Side Chick Nation

by Aya De León

  “Mamá,” Izabel says. “What time are we leaving tonight?”

  “You know you are not to bother me while I’m working,” the woman says sharply. “I told your father I’d be down at dinnertime.”

  In the hallway, Izabel storms away with a scowl.

  “You want to know why I chose you?” the woman says. “You were different.” She leans back in her chair. “When I asked who wanted to leave, you were the first to rise. You were the one who spoke up. You’re obviously educated. The other girls were more of what I expected. You weren’t. We have a network of families that are prepared to take young women in. I hadn’t been part of the network, but for you, I made an exception.”

  “So you want to—what—study me?”

  “I will be doing several interviews, yes,” the woman says. “But I also want to do more than get data. I want to make a difference.”

  “How many interviews?”

  “Two or three,” the woman says. “I’ll find out about your life story, and monitor your emotional responses.”

  “So you’ll interview me,” Xoana says. “Do I get to learn anything about you?”

  “Not much to tell,” the woman says. “My parents immigrated from Germany. They were very focused on education. I defied them by marrying at twenty to a young German man and having Izabel before I finished at university, but the marriage didn’t work out. We divorced. Izabel stayed with me. Eventually, I finished my doctorate in psychology. Then I remarried a Brazilian man, and we have two boys.”

  “Okay,” Xoana says. “So I’ll do two interviews and that’s it?”

  “Two in the next week,” the woman says. “But then I’ll do follow up interviews every year for the next three years.”

  “So that’s the price for living here with you and your family?”

  “Xoana,” the woman says. “Not everything has a price.”

  “Maybe not in your world,” Xoana says. “But in my world it does.”

  The novela was interrupted by a knock at the door. As a well-known priest, Josefina was used to people coming to see her at all hours.

  But when Josefina opened the door, it was the young man Dulce had met on the bus. Josefina regarded him with narrowed eyes and only asked him in reluctantly.

  He invited Dulce out and she eagerly accepted.

  Josefina followed Dulce into the bathroom. “He’s not good for you,” she warned as Dulce put on a bright shade of lipstick for her date.

  “Don’t worry,” Dulce said, regarding her face in the mirror. “I’m just going to have a little fun. Didn’t you say I should focus more on the joy in life?”

  Josefina sucked her teeth. “That boy is definitely not what I had in mind.”

  But Dulce went. He took her to a local bar and they drank tequila. They had sex in his cousin’s car.

  For the first time ever, Dulce insisted that he wear a condom. And he did.

  She felt so bossy and powerful. She liked him. But she especially liked this new version of herself. This bolder, sassier version of herself. So when he asked her to come to Miami with him, she went. Hugged Josefina goodbye and thanked her for everything. Then let the guy from the bus buy her a ticket to Miami.

  Dulce had a friend from New York she could stay with. But when they first arrived in Miami, the Cuban-American guy said she could stay with him for a few nights. So she did. A few days stretched into a few weeks. By then, he had convinced her to stop using condoms and she had gotten on the pill. Within a month, they had broken up, and she was living with her New York friend. She was deciding whether or not to go back to Cuba when she met a Dominican drug dealer and he had wooed her.

  “Stay in Miami and be with me,” he said over dinner at a steakhouse.

  “How would I get a job?” Dulce asked. “I can’t stay at my friend’s forever.”

  “Mami, you won’t need to work,” he said, his voice like the purr of a leopard. “I can take care of everything. Would you do me the honor of letting me pay your bills? Money is nothing to me when it comes to an amazing chick like you.”

  The attention dazzled her. She said she’d be willing to try it. He moved her into a one-bedroom apartment. She never asked him to use a condom. Not even at first.

  Chapter 15

  Wednesday, September 20—Landfall

  Water flooded the storage space as Dulce slept. It seeped through the metal slats in the pull-down door of the storage space. It pooled on the concrete floor. It rose around the mattress where Dulce was sleeping. Although she was not exactly sleeping, more like in a stupor or a spell from the cocktail of rum and marijuana.

  Water seeped up, turning the mattress into a giant sponge. The moisture soaked into the fabric of her clothes. Inch by inch, the line crept up her feet, her beautifully painted blue toenails. It saturated her hair, destroying the remains of a blowout, her hair blooming into springing curls all around her head.

  Still she slept.

  Her shoulder flinched with the moisture tickling her ear canal. Then both ears filled and the tickle was gone. Her body stilled again in sleep. The now full canals dulled the howls of the storm.

  The flooding outside was anything but gentle, yet the water could only seep in through the slats in the metal door, and the crack at the bottom above the cement floor. So the water level rose slowly. It crept up gently along her neck, her jawline, her cheekbone. The water sidled up tenderly, like a lover.

  She slept on when the water first touched her lips. Only when it began to drip into her mouth did she truly stir. The water, pooling in the back of her throat and making it impossible to breathe properly now. The prince had come. The rescuer on his horse. The discoverer. The pimp.

  Her left hip was soaked now in the floodwater. Her right hipbone jutted above the waterline like a disappearing island of brown skin.

  Water trickled into her throat, and she coughed weakly, her gag reflex still kicking, part of her brain began to register the fact that her life was in danger. Some fight-or-flight response activated her tongue, dragging it into action to spit some of the water out.

  Her life was in danger.

  She sputtered to consciousness, coughing through a burning throat. In total darkness. Completely soaked. She fought through the mental haze to orient herself, to make sense of the bizarre combination of mattress and moisture, screaming winds and crashing thuds.

  Storage space. Hurricane. Flooding. Fuck.

  Chapter 16

  Marisol’s cousin had done everything right. In preparation for the hurricane, Nidia had boarded up the windows, stored plenty of water, gotten canned foods, bags of dried rice and beans, a camping stove, a wind-up radio, and plenty of propane.

  When Hurricane Georges hit in the late nineties, her mother was still alive. As Mami showed her how to cover the windows and secure the supplies, they both recalled Hurricane Hugo, which had come through Puerto Rico a decade before.

  Nidia had developed the habit of saving gallon bottles, and when the warning for Hurricane Irma came up, she had dozens of bottles that she filled from the tap and stacked up. She spent the entire week before Irma getting ready. They had done okay in that first storm, so she just needed to supplement a bit of the eaten food, and refill a few of the gallon jugs of water. New batteries for the flashlights. Additional kerosene for the lantern.

  And for the baby: wipes (regular and antibacterial), diapers, infant formula—in case anything happened to Zara, and baby foods he could eat. She had even sealed up the passports and beloved family photos in a zip lock bag. She had consolidated several recommended lists. She had checked and rechecked.

  So when her cousin Marisol called, sounding slightly panicked, Nidia was confident. They had gotten through Irma well enough. No need to worry. She’d call when it was over.

  Later, she would describe the hurricane to Marisol. If you lay on the tarmac under a jumbo jet when it was taking off, that was what it sounded like. Except it went on for hours, and the whole time, you were terrified that the plane
would crush you.

  The family had gathered in the back bedroom to wait out the storm. Of all the rooms, it had the smallest window and was on the side of the house away from the hill.

  During the night, the baby had grown accustomed to the loud jet engine noise, and now he lay on the bed and slept as Nidia and Zara played dominoes by lantern light. They couldn’t play a proper game with only two of them, but Marisol had taught them a different version she’d picked up in the US, where you scored by multiples of fives on the ends. You could play with three or with just two people if you made a pile to pick from when you didn’t have a play.

  Zara had just scored and was gloating loudly when a huge gust of wind blew the bedroom door open.

  Zara’s cry of victory turned into a shriek, which woke the baby. The two women looked up to see the roof peeling off the back bedroom, as if the house were a can of sardines. Wind began to drive rain into the suddenly defenseless room.

  Zara grabbed the baby, and they all rushed out of the bedroom, but the roof of the living room was being torn off, as well.

  “The bathroom!” Nidia yelled, and the two of them ran in.

  The baby was shrieking, and Zara sat on the toilet lid to nurse him. Nidia felt panicked. What if the roof of this part of the house came off, as well? She cursed herself and her lists. She wasn’t prepared enough. She should have gone to the emergency hurricane shelter.

  But it was too late for that now. They needed to wait out the storm the best they could.

  She could hear the rain pouring in, and water was already seeping under the bathroom door.

  “I’m going to get some of the supplies,” she told Zara. Nidia opened the bathroom door, and her daughter’s cry of alarm was swallowed by the raging noise of the storm. Even three steps into the living room she was soaked. She crouched as she hurried to the back hallway. Grabbing a bottle of water, the lantern, and a plastic bag of canned food, she turned and ran back into the bathroom.

  The two women huddled together and prayed.

  * * *

  Dulce sat dazed on the sodden mattress in the dark and tried to pull herself together. She needed to see. Her phone. She needed her phone. It was rigged up above her. Plugged into the socket on the side of the light switch, with an extension cord to the card table. The phone wasn’t charging now, but even without a signal, the flashlight would work.

  She stood up, on top of the mattress on wobbly legs. The only sign of light was a dull gray line that ran along the seam of the storage space’s door. The interior was otherwise pitch black. She carefully waved her hands out in front of her until the side of her hand touched something. The marijuana caused a bit of a delay in relaying the message to her brain, so it took a minute to get hold of the cord that led to the phone.

  The water was up to the middle of her calves, even as she stood on the mattress. Carefully, she followed the extension cord to the phone itself, and pressed the button to light up the screen. In the feeble glow, she could see the slick surface of the rising flood around her, water seeping in between the slats of the storage unit door.

  The rush of rising water was deafening. She had to get out. Ignoring the few texts she’d gotten before her signal went out, she turned on the phone’s flashlight. Now that she could see properly, she opened up her wheeling suitcase, blessedly dry on the card table. She pulled out the water wallet Phillip had given her, as well as all her money. Then she stuffed the cash, phone, and charger into the wallet, along with her passport and keys. She left the flashlight on, and she could still see its glow from within the translucent plastic.

  Dulce couldn’t stand to leave all those designer clothes. The suitcase itself might not survive, but there were thousands of dollars of fashion in there. A little water couldn’t possibly ruin all of it. She grabbed the suitcase and waded over to the door, the splashing of the water around her barely discernible from the storm’s deluge outside, and the slosh from the slats in the wall that were weeping into the storage unit.

  The water was above her knees now. She looked up and realized that water was coming in from nearly the top of the door. Through the fog of the weed and alcohol, it took her a moment to grasp the significance of that fact. It meant that outside, the flood would be over her head. She needed to get out now, or she would be trapped, and the water was rising.

  She put the glowing water wallet around her neck, and dragged the suitcase across the mattress to the door. With every step, the suitcase became more waterlogged and difficult to pull.

  She slid the bolt open and tried to lift the door, but it was stuck. The pressure of the water outside made it nearly impossible to move.

  She gripped with both hands, and could barely lift it.

  Outside, the winds continued to howl and the whoosh of water around her was a constant crashing.

  Rain beat against the top of the door that wasn’t already submerged. Water was up to her ass now. She waded across the space and grabbed the small metal card table. It was almost completely submerged now. If she could wedge it under the door, she could get out.

  She set the table beside her and squatted halfway down, then used both arms and the power of her legs to lift the door. It rose high enough, and she managed to kick the table underwater to wedge it.

  Now the water was flooding in fast. The current pressed against her body, pushing her away from the door. She grabbed the suitcase to slide it out ahead of her. She had barely gotten it out in front of her when the card table broke.

  The huge metal door came down with a crash, barely missing Dulce’s head. She recoiled and fell back into the water. As she floundered to her feet, she realized that now only the suitcase was wedged under the door.

  Dulce stood up and the flood was up to her chest. Her heart hammered underwater now. She had to get out before the current rushing in drowned her.

  She took several breaths and realized she would have to abandon the suitcase. It was the only thing that could prop open the door. But it didn’t leave much room to get through. She crossed herself and plunged back under the water, sticking her feet out first. She could feel the current pulling at her legs outside the space. Her ass stuck under the door, despite the current’s pressure. She wriggled hard, but there was no leverage, nothing to push back against.

  She swam back in and stood up to breathe, but the water was over her head now. She had stand on top of the mattress to get some air. The panic was rising. She had to try again to escape.

  This time, she moved down to another section of the door, one nearer the corner of the mattress. On her second try, she dived under, and stuck her feet out through the open slot below the door, using her arms to push off against the mattress edge. Inch by inch, she wriggled out. She felt like her lungs were burning. It was taking too long.

  She pushed herself back into the space and went up for air. The water was nearly at the ceiling. She had to jump off the mattress and bob to the surface to gulp the least bit of oxygen. Up and down she bobbed, trying to think. After several jumps, the mattress shifted a bit, and by the glow of the flashlight, she could see her little bag of weed float up through the water. All the jumping must have dislodged it from under the mattress corner.

  She snatched it up and bobbed up for more air. Her head could barely fit between the water’s surface and the room’s ceiling now.

  She raised the bag over her head and untied it, dumping out the weed. Then she filled the bag with air. She jumped up for one final bob, and took in a lungful of air, before diving down under the surface.

  She pressed her feet out through the open space below the door. Since the water was a bit deeper, the current at the bottom wasn’t as strong now. Dulce pushed with her arms against the mattress. She couldn’t use the entire heel of both hands, as she was using one of them to hold the bag shut, like pinching a balloon. She wriggled as best she could, and was about halfway through, when she ran out of air. She pulled the plastic bag to her lips and inhaled the oxygen. A few breaths in and out of the plast
ic. Then she let the bag go and pushed off with both hands against the mattress. It shifted a bit, not quite giving her the resistance she needed.

  She heaved again. Her chest was burning. She was running out of air and now it felt like she was stuck halfway. She needed better leverage. So she grabbed for the suitcase. It was completely wedged under the heavy metal door. She pressed against it with all her strength. Suddenly, with a scrape of metal door against her skin, her body pushed free. She was outside the storage space, her body flowing, tumbling with the current. She righted herself beneath the water and used both legs to press off the ground, pushing her way upward, sputtering to the surface of the water.

  She heard the howl of the wind and felt the lashing of the rain. She gulped a mix of air and rainwater, coughing as the deluge of the storm continued to pour on her in the open water, the strong current at the surface dragging her along.

  But she couldn’t stay up. She was still a beginning swimmer, and her body flailed and began to go down. Yet even in her panic, she remembered floating with Zavier. Lean back. Let your body relax. Her life probably depended on it, so she forced herself to breathe, to let her muscles go.

  She knew how to do this. How many times had she been fucking some guy to get money for Jerry? How many times had some creep been pounding away in her and she just drifted off? Sometimes with booze or weed, but sometimes just her, commanding herself to drift.

  Somehow, she managed it. Her body relaxed amid the screaming wind and rain. She floated down the courtyard of the storage space, the water wallet pressing against her ribcage beneath the tank top.

  She floated in a surreal landscape. The sun hadn’t set, but the rain and storm clouds obliterated most of the natural light. The floodwater created an artificially high ground level, as if the earth had swallowed up the bottom half of the building. Meanwhile everything above the water line was a murky and ghoulish grayscale of what it had looked like the day before.