Jubilee

by Jennifer Givhan

  She turned Jubilee to face her, smoothing a creamy curl, pulling the hem of Jubilee’s ruffled dress, and lifting the collar of a lace sock. Bianca rubbed the lace between her fingers, her gaze shifting toward the picture frame on her desk, which held a glowworm of a girlchild: Bee in third grade making her First Holy Communion at Sacred Heart. Mama had bought the white lace dress and flowered wreath from a swap meet in Calexico, the twin city bordering Mexicali, twenty minutes from her girlhood town, as close back into Mexico as Mama ever went. It wasn’t safe, Mama had said. Still, Bianca had crossed the border often, with Gabe and his family, but Mama hadn’t been back since she was a girl. In that communion picture, Bianca’s lace sock scrunched an inch shorter than the other, rolled down to her ankle, so she looked as lopsided as her smile. Jubilee reminded Bianca of herself when she was a girl. She liked that about her.

  “You hungry, baby girl? Let’s go outside with uncles.”

  In the kitchen, she pulled a bento-box plate from the cupboard, fished the last Diet Coke from the bottom of the pack in the fridge, tucked it between her arm and Jubilee, then grabbed a baby bottle from the cupboard. She grabbed the pink high chair from the kitchen corner and, balancing her supplies, pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the cement patio where the guys were eating, each with a glass of red wine.

  The August sun hovered low in the evening sky. The chickens the guys raised for fresh brown eggs rustled in their coop beside the stand-alone garage, which, along with the main house, had also refuged migrant families before the guys had bought it; all through the house and garage, in every room, bunk beds and makeshift cots had sprawled along each wall, and in the center of the garage behind a shower curtain, a single toilet the guys had since removed. The biddies squawking mildly as Bianca settled herself at the patio table were the second set of chickens, the first, victims of the neighbor’s piles of debris beside the fence that formed a small mountain high enough for a vicious dog to climb over.

  From the house behind them, beyond the jacarandas weeping their blue bells over the wooden fence, the hum of the neighbor’s bolero music rose through a screen door, bridging the distance between the Valley and Bianca. Was there a soft guitar melody playing now on Rio Vista? How was Esme, Bianca’s almost-mother-in-law?

  “Hey, sister,” Matty greeted her with his usual beat, with a warmth like a dry towel around her bare shoulders after a day of jumping off the high dive and practicing for swim team at the public pool. Matty wore khaki shorts, a plaid button-down, and Doc Martens, his regular writing uniform. She kissed him on the cheek, then Handro.

  “You need help, hun?” Handro asked, standing and reaching out his slender arms.

  “Sure,” she answered, always grateful for Handro. He was the perfect boyfriend. For her brother, of course, but still. She smiled at his purple high-top Converse. She’d worn a pair in junior high, matching Lily’s, with their short baby doll–cut dresses. “Can you set her in the high chair so I can fix a plate?”

  Handro set Jubilee down in her chair then placed the bottle in front of her. This was their routine. In the beginning, she’d catch the guys side-eyeing each other, see the reluctance on their faces, but she couldn’t focus on that. She needed this to be normal. And soon it was. They were a family. And family protected each other.

  Handro asked, “Need me to feed her for you?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll do it after I eat.”

  “M’kay, hun.” Handro smiled as he sat back down and reached for Matty’s hand. If Matty still rolled his eyes at any of this, Bianca chose not to notice. At least in the way that one chooses one’s eye color. The way we accept what we cannot control then call it choice.

  Matty asked, “How was school . . . with Jubilee?” He’d had a meeting with his comic book editors, ironing out the details of the series he would launch in the coming year, at the springtime convention.

  “My writing professor didn’t mind.” Bianca plopped a piece of fish and a vegetable skewer onto her plate. “It’s technically against the rules, but Elena said as long as we stayed in the back and didn’t disrupt class, it was fine.” Matty hadn’t wanted Bianca to take Jubilee, but she couldn’t leave her alone. “There’s something else I wanted to tell you guys.” She set her plate down and perched at the edge of a patio chair. “I met someone today.” She peeled a chunk of eggplant from her skewer and stuck it into her mouth, trying to act nonchalant though her heart was ricocheting as she awaited their reaction. Normal, she repeated to herself. Act normal.

  “Someone famous?” Handro asked, sliding a bite of salmon into his mouth. “Is it James Franco? I’ve heard he goes to every writing program. That sleaze.”

  Bee laughed. “No, not someone famous. And I’m not in a writing program yet, tontito. I’m just taking one creative-writing class, for now.”

  Matty shook his head, and Bianca kept choosing to ignore any shade he might’ve been throwing. He always gave the air of being slightly above everyone else’s conversation. Bee hardly noticed it anymore, though for the first few months, she’d had the distinct impression Matty was judging her. He cleared his throat, as if signaling them to rein in the nonsense. “OK, sis. Who’d you meet?”

  “A guy in my class. A really nice guy.”

  “Girl, you waste no time,” Handro said, winking. He leaned forward. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s beautiful,” she told Handro, pointedly ignoring Matty’s grouchy expression. “His name is Joshua Walker. We have Mexican Art History together, and he hit on me today.” She wouldn’t call it hitting on her though. More like he was a gentleman. More like he seemed the complete opposite of Gabe, after Gabe became the complete opposite of the charming, puckish boy she’d met when she was fourteen. She brushed away thoughts of Gabe. Those couldn’t lead anywhere but dark. She glanced at Jubilee. Took a deep breath. “He’s sweet. Goofily charming.” He’d invited her to coffee after class, and since it was just down the escalator in the student lounge, she’d agreed. Joshua had seemed nervous and called her miss. He’d pointed out that her last name, Vogelsang, was German. And when she’d said that her mother was Mexican and her father German, he’d said she was a Frida Kahlo, who shared similar ancestry. “He compared me with Frida,” she said, the edges of her mouth crinkling.

  “Did he meet Jubilee?” Matty asked.

  Bianca glanced down, pushed the food around her plate with her fork. “She was asleep.” Joshua had asked to see the baby. But Bianca had kept her covered with a blanket. Joshua hadn’t pressed.

  Matty made a noise in the back of his throat, then sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  Bianca turned toward Handro. How fun it would have been if he’d been her college roommate when she’d tried moving out the first time. All that chisme, all that juicy gossip. Handro would’ve taken her to the gay bar where he worked and let her sing Liza Minnelli karaoke with the drag queens, whose long legs Bianca envied. She looked at Matty, his thick black eyebrows knitted. He moved his hand away from Handro’s but said nothing. He looked a little like Walter Matthau in the Odd Couple, only he was the uptight one. Come to think of it, Handro reminded her of an easygoing Felix.

  “Anyway, he has these intense, dark almond eyes, brown sugar skin, and a mass of shoestring curls piled on his head like copper wires. Like fireworks.”

  “Sounds gorgeous,” Handro said conspiratorially. “Fireworks. Ay.” He fanned himself dramatically.

  “We bonded over art.” She didn’t add that they’d also bonded over the struggles of parenting as a college student. But she couldn’t tell Matty that. She purposefully said nothing about Joshua’s kid to Matty. She knew how he’d react. She did say, “He asked for my number.”

  “Honey, better wait and check him out first, m’kay?” Handro said. “Don’t rush into anything.” And her hopes for her ally in this battle faded.

  Matty sighed louder. Bianca braced herself for a fat
herly “talk,” customary between them even when Dad was alive. “Hey, Bee, look, I don’t want to spoil this for you. I love seeing you excited. But you’ve had a rough couple of years. Are you really ready to start dating?”

  “Stop being so protective.” She kept her voice haughty, but her stomach coiled.

  “I don’t want you hurt again. Too often you only think with your heart.”

  “Anytime we open our hearts, the world opens.” She said this with as much poetic authority as she could muster and held tight to the thought of Joshua. They’d just met, but the idea of him was already blossoming inside some part of her she’d assumed ashen. His indefinable accent, somewhere between southern country and Los Angeles streetwise, the shyness permeating his politeness, his slightly dimpled smile. He was a package deal, he’d said. Him and his kid, Jayden. He’d worn a superhero watch and said it matched his kid’s, just them two against the world, and he’d sounded so goddamn sincere, like Linus in his pumpkin patch, that she could’ve sworn her heart started flowering again right then and there in the campus quad. She wouldn’t mention any of this to Matty. She’d had her fill of his lectures. What she needed right now was support. She was nervous enough. Kept fighting with herself over whether or not she deserved hope. And she needed Matty to reinforce Dr. Norris’s encouragement to get back out there and make new connections with people. Joshua seemed like the best kind of people. And she was trying. Though it scared the shit out of her. She was really fucking trying.

  “It can be dangerous,” Matty said.

  “So can driving, but we do that every day.” Her cheeks were hot.

  “Be careful, sister. You just got back on your feet. School’s going well . . .”

  “I’ll be fine, Matty. Tell him, Handro.”

  “Hey, I haven’t met the guy.” Handro put his hands up in mock surrender.

  “Well, I have a good feeling about him,” Bianca said. “He’s different than the other guys.” He didn’t stare at her breasts the whole time he was talking to her. Yet everything in his demeanor expressed his attraction to her. She looked Matty squarely in the face and said, “He’s not Gabe.”

  Matty narrowed his eyes then quoted, in his oratorical voice, “A wounded deer leaps highest.”

  Bianca mocked a gasp, though truly, she was glad her brother had dished out his own poetic. They could put their drama skills to good use, communicating with each other at their most familiar level. And he knew she knew her Emily. “Yes, dear brother, but Ms. Dickinson has more to say on the subject, doesn’t she? ‘. . . If I can stop one heart from breaking, / I shall not live in vain.’ ”

  “Whose heart would you be helping, hun?” Handro asked, looking up from his wine glass, his slender hand resting on his slim-cut jeans.

  “My own,” she said, her voice clearer than it had been in months; she felt it.

  And to this, even Matty raised his glass.

  Joshua and his nephew, Jayden, did all right by each other, two strays in this fool world. But Bianca, she was a light. She’d stayed after class with him again, making their conversations in the coffee shop a regular ritual. She said something smart, which he would come to see was her norm. “Think about it. Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo. Mexico’s three most prominent surrealist painters, all women. But they almost never come up when people refer to the surrealists. Why do you think that is?” She said the last part all sassy, like it wasn’t a question.

  He played devil’s advocate. “You consider Frida a surrealist?”

  She scrunched up her face, took a sip of her coffee. Man, she was cute. “It depends on what you mean by surrealism,” she answered. “The images are almost always recognizable. They’re taken from a reality we accept. But their context forces us to rethink their purpose. Think about it: If a teacup is covered in fur, I still see the teacup, though I don’t know what to do with it or how it got that way. Did it get cold? Did it become mammalian? If a teacup can become like a mammal, can a mammal become like porcelain? And could this be the teacup’s answer to all those metaphoric descriptions of women’s porcelain skin? The images are recognizable. It’s the placement. One or two steps to the side of their reality, that brings surrealism to life. All Kafka has to do is make Gregor Samsa a cockroach, and nothing else need change in the story. Same house, same family, same concerns.”

  “So, like, The Two Fridas. Or the Frida head on a deer. That’s surrealism.”

  “Exactly. Frida said people thought she was a surrealist, painting nightmares. Yet she painted her own reality. So I’m saying reality is surreal. Know what I mean?”

  He knew a little something about nightmare realities. He stared at her, the corners of his mouth flicking, like he wanted to laugh but he wasn’t sure about what. Like he wanted to kiss this gorgeous, intelligent woman if she’d let him. He sensed hers was as old a soul as his. He must’ve been staring too long by the way she looked at him with eyebrows raised, her eyes slightly laughing back at him, like he’d missed a move in a chess match. He’d gladly be captured by this queen. He cleared his throat. “And you. You’re a writer? You mentioned Kafka.”

  Her cheeks and ears reddened. “I write. I don’t know if I’d call myself a writer.”

  “If you write, then you’re a writer.”

  She smiled. “I have this dream that one day I’ll write something important. Something true. Not true as it happened in reality, deeper than that. Something so true, it could never be real in this world. Not here. I don’t know.” She shrugged, and when she lifted her eyes to his, Joshua detected apprehension. She looked scared, almost. “I sound crazy, right?” she said, laughing. “Babbling about teacups and dreams.”

  “Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly,” he recited, his cheeks flushed. “Langston Hughes wrote that. My favorite poet.”

  “I know that poem. ‘Hold fast to dreams / For when dreams go / Life is a barren field . . .’ ”

  “Frozen with snow,” Joshua finished. She applauded.

  He had to take the chance. If she’d stayed with him for coffee on campus, maybe she’d agree to a real date. “Would you go out with me, Bianca? We could go to the beach. I’ll bring food.” He talked fast so she couldn’t reject him straight off. “We could make it family style. I’ll bring my boy and you could bring your . . .”

  “Daughter,” she said. She looked at him intensely, and if anyone else had stared at him like that he would’ve been creeped out. But he liked it when she did it. Like he was a painting she was studying. He watched her golden eyes flicker as she deliberated.

  When she didn’t say anything, he nudged, “So you’ll come?” Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.

  “Yes.”

  Huntington beach would be swarming with crowds on a Saturday in August, so Joshua had arrived early to claim a spot beside the pier on the amphitheater grass. He kept checking his phone to make sure Bianca hadn’t texted him to cancel.

  “Can I play in the sand, Dada?” Jayden had been calling Joshua “dada” since he could talk. After “cup,” “ma milk,” “ducko,” and “nanana” (for banana), “dada” was up there with the firsts. Joshua had been there for them all.

  “Stay close to the car,” Joshua said, lugging a plastic ice chest from the trunk. On top of the chest, he stacked an oversized umbrella, a flannel blanket, and a duffel bag of beach toys. Over his shoulders, he hoisted two beach chairs. Around his neck he strung an army-green messenger bag packed with sunscreen, hats, extra clothes and underwear, windbreakers, Jayden’s allergy medicine, and his inhaler.

  Jayden reached through the rail, picked up a handful of sand, and threw it over his head. “Are we moving to the beach?”

  “No, why?”

  “You brought a lot of stuff.”

  Always be prepared. He’d learned that early. His older sister, Olivia, had birthed J
ayden while coming down from God-knows-what, and she’d dropped him off at Joshua’s dorm before splitting. She’d been in and out of jail, but Joshua hadn’t heard from her in two years. After what they’d gone through in the system, he couldn’t let that happen to the little guy. Child protective services had dragged him and Olivia out of their cokehead parents’ house when he was thirteen months and Olivia was four years old, the same age Jayden was now. They’d stayed together in foster care the first couple years, but like everything else in his life, they’d been broken up. He couldn’t remember their first place, but Olivia had told him a white lady took care of them, that she was nice, didn’t yell. Gave them grape suckers. Joshua tried to picture the white lady who’d held him and changed his diapers, but he couldn’t see her. So he pictured a streak of white light instead. A supercharged light that had infused him with special abilities. Second senses. He mentioned this to Olivia once, and she’d punched him in the arm, hard. “She was just a white lady, you weirdo. And you don’t have any special powers. You’re just a weird boy.”

  “Well why’d she send us back, then?”

  “Had her own baby. A shiny pink-and-white one. Not all black and blue like you.” She’d stuck out her tongue.

  Joshua had said he wasn’t black or blue but brown like a candy bar.

  Olivia hadn’t laughed. She’d hardly ever laughed.

  “You’ll be black and blue if they ever split us up and I’m not here to protect you, Joshy. Sissy boy. Bet you’re gonna turn out gay.” She punched him again, harder, but he didn’t cry. “I’m just Joshin’ you,” she said, laughing finally. “You know I love you. I’m the only one who does.” By Olivia’s twelfth birthday, their foster mother Patti had sent Olivia back, but she’d kept Joshua until high school.