Juliet Takes a Breath

by Gabby Rivera

  “Nena, pick up some recao, cilantro, and tomato sauce. Oh, and something sweet. I love you,” Mom said, shouting into the phone. In her mind, her shout was the softest indoor voice; good luck to whoever said otherwise. I held the phone away from my ear instead of ever telling her that she was, in fact, shouting.

  The Imperial Supermarket never had fresh fruits or vegetables. Every package of meat had a greyish tint to it. Everything in that place was mad suspect, but it was the only market we had within walking distance from the house. The group of bro-dudes from the train passed me in the canned vegetable aisle and one of them said, “Hey, mami, you lookin’ good. What’s up with your number”?

  I didn’t answer him. I focused on the can of 65-cent tomato sauce in my hands. The boys stared directly into my skin. Their eyes were on the seams of my dark blue jeans. I felt them unhooking my bra with their gaze. Every way this group of man/boys could possibly assault me flashed through my head. I backed up further as they formed a semicircle around me.

  “I said you lookin’ mad good. What’s up, you too good to say hello?” he asked. His cheap, tattoo-party tattoos showed from beneath his beater T: A lion on his right arm, a crucifix on the left, and the name “Joselys” across his neck.

  “Hi, I’m gay and I’m not interested.” My cheeks flushed bright red, I couldn’t breathe. Why did I say that? Jesus. I gripped the can of tomato sauce. With fluorescent lights above me, stained white tiles under my feet, and a circle of machismo incarnate around me, where was the space to run?

  “That’s a damn shame. Maybe you just need that good D, like the one I got,” he said as he grabbed his crotch. He gave himself a good up and down stroke, staring directly at me. All his boys gave him a pound. They laughed, salivated, and tightened their circle. A woman with a stroller pushed past their group and caused them to break formation. Tomato sauce in hand, I bolted, got the rest of the items Mom needed and headed for the checkout line. His words and gestures covered me in shame, like maybe it was my fault. I left the house that morning wearing tight Baby Phat jeans and a denim halter top that was maybe half a size too small but made my breasts look amazing. At 5’3, 165 pounds, I had all my short, brown, and thick on display and my curls were loose. I thought I looked cute, maybe too cute. Maybe I should have stuck to cargo shorts and a baggy T-shirt.

  My shame seeped into a frothing rage. The type of rage that can’t be let out because then you’d be that crazy chick that killed three dudes in the bodega and no one would even light a damn candle for you. I wondered what dudes like them really expected of girls like me in those situations? Like, did they want me to drop to my knees in the middle of the supermarket and orally worship their Ds? I prayed that La Virgen would get me out of the hood forever.

  I’d never said I was gay out loud to anyone I didn’t know. What was happening? Was I practicing? God, now those dudes were always going to know me as the dyke on the block. I imagined that they’d be offering me their “Good Ds” forever. I hated that damn Imperial Supermarket. Home, home, just had to get home. Just had to lock the doors behind me and breathe.

  My head seemed like the safest place to be most of the time. Maybe that’s a bit hyperbolic. I felt safe in my house. Our three-family home on Matilda Avenue was my fortress. It was made of red bricks and cemented together during the 1930’s when someone decided that this would be a good neighborhood for families, specifically Jewish ones. My grandma, Amalia Petalda Palante, moved into this house pregnant with my father and married to her third husband, my Grandpa Cano, in 1941. They were legit the only Puerto Ricans on the block. Everyone else was either Jewish or Italian-Catholic. But according to her, “A los Judios y los Italianos no les importaba que estábamos puertorriqueño. They cared that we kept quiet and kept the front of our house clean.” I’m sure it didn’t hurt that she brought food to her Jewish neighbors on the left and the Italians on the right. Bricks were used to build the house, but it remained standing because of her: because she scrubbed its floors ’til her knuckles bled, because she planted hydrangeas in the front yard as an act of solidarity with her neighbors and because she didn’t let anyone tell her that Puerto Ricans couldn’t live there.

  I climbed the steps to our three-story home and ran into the kitchen. Mom and Grandma Petalda held court over food simmering in calderos and pilones filled with mashed garlic and spices. I dropped the requested items for sofrito onto the counter and kissed them both on the cheeks. They snuggled me. Grandma wore her favorite purple bata and wooden chanclas. My mother was dressed in loose-fitting blue jeans and a souvenir shirt from our last trip to Miami. They were deep in dinner preparation mode so it was easy to head up to my room. All I wanted to do was finish Lainie’s mix tape and be weird with Lil’ Melvin, my kid brother, so I didn’t mind. I didn’t even care that he was already in my room, slobbering over a book and some Twix bars.

  “Don’t ever be an asshole on the streets. Don’t ever tell girls that you wanna grab their bodies or corner them in supermarkets while you touch your junk,” I said, kissing his chubby cheeks. I stole one of his candy bars and ate it to keep the tears away.

  “That is uncouth and also, gross, sister. Rabid animals get put down. Those types of heathens should, as well,” Lil’ Melvin said, looking up from his Animorphs book. “Glad you’re home. Time for you to play me those depressing white lady songs that you’re adding to Lainie’s tape.” I hugged him tighter than usual and went to work.

  I obsessed over which Ani Difranco song to add to Lainie’s tape. When we first started dating, I had no idea who Ani DiFranco was. Lainie, shocked to baby-dyke hell, made it her mission to convert me. And yo, it took a lot of work. Ani was crazy white girl shit. Her music evoked images of Irish bagpipes and stray cats howling in heat. Her garbled singing voice made my eyes water and I couldn’t ever be sure of what she was singing about. But with enough practice and encouragement from Lainie, I broke down Ani’s gay girl code and understood that I too was just a little girl in a training bra trying to figure shit out. Lainie’s mix tape needed some Ani. Lots of Ani. Enough Ani to make Lainie think of me all summer long. Five Ani songs in, I added some Queen Latifah, Selena, and TLC for balance. I wrote the names of songs and artists in black sharpie. The mix tape was for her and only her, but I still played Lil’ Melvin every song twice. If he approved, he would hold up the Live Long and Prosper sign. If not, he would give me a theatrical thumbs down. The idea of leaving him for a summer made my heart ache.

  Lil’ Melvin believed in the possibility of humans shifting shape but only into other mammals. He also knew months ago that something dark and sad was brewing inside of me. I cracked one night after a fight with Lainie and told him that she was my girlfriend girlfriend and not just a friend. He put his chubby hand on mine and offered me an unopened package of Twix. It was the best offering of acceptance a 14-year-old boy could provide. He knew tonight was the night I’d planned to let the family know that I was a big old homo. The Animorphs book series entered his life at the right time. A little shape-shifting and fantasy all helped in him being down for me and open to the possibilities of this evening. “You sure about this, sister?”

  “It has to be tonight, brother. I’ll die if I don’t speak up but they’ll kill me if I tell them.” I decorated the I’s in Lainie’s name with black bomb stickers. I’d never made a girl a mix tape before. Lainie was my first girl anything. I’d written a free verse poem about her in the margin of my purple composition notebook. It worked better in pieces, so I used it as love filler for the liner notes of the mix tape.

  “I doubt they’ll kill you. It’s not like Mom and Dad are cyborgs that’ll disintegrate you with death rays.” Lil’ Melvin slid one Twix bar into his mouth and measured the other. If they weren’t the same size, he’d email Mars and complain about their apparent lack of quality control.

  “Duh, brother, but I mean, like, die in my soul.” Eighteen songs and one Floetry skit all accounted for on the inside of the CD case. Making a mix tape was wa
y easier than announcing to the world that you’re a lesbian. I added more bomb stickers and glued a picture of Lainie and me at Lilith Fair to the back cover.

  “Spiritual death is unlikely, Juliet. Your soul would just find another creature to attach itself to and then you’d be a falcon or something. And no one cares if falcons are gay,” he said. Lil’ Melvin: philosopher, letter writer, concerned citizen, and Twix coupon hoarder. He rolled over on the bed and pressed his forehead against mine, his soft belly rested on my arm. “Let out your lesbionic truths, sister.”

  “Lesbionic. I’m keeping that word forever.” I looked up at my Virgin Mary wall clock with my hands folded behind my back, and for a second I thought she smiled at me. Lil’ Melvin slipped back into his Animorphs coma.

  The smiling faces of Selena, Ani Difranco, TLC, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie gazed down on me from the walls like patron saints on stained glass windows. Surely they understood why I wanted to come out. They waited confidently knowing that eventually I’d just have to do it. It’d be nice if one of them could have said something.

  Could I really go downstairs and get this demon off my chest? Was it really possible to exorcise yourself? I walked back and forth, following the worn path in the dark red carpeting. Prayer always freed people from possession in the movies. What kind of prayer made parents the people you needed them to be? If I went through it, I wouldn’t be able to take any of it back. I wouldn’t be able to rewind my life clock to before Lainie or before the movie Gia.

  I watched Lil’ Melvin eat Twix bars on my bed and read his book. Maybe he was right, maybe Mom and Dad really wouldn’t care that there was a gay falcon in the family.

  What was left for me to fear anyway? I’d been a nervous wreck since coming home from college. I’d avoided my parents and their questions the same way my parents avoided Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking at our door: turn off the lights, turn down the TV. No confrontation; just wait for them to go away.

  Dinnertime with the family sent me into panic mode complete with angsty silence and a carnivorous burden; I felt like if I didn’t act soon enough, we’d all be consumed by it. And really, all I could do was play awkward, nerdy, fat-girl, closeted-lesbian dodge ball with the questions directed at me.

  “No boyfriend, nena?”

  “No, too busy with student government. Oohh, are you making arroz con maíz? That’s my favorite.”

  Dodge. My portrayal of the aloof-but-diligent daughter should have been nominated for an Oscar or at least a Golden Globe. But no, instead I received pats on the head and plotted ways to get my gay secret out into the world. And by plotted ways, I mean, acted out muy dramatic scenarios in my head a la Grandma Petalda’s telenovelas. I had to tell them and it had to be before I left for Portland.

  My mother, Mariana, and my father, Ernesto, sat at the head of the table. Grandpa Cano built it out of red maple wood before I was born. Grandma Petalda sat wedged in between Lil’ Melvin, and me. Across from us were my Titi Wepa and Titi Mellie. Everyone came together for me; this was my goodbye-for-the-summer dinner. Grandma Petalda and my mom spent three hours making arroz con maíz, alcapurrias, and bistec encebollado. Leaving the Bronx was cause for celebration. Doing it by way of an internship with a published author and for college credits, merited an “all of your favorite foods” dinner. No one in my family knew exactly where Portland, Oregon, was—anywhere north of the Bronx was “upstate” and outside of New York was considered “over there somewhere”—but none of that mattered. Better to make food and have a send-off for the first-born granddaughter, me, Juliet Milagros Palante. This was how we said goodbye. We ate Puerto Rican food, used outdoor voices to tell perfectly exaggerated stories while loving so hard it hurt. The act of eating was a good excuse for me to daydream and wallow in what-ifs while Titi Wepa’s latest cop story filled the air.

  She looked each of us in the eyes while gesturing with her fork, and said “So I see this asshole rob an old lady by Yankee Stadium and I go, ‘Hey, I’m Officer Palante, get down on the ground now,’ and he says, ‘Whatever, bitch,’ and takes off running. ’Cuz I’m a chick, he thought he’d get away. I might have tits but I’ve got brains too. And I knew he was gonna go down River Ave. So I took 162nd and bing boom, I caught him. Got him down on the ground and cuffed his ass. These punks, they don’t think ahead. They’ve only got one move. Not me, baby, my brain has all the moves. Every woman needs a plan A, B, and C,” Titi Wepa said. She slapped the table to bring her point home and clinked beer bottles with Titi Mellie.

  Her story made me think of my plans. I definitely had an A and a B, but definitely not a C. Plan A: I could sit there and keep eating and when dinner was over I could get in the car with the whole family, go to JFK, say a tearful goodbye at my gate and just leave. No big gay announcement. Nothing to put this perfect night of mine off balance. Plan B: tell them I like girls and get this off my chest so that my heart can beat normally again and so that I can stop using my inhaler so much. Red pill or blue pill. Down the rabbit hole or remain asleep under the tree, dreamless and stuck. This dinner could be a straight line, if I wanted: no bumps, no bruises, turbulence-free.

  Lil’ Melvin read an Animorph book under the table. Less than interested in Titi Wepa’s latest cop tale and more connected to the idea that he too could one day morph into an animal.

  “I bet you wouldn’t be so good at chasing falcons, Titi,” Lil’ Melvin said without looking up from his book.

  “You don’t chase falcons. You shoot them,” Titi Wepa said. “And I’ve got a nine millimeter for that.”

  “Boring. Animals don’t have guns. Now, Titi, if you could fly and you flew after a falcon and caught it then, that would be the coolest thing ever.” Lil’ Melvin shoved a fork full of yellow rice and corn into his mouth.

  Titi Wepa stared at him, coughing, shaking her head. Dad got her a glass of water. Mom snuck around behind my chair, dropped a second alcapurria onto my plate. “So quiet tonight. Don’t be nervous. Idaho isn’t so far away, Poochie.” She kissed my cheeks and sat down at the end of the table.

  “Oregon, Mom. Portland, Oregon,” I said, swallowing pieces of fried plantain and spiced beef. I picked up Lil’ Melvin’s falcon cue, took a deep breath, and dove into my confession. “So, a group of boys cornered me in the supermarket and told me they had the best you-know-whats in the world. So annoying.”

  Titi Wepa and Titi Mellie laughed like I’d said something funny. My father looked up from his second plate of food and shook his head. Grandma Petalda sucked her teeth, “These boys today have no class.”

  “Boys don’t know how else to say they like you,” Titi Mellie said, her neon pink halter top trying its very best to keep all of her bits under wraps. Titi Mellie’s lipstick was the same shade of pink as her halter top, her acrylic-wrapped fingernails, and her hair scrunchie.

  “Like me? Oh stop, no boy on the block is talking about his junk to me because he likes me, Juliet, as a person,” I said, as my heart beat so damn fast I felt like I was going to faint or die, “Besides, I told him I was a lesbian and he backed off.”

  I kept my eyes fixed on the image of the Virgin Mary hanging in the kitchen.

  Titi Wepa clapped her hands. “Ah, the dyke-n-dodge trick. I’ve used that so many times. It’s a classic. Gotta be careful though, sometimes that revs up their little pingas even more.” Titi Mellie nodded her head in agreement as if wisdom of the ages was being passed on to me.

  “Ay, you know we don’t use that kind of language at the table,” Mom said, standing up again, re-filling my father’s plate for the third time. Her hips swayed under a Puerto-Rican flag apron. “Why didn’t you just tell them that you have a boyfriend?”

  She had her questions and I had mine. “Why lie? I don’t have a boyfriend. I think I’m a lesbian,” I said. My words felt like they were being sucked out of me. They lingered in the air above our red Maplewood dining room table, compact and ready to be tucked away. I thought for sure there’d be an earthquake of some ki
nd after my revelation. Nope.

  Titi Wepa added some salt to her bistec encebollado. “If not having a boyfriend made people lesbians, Mellie would be running her own parade,” Titi Wepa said, her mouth full of food. Lil’ Melvin snorted, his laughter bubbled up around the table until even Grandma Petalda joined in. Not even Mom took my declaration seriously.

  “Ok, enough of this crazy talk,” she said, smiling. Mom raised her glass of sweet pink moscato on ice. “Tonight Juliet is leaving the Bronx and going away for an amazing internship. Let’s toast to her college career, her brave spirit, and to making all of us so proud.” Everyone around the table raised their glasses and looked at me. In each of their faces, I saw different versions of who I was. This was all happening way too fast. How had I lost my moment?

  “Stop. Everyone just stop,” I said as I pushed my plate away. “Thank you for all of this but listen to me. I am gay. Gay gay gay. I’ve been dating Lainie for the past year. This isn’t a joke. I’ve been wondering for weeks how to tell you all and this is the best I’ve got. I’m definitely a lesbian.”

  No one moved or laughed, no bottles clinked. From the window, sounds of the # 2 and #5 trains screeching away from their shared track filtered into the dining room. Grandma Petalda was the only one still eating. I set free the elephant, the falcon, or whatever kind of animal spilled its truth onto dining room tables. Was this what ferocious cunts did? I didn’t feel ferocious. The smoldering discomfort that rose in my chest was humidity: thick, oppressive humidity.

  There was nowhere to look. Titi Wepa polished off another beer. Titi Mellie checked the length of her acrylic nails. Mom stared at me from across the table.

  “It’s this book, isn’t it? This book about vaginas has you messed up in the head and confused,” she said, looking past me, anywhere but at me. Her voice heavy but not accusatory. My father reached out for her hand and held it.

  “No, it’s not Raging Flower. I love Lainie. It’s never felt like this with a boy,” I said. Tears betrayed the tiny bit of strength in my voice. Lil’ Melvin bowed his head low, his cheeks flushed. He nudged his knee into mine and kept it there. I pushed my plate of food aside. Mom and I stared at each other and I felt like I was falling.