Melanie in Manhattan

by Carol Weston

  Too late. My brain was off and running. Miguel and Justin are both my amigos. One lives far away and one lives nearby, and thinking about either one of them can get me good nervous (excited) or bad nervous (upset). They’re both smart and cute and nice. Miguel is gallant and gave me a necklace and my whole family likes him. Justin is funny and lives nearby and I usually feel comfortable with him. I like e-mailing them both, and I like when they explain things to me, whether about Spain or math or anything.

  So what am I supposed to do about stupid Suze’s stupid party??

  Mom led us to a waiting area, where TV monitors explained light-years and said it takes eight minutes for a sun ray to reach Earth.

  Matt said, “What are a Martian’s favorite candies?”

  Miguel said, “I do not know.”

  “Milky Ways and Mars Bars! I made that up!” Mom had to translate.

  Tom Hanks’s voice came on the monitor. A camera zoomed in on people rushing around, then pulled back back back until it showed the street, the neighborhood, the city, the Earth, the planets, and a gazillion stars!

  Tom Hanks announced, “There comes a time in each of our lives when it dawns on us that we are not the center of the universe.”

  Well, that got me thinking. Have I reached that time in my life yet? I can tell you, since you’re my diary, that I know I should worry about war and homelessness and global warming and terrorism and other people’s parents, and I do (a little), but I also have to admit (just to you) that I worry more about Miguel and Justin and Cecily and Suze and Matt the Brat and my mice and my parents and myself.

  We finally entered the planetarium. The room was dark and the ceiling was round and a light made Matt’s shoelaces purple.

  We sat down and it got pitch-black, and I realized how tired I was from waking up early, staying up late, walking walking walking, and trying to figure out boys and friends and whether I was just an itsy-bitsy teeny tiny speck in the vast, gigantic observable universe.

  Miguel sat next to me, and I could just have reached over and held his hand. Thirty minutes ago, we had almost held hands. Now that feeling seemed as far away as the Milky Way. How come the connection between us sometimes feels so strong and sometimes feels so fragile?

  I leaned further back in my comfortable seat, and a million billion trillion stars appeared above us, and soft calming music surrounded us, and Tom Hanks droned on about the golden age of astronomy and how we are all citizens of the cosmos.

  It was humbling. And overwhelming.

  I closed my eyes for a split second, and then, somehow, I … fell asleep! I slept through the entire show! My brain was on overload and must have just shut down and crashed, like a computer.

  When the lights went back on, Mom nudged me and said we should go home and get some rest before the opera.

  So we went outside, and I stuck my hand up—which I’ve been doing since I was a little kid. (Mom says “taxi” was one of my first words.)

  Miguel said, “There’s one!”

  I said, “No, it’s got someone in it.”

  He looked at me. “How do you know?”

  I explained that when a cab is available, its top light is on. Lots of yellow cabs streamed by us, but their top lights were off, meaning the taxis were full. Some had two little top lights on, but that meant that the drivers or taxistas (Ta Sees Stahs) were off duty.

  “Should I get a gypsy?” I asked. Mom nodded, so I flagged one and it pulled over.

  Miguel said, “This car is not yellow and it has no light. How did you know it was a taxi?”

  I explained that I’d spotted the sign in the passenger-seat windshield and had noticed just one person in the car.

  “Oh,” Miguel said.

  “We call them gypsy cabs,” I added.

  “Gypsy?” Miguel asked, and next thing you know, he and Mom were talking about a Spanish writer named García Lorca, who wrote poems about gypsies, the moon, and even New York. Mom said Lorca also wrote a tragic play called The House of Bernarda Alba.

  Well, as we got closer and closer to The Apartment of Melanie Martin, I started thinking about all the differences between Miguel and me. Different ages and languages and countries and cultures and experiences. Miguel was squooshed next to me, but I don’t know if he even noticed because he and Mom were talking a mile a minute in Spanish. Is that how she’d babbled to Miguel’s father, Antonio? She switched to English to tell me that Lorca got murdered in the Spanish Civil War. I said, “That’s terrible,” but until that minute I’d never heard of Lorca, so it’s not as if I was sad sad sad.

  More like: I felt estúpida (S 2 Pee Da) for not caring about the Great Spanish Poet.

  While they talked, I also felt a little left out. But I reminded myself that if Miguel and I are really amigos, I should be hoping things get better between his parents, not just that they get “better” between us. I should care about him, not just how much he cares about me.

  I was also thinking that it’s hard to care about two boys at the same time, especially when they are from different worlds.

  We got to our apartment, the cab stopped, and Miguel started to open his door on the traffic side—not the building side. New Yorkers know never to do that. The driver shouted, “Close the door!” and Mom gave Miguel the little lecture she used to have to give us.

  At home, Mom sliced up a cantaloupe, and Matt said it tasted melony, and Miguel repeated, “May Lah Nee?” and everyone laughed. Then he told Mom about Suze’s invitación (Een B Ta Syone), and Mom said that sounded fun. Fun?!

  Miguel and Mom are now at Zabar’s buying cheese, salami, bread, pasta, fruit, and brownies for our picnic at tonight’s opera. I stayed here. Guess what I have been doing? Hint: Scribble, scribble, scribble.

  I also cleaned my room. First I hid Hedgehog in my sock drawer, but then I felt guilty and sorry for her, so I pulled her out and put her right back on my bed where she belongs.

  one hora (Or Ah) or hour later

  Dear Diary,

  Miguel just came into my room and saw the heart-shaped frame with the photo of us at the castle. I should have hidden that in my sock drawer! I was soooo embarrassed, as he could tell. He said, “May Lah Nee, I have a very nice photo of you on my—how do you say?—bullet board.”

  “Bulletin board?”

  “Sí sí. Bulletin board.”

  I confess. That made me feel better!

  Dear Diary,

  I have to tell you something.

  Things keep changing.

  Tonight in Central Park, Miguel tried to put his arm around me.

  I’m pretty sure he did anyway.

  We were sitting on our blanket behind Mom, Dad, and Uncle Angel, who were totally into the opera. Matt was busy driving his favorite red car around an imaginary racetrack on our blanket. (Pathetic but true.) Miguel was on my left, and he moved closer and stuck his hand out behind me—not actually over my shoulder or anything—but behind me in what I guess my life-skills teacher would call my personal space. Then he lifted his arms up like he was about to yawn, but he didn’t yawn, he kind of lowered his right arm on my back and shoulders.

  I didn’t move. I didn’t plunk my arm around him or scrunch closer or rest my head on his shoulder or anything. I just sat there frozen and pretended I hadn’t noticed.

  Which was dumb. Of course I’d noticed! Who wouldn’t notice the weight and warmth of a boy’s arm on your back? But I swear, I’d turned into a melon. May Lah Nee the Melón (May Loan). I’d gone completely still inside and outside. I’d become a thing instead of a person. An it instead of a she.

  Why why why? Was it because I couldn’t bring myself to do anything with my parents right there? I tried sticking my arm up and over Miguel’s back. But it wouldn’t go. Gravity was holding it down.

  I was the opposite of that Turandot lady in the other opera. When she got kissed, she melted. But when Miguel tried to put his arm around me, I went into melon mode!

  Thing is, when a boy and a girl are danc
ing, they’re supposed to smoosh together. It’s expected, so it feels easier.

  Well, I finally got myself to lean into Miguel a teeny bit, and I even put my left arm behind his back—though it was not touching his back.

  Miguel turned his head and smiled at me, and I smiled back, and then with his hand, he pulled me a little closer to him. Which felt okay … but not one hundred percent perfecto.

  Dad turned and asked if we liked the opera, and Miguel dropped his hand straight down to the blanket, where it stayed for the rest of the opera. (I doubt Dad even saw.)

  When Dad looked away again, Miguel put his right hand on top of my left hand. And it was nice-ish, at first, but then (is this dorky?) I wanted to eat another brownie, and I worried it would seem unfriendly to pull my hand away. So I let it stay there, trapped.

  Is there something wrong with me? Is it normal to think like this?

  Probably. A lot of weird stuff is normal. But still, you’d think I would have wanted his hand to be covering mine. Hearts really are hard to predict! I guess you can’t plan love out. Because sometimes a guy and a girl who like-like each other start just plain liking each other, and sometimes maybe two people who start as friends can become more.

  After a while, I said, “Miguel, I have cards.”

  “Cards?” I pulled out my hand and pulled out my deck, and we taught each other card games while the opera singers serenaded us. We played until the evening twilight became nighttime darkness. Then Mom lit two candles and we played some more. To tell you the truth, I think Miguel liked playing cards. He didn’t seem heartbroken or anything. He seemed fine.

  I wonder if he’s ever thought, as I’m starting to, that if you really care about someone you’ll barely ever be able to see, it’s mostly going to hurt. I mean, if you love an actor or musician or athlete, you don’t sit there hoping for e-mails or IMs or calls or kisses, so it’s not hard. But if you love someone you actually know who is far away, you start wanting that person to be closer. You do. And that is not fun. It’s also probably the last thing Miguel needs if he’s already worried about his parents.

  At the end of the opera, Mom and Dad and Uncle Angel were all happy happy happy and Matt was out cold. Uncle Angel said, “It would be nice to leave here.”

  Mom assured him that we were leaving.

  Uncle Angel said, “No, I mean to say, ‘to liiiiiive here.’ ”

  Mom laughed. “It is nice to live here, but it is also time to leave.”

  She nudged Matt awake, and we walked with a crowd of other people to the edge of the park. Mom was holding our blanket, Dad was carrying Matt, Uncle Angel was smoking (I could see the fiery glow of his cigarette), and Mom told Miguel and me to get taxis.

  “We could get a gypsy,” Miguel said.

  “Gitano” (Hhhe Tah No), I said, and he smiled. I think he likes my little one-word offerings. I also think that somehow Miguel and I will be able to be friends, even if we may not become a mushy couple.

  “I see a yellow cab with a light on top!” Miguel said, and put his hand up. The cab screeched to a stop.

  Miguel looked proud of himself, so I said, “You’re becoming a real New Yorker!”

  We all double-kissed in the dark, and Miguel and Uncle Angel got in that cab, and we four M’s got in another.

  And now here I am, at my desk.

  If this were a novel, not a diary, by now Miguel and I might be madly in love and making out every minute—or we might hate each other and be in a big fat fight.

  But real life is foggier than fiction.

  Really yours,

  Saturday June 23

  Dear Diary,

  What I’m about to write may take you by surprise.

  Miguel and Angel are spending a nephew-uncle day downtown, just the two of them (visiting the New York Stock Exchange and riding on the Staten Island Ferry), and I don’t feel left out.

  I feel sort of relieved. I’m hanging out with Matt in my pajamas, playing with our mice, and it’s fine! Is it strange to feel content with my younger brother instead of older boyfriend, or sort-of boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, or close-but-faraway-regular-friend, or whatever he is?

  A few weeks ago, my moods revolved around every e-mail I did or didn’t get. I was on a big roller coaster, or as Miguel said they say in Spanish, a Russian mountain or montaña rusa (Moan Tahn Ya Rrroo Sa). Now Miguel is here, and you’d think I’d want to be out with him every single second instead of inside with Matt and the mice mice mice.

  Maybe it’s easier to fall in love than to stay in love. Easier to flirt than to be there for each other 24/7. Easier to think about boys than to hang out with boys. Easier to be a guest than a host. Easier to go crazy about someone who seems to know everything about Spanish and Spain than someone who asks questions about America and English.

  Matt must have inherited some of Mom’s mind-reading genes because he said, “You know how Miguel sometimes says things funny? Like one time he said, ‘The drop that made the cup overflow’ instead of ‘The straw that broke the camel’s back’?”

  “I guess …”

  “Well, he told me that even when people speak a language perfectly, you can usually still tell if they are spies.”

  “How?”

  “You make them do hard math problems, fast and out loud. Most people can’t do math except in their own language.”

  “Oh.” But I wasn’t thinking about spies. I was thinking about the party tonight with Justin and Miguel.

  I wish Miguel hadn’t mentioned Suze’s party to Mom and Dad. But they probably think it’s good for Miguel to be included in a genuine American party. Or maybe they want to have an evening off by themselves too.

  P.S. Matt showed me his latest crafts project: He’s been rolling paper cigarettes. I said, “Mom and Dad would not approve!!”

  He said, “I’m not going to start smoking, Melanie!! I’m going to help Uncle Angel stop smoking.”

  He showed me how he used black marker to darken the tips of the fake cigarettes. “I’m making him a pack of safe cigarettes.”

  “It won’t work,” I said.

  “It won’t hurt,” he replied.

  Dear Diary,

  Cecily and I have been IMing. I could have called her, but she’s with her dad and, strange but true, lately I’ve been thinking that sometimes when you IM, you can say more (even though you can also get misunderstood).

  Here’s the thing: When I’m typing serious stuff, I have to look at my fingers, and that can be hard. But when I’m saying serious stuff in person, I have to look at the other person’s eyes, and that can be even harder!

  Anyway, when I signed on and saw Cecily’s screen name, I wrote: u there?

  She wrote: yup

  I wrote: how’s cheshire your pretty kitty? because I love Cheshire and I love making my little cat.

  She wrote: fine. At least he was when I left

  I typed: i’m confused :-[

  She wrote: about chesh?

  I wrote: about everything

  She wrote: what do u mean?

  I wrote: don’t tell sooz, k?

  She wrote: :-x which means her lips were sealed.

  I wrote: promise?

  She wrote: mel, suze and i r friends but u and i r bff’s

  I wrote: awwww because it felt really really really good to read that I was her best friend forever. Then I just plain typed: i don’t know who i like … miguel or justin!

  I sort of squinted my eyes and stared at the blank screen and was glad I didn’t have to watch her reaction. It was taking her a long time to answer, so finally, to be funny, I corrected my grammar and sent: whom

  Another five seconds went by, so I added: sry, do u mind if I talk about miguel?

  Up popped Cecily’s reply to my original confession: do u have 2 choose?

  don’t i?

  i dunno. justin is nice and cute

  u don’t think miguel is cute?

  i haven’t met him, remember? he’s cute in photos!

&n
bsp; in person 2

  and u don’t have 2 apologize 4 talking about him :-)

  :-)

  can’t u b friends with both and c what happens?

  harder than it sounds

  i’m trying to help!

  i know. i can b friends w/ both but i don’t think i can b more than friends w/ both.

  how does justin feel?

  i don’t know!!! but is it ok if i don’t like miguel in the exact same way i used 2? it makes me feel sad and guilty just 2 write that :-(

  of course it’s ok

  what changed?

  i dunno.

  I didn’t want to write: I started thinking about Justin. Or Miguel likes my family and squirrels as much as he likes me. Or he says “stupendous.” Or I wanted to kiss him but I couldn’t and then he tried to put his arm around me and I turned into a melon. So I wrote:

  Miguel is sooo nice! But maybe we’re better as amigos. i’m not ready 2 b so serious w/ someone so far away. Maybe he’s not either? Or maybe Suze is right and i liked that he was far away! Anyway, now that he’s here it’s harder 2 b madly in love every single second

  mel, u r complicated!

  i know. :-(actually my family *is* madly in love with him! do u think i started liking miguel just 2 carry on the family tradition?

  huh?

  the hot romance between my mom and his dad?

  wut???

  remember those gorilla babies who copied their parents?

  yeah

  was i just copying my mom? falling 4 her bf’s son?

  i’m not a shrink but if he’d been a weirdo, u wud never have liked him in the 1st place. trust me!

  i trust u. do u think miguel and i were meant 4 each other? Or made 4 each other??

  i don’t think anybody is made 4 anybody else. my parents weren’t made 4 each other but i’m glad they made me!

  i’m glad 2 :-)