Malentendido (Misunderstood)

by Mara White

  “He’s yours. There isn’t another possibility.”

  I make another coffee with condensed milk and brandy, my new favorite combo. Leaving out the booze, I top off Adam’s cup. There’s a tub of ice cream I dig out of the freezer. I set it on the table along with two serving spoons that clang down beside it.

  “Ice cream makes everything better,” I say to Adam and hand him a spoon.

  “I’m sorry, B,” he says. He’s still crying.

  “It’s okay. I’m sorry you think you’re not the biological father of our son. But I’m glad that you’re his father nevertheless. You are a wonderful man, Adam. I think maybe you’ve forgotten that.”

  I take a giant spoonful of rocky road and put the obscene amount in my mouth. It cools my throat as it goes down. I’m too emotionally drained to be mad.

  “Do you know it’s me for sure?” Adam asks. He flinches as he says it, whether because it’s painful to him or abhorrent, I haven’t got a clue, but it’s obviously difficult for him to try to ask the question.

  “It’s not my cousin,” I say without missing a beat. I place the clean spoon beside the tub of ice cream and pour more brandy into my coffee. “We were together once and I certainly didn’t get pregnant from it.”

  “Are you sure? There weren’t, wasn’t . . .”

  “Nope.” I shake my head.

  “If your cousin turns out to be the father, we should we have Luke tested. In case there are any defects in his, I mean, any recessive genes that we might need to worry about later?” Adam looks at me with wide, blood-shot eyes. He obviously doesn’t want to believe me.

  Yet the moment he brought up that our son might somehow be defective because of who his parents could be, all of my pity for him evaporated instantly. He might as well be talking about me, if we’re examining questionable beginnings. And Luke? Our own child? Doesn’t he see him like I do? Our son is perfect.

  “Luke is fine. He’s above average. He is thriving and then some. Let’s talk about drugs instead, Adam. How long have you been stealing my prescriptions?”

  Antes

  Yari folds the elastic waistband of her skirt over to hike it up higher.

  “Do yours too, Beylenny! So it goes right as close to your ass cheeks as possible. All older guys love girls in school skirts. Trust me!”

  I fold my skirt once as opposed to the three flips Yari made. I can’t see how having my ass hanging out is really a good thing. I’ve got cellulite back there and I’d rather nobody saw it. Plus, you don’t have to hike your skirt at all to get attention on my block.

  “Then unbutton your shirt, like three buttons down.” She undoes my buttons as she says it. Yari is on a mission to get someone of age to buy us some liquor. “That way, when you lean over a little bit like this . . .” she says. Yari leans over so I can see the full curve of her breast and how it’s barely held back by her cotton polka-dot bra. She’s got a perfect black mole on the swell that sits there temptingly. It makes my head feel warm from looking and I blush head to toe when she catches me staring.

  “Freak! You like my tits, Bey? They’re bigger than yours!”

  Yari grabs my hand and shoves it in her shirt.

  “Fuck off, Yari,” I yelp. Yanking my hand back out again. I slide it under my butt and sit on it. Yari lights up a cigarette in front of the mirror. She inhales deeply, opens her mouth and lets the smoke curl up into her nostrils. Yari is so good at being sexy. She hikes her skirt up even more and pulls open the V of her button-up shirt. Then she puts her hair in pigtails and I laugh at her boldness.

  “Aren’t your parents home?” I ask her. She passes me the cigarette. I take a toke. Choke it out and cough until my eyes are watery and red.

  “We gotta practice that one, Bey. Yeah, they’re home, but we’re only smoking cigarettes, not weed or speed or any shit like that.”

  Yari searches the drawer under the sink filled with rollers and bobby pins. There are condoms and Vaseline, cotton balls and broken palettes of eye shadow. She finds a tube of highly pigmented gloss, it’s fire engine red and wet, then she adoringly smears it along her top and bottom lip. The final effect is purely baby prostitute, but I’m pretty sure that’s the look she’s going for.

  “Are you gonna just sit on the john all night or are you going to help me score?”

  “Yaritza, salte! Get the hell out the bathroom!” an angry voice shouts through the door.

  “Fuck off, Edgar, go piss out the window.”

  Edgar is Yari’s little brother. Yari rules this house and Edgar will pee out the window before he enters into a tangle with this beast of a girl. I’ve seen it before. Nobody wants to die, so they try not to piss her off.

  I stare at her striking appearance. I’ll never stop wondering what it’s like to be her. Yari takes one square of toilet paper and blots her full lips.

  “Did you suck Jaylee’s dick? The hot guy from the park?”

  “Maybe,” Yari says. She applies another layer of the wet red gloss. “Here, put some on,” she says. She tosses the tube at me. My mother would kill me dead if she saw me go out like this—even without the harlot lips.

  “What was it like?”

  “I don’t know, bitch. Why don’t you suck a goddamned dick and find out?”

  “Who?” I ask honestly. I’m enchanted by the way she looks, half child, half grown-up. Dirty, naughty, and dangerous written all over her. Yari pierced her own ears and laughed when they bled. She broke her arm when we were eight because she accepted a dare to jump from the highest rung of the jungle gym. When the paramedics arrived and put her on a gurney, she shouted, “You owe me five bucks, Griselda, and all of your Barbies.” The paramedics laughed at her attitude, but I seemed to be the only one to notice that she didn’t cry even a single tear that day. Yari never cries. When I do, she leaves the room.

  After she broke her arm, I showed up at her house with flowers that my mother made me bring over. I signed her blue cast and she snapped her bubble gum close to my ear.

  “It’s gonna cost my parents like a thousand dollars,” she said boastfully.

  “Are they mad?” I asked her.

  “Fuck them. I’m hungry. Can you run to the deli and get me a sandwich?”

  I look at her now, eight years later, and marvel at her strength. Yari is so resilient, a tornado could sweep through and blow us all away, and she’d still be standing here, hands on her hips, yelling “Take that, motherfuckers!” without a single hair out of place. Yari is the tornado. And she’s kind of my hero. I look up to her even though she pisses me off. She’s been better than sex education at school and ten times more efficient than going to Planned Parenthood. She tells off boys and adults without a single second of hesitation. She always speaks the truth no matter how much it hurts and no matter what; she’s always up for trying anything new. She doesn’t shy away from temptation and she never holds back. I don’t think there’s anything that scares her.

  I’m glad she’s my best friend despite all of the truly shitty things she’s done to me.

  “Yari, I love you,” I say and blink up at her adoringly.

  “Fuck off, Bey. Don’t tell me you got high from one stupid drag of a cigarette.”

  “No, I really love you and I don’t say it enough,” I tell her. I automatically straighten my skirt and button my shirt back up.

  “You’ll love me even more when I get us some vanilla vodka.” She rotates her hips when she says it like she’s Jamaican dancehall wining. “And, yes, I sucked Jaylee’s dick, ’cause I love his light eyes and that scratchy voice of his.”

  She’s still gyrating and I can’t help but laugh at her.

  “Here, plug in the curling iron, Beylenny, I’ll fix your hair. Let’s try an’ make you look like less of a librarian.”

  Antes

  It’s late and I’m high. I can barely put one foot in front of the other as I stumble down the sidewalk. Good thing my ma’s at her man’s house tonight. She’d give me an earful about my future,
about fucking up and getting girls pregnant and any other shit she could possibly come up with. Jail, expulsion from school; shit, she’s even threatened me with deportation.

  “I was born here, Ma!”

  “Oh yeah.”

  The streetlights throw down an orange glow on the sidewalks. Cars rush down Broadway bumping music even on a weeknight. At almost every corner I gotta stop and talk shit with my homies. Can’t keep no secrets in this neighborhood, not a chance in hell. Everybody knows everybody else’s business and privacy isn’t a given like it seems to be downtown. We don’t need tabloids or gossip magazines in the Heights. We got our own underground gossip network of chismosas, nosy neighbors, corner boys and viejitos playing domino or drinking beer in the median strip. If I take one more hit off of a joint, I don’t know if I can make it the five blocks to my building. I take to waving the guys away instead of approaching their circles. Digging in my pockets yields rolling papers and no cash. Shit, I’d get laughed at anyway for making a cabbie pull over to take me a few streets. The rays from the streetlamps are moving and I have to squint to make the headlights and taillights on Broadway not look like they’re swimming.

  I wipe the sweat off my brow and steady myself on a street sign. I gotta get my shit together; stop ruining my mind and body. I might puke. I spit instead. My mouth waters and I tilt my head back to the sky and curse myself for being so stupid.

  “Lucky?” I hear Bey’s voice and it feels like a dream. I look down at the cement on the sidewalk and count the gum spots, trying to hold my brain together and keep my insides from spilling out. I wipe my mouth again with the back of my arm. I swear to God I’m drooling. Fucking can’t see straight and now I’m hallucinating.

  “You okay, Luciano?” Belén asks. I love how sweet that voice sounds. I nod my head without saying anything. I want to ask her for help getting home, but I’m ashamed to be so fucked up in front of her. I’m supposed to be looking out for her, not the other way around.

  “Fine, Lenny. Sick. Fucked up. That’s all.”

  “Oh,” she says and stands there waiting.

  I wave her away because I don’t want her to see me like this.

  “Are you going home?” she asks.

  “Do I fuckin’ look like I’m up for a party, Len?” I bark out at her and then immediately regret my words.

  “Do you want some help or something?”

  I swallow my pride. I still haven’t looked at her. My gut churns like I’m about to lose whatever remains in my stomach. Don’t even remember if I ate today, or yesterday for that matter. I try to force away the spins. I nod my head yes and Bey takes my arm.

  I feel better with her touch. We walk arm in arm and it helps me round up my sanity. Her natural Belén smell is all covered up with hairspray and cigarettes and some cheap perfume. It’s another scent I know all too well.

  Bey smells like Yari.

  It’s a fragrance that’s always spelled out one thing to me.

  Sex.

  God fucking help me.

  Fuck what this sweet girl does to me. She smells like sex and she’s the one girl that I swear hands off on. Not Belén. Not on your life.

  Her lips are bright red and her hair falls around her face in perfect wide curls. She looks older with eye make-up and crazy, smoking hot. Some kind of tripped-out calendar girl. But still innocent—Belén reeks of Yari but she still smells like the sweet girl she is.

  “Were you at Yari’s place?” I ask her. The words rumble out of my chest. I tried to keep my voice low but I just sound crazy instead. I focus my eyes on her whole ensemble; her skirt is hiked up high and her buttons are undone practically down to her navel.

  “Len, you can’t walk around like that.” I stumble into her trying to cover her up. I get one button done and sway in a circle.

  “Like what?” she asks as we stand under the glow from the street light. Every livery car that passes honks its horn, looking to score a fare. I wave them away with my arm and Bey giggles at my exaggerated, drunken gestures.

  “It’s my uniform. You got a problem with it?”

  She’s flirting, doing her best to start an argument.

  “That ain’t your uniform, Len, that looks like a Yari costume.”

  She keeps walking toward the building, a little bite in her step and sway to her hip to let me know she’s pissed off at me for being overprotective.

  I sit my ass down at the top of the stoop and cradle my head in my hands, then cough up phlegm that has blood in it and spit it right between my feet on the stair.

  “Luciano, you’ve got to take it easy. You scare me like this.”

  She plops down next to me, and her scent mixed with Yari’s makes my dick and the hair on the back of my neck rise up simultaneously.

  “You’re the one who shouldn’t be out on the street lookin’ like a stripper when you’re still fucking fifteen.” I swear, I don’t know why I yell at her. I must want her to hate me.

  “I was just dressing up with Yari,” she says to defend herself, but then trails off at the end. She knows it’s pointless to fight with me. “Don’t tell my mom. Okay?”

  I reach out and yank her to me. Her soft hair brushes my face. “Yari acts like that ’cause she’s messed up. Not ’cause she’s cool or grown up or better than you in any way.”

  “I know. But she’s my best friend. I like how she looks.”

  “No! Len.” I cough up more blood. I’m gonna puke on the stairs.

  “You like how she looks too,” Belén says. Her voice sounds sad.

  In the buzz of the fluorescent lights, she looks like a grown woman. It terrifies me more than anything else that Len will lose her innocence. Because the world is a fucked-up place and it’s bound to happen regardless of how much Tía Betty or even I try to shield her from real shit.

  I grab her chin and her mouth opens in surprise. My head clears up magically when I’m this close to her face. With my thumb I rub the red lipstick off of her bottom lip and wipe it off on my jeans. I use my forefinger to swipe the top one until it’s totally clean. I pretend not to notice the hitch in her breath when I touch her, or how her eyes first go wide with fear and then narrow with a flicker that looks an awful lot like desire.

  Después

  I get Adam into bed without bothering to remove his pants. Shoes and socks are sufficient on a date night this dreadful. I should feel some guilt or some remorse, some type of shifting emotion at the news that Adam thinks Luke isn’t his child, but maybe deep down, I want that too. I wish he were Lucky’s son. A little bit of Lucky down here on Earth to stay with me. Adam and I discussed it as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I’d never been with anyone else besides him and my cousin. Well, except for that one time I might have had a threesome, had Lucky not sat it out. But I had many periods after that night and the same goes for my one night of ecstasy with my cousin. It’s not a surprise or a revelation that he thinks his son isn’t his, but he must really hate me to accuse me of infidelity. Worse, he’s actually accusing me of flat-out lying to him. I would never lie about something like paternity.

  I know he resents me for what I shared with Lucky, and that’s normal. I know the sex thing bothers him too, even though he says it doesn’t.

  I’m restless and antsy. The booze warmed me thoroughly and I feel ready to go. I’d be up for dancing or more drinks or even going out for desert. But instead, I’m not going anywhere except to the kitchen and later, to bed. Adam is snoring and knocked out for good. It feels like a shame to lose our date night when it’s not even eight-thirty.

  I mix a short glass with brandy, Coke and some ice, turn on and off the television, then suddenly stand, and walk to the hallway to put my shoes back on. I haven’t really spoken to Yari in years. Sure, I went to her baby showers and invited her kids to all of Luke’s birthday parties. But spoken, like friends? It’s been a long time. I’m not even sure exactly where she lives now, but that won’t be a problem in this neighborhood. I’d never bring Adam because he�
��s said his share of unsavory things about Yaritza behind her back. But Adam doesn’t get it—he grew up in a culture that is worlds apart from mine, not because he’s not Hispanic, but Adam didn’t grow up in the Heights.

  And suddenly I’m aching to talk with someone who understands. A person who knows my story, knew Lucky and knew the Belén who pined and suffered for him. A girl who ran these streets as a child imagining her future and never thinking it would look like this. I should stop at the church on the corner and see if the doors are open—pray for my marriage, which feels like it’s falling apart. I want to light a candle for Lucky and be the one to tell him.

  I’m broken, Luciano, incapable of loving anyone.

  Adam is wrong about the paternity, but it’s my fault he doubts it. There have been too many times that I’ve looked at my son’s face and wished the eyes looking back were part of Lucky. I’ve always wished I got pregnant the time we were together, purely selfishly, to keep a part of him with me forever.

  Her building still looks the same; it’s as if the years haven’t passed. The entryway still smells like purple Fabuloso and fried onions; a touch of marijuana smoke lingers in the air. I hold open the door for an old woman with a cart. She’s got three huge loads of laundry she’s hauling back from the laundromat down at the corner. She’s too old to be lugging such a load.

  “¿Por qué tanta ropa?” I ask her as she maneuvers the heavy cart over the door stop.

  “Tengo los nietos conmigo. Sus padres se fueran y ahora viven conmigo.” Raising her grandchildren—it’s a common occurrence in the city. People have kids too young and hand them over to their parents. Sometimes it’s drugs or poverty that leads to these blended families. City life is tough. Immigrants or born here—the going can get rough no matter what walk of life you come from.