Juliet Takes a Breath

by Gabby Rivera

  I felt suffocated suddenly. A slight wheeze burned through my lungs. Air. I needed air. I stood up, moved out of the aisle, and left. Tears spilled down my cheeks. My face though, my face was expressionless, hard as a cement block. I didn’t have any words.

  I don’t remember when I started running, but I ran all the way from Powell’s to the Steel Bridge. Okay, that’s a lie. I ran, like, four blocks, lost my breath, and used my inhaler. I walked the rest of the way. The street lamps glowed white and orange. I wasn’t afraid to be alone or to be out in the dark but the quiet felt strange. I still wasn’t used to it. If I had Zaira’s number, I would have called her. When she referred to someone as sister, she seemed the type to mean it. I didn’t know if Maxine would understand or if she’d be mad that I left Harlowe’s event. And Harlowe, I’d left her there without a goodbye. Guilt like hot wax spread through my insides. Her words repeated themselves in my head. Fought her whole life to make it out of the Bronx alive. Yeah, the Bronx was tough but that wasn’t my life. Had I misled Harlowe? Or had she really just used me to make a point?

  I had no people in Portland. No Titi Wepa. No Mom and Dad. No Ava. No Lainie.

  Maxine called three times. I picked up on number three. The reading was over. She and Zaira were concerned. They wanted to come find me and process. Maxine’s gentle voice, deep with love, made me feel cared for. And yet, I told her that I felt too messed up to process, that I just needed to be outside for a while. She understood and asked me to touch base with her when I was somewhere safe. Word. Done. Zaira’s voice in the background told me to stay strong, young sister.

  A full moon held court over the Willamette. The sky rippled with stars. I prayed for guidance and clarity, released my intentions into the night. I prayed for those things because I couldn’t handle the rage that flared up inside. Harlowe said things about me that weren’t true. I thought she got it. I thought she was someone who understood me the way I understood her. She called me “the proof,” as if my existence could be summed up as the answer to any and every question about race and representation in Raging Flower. Had I handed myself over to her by being here? Was my presence permission? I felt foolish for loving Harlowe so hard and for thinking that we were blood sisters. I wanted to disappear.

  Ava called while I paced the bridge. I picked up and she was off and talking at her usual, high-speed pace.

  “I had a dream ’bout you, loca. The number three was mad prominent in it. In the dream, you had wings and were falling from the sky. And two angels tried to save you. I was the third one and my outfit was really dope. And anyway, I caught you, long story short. So I had to call you, obviously, for good luck. And this is the third and final time I’m gonna ask you to come see me...”

  “Let’s book the flight right now, Ava.”

  “What? Like right now right now?”

  “Yes, like I’ll give you my card number over the phone, right now,” I said.

  “Damn, girl, are you okay?”

  “Shit is weird. Mad fucking weird and I don’t want to get into it. I just want to see you,” I pleaded. I was crying again and didn’t care if she heard me.

  “I’m booking you a flight for tomorrow. My dream shit is so real, loca. Where are you again? Titi Mari said Iowa or some shit.”

  Titi Mari was my mom. She’d been in touch with my mom.

  “Portland, Ava, I’m in Portland, Oregon, look for flights out of PDX.”

  She didn’t press me for any other info. Ava and I booked the flight. She told me she’d pick me up at the airport. I’d spend three days with her, Titi Penny, and Uncle Len. It’d been a few years since our summers together, running around the beaches of Miami as kids. Ava told me she loved me. Primas for life.

  Kira texted me. She wanted to come find me and offered to give me a ride anywhere. I told her where I was, and then for a while, it was quiet; just me and the moon.

  Harlowe called my cell phone. I almost picked up, but I realized I had nothing to say to her. Everything was a lump in my throat. Harlowe left a voicemail. I didn’t listen to it. Avoid. Avoid. Somebody would let her know I was ok. She’d be fine. Harlowe had gotten all of my energy before her reading. I was in full on self-preservation mode.

  I heard Kira’s motorcycle before I saw it. She pulled up, handed me a helmet, and I hopped on. We zipped up Burnside and back around until I didn’t know where we were. I kept my arms around her hips, nestled into her back. Kira pulled up to her house and invited me inside. She promised to take me stargazing another night. She made a quick salad and boxed mac and cheese. It was the most normal thing I’d eaten in Portland. Kira listened to me as I tried to piece together complicated feelings and not cry. Was Harlowe racist? Was I over-sensitive? Did my being from the Bronx scream so loud of poverty and violence that my actual story didn’t matter? What did it mean for me as a person and a wannabe feminist that I looked up to Harlowe? Was I proof that her feminism was for everyone?

  I stopped after admitting that I loved Harlowe and that made me an even bigger fool. How could I love some fake-ass, kinda racist or something, clueless person like Harlowe?

  Kira said she had wondered about Harlowe for a while after reading Raging Flower. She wondered if Harlowe was the ally that most people praised her to be. What Harlowe said about me solidified her impression that Harlowe was like every other white lady feminist she’d ever met.

  “People are fucked up like that sometimes, Juliet, especially white people. Like I’m half white and half Korean and even some of my friends will assume I’m good at math or know martial arts just because of how I look. Those assumptions live inside people and they do their best to dodge them and intellectualize around them but they’re still there. They also don’t see me as politicized or as someone who experiences microaggressions. It sucks. We deserve better. You deserve better,” Kira said. She kissed my cheek.

  I leaned into her. I asked her if I could take a shower. Kira showed me to the bathroom. I turned on the hot water, slipped off my clothes, and stood under the stream with my eyes shut. She knocked on the door and told me she was leaving me a towel.

  “You can come in, if you want,” I said. The second the words came out, I couldn’t believe I had said them.

  “Okay,” she replied. It was quiet for a minute then the curtain was pulled back. Beautiful, naked Kira moved into the shower with me. She pressed me against the cool tiles and kissed me. The weight of the evening slid off my skin as the hot water washed over us. She soaped up my chest, belly and back. Her hands were firm. She kneaded my back muscles and kissed along my shoulder blades. I let her hands roam my flesh and explore the curves of my body. I didn’t think about anything else but kissing her, all of her. She slid her hands along my thighs.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You feel really good to me. I just want to check in.”

  “I don’t know what I want to do. I like this. I like kissing you and feeling you and forgetting. But I don’t want to use you,” I replied. I gazed at the droplets of water along her eyelashes.

  “I’m here. I know what it’s like when you need to be kissed and touched. I don’t feel used. We can take it slow and stop whenever,” she said.

  Kira turned off the shower and led me to her bedroom. Both of us wrapped in towels, bodies warm and wet, we flopped onto her bed. I followed her lead. She loved on me so good. My body never felt so desired and alive. We moved in rhythm with each other. Where she touched and pressed her lips, I did the same. And when I felt her inside of me, I wrapped my hips tight around her waist and gave her everything. I fell asleep with my head on her chest.

  In the morning, she dropped me off at Harlowe’s. Maxine was the only one home. She said Harlowe was so upset that I’d left that she’d run off to her favorite meditation temple. Maxine didn’t seem worried about Harlowe. She hugged me and said she understood why I had to take off for a bit. There was too much to say and not enough time to process. My flight to Miami w
as set to take off at noon. I packed fast and left my copy of Raging Flower on the bed.

  Maxine took me to the airport.

  And I was gone. On a plane to Miami.

  Part Three:

  Bienvenidos a Miami. The World is Yours.

  19. Queer ABCs and 123s

  Ava met me at the luggage terminal. She wore black leather leggings, a ripped black T-shirt with the word Bruja written across in red letters, and studded knee-high silver boots. We stared at each other for a moment and then Ava wrapped her arms around me. We hugged tight enough to make up for the three years that had passed between our last visit. She smelled like Gucci Rush and all the summer nights we’d shared together as kids. She released me just a stretch, enough to look me in the eyes and see my tears. Ava hugged me again.

  “Come on, prima, let’s get you home,” she said, as she grabbed my suitcase and my hand.

  Ava drove a black Mustang she nicknamed “the Bullet.” It was half sweet 16 gift and half two-years of saved income from working at Hot Topic. Ava blasted Snoop Dogg and Selena with the windows rolled down as we roared down State Route 953 to Coral Gables. The rearview mirror trembled with the bass. Ava and I rapped and sang along to all the songs on her Como La Doggystyle CD, a mix she made for me.

  The hot sun felt good on my skin. It blazed, an endless blue sky and golden yellow sun rays for miles. We pulled up to Ava’s giant house; it sprawled out in every direction. The front door burst open and out came to Titi Penny in all her foxy Titi glory. Her dyed hair, a combination of auburn, blonde and brown, was styled in loose banana curls. Titi Penny ran to me and covered me in red-lipstick kisses. She hugged me so tight. I felt weightless.

  “Ay, Juliet, it’s been too long. You get more beautiful every time I see you. Que bella. You look more and more like Mariana every time I see you,” Titi Penny said. She placed her hand over her heart.

  She placed her arm around my shoulder and led me into the house. Ava grabbed my bag, not because she wanted to but because Titi Penny would have asked her to do it anyway.

  “I spoke to your mother this morning. She didn’t know you were coming. Bad girl, Juliet,” she said, and ushered me into the kitchen. The marble island sparkled, a set of sugar jars lined the middle in size order. “She was upset that you didn’t tell her, just so you know. Maybe you should call her? Let her know you’re here. I’ll make you a plate.”

  That’s how I found myself sweating to death on Titi Penny’s lanai argue-talking with my mother for almost an hour. No, I hadn’t told her I was taking a trip to Miami. Yes, I realized that my internship with Harlowe counted as credits for graduation. I sighed at my mother, not even meaning to. It was this sound, this tone that I couldn’t control. I didn’t even bother mentioning anything about Harlowe’s reading. She wouldn’t have gotten it. She didn’t understand. She knew what was best for me. I was disrespectful. I had better watch my attitude. I didn’t understand a mother’s love and need to protect. It was all fine. I should call her back when I found my respect. Ugh. Our phone call ended with her sternly telling me she loved me.

  Titi Penny and Ava brought plates of arroz con gandules, tostones sprinkled with salt, and grilled chicken topped with cilantro and avocado. A crystal pitcher filled with iced sangria accompanied the food. Titi pressed a heaping plate into my hands.

  “Now you know I don’t like to be nosy and I just abhor gossip,” she said, “but given all the lack of communication maybe now is good time to give us the details on why you fled Portland.”

  Over the course of the afternoon and in between helpings of Titi Penny’s bomb-ass food, I told them both everything. I gave them the mortifying details of my decision to come out at the table during my goodbye dinner. Then I showed them the photograph my mother slipped under the door, the one of me and her snuggled up when I was a kid. Battery Park forever immortalized. The version Titi Penny heard from my mother was short, devoid of photographic details, and centered more on her shame. When I tried to press her for specifics, she told me that I’d have to talk to my mother, that what was shared between sisters stayed there.

  Titi Penny asked about the breakup with Lainie. They knew I’d been broken up with because of my mom. They hadn’t gotten the memo about the break up CD. That revelation brought out some choice words: “puta gringa” and “malcriada” to name a few. Once again, I pulled out the infamous letter. They both read it, sucking their teeth. Ava took this moment to ask if Lainie and I had ever banged in my mom’s house and if we dated because I “had a thing for white girls.” You know, the important stuff.

  I briefed them on Harlowe, Maxine, polyamory, and the new words I’d learned but still wasn’t sure what they meant. Ava tapped my head at that last one. “Nena, I’m gonna learn you some queer shit before you go home,” she said, as she refilled all of our glasses with sangria.

  I told them about Kira, her motorcycle and how she scooped me from the bridge. And before I could say anything else, I blushed so hard and couldn’t look at either of them.

  “So you caught feelings for the librarian. Continue,” Ava said.

  When I got to the part about being heartbroken over Harlowe, Ava stopped me. On her third glass of sangria, she gestured with her hands.

  “Wait, what? How could she break your heart? Did you fall in love with the Pussy Lady? Dímelo qué?”

  “No, it wasn’t like I wanted to date her. I fell into some kind of love with her though, like when you look up to someone and want to be like them and feel like they’re family. That kind of love. Ava, when she talks about feminism and faeries and all that shit something inside of her lights up, glows even. No one on this earth is like her, yo. How could I not love her?”

  “Girl, c’mon on you could have realized that she was some hippie-ass, holier-than-thou white lady preaching her bullshit universal feminism to everyone. Is there no backlash on Harlowe Brisbane in Portland? ’Cause around here we give no fucks about that book,” Ava said.

  “It’s not that easy. She wasn’t like that, really, not until the night of the reading. You don’t even know her. And since when do you know anything about being gay and being a feminist? Last time we chilled all you could talk about was Limp Bizkit and cheetah print tights.”

  “Enough,” Titi Penny said. “You two clear the dishes and the food. Leave the sangria.”

  We did as we were told. Ava and I brought everything to the kitchen, both of us quiet. I continued my Portland story, giving them the extended director’s cut of Harlowe’s reading at Powell’s. It was so fresh and I was still confused. I recounted Harlowe’s version of my life to both of them. Ava sucked her teeth, but said nothing. Titi Penny laughed, amused but not in league with Harlowe.

  “So you’re some poor little ghetto girl stuck in the Bronx, huh? Mariana hasn’t mentioned that,” she said. “And so after stereotyping my beautiful niece, this lady hasn’t checked in on you beyond one phone call, didn’t take you to the airport, and now you’re here with us?”

  “Yes, Titi Penny.”

  “Ok, just wanted to make sure I’m with you, sweet Juli. A whole lot of life has come your way this summer. You came out, experienced your first breakup, learned about veganism. All the big things.”

  Titi Penny’s smile revealed the same gap Ava had between her front teeth.

  “Are you teasing me, Titi?”

  “Yes and no. I’m glad you’re here. We have three days to love you good,” Titi Penn said, “and discuss the importance of naming racism when it comes for you unexpectedly in the form of a mentor, a lover, or someone who exists in the gray areas. But for now, maybe you two go upstairs, unpack, and reconnect.”

  Ava laughed. She put her arm around my shoulders and led me to her bedroom on the second floor. Her domain covered the entire back section of the house. She had movie posters of Mi Vida Loca and Kids on her wall next to magazine covers of Rosario Dawson. She’d pinned protest fliers and bulletins for LGBTQ outreach programs to the wall. She pulled me out onto the balcon
y and lit a Black and Mild. Together we watched the sunset. Ava bumped her hip into mine.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, prima. You know I love you,” Ava said. “I’m still figuring out my shit too and the circles I run in are mad with it. Like no time for white supremacy or second wave white feminism. But it’s not fair for me to judge you, you know?”

  I was surprised by her apology and curious about everything she was learning.

  “No worries. Let’s just start over. Tell me all the things,” I replied.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she said. “A lot I’m still figuring out. Like, I’m not gay but I’m totally in love with a girl named Luz Ángel. And most of the time, I’m basically attracted to everyone and lots of times no one at all. I don’t think there’s a word for that. I prefer the term queer and that’s where I’m at right now.”

  “Whoa, Ava, I had no idea,” I said. I reached out for the last inch of her cigarillo and said, “I wanna know all about Luz Ángel.”

  “Oh my God,” Ava said, as she slid open the door to the balcony. “Where do I even start?”

  Ava jumped on her king size bed and spread out. “Luz Ángel is a brown skinned fucking babe, queen of my heart. She doesn’t even know it. She’s so busy running Tempest, the queer and transgender people of color group on campus. Every time she speaks, I’m just done. I sit in on Tempest meetings basically hoping she notices me while learning about how to organize against and fight oppression.”

  “So like exactly how I started dating Lainie by signing up for a women’s studies class?”

  “Yeah, but a little more radical,” Ava replied.

  “I don’t know how anyone could not notice you, Ava. You’re fucking gorgeous and I’ve been jealous of you for having all the looks ever since we were little kids,” I exclaimed. I put out the cigarillo.

  “Oh stop, you’re gorgeous too. And you got all the tetas in this family. Lucky bitch,” Ava said, as she poked the side of my breast.