I didn’t choose any of that.”

  “Ruined is ruined,” Izabel says. “And I plan to tell Guilherme. Let him decide if he still wants you.”

  “And then you think he’ll want you?” Xoana asked. “The woman who left him, and certainly hasn’t returned with her own virtue intact?”

  “We’ll see what he wants,” Izabel says. “I’m tired of you taking what’s mine. Leave town and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Xoana says. “Except to tell Guilherme the truth.”

  Izabel grabs her arm. “You really would tell him? You trust that he loves you enough to forgive you?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Xoana says. “I was a child and I was forced. If he doesn’t understand the difference, then maybe I don’t want to marry him.”

  “If you feel that way, then why haven’t you told him?” Izabel counters.

  “I don’t want to burden him with it,” Xoana says. “Because I love him. Because I care about his happiness. Something you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Okay then,” Izabel says. “I can see that this is true love. I’m sorry. I was jealous, but I can’t stand in the way of something so strong. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “No, Izabel, you’ve been like a sister to me. Stay. Come to the wedding. Your parents have missed you terribly. The boys, too.”

  “Okay,” Izabel says. “Let’s have a drink to your wedding.”

  She pours them two glasses of champagne.

  Shortly after Xoana drinks, the room begins to spin.

  “What did you put in that drink?”

  “Only what I had to,” Izabel says.

  Xoana passes out.

  Izabel leaves, but returns later with a strange man. He poses with Xoana in a series of compromising positions. Izabel photographs it all, with Xoana’s wedding gown in the background.

  “When are you going to leave?” the man asks.

  “Why would I leave?” Izabel asks.

  “So I can actually have sex with her.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Izabel says. “I never agreed to that. Get the hell out.”

  The next morning, Xoana wakes up on the floor of the dressing room. Beneath her elbow is a manila envelope. She sits up holding her head. Inside are the photographs.

  On top is an unsigned note that says: “This would be more difficult to explain. You would do better to just leave town.”

  Xoana breaks down sobbing.

  Later that morning, La Alemana knocks on Xoana’s door, but the room is empty.

  “Do you know where Xoana is?” she asks her daughter Izabel. “I know you told me she wanted to get ready by herself, but now I can’t find her.”

  “No idea,” Izabel says. “It’s so strange.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” La Alemana asks. “Everyone’s waiting.”

  Izabel shakes her head. “I guess we have to go tell them.”

  As Izabel and her mother walk toward the groom and the assembled guests, Guilherme looks at them with a bright smile of expectation. It gradually dims as he sees their faces.

  Inside the dressing room, a pearl pin holds a scrap of paper to the wedding gown: “Guilherme, you are my heart. I’m so sorry but I have to go. I can’t explain. Just know that I love you and I always will.”

  As the camera pulled away from the note, and the credits rolled, Dulce started to cry. It was exactly how she felt about Zavier. It was tearing her apart inside that she couldn’t be with him and couldn’t be honest with him about it.

  Well, at least she could be honest with herself: yes, she wanted to be with him. Some part of her was in love with him. In love? Maybe that was too strong, but when he talked about coming home to her, it opened something in her heart that she hadn’t yet been able to close.

  * * *

  When Phillip came to the room, Dulce was still crying.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “No crying. This is supposed to be a fun trip. Only fun.”

  Dulce shook her head and wiped her eyes. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “It’s just this sappy soap opera.”

  She forced a bright smile, putting on her sugar baby face for him.

  “That’s a good girl,” he said.

  They had sex, then dinner. It was their last night.

  Again, she couldn’t sleep well, thinking of Zavier, pressing on her chest against the ache inside.

  She knew she should leave it alone, but late that night, she couldn’t help but open the message from him.

  Scouring through Thug woofer lyrics & thinking of you.

  She couldn’t bring herself to text. It was too intimate. She tweeted back, tagging @ZaviJourno.

  @ThatGirlNashonna:

  “This boy is like a song spinning around in my brain

  I keep trying to ignore but he keeps staking a claim

  And I keep making it plain that I don’t have the time

  But he keeps jumping the turnstile to this heart of mine.”

  The next morning, Phillip had to catch a plane back to the states. When he left, he promised to call next time he was in the DR. He traveled frequently back and forth to Miami and New York. She saw him off on his flight to Newark. She was supposed to leave on a flight to Santo Domingo a couple hours later. Instead, she cashed in her ticket. Dulce had no intention of going back to her aunt’s house.

  She sat down in an empty row of chairs at the airport to figure out a plan. Tickets to New York cost about the same amount as to Santo Domingo. What if she just went for it and surprised Zavier? She could text him: “I’m at JFK! Where are you? Let’s meet!”

  The more she thought about it, the stupider it sounded. She would look desperate. Delusional. Or like a stalker. How many w
omen dogged out other women on social media for making up stories because a guy sent a couple texts? Because they had some kind of moment with a guy? Zavier hadn’t proposed. Showing up like “Baby, I’m here!” and the guy was all “Bitch, who are you?” He’d just said the kind of thing guys say when they’re making a move. She would be a fool to put any more on it. And even if he was happy to see her, how long would that last if she told him the truth: “Don’t worry, bae. My ex-pimp is dead. Now you might just have to protect me from his brother.” Maybe if Zavier came to visit the Caribbean again . . . Or better yet, decided to settle in the Caribbean . . . Maybe one day they could work something out, where her past wouldn’t have to haunt her. But as long as he lived in New York? Nope.

  And right now, she didn’t have time to be all starry-eyed for some boy who was thousands of miles away. She needed someplace to stay tonight. How much did hotels cost? Hostels? Maybe an AirBnB?

  She walked back out of the airport.

  “Excuse me,” a man approached her. “Do you speak English?”

  Dulce smiled. “Sure.”

  “Maybe you can help me? I can’t get Lyft to load on my phone.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said. “Lyft doesn’t work in Puerto Rico. And Uber doesn’t pickup at the airport.”

  She sized him up. He was tall and lean, with a crisp blazer and jeans. Maybe mid-thirties and balding, but with a handsome face.

  “How do I get to my hotel?” he asked. “I don’t see any taxis.”

  “You have to ask one of the guys who dispatches the cabs,” she said, walking him down the curb to the taxi stand. “Your first time here in Puerto Rico?”

  “Obvious, right?” he said. “I’m from Canada. Going to a sales conference. How about you? Are you from here?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m from Brazil.” The lie came out effortlessly. If he was Canadian and didn’t speak Spanish, maybe she could get away with it. She was always pretending to be someone else. The simple Dominican hick. Why not upgrade? Be some businesswoman from Brazil? “My flight back home was canceled,” she said, improvising. “I can’t get another flight out until day after tomorrow.”

  “Well, then you have to let me take you to dinner,” he said. “As a thanks for the help.”

  She had to play this right. Reluctant. Unattainable. She gave him a mouth-closed smile. “I’m very flattered, but I really need to get back to my hotel and get some work done. Especially now that I’ll be arriving two days later than I’d planned.”

  “What do you do?” he asked.

  “I’m a television writer,” she said.

  “In Brazil?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I write for the show ‘A Woman’s Dark Past.’ Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “But if you won’t have dinner with me, at least share a cab with me to town.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Where are you staying?”

  He named a hotel in the San Juan neighborhood of Isla Verde.

  “I guess so,” she said. “I’m staying at the Intercontinental. It isn’t far from there.”

  In Spanish, she gave the driver the name of his hotel and also said there would be a second stop.

  The driver put the luggage in the trunk, and they climbed into the back of the cab.

  “Okay,” she said. “You’re in sales right?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, you have a fifteen minute cab ride to sell me on that dinner.”

  He grinned. “I accept the challenge.”

  It wouldn’t have mattered much what he said. Dulce was prepared to be won over. He turned out to be of mixed heritage. French Canadian and Indigenous. He didn’t like his job. He was bored, selling some sort of tech components. This trip was going to be miserable, but his dinner with her could be the highlight.

  She pretended to deliberate. She pretended to be reluctant. But just before she let the cab take her to the Intercontinental Hotel—where she didn’t have a reservation, and which she could never afford—she had a sudden change of heart and said yes.

  She kept expecting him to ask where she learned Spanish, to say something about her speaking Portuguese, but he didn’t. He really didn’t ask that much about her. Or notice that she talked like a New Yorker. Mostly, he talked. She listened. He was charming and funny, sure. But he didn’t listen. Zavier listened. He asked her questions.

  She blinked and told herself to stop thinking about Zavier. This Canadian was the guy to focus on. The mark. She made sure to drink “too much” at dinner. She flirted. She went to his room, ostensibly to watch her soap opera.

  Xoana has moved to the city. It’s three years later. Xoana has finished college, and gotten married to a kind doctor. They have a new baby, whom Xoana loves. Yet somehow, her life feels incomplete.

  She’s wheeling the baby in a stroller when she runs into Guilherme and Izabel in the town square. The chemistry between Xoana and Guilherme is strong and immediate. Neither can speak, but Izabel takes charge.

  “I should have known,” Izabel says. “You would go back to the city where my mother originally found you.”

  “I—” Xoana begins. “My own mother was sick—dying in fact. That day I left. I found out. I had to rush. If I ever wanted to see her alive again. I—we only had a moment. Then she passed away.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Guilherme says.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Xoana says, then looks up directly at him. “I’m so, so very sorry.”

  “Well, we can see what you’ve been up to here,” Izabel gestures to the baby. “What can you tell us about the baby’s father?”

  “My husband?” Xoana asks. “He—he’s a doctor. His office is right here. We had lunch together today. I’m just headed home.”

  “We’re married, as well,” Izabel says, taking Guilherme’s arm.

  “We wanted to send an invitation,” Guilherme says. “But the family didn’t know how to contact you.”

  “But I sent your mother several letters,” Xoana says. “I assumed I never heard back because she was angry with me.”

  Izabel shrugs. “They must have gotten lost in the mail.”

  “Of course,” Xoana says. “I can see that. So what about the two of you? Are you visiting the city?”

  “No, we’ve moved here permanently,” Guilherme says.

  “His company has relocated here,” Izabel says.

  “And what about you?” Xoana asks. “What have you been up to?”

  “Well, I was working as a wedding planner, actually,” Izabel says. “Our wedding was so beautiful that people began asking me to plan theirs. But I quit because—”

  “It’s okay,” Guilherme says. “We can tell her, she’s family. We were hoping for a child. But God will bless us with children when it’s time.”

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Izabel says. “I’ll be able to relaunch my business here in the city before I’m weighed down with motherhood.”

  “Of course,” Xoana says. “Speaking of motherhood, please send my love to your mother—to your whole family.”

  “You can count on it,” Izabel says, and pulls a somewhat reluctant Guilherme away.

  When the Canadian leaned in to kiss her, Dulce was reluctant to turn away from the show. But she had no place else to stay that night. They were having sex by the time the credits came on, and she didn’t have to pretend to see her name on the screen.

  In the morning, she got up, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and put on mascara and a light lip gloss.

  When he woke up, she pretended to be still asleep. She did a wide-eyed, blinking where am I? and feigned embarrassment.

  “Oh my god,” she said. “I never do anything like—I really need to go.”

  She rose from the bed, pressing the sheet to her breasts, covering the nipples, but making sure to press the cleavage up and together. She let the sheet fall off one hip.

  “No, wait,” he said. “Stay. Can’t you? Your fligh
t to Brazil isn’t til tomorrow.”

  “I can’t—I don’t even hardly know you,” she tried to look mortified. The ingénue.

  “We can get to know each other,” he said. “Please. Just stay. Order room service. Go to the spa. You can charge it to the room. Just be here when I get back from this stupid conference.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  And so it began. The following day, he begged her to reschedule her flight. “They’ll charge me $100,” she complained.

  “Let me pay it,” he said. He dug in his wallet and pulled out a hundred in cash.

  She stayed with him all five days of the conference.

  * * *

  In the middle of the week, she got a message on social media that caught her attention. It was from one of the other girls Jerry had pimped. “Jimmy got shot. Dead. Figured u wd wanna kno.”

  Dulce stared at the message until the words swam, lost meaning. Not only Jerry, but his brother Jimmy was dead, too? That changed everything. New York City was no longer off limits? She could go home now. But home to what? Her family’s two-bedroom apartment in Washington Heights? She looked around at the four-star hotel room. The fresh white sheets. The flat screen TV. The room service tray. In New York, she’d be Dulce García, Dominican ex-ho. In Puerto Rico, she could be anyone she wanted to be.

  * * *

  After the Canadian left, she walked down the strip to another hotel and sat down in the bar.

  Was this going to work more than once? She got hit on by a few guys that didn’t appeal to her. Not just because they were older, but their come-on wasn’t generous. Maybe she couldn’t pull it off. Maybe she should just go back to New York. It was one thing to be a sugar baby with Phillip, a man committed to spoiling her. Or even the Canadian, who was handsome, generous and cheerful. But she didn’t know if she could hang out with one of these sullen old men for just room and board.

  She waved away a couple of guys, before the bartender brought her a margarita with top shelf tequila. He pointed out the man who had sent it. She smiled and raised the glass to him. He was maybe forty. Handsome. She smiled. When he came over to talk to her, she found him charming. She asked for another drink and reeled him in.