I smile simply because she thinks she knows it all. And what the hell. Maybe she does. But then again, she might be wrong. I jam up the radio, squeeze Neruda to me and stare at the cars rushing by us. She swerves in and out of lanes, passing cars as smoothly as if she were gliding down a water slide.
I lower the music. “You think Olivia, CC and Aracelys will forgive me for lying?” These were my good friends at school, since I can remember. I dread the response.
“They were the worst. You know how dramatic Olivia and CC are. The drama queens said they’d rather lick scum off toilets than be your friend again. They’re pissed you fooled them. If they don’t get over it, they were never your friends.”
My heart is feeling something heavy.
“Don’t stress, Shyly. You’ve got me and all my friends. Who cares about those stupid thugs, anyway.”
Soli never hung with CC, Olivia or Aracelys. I’d spend time in recess either with them or with Soli and her friends. They didn’t dislike one another; it’s just that they had nothing in common. CC, Olivia and Aracelys are into impressing others with the schools they plan to attend, like Yale and Harvard. The truth is the only thing their parents can afford is a community college. To Soli, those three are transparent, self-indulgent, ego-centered snobs. To me, they’re just giving the world glimpses of what they’d really like to do if they had the money.
On the other hand, CC and Olivia dislike Soli because she says it like it is and spends far too much time with me.
Soli asks me to tell her every gory detail about what happened with my mom. I let it spill.
“Your mom’s a nutsack.” She slaps my cheek. “You’ll be all right, Shylypop. You’re staying with us. Don’t you worry. Mima and I adore you.”
I love Soli to death and back to resurrection, too. I guess I’m lucky to have a great friend I’m tight with.
As she drives and we bop our heads to the music, I think about some of the wacky things Soli and I have done. Like the time she motivated a bunch of school friends to spy on our science teacher, a renowned celibate, Ms. Asunción (better known as: Ms. Ass) with a remote control robot we’d given her as a present—Soli bought it at a spy store, and it had a teeny hidden microphone installed deep inside its head. We, and the rest of our mutual friends (the ones we both like), were thrilled to hear Ms. Ass talk about us in the staff room. We felt she was far too stunning to be celibate. The entire school thought she and Ms. Mariela Lagos were lovers. Sadly, we never found out anything scandalous.
I bet next year CC and Olivia will tell Ms. Ass what we did. Luckily, I won’t be there to get in trouble. Unfortunately, I’ll miss our good-humored tricks no one found out about because we were such exemplary students.
Soli dumps me in her front yard and yells to her mom, “Mima, Shyly’s in bad shape!”
Viva comes to me, picks me up by the waist, and swings me around. “Shylita!” Her eyes light up so much, it makes her pastel pink polyester housedress look even brighter. She doesn’t make me feel ashamed or embarrassed, like Mami, Fart Face and my “ex” friends made me feel. So I try to act normal and give her a bunch of besitos on her cheek.
Soli lets Neruda loose from the front seat. She runs full speed to me, as if I were a steak on the loose.
“Later, gators!” Soli waves goodbye. She booked just two people for haircuts today and is leaving for work early. She works cutting hair at Heads Up, where she meets more guys than most people have hair on their head.
Don’t let Soli’s stories of one day wanting to climb snowcapped mountains and teaming up with me to turn black burbling oceans from capsized oil into crispy clean waters veer you from her true nature. Her biggest passion? Boys.
I carry Neruda in my arms so she doesn’t run after Soli’s car. I sing to her, “Nerudini Miniweeni wore a size three bikini. I took the poet to the beach, now she thinks she’s a genie.” In case you’re wondering, I have two sides to me: a deep thinker and a ditzy blonde.
She licks my face as if I were a snow cone.
“Nerudi is full of sand, Shylita. You need to take her a bath.” Viva pushes my hair away from my face. “Soli tell me what happen.” Her tiny slanted eyes show concern. “I is so sorry, mijita. Your mami and those teachers has a lot to learn in this life. Your mami will come around. She just be in shock. You and Nerudi is welcome to stay here until she lets you back. And if she no let you back home, you stay here forever.”
I let out a long sigh of relief that must have been stuck in my spleen.
You can fool yourself into believing people you care about will always love you, no matter what. It isn’t until they take action and prove it, one way or the other, that you’ll truly know for sure.
“But you must keep in touch with your mami and tell her where you is living. Keep tings organized and take care of Nerudi so she no ruin nothing. She cannot do caca or pipi in the duplex. Okay?”
I kiss her café-colored cheeks. “Thanks, Vivalini. I’ll organize every day. And don’t worry. I’ve trained Nerudi to not poop or pee indoors.”
If she’s so kind to help me, I’ll make sure I’ll be at my best behavior and help her as much as I can, too.
I place my little mud-ball on the ground and she runs after a lizard.
Viva starts in about how I need to register at another school right away and finish my education.
“I’d rather pierce my eyeballs and get a tattoo of Sai Mu on my chin than go back to school.” Sai Mu is a swami guru with an Afro she’s in love with, but she won’t admit it. She drools when she looks at his pictures, which, by the way, are in a collage framed and hung on one of her bedroom walls. I try to be funny, just to get out the pain that’s stuck inside me.
“Ay, Shylita.” She lets out a sweet laugh, like a lullaby.
I dash through the doors and pass Viva’s altar to Sai Mu surrounded by mangos, bananas, tangerines, stones and leaves. The duplex smells fruity fresh and it livens my spirits.
Viva scoops up my little fleabag and follows me indoors. I leave a text for Soli: pick up my things from behind the cherry bush after work.
6—La Gringa
Viva left to clean a house—what she does for a living—as I was scrubbing Neruda clean. Finally, I’m showering.
I’ve been blocking thoughts from my brain while soaping myself and humming songs my dad sang to me as a kid. He’d make his voice go deep and strong, then high and soft. He’d sing:
Shylita, my chiquitica
is the cutest mariposita . . .
Every day when he arrived from work I’d hide behind the front door and “boo” him as he walked inside. He’d place a hand to his heart, turn his head left, then right, and say in a quavering voice, “Bring back my daughter, spirit. I can’t live without her.” I’d appear before him and fling my arms around him. He’d pick me up and swing me around. “She’s alive!” he’d scream and eat me up in little kisses. There was nothing like curling up in my dad’s arms and feeling loved, safe and protected.
I miss my dad. If he were alive today, he’d have put those teachers in their place. Papi would have never allowed my mom to kick me to the curb.
I hear loud bangs and turn off the shower. Boonga-boom-boom! I can tell it’s Soli banging on the front door. She’s got a key. I know she’s knocking just to bother me.
I’ve stayed to sleep here many nights. The first time she knocked that way I thought she needed my help. I dashed to open the door with my heart in my mouth. She cracked up at my expression. Her ways don’t fool me anymore; I’m onto all of them.
Neruda rushes to the door and barks up a storm.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” I dry up in Soli’s room and scramble around in my bag for my jean shorts and green, holey, sleeveless T. I slip on my sandals, jump over piles of Soli’s clothes, get to the living room, and swing the door open.
Soli bolts through it. I try my best to crack a smile. “Wasss up, Hootchi Momma?”
“You’re up, Shylypop! And I won’t let you
get bummed!” She picks me up, throws me over her shoulder, drops me on the flowered peach and orange couch, and holds my wrists down.
I struggle to get out from under her. “Get off me!” She’s got me pinned down good and has started to tickle my stomach. Twisting and turning, I howl, “Stop!”
“See, I win every time, ha!” she smiles triumphantly. She takes my face with both hands, presses her lips to my forehead, and kisses me with her usual loud, Muuua! “Eat your Wheaties for breakfast and spinach for dinner, you big wussy. You ain’t nothin’ but a wimpy fembo.”
Soli and I have always loved goofing off. Introspective as I may be, I’ve always been an extrovert, like her.
But Soli doesn’t get that right now I need silence and peace, something I’ve never craved. The day-to-day rowdiness that comprised our happy lives seems like something of the past. I just can’t get into the playful banter we always had going. I don’t want to push her away, but I’m in no mood to fool around. Still, I’ll do my best to make her feel I’m okay.
I unexpectedly pinch her left boob and she lets out a ballistic laugh. I push her off me and rake my dripping wet hair back with all ten fingers. I pass the arched entrance into the bright orange kitchen filled with spider plants and hanging copper pots.
A gringa-looking girl with shoulder-length strawberry-colored hair, green eyes, and long arms and legs follows Soli into the kitchen. “Shyly, this is Rynn. She’s a lezzie.” She turns to the girl. “Rynn, this is Shai, but you can call her any nickname you want. She has dozens.” That’s true. It all started the day CC proclaimed, “No one without a nickname will be accepted into our Honorable Ho’s Club. Nicknames for everybody!” The club was started by Aracelys. She wanted to befriend girls who wouldn’t lie or gossip (what a crazy idea, since that’s what girls normally thrive on). That day, everyone had a different nickname for me. They had no clue I was the only one in our group who’d withheld information that kept them from getting a real glimpse into my true life, or I might not have been considered an “honorable” enough member to join.
I guess I can see why they’re so pissed. But then again, how praiseworthy and respectable is it to shun a friend simply because she likes girls? Well, maybe it’s because I lied, but a fib can be easily forgiven. I have an inkling it’s all about my sexual preferences.
I couldn’t help lying. I didn’t mean any harm. Even if Marlena hadn’t been so terrified of my telling anyone about her, I probably wouldn’t have told my friends about me, either. Who cares how I spend my private time, anyway? So what if I invented a boyfriend in Spain who expressed his undying love for me by Skype and e-mails? They should forgive me and get that I was scared to tell them about me for fear of losing them. I knew enough about them to know they were always making fun of dykes and making grotesque faces and remarks if they thought a girl liked them.
“Hey.” We kiss each other hello. Rynn stands up against a wall with arms folded over her chest. She barely moves and reminds me of a lamppost.
I have a gut feeling Soli’s bringing her here so I can start having lezzie friends to chill with. Rynn is really attractive. I have trouble looking straight into her eyes.
I pour ground Café Bustelo into the coffeemaker and before I can ask her about herself, Soli begins:
“Shyly’s a trip. She loves to paint. She can’t live without e-books, nerdy romantic music, and she turns old men’s golfing polyester checkered pants into shorts and bandanas. She’s Green and visits homeless and sick kids at shelters. She’s going to change the world and is antichemicals, against pollution, hates pesticides and she rarely eats meat,” she tells La Gringa, as if she gave a royal raccoon’s whisker.
“I eat everything, but I’d rather spare some animals’ lives when possible,” I tell Rynn and turn to Soli. “How would you like it if people roasted you and had you for dinner?”
“I wouldn’t mind. I’m sure you’ve grilled Marlena up good and taken a few bites out of her.”
When Soli and I are with a bunch of new Facebook friends, or just someone I’ve never met, she makes me the center of attention. The first few times, I didn’t know where to hide. Eventually, though, when I realized everyone got a kick out of it, I ran with it. Now, she’s starting with her mischief. She’s never talked openly about Marlena and me to anyone. I guess what happened today gives her the license to do so. She knows word’s already spread all over Miami about my lascivious acts and she feels free to loosen her tongue and say what she wishes.
“Shyly’s thinking of becoming a nun.”
“Really?” La Gringa has question marks in her eyes.
“Yup.” I try to keep on a serious face and ask if they want fruit but they don’t. I grab a plum from the fridge and bite into it with a snap. “Ninety-nine percent of nuns proclaim the right to withhold information about their sexuality. In fact, most nuns lead underground romantic lives. Right now, if we were to peek into a convent bedroom, we’d see them embracing and getting down, way down. It’s a party every night at the convent. I’m headed there tonight. Want to come?”
La Gringa chuckles.
The plum is so sour I make a face and throw it back in the fridge.
I prepare café-con-leches. The smell of freshly brewed percolated espresso fills the duplex. Soli takes a sip and adds more espresso to her cup. “Dark is better.” She’s talking about her clove-colored skin.
Rynn’s face beams brighter than a flashlight. I can tell she’s fallen for Soli. Too bad Soli’s not into girls. Rynn seems like a great catch.
We’re interrupted by a sky filled with rioting hawks in flight, and we gaze up through the bay windows in awe. They leave our sight and I catch a glimpse of mandarin and lemon trees basking in the sun. Why is there so much chaos in this world when life could always be this beautiful?
They sit on the living room floor as I grab one of my archaic CDs from my shoulder bag on the couch. I put on my favorite song, ever: “Girl from Ipanema,” by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz.
I go to the fridge, take out a box of churros, and throw it on the coffee table. I always feel at home when I’m here. In some ways, I feel as if Soli is my sister and Viva my second mom.
Soli rips open the box. “¡Grrrr . . . qué rico!” She sticks a churro in her mouth and nudges La Gringa in her skinny ribs as she crunches away. “I told you she’d put on geeky, three-hundred-year-old music, didn’t I?”
Rynn grins and her adorable, slightly buck teeth stick out.
“Where did you and Soli meet?” Her eyes dart around, checking out the wall-to-wall plastic framed paintings of saints, colorful goddess figurines, tall plastic banana plants, the mural I drew two years ago of the ocean and plastic pink chandeliered lamps (Soli’s mom decorated the place).
We answer at the same time, “La Virgencita de Guadalupe Elementary, the worst Catholic grammar school in the history of the universe!” Soli slaps her right thigh, and lifts an eyebrow.
I dunk a churro in my café-con-leche, stick it in my mouth, and munch on it. “We met in first grade. Her mom cleaned the school, and she got free tuition. Soli was the only black kid in school. She was really shy to ask others to play with her. I befriended her. We played at recess and had a blast.”
I remember all the fun times Soli and I had in elementary school, and the trouble we’d get into simply because of our rebellious nature and fast-paced brains. We were the two in class who always raised our hands first, with such enthusiasm we nearly pulled a muscle and practically fell off our seats. “I know! I know the answer! Pick me!” we’d say in unison. We’d spend all day studying together at Soli’s house after school (the bus dropped us off here, and then my mom picked me up after she got home from work) and so we were confident we knew all the answers.
Then there were the times I disagreed with teachers when they weren’t prepared. If I got told to go to the back of the room for disrupting the class (informing educators their research was way off), Soli joined me on her own accord. “I agree with Shyly.�
�� At the end of the day, teachers took a liking to us and never really punished us or gave us detentions. How could they? We always handed work in on time and were too eager to learn, please and get good grades.
She smiles proudly as she texts a few of her boy toys. “Shyly’s my closest friend.”
“It’s good you had Shai for a friend.” La Gringa sips her café-con-leche slowly, as if scared of finding a goldfish in it.
Soli dives in. “Shyly just got thrown out of school and her house.” She explains the reason my mother kicked me out. My stomach starts to burn something terrible. Rynn listens calmly.
I feel vulnerable as Soli talks about my texts in vivid detail. I don’t want to think about what happened anymore. I avert my eyes to the windows, gaze up, and see the aqua sky floating by as if it were an ocean of clouds.
Rynn doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “No big deal. Those texts were sweet. You should see the ones my ex and I sent each other.” She turns to Soli. “Shai’s uncomfortable. She’s looking away from us. Let’s talk about something else.”
I’m impressed by her sensitivity.
The conversation twirls to the fact Rynn is single. She likes to date many girls without getting attached so one day she can find the right one. “I’ve never been in love,” she says. She’s got a lot in common with Soli.
Rynn spins the subject around and speaks about the ultrachic haircut she wants Soli to give her. I’m in my own world, thinking about my day, when Rynn touches my shoulder and my thoughts dissolve and shift to her. She wants to tell us a “story.” Soli and I prick up our ears.
“Last year on spring break my mom came to visit us from Oregon. After their divorce, she and my dad still get along. We went to Kingdom COMEedy, a teen street drag show with my drag queen brother Joaquin. Our mom dressed him up and he performed as ‘Tatiana Titi.’”
Soli and I burst out laughing.
“Tatiana Titi and her gag partner, Temper Tantrum, dressed to kill. They wore outrageously colorful feathered outfits and tall, thick wigs. They performed the funniest comedy act you’ve ever seen. The crowds were in stitches, until Tatiana Titi changed her tacky clothes and transformed into Joy, an elegant girl.” She looks away from us, then down to the floor. “The audience became dead silent when Joy sang a love song whose lyrics she wrote.” She pauses a moment, then goes on. “She got the biggest standing ovation. Then, out of nowhere, Reina appears from the back of the stage. She hugged her so hard and told the audience she wanted Tatiana Titi to be on her next Drag Me Down TV show!”
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