“Who's your girlfriend?”
His face darkened. “Not a good subject now.”
“I see,” she said.
He leaned forward. “I do not have a past in English. You help me?”
“I'll help you with English if you help me with Spanish.”
“Good,” he said, shaking her hand to seal the deal. “English first. I go to school,” he said, as if making an opening move.
“I went to school.”
“Yes, I went to school, and they teach me English.”
“They taught me English.”
“They taught me bad English. ‘Tom is a boy’ ‘Mary is a girl.’ This is not real English.”
“What's real English?”
“ ‘Don't fuck with me!’ ” he shouted, and she laughed. “What De Niro say, he is the real English. I want the real English. I want the real New York.”
Vladimir arrived in her space, creating the conditions for panic in her stomach and sweat on her back.
“Hello,” she said briskly, standing up.
“I understand you had a great time last night,” he said.
“We did.”
She smiled at Javier, who stood up and announced: “Diane shows me the real New York.”
“That's great, because I have to go to the tile warehouse.”
She stood there blinking. “Excuse us, will you, Javier?”
She pulled Vladimir out into the corridor.
“In almost two months, you haven't spoken to me about anything that isn't construction-related. Now I'm a tour guide on call?”
“He told me you two hit it off.”
“We did.”
“So what's the problem?”
Javier poked his head out and Diane was ashamed. She had hit it off with him; she would like nothing better than to show him the real New York. But she had a day full of plans, including an apartment closing.
“You have work, Diane,” Javier said. “I understand. I will help you in the work.”
“He wants to work,” Vladimir said. “To be your intern. I thought we had discussed this.”
“When … did we … discuss … anything?” Her voice rose an octave and some raw emotion surfaced in the stuffy corridor.
Vladimir inhaled, and looked away.
“I am here to work.” Javier spoke to her directly, ignoring both her tone and his father's lack of interest. “It is the less I to do after you do to me the nice invitation. Then, after the work, you can to show me the Times Square?”
She exhaled. He was lively, interactive and spontaneous— everything his father was not. “Well, sure,” she said, “but I don't think that's the real New York. That's the theater district and it's full of tourists.”
Vladimir saluted her, as if it had been decided, nodded at Javier, and walked out. He didn't look like a man who had to deal with a problem in a tile warehouse. He looked far, far away as he wandered out. In fact, he looked a bit like Javier.
After introducing Javier around the theater, Diane sat down at her desk. Then she decided that specific tasks could wait till after she had a preliminary chat with him over lunch.
She led him down into the Houston Street station. Part of her wanted to take his hand to make sure he didn't wander off—-he was very dreamy and fluid. On the train, he started reading the ads and questioning her.
“Is that beer? Do you drink beer, Diane?”
“Not often.”
“More a drink for a man?”
“Depends on the man.”
“What is that, Caribbean Star?”
“It's an ad for a cruise.”
“What is that?”
“It's a vacation by boat. Sometimes it goes from one island to another.”
“In a boat?”
“The boats are big. It was the way to go, before there were planes. There were some beautiful ships. I can show you online. Do you know about the Internet?”
“We have the Internet during a year, but now it is illegal.”
“You had the Internet for a year?”
“We had the Internet for a year. Not now.”
“Why?”
He stroked the imaginary beard the way his father did when referring to El Comandante.
When they surfaced in Times Square, someone was preaching with an amplifier on the sidewalk, and Javier came to a full stop in front of a morbidly obese man hollering about Jesus. She pulled him away.
“Freedom of speech,” Javier said, as if it were threatened.
“Freedom not to listen,” she said, and his eyes widened in amusement. “Here's the first lesson of the Real New York: Keep moving. You have better things to do.”
They waded through the crowds. Javier was visibly jazzed by the people, the neon, the ads, the things for sale on the sidewalk.
“Who is she?” he pointed to a woman's image on the side of a building.
“I have no idea.”
“Why is the face so big on the building?”
“That's an excellent question, Javier.”
“And who is that?” He pointed to another enormous, shimmering ad.
“A woman with a marketable body.”
“And she markets her body on the building? She is a prostitute?”
“Another excellent question, Javier. Basically, she sells the product.”
“What's the product?”
“Soda. A soda she couldn't possibly be drinking, by the looks of her.”
Diane found herself four feet ahead of him as he moved like a balloon on an airless day, pausing in front of every sidewalk dealer and store display. She feared that his head might explode from the excitement.
He made a full stop in front of a candied-nut vendor. “We will eat here?”
“We will not.”
“I smell good.”
“Well, yes, you do, Javier, but I think you mean to say ‘It smells good.’ ”
He hit his head with his hand. “Yes, IT smells good.”
“Come,” she said, turning him onto a side street and ushering him into the restaurant she'd had in mind. “This also smells good.”
“jVolao!” he said as they walked into the bright, open place. “jCojones!”
“Your father says that a lot.”
“Who?” he said, and she felt a sudden, inexplicable happiness as they followed the hostess to a table for two in the back. He was taller than his father, and slimmer. He had Vladimir's curly black lashes and the heavy, directional eyebrows.
“What do you like to eat?”
“I have a big steak last night.”
“So maybe you want something lighter today?”
“No, no: meat is good. Oh, Diane, I love the meat so much!”
When the waitress arrived, she ordered veal Milanese for him and a chef's salad for herself. She glanced up and found him watching her intently.
“Diane: you say me your life. I want to know everything.”
“You tell me about your life, Javier.”
“Okay. At school, I am not welcome. I do something very stupid, Diane.”
“I heard there was a problem.”
“I do more than one the stupid thing in this year, Diane. But the more stupid? I shave myself the head. Bad idea!”
She laughed, and he dove into the breadbasket with abandon.
“I know when I talk to you the first time that I like you, Diane.”
“How?”
“I know. From talking to you,” he said, eyes open wide. “Your voice. And then when you talk to my mother, I really know it.”
“You heard about that?”
“My grandfather listen on the phone. He tell me.”
“I see.”
“You have no idea so much happy I am to be here and not there.”
She smiled.
“My mother is very happy for this phone call. She wants to thank you.”
“For what?”
“It is time. Even my grandfather say it is time. It is a good divorce.”
His voice was youn
ger than his father's and he had an unusual way of pronouncing the letter s: not a speech impediment, exactly, but an indirect approach. He focused in on her. “I want to thank you, for my mother. You do her questions and change her mind.” That was something that his father hadn't actually said to her. Just the fact that he was talking to her was different.
“Well. It's probably easier to see things from a distance. Tell me about school.”
A shadow passed over his face and traveled somewhere else. He smiled, displaying idiosyncratically charming teeth.
“A big mess. She is not worth.”
“A female is part of the school problem?”
“She is my girlfriend in the winter. Yusleidis.”
He began telling her a story, acting out the parts. He seemed very glad to confide in her. “You were expelled for trying to protect your girlfriend?”
He nodded. “If she thank me, if she look on me with respect, okay!”
“She didn't thank you?” He shook his head side to side. “Ungrateful, at the very least.”
“Yusleidis is not a special person,” he concluded. “Before, my girlfriend is Lady.”
“Who was that?”
“A girl at a different school. Lady Gonzalez.”
“Lady was her name?”
“This is the worse: in the Escuela al Campo, my girlfriend name is Milady.”
“Lady, Milady and Yusleidis! You sure know how to pick them!”
He got serious. “Diane. These are stupid girls. Especially Milady.”
“What's the school situation now?”
“They still want me in a militar school.”
“Military school? Why?”
Disgust seeped into his features. “Because my grandfather is a son of a bitch, and my father is right to leave. I am not a militar.”
“Soldier.”
“Soldier. I am not! I want to go to university. But the militar school does not prepare us. They want us in the army, not the university.”
“I want to help. Would you like to look into schools here?”
“I have to talk to my father about to stay.”
She nodded, thinking about Vladimir floating around a tile warehouse, playing online chess on his son's first night in New York. He didn't deserve Javier.
“I know that when he comes here for university, he stays in one dormitory. I don't want to be a problem.”
“I don't think you should worry about that,” she said, offended on Javier's behalf. “Your father has everyone walking on eggs, and it's not fair.”
He gave her an inquiring glance. “He does not tell what happen with you.”
“He won't tell me, either. He just leaves me hanging. And with everything else I have hanging, I can tell you that I am very, very …frustrated.”
“We can have long talk of frustrated. You like I talk to him for you?”
She laughed. “Absolutely not! That would be the worst thing.”
“Well, you think about. I am here to help.”
He offered his hand. She took it. He held it in both of his hands, peering at her intently. This caught her off guard. She picked up her water glass.
One of these days, he would learn that all the Ladies, Miladies and Yusleidises of the world had no power over him, and he would leave a trail of bewildered women in his wake, just like his father. On the other hand, he was interactive, emotional, optimistic, enthusiastic—traits she didn't associate with Vladimir.
The waitress put the check down, and Diane took it. He looked away.
“I like the Times Square,” he said, gesturing to the world outside the restaurant. “Busy busy busy.”
“I don't know that it represents the Real New York. But I'll show you, not to worry. But not today. I have to get moving.”
“I help you.”
She smiled. “Maybe you'd like to see the movie.”
“I love to see the movie.” When was the last time anyone said that? He didn't even know what the movie was. “But I'm here to work. I watch after.”
On the way out, he stopped in front of a concession stand.
“I want to see what they have here,” he said, and scanned the shelves. “Diane, which is your cigarette?”
“I don't smoke. I like this one,” she said, picking up an Almond Joy, “and this one,” she said, picking up butterscotch Life Savers, “and these,” she said, picking up a box of Tic Tacs. “And we'll also take this,” she said, handing a map of Manhattan to the cashier.
He looked cowed and reverent as she paid. “Thank you, Diane.”
“No cigarettes on my watch.”
“You forbid me?”
“Yes: I forbid you,” she said jokingly She gave him the bag of candy, opened the Almond Joy and handed him half. “It's a stupid habit. Don't start.”
“Too late,” he said cheerfully, biting into the Almond Joy. “jVolao! I really like this!” he said, stopping in the middle of the crosswalk to appreciate the candy. She ushered him out of traffic, past a million distractions while he looked here and there, and let himself be led, finally, reluctantly, into the subway.
“Who is that?” he asked of an ad.
She was exhausted. “I have no idea.”
“Do you think he play baseball?”
It felt like he was trying to suck all the information out of her. She packed him off to see Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963) and popped a new release into the DVD player growing bored with it almost immediately. Still: what a sweetheart, she said to herself. She could help him with the past tense. Interpret the culture. Take him to the movies. Help him figure out what his next step was. What a fun project. She tackled a mound of paperwork, and then popped in another DVD, a new French release that started as a thriller and took a sharp right turn and became pornography. Javier burst into her office and she quickly fumbled for the remote, ashamed to be caught watching it.
He was out of breath and flushed with excitement. “I cannot believe the idiot say no to this gorgeous girl in the train! I am so of-fensed by this movie!”
Her phone rang.
“Just calling to check in on you!” came Dorothy's imperious voice.
Javier was poking around her office, eager, animated and in urgent need of vital information. She made her excuses and hung up.
“Where is the food?” Javier asked.
“Are you hungry?”
“To buy the food. Where you go?”
“In your neighborhood, you have to walk a little bit. I can take you there, if you like.”
“I do like.” He smiled.
The phone rang again.
“Are you sitting down?” Paul Zazlow asked, and she sat, filled with a seeping dread. “The seller was in a car accident.”
“What?”
“She's ready to take your money, but not ready to move out. The apartment is right near her physical therapy.”
“No, NO, NO!”
She began laughing and crying and screaming at once.
“What?” Javier asked. “WHAT? WHAT?” He squatted into a ready position with his fists clenched. With a deep, breathy martial arts cry, he executed a fast kick, sending her Best Repertory Cinema Award flying off her desk into the pile of DVDs on the floor.
She fell onto the couch, heaving with uncontrollable laughter.
Javier was a lot more fun than Vladimir.
Vladimir straightened the bib and faced the interrogation light. The irony: he had volunteered for this pain, and they couldn't care less what he confessed. On his first visit to America, a dentist in Chicago had listed everything that had been done wrong, recommended a full overhaul and showed him what dental floss was. He shot out of the chair when she came at him with a needle.
“What do you mean, no injections? This is the anesthesia.”
“In Cuba, we have it without the anesthesia.”
“Because you're so macho?”
“Because the shot is old and doesn't work. So you have twice the pain.”
She presented him
with a box; he inspected the expiration date.
“How do I know that that's the box for this injection?”
“You don't. You have to trust me.”
There would be several more visits with this woman. He looked at her diplomas on the wall. “If I don't trust you, then what am I doing here?”
“Exactly,” she said, and leaned in with her weapon.
Now a different masked professional leaned over him with the mirror on a wand. Javier was in the waiting room, radiating anxiety. It was a big mistake to bring the kid to New York without a plan. Javier was hanging out with Diane every day, exacerbating an already awkward situation. He had to do something. He'd thought Diane had moved on; her spontaneous appearance at his apartment made him uneasy. He should have a talk with her. But it would be messy and awkward, especially with Javier hanging around the theater. On the other hand, when he brought Javier to the studio, Chris and Magnus chewed the fat with him all day, and nobody got any work done.
“So tell me about the field work for the Revolution,” Magnus had asked Javier on the day Vladimir had introduced him at the studio. “Was the sugarcane harvest amazing?”
“Is he an idiot or just pretending?” Javier asked Vladimir in Spanish.
“Tell him,” Vladimir said in English. “Explain to Magnus the concept of‘voluntary work.’ He doesn't believe me.”
“This work is very hot, very hard. All day. They don't give us enough food. And it is not voluntary: you must to go. Or big trouble.”
Magnus blinked. He'd been alternating between rock band T-shirts and tight-fitting button-down shirts in colors like burgundy, pumpkin and avocado green. No Che of late.
“One day,” Javier went on, “we are so hungry, my friend Néstor and I. We steal cans of milk, and drink in the fields. We see after we drink it that the date on the cans is the year we are born!” Javier collapsed in laughter.
“The milk had expired the year you were born?” Chris asked.
“I am so sick! We are so sick!”
“So the School in the Fields …,” Magnus said, trying to comprehend it.
“Is compulsory unpaid child labor,” Vladimir finished for him.
Paul arrived, and Javier was presented all over again. Paul had his own questions for Javier, and it was a free-for-all. At some point Vladimir said, “I need to get some work done. Javier, would you like to help me?”
“You see—voluntary work!” Javier said to Magnus, and followed Vladimir to his desk. Vladimir would have to find him a class, preferably one that met all day, otherwise the kid would just drift from office to office, chatting and flirting and asking endless questions.
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