The Truth Is

by Nonieqa Ramos

  I stand as if I’m watching a movie. I don’t feel closure. I feel a responsibility that I am not ready to fill, as if Blanca raised her hand in a fist bump, and I left her hanging in eternal limbo.

  I’m making her sit in a school desk when God’s got someplace so much better for her in the sky. I believe in an afterlife. Matter is not created or destroyed. What matters can never be created or destroyed. Good gravitates toward good and Blanca is now everything good about her condensed. She’s in that galaxy—if I let her be. The show must go on. I need to let that star be born.

  “Verdad?” Danny hugs me and sort of rocks me, and we’re swaying, slow dancing.

  I open my eyes, and there are my Underdogs on skateboards: Jane cleanly shaved and trimmed rockin a new pair of red cowgirl boots, the someday-to-be-emancipated Prisha, her hands adorned with henna, Sarah, her booty cheeks actually covered, and Baldwin, wearing slacks and a hoodie. The hoodie has a quote from Baldwin’s namesake on it: Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

  And there is Titi Sujei, with her hands on her hips.

  “Ah, so this is the boyfriend.” She sticks out her hand. “We haven’t been introduced.”

  Danny blushes and shakes her hand, and she won’t let go of his.

  “Jesus, you need some Nivea. And a manicure. You know men get them these days. I’ll send you to Nina.” She assesses the Underdogs from head to toe. “Hey, cowgirl. Where did you get those boots?”

  It’s Jane’s turn to blush. “TJ Maxx.”

  “Oh, I love that store. You should come with me tomorrow. They’re having a sale on all plus-sizes. Verdad can give me your number, I’ll pick you up.”

  Turning her attention back to me, Sujei says, “Hey, I heard a little of that interview with the other girl. I want to talk with you about this theater project at some point. I have a lot of students at the university that can help you make it happen. Be standing by the booth after this is over. No nightlife tonight. The news is here. Don’t make me slap you.”

  Titi Sujei moves away right before a microphone gets all up in my face. Danny takes a step back.

  “Excuse me, Verdad. My name is Liz Nelson. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

  I can’t do this. Blanca could do this . . .

  Blanca: Por favor.

  “I’m sure there is no one here who can memorialize Blanca or tell her story better than you,” the reporter is saying.

  “Her story?” My jaw is clenched because I don’t want to break down. “Nobody asked about her story a year ago. The media only cared about the killer’s story. The white supremacist’s story. You all showed pictures of the man with his family. Smiling, clean cut, respectable. You gave him the benefit of the doubt that people like us, the people who were shot down, the brown and the black, never get. You gave him humanity. You bought him empathy.”

  “I can understand—”

  “You can’t. Blanca’s story will forever remain unwritten.” I think back to the movie. How many times my mind has written the ending of the movie and the ending of that night. “But if we can reopen the theater—if we can make it a place for the community. For people like me and my friends, LGBTQ kids who are being robbed of childhoods, because of rejection, because of homelessness—then Blanca doesn’t have an unwritten story anymore. Blanca’s storyline becomes the storyline of every kid who could come in here and find comfort, solace, love.”

  The reporter nods. “Thank you.”

  Blanca: Thank you, Verdad. BTW, you just came out on TV.

  Oh shit.

  I exit my trance and realize everybody is dead quiet and looking at me. “I’m done talking to y’all.”

  Rudy: “Maquina is low on charge, y’all. Nothing else to see here.”

  Everybody laughs. Danny holds my hand. Jane, Prisha, and Sarah swoop in and hug me.

  Sujei steps into the ring that has formed around me and lays her hands on my shoulder. “Then talk to her. To Blanca.”

  I flash back to her funeral when I failed. Couldn’t find the words to eulogize my friend, my sister, my heart.

  Baldwin reaches through the group and hands me my violin case. “Verdad, don’t leave her hanging. You can do this.”

  My violin? “So that’s why you ran back into the house.”

  “Yes. And to steal toilet paper from your powder room. And—”

  I open my case.

  I don’t know if the violin is the instrument or I am. If I’m playing or being played. I didn’t ask for silence, but I get it. The candles are lit and the barrio is our church. We are not just the actors, the players, we are the directors of the new script, the new story. We will decide how it ends. I will.

  25

  I’m gonna say more than I’ve prayed.

  I rest my chin on the violin, Blanca’s shoulder,

  knowing she’s gonna get younger and I’m gonna get older.

  I can reach my arms out but never hold her.

  We were supposed to be kids not soldiers.

  But Fate says, I could have told ya.

  Cast my bow into the River Styx.

  My notes try to swim but sink.

  I’d follow you to the brink.

  Cosmic strings my veins circulating the pain again and again.

  How could God say Blanca wasn’t meant to be?

  What does that mean for me?

  Blanca, I’m married to our memory

  Our ring that chandelier.

  But what is crystal clear

  is that our stories don’t end here.

  26

  This is how it ends . . .

  . . . with a plane taking off. I sit in the window seat that Tía Sujei reminds me she usually takes. Sujei is chatting it up with the attendant and I know this will mean bebidas gratis and under-the-table snack packs. Wherever she goes, she seems to become a VIP.

  While the plane cruises, I think of all the weight my heart carries, but how light it feels, like a whale in water.

  “Nobody celebrates Navidad like the Borinquen.” Sujei unbuckles her seatbelt and kicks off the chanclas she wore in thirty-degree weather in anticipation of the trip. She tells me about the unforgettable parrandas, when a small group of friends link up to asaltar or surprise another friend. It’s the Puerto Rican version of Christmas caroling. Most parranderos play an instrument, like the guitarras, tamboriles, güiro maracas, or palitos.

  I’m going to play the violin. So will Blanca, who is with me whenever my bow and strings touch. The parranderos all sing too. Or in my case, rap.

  “Too bad your mom couldn’t be here. Every year when we were kids, we would break out the straw hats, the pavas, pretend to be the jibaros from los campos. My mom and all of us would do the parrandas. You show up outside your neighbors’ door after they are asleep. Then at a signal, everybody sings and plays their instruments. Afterwards, your neighbors invite you in for pasteles, lechón asado, arroz con dulce, tembleque—coquito for the adults—and dancing.”

  “Wow. Didn’t people get mad you showed up at their house in the middle of the night?”

  “No! We would give them a heads up. Drop hints. You’d stay an hour or two, then move on to the next house. Or in our case, apartment. The parties went on till dawn! Your mom was the only one who ever managed to stay up the whole time! It’s too bad she can’t come.”

  Can’t is the word my moms used. She can’t get off for Christmas, she said. That’s the busiest time of the year for hospitals. She can’t stop worrying that Fate will take away everything she’s worked for. She’s afraid of “assailants,” the devil, poverty, life. Can’t deal with me.

  My moms and I haven’t exactly made up. I have can’ts of my own. The main one: I can’t be anyone but myself.

  I’m roasting in my coat. Titi Sujei was right to dress for the destination, not the departure. I wrestle out of my sleeves. My furry hood doubles as a shield against her mal de ojo, as I’m disturbing her whole setup. I squeeze past her
to the aisle, knock over her book so she loses the page.

  “Ay!” I’ve now managed to bang my head on the light switch and in an epic move, drop a whole bunch of some dude’s luggage all over the floor.

  “Necesito ayuda?” The beautiful brown person looking at me has that same half-a-hair thing as Danny, only it’s thicker and longer on one side like in a Pantene commercial. In Danny’s defense, he was dealing with a shortage of Pantene at the time.

  Danny, my Danny, whom I messaged just this morning. He’s in San Francisco, with his mom, living his best life. Sucks hard that it couldn’t be with me.

  Prisha and Sarah are sort of next door to him. They moved to California to live with Prisha’s activist feminist cousin. I miss Danny so hard—no matter what drama went down. He didn’t hook up with Prisha because she wasn’t into him that way. But he did hook up with some chick in San Fran. That heartbreak was the first scar I wanted to keep.

  Baldwin, Jane, and I have become besties though, and that makes it easier. Baldwin and Jane are still together. Baldwin is back at home. Mrs. Joung is helping the family plan the renaming ceremony. And I linked Jane up with Ms. Quinones, who helped get Jane set up with social services. Apparently there’s this program where kids her age can go to school, work, and have their own crib, albeit a teeny-tiny crib.

  The biggest news: there was a miracle. Turns out Prisha was right about the chandelier. It was worth so much, the city decided to buy it and donate the proceeds to turn the theater and the adjacent building into a shelter and community center. Renovations are still in the works, and I’ve been to about a million city council meetings in the past year, pitching ideas for how to use the space. In a few weeks Frida, Nelly, Baldwin, and I will be speaking at a fundraiser that Baldwin’s beloved librarian helped us organize. We’re asking for money to put a stage in the soon-to-be community center. I’m thinking West Side Story would be a great first production. Sujei hooked us up with donors to get special theater chairs dedicated to Blanca, Nando, and Bambi. I don’t need to set aside one for her anymore.

  Blanca comes and goes as she pleases now. I don’t hear from her often. She’s always been a free spirit. But when she shows up in my mind, in my heart, we just pick up where we left off. Exactly as besties do. The same way we’ll do when I’m finally, one day, with her on the other side.

  People always talk about first loves being crushes, lovers. But my first love, my first true love, is my first true friend, Blanca.

  I get a text from Danny. He wants me to come see him in San Fran. Because of course ain’t no other chingona as dope as me. I forward that text to Frida for consultation. But no matter what happens with Danny or any other lover, myself is nonnegotiable.

  “I’m sorry,” Guapx says, looking at the spilled suitcase contents in the aisle between us. “Need help?”

  Titi Sujei huffs, “Pendejos!”

  Our hands touch as we pick up a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants drawers and crack up, which is the universal language for We are having a moment. Let’s have more.

  But the moments will have to be later, because Sujei smacks me in the culo with her book. “Sentarse ya!”

  Guapx waves and sits across from us in the aisle seat. How much would I be risking if I asked Sujei to switch with me? Life and limb. I settle for exchanging looks. Is Guapx looking? Yes. Yes, Guapx is.

  I situate myself with books. Poetry, essay collections by Puerto Rican writers. Yes, I am treating myself like a research project. That’s how I roll.

  Who is myself? Myself is queer. Myself has mental illness and needs to take pills so I don’t rip out my hair. Myself can be a scientist and a poet. And the truth is, myself ain’t entirely myself yet. Why do I have to have myself figured out already? The answer is I damn well don’t. And once I get myself figured my out, I’ma try something new and start all over again. Myself is also sort of talking to myself.

  Myself is distractible. Because Guapx with the Pantene hair is smiling at me. Yes they is.

  I’ve been learning to love the self I am now. The self who is first chair in violin and kicked ass at the state competition last spring. The self who got into AP math. The self who used her Genius Hour project in Ms. Mercardo’s class to start a literary journal: Dichotomy. The self who my moms still can’t accept.

  But I do love my moms and I know she loves me—even if, for now, only in fragments. Hopefully at some point we’ll like each other. I love my dad even though he’s less of a dad and more of an uncle. I love my sisters, Veronica and the new baby, Vanessa. I especially love interjecting confounding ideas about life and love into Veronica’s head and then hearing her irritate the hell out of my dad with her questions.

  The truth is, loving myself is not a given. It’s hard work sometimes. And loving other people is hard work too—if you’re giving them the love they deserve. But love is something we all have to do for ourselves, and for each other. It’s the only thing worth fighting for.

  Verdad’s Reading Playlist: A Primer

  Latinx Rising edited by Frederick Luis Aldama

  Feather Serpent Dark Heart of Sky by David Bowles

  Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

  Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

  Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina

  Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

  Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

  The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano

  Puerto Rican Poetry, An Anthology from Aboriginal to Contemporary Times edited by Roberto Marquez

  Remedios by Aurora Levins Morales

  Marti’s Song for Freedom by Emma Otheguy

  Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez

  When I was Puerto Rican by Esmerelda Santiago

  Boricuas, Influential Puerto Rican Writings edited by Roberto Santiago

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, all my love to Miguel for being my eternal support in every writing endeavor I undertake. 2020 will be OUR year, baby.

  Mad props to my editor Amy Fitzgerald, who helped me honor the intersectionality of my characters with dignity and respect.

  Thank you to Gabrielle Bohnett, the grand maestra of the Little Mozart Academy, for finding time to educate me on some violin basics. Thank you to the brilliant Lily Gold for helping me to understand the draw of K Pop, and I apologize that my Verdad did not end up a fan! Thank you to my dear friend Jerry Park, for educating me on some aspects of the Korean culture so that I could write Mrs. Joung and bring Baldwin to life, fully-fleshed. Puja Parikh, I could not have done justice to my dear Prisha without your friendship and counsel.

  Much love to the Tía Sujeis of my life, those who have saved me when I was stranded or just straight-up kept me from being homeless: xox Susan, Richie, Carmen, Seth, and Clarissa. Susan and Richie, you have rescued me a thousand times (Remember that book cult in Iowa?), filled a thousand summers with golden memories. Carmen, the year my mother passed to the next dimension, you gave me a room of my own (sorry about the candlewax and glass) and made me a brown bag dinner (with a side dish and snack lol) EVERY day for me to take to my second job at Barnes and Noble. Clarissa, you saved me from being stranded in New Jersey, and sent me a first-class ticket back to WVU—with Seth waiting to take care of me on the other side. Seth, yeah, that time I ended up in WVU, homeless and in debt to said cult, you opened up your home.

  To all of you, I am eternally grateful.

  Topics for Discussion

  1. How has Blanca’s death affected Verdad? Why do you think Verdad still imagines having conversations with Blanca?

  2. Why is Verdad so embarrassed that she doesn’t speak fluent Spanish? How does her Puerto Rican heritage shape her in other ways?

  3. What do you think Verdad could have done differently during or after the confrontation with Nelly in history class? Why is Nelly expelled while the white girls involved in the fight are only suspended?

  4. What initially draws Verdad to Danny?

 
; 5. What misconceptions does Verdad have about trans people? How does her understanding of sexual identity and sexual orientation grow over the course of the novel?

  6. What terms does Verdad find liberating and helpful in her quest to understand her own and others’ identities? What terms does she find limiting, hurtful, or ridiculous?

  7. Verdad frequently catches herself stereotyping others, even as she resents the ways she is stereotyped. How does she work to overcome her ingrained assumptions? What is one instance when she still falls short?

  8. Verdad’s mother reacts negatively to her relationship with a trans person and to her emerging queer identity. Later, Danny describes his dad’s reaction to Danny being trans. Compare and contrast the two parents’ attitudes and actions.

  9. Sarah is upset when Prisha goes into the Maheshwaris’ house on her own. In what ways is she an outsider in this context? In what ways is Verdad an outsider among the Underdogs?

  10. Verdad says, “God is a hundred billion things but humans are expected to be one.” How does this reflect her feelings about the role of religion in her life?

  11. For much of the novel, Verdad refers to her classmates by their messaging handles or by labels gender-and-ethnicity-based labels like “Boricua 1” and “White Girl 3.” How does this limit her perception of their identities? How do her classmates defy her expectations?

  12. What ways does Verdad find to honor Blanca’s memory?

  13. Verdad has many intersecting identities. How is she navigating them at the end of the novel? What do you think her future holds?

  Always/Never

  Interjection. Sometimes hated. Always feared. Never disrespected.

  “Still getting radio silence.” I scroll down my list of followers. “But she didn’t unfollow . . . or unfriend me.”

  The word unfriend makes George tighten the strap on his helmet. (See H for Helmet. George is what you call special. But not to his face if you want to avoid me jackhammering yours.) “Look, look. Alma posted another one of her kids.” Alma’s got so many siblings and half-siblings and cousins living at her house I lose count.