by Ann Angel
“No, no, really, it’s fine. He took care of me when I had nothing, and actually we do all right with this. But I was mad and I said when I got back that that was it, I didn’t care how much I owed him, I would not let him make me go on the Lucky Buoy again. That was that. And it was, that.”
It’s almost as if she is missing the important parts of what I’m trying to explain to her.
“You don’t have to stay, Warren. You can leave. Go anywhere, do what you want.”
“I know that. I am doing what I want. I like being on call. I like Lundy Lee life. And I know Charlie Waters Jr. needs me. Nobody ever needed me before, Celeste. And it turns out I like it.”
I find out yet again just how strong she is when she grabs me and rolls me over so that I’m facing the other side, the wall side, away from the window and her. Then she locks up close behind and holds me really tight and firm and incredible and powerful and gentle and not quite hard enough to squeeze the air out of my lungs but I am out of breath all the same.
“Tell me you will look out for yourself,” she says, so warm and deep into my left eardrum I can feel it in my right.
“I will look out for myself,” I say.
We go quiet, which is good as long as she holds me like she’s doing. Then I think she might be thinking, which makes me a little edgy.
“I’m sorry about your paintings,” I say.
“It’s okay. I’ll just do some more.”
“I really like the one you have, that I got for you before the repo guys got it.”
“That was my favorite. Hard-core fisherfolk. They were a little scary, but they did like being painted.”
“I never see them work. What do they even bring in?”
“Lobster and heroin, mostly.”
“Ah. Maybe you’ll start over with me. With your new paintings.”
“I could. I should. I might. You are beautiful, Warren.”
I am beautiful. . . .
She is going to feel this, feel me quaking with whatever is happening to me now.
“Shhh,” she whispers. “Sleep now.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said all the things,” I say.
“Don’t worry about that for a second, sweetheart. The world isn’t divided into people with secrets and people without them, because there are no people without them. It’s just divided into people who can shut themselves up and people who can’t.”
“Well, obviously I’m one,” I say, “and you’re —”
“Shh,” she says one more time. “Sleep now.”
I have no recollection of falling asleep and am surprised to find I even managed it.
I am not surprised to find Celeste gone. I lie still while the light of an okay bright morning makes its way into my room.
I do like it here. I am happy here.
I take out one of my two gleaming new phones.
I start dialing. I can see the number in my head because I have stood in front of that window so many times, with the name and number stenciled right there. I put it in next to the name: Charlie Waters Jr.
Coming down now do you need me to do anything?
He answers almost before I’ve finished typing.
No just come soon.
Soon, I reply. I am not going to rush out of this space.
Phone beeps again. I will want to hear everything.
I smile, to myself, and do not reply.
On my bike, coming to the end of the Tidal Road and into view of the returning, always returning Lucky Buoy, I think about things. Things that are mine, alone Things that even my best friends don’t know.
Like sometimes on my odd jobs — and we are supposed to split the money — I get cash and I get a great big tip because I fucking well earned it. I keep that money. Nobody knows that but me.
“Just so you know, my motto is pepper-spray first, ask questions later.” The words spilled out, beyond my control. They were as much of a surprise to me as to the creepy old guy on the subway platform who’d been trying to hit on me. He backed away fast — which was a good thing, because my pepper spray was actually in a different purse buried somewhere deep inside my suitcase — and his expression seemed pretty similar to how he might have looked if I’d actually spritzed him.
Situation: neutralized.
Mom used to say that city girls should always have pepper spray handy because some guys can’t take the hint of when to back off. But I haven’t been a city girl for almost a year now. I kept the tiny black-and-silver can, like I keep everything Mom ever gave me, but there hasn’t been any point in carrying it lately. Boarding school upstate is a whole different world. No boys. No strangers at all, really.
The train clatters and roars into the station. The scruffy man is two cars away now and still moving. I totally overreacted to him. The situation wasn’t really that dire, but I guess it’s nice to know that even the threat of pepper spray works.
When you find yourself uttering a line like that, though, it sticks with you for a while, kind of like that early-morning monkey-breath feeling that comes if you forget to brush your teeth after scarfing a late-night pizza. Except that the lingering absurdity of it also makes you prone to giggling inappropriately in public. As I take a seat on the train, I try to tamp it down to a smile, make it seem like I’m just happy. Happy to be on my way home . . . but even I’m not convinced. I lean my forehead on my suitcase and laugh softly. People look slantwise at me.
Awkward.
We bullet through the dark, alone together. Graffiti flashes by on the black tunnel walls. The squeal of brakes and the sudden light of each familiar station is a tiny homecoming: 42nd Street, 59th, 96th. Closer and closer to the place I come from. The strange bursting laughter stays with me.
I’m having one of those days when nothing goes the way it’s supposed to. First I forgot to set an early alarm, so we missed watching the sunrise from my friend Sarah’s bedroom balcony, which overlooks Miami Beach. We’d been sleeping in all week; it was such a relief to kick off summer vacation without boarding-school bells going off overhead. We meant to stay up all night to make the most of my last night visiting her house, but we fell asleep. Her mom had to come in and wake us up.
Oversleeping made us late leaving for the airport, so I got stuck in a middle seat on the flight home to JFK. I nearly twisted my ankle exiting the Long Island Railroad car in my cute strappy heels, getting swept up in the commuter rush. So I hobbled through Penn Station, lugging my ginormous home-for-summer-break suitcase, looking for a place to sit down and change my shoes, only to find that there’s no public seating in the entire place, except in the ticket holders’ restricted area, and I no longer had a ticket because I just got off the train. So, for about fifteen minutes this afternoon, I became one of those people — you know, the ones who involuntarily sit on the grimy floor of the public train terminal, rummaging through open suitcases and muttering to themselves about how the world is out to get them. I consoled myself by digging out my hand mirror and reaffirming that I look too damn good to be mistaken for homeless.
I do look good today. My cheeks have a natural blush from the exertion, and my sundress’s swirls of red and orange complement my skin. I’m so much more toned now, too. Sarah, who’s also my roomie up at school, has been giving me workout pointers. I just spent a week on the beach with her and only felt fat about 75 percent of the time, and only felt marginally fat for about 50 percent of that time. Middle school me would never believe it.
Of course, no guys even hit on me during this vacation, but I attribute that to other factors, like the fact that Sarah and all the boarding-school friends we were with are bottle-blond beauties with flat butts. Maintaining those friendships feels kind of masochistic at times, but when you’re the only black girl in the whole grade, what choice do you really have? It’s not like I need to be hit on or anything, but it’s a little bit hard on my self-esteem to be totally overlooked.
Anyway. I dug through my suitcase full of ruffle-bottomed bathing suits,
tank tops, and flirty skirts, and found some more practical sandals. I was a little bit annoyed with myself for even wearing heels today, but I was trying to be cute coming back into the city. Pretty little sundress, strappy shoes. So much for that.
I put on the flats, got everything squared away, headed down to the subway, and then the creeptastic old dude tried to pick me up on the platform with the unbelievable line “Haven’t I seen you here before?”
Absurdity deserves absurdity, so in return I generously warned him of my pepper spray practices. Pepper-spray first, ask questions later? I mean, I can’t even believe I said such a thing out loud to a person, but it’s just one of those days.
God, he was old. Starting to wrinkle, with a scruffy gray beard and piercing black eyes meshed in spiderweb lines. Why does a guy like that think he has a shot with someone like me? Do I look like I’m twenty or something?
Now I’m riding the C train, headed uptown. Almost home. I thump the suitcase over the gap at my stop. As I’m trucking through the 116th Street subway station, three blocks from home, my mind is still on the Penn Station platform, liberally pepper-spraying the old creepy dude and chuckling gleefully all the while. (Clearly I am disturbed.)
Despite the sadistic daydream, I’m not oblivious to my surroundings. I notice the small knot of police officers gathered near the turnstile, but I also possess a subconscious that is laced with minority experiences, as Dad would say, and the only thing that makes me more nervous than the idea of interacting with cops is the idea of interacting with cops alone. My philosophy of law enforcement is to behave myself and give them a wide berth. I veer toward the other side of the corridor without meaning to. Not that it matters. They’re right there at the turnstile — no avoiding them if I want to get out of here. My steps slow. One of the uniforms, a young black guy, steps toward me.
“Excuse me, miss,” he says. Even though he’s right beside me now, it doesn’t totally register that he’s actually talking to me.
“Excuse me, miss,” the police officer repeats. “I’m going to need to take a look in your suitcase.” This is the point at which my brain starts working properly. Sort of.
“God.” I spin toward him, hand on my hip. “I really hope that’s just your way of saying I look nice and you want to spend a few more minutes with me.”
His eyes widen. He glances away, blushes. His beautiful dark-skinned cheeks fill with a deep purple stain. Once again I am mortified by what I just said. I don’t know where these words are coming from, why it feels like I need to yell at the whole world today.
I take a deep breath, try to hold back my (apparently) uncontrollable snark. A subway platform creep is one thing; I shouldn’t be playing it fast and loose with Homeland Security. “Sorry. That was a joke. How can I help you, Officer?”
He smiles. Straight white teeth. Dark-pink tongue. I fight the urge to lean forward and taste them. (Seriously? What is wrong with me? But he is totally cute.)
“I just need to take a look in your suitcase,” he says. “Then you can be on your way.”
The station is stifling. A line of sweat trickles down my back, and I just try to breathe through the thick, still air. There’s no reason to be scared, of course. My suitcase is full of nothing but sandy clothes and damp swimsuits. But my dad is a law professor at Columbia and he says the police can’t ever really be trusted. Not when you’re black and living in the USA.
I smile, trying to focus on the guy’s cuteness rather than his cop-ness, and pass him my roller handle. “Okay.”
He turns my suitcase off the wheels and rests it on the ground — double extra gross in a subway station. “Been on vacation?” he says after poking around in my laundry for half a second.
“Miami,” I offer, for no good reason. He’s touching my things still.
Another train approaches. It pushes air out of the tunnel, causing a breeze to rise in the station. The tight wind swirls and lifts my hair off my neck. The skirt of my sundress molds against my thighs.
“Have a good time there?” The cop rezips my suitcase, fumbling it a bit because he’s not really looking there. He’s looking up at me. I fidget in my sandals. He’s got sexy brown eyes and they are running over me and over me.
“Yeah, sure. It’s great down there. Not too hot yet or anything.”
“Not like here?” he says. The train rumbles on past, express, leaving the station calm again. Early-summer hot. Just barely sticky.
“Way better than here.” Because the air moves. On its own, I mean. Without a train to drive it.
The cop stands up. “ID, please.” He holds out his hand while I dig for my wallet, buried in my backpack among the jumble of my iPod, headphones, coins, pens, and an illogical number of paper clips. I plop my license in his palm.
“Sally John.” He reads it aloud, as if I don’t know my own name. “That’s a pretty . . . uh . . . You’re sixteen?” His gaze bounces to my chest. “You look a lot older.”
What am I supposed to say about that? Was he about to tell me I have a pretty name? It’s actually about the most boring name known to humanity.
“My mistake.” He blushes again as he hands my ID back. Strange for a dark-skinned guy to blush so visibly. I’ve never seen that before.
“So I can go?”
He runs his hand down my arm, from shoulder to elbow. Surprisingly smooth hand. “You take care now.” He rejoins his cohort.
I scoot away, dragging my suitcase behind me. If it wasn’t for the uniform, you know? Or if I was a little older, like he wanted. Maybe then he would have helped me struggle through the turnstile or up the long flight of stairs to street level. Maybe he would have walked me home to find out if I still live at the same address (which I do and always have).
Or maybe it’s all in my head.
Up at street level, West Harlem is how it always is: shaking and shimmying and intense and home.
First thing I hear: “Hey, mami, you need a hand with that bag?” A scrawny guy in a Rasta cap chawing on a thin cigar and toying with a flip phone outside the corner bodega.
“I’m okay.”
“That looks heavy. How far you going?”
“I got it. Thanks.”
He nods and rolls on with his day while I roll on with my suitcase.
A gypsy cab slows and honks, probably thinking I’m going to the airport, not coming from. I wave him off.
It’s funny. In Harlem, when you look like me, people notice you. I guess I forgot that. Or maybe it was different before, because I was different before.
The moment I turn up my block, despite the heat and despite the exertion, I start to feel cooler inside.
I haven’t been home since the end of August, before school started. Over Christmas, I went straight to Grandma’s and spent the whole week there. Dad came out as well, for a day or two. To see me. But holidays just aren’t the same anymore, without Mom. Three Christmases now, and each one bleaker than the last.
For spring break I went to Sarah’s house in Miami with a couple other girls from school. Same place we just were this past week. It was great, but it’s not like I could crash with her for the whole summer. That would be weird.
I invited Sarah to come visit me here later in the summer, so that’s something to look forward to. And I’ll make sure we talk on the phone every day, like we promised.
My house looks the same. The sidewalk cracks leading down the block feel the same. And the trees and the hydrants and the garbage cans are all in their places, and a brief doughy scent wafts over from the bakery across the street. I have smelled it a hundred thousand times.
And now there’s nowhere else to walk, no matter how slowly. I’m here.
Climb the familiar brownstone steps. Thump my leaden suitcase up behind me.
Use my key. Push the door open.
I feel ultra-calm. My heart beats like it’s frozen. I actually put my hand on my chest to try and feel it. I mean, I’m standing upright, breathing, so I know it must be in there doing
its thing. I just can’t feel it.
“Dad? Are you home?”
The foyer, cool and shadowy, lit only by the light through the pebbled windows alongside the door once I latch it behind me.
“Dad?” I raise my voice. It echoes in the stillness.
Mom’s laugh used to fill every corner of this place. Plus the smell of her cooking and the clatter of pans, and soft music would always be playing. I peek into the kitchen. The walls are still hung with my crayon drawings, plastered right against the paint with crisscross tape. Nothing looks like it has been touched recently. Probably a pile of take-out containers in the trash under the sink.
Back to the foyer. One more time. “Dad?”
“Hi, sweetheart.” His voice floats at me from a distance. “I’m coming.”
I wait for the footsteps on the landing overhead. Dad bounds down the stairs in a suit, sans jacket, tie slightly loosened, iPhone in hand. “There’s my girl.”
He throws one arm around my shoulders and draws me in close. My forehead finds a space below his collarbone, and I catch a deep breath of his forever cologne, but my arms barely meet at his spine before he steps out of them.
“Hey, Sal.” He kisses the air near my cheek and then smiles as if he doesn’t realize he missed. “Welcome home, love.”
“Hi, Dad.”
His iPhone never left his hand; now his thumb resumes scrolling. “I want to take you out tonight,” he says. “Where do you want to eat?”
“Oh. Um . . .”
He frowns at the screen in his palm. “Totally up to you. I’ll make a reservation on Open Table right now.”
I hold the suggestion in my mouth for a while. Until he lowers the phone a nudge and looks at me expectantly.
“How about that fancy place, Chocolat?” I suggest. Their food is pretty good, but they have a chocolate lava cake that’s to die for. Totally binge worthy. Usually I eat two. I haven’t been eating so much dessert lately, but I guess, for old times’ sake.
“Yup. Yup. Okay . . .” He scrolls and clicks. “Perfect. Done. Seven thirty.”
