by Carol Weston
On the subway platform, while we were waiting for the express train downtown, Mom kept telling everyone to stand back from the tracks, and Dad suddenly said, “Shhh,” because the air filled with beautiful music. A Chinese man was playing the violin, and Dad said, “He’s a virtuoso!” which means really talented. And we were getting to hear him for free! Or almost—Mom gave Matt a dollar to put in the man’s open violin case.
Our subway arrived, and we got into the very first car. Mom sat down on the orange plastic seat, Dad and Uncle Angel stood and held the skinny silver poles, and other subway riders were reading books and Bibles and newspapers. Matt said, “Miguel, follow me!” So Miguel did. Me too. We went to the front window and watched the subway beams light up the dark, lonely tunnel tracks and listened to the roar as we shot through the earth beneath Manhattan.
Miguel LOVED it! “No me lo creo” (No May Low Cray Oh), he said. “I don’t believe it. We are racing under skyscrapers! In a tunnel.”
“Fifty miles an hour,” Dad called out. “The subways opened over a hundred years ago and they run twenty-four hours a day.”
“All the day?” Uncle Angel asked.
“All day long,” Dad confirmed.
When I was planning out Miguel’s visit, it didn’t even occur to me to write down “subway” or “tunnel”—or túnel (2 Nell). I wished I were a better tour guide. For a second I almost felt like a tagalong with my family, the way I’ve been feeling with Cecily and Suze.
The subway got shmooshier and shmooshier because every time a voice said, “Stand clear of the closing doors,” more and more people got in. Finally, on Canal Street, we got out, walked up the stairs—and emerged in a whole nother world! (Is “nother” a word?)
Signs are in Chinese; phone booths are pagodas; almost everyone is Asian; and street stalls sell everything from live baby turtles, paper lanterns, and tree bark to weird herbs and colorful slippers. Chinatown is as different from Times Square as Times Square is from my neighborhood!
The markets had bundles of dark leafy greens and vegetables that didn’t even look familiar. The fish stores sold silver minnows, shiny big-eyed fish, squirming crabs, crawling lobsters, and sea creatures I couldn’t name. I held my nose, but Uncle Angel and Miguel recognized the fish and shellfish because most of Spain borders the sea, so Spaniards eat a lot of seafood.
We walked past restaurants with dead ducks hanging from hooks in the window. Ugh! But we were starving, so when Dad said, “How about this one?” Miguel held the door open for everyone and in we went.
Some things on the menu sounded disgusting, like pig knuckles and jellyfish. But we ordered yummy normal things like spare ribs and dumplings. And pork buns! We ordered too much—but ate it all up anyway! We were B.P.s or Big Pigs!
Uncle Angel said that in Valencia, you have to work hard to get a waiter’s attention, but that in New York, some waiters keep asking, “Is everything okay?” until you want to say, “Leave us in peace!” (Mom translated.)
After dinner, we went north up Mulberry Street to a café in Little Italy. White Christmasy lights draped from one side of the street to the other in glittery mini canopies.
We sat at an outside table on a narrow street and had pastries called cannoli. Uncle Angel also had a cigarillo (C Gar E Yo) and was blowing smoke in gross little rings. He said, “Broadway, China, Italy: Tres continentes en un día” (Trace Cone T Nen Tace N Oon D Ah). Miguel translated: “Three continents in one day!”
Mom said, “I’ve never thought of it like that.”
Matt said, “You should tell him not to smoke.”
Mom whispered, “Adults don’t tell other adults what to do. Besides, we’re outside.”
Matt said, “But it’s bad for him.”
Mom whispered, “You’re right, but it’s his choice.”
Matt said, “Can’t he change his choice?”
I said, “Can’t you change the subject?”
“Okay okay,” Matt said. “Who wants to go to the bat room with me?”
Miguel laughed and said, “I.” He thinks my family is funny even when I think they’re weird.
I guess Miguel really has become a friend of the family, the whole family.
For better and worse!
A few minutes later we were all double-kissing and saying goodbye. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but tourists and natives need shut-eye!
June 21
Dear Diary,
To celebrate the first day of summer, Dad took today off, and he and Mom took Miguel, Matt, and me to Jones Beach or Playa (Ply Ah). Uncle Angel had to work.
Jones Beach is beautiful! It’s about an hour and a half away by car and has perfect waves for boogie boarding. At first, I told Mom I didn’t want to go because I might feel self-conscious in a bathing suit. But she reminded me that I love the beach and said I look cute in my bathing suit and should appreciate my body for what it does not how it looks, and besides, the beach was full of bodies, not just mine. I told her she was being teacher-y and added, “I still might wear a shirt on top.”
But I didn’t. Just sunscreen!
I will say this:
And Mom’s right: I love the beach. Especially boogie boarding. I love catching waves and holding on tight as they take me to shore. And I love grabbing my board and running back in and catching another wave and riding that one to shore too. It’s like flying.
In the ocean, nothing stays the same. New waves come crashing in, morning and night, here and in Spain. And you can’t plan everything out. You also can’t worry about boys or friends or crushes or enemies or anything. You have to just pay attention to where the water takes you. And go with the flow. Go for the ride!
Well, Miguel and Matt and I were having fun, but then Matt got cold and asked Miguel to get out with him. I had a lot of sand in my bathing suit (!) and wanted to fix that in the water, so I said, “Go ahead, I’m taking one last ride.”
But here’s what happened. I caught one last wave, and just when I was about to hop out, I heard a familiar grown-up voice in front of me.
“Melanie Martin? Melanie Martin!”
I looked up from where I’d landed and saw two feet, two ankles, two shins, two knees, two thighs, one pink bikini, and one head that I couldn’t make out because the sun was too bright. I started getting up and realized that next to me, wearing nothing but a drippy bathing suit, was … Principal Gemunder!
Trust me, nothing is more embarrassing than bumping into your principal in a bikini! And I almost bumped into her literally!!
“What a nice surprise!” Principal Gemunder said.
I jumped up so we’d be face to face and I wouldn’t accidentally find out whether her belly button was an innie, an outie, or an in-betweenie!
“Hi,” I mumbled. I was not at my conversational best.
Matt saw us, but he stayed right where he was on the sand. I could tell that he was trying to look sorry for me—but also trying not to laugh.
“Do you have summer plans, Melanie? A camp or a trip?”
“We’re not sure, but right now a friend from Spain is here, so we’re mostly doing New Yorky things.”
“How splendid! What part of Spain is she from?”
“Valencia,” I mumbled. “He.”
Ms. Gemunder’s eyebrows went straight up, but she got them to go down again. We weren’t at school, so it would have been inappropriate for her to call Miguel’s visit inappropriate.
“I hope you have a wonderful time!” she said.
After we said goodbye, I felt stupid and realized I should have asked about her summer plans, but I swear, I’d never thought of her as a person with summer plans.
Maybe I thought principals went into a frozen state at their desks all summer, then got thawed out on the first morning of the next school year.
Crazy, right? I mean, my mom’s a teacher and I know she has a life. She loves snow days and summertime as much as Matt and I do. But still. I’d just never pictured Ms. Gemunder, my mom�
�s boss, at the beach in a bikini!
Thank God she didn’t have a tattoo or anything. I don’t think I could have handled that.
P.S. Matt understood how dumb I felt at the beach, but I don’t think Miguel quite quite quite got it.
Dear Diary,
This is going to sound strange, but it’s almost as if Mom, Dad, Miguel, and I just came back from a double date, a date that ended in a weird way.
Mom and Dad had reserved seats to listen to music with grown-up friends, but the friends had to cancel at the last minute, so Mom and Dad decided Miguel and I were old enough to go instead. Not Matt, though. Baby Matt had to stay home with the babysitter. And not Uncle Angel because he had a business dinner.
Mom asked Uncle Angel if it would be okay if Miguel slept over in Matt’s room tonight (!) so we wouldn’t have to take him back to the hotel. Uncle Angel said sí.
Personally, I think Mom and Dad liked being with us as much as they would have liked being with their boring regular friends. I know they like showing Miguel around.
In the car, Dad said, “When people say ‘New York City,’ they don’t mean just Manhattan, they mean all five boroughs.”
“Boroughs? ¿Burros?” (Boo Rrrohs). Miguel looked at Mom. “Donkeys? Asses?”
Dad laughed, but Mom said, “In English, a burro is a donkey—or ass—but in New York, a ‘borough’ is a neighborhood or area.”
If Matt had been in the backseat, he would have been peeing in his pants.
New York City’s five boroughs are:
1. Manhattan (the island where we live)
2. Brooklyn (where we went tonight)
3. Queens (where Miguel and Uncle Angel landed)
4. Staten Island (where you go by ferry)
5. The Bronx (home of the Bronx Zoo and Yankee Stadium)
Dad said, “Tonight we will see the best of Brooklyn.”
And I think we did!
It’s amazing how much of New York I’ve seen since Monday. And it’s only Thursday!
When a family has a guest, they have dinner conversations and don’t fight. When a family has out-of-town guests, they get to be tourists in their own hometown.
I can’t believe I’d never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge! It’s been around since 1883, and I’ve been around eleven years, and tonight was the first time I ever walked across it.
It’s enormous! It has stones and arches like a cathedral, and it attaches Brooklyn to Manhattan, and cars drive over it. Above the cars are paths for walking or biking and benches for sitting.
It was half scary, half exciting.
Our feet were safe on the wooden walkway, but it was as if we were tightrope walking. The East River was below us, and all around was air and steel cables. It was so cool I hated to blink! It felt as if we were in the middle of the sky!
Dad said, “When the Brooklyn Bridge was built, people were afraid to cross it, so a famous circus master, P. T. Barnum, led twenty-one elephants across to prove it wasn’t dangerous.”
Miguel laughed, and Mom took a picture of him and me with the lacy white Woolworth Building sticking up behind us. It used to be the tallest building in the world—until the Chrysler Building came along, and many others after that.
I said, “It’s beautiful.”
Miguel turned right to me and repeated, “Beautiful.”
I looked at him and wasn’t sure if he was complimenting the skyline—or me. Well, after that I couldn’t say anything! But my stomach butterflies started flapping around. They are so confused! They keep migrating back and forth against my ribs.
In Spain, I went crazy trying to figure out Miguel. Then, when we started e-mailing, I cared too much about whether he wrote back. Which may be normal for first love or whatever, but it was a lot of anxiety for a worrier like me. So now I’m trying to figure out how to care about someone without losing my mind.
I mean, I need my mind. I don’t like when it’s lost.
Anyway, we had pizza for dinner at a restaurant right under the bridge called Grimaldi’s. It had red-and-white-checked tablecloths. Miguel cut his pizza into pieces and ate with a fork and knife! That’s what they do in Spain. So I did too. Mom looked surprised, but she smiled and didn’t say anything.
For dessert, we ate chocolate chip ice cream cones outside at the Fulton Ferry Landing. Bright yellow water taxis docked at a fancy restaurant called River Café. Miguel said, “I have never seen a taxi boat.” I hadn’t either, but I didn’t want to admit that.
A big red sign flashed 77 degrees Fahrenheit (which made sense to us), then 25 degrees Celsius (which made sense to Miguel).
Mom looked out toward the lights of Manhattan and said, “Feel the summer breeze. The brisa” (Bree Sa).
Dad put his arms around her, and for a second, I wondered whether Miguel would put his arms around me. He gave me a shy smile and I smiled back. But no touching.
We read part of a poem stenciled into the railing. It’s by Walt Whitman, who lived in Brooklyn. One line is: “throw out questions and answers!”
At first I thought Whitman meant “throw out” like throw away, discard, delete, or get rid of. (Not to sound like a thesaurus.)
Now I think he probably meant: Keep coming up with questions and answers. Keep asking and answering! Keep thinking!
Here’s the thing: Sometimes I can’t stop thinking. I’ve even been asking myself things like: How different are friendship and love? If that were a math question, would friendship and love be separate spots on the same line, or would they be intersecting circles? What about obsession?
At 7:30, the Bargemusic concert started, so we went into a big room that actually floats right on the water. On the East River! The room rocked a teeny bit! It had big picture windows, and we looked out at Manhattan and saw boats and birds gliding by and saw the sky s-l-o-w-l-y change from pinkish blue to deep blue to black. The buildings changed color too. They went from beige gray to sunset gold to black (actually, black with twinkling office lights).
Mostly we watched the two pianists.
Miguel and I sat in the front row. We could see their hands as they touched and pressed and stroked and pounded and banged and caressed the keys. It was not the kind of music I usually listen to, but it was pretty and romantic and boring only in parts.
It’s cool how different musicians get such different sounds out of the same notes. And different writers get such different books out of the same letters. And different artists (Mom would add) get such different paintings out of the same colors.
Well, the two pianos were facing each other. They weren’t baby grand pianos or regular upright pianos or dinky electric pianos but great big jumbo grand pianos. The stretch limos of pianodom.
There was a man pianist and a woman pianist. (When Matt says “pianist,” it sounds like a totally different word, which I’m not going to write but which, I will say, only one of those two pianists has.)
Anyway, the two pianists started out far away across from each other on the separate pianos.
Later they sat down again, but together on the same bench so that they could play side by side.
I liked how they were far away, then got closer. Is that what Miguel and I are doing—getting closer?
Miguel leaned over and whispered, “May Lah Nee, I will never forget this night.”
I whispered, “Me neither.”
The final piece was a two-piano version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody* in Blue. At the end, everybody clapped loudly—except one man who blew his nose honkingly.
The melody got stuck in my head and I didn’t even mind, which I usually do. On the drive home, we all hummed it—for about a minuto (Me New Toe). Dad said George Gershwin died young, but first he and his brother, Ira, and another guy wrote a Great American Opera: Porgy and Bess. Mom started singing “Summertime, and the living is eeeeasyyyy,” and Miguel smiled at me because he’s getting used to Mom’s singing—and my getting embarrassed.
When we got home, Mom and Dad said good night,
and Miguel and I hesitated in the hallway. I was on my way to my room and he was on his way to Matt’s room, where Matt was already asleep.
Suddenly Miguel gave me Spanish double cheek kisses and cupped his hand around my upper arm. His fingertips felt warm, and he pressed very gently. I took a baby step toward him. The evening had felt romantic (duh! no Matt the Brat!) and we were looking at each other without saying anything, and I thought un besito might feel really nice. I even thought the moment was right.
But instead of puckering up and maybe half-closing my eyes, I chickened out and accidentally broke the mood. I talked! “So are you having fun in New York?”
“New York is a marvel,” he said. “And your parents are very good to me.” Then he said “Buenas noches,” and taught me how to say “Sweet dreams” in Spanish. It’s Sueña con los ángeles (Sway Nya Cone Lohs On Hell Ays), which does not mean “Dream of Los Angeles.” It means “Dream with the angels.”
I said it back to him. But his eyes looked a little serious. Or sad. Or as if something might be bothering him.
*Diary entries aren’t supposed to have footnotes, but I had to look up “rhapsody” because I had noooo idea how to spell it. My dictionary says it’s an “extravagantly enthusiastic expression of feeling.” Sometimes I feel extravagantly enthusiastic and expressive, but right now, I’m more pensive than rhapsodic. I’m also sleepy. Is Miguel? I hope the mice on the Ferris wheel don’t keep him up. Matt’s room can be pretty noisy at night. Then again, maybe he is already asleep.**
6/22 Friday
Dear Diary,
This morning was seriously embarrassing!!! I know I get embarrassed easily, but I could send what happened today into a magazine! Not that I would! That would be even embarrassing!
