“Where’s everyone else?” I ask him. The house is so silent.
“Oh, my mom forgot the Cuban bread and tres leches, so she and my dad ran back out to get it. Dalia is at her boyfriend’s house. They got into a fight last night at homecoming, so she’ll be over there kissing his butt for a while. And mi abuelo is outside talking to the ducks. So…” His voice trails off.
“So…” I repeat, watching him. He’s staring at me like he’s considering my face.
“I like your hair like that. Straight.” He leans forward and passes his fingertips over a strand of stray hair before brushing it behind my ear. “It’s really soft.”
His breath is hot on my face. His glance is unnerving. The tingling sensation returns quickly and glides down my belly over my thighs and settles behind my kneecaps. They feel weak, and I’m thankful that I have the stool to support my wobbly body. I’m mesmerized by him, by how a single touch from him can make me feel sexy. I’ve never felt sexy in my life. Before this moment, I would have never known how to describe what that word truly means. But now with Danny Diaz’s penny eyes piercing through me, I feel sexy. And it feels strange and awkward and beautiful all at the same time.
“I got something that I want to show you.” Danny pops off the stool and motions for me to follow with his hand. I don’t have to ask him where we’re going. I know we’re going to his bedroom.
“I borrowed it today from Mike Spitzer. He’s one of the guys on the team.”
I hover in his doorway, afraid to enter. My leg is brushing against his perfectly made bed with the pillow neatly tucked underneath his plaid Tommy Hilfiger comforter. I feel a lump forming in my throat, and I’m not even sure if I can speak. I want to sit on that bed with Danny. I want him to kiss me. In the corner, with his back to me, Danny is fidgeting with something. When he turns to face me, he holds out an acoustic guitar. “See,” he says simply, as if I should know what he means.
“How did you know I play?” I ask, surprised.
“Marisol told me. I talked to her last night at homecoming.” He smiles and pushes the guitar forward. “I thought maybe you would play something for me.”
Play for him. I don’t know what to say to that. Nobody had ever asked me to play for them—ever. “You and Marisol talked about me?” I ask quietly. He nods his head. “At homecoming?” I repeat. He nods his head again. “How was it? How was homecoming?” I ask. It’s something I’ve wanted to ask him since I walked through the door.
“Okay, I guess.” He presses the guitar into my hands. “If you’re into that kind of thing. Would you?” he asks, pointing at the guitar.
In my hands, the guitar is cold and foreign and comforting. I strum it casually, trying to find the courage to give him what he really wants from me. “I really want to hear you play,” he tells me, closer this time. He is just a fiber of carpet away.
“Do you like Marisol?” I say, stepping two fibers back. This question is urgently important to me. Anything to take us away from THIS.
“Marisol’s cool.” He pounds lightly on the wall with his fist.
“And?” I prompt him.
“And what?” The pounding increases. He looks over at me; his eyes burn holes through my heart. “She’s nice. We talked last night at the dance when I was standing by the restroom waiting for…Tamara.” He looks down, like he’s aware that the mention of her name might ruin THIS.
“Sit.” He drags me onto his bed, then scoots away from me as if I am on fire. He watches me expectantly. “Play,” he instructs.
I rest the guitar on my knee and clear my mind, and then I pluck a whisper of a melody from some far-off place that I haven’t quite seen. I hum it so that I can remember and let my fingers know what they are expected to play, and then, after I close my eyes and listen, I began to play with confidence. Before I know it I am singing, my voice husky, wobbly, and afraid. But still I am singing.
I sang a lullaby as if to soothe your soul
And I sang it in a whisper to be heard by you alone
And in the moonlight of the night
I saw your lovely face
And I wondered if you’d comfort me…
Or if you’d let me stay.
The words flow smoothly, like a sunny day in the back of my house, sitting between the palm trees that border my garden. In my mind, I picture Marisol there, feet propped over the edge of her bench, fingers curling in and out, eyes lost in the skies.
I was lost inside your eyes
Lost inside your depth
Lost to everything but the sound of your own breath
And I wondered where you’d go
I wondered what you’d see
And I wondered if you’d realize the love inside of me.
I play the chords. I know them well. Only a few weeks ago, I had cried while writing this song. I told myself I wasn’t crying for anyone in particular, but for the beauty of the words, their longing. Now I wasn’t so sure.
To the very end, I play with my eyes shut. When I finish, I lay the guitar in my lap and hum a little longer. My body is filled with electrical currents and bridges of uncertainty. I feel raw and exposed, like I handed Danny the keys to my diary and asked that he read it all out loud and understand.
Danny says something to quiet the silence. A heartbeat after the words leave his mouth, I have already forgotten them. I don’t care about what he says, but how he says it. My whole body aches from his tone. I have mesmerized him.
I open my eyes, and frown at their wetness.
“That song,” is all he says now.
“Yes,” I say, “that song.”
“That song,” he repeats, as if I should know.
“Yes,” I tell him. “That song.” And then, when it is inevitable, “I know.”
dinner is not what i feared. there is no fancy china pattern to contend with, Dalia (thankfully) does not wear her tiara, and Danny’s father is not stuffy and he doesn’t bore us to death by speaking about adult subject matters such as foreign policy and the Republicans’ proposed tax cut for the upcoming year.
It’s much better than that. There are plates that don’t match and a chipped dining room table. There are his parents and Dalia. There is Danny and me. There is his cat, Max, and his grandfather who saves bread underneath the table to give to the ducks later that day. And I smile the whole way through, because dinner is nothing like what I expected and everything that I hoped it would be.
“What does your father do?” Mr. Diaz asks somewhere between the Cuban bread and the rice and beans.
“He’s a literature professor at UM,” I tell him.
“And your mother?”
“Um, she died in a car accident when I was nine.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Diaz says.
“Oh,” Mr. Diaz says.
“I’m sorry, Susie. We didn’t know,” Mrs. Diaz apologizes. And Mr. Diaz shakes his head sympathetically, while Dalia looks away. Danny reaches for my hand underneath the table and then like a dream quickly takes it away.
“I didn’t know,” he says, looking at me, like I’m new to him, like in someway it all makes sense.
“I don’t like to talk about it.” I pick at my food. Shove broccoli around. Apparently, Dalia takes this as a signal to change the subject.
“Mami,” she says, “are we or are we not going to Cuba this year?”
The conversation moves fast from there. Danny’s parents tell me about their trips to Cuba and Spain and Portugal. I have seen the world, too, I tell his mom. My dad has a set of coffee table books that explore international travel. Danny laughs, and even Dalia smiles. It’s all back to normal after that. And the best part is that I know I am a hit.
At the dinner table, I am a star.
after dinner, i follow mrs. diaz into the kitchen. i help her scrape leftover rice and black beans into containers. Then I offer to help her with dishes. “I don’t mind,” I assure her. “Really.”
“Thanks.” She smiles at me, the ends of her lips flutter
ing. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always preferred to wash dishes by hand. My husband thinks I’m being stubborn, and you know what, maybe I am.”
She fills the sink with soapy water and gives me a long look. “I wanted to thank you for coming over to dinner tonight. It really means a lot to us. We’re really appreciative of you taking your time to help Danny pass this class.”
“Thanks,” I say softly. It was one of the nicest things an adult has ever said to me. “Thanks a lot.” I dig my hands into the suds and feel the sting of the hot water. Mechanically, I begin to wash. I like washing dishes. It gives me time to think.
And right now, I’m thinking, why did I follow Mrs. Diaz into the kitchen instead of sitting just fifteen feet away in the family room with Danny?
Hmm…Because if I went to the family room, I might eventually be left alone with Danny, the voice in my head answers back—that is, after Dalia got tired of painting her toenails, and their grandfather finished reading El Nuevo Herald, and their father stopped snoozing in the La-Z-Boy recliner. But still, eventually it might have happened. And then what?
I still don’t know why Danny invited me here. There are really only two logical reasons:
He likes me.
He likes Tamara, but still wants to thank me for being such a good tutor girl.
Nothing good can come from me obsessing about this now, so I sneak a glance at Mrs. Diaz. She’s rinsing the dishes as I hand them to her, placing them in the dish rack next to her. We are totally in sync.
I like Mrs. Diaz. I like the way her voice curves when she speaks. And the way she seems to be aware of everyone else’s needs. Like at dinner, she made sure everyone was served before she sat down. And there are the other little things. The way she rubs Danny’s hand every time he makes her laugh. The way that Dalia, with her reputation as the wicked witch of OG, loosens up around her. The way that I can suddenly say what I think; admit the things that hurt me; confess to Danny that my mother is dead; and, afterward, hear those words ring in my ears without wanting to cry. Mrs. Diaz is like a great equalizer. Like, suddenly, the world is a little straighter when you’re standing next to her.
“You know, my mother lost her mother at a very young age. I never even got to meet her,” she tells me suddenly. Her voice is wistful. It surprises me. I drop a dish into the suds, sending bubbles splashing everywhere. Mrs. Diaz laughs. The sound gets stuck in her throat and tumbles out in small bits.
“I used to feel so sad for my mother when she’d pull out old photo albums and stare at her pictures.” Mrs. Diaz shakes her head. Her eyes are distant, like she’s back with her mother, back with those photo albums. “The love for a mother is phenomenal,” she says, speaking for the both of us.
“I’m sorry.” She wipes her hands with a dish towel. She turns to me. I look down, embarrassed. She rubs my shoulder with one dry hand. “I like you very much, Susie. You are an amazing girl. And, believe it or not, those are Danny’s words, not mine.” She takes a dish from my hand and dries it. “Which is why I want to share with you something about me, something personal.”
I don’t know what to say. Somehow I manage to lift my chin and look directly at her.
“About ten years ago when Danny and Dalia were only six, my mother died. I was heartbroken. The kids were heartbroken, too. We all lived together in Texas—one big, happy Cuban family unit. My father”—she points to her father, sitting next to Danny on the family room sofa—“was crushed. He could barely function. I had the hardest time getting him to eat. Basically, he wanted to die.”
I look over at Danny’s grandfather—Emmanuel is his name—and I try to picture him being so depressed. He doesn’t seem to have the personality for it, not with the way he sits there silently chuckling to himself over the Sunday funnies.
“I know.” Mrs. Diaz follows my eyes. “It’s hard to believe now, but it’s true.”
“So what did you do?” Suddenly, it’s super-important that I learn how Mrs. Diaz managed to resurrect her dad from the living dead. It’s super-important because maybe I know someone whom I’d like to resurrect from the living dead.
“I didn’t do anything. I mean, I tried.” She makes the sign of the cross. “God knows I tried. But in the end, it took time.”
“How much time?” I ask, my voice filled with disappointment.
She shakes her head sadly and places her hand next to mine on the countertop. “I’m afraid it took quite a bit of time.”
“Oh.” My body slumps a little, and I think about my dad, about how dating Leslie hasn’t brought him back to life (not that I wanted him to come back to life for her, but still). How much more time can I give him? How much more time did we have before I stopped caring at all?
“Do you want to see something?” Mrs. Diaz walks out of the kitchen and returns a minute later with a photo album opened to a picture of a young bride and groom. “Isn’t she beautiful?” I look at the photo and then back to Mrs. Diaz. They’re nearly identical, except that Mrs. Diaz is like twenty years older than the woman in the picture was.
“Can I look?” I ask.
“Sure.” Mrs. Diaz hands me the photo album and turns back to the half-tidied kitchen.
I lean against the countertop, Mrs. Diaz flittering around me, and start to flip through the pages. There are tons and tons of photos of friends, family, parties, and life. There is so much life in these pages. “Is this you?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She turns toward me. “That was my quince party. You know, my sweet fifteen.”
I turn the album back around and cradle it in my arms. The pages are worn, like someone has spent a lot of time reliving these memories. “Is this your album?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says over her shoulder. “My mother made it for me a few years before she died. But”—her voice stretches thin as she reaches up to put a wineglass back in the cabinet—“my father keeps it in his room these days. He likes to remember.”
“Oh.” I flip the page to the very beginning and stop at an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo. It is a picture of Mrs. Diaz, about age ten. She is being held in her mother’s arms. The girl smiles at the camera. Smiles at me. Pushes me to feeling things inside me, things that I haven’t felt in so long.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Diaz places her hand over mine. “You keep shaking your head.”
There are so many things that I want to tell her. All these thoughts and feelings that have been sitting on the tip of my tongue for years. Words that I can’t even say to Marisol, words that I can barely say to myself, but, for some reason, now, here with Mrs. Diaz, I want to say them all.
But once again, I can’t. I’m just not ready.
“I’m fine.” I thrust the photo album back at Mrs. Diaz. “I’m fine.” But I’m not. I’m really not. In less than a week it will be the six-year anniversary of my mother’s death and to me, it still feels like yesterday. What if there are some wounds that time can’t heal? What if certain people—people like my father, people like me—can live a lifetime without ever being capable of letting go of the hurt? I hope it’s not true, but what if it is? Is it always going to be like this for me?
She squeezes my hand. “You know, Susie, I just might understand,” she says quietly.
“Oh.” I shake my head, embarrassed. I use all my energy to make my eyes meet hers. “I’m fine…Is there a bathroom that I can use? I think I drank too much water.”
“Sure.” She smiles kindly at me, that same smile that Danny gave me in the yearbook line. Kind. Reassuring. Forgiving. “There’s one down the hall.”
“Thanks.” I speed-walk to the bathroom, and even then with it being barely seven strides away, I make it just before the tears start to fall. I turn on the faucet, sit on the toilet, and listen to the water run and run. I ask myself all the questions that I’ve asked myself before. I ask myself all the questions that never change: Why can’t I let this go? Why can’t I move on?
And then I give myself the only answer that I know:
<
br /> Because she loved me. And I loved her. She loved me, and I’ll never be the same.
TWENTY-FOUR
falling
“what happened to you?” the next day at school danny finds me in the library, deep in the reference section.
“What do you mean?” I don’t really look him in the eyes. I’m still too embarrassed.
“My mom said that one minute you guys were talking and the next minute you were gone.” He turns me so that we are facing each other in the aisle. “Hey,” he says, lifting my chin up. “I’m talking to you.”
“That’s all she said?” My voice quivers a bit because his hand is still on my chin.
“Yeah.” His hand drops to his side, and he kind of takes a step back. “Yeah,” he repeats, his voice a little husky.
He takes a deep breath. “Are you, um, okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell him, but I know that I’m not. Everything is slipping, slipping away. I turn back to the reference books and busy myself looking for something, although I don’t remember what. Maybe if I just busy myself enough, he’ll leave me alone and go back to his friends. I don’t know why he talks to me so much lately or why when no one is looking, he finds all these little ways to touch me. I don’t understand anything about Danny except sometimes when he looks at me, it’s like he really sees me. ME. Why that matters, I don’t know. But it does.
Not Anything Page 12
