Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “I’m ready,” I say, leading the way.

  Back in the kitchen I take my familiar position between the grills and the plating station. I stare down at the scuff marks worn into the concrete, my shoes fitting perfectly within the outline. As I combine the heavy cream and coconut milk for my signature cake, I feel myself slipping into a skin I haven’t been allowed to wear. But I don’t need my father’s permission.

  Suddenly, the energy shifts like all the air’s been sucked out. The flames on Angel’s grill get a little hotter. Or maybe the flames are inside me, sensing who’s in the doorway before I dredge up enough courage to turn and look. Everyone else already is, their necks craned as they watch him enter. Waiting for him to train his sights on his first target.

  My father’s stare beats down on the back of my neck, and I wait for him to make a scene. Even the restaurant patrons are leaning back in their chairs and watching us through the serving window.

  Angel gives me a quick nod; a look of solidarity. I’ve got you.

  I should know by now that he always has. I hold on to it, waiting.…

  I told you that you didn’t belong here.

  Now he’s going to prove it.

  My father takes a step closer and I brace for another fight.

  But instead, he ties on an apron and joins Angel at the grill. He’s between us, Angel charring a flank steak on one side, me stirring my cake batter on the other.

  My heart pounds as I pour it into a pan, some spilling over the sides. I force down a deep breath, voices finally starting to sift in again as people call out orders and ask for supplies. Then I start on the filling, my eyes straight ahead as I try to guess what my father is thinking.

  He dips a finger into the bowl in front of me, presses it to his lips.

  I’m frozen.

  “Needs more lemon.”

  My face flushes and he wraps an arm around me, pulling my forehead against his stubble. The shock of his touch almost knocks the air from my lungs. Suddenly, tears are streaming down my face, but I don’t try to stop them.

  And for once, it feels good. To be this transparent. To be forgiven.

  In the midst of the reignited chatter, dozens of new tickets coming through, I notice Officer Solis make his way inside the restaurant. My father goes out to the dining room, greeting him with a handshake. When they head to my father’s office, I follow, squeezing inside just before they shut the door.

  The space is much too cramped for the three of us. Suddenly, the looks on their faces make it feel even smaller.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  My father grips his chin. “It’s about the robbery.”

  My stomach drops. “Is… he going to jail?”

  Officer Solis searches my eyes, as if he’s not sure how to say, “He didn’t do it.”

  I find the wall, knees buckling just as my father leads me to a chair. He’s kneeling, speaking in my ear. But I don’t hear a sound. I don’t feel him next to me. All I can feel are my hands, gripping my knees, shaking. Because it doesn’t make sense. I could feel him there in the middle of all that chaos.

  I could feel him. It was him.

  I look up at Officer Solis. “Who…?”

  “Someone in the building.” He sighs, kneading his chin. “Couple of stoners a few doors down from you.”

  I remember the music, the smoke. I remember gripping the guy’s hand. I thought I was putting on a show for Xander, for myself. I thought I was taking control, but all I did was invite the chaos in closer.

  My father asks what I can’t. “What does that mean for J. P.?”

  Officer Solis grimaces. “We had to let him go.”

  I snap up. “What about what he did to Xander?”

  Officer Solis just shakes his head. “It was on his property. Lawyers claimed self-defense.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, Pen.”

  What he means to say is he’s sorry that it wouldn’t matter what El Martillo said. That it doesn’t matter what El Martillo does. His money, his power, screams I’m innocent, and in this world, that is enough.

  22

  Xander

  I SIT CROSS-LEGGED, REORGANIZING the shoebox that contains my father’s entire existence and trying to decide what Detective Freeman might find useful. I stack the photographs, topping them with a Post-it of old phone numbers. I fold in the letters from the consulate, dates highlighted where they correspond with a timeline I drew on a sheet of notebook paper. I clip two postcards to it—the last times my father reached out to my abuelo before disappearing on him too. Both arrived before I did, one from Florida, another from New Mexico.

  I barely hear the creak of the staircase before Abuelo reaches the landing. He stops, leaning a hand against the wall to catch his breath. I slide the box under my bed, jump to my feet.

  “Abuelo, what are you doing up here? You know you shouldn’t—”

  He pushes past me, stepping into my room. I don’t remember the last time he made it all the way up the stairs; he doesn’t seem to either, his eyes flitting across the walls, just as bare as when I first arrived. They finally settle on the bed, and then he slumps down onto the mattress, coughing into his handkerchief.

  I hand him the glass of water on my nightstand, but he pushes it away.

  “Abuelo, are you okay?”

  He stares, still red-faced, and then, without a word, he holds out Detective Freeman’s business card.

  My fingers twitch, wanting to reach for my pocket. It must have fallen out when I was helping Mr. Daly move that old record player.

  I stare at the floor. “I was going to tell you.”

  He pinches his eyes shut. He knows I’m lying.

  “Do you know how long I’ve lived in this house?”

  I sit next to him on the bed, too afraid of looking him in the eye.

  “Almost twenty years. I’ve been in this house on this street in this town for almost twenty years.” He turns to look at me. “Your father knows how long I’ve lived in this house.”

  I know my father knows where I am. I know that he could have come for me if he wanted to. But he didn’t. Abuelo wants me to remember that. That he didn’t just abandon me that day he left me in Puebla. But that he’s made that choice every single day he hasn’t called or written or come to see me. It was his choice.

  “What do you think you’re going to find?” Abuelo asks.

  The truth is, I don’t know who or what I’ll find. All I know is the pathetic hope that sputters between my ribs. And I can’t speak it aloud, I can’t show him that after all these years, after everything I’ve been through, all of the pain and mistakes that should have made me into a man, I’m still a child. My father’s child.

  It’s all I can say. “He’s my father.…”

  Abuelo takes my hand, squeezes. “You’re right.” He lets go. “He is.” He stands, testing his footing.

  “Abuelo, let me—”

  He pushes my hand away. “No, mijo.…”

  I trail him down the stairs, and I’m sick. Because I knew looking for my father would make my abuelo upset. I knew it would make him think I was weak.

  But I didn’t know that it would break his heart.

  I didn’t know that watching it happen would break mine too.

  All because of this hole inside me.

  One my abuelo has been trying to fill since he took me in. But I wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t. Because I was still hoping… Because I was delusional. That’s what Abuelo thinks. Maybe that’s what I am.

  Maybe that was okay when I didn’t think I had anything to lose, but what if I do?

  Abuelo doesn’t let me help him the rest of the way down the stairs, even when he has to stop to catch his breath. He doesn’t let me pour him some more water when the coughing starts up again. He doesn’t touch the lunch I make him. He doesn’t say a word as I tell him goodbye and head to the car.

  I sit in the driver’s seat, clutching the steering wheel, trying not to list the things I’ve already lost—my mothe
r, my father, my home. And yet, the list of what’s at risk still seems longer—if I find my father and make my abuelo hate me, if I don’t.…

  I finally back out of the driveway, still not sure what I’m supposed to do. But I need to trade the sight of him for a brokenness I can actually fix.

  When I pull up to Pen’s apartment complex, she’s sitting in her car, clutching the steering wheel the same way I was. For a while I just watch the way her brow furrows as she stares up at the window of her apartment.

  No one tells you that when you become the victim of a crime, you’re the one responsible for cleaning up the mess. But at least Pen isn’t trying to do this alone.

  I tap on her window and she cracks the door.

  “Hey.” I back up, letting her out.

  “Hey.”

  This time we both look up. In the daylight it doesn’t look so menacing, but then Pen inhales, breath hitching.

  I reach for her. “Are you okay?”

  “I… don’t know.” She shakes free from whatever had her gripped. “Just ready to get it over with, I guess.”

  “It’s only been a couple of days. Are you sure—?”

  She nods. “I need to do this.”

  They’re the same words I said to Officer Solis. If anyone understands Pen’s need to combat the helplessness she feels, it’s me. Maybe that’s why I’m here instead of Angel or even Pen’s father. Or maybe she didn’t tell them she was coming.

  When we reach the elevator, I finally ask, “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  She sighs, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her ponytail. “It was… vaguely discussed. Officer Solis called to let us know it was clear for me to come and clean up.” The doors ding open. “They don’t know that I’m actually coming back for good.”

  I stop. “What do you mean you’re coming back?”

  “It wasn’t him.” She shrugs, strangely indifferent. “It was a couple of stoners angry that I busted their balls.”

  “That doesn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.”

  “I know.” We reach the door. “But according to Officer Solis, they did cry like babies while being cuffed.”

  I want to indulge in her attempt at humor, but I can’t. I don’t want Pen staying in this apartment alone no matter who ransacked it. Because even if El Martillo’s involvement wasn’t real, my fear sure as hell was. She wavers and I can see that hers is still intact too.

  “Pen…”

  She stares at the door handle, at her warped reflection within the brass. Before I can pull her away, before I can lead her downstairs and back to our cars, she clenches her jaw and twists it open. Then she steps inside, doing the thing that scares her, checking off another invisible adversary in her quest to being unbreakable.

  But when her hand grazes the wall, light buzzing on above the kitchen sink, the floor is mostly bare, shadows disappearing behind neatly stacked packing boxes instead of debris.

  Pen takes a step toward the center of the room, her body tensed and waiting for another ambush.

  There’s a light knock, the door still cracked. An old woman peeks inside, spotting Pen.

  “Mrs. Damas?”

  The old woman smiles. “I didn’t realize you’d be back so soon. I was hoping…”

  “Did you do this?”

  She takes Pen’s hand. “We saved what we could. Anything broken is still in those boxes to the left. I didn’t want to risk throwing out something important. I just… wanted it to look more like home when you finally came back.”

  Pen doesn’t speak. She stares at the boxes, letting Mrs. Damas pull her into a hug.

  “Thank you,” Pen finally says.

  “You’re welcome, dear.” Mrs. Damas leads her to the pantry, unbroken herb bottles and canisters full of baking ingredients stacked neatly on the shelves. “The property manager hired someone to clean up the mess in the kitchen. He was worried about pests.” She opens the fridge next. It’s stocked full of food. “I told everyone to wait, that all of this would go to waste before you’d be back, but they couldn’t help themselves.”

  “The other tenants?” Pen marvels at the fresh ingredients.

  “Your neighbors, Pen.” Mrs. Damas’s eyes crinkle. “It breaks my heart that you haven’t had the best experience with some of the people on this floor, but we’re more of a family than you know.”

  For a long time Pen is quiet, looking from the shelves to the boxes to her freshly made bed. Then she stares at the walls, maybe trying to see the people on the other side, to reconcile them with the careful hands that have rescued her from having to relive that night all over again.

  “Will they know…?” Pen meets Mrs. Damas’s eyes. “That I’m grateful. I really am.”

  Mrs. Damas pats Pen’s hand again. “When you’re ready, you can tell them.” She heads for the door, squeezing my arm. “Now, I’ll leave you two to reorganize things.” She winks at Pen. “Let me know if you get hungry.”

  When the door falls closed, Pen’s still staring at the boxes.

  “You don’t have to go through them if you’re not ready,” I remind her.

  She leans against the counter. “What if there’s no such thing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looks down. “What if there’s no such thing as being ready? What if the only difference between being ready and not being ready is a decision?” She looks up, gaze pinned to the boxes like they’re just another adversary. “A decision I make.”

  “Is that why you’re making yourself stay here tonight?”

  Pen said her constant need to do the scary thing isn’t a game, but she’s still keeping score. And if coming here today, cleaning up her apartment and then forcing herself to sleep in what was just twenty-four hours earlier a designated crime scene is worth enough points to risk her unraveling, then that must mean she’s not playing alone. To Pen, her adversary is real, and even though there might not be a clear way to win, in Pen’s mind there’s a dangerous way to lose, and it’s a possibility every second she’s not doing something to make herself feel powerful.

  “I thought I wanted to be home.” Pen huffs. “Even my mom said something about me coming back to live with them. But I already know what’ll happen if I do. We’ll all fall back into the same routine, and it will feel good for a while. Safe. Familiar. But then six months will go by, or maybe another year, and it’ll be time to rip the Band-Aid off again.”

  “What Band-Aid?”

  “The Band-Aid that is my adolescence.” Pen gestures around the room. “That’s what this whole thing was supposed to be about. Not just a punishment, but a chance to become an adult. Because I made adult decisions like not going to school and then lying about it.” She scratches at a chip in the countertop. “And even though I regret hurting them, I don’t want to stop being able to make those decisions.”

  “Because you’re ready… or because it scares you?”

  Pen meets my eyes. “Both.”

  She finally makes her way over to the boxes, kneeling in front of the broken things first. She starts sifting through the box and we work in tandem, Pen taking things out slowly, cradling them in the palm of her hand before handing them to me to toss into a trash bag or work into the living sculpture on her rumpled bed.

  Most of these things I’ve touched before, the bookshelf of Pen’s childhood memories I assembled now in pieces. But she doesn’t linger too long on what’s been broken. Instead, she empties one box after another until all that’s left to do is put it back together.

  By the time we finally finish, the sun is starting to set, the curtainless windows letting in the last beats of light. They’re pressed to the floor, ethereal thumbprints in bursts of blue and pink.

  Pen collapses on her bed, watching the light shrink. There’s nowhere for me to sit but right next to her, and suddenly her proximity is a small flame.

  A few hours ago, we were standing in a concrete box, desperately trying to rewind Pen’s memories of that night unti
l we were standing in her bedroom again. Now we are. We’re sitting in Pen’s apartment on her bed, and it’s the most awkward I’ve felt around her since the night we first met.

  My fingers stretch, wanting to reach for her. She watches them too, but I don’t know if she’s willing them to stay still or if she wants me to come closer.

  She moves first, fingers lacing with mine. “Thank you for coming with me.”

  I squeeze, letting my index finger rest against the underside of her wrist. “Anytime.”

  She draws tiny circles against my skin until I’m buzzing. I tighten my grip on her and she sighs.

  She sits up and I hold my breath.

  Her cheeks flush and then she says, “I’m… starving.”

  My cheeks burn too. I smile. “I definitely worked up an appetite.”

  She lets go of me and makes her way to the fridge. “Should we see what’s edible in here?” She leans down, examining the shelves. After a moment she starts mumbling to herself. “Two and then… There might be… Got that, good… A little… Oh yes, perfect.”

  She plops the ingredients down on the counter and shuffles over to the pantry to continue her monologue. Then she ties on an apron before dumping some dry ingredients into a bowl without measuring.

  “What’s that?” I ask, making my way over.

  She lifts a finger. “This is a secret recipe, which means no questions.”

  She adds some eggs to the bowl before leading my hand to the spoon. I stir, something tart and sweet creeping into my lungs. Pen zests an orange and chops some dark chocolate and almonds. Then she mixes up something else warm and gooey in another bowl. She dips her finger in, pulls it out slow, tasting it.

  She takes back the batter I’m stirring, some sugar still on her lips, and then she adds the orange and chocolate chunks. She reaches for a cupcake tin on the bottom shelf, filling each one halfway before sprinkling brown sugar over the tops. They go in the oven and then she scrapes some fallen batter off the bowl, licking it from her finger before finishing the icing.

  “Open.”

  She leads the spatula to my tongue, her skin smelling like citrus, and then I don’t think. I take the spatula out of her hand and drop it back into the bowl, taking her finger in my mouth instead. It’s sweet like a warm cup of coffee. The dark chocolate hits me next, making my cheeks ache, and then the tartness of the orange peel. She tastes like morning.