by OSTOW, MICOL
“It’s okay,” he says, waving his free hand at me. “You have a boyfriend.” He flushes. “I mean, not that it’s, um, the only reason you wouldn’t—”
“Don’t worry.” I toss him a lifeline.
“Right, but I mean, the point is that I knew about your boyfriend. So it was pretty sketchy to try anything. I guess I just got caught up. I hope you don’t think I’m sleazy or anything.”
“Of course not,” I assure him. “Maybe I was sending mixed signals. Noah and I were in sort of a holding pattern.”
“Were?” he asks.
“Yeah, we broke up. That’s why Lucy brought me out tonight. We both needed some cheering up.”
“Good thing Rafael decided to stay home, huh?” Ricky asks.
“Right,” I say. I stare at Ricky and all at once adore him even more than I would have thought possible. He doesn’t react at all to the news of my newfound singledom, doesn’t say anything that would make me feel pressured or uncomfortable. The question of kissing him comes back to me like a hazy watercolor, not something I am quite ready for just here and now, but a free-form possibility. If and when the time is right.
I realize that I trust myself to know when the time is right.
“Well,” Ricky says, finishing his cigarette and stomping it out underneath his sneaker, “shall we?”
“We shall,” I say agreeably.
He holds his arm out for me like Fred Astaire or some other icon of a classier age. I link my arm through his, and we return to the club.
The light is on in the living room when we return home. I shoot Lucy a look as she kills the engine, coasts into the driveway.
She shrugs. “What are we gonna do?” she asks. I can’t think of a way to get from the back door to our bedrooms without passing the living room. We’re busted.
Oh, well. Even if Tía Rosa grounds us—and I’m pretty sure that she will—it was totally worth it. We get out of the car and lock it up, head off to meet our doom.
But it’s my mother, not Tía Rosa, in the living room, still with a pen-level crossword. She looks up at us as we sheepishly tiptoe past. I brace for a rebuke, but it doesn’t come. Instead my mother does something curious indeed: she winks. “Can’t sleep.”
I wrinkle my forehead in confusion, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Yeah, neither could we.”
She grins. “You’d better get to bed before Rosa wakes up.” And that’s it; she’s back to her crossword.
So we do.
Two weeks later Rosa has a huge dinner for our entire extended Puerto Rican family. It’s like the wake all over again, except minus my father and Max, and this time it’s a happy occasion. The house teems with brown-skinned faces, long, lacquered fingernails, backwards baseball caps, beer, sangria, rum, and for the minors, punch.
“Ay, mami, you made the sangría?” José calls to me.
“Sí, señor,” I reply. “Lucy and I were soaking and chopping fruit all morning.” It’s true; I have the stained fingertips to prove it.
“Not bad, muchacha. Not bad for a gringa,” he says, teasing.
“Excuse me,” I say huffily. “I believe you mean nuyorican .”
José’s girlfriend, finally here in what must be the single most marathon incident of meet-the-family, giggles beside him and snuggles up against him. Her name is Angela, and she looks a little bit like Jessica Alba. She’s so soft-spoken and friendly that it’s impossible not to like her. It’s also impossible not to see just how much José adores her. And I give her huge credit for being here, for not being overwhelmed by all of us.
I give me huge credit for not being overwhelmed by all of us. Or, really, for just being us.
“Emily, que tal?” It’s Juan, Eva’s youngest.
“Nada mucho,” I say. “¿Y tú?”
“Eh, work is crazy,” he says, matter-of-fact. He’s a mechanic, Lucy told me. It sounds like the sort of thing that isn’t much fun when it’s crazy. But he seems not to mind too much. “So, you’re going home tomorrow. Time flies, huh? Tell me, nuyorican, are you sorry to be going back?”
Lucy passes by toting a platter of plátanos. I eagerly spear one. “She’s not going,” she says, overhearing the tail end of our conversation. “Change of plans.”
“Lucy got me a job working at the mall with her,” I say. “So I’m going to stay here for the rest of the summer. I’m going to share Lucy’s room.”
With Isabelle and Adrienne gone, there wasn’t much for me to do back home but get a job, so no reason, my mother and I decided, that I couldn’t just work down in Puerto Rico.
Tía Rosa was fine with it since, as she put it, I’ve been such a milagro, a miracle around the house.
That’s me, miraculous.
“Espérate, you have to hear the best part,” Lucy says, dashing quickly outdoors to deposit the platter down on the buffet. She runs back in, slightly out of breath. “We’re going on a road trip before school starts. The end of August. We’re gonna do the chick bonding thing. Like Thelma and Louise. With no suicide at the end.”
“But maybe with Brad Pitt,” I chime. “Or a reasonable facsimile.”
“Bring on the hotties!” Lucy says, doing an excited little dance in place.
“Rosa’s letting you do that?” Juan asks, incredulous. “No way.”
Lucy nods. “I know, I couldn’t believe it either. But Gloria spoke to her.”
From where we stand, I can see my mother through the kitchen window, holding a glass of punch and gesturing animatedly, responding to something that Rosa is saying.
“So, Emily doesn’t get to go cross-country this summer, but she does get to see the Puerto Rican countryside,” Lucy says, amiable. “It’s the next-best thing.”
She’s wrong, of course. About it being the next-best thing. It’s not. It’s just different. Way, way different than I had imagined my summer ending. But it’s certainly not a consolation prize. I smile at Lucy. “You have no idea,” I say. “Nada.”
Acknowledgments
Muchas gracias to Eloise Flood, Kristen Pettit, and all of the Razorbills for being amazing friends and inspiring colleagues alike; to Bonnie Bader, Jon Goodspeed, and Debra Dorfman for supporting my moonlighting and never complaining when I get to work late; to Kristen Kemp for a much-needed kick in the tail; to my dad, who taught me everything I needed to know about Jewish guilt and new-wave Zionism (separate but related!); to my brother David, a genuine nuyorican and the most interesting person I know; to my grandfather Morty and in memory of my grandmother Miriam, who have taught me never to settle for anything less than excellence; to the greater Ostow clan and all of my friends (who are far too indulgent, I must say); to Jodi Reamer, for endless good faith; and to Noah, for unprecedented levels of awesomeosity and big-time laughs.
About the Author
Micol Ostow is half Puerto Rican, half Jewish, half editor, half writer, half chocolate, half peanut butter. When she’s under deadline she’s often half asleep. She believes that the sum is greater than the parts except in the case of Chubby Hubby ice cream. She lives in New York City where she reads, runs, and drinks way too much coffee. Visit Micol at micolostow.com.
