by Aya De León
Two days in, Dulce had paid cash for a cell phone, and called the businessman with the Rolex. He hadn’t called back yet. By the third day, she’d called the journalist, Zavier. He called right back, but there was a thunderstorm, and the cell tower went down. They’d played phone tag for a couple of days.
The big excitement happened on the fourth night, when her aunt turned on the TV to watch a soap opera called O Passado Sombrio De Uma Mulher, or in English, A Woman’s Dark Past. The program was produced for TV in Brazil, but had been dubbed from Portuguese to Spanish.
On the screen, a young, haughty blonde woman looks bored as an earnest young man holds her hand.
“Izabel,” he says. “I know I don’t have much to offer now, but this patent I’m working on. It could change everything. After I finish it, I’m hoping . . . I mean, I wouldn’t presume to propose now, but I’m hoping to be able to offer you the life you deserve. I’m hoping you’ll marry me.”
She turns to him with a patronizing smile. “We’ll see when the time comes,” she says.
Dulce’s tía sucked her teeth. “Izabel es tan sinvergüenza.”
Dulce nodded and got up to put more chicken stew with rice and beans on her plate. Every night her tía cooked and they watched TV. Dulce hurried back from the kitchen so as not to miss more of this particular show.
The earnest young man, Guilherme is headed out of the house. He runs into a dark-haired Brazilian girl on his way out. She’s the protagonist, Xoana.
She greets him warmly, and asks about his scientific work.
He brightens and begins telling her about the latest experiments. As he talks, the camera zooms in on Xoana, music swells. Her rapt expression makes it clear that, unlike the blonde Germanic girl, Xoana is in love with the young scientist.
“Xoana lives with Izabel,” Dulce’s tía explained. “Since she was a teen and Izabel’s mother, La Alemana, rescued her from the favelas. In the cities of Brazil, those are slums.”
“I know, tía,” Dulce said. “I used to watch novelas in Cuba. This one from Brazil was the only one I really liked.”
On the screen, Izabel is dressing provocatively to go to a party with her parents, both of whom work at the university.
“You never want to go to their parties,” Xoana says. “What’s so special this time?”
“Some members of the national soccer team are going to be there,” Izabel says excitedly. “It’s not every day you get to meet a sports star.”
An older blonde woman walks into the room, Izabel’s mother, La Alemana. “Well, don’t you look fancy,” she says to her daughter. “Xoana, are you sure you don’t want to come? We could get a babysitter for the boys.”
Two rambunctious boys run into the room, one a preschooler and one a couple years older.
“No! No! No!” they shout. “We only want to be with Xoana.”
“I need to stay home and study,” Xoana says. “And these boys need to clean their room.”
“You have to catch us first!” the older boy shrieks and they run out of the room, with Xoana laughing and chasing them.
A handsome older man steps into the room. “Well,” he says. “Isn’t everyone looking lovely tonight. Are we ready to go?”
Dulce’s tía pointed to the TV with her fork. “That’s not Izabel’s father. She’s from a previous marriage.”
“I know, tía,” Dulce said. “He’s the boys’ father. And they treat Xoana like their nanny. Supposedly they took her in and everything, but she’s certainly earning her keep.”
“No, it’s not like that,” her tía said. “Xoana loves the boys. She enjoys taking care of them.”
“Maybe,” Dulce said. “But also because she feels obligated.”
Dulce’s phone rang, and it was Zavier.
“I gotta take this,” Dulce said, a smile spreading across her face.
“I’ll let you know what happens,” her tía said, as Dulce walked into the bedroom for privacy.
Dulce lay back on the bed, the phone against her ear. She felt like a teenager. But she had never really gotten to do this as a teen. Talk on the phone to a guy she liked.
“So how’s it going?” Zavier asked. “Are you in the capital?”
“Far from it,” she said. “My tiabuela lives just outside Haina, in a tiny town with nothing going on. I’m so bored, I can’t stand it. The big excitement is when a dozen roosters all start crowing at the crack of dawn and wake me up every morning. Oh and going to church with a bunch of old people. I prayed for something even vaguely exciting to happen.”
He laughed. “Well, I’ve filed my story, and I have a couple days free. Can I rent a car and come visit you?”
“Oh my god,” Dulce said. “My prayers are answered!”
She gave him her address.
* * *
The following day, she walked to the center of town to buy something to wear. She had arrived with only her blue ombre bustier dress, a pair of high heel sandals, and a club purse. Her great aunt had loaned her a couple pairs of drawstring shorts, t-shirts, a few shapeless house dresses, as well as an old dress for church. She didn’t have anything cute enough for a date.
Dulce wore a pair of shorts and a tank top into town, both of them fraying. Underneath, she had only her strapless bra from the club. On her feet a beat up pair of slip ons.
People from the area greeted her. “You must be Lourdes’s daughter from New York.” Apparently, they had all known her mother. Lourdes had been chosen to be in a music video in San Juan. Lourdes had left her two kids—Santiago and Yunisa—with the great aunt in the DR. Lourdes overstayed her visa to Puerto Rico for several weeks, after hooking up with a Cuban guy in the band. When Lourdes told him she was pregnant, he encouraged her to have an abortion. When she asked about the future, he said that it had been fun, but he was moving back to New York.
But Lourdes stayed in Puerto Rico throughout her pregnancy, working as a maid. She wanted to give birth there, so the baby could have American citizenship. After Dulce was born, Lourdes told the Cuban she only wanted one thing: could he get her to New York?
Dulce had traveled to JFK as a lap baby for free. Then Lourdes sent for her two older kids from the DR. Got a job under the table and a place in Washington Heights.
But when Lourdes was injured in an industrial accident, she couldn’t sue, because she didn’t have papers. Dulce’s teenage brother Santiago began supporting the family by selling drugs. And then he got arrested and deported when Dulce was fourteen. That’s when everything went to shit. Dulce thought Jerry the pimp was her rescuer. But instead things went from shit to hell.
* * *
Dulce walked into the main street of the town. There was only one clothing store. “Nineteen ninety-five called and wants its clothes back,” Dulce murmured. But she found a couple of cute pieces that she could work with. What was she gonna do for shoes? She couldn’t wear those high heels from the club. They were too much. But these other heels were too out of fashion for a date with a guy who lived in New York. she just ended up buying a gold pair of flip flops. Cute. Classic. They’d have to do.
* * *
Dulce sat on the steps of her great aunt’s house, waiting for Zavier. The whitewashed bungalow needed a coat of paint. A pair of hens made their way through the grass in the driveway, pecking at the ground. Beside them, her great-uncle’s old Toyota Corolla sat rusting. He’d been dead nearly fifteen years, and her aunt had neither the money to fix it, nor the heart to get rid of it. Besides, her nephew in New Jersey kept promising to come visit and get it running.
Dulce tried to imagine what Zavier would see when he drove up: her kinky hair pulled back in a wild ponytail puff. The pink tank top, the black miniskirt. The shade of lipstick that was a bit too light for her. Sure, the clothes hugged her figure nicely, showed off her curves. But somehow it looked trashy here. In New York she would have dressed it up with some trendy jewelry and fly shoes. Now, she just looked like a hick with a big ass. Like she should be sweepin
g the house and have a couple of kids.
She liked to be that carefree city girl, that hot girl with the sparkling makeup and cute shoes. Even when she had a pimp she had looked better than this. She remembered those years. She was the only one of his girls who had US citizenship; the others were undocumented. And he held all of their passports. What was it he’d always said to the other girls? If they went back to their backwards-ass countries they’d learn that their pussy was worth a lot less there. “I’m doing you all a favor!”
Eventually, they’d all gotten away from him, but this was probably why they’d stayed. These small houses out in the middle of nowhere. People in your business. Her great aunt had asked too many questions about Zavier. Who was this guy? Where did she know him from? Where was he taking her?
Dulce wasn’t sure and didn’t really care. Anywhere would be better than here.
* * *
When Dulce was a toddler, she’d stayed in this house, in this same guest room, for nearly eight months.
Her mother had gotten an invitation to shoot another video with that same band. But this time, they were in Spain instead of Puerto Rico. The director wanted to continue with the same theme, and wanted the same video vixen. Lourdes didn’t hesitate. She sent the now three kids to her aunt’s in the DR and flew to Spain. The video shooting only took a few days, but she rekindled things with Dulce’s father. He was living in Spain now.
So their time in the DR stretched on through the months. It was Dulce, her two siblings, and two cousins. Five children slept in the full-size bed, and her great-aunt laid them along the bed’s shorter dimension. For years afterwards, she would sometimes get confused when getting into a bed, whether to lay parallel or perpendicular. In some ways, Dulce loved sleeping five-in-a-bed, and having one cousin her same size. She might be the baby of the family, but she wasn’t the only baby. Still, she missed her mom terribly.
Who can say how much a toddler understands? Soon her tía’s cooing voice turned from “don’t worry, nena, your mami will be back in a few days,” to “as always, your mami will come get you kids when she’s good and damn ready.”
* * *
Zavier drove up in a silver two-door hatchback. Not fancy, but new enough looking.
“Hold on,” she said. “I’m not quite finished watching this line of ants walking by. It’s been the thrill of the week.”
Zavier laughed.
“So where are we going?” Dulce asked.
“I thought maybe to the beach,” he said. “And to lunch. What do you think?”
“Sounds great,” she said.
She’d never been to the beach in Santo Domingo. The time her family had come for her great uncle’s funeral, there were too many of them to fit in the family’s car, and they had no money for rental cars or even public cars. The airline tickets for the funeral had cleaned them out, and they hadn’t even been able to afford to fly from New York. Six of them had piled illegally into a car that a neighbor was driving to Ft. Lauderdale. They’d paid for her gas money, then caught a much cheaper flight from Florida.
“Your great aunt’s town looks cool, though,” he said.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Seriously,” he said. “I’m a journalist, but really I’m a writer. I kind of dream of living somewhere quiet and just writing. As long as I have an internet connection.”
“Sounds boring as hell,” she said. “And lonely.”
“Not if I had somebody special there,” he said.
“When I was in school I used to love writing,” Dulce said. “And I always wanted to be a journalist. You know, the kind that interviews people. In high school, we had this assignment to interview people on the street, and it was the most fun I ever had in school. I even did extra credit.”
“Right?” he said. “There’s something so exciting about capturing people’s thoughts. Their dreams. Finding out what’s pissing them off, and how they would like to fix it.”
“Yeah, but who the hell would you be interviewing in a small town,” Dulce asked. “After like a week, you’d have talked to everybody. I’d want to interview people on the front lines of important things that were happening. Plus, of course, celebrities. Just before I dropped out of school, my English teacher was encouraging me to start writing for the school newspaper.”
“Well, I’m actually supposed to interview Ibeyi in the capital before I leave tomorrow. Wanna join me? You could ask a couple of questions of your own.”
“Those two Cuban sisters who sing?” Dulce asked.
Zavier nodded.
“Are you kidding me?” Dulce asked. “I’d love to.”
* * *
He drove them to a beach in a tourist area, over an hour away. It wasn’t until they got to the restaurant and she heard some people speaking English, that she realized she’d been speaking Spanish with Zavier the whole time.
He treated her to lunch. She had Chinese food, something she hadn’t had in ages.
As they ate, he asked, “Who’s your greatest rapper of all time?”
“English or Spanish?”
“Spanish first,”
“Migranteza,” Dulce said.
“Yes!” Zavier said. “That’s the shit!”
“They’re so ratchet,” Dulce said. “But conscious, too. It’s like, a little something for everybody.”
“And the beats,” Zavier said. “That DJ is a fucking genius. She mixes the Caribbean beats with that Afropop and seventies soul and is just killing it.”
“Okay we agree in Spanish,” Dulce said. “So what about in English?”
“Thug Woofer is the greatest rapper of all time.”
“What?” Dulce asked. “Thug Woofer? The king of the $kranky $outh?”
“He’s gotten beyond that,” Zavier said.
“Based on what?” Dulce asked. “That dancehall song he did with Bumboozala.”
“He’s changed,” Zavier said. “Did you listen to his Melvyn album?”
“I heard one track,” Dulce said. “It was like reading someone’s diary. I want hip hop I can dance to.”
“He seriously took it to the next level, though,” Zavier said. “What he was revealing about himself. His past. And then he pulled out of that album deal with Car Willis. And now his new album, Man.Hood. If you take all his stuff and listen to it continuously, it’s like, how men of color need to evolve. It’s really fucking deep.”
“I’m glad he’s evolving, but I can’t dance to that shit,” Dulce said. “That’s why I love Nashonna. She’s my number one.”
“Nashonna?” Zavier asked. “ ‘What the stripper had to say’?”
“You need to listen to what that stripper has to say,” Dulce said.
“But she never talks about anything else,” Zavier said. “It’s all the same. ‘I’m sexy. I’m too busy for love. I rap as good as the boys. I used to strip but now I make money doing hip hop. Girl power!’ Every single song.”
“Not every song,” Dulce protested.
“She never takes on any other topics,” Zavier said. “Woof takes on police brutality. He has that new song encouraging everyone to vote, ‘Blast the Last Disaster.’ Nashonna doesn’t have the range.”
“People always try to dismiss her,” Dulce said. “But when her book comes out, you’ll see.”
Zavier shook his head. “Lyrically, she’s a lightweight,” he said.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” Dulce said.
“Send me some lyrics then,” Zavier said.
“What do you mean send?”
“Email them,” he said.
Dulce shook her head. “I’m not on email much.”
“Instagram?” he asked. “Facebook?”
“I never liked Facebook,” she said. “And I hardly use my Instagram account. But I’m on twitter.”
“Fine,” he said. “Tweet me some lyrics.”
“What’s your handle?”
“@ZaviJourno.”
“Cool,” she said, pulling
out her phone. “I’ll tweet you right now.”
She grinned as she pulled up the app on her phone and typed from memory. Then she tagged him in the tweets and hit send.
Zavier pulled out his phone. He read:
The word according to @ThatGirlNashonna
“All these boys tryna teach me something
Act like the teacher and we’re at school
Always got some kind of lesson they planning
Like just cause I’m hot I gotta be a fool?” (1/2)
“But now you got hit with the unexpected
You just might not pass this class
You better go sharpen your number two pencil
Cause the number one rapper’s gonna whup that ass.” (2/2)
Zavier raised his eyebrows. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I see how it is.”
“You gonna write back,” she asked.
“I’m thinking,” he said, looking at his phone.
“You’re not thinking,” she said. “You’re googling.”
“I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that it might incriminate me,” he said.
She grabbed his phone. “RatchetLyrics.com? And you call yourself a journalist?”
“I’m just using it as a secondary source to verify the quote,” he said, reaching for the phone.
“You are such a liar,” she said. “Fake news! Fake news!”
He cracked up. “Give me my phone, chica.”
She laughed, and when she put the phone in his hand, he wrapped his fingers around hers.
“So, you gonna pull up those Thug Woofer lyrics or what?” she asked.
He smiled and looked in her face. “I was going to, but I suddenly got very distracted.”
Dulce looked down and focused on using the chopsticks to get the food to her mouth. “Whatever,” she said. “You just got defeated by Nashonna, that’s all.”
