When the jukebox plays a romantic bolero, Luís holds out his hand for a dance. His arm glides around my waist and sparks zing through the empty space between us. My eyes are glued to a button on his white guayabera shirt. I glance upward and watch a bead of sweat course down his neck. I have a sudden desire to lick it, but instead move away as if the thought alone is dangerous. His arm tightens around my back and when the music stops we separate quickly, both suddenly awkward. His eyes, soft and hot at the same time, look straight into mine, through all defenses, and I know he feels the same current I do.
Mama and Daddy leave the party at about ten; they’ve been at another table with the Candelarios. I can stay for another hour. After the rest of the parents leave, our group rearranges itself so sweethearts can sit close together without undue notice from those on chaperone duty. On the next dance I rest my head on Luís’s shoulder. The pulse in his neck beats fast and his jawline presses against my hair. He keeps his hips slightly away from actual contact but I can’t help but feel his erection every now and then. Most Dominican boys I dance with get them during slow dances. In Miches, erections are like goose bumps, or pimples. They come and go—just the natural consequence of bodies in close proximity. Luís pulls me closer, and I tremble. I don’t want to be anywhere else, but someone looks at a watch and announces it’s almost midnight. Like a school of startled fish, our group rises as one and flows out to the street. With Luís walking beside me, I float a few inches off the ground. We don’t hold hands—no one does. That’s against the rules. Whoever made up the rules, however, didn’t include dancing as a forbidden act. Which doesn’t make any sense, but that’s Miches. The escorting party stops a few yards away from Casalata.
“I’ll take you the rest of the way,” Luís whispers, and we step away from the tinkle of laughter and into the shadows. A quarter moon and a universe of stars prick the darkness. Luís puts his arm around my shoulder and I’m suddenly afraid of how late it is, and maybe Daddy is still up, mad at me for being late. I worry he’ll see Luís—just him, alone, not the rest of the gang—so I back away and step into the safety of the yard.
“Gracias,” I whisper. “I can’t stay.” Luís reaches over the gate and holds my hand for a moment; his palms are electric, hot.
“Buenas noches; que duermas bien,” he says, his voice thick like cream. Good night; sleep well. He says he’ll be back in town next Sunday for a beach picnic at Playa Arriba, and will I come? I say yes and run to the house, relieved to hear Daddy’s snores. The next week one of my friends hands me a small envelope from Luís. “Must be a love letter.” She makes kissy noises and I grab the note and stuff it in a pocket.
“You’re being silly,” I say, but my face is red. Later I race out to our pier and open the envelope. He misses me; he can’t wait to see me. I read it over at least a dozen times, then rip it up and toss the pieces in the bay. Like confetti, the white bits swirl in the ripples, and a small fish leaps into the shreds, thinking it’s a meal. Suddenly the rickety dock sways, and Mama and Daddy arrive with drinks to watch the sunset. I draw their attention to a spectacular thunderhead lit purple and gold by the setting sun, but I don’t have to worry; by now the bay has swallowed the evidence of my forbidden letter.
On the morning of the picnic, a dozen or so people are scattered along the shore, playing games or tending a bonfire. Luís has climbed one of the coconut palms that rim the beach and is knocking off green drinking coconuts with a machete. He grips the swaying trunk with his knees, and I feel weak in the knees myself. He slips the machete into its sheath before skidding backward and jumping onto the soft sand. “I was waiting for you.” His chest is smooth and firm and dark hairs disappear into the waistband of his shorts. I swallow hard and pick up a coconut and carry it over to the fire pit where a chicken sancocho bubbles away.
The sun beats down and most of the picnickers sit under the shade of almendra trees or splash in the bay, waiting for the food to be ready. I join the other bathers, then break away to swim alone out into the cooler deep water. Luís races up behind me. His legs surround mine, holding me tight as we bob in the hard, shimmering light. When I think I might drown from this new sensation, we break apart and stroke ashore, mingling again with the rest of the group. I pretend we’d just been having a little race to see who could swim the farthest without getting tired. On the beach, Luís and I can’t touch each other, but something almost unbearable is vibrating between us even so. One of my friends asks me if I’m cold from the water, since I’m shivering. I say yes. We all dig into bowls of stew and I manage to stop shaking. At the end of the day, we all gather up our belongings for the walk home. Mama and Daddy are returning from our pier when I come inside the house.
“How was the beach?”
“Good,” I answer, and tell them all about the delicious sancocho, and that I’ve brought them a chunk of dulce. I’m red with sunburn and a strange other heat that simmers just below the surface. Later, when they are on the porch with their drinks, I hear my name in their conversation. They don’t know I can hear them from the next room.
“She’s fine.” Mama’s voice is sharp, impatient.
“Well, I don’t know,” Daddy says, sounding serious. “She’s never seemed interested in boys, and here she’s been gone to Florida for a whole year. She’s growing up, but I’m beginning to wonder if maybe, she’s, you know …”
“Oh, dear.” Mama sounds weary, like they’ve had this talk before. What, I wonder, I’m what? And then it hits me. Daddy thinks I like girls—because I don’t talk about boys, he thinks I’m like Mary at school with the chopped off hair and shirts that look like they are from the boys’ section at Sears. I retreat to my room. I give up. No matter what I do, or don’t do, there’s going to be something wrong with me. That night I dream that I sneak my bicycle out and meet Luís under the pier. I have the sensation that my lips are swelling as I nip the end of his tongue with my teeth. And then the fear pours in like a sudden storm and Daddy’s voice bounces inside my head until all I can hear is the shouts of “Whore, whore—you made your bed and you goddamn well have to lie in it.” Just like Daddy yelled at Berta. I can’t stop the voice so I pull away from Luís and ride home, pedaling faster and faster, and then I’m tangled up between sleep and not-sleep and wake with a jolt. I’m startled; none of this happened and I’m alone in my bed, sweating and twisted up in the sheets. I lie like a mummy in my cocoon until my heartbeat slows and all that’s left is a dull ache.
Luís leaves town to meet with his professors in case the university in the capital gets shut down again. We promise to see each other next year. He gives me a small black-and-white picture of himself looking straight at the camera. I wrap it in a fold of paper and hide it away in my suitcase. As the weeks pass, my fear of Daddy stays at a simmer most of the time, not the feverish boil it used to be, the kind where I bubbled away until I was reduced to nothing and I turned black and smoky inside. It was then I’d get sick with the gripe, or the toothaches would start, and I would be allowed to stay in bed until I rested enough to fill up the pot again with another batch of anxiety. Now on bad nights I’m still a prisoner here, but I can escape into thoughts as Daddy winds up about the damn this or the damn that. I pretend to pay attention, but inside my head I pop open the suitcase latch, and slip into my new memories like a coat of armor. When I do that, Casalata and Mama and Daddy shrink again in size.
A letter from Beth arrives in August. A hint of Jean Naté cologne still clings to the envelope after a month in transit. She always sprays letters to Charlie, “So he’ll think of me.” I splash happily through two pages of news and gossip—lots about Charlie, but not a word about Steve. I figure that means he’s dating someone else. I feel a twinge of sadness when I read that Beth’s parents have decided not to send her back to Howey for her junior year. The money they save will go toward her college fund. She’ll miss me; she’ll never forget me; we’re forever friends. I must come to her home for visits, okay?
Befo
re I leave Miches, I remember the painting nailed to the back of the cabinet in Daddy’s workshop, the portrait of Berta and me painted in Spain when she was six and I was two. I ask Daddy if I can take it with me to Florida. “Sure,” he says, “help yourself.” He sounds surprised, as if he’s forgotten it is still there. He doesn’t spend much time in the workshop anymore. He long ago stopped making jewelry, and has constructed everything that needed building. Now he uses the workbench just to fix things that break or wear out. The garage still smells like copra, but added to that is the odor of rust and decay, of aging and giving up. The cabinet door opens with a squeak. The portrait has a glaze of cobwebs and dust. Daddy pulls out the rusted tacks from the corners and rolls it up into a cylinder. “You know, it’s not a good painting,” he says as he hands it to over me.
“That’s okay,” I say. I brush away some dirt and Berta’s blue eyes stare at me, her short blonde hair pulled back with two bows. I feel tears welling up as I pack it carefully in my suitcase. I just hope the corroded tack holes, which remind me of the punctures in paintings of Jesus on the cross, can be concealed when I clean it up and stretch it into a new frame. Maybe Mama and Daddy don’t want to remember, but I want to know there was a time before innocence collapsed, when we wore shiny bows in our hair and an artist painted us.
My departure from the island is delayed by another hurricane. The bay once again is a frenzy of whitecaps, and the wind sandpapers my skin. In the last big storm, so soon after Berta disappeared, I wanted to be swallowed up by the waves, but now I fantasize that Luís is here in the nick of time, pulling me away from danger and into his protective arms. I think storms and love must be the same; they disturb everything, changing landscapes overnight, opening and breaking hearts. I don’t know yet about the other storm that waits in the offing to turn our lives inside out and rearrange them in entirely different pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bombshells
On a cool October morning I’m with the rest of the junior class taking PSAT tests when the door opens and a teacher tiptoes up to the woman administering the tests. We look up in unison, glad for any interruption of the task in front of us. The teacher nods and walks to my desk. I’m to go to Mr. McFarland’s office—yes, now—she’ll arrange for me to retake the test later. I have visitors. I’m puzzled—who would be visiting me? When I walk into his office I see two strangers, an older couple, perched on the couch as if at attention. A small boy about three years old huddles between them.
Mr. McFarland takes my arm and gestures towards the trio. “These are your sister’s in-laws—and this—well.” He pauses. “This is your nephew.”
I try to absorb the words but his voice is suddenly coming from someplace far away and I can only make out faint sounds as mouths open and close. Mr. McFarland’s grip gets tighter. I can’t move. Then an anguished yelp comes out from some place deep in my gut and I stumble before Mr. McFarland edges me into a chair. I watch as if from a vast distance as the tow-haired child picks up a tissue from a box on the table and toddles over to me. “Don’t cwy.” Stubby little fingers thrust the white square into my shaking hand. In his clear blue eyes I see Berta in there, peering at me, alive and curious.
The two older people sit like rocks, as if realizing they’ve made a mistake coming here. I try to stop the tears and reach out and touch the downy hair. “I’m sorry I’m crying. I just—I am glad to meet you, really.” I move my chin in the direction of the statues on the couch to include them as well. I take a ragged breath. “What’s your name?” and he tells me. Mitch. As if I don’t know his name, as if I haven’t imagined holding him from the time his father found him in the crib, alone, with his mother gone, gone. As if I haven’t looked for him in every infant, then every small child I’ve come across anywhere in Florida, even here. As if I haven’t screamed silently, Are you him? Are you? and their mothers haven’t caught me watching and turned away, uncomfortable at this girl just staring into their precious child’s eyes. They can’t know I’m looking, always looking, for these very same blue eyes.
I have no idea how Scott’s parents knew to find me here or why they came. The woman clears her throat. She explains that a long time ago Berta had given them the Breedens’ address. From them, they’d learned I was attending this school. “I—we—just thought you’d like to, you know, see Mitch. He lives with us now, ever since—well, he’s just an angel, such a good boy.”
Mitch lets me pull him into my lap. His back presses into me with little boy smells of soap and potato chips. He turns his face up to mine. “Who you?”
“Your aunt.” I run my fingers all over his face, memorizing his cheeks and ears like a blind person. Please don’t ask me what an aunt is, I pray. He doesn’t. He lets me explore him like an unknown world and when he’s had enough he squirms down off the chair. I let him go and his attention focuses again on his grandmother. “I’m hungry.”
They leave after scribbling their address on a piece of paper and saying they’ll write me if I’d like that. I don’t know, I say. I don’t know. I manage to hold my tears back as I hug Mitch and give him a big smile good-bye so he can see his aunt is happy. They wave and the car disappears beyond the pines with their shrouds of Spanish moss. Mr. McFarland tells me to stay put and a cup of tea appears. He makes some telephone calls, to the office, to let them know I won’t be in class for the rest of the day. I sit in the chair, staring into a territory I can’t place where Berta appears and disappears like the Cheshire cat, only it’s her blue eyes, not a grin, that fade in and out. The sky darkens and a damp rain whispers outside.
The next day is Saturday, so I can hide my swollen face in the room all day. I lose my voice for three days. I don’t write Scott’s parents. Instead I throw away their address. When a letter from Mama arrives, I think I’ll write her about Mitch, but then I start shaking and somehow I know it’s a secret I have to keep. Instead I respond to her news—they got hit hard by Hurricane Flora, which killed over seven thousand in the Caribbean. Cocoloco didn’t lose too many trees, but rivers were impassable for weeks. She writes that the musical chairs are starting again in the capital; she doesn’t have to tell me what that means. I write only that I’m glad they’re safe. I can’t think of anything else to say.
On a chilly Friday in November someone screams that President Kennedy has been shot. All classes stop. Students sit numb in front of television sets in the recreation room and watch as the television replays the motorcade scene, in black and white, over and over again. It doesn’t seem real. I catch Mrs. Hitchens sobbing in her room, and my Spanish teacher keeps blowing her nose. From that week on, there’s no longer any certainty about anything, anywhere. I feel like I’m in a bad dream where I’m struggling to stay afloat on a raft in a stormy ocean. There is no tether to shore, no strong hands to pull me in to safety. Even Mr. McFarland breaks down in the special Sunday service, his jaw quivering and his voice fading in and out.
In the midst of this strange time, Mr. Geddes’ art studio is a safe harbor, so now, every day after class, the art students come together. Here I find a community of other refugees; we aren’t the captains of basketball teams or leaders of the cheerleading squad. We’re loners, the shy ones, or we get good grades. But in this sanctuary, the heady smell of oils and turpentine wipe away some of our anxieties or fears. Here I can stop thinking about Kennedy’s assassination, about Berta, about the small blonde boy, and about the continuing turmoil at home after Trujillo’s killing.
I make friends with Pam, another artist. We listen over and over to her Beatles records while I draw portraits of the floppyhaired singers. Pam says she’s in love with John Lennon, so I do a rendering of John with colored chalks and she buys it and posts it on her bedroom wall. It’s my first art sale.
In Mr. Geddes’ room I lose myself for hours, painting furiously and filling canvas after canvas. Not knowing why, I start painting women in provocative poses with exposed cleavage and eyes daring, staring out from the canvas. They hav
e long hair and large breasts—they are everything I’m not. They emerge in harsh scrapes of the palette knife and broad brush strokes and leap into being: hungry, eyes looking straight on. Week after week I pile on the colors on my palette: burnt umber, yellow ochre, ultramarine, alizarin crimson, Payne’s gray. My painting technique is awkward at first, and the proportions are wrong, but something happens and the canvases come alive. When the Art Club has its annual sale I sell more paintings than anyone else. The buyers are all men.
At the end of the sale, Mr. Geddes hands me a check with a sparkle in his eye. It might as well be a million dollars. I know one thing, finally, about myself. I’m an artist. I begin painting self-portraits, and they don’t look like my other works at all. In these I’m only halfway visible, behind a wall or with my face turned partly away, just like I used to draw in Miches. Mr. Geddes says I’m good enough to earn a scholarship if I want to study in France after high school. He says to keep painting and that we’ll explore this further in my senior year. I write my parents with this good news. They respond that I shouldn’t get any foolish ideas. Things are unstable, they can’t afford anything like that anyway, and besides, they’ve shown some of the landscapes I painted back in Miches to friends who know about art, and really, I’m not that talented. Make sure you take typing and shorthand, the letter ends.
I don’t see Luís the summer after my junior year; he doesn’t come to Miches and no one knows why. Back at school I start to get letters from him with a Puerto Rico return address. He writes, Mi querida. My dear one. He explains he had to stay with relatives all summer to escape being a target by the Dominican government.
“Don’t mention anything that I’m going to tell you—it could be dangerous for both of us.” My throat closes up. He writes that communist revolutionaries are planning an overthrow of the Dominican government, and university students are being arrested for inciting disturbances. He says one student was shot and killed by the policía militar. He’s staying away from the country for now. He ends by saying how glad he is that I’m safe in Florida, that he misses me more each day.
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