But I don’t know how I’ll help pay bills if I’m also paying for school.
“’Buela, I need to talk to you,” I say to her the next day after dinner. She mutes the TV and beams at me. Ever since my Drexel acceptance all she can do is smile at me or tear up.
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up about Drexel. I didn’t get full financial aid, and well, doesn’t it make more sense for me to get a job instead of going into debt?”
’Buela doesn’t stop smiling. She blinks as if she’s waiting for the punch line of the joke but when I just repeat myself she shakes her head. “What do you mean, Emoni? This is a dream come true.”
I shake my head. “I want to be in a kitchen, not in a classroom. You know I’m no good at school. What if I waste time and money and still fail my classes?”
“Emoni, you’ve loved your Culinary Arts class this year. I know you told me this would have more chemistry, and you’re afraid of not doing well, but once you have a degree no one can take that away from you. You’ll just have to work hard.”
I wish I could explain that I do work hard, even in the classes I don’t do well in. It’s not my effort that makes learning in those classes so difficult for me. But I also know I’m not thirteen anymore. Last time I let a guidance counselor convince me I wasn’t good enough to go to the school of my choice. This time around will I be the one holding myself back?
“Emoni, I’ve been waiting a long time for you to be able to go out into the world and fly. Do you want to know where I go when I’m pretending to be at the doctor’s?”
I asked the one time and never asked again. ’Buela made it very clear it was none of my business. I don’t know if I should nod or shake my head so I just stand still. Oh God. Oh God. What if ’Buela is sick? What if she just wanted me all settled because she knew something was wrong? The wall behind me is the only reason I’m standing. I brace myself for her words.
“I go to the doctor so much because sometimes I need to get away from all of . . .” She swirls her hand in the air and “all of” must mean everything in the house. “I go to the doctor to remind myself I am more than a great-grandmother to a toddler, and a grandmother to a teen mother, and a mother to a rascal of a son.”
She clears her throat. “Okay. . . . The real reason I ‘go to the doctor’ so much is because of Joseph, Mr. Jagoda.” She doesn’t look at me when she says all this and I see a blush is climbing up her brown cheek. My grandmother is blushing like a girl with her first crush. “And he’s been courting me. You know he’s the office manager at his son’s doctor’s office and he’s nice to me and he took me to dinner at that fancy restaurant, and we get coffee on the weekends, and have been to a movie. He has his accent from Poland. And I have my Puerto Rican accent. We talk all the time and mostly we just sit silently. And that’s probably the nicest part. I haven’t sat quietly next to a man in a long time. I haven’t had someone who wasn’t depending on me to sew up the tears, a companion, in a long time. And nena, it’s . . .” She pats her chest, and I know just what she means. “He isn’t perfect! I mean, he’s a Giants fan, for God’s sake, but he makes me feel like a woman. Not only a mother so many times removed.”
I don’t know what to say to her. Her face has taken on a different look. Not so tight and pinched around the mouth; the wrinkles on her forehead have smoothed out and she drops the hand she was just swirling into the air right back onto her heart.
I sit on the couch next to her and then push my arms around her. “Oh, ’Buela. Thank goodness. I’m so glad you aren’t sick or, I don’t know, sitting on a park bench by yourself just to get away from us. And Mr. Jagoda? You’re right, he’s been so nice. I’m so glad you have someone.” I squeeze her tight.
Her voice is thick when she breaks the silence. “He asked me to move in with him. He wants to marry me. And of course, I would never leave you and Babygirl. I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. Pero, Emoni, sometimes it feels nice to dream.”
I don’t lift my hand to wipe my cheeks. “But ’Buela, if this is what you want, don’t you have to set a good example for me?”
She hiccups a laugh and pulls back from me. “I’ve taught you a lot, Emoni Santiago. And what I have been most proud of is what you learned about sacrifice and responsibilities. I can’t shirk mine, either.”
“’Buela, I don’t want you putting your life on hold for me.” I remove my arms fully from around her. “That’s my baby in there, you’ve done enough. Marry your Joe. We’re going to be just fine.”
Just Fine
I don’t know if we’re going to be fine at all, but I try to remind myself of Mercedes Sosa’s song: Everything changes. I’ll learn to be fine.
Before I go to bed I call Julio. I didn’t phone him once while I was in Spain and he didn’t call me, either. I wish he was a texter since that would be easier, but he has conspiracy theories about the government reading people’s texts.
“Emoni! Remember your viejo, finally?”
I hope he doesn’t hear my sigh. “Hey, Julio. How are you?”
I hear some rustling in the background and I know I must have interrupted his reading.
“Me, I’m always the same. How was Spain? Mami tells me you were living the good life out there in Europe.”
I tell him a little bit about the trip and the apprenticeship, leaving out the Columbus monument and all the golden structures. It’s too late to listen to a Julio Rant.
“Julio, I just wanted to let you know I got into college. Into Drexel here in the city. ’Buela is so excited she’s probably going to start putting up posters and I wanted you to find out from me before one of your block homies called.”
On the other end of the line there’s silence and for a second, I think the call dropped. “Julio?”
I hear what sounds like a sniffle but that can’t be true. My father didn’t cry when he lost his home in the last big hurricane. Didn’t cry when I stopped calling him Papi and started calling him by his first name. Doesn’t cry when he visits my mother’s tombstone.
But that’s definitely a sniffle. “I hope Mami does put up posters. You deserve it. You must be so happy.” But he must hear the hesitation in my voice because he questions, “Emoni? Is this not what you want?”
And the thing is, Julio is a lot of things. And I don’t always know if I can count on him. But I do know that he believes in self-education, and if I told him I didn’t want to go to school, that I thought going straight to work was a better idea, he would support me. Even if he had to argue with ’Buela to do it. But then I think about his sniffles.
“I’m happy. I’m just nervous at all the new changes.”
“And Mami with her new boyfriend.”
I’m stunned. ’Buela told him about Mr. Jagoda? “She told me.” And I realize I asked that question out loud.
“You’ll figure it out, Emoni. You’ve had some of the most difficult challenges thrown your way and you’ve always figured it out. You got angels on your shoulder.”
And I can only hope he’s right.
Next Steps
“Ms. Santiago, how was your trip?” Ms. Fuentes asks from her desk.
I hope she doesn’t look at me too closely or she’ll be able to tell I was crying into my pillow all night. “It was amazing. I hope I can go back one day.”
“Did you end up checking those college admissions?”
I walk to my desk and pull out a textbook immediately. I need to bury my face somewhere. “I got into Drexel.”
“That’s amazing, Ms. Santiago!” Ms. Fuentes claps her hands together. She drops them when I stare unenthusiastically at my closed Applied Math book. “You don’t seem excited. What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. Still jet-lagged, I guess.”
I don’t look at Malachi when he walks in, but I can feel his eyes on me the entire thirty minutes of class. We spoke on the phone last night after my conversation with ’Buela. Well, mostly I spoke, which is a change for us. He listened as
I listed my fears and as I cried about ’Buela. I’m so happy for her, and I’m so afraid of change.
At lunch, I can’t even pretend to play with my food.
“Emoni, please explain to me why you’re in crisis mode again today? You just got back from a beautiful country, you have a boyfriend, a college acceptance, and the best best friend a person could have. So what is the problem?” Angelica never has much patience with me when I’m moping.
“I feel like I’m being pulled in a hundred directions and my feet are stuck in cement.”
She pushes her glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose. “So, you went to Spain and became a poet?”
I pull my hand from underneath hers and flick applesauce at her blond curls.
“Hey!” She ducks out of the way before any lands on her and pretends to hide under the table.
“Girl, get up. I’m done reminding you who’s boss here.”
“Yeah, okay. Wait until I get this weave out. It’s going to be straight-up applesauce war.”
And absolutely nothing has changed. But for a few moments my chest feels lighter.
Love
Since I miss her so much, I pick up Babygirl from daycare even though it’s an extra half hour each way when I go there after school. Mamá Clara is super sweet and can’t stop showing me Babygirl’s artwork and finger paintings and all the little dresses she uses on her dolls. I haul Babygirl onto the bus and let her sing to me.
“She’s such an adorable child,” an older white woman says from across the aisle. “Your sister?”
I smile at Babygirl. “No, ma’am. My daughter.”
The smile fades from her face but mine stays right where it is. I’ve met this kind of woman before. The kind with real strict ideas about what makes certain people respectable. The kind that gets sour-faced at learning Babygirl is my daughter, but who would have sympathy if I was of a paler complexion. The kind that looks at Angelica’s colorful hair and calls her ghetto under her breath, but thinks a white tween with purple cornrows is charming and creative. She looks like the kind of woman who will break a stereotype down the middle and hold one half up for white kids and one up for black ones. And maybe I’m stereotyping her, too. Pretending to know what kind of woman she is because of the kind of women who have hated on me, and Angelica, and all the black and brown girls we know from home; who have shaken their heads and tsked their teeth, and reminded us we weren’t welcome in their part of the city, on their side of the bus, in their world.
The smile stays on my face. I nuzzle Babygirl. Just the two of us. We can make it if we try.
Part Three
The Bittersweet
EMONI’S
“When the World Tries to Break You, Break Beer Bread with Those You Love”
RECIPE
Serves: Your strength when you feel alone.
Ingredients:
Three double scoops of flour
Four thumbs of white sugar
Half a stick of melted butter
Two bottles of beer
A sprinkle of sage
A sprinkle of island oregano
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix all the ingredients except herbs until it’s a smooth mixture. Mix sage and island oregano into the batter.
2. Spread the mixture into a greased bread pan. Spread some more butter over the top.
3. Bake the bread for the entirety of Bad Bunny’s last album.
4. Take the bread out of the oven and let cool.
*Best eaten with honey butter while listening to your own gut.
Stuck
Over the next couple of weeks everyone keeps asking me about where I’m going to school. I usually just smile and shrug. Only ’Buela looks ready to wring my neck because she wants to write the check for the deposit, but the truth is, I know what I want to do, I just don’t know how to tell anyone. Not even the people closest to me. Angelica has tried to get me to tell her about my future plans, doing everything from threatening me to mothering me to get me to talk, and today at lunch is no different.
“Emoni, you should try to eat something.”
I don’t look at her. She got into every school she applied to except for Pratt. They wait-listed her and she anxiously checks her email every time the security guards have their backs turned. “I’m fine. I’m not really hungry.”
A shadow falls over me and I look up at smooth brown skin, bright brown eyes. Malachi. This isn’t his lunch period.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
He straddles the cafeteria table bench and leans toward me until our foreheads touch. He doesn’t smile. “You been ducking me and you won’t talk to anyone and you seem sad. I figured maybe I could get an answer from you here.”
I nod at him and then look down at my lunch tray.
I begin to push back from the table but then arms are around me. Malachi hugs me from behind and Angelica stands up and hugs me from the front. And I take long, deep breaths with the both of them holding me close.
Malachi tells me it’s going to be okay. Angelica probably would say the same if she had a sensitive soul in her body, but she doesn’t, so instead she says, “Girl, it’s time to step into your own light and stop being afraid.”
Both statements are helpful.
The last day before the deposit has to be postmarked, ’Buela leaves a blank check by my bedside with a note.
Follow your dreams, nena. The rest will figure itself out.
And so I complete the forms and I mail my decision.
Accepted
“I got in!” Angelica screams into the phone. “I’m coming over right now! I want you to read the email to me. I need a witness to make sure this is real!”
And I know she doesn’t say Pratt Institute, but there’s no other school she’d be this excited about and they were the only school to wait-list her. She must have gotten off the list. My girl is going to be heading out to New York.
I shake myself when I realize the silence has gone on a moment too long. “Angelica, I’m so excited for you! Come over. I can’t wait to read the email.”
I put the phone down. ’Buela is napping on the couch after a big breakfast.
I close the novel I was reading for English. I don’t know why I’m even doing homework anymore. The end of the year is in four weeks and teachers don’t even care about schoolwork these days. It’s not like they’re going to fail us. A couple of them have been really “sick” lately. I’ve seen more subs this month than in the whole year.
There are three hard knocks on the front door and I open it without looking through the peephole.
“Angelica, ’Buela is sleeping, so—” But it’s not Angelica.
It’s Tyrone. Good-cologne-wearing-ass Tyrone with a puppy-dog look on his face. “Can we speak? I was hoping we could talk about something.”
I step onto the stoop and pull the door closed behind me. “Tyrone, you’re here”—I check my phone—“two hours early. I don’t have Babygirl ready yet.” Unfortunately, it’s his weekend.
“I wanted to talk about that,” Tyrone says. “I have an update.”
“Yeah. I got an update of my own. I got into college. And I’m dating someone.”
His lips tighten and he shakes his head. “Dating someone? I had heard something but I hoped it wasn’t true. I don’t like that.”
I take a deep breath. “I know, Tyrone. I know. And for a long time, I wanted to do what everyone liked. I just need you to be there for your daughter. I’ll respect you and I won’t introduce her to someone unless I’m sure of who they are and that they’ll be a good influence, but I’m not going to hide myself from the world. I’m not going to stop living. I’m not going to resent my kid. That’s not how you care for a person.”
He hasn’t stopped shaking his head. “I knew you shouldn’t have gone to Spain. You came back with all these crazy ideas. My mother always said you were easily influenced.” I smile, because when his mother wanted to pay f
or my abortion, “easily influenced” was not what she’d called me.
Tyrone shoves his hands in his pockets and clears the frown off his face. I take him in. He looks more mature; his collared shirt is ironed, his hair is nicely trimmed. There’s an air of confidence around him that seems less reliant on how quick he can turn a phrase and like he’s actually comfortable in his own skin. I don’t know when that happened but I must have missed the transformation.
“Listen, actually, that’s not why I’m here. That’s your business. You’ve taken care of Emma well so far and although I don’t like it . . . I’m just not going to think about other dudes around my baby-moms and my kid.
“But I am here about Emma. I want you to know that I got a job recently, and my own apartment. So I want to help you out more with money; my mother tells me all the time babies are expensive, and I know I could be doing better by you and Emma. Even if I can’t offer a lot just yet.”
My heart stops for a second. Army tank Mrs. Palmer was advocating for giving me some money for Babygirl? Everything in this life really does change. But Tyrone isn’t finished, and he holds up a hand as if what he has to say next isn’t something I’m going to want to hear.
“Emoni, I want to extend my visitations. Friday night to Monday morning. I think I deserve the whole weekend. Emma is always well taken care of, I pick her up and drop her off on time, and you always know how to reach me. And I’d like a full week in the summer to take her on vacation with my family.”
I keep my face stone cold; I keep all my feelings tucked tight like a gymnast holds herself when she’s tumbling through the air. But that’s exactly how I feel, like I’m free-falling.
“Let me think about that, Tyrone. That’s a big change.”
“Of course. I know it’s a lot to drop on you. I just, I miss her when she’s not with me. Every time I see her she’s grown bigger and is doing something new and . . . I don’t want to miss any more moments.”
With the Fire on High Page 21