“What is going on between you two?” she asks. “Did you see him today? Was this the reason why you didn’t want to go the beach? If you wanted to see him, I wouldn’t have stopped you. You’re not telling me what’s going on. Why aren’t you letting me in?”
This isn’t simple. I’m angry at her for telling her mother and at Pheus for proving he’s a coward. As for me, I’m mad at exhibiting any vulnerability to them. The longer we sit in silence, the more my resentment grows. How could she turn on me when I asked for help? I can’t contain this any longer.
“Why did you tell Titi?” I ask. “After I begged you not to, you told her anyway.”
There’s a slight recognition. Penelope can’t deny it. She broke her promise.
“I was scared. I still am. I want to help you, but I don’t know how,” she says with such defiance, as if betrayal was her only option. She won’t apologize for what she did.
“And you wonder why I’m not telling you anything important? I can’t trust you,” I say. “When we were kids, you didn’t even blink when I told you a little boy talked to me. You said, ‘Okay, what does he look like?’ And I described every little detail about him. Do you remember what you said after? You said, ‘I believe you.’ Time changes everything, I guess.”
I get up, locate the remote, and turn the volume on the television up. There’s nothing else to say. Let the Weather Channel keep me company instead of this disappointment.
Penelope stands in front of the television screen. Her arms are on her waist. She will not move. Nothing hurts Penelope more than being ignored. She’s not used to it. It’s worse than a slap. I look down and let my hair cascade over my cheeks.
“Prima,” she implores. I don’t look up. This hurts. I want her to feel what I feel.
“Prima!” she yells. Her voice cracks. It’s hard for me to sustain this. There’s nothing valiant about going through pain alone. I only want one person to understand. Maybe not even to understand but just be there for me. Her running to Titi proved once again this anguish is to be endured alone.
“Don’t do this. We’re family. Don’t shut me out.” She doesn’t hide her emotions. I can’t keep this up because I’m not heartless, no matter how angry I am. I know she comes from a place of love. Penelope’s afraid for me.
“Please, prima,” she cries.
I finally look up. My tears flow too, even though I don’t want them to.
“I don’t have the tools to help you, so I went to Mami. I won’t apologize for that,” she says. “We just want you to be safe. We love you, Eury.”
I want to stay mad, to keep the rage burning, but I can’t. I get up and hug her. We cry into each other’s shoulders.
“I know you love me. I do,” I say. “But what is happening with me can’t easily be solved by talking to a doctor.”
“How do you know?” Penelope says. “Your mother will only let you speak to priests.”
“This isn’t just anxiety from within,” I say. “It’s more than that.”
“You say you are seeing a boy, but no one else can see him,” she says. “What if it’s a jumbling inside your mind? What if it’s stress? Didn’t this start right after Hurricane María?”
Penelope’s scared the visions I’m seeing are only getting worse, that I don’t have a strong hold on what is real or not. The episodes with Ato happened, and I can’t simply capture them with my phone’s video camera. Ato is coming for me. It’s only a matter of time. This is my truth. I can’t keep saying the same things over and over. I can’t.
My head hurts. I sweat and start to shake. I don’t know where to look or turn to. Penelope keeps asking me to explain, but I can’t, and I’m failing. A black hole opens beside me, and I’m right at the edge of it.
“Eury, please. I’m trying to understand. Help me …”
It’s getting harder for me to breathe. The walls in the room seem to pitch in toward me. I can’t breathe. I can’t. I bury my face in my hands.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know …” I can’t stop saying those three words. The abyss I’m falling down is endless. I can’t stop. Penelope wraps her arms around me. “I don’t know. I don’t know …”
“Shhh. It’s okay, Eury. Shhhh. You’re not alone. I’m here. Your cousin is right here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She rocks me like Mami used to do when I was young. We stay like this until my breathing returns and I am no longer spiraling.
“You can’t talk about it right now. You don’t have to. I’m so sorry I tried to make you,” Penelope says. “I’m a horrible person. See, I don’t even know what I’m doing.”
“You are not a horrible person. How can I explain this?” I say. “Sometimes there are no solutions. Sometimes I don’t know what I want or need. Right now I just want you to listen with an open mind. And if I’m too afraid to be alone, please stay by my side.”
“I will promise to be here for you,” she says. “But if I can’t handle it, I have to find someone who can. That might be my parents, that might be another adult. It’s not fair for you to expect less from me. Please don’t ask me to.”
I understand the terrible position I placed her in. The only way we can get through this is if I’m honest. Brutally honest. If that means she must talk to Titi afterward, I have to respect her wishes.
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
“There’s something you need to know.” She wrings her hands. This isn’t going to be good. I brace myself for the news. “I heard Mami talking to your mom. Mami wants to take you to see a therapist friend of ours. Your mother had a fit. They really got into it over the phone. Your mother got so angry, she decided to pick you up earlier. She’s coming next Monday.”
Practically a week from today, Mami will scoop me up from the Bronx. I don’t want to go back to Tampa. I need to hide. Go somewhere else.
“Going back to Florida won’t make a difference,” I say.
“So what do we do?”
We rack our brains for any type of solution, a sign that will show us there is a way out of this hell.
That’s when I hear it. The strumming of a guitar floats from outside the window. Pheus sings a sorrowful bolero. The song is “Sombras Nada Más” by Javier Solís. A lamentation meant for me to hear.
“Apparently someone is in their feelings tonight,” Penelope says. This finally breaks the tension, and we laugh.
The song continues. It stirs something deep within. What is it about Pheus and his music that confuses me? He hurt me. Yet, he tries to serenade the hurt away. It must be easy for him to do such things, to discard a girl’s feelings simply with a verse.
I don’t even realize when I’m standing by the window. I close my eyes and no longer see Pheus looking downcast nor do I see Ato’s rage. What I see is my home the way it used to be. The smell of the papayas ready to be eaten. The sway of the palm trees. With each strum of Pheus’s guitar, I am transported to a place where there is no anger or fear. Of course that doesn’t exist, only when my head allows me to imagine it.
How can a song so sorrowful fill me with such a yearning for home?
The melody ends and Pheus starts another. This time the song is Agustín Lara’s “Noche de Ronda.” He continues and sings another. A soundtrack of grief and beauty blankets the summer sky.
“I lied,” I say. “I do like him.”
“Psss. Girl, I know you do.”
I reach for my phone and read the many messages he left me. So many apologies. He wants to help. There are links to articles about spirits. Images from pages out of books from his home. Even a verse from the Bible.
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. John 14:1
I chuckle at this. I’m not sure if he’s taken the scripture out of context. It doesn’t matter. The gesture is real.
Meet me in the hallway, I text.
“I’ll be right back.”
Without having to explain, Penelope joins her mothe
r in the living room and stops her from following me to the door. She distracts her by showing Titi the necklace Aaron gave her.
I open the door just when Pheus arrives.
“Hi,” he says.
I don’t say anything. I stare at him and take in every feature. His full lips. His bushy eyebrows. The lines of his haircut. He is perfect and flawed, like me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I take his hands and feel the hard skin on his fingertips, obtained from hours of playing the guitar.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. He draws nearer. With his other hand, he tucks the long strands of my hair behind my ear. “I believe you, Eury. For real.”
I exhale. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.
“I believe you, Eury.” Pheus says again. He presses his forehead against mine. Our fingers are now interlocked.
Pheus won’t kiss me. He is too much of a gentleman. Instead I take the lead. I lean forward, tug on his shirt until we are both so close. His lips are soft. Sweet. The kiss doesn’t last long, only enough to remind me how our time together is limited.
“Ato won’t hurt you,” he says. “Not if I can help it.”
His words will erect a wall around me. Penelope is also committed to me. Maybe it’s possible. Pheus kisses me again, and this time there is an urgency. Only a handful of days to avoid Ato. Then I leave the Bronx and return to more of the same.
At least I don’t have to do this on my own. Penelope will stand by me. And Pheus? He believes me. He believes.
PART II
Arriv’d, he, tuning to his voice his strings, thus to the king and queen of shadows sings.
METAMORPHOSES BY OVID, TRANSLATED BY SIR SAMUEL GARTH, JOHN DRYDEN, ET AL.
Tal vez me alimentaba el ego y fue mi error.
No sé en pocas palabras desubicación.
“TUYO,” ROMEO SANTOS
CHAPTER 15
Pheus
The suit I’m wearing is electric blue. There’s a satin feel to the slacks and jacket. The T-shirt underneath is black with a slight V-neck. My chest hairs are making an appearance tonight. I’m going full-on Romeo and not holding back. Not one bit.
“Te botaste,” Jaysen says when he checks out my threads. He insisted on wardrobe approval. I told him the last person who picked out my clothes was my mom, and that was when I was eight. Unless he birthed me, he needed to leave me alone.
We wait for an Uber to take us to the club. I hold my guitar case close. My nerves are shot. It doesn’t help I haven’t had much sleep. These past few days went way too fast. It’s funny how cruel time can be. When you are at school, the clock just toys with you, its seconds slowly moving. In the summer, it’s a joke how quickly time flies.
Every day I woke up eager to see Eury. She didn’t want to go outside, and I was cool with that. The stairwell in my building became our second home. I would bring my guitar to practice while she borrowed Penelope’s laptop. We sat next to each other on the steps. There were times when the neighbors would be annoyed by the noise. Other times when they would enjoy it. It would depend on the song I played.
When you don’t have nearby parks, and it’s too cold to be outside, the hallways have always been a great substitute. Jaysen and I used to play hide-and-seek in the building, finding shelter in one of the exits or janitor’s rooms. With Eury beside me, sitting close, I felt like a kid again. We talked about everything. Her life on the island. My parents’ divorce. School. Lack of school. Our fears.
And we kissed. Damn, we kissed. Every second, I wanted to touch her. I wanted the world to stop. Let us have our own space, outside of the ticking clock that has her mom taking her back to Tampa. With each kiss she would whisper my name like a sigh. Pheus. It didn’t matter how hot it got inside that hallway or how many times her aunt gave me the icy glare; it was on.
My friends assumed I ghosted them because I’d been getting ready for the gig. Melaina sent me a long email with pictures of what she intended to wear tonight. I still haven’t responded.
“Come through.” Jaysen is on the phone wrangling more people to the show. He wears an insane-looking shirt with a dizzying pattern. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was Dominican with his loud self. The Uber arrives and the driver has extreme merengue on. I ask him to lower the volume. He does so but only enough for me to hear Jaysen repeat a question.
“Did you get that?” he asks. “First impressions are important.”
He tells me the owner’s name, but I’ve already forgotten it. I can’t stop thinking about Eury. How am I supposed to perform knowing she will leave for Florida in less than three days?
“Yo, concéntrate,” Jaysen yells. “When you go inside, make sure you give the man in charge the hard handshake. Don’t wuss out on this part. You’ve got to show up as a man, not a high school nobody.”
Shake hands with the dude. Yeah, I got it. I know how to present myself no matter the circumstance. I’ve been code- switching since the first word came out of my mouth.
Pops said he’s showing up tonight. He convinced his bike crew to join him. Mom can’t make it. Her boyfriend planned a weekend getaway for them. She sent me money to celebrate afterward and made me promise to videotape it.
When the car stops at the front of the entrance, the crowd goes wild. Friday night, and there’s a line of people waiting for the club to open. I search for Eury, but she’s not here. I told her that her name would be on the list. She, Penelope, and Aaron are my special guests. I step out of the car, and people pull out their phones, filming me like I’m somebody. They came to see me. It’s ridiculous, and I love every second of it.
Melaina’s not waiting on this line. She’s already behind the velvet rope with her girls. She walks over to me and plants a wet one on my cheek. Thalia is ready, taking pictures of us together. I smile at the camera, and I’m glad Eury is not around. For Melaina, this is a show.
“Good luck, baby,” she says.
She tries for another kiss, but I pull back. Enough with this charade. Anger no doubt courses through her, but she won’t display it. Although Melaina hasn’t seen me with Eury, I’m sure she’s heard about us.
Jaysen gives the bouncer the what’s-up. I walk toward the thick wooden doors into the club.
Tonight I want everything to go as planned. We celebrate and enjoy ourselves. One last time before Eury leaves.
On my way, Eury texts.
Aaron promised to drive Eury and Penelope right to the club and drop them in front. I also made him swear to be on the lookout for Ato. No one is to press up on Eury. While I’m onstage, Eury will go directly backstage and enjoy the show from there, far from the crowds. That’s the plan.
The Kingsbridge Armory takes up a whole block. They really are trying to make the place dizzyingly ritzy. High-class entertainment with separate spaces for children and adults. The restaurant is located above the club while the indoor rooftop pool is encased in glass so everyone can enjoy the sky no matter the weather.
We enter the restaurant first. They’ve spared no expense. Everything is completely mirrored and gilded. I guess gold makes a person feel luxurious, and it also creates an abundance of light. There are tables upon tables with champagne bottles already on ice. Those occupying the tables are dressed Manhattan fly. Outfits definitely not meant for this neighborhood. And just like in a restaurant in New York, not one person pays us any attention. We are invisible.
“You belong downstairs,” a bouncer, who looks identical to the one situated outside, says.
“Good looking out,” Jaysen says.
The faceless bouncer slowly pulls back heavy velvet curtains to reveal a set of descending stairs. The scent of sulfur and incense permeates the staircase. I gesture to Jaysen to see if he smells it. He’s too busy trying to be the man, walking down the stairs as if he knows where he’s going. The heavy odor is not what I would normally expect from a nightclub. The fragrance reminds me of St. Anselm and the various botánicas around the neighborhood
. I feel as if I’m entering a holy place.
Instead of gold, the club below is a cavernous room draped in red. Red carpets. Red walls. A red bar. Even the stage has red floors. It reminds me of that old scary movie The Shining. I am not one to believe in bad vibes, that sounds way too corny, but this is a type of place Pops would declare un baja nota. There is no music being played, which adds to my uneasiness. I chalk up my apprehension to nerves.
The other musicians are already here. Their instruments are placed on the elevated stage, with a sizable dance floor situated right in front.
“Is Papo Sileno here?” Jaysen asks. He rubs his hands together. He’s nervous too. Manager or not, this was his idea. Being so close to the decision-makers is what Jaysen always dreamed of. To run with the big rollers.
Almost there, Eury texts. I’ll feel better when she’s beside me.
Similar to the restaurant upstairs, there are tables strewn across the floor. The tables are small, only room enough for drinks. A beautiful, tall woman with a blank expression tends to the bar at the far end of the club. Two others soon join her. They look almost identical, as if the owners only employ a certain type. Like the bouncers upstairs, the workers ignore us. We are the help. No reason to acknowledge us. I can’t help but think to myself, Just you wait. When you hear my voice, you will be unable to look the other way.
“Jaysen!”
An older man with long, black hair has a hand firmly clasped on Jaysen’s shoulder, while the other holds a glass of wine. His expensive shirt is unbuttoned, revealing a smooth chest. On his feet are cleft square boots that look like hooves. An outfit only someone with serious money would rock without fear of being ridiculed or beat down for being different.
“You must be el Nuevo Nene de la Bachata!” he exclaims. The man reeks of alcohol and he’s got what I would call a horse face. “My name is Papo Sileno, but I go by Sileno.”
I shake his hand hard, and he does the same. He also gives me the up-and-down. Sileno does not let go. Because this is a test, I stay firm. I will smile and be charming because Jaysen is breathing heavily next to me, praying Sileno likes what he sees.
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