by Natasha Díaz
“I—I have a lot of homework. I’m taking two AP classes.”
“You’re one of those bookworms,” he declared with a wide grin, showing off his teeth. “Probably goin’ to some fancy college next year, ain’t you?”
“Northwestern.”
“Where’s that at?”
“Chicago.”
“My cousin Marlow stays out in Chi-town. He says it’s brick most of the year.”
A breeze rushed through the open window and blew my hair around my face, casting a shadow on the wall that looked like willow branches moving through the sky at sunset. Raymond bored his almond-colored eyes into me as he backed his chair away from the desk. The ear-piercing screech made heads twist in our direction, but the teacher didn’t stir. Raymond stood to leave and turned to me once more.
“Yo, can I cop your notes if homeboy decides to teach anything?” He caught me with his eyes again, and my heart banged against my chest so hard I had to remind myself to breathe.
“Oh. Yeah, okay.” I looked around to make sure this wasn’t a dream.
“Bet. I’ll see you Friday, seven o’clock,” Raymond said before he crossed the threshold into the hallway.
My cheeks swelled hot, and even the dirty looks from my jealous female classmates couldn’t deaden the excitement inside me.
I am going to the last dance of the year with Raymond Morris. Me. Corinne Paire.
May 29, 1998
Mummy made me a dress for the dance, and she spent more than she should have on shimmery purple material that goes to my knees and flows just enough to make me look like I’m dancing even when I’m barely moving. She took an unnecessary amount of photos to compensate for the dances I never attended. Anita rolled her eyes the entire time—she’s used to getting all the attention. Popularity seems to come naturally to Anita, a gene of confidence I was born without.
I walked the twenty blocks to school. It was early, and I liked the feeling of the breeze on my legs. Whistles and hisses followed me, but I kept my eyes straight ahead. Those boys weren’t worth my time. No one was, except Raymond.
Kids stood outside the school building in clusters. Some waited for friends and dates, while others only stuck around long enough to convince their parents of their cover before disappearing to a more debaucherous evening. I waited around for Raymond but went inside when I realized I was overdressed and attracting attention.
The gym was decorated with streamers, and strobe lights that sent flashes of color all over the place. A guy from my grade was behind the makeshift DJ booth, a folding table on risers, and was spinning a playlist of almost exclusively Tribe Called Quest, much to some of our white teachers’ distaste.
I took a seat in the bleachers, where a few other students who had decided to make a final go at the high school experience congregated. We placed ourselves sporadically, so as not to crowd one another, leaving enough room between us to allow for a quick getaway if we needed it.
The popular girls danced, moving between mini-circles until young men eventually plucked them from the bunch and spun them around to get in better gyrating position.
Six songs played before Raymond arrived. He floated in with his boys, and everyone, male and female, watched, hoping to catch a smile or a nod. He was electric in every way. From his curly reddish-brown hair to his matching Adidas getup, jacket and shoes in the OG black with white stripes. He made the world turn.
Raymond was fifty feet away, but I had no control. My legs shot up. I stood so quickly that my dress flew directly into a beam of bright white light and sent everyone’s eyes onto me. Raymond stopped and looked, not for too long or with any real sense of recognition, and then he made his way to the DJ booth.
He’s just saying hi to his friends. He’ll come over soon, I told myself as the music continued to play.
Or am I supposed to go to him? I asked myself as the floor began to crowd with couples.
I don’t belong here. I’m a fool.
I began to descend the bleachers.
The air-conditioning in the gym hadn’t worked for years, and the air was sticky as I weaved in and out of couples caressing.
“Where you goin’?”
Raymond’s voice turned me to stone.
“You’re gonna leave like that, without saying hi or nothin’?”
I turned around to find him closer than I expected and had to take a step back to see him. His face was flushed and dotted with perspiration.
“I—I’m not feeling great….” I moved toward the door, but he stopped me.
“Yeah, it’s mad hot. Here, take a sip.”
He held out a bottle of ginger ale and loosened his grip the moment it touched my palm, leaving me with no choice but to grab it so it wouldn’t fall to the ground. In truth, I was parched and a bit queasy, but more from anxiety and embarrassment than the steamy conditions.
The soda fizzed as I untwisted the cap, but when I took a drink, a strange liquid hit my tongue like lava and burned my throat. Raymond chuckled as I heaved, unable to speak, and took the bottle from me, draining its contents with ease.
“What was that?” I choked out.
“Whiskey ginger, the good stuff. I swiped it from my pops.”
He dragged me onto the dance floor, where everyone was grinding again. Bodies rippled and made me dizzy as we walked…or maybe it was the walking that made me dizzy, or the astringent taste in my mouth, which made my tongue feel fat. Raymond found a spot right in the middle of the floor, as if the room had reserved and guarded this central space on his behalf.
He started to dance and I leaned into the freedom my body felt now that the burning in my throat had worn off. Out of nowhere, another ginger-ale bottle materialized, and this time I snatched it before he could even offer. Raymond took it from me when I was done and then spun me around so his body fit perfectly behind mine.
I’m a good dancer. Better than Anita, even. I just don’t need the whole world to know it the way she does. Until now, I’ve been content dancing around my room alone, pretending to be on Soul Train. But there, in front of my whole school, I kept my eyes open and rolled my hips against Raymond. I watched them watch me and I knew for the first time that I was who everyone wanted to be. He moved his arm over my chest bone and put his mouth next to my ear.
“Let’s go,” he whispered.
His lips tickled my lobe and sent a jolt between my legs. Outside, some kids waved to Raymond and dispersed, his status providing privacy as we cooled off. The drop in temperature sobered me slightly, enough to realize how fuzzy everything had become. It took me a few moments to get my bearings and read my watch—it was nine-thirty already, and I had to be home at ten.
“You want a ride?” he asked, reading my mind.
His car, a light brown Cadillac, was parked a couple blocks north of the school, down the street from a Chinese restaurant on a corner littered with chicken-wing bones. The front seat smelled like old cigarettes, with a hint of peppermint coming from the worn air freshener hanging from the mirror.
“I’m at One Twenty-Sixth, between Fifth and Lenox,” I said, even though I didn’t want the night to end.
He didn’t turn the car on. Instead, he leaned over and kissed me.
It wasn’t just my first kiss; it was THE kiss. The kind that changes the direction of your whole life. The type of kiss you feel on every surface of your body. It was such an all-encompassing kiss that I didn’t notice that his hand was halfway up my thigh.
“Oh.” I pushed it off.
Raymond frowned and ran his fingers over his lips to rub my sticky lip gloss off.
“Sorry…can we take it slow?” I asked.
“You didn’t take it slow when everyone was watching,” he snapped, and a bit of spit flew out of his mouth and landed on my bare leg.
“I’m sorry,” I said as my heart f
ell into my lap.
Raymond’s face softened, and his hand brushed through my hair and rubbed my neck, the same way my mom used to when I was little and had a cold.
“Hey, it’s okay.” He pulled my face toward his and wiped the tears from under my eyes. “It’s just, you got me all excited, and now I want you so bad it hurts.”
Before I could do or say anything, he kissed me again, the same way that made my ankles float off the floor of the car. And then I heard him undo his belt buckle.
“Raymond…,” I whispered, suddenly aware of the emptiness of the street around us. The only people nearby were in the Chinese restaurant half a block away. His grip on my neck tightened and he began to lower my head toward his lap.
“I want you so bad, Corinne.”
Now my name on his lips began to sound like a curse. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t break free.
“Please, baby, please. I’m hurting.”
Eventually, I gave in, and he lowered me all the way down to his crotch.
I stared at the suede microfiber seat the whole time. From the glare of the streetlight, I could see it was filthy, and I counted the individual stains as he guided my head up and down, holding my neck tight so I couldn’t escape. I told myself that this wasn’t actually sex. I told myself that he was halfway there and it was my fault; I just had to finish it and get home.
When it was over, I watched him zip his pants and willed the bronze teeth to catch his skin, but nothing happened. He handed me a tissue, but I grabbed the ginger-ale bottle to wash the taste of shame out of my mouth and finished it all in the five minutes it took to drive me home.
“People don’t see you how I do, Corinne,” he said as he parked outside my house. He lifted my chin with his finger. “I always knew you were special.”
He spoke with such sincerity that I almost believed him. But if that’s true, I asked myself, then why do I feel so terrible?
The back of my neck is sore and raw. It’s been days, but I keep telling myself if I just scrub a little harder, the stink of humiliation will go away. I wish I knew how to turn back time. If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing sad thoughts in a notebook, wishing it had some magic power to make me feel better.
There are no windows in the attic, so I check my phone to see what time it is right as the digits turn to 4:56 a.m. Everything is dry and numb and unfathomable as I sit here, unable to move, and picture the corner just ten blocks away where this happened to my mother. The clock pushes my thoughts forward as I remain still, in disbelief: 4:57…4:58…4:59…
Chapter 6
I stand outside a car, trying to open the door to protect my mother, but I am invisible and no one can hear my screams.
“STOP!”
The floor is hard beneath my head, where I startle myself awake. I check my phone: 12:30 p.m. The journal sits next to me, still open to the page where I stopped reading, unable to bear any more of my mother’s pain in one sitting.
“Stop!”
The cry rings out again, and in my groggy state I realize it wasn’t me yelling in a dream; it’s my mother. A loud crash sends me bounding out of the attic and down the stairs. Anita crouches over my mother, who is crumpled on the third-floor bathroom tiles, rocking back and forth.
A cell phone is smashed and shattered in the hallway. Relief travels through me: that seems to be the extent of the physical damage.
“Corinne, it’s okay,” Anita coos as she pets her gently.
“Mommy?”
Anita looks at me with menacing eyes, pulls herself upright, and takes two giant strides out of the bathroom.
“Where have you been?” she demands.
“I was…reading in Pa’s office, lost track of time.”
She picks apart my lie in her head, skeptical, but also unable to give it the usual unbridled amateur investigation, what with her sister on the ground and the heat wave penetrating the walls like the devil himself.
“Pack a bag,” she whispers to me so as not to remind my mom the cause of this breakdown. “Your father called this morning. He’s back from London and wants to see you.”
I sneak back upstairs, careful to remain undetected, and rush up to the attic to grab my mom’s journal. Now that I have breached the privacy of this forbidden text, I can’t risk anyone finding out, or worse, anything happening to it. My backpack has a hidden pocket that the journal fits in perfectly, camouflaged by the black nylon.
Anita is standing by the front door when I reach the bottom of the stairs. She holds her hand out impatiently for my bag and passes it to Zeke.
“Your mother needs to rest. You’ll see her when you get back in a few days,” she says before I can ask Mom’s whereabouts, and pushes me toward the front door.
Outside, Uncle Zeke puts my bag in the car my dad must have sent for me.
“We’ll see you on Sunday, lil’ one.” He hugs me. “Don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere.”
The atmosphere outside changes once we get onto the highway, with music on the street replaced by the occasional car horn. The houses and front lawns all present themselves with an array of colorful flowers, and what the newer houses lack in character they make up for in elegance. The suburbs of White Plains may be uppity and fancy, but they’re familiar. It is home.
The car pulls up to the white shingled house and manicured yard that I love. A calm settles over me, and my body hair, pinpricked in anticipation of my arrival, softens. The navy-blue window planters hold herb gardens that haven’t been tended all summer. Stalks of parsley and thyme, now tortured and gray, lie shriveled in the hard soil like herbal incarnations of Ursula’s poor unfortunate souls. I check the mailbox, and catalogues from CB2 and Restoration Hardware addressed to my mother spill out, along with invitations and bills and advertisements for properties going up for sale in the neighborhood.
When I was younger, I used to make a game of getting from the curb to the front door—I was the only one who could comfortably use the unusually small stepping-stones my father installed when he first bought the place, one of the few home improvements he ever attempted. I’d hop from one to the next on one foot, imagining the ground around me was lava, as my parents walked through the lawn.
Today, I trudge through the grass with my bag in one arm and the mail in the other, unbothered by the lava because all I need is to hear the click as the lock turns to feel right again.
The moment I enter the foyer, I struggle to release the air trapped in my lungs, but I can’t. The room is unrecognizable.
“Well, looks like there’s more than one big change around here,” my father says as he runs out of the kitchen and stops to take me in, his head cocked to one side like a puppy discovering his reflection. He looks shorter than I remember, a bit thinner as well, and his wavy brown hair, while still full, is streaked with gray.
“Just don’t get tattoos and join a gang on me, okay?” he whispers in my ear, patting the tight braids against my skull as if to confirm they are not an illusion.
The mail falls from my hands like the contents of a piñata as he grabs and holds me like we’ve been apart for years and he thought we would never see each other again.
After an eternity, he lets me go and opens his eyes and arms wide, welcoming me to this new home as though it is a new lease on life. My kindergarten paintings that my mother curated and reframed have been replaced by huge black-and-white photographs of strangers. The bright blue Moroccan rug on which I used to jump from one swirl to the next in an effort to distract myself from my parents’ bickering has been replaced by some fluffy thing that looks like a polar bear skin. Two stiff black leather love seats sit where the big comfy couch used to be, and an acrylic bench is positioned on the other side of the room.
My dad looks at me with nervous glee. “So, what do you think?”
I think this is the type of in
terior design that makes more sense for a new age vampire family than it does for humans. I think it smells different too, and not in a good way, like fresh paint and floor soap instead of flowers.
“It, um…it looks…clean?” I say.
He deflates, saddened by such a dull response. The front door slams behind me.
“I’ve told you a thousand times, if you leave the door open, you let the air-conditioning out! You act like money grows on trees,” says my Bubby, who appears as if by magic, already nagging.
Dad’s face falls at the sight of her, draining the little color left in his cheeks. Bubby likes to stop by uninvited, an occurrence I’ve been trained to dread, but for once I’m relieved. Her overbearing presence casts shadows I can hide in while I adjust to this new state of being.
“Mother, what are you doing here?” he asks.
“Such a warm welcome after not seeing me for two months,” Bubby chides.
Each click of her heels against the marble floor makes him wince. Eau de Vicks VapoRub clouds the room with such strength that the air tastes like the last few days of a cold by the time she reaches us. Bubby’s lips are painted with blush matte lipstick, the same color she always wears and reapplies so often that it cakes as it dries, giving her mouth the unfortunate appearance of a perpetual scab.
“Nevaeh, dear. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
Her nose wrinkles as her gaze drifts up to my hair. She has never been the affectionate type, unlike my other grandma, who wouldn’t let five minutes pass without giving me a kiss or a playful squeeze. Bubby always keeps her distance.
“Mom!” my father whines like a child.
“I haven’t died yet, dear; that’s still my name.” Bubby cuts him off before he has the chance to delve further into the purpose of her unexpected visit.
My dad is a litigator, a really good one, and he can usually outtalk anyone, except his mother.
“You both look hungry. I’ll make some food. We’ll eat together.” Bubby walks past us toward the kitchen.
