A Song for Bijou

by Josh Farrar

  “She’s a snob,” Angela said.

  “Who’s a snob?” asks Trevor. He and Jenna plop down on the steps.

  “Bijou, the new girl,” Angela says. Then, nodding toward Trevor, “So where was he hiding?”

  “He was at the subway station, buying chips.” Jenna eyes Trevor suspiciously. “Or so he says.”

  Trevor holds up a bag of Utz and puts on a “Who? Me?” expression.

  “And yeah, she is a snob,” Jenna says. “We just saw her. She refused to even look at me.”

  “Just because she doesn’t like you,” Rocky snarks, “doesn’t make her a snob.” I have to agree with him there.

  “She is definitely stuck-up,” Jenna says. Are we even talking about the same person here? Bijou’s not stuck-up; she’s shy. “I was so nice to her the first week she was here, and now she thinks she’s all that.”

  “Oh my God, I’m so tired of hearing you guys complain about her,” Trevor says. “You’re just mad because (a) she didn’t join your little clique at the drop of a hat—”

  “Not cool, Trevor,” Angela says, while Jenna looks at her boyfriend in total shock.

  “—and (b) now the two of you have competition for who is the hottest girl in your class. There, I finally said it.”

  Jenna puts her hand up to her mouth. For a second it looks like she’s about to gag. “You are … such … a … complete jerk!” she says, before picking up her backpack and running away. She looks genuinely hurt. I know it’s Jenna Minaya, but I actually feel sorry for her. For anyone dumb enough to pick Trevor Zelo as a boyfriend.

  “Wow, dude, way to overshare,” Rocky says, shaking his head.

  “What are you thinking?” Angela asks. “You should run after her right now and apologize.”

  “Eh, maybe later,” Trevor says. “She’s really been annoying lately. And admit it, Angela. It’s true: she’s just jealous.”

  “Whatever,” Angela says, picking up her things.

  “Now you’re going, too?” Rocky asks. “What’d I do?”

  “Nothing,” Angela says, walking off. “You two deserve each other.”

  Rocky and I stare at each other for a moment, probably both wondering how exactly we wound up alone together.

  “See, Schrader?” Rocky says, smirking. “Even when you’re popular, girls can still be a total pain. If you ever manage to get a girlfriend, you’ll see.”

  “No way,” I say. “I’m not like you guys.”

  “Yeah, you are. You’re exactly like us.”

  By the time I arrive at Monsieur Guillaume’s, I’m thoroughly winded. It’s a long trip from the Parkside stop when you’re not riding in a dollar van. I pause outside Guillaume’s to catch my breath, take a quick look at my reflection in the shop window—if Bijou’s there already, I need to be looking my best—and check my watch.

  Yikes, it’s already almost three thirty, and I told my mom I’d be home by five. She thinks I’m studying math with Nomura, of course, not studying rara music in a discount clothing store on the “bad side” of Flatbush Avenue and hoping for a glimpse of my hopefully-soon-to-be girlfriend.

  I wave hello to Monsieur Guillaume, who’s whacking away at the old cash register like it’s willfully disobeying him. Bijou’s not here, not yet, anyway, but I don’t ask Jou Jou about her. He’s taking time out of his day to teach me, and he’s only charging me a measly ten bucks (all I can afford without asking Mom for cash). I want to let him know that I am here for my lesson, not just for Bijou, even though it’s hard to concentrate, knowing she might walk in the door any second.

  “You doing real good, Alex,” Jou Jou says. We’re not down in the basement, but up in the store, sharing Jou Jou’s rada. He’s on one side of the drum, I’m on the other.

  “Yes, he is,” says Guillaume. “Alex, you sure don’t look Haitian. What’m I missing here, son?”

  Jou Jou and I laugh along with him, but only for a second. Jou Jou’s kind of intense when he’s teaching. He might seem like a lighthearted dude, but when it comes to rara music, he’s all business.

  He shows me a beat he calls raboday. “No, Alex, don’t cup your hand, see?” He pulls the drum closer to him and demonstrates. “Like this, see? Elbows in a little … and pull your left thumb in. Otherwise, you gonna whack it when it’s time for you to use the stick.”

  I’m going to learn how to use a drumstick, too? It’s exciting to think about being good at this one day, but it’s also hard to imagine. He and Bijou grew up with this music, after all, while to me it’s completely foreign. I’m not going to become awesome at it overnight, just like I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and speak to Nomura in fluent Japanese. Still, though, I want to learn, definitely a first for Alex Schrader.

  I practice the raboday pattern for a couple of minutes, and somewhere deep down, buried under the muck of my sloppy mistakes, I recognize something resembling actual rhythm. My whole body vibrates as I slap the cow-skin head and feel it snap against the rada’s wooden rim.

  “That’s it, that’s it,” Jou Jou says. “Now you need to work on that about thirty more hours.”

  I give him a look of shock. What would the females in my house do if I started a thirty-hour-a-week drumming regimen? Jou Jou laughs.

  “When am I going to study?” I ask, not knowing whether he’s fully serious or not. “You know, for school?”

  “School?” Jou Jou asks. Then he nods toward the drum. “This is school.”

  I hear the door swing open. Bijou walks in the room, wearing her school uniform and carrying not only a ridiculously heavy-looking backpack, but also an armful of dry cleaning.

  “Need help with that?” I ask.

  “No, I’m okay.” She smiles, but she looks a little stressed. “I don’t want to interrupt, but Jou Jou, can you please call Marie Claire? She expects me any minute, and I want to let her know I am with you.”

  “Yes, sister, no worries.” He gets up and kisses her hello, then starts dialing.

  “Don’t tell her who your student is!” she whispers. Jou Jou looks at her like she’s told him the most obvious thing in the world.

  While Jou Jou is on the phone, I get my hello kisses. Nice! I’m getting to be a pro at this.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “Yes, yes. I got your note and came right over. Everything is fine, as long as they think I’m with Jou Jou, and only Jou Jou.”

  “Your uncle was pretty mad about the movie, huh?”

  “Movie? He has no idea about that.” She laughs. “If he knew we left the house for two full hours, he would have had a heart attack.”

  “Is it really that bad?”

  “Tonton Pierre? You know, this is the first time I am living with him. He means well. He gets angry quickly, but he forgets quickly, too. He doesn’t want to be mad; he is only doing what he thinks my maman would want.” She nods toward Jou Jou. “And as long as I’m with family, it’s fine.”

  Jou Jou hangs up. “All good,” he says. “Auntie say be home in a half hour, though.”

  “Okay,” Bijou says. “Can you give me a ride?”

  “Sorry, Bijou, I can’t. We have rehearsal here at six, and I’ve got to pick up some flyers at the copy shop first.” Then, a trace of a smile. “Alex, you can be a gentleman and walk my sister home, can’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I can definitely be a gentleman. Anything for ten minutes of unsupervised time with Bijou. “No problem.”

  “Oh, and Alex, I was thinking of something. No promises, okay? But if you keep up with your practicing, maybe I can ask Fabian and see if you could join us for the first rara this year. May thirtieth, in Prospect Park. Would you like that?”

  “I would love that,” I say. Wow.

  But not as much as I love walking Bijou home, even though I’m about to keel over from carrying both her backpack and mine.

  “You sure you are okay?” Bijou asks.

  “Yeah, yeah, fine.” The truth is, it feels like I’m carrying a small refrigerat
or, but I can’t tell Bijou that. Honesty isn’t always the best policy when you’re trying to be at your most gentlemanly.

  Bijou laughs. “Well, you don’t have to do it, but in one way, you are lucky.”

  “Yeah?” I ask. “How so?”

  “We are here.”

  “Oh really?” I’m torn between immense relief that I can put down her so-heavy-there-must-be-a-dead-body-in-it backpack and regret that our time together is almost up. “Is this your house?” I nod toward a brown-shingled three-family.

  Bijou gives me a get serious look. “I can’t take you right in front of my house. My aunt would see me, or a neighbor would recognize me.” She nods down the street. “See over there? That’s my building.” A brightly painted white Victorian. Nice place. Bigger than ours. “Uh-oh, that’s Marie Claire. Come on.” Sure enough, a fifty-something black lady walks out the front door with a trash bag in hand.

  Bijou takes me by the wrist, and we duck into the doorway of the three-family. “We wait here a moment, then I go,” she whispers, the tiny wind of her breath tickling my cheek. We’re even closer now than we were in the movie theater. I don’t want her to get in trouble, but can we stay here forever, huddled in this Flatbush foyer?

  “Alex, write me tomorrow,” she says. Marie Claire has gone back in the house, so it’s safe. No more huddling.

  “Okay, sure. Yeah.”

  She’s so close to me that I can’t help it. I put my arms around Bijou’s waist. It feels right. I’m looking directly at her, and she’s looking back. I’ve never seen her eyes this close before, never touched any part of her body except her arm hairs and her hand. But now we’re joined as one, our hands meeting on her hips, our fingers interlocked.

  Then, just like that, she moves two inches closer and kisses me. On the mouth. Her lips are soft, and they linger on mine for a moment, before she steps back and breaks the seal of our kiss.

  And she is gone. And I cannot move. And I cannot stand. I stay here, long enough to watch her run off without looking back, open her front door, and disappear. And still, I cannot move. That was no peck. It was a real kiss. My first real kiss.

  I look at my watch. It’s five thirty. I’m late! Mom’s not going to be happy, but who cares? I am totally immobile. I don’t think my legs even work anymore.

  I have kissed a girl.

  I have kissed Bijou.

  Bijou has kissed me.

  My first kiss.

  Our first kiss.

  24

  When You’re Busted, You’re Busted

  I head up the front steps, put my key in the front door, and start to push, when the door opens all by itself. It’s Mom, waiting there for me, with an expression on her face that is beyond unhappy. She looks more like a mobster than a mom.

  “I told you not to lie to me again, Alex,” she says.

  I don’t say a thing. I walk past her as quietly as I can.

  Seriously? I have to add my own mother to the list of people determined to give me a hard time about anything and everything having to do with Bijou and me? Do parents think it’s their personal mission to prevent their kids from growing up into responsible adults with actual lives?

  “Alex, answer me. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  I think as clearly as I can, considering that I just had my first kiss. “I told you I was going to a movie with Ira and Nomura, and I was going to a movie with Ira and Nomura.”

  “Wait, you’re talking about last Saturday?” She looks like she’s about to order a hit on me, gangster-style. “I wasn’t even talking about the movie, Alex.” Oops. “Was there anyone there besides you and your guy friends?”

  All right, when you’re busted, you’re busted. “Bijou, Mary Agnes, and Maricel.”

  “What?!?”

  “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you every single person who wound up coming.”

  “Oh please, Alex. Like Bijou wasn’t the entire reason you were there. It was a horror movie. You were terrified of Harry Potter, for God’s sake.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out, Mom.”

  “Were you with her again this afternoon?” she asks. “Because I know you weren’t with Nomura. I called over there, and his mom told me she hadn’t seen you in two weeks.”

  “Yeah, I was.” I tell her about everything: the drum lesson, the walk home.

  Correction: I tell her about everything except the very best part. I’m allowed to keep some things to myself.

  “Alex, I don’t know what’s gotten into you since you met that girl, but you’re turning into a habitual liar.”

  “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell the whole truth.”

  “Alex, omitting the truth is a lie.” She takes a deep breath, gathers herself. “You are forbidden to see her, or her brother, until I say otherwise. And for the next three weeks, you’re not to see anybody outside of school. Not Nomura, not Ira, not anybody. You’ll come straight home after classes each day, you’ll do your homework, you’ll go to bed.”

  “Is that all?” From past experience, I know challenging her, or using sarcasm at all, is a big mistake. So why am I doing it?

  “Actually, it’s not.” She takes two steps toward me and holds out her hand. “I’ll have your cell phone, please.”

  “What? For how long?”

  “For as long as you’re grounded.”

  “What? Three weeks without a phone?” Who ever would have thought that my mom would be as bad as Uncle Pierre? Correction: worse than Pierre. “You’re doing all this because I like a girl?”

  “No. Because you’ve lied to me repeatedly.” Her words splatter me like paintball pellets. “Because your interest in this girl has made you lose sight of what’s right and what’s wrong. End of story.”

  End of story? Not quite. I might have to suspend drum lessons for a while, but there’s still our Gran Bwa. And Musicale rehearsals, which take place during school hours. I’ve still got two weeks before the actual performance, where Mom and Dolly will, of course, be in the audience.

  After forbidding me to see Bijou, it’ll be quite a shock to see me sharing a stage with her. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

  Alex,

  Oh, that was a close call, wasn’t it?

  When I walked in, Marie Claire said it was a miracle I could carry my backpack and all those clothes from the dry cleaner’s to Guillaume’s and back. She felt my arm muscle and said, “You been working out, niece?” Funny, right?

  I’m glad you come from a family that doesn’t watch you so closely.

  I can’t wait to see you for our first Musical (is that how you spell it?) rehearsal. You’re bringing your drum, right? Now it’s your turn to carry around something heavy all the day long.

  I miss you. Tuesday is too far away. Leave me a note.

  Bijou

  P.S. You are the first boy I ever kissed. I liked it. I’m glad it was you, Alex.

  25

  Honing Our Act

  “Jeez, everybody’s got a talent except me,” Mary Agnes says. We are in the catacombs. I was expecting a scary dungeon from the girls’ description, like something from Terror Lake. But it is only a basement with narrow hallways and low ceilings. Mary Agnes exaggerates everything. “Alex plays the drum thingy, Bijou’s a terrific dancer, and Maricel has her DJ thing.” She smiles at Nomura like a proud mother. “John is an all-around genius and a pretty decent rapper, if I do say so myself. And Ira can do video projections. But what do I do?”

  “You’re the one who brought us all together,” Nomura says.

  “And you’re the one who bosses us around,” Alex says, laughing.

  “You make sure we get here on time,” Maricel says.

  “… and bring all the stuff we’re supposed to,” says Ira.

  “Yeah, but onstage, nobody sees that,” Mary Agnes says. “So it doesn’t really count.”

  “What is the word in English?” I ask. “Choreographer?” Mary Agnes shrugs.

  “How abo
ut executive producer?” Nomura asks.

  “Ooh, I like that,” says Mary Agnes. “That’ll do. That’ll do quite nicely.”

  I resist asking, Executive producer of … what, exactly? Because we have been doing a lot of talking so far, but not much of what I would call rehearsing. Alex played one of the beats that Jou Jou has been teaching him, and I began to move—only Mary Agnes would call it dancing—along to the rhythm. Maricel began to sing a sweet, lazy melody in Spanish, and Ira told us he could make a little movie to go along with our song for the final performance. So far, I have not heard any of Nomura’s rapping, so he must have treated Mary Agnes to a private performance!

  In fact, he might be treating her to it again right now, because she just pulled him out of the room and into the catacombs. “I want to show you, John. Come on.” And he did. Maybe if I had grown up in this school, if I knew all its twists and turns like Mary Agnes knows the catacombs, I would pull Alex away for a moment of privacy, too. It would be nice to have time alone with him. But it doesn’t feel right to go sneaking off. It doesn’t even feel right to hold hands in front of the group. I try to trade glances with him when I can, but that is as far as I dare go. What I have with him is too private to share with others, whether they are friends or not.

  Alex, Maricel, Ira, and I are packing up our things now. No sign of Mary Agnes and Nomura.

  “Bijou, want to walk me back to St. Chris’s?” Alex asks.

  Ah, nice idea. At least one of us is being creative. “Yes,” I say. “I’d like that.”

  “Okay, see you guys,” Maricel says as we walk up the stairs to the main level. We wave good-bye.

  When Ira, Alex, and I walk through the front doors, Ira tells him, “Dude, I’ve gotta talk to you. It’s important.”

  “Can’t it wait?” Alex asks.

  “No, not really. I need to tell you something now.”

  Alex puts his arm around Ira’s shoulder and whispers, “It needs to wait. Give us some space here. Walk back on Orange instead of Cranberry.” Ira doesn’t look insulted; he looks worried. He doesn’t move until Alex says, “Bijou and I want to be alone for a few minutes, get it?” Ira walks off, helpless.