Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (16 page)

“Don't count your chickens. . .” Tata began, and she didn't have to finish to confirm what I'd already learned was true: that to announce what was to be was to jinx it.

Mami, Tata, and Don Julio often told me how smart I was, but I interpreted their compliments as wishful thinking. My grades
were average to low, and I'd failed geometry, which meant summer school and no job. I'd learned English quickly, but that was no surprise, since at Performing Arts we analyzed, memorized, and recited some of the best works written in the English language. My sisters and brothers hadn't the benefit of Performing Arts and could speak the language as well as I did, though with a Brooklyn accent.

Mami was proud that I went into the city every day by myself, returned when expected, was watchful that
“algo”
wouldn't happen. But I never admitted how scared I was early in the morning walking down our dark streets to the subway. I didn't mention that men exposed themselves, that sometimes they took advantage of a crowded subway to press themselves against me, or to let their hands wander to parts of my body no one should touch unless I asked them to. I didn't report the time I was chased from the subway station to the door of the school by a woman waving an umbrella who screamed “Dirty spick, dirty fucking spick, get off my street.” I never told Mami that I was ashamed of where we lived, that in the
Daily News
and the
Herald American
government officials called our neighborhood “the ghetto,” our apartment building “a tenement.” I swallowed the humiliation when those same newspapers, if they carried a story with the term “Puerto Rican” in it, were usually describing a criminal. I didn't tell Mami that although she had high expectations for us, outside our door the expectations were lower, that the rest of New York viewed us as dirty spicks, potential muggers, drug dealers, prostitutes.

Mami was happy that I, at sixteen years of age, and now “
casi mujer,
” almost a woman, showed no interest in boys.

“She's too smart to get involved with those good-for-nothings around here,” she asserted, when she knew I was listening.

And I didn't argue, although quality was not the issue. There were no boys my age in our neighborhood. And in school, some of the boys were homosexual, while those who weren't had no interest in girls like me. I was poor, talented enough not to embarrass myself on a stage, but only good enough to play Cleopatra
and other exotic characters. When the subject of dating came up in social studies class, I admitted that my mother didn't allow me to date unless chaperoned. That ensured no boy in the entire grade would ask. What was the point? If I asked Mami to let me date, I'd get a lecture about how boys only want one thing, and I wasn't willing to give it to anyone. All I had to do was look around me to know what happened to a girl who let a man take the place of an education.

In the cramped, noisy apartment where my mother struggled to keep us safe, where my grandmother tried to obliterate her pain with alcohol, where my sisters and brothers planned and invented their future, I improvised. When it hurt, I cried silent tears. And when good things came my way, I accepted them gratefully but quietly, afraid that enjoying them too much would make them vanish like a drop of water into a desert.

Mami emerged from mourning gradually. She curled her hair one day, or topped her black skirt with a gray blouse instead of a black one the next. Little by little, she abandoned drab clothes for dark blues and browns; then, a few at a time, she dug out the flower prints and bold patterns she favored. The high heels reappeared, along with bright lipsticks, jangly earrings, necklaces, nail polish. Her smiles returned. Small, shy smiles at first, then full ones, her whole face brightening, as if she were trying on her old self a little at a time, to see if it fit.

We adjusted our mourning to her reactions. We played the radio softly, and if she didn't say anything, we raised the volume. We danced around the apartment or sang in the shower, quiet
boleros,
and when she didn't object,
merengues
or Mexican
rancheras.
Visits from relatives became more frequent and lasted longer. La Muda came with Luigi, who looked sadder every day, even though he and La Muda now lived together in an apartment in her mother's building. Luigi said he didn't like New York. He couldn't find work and complained that the cold winters gave him arthritis. And it was true. His bony fingers, which once flipped through a deck of cards with lightning speed, were now clumsy, hindered by bumps and bulges around the knuckles. He no longer performed his magic but sat quietly when he came to visit, hands folded on his lap.

Tío Chico disappeared for weeks at a time, then showed up
in the middle of the day, sometimes sober, but most often drunk. Tata cleaned him up, cooked rich
asopaos
and strong coffee to help him get over his hangovers. He spent a few days with us, sleeping mostly, and then he fixed a meaty
sancocho
or rooster stew with red wine and lots of cilantro. He was a wonderful cook, and he, Tata and Mami each cooked a different dish for Sunday supper and then pretended to argue over whose food was better. Our downstairs neighbor, who was critical of the noise we made when we first moved in, now came up daily to sit with Mami or Tata and often stayed to dinner. Her eldest son, Jimmy, was a little younger than me. He had a long, pimply face, close-cropped hair, a wispy mustache, and big ears. My sisters and brothers teased that Jimmy liked me, and when he came over, I stayed in my room so that the kids would leave me alone. Whenever he heard steps coming down the stairs, Jimmy peeked to see if it was me and then said he was going out too and walked with me to the bus stop where I caught a ride to summer school. Almost every day when I came back, he was on the corner of Rockaway Avenue, waiting to walk me home.

“Mami, can I go to Alma and Corazón's after school?” I asked one day. She said yes, and after that I visited my cousins daily to avoid Jimmy's hopeful face at the bus stop after I'd spent the morning in summer school struggling with triangle congruent theorems.

Weekends, Mami took us to the beach at Coney Island. Carrying blankets; coolers packed with ice, drinks, and food; a stack of towels; a couple of plastic buckets and spades, we trooped into a subway already filled with people similarly burdened. Once, the picnic started there when a child complained she was hungry, and in no time, everyone was dipping into the fried chicken and the potato salad and passing it around to total strangers who were equally eager to share their coleslaw and sliced ham and cheese sandwiches.

The long street leading to the beach was lined with kiosks selling hot dogs and hamburgers, sodas, ice cream, newspapers
and magazines, sun tan lotion, stuffed animals. There was a wide boardwalk with games and more food stands, and, best of all, an amusement park with thrilling rides and a world-famous roller coaster.

But we weren't allowed to buy anything at the kiosks, because it was too expensive, nor could we go on the boardwalk, where
“algo”
could happen, or to the amusement park from which terrified screams came every few minutes as the roller coaster climbed and dipped on its rickety tracks. Holding hands, we fought the crowds toward the beach and, once there, pushed our way to a patch of sand big enough to settle our stuff and stretch a couple of blankets for one adult and seven children. Tata, who never came with us, kept Franky at home.

None of us could swim, so we looked for a spot near the lifeguard, although we wondered how he could tell anyone was drowning among the thousands of people screaming and jumping in and out of the water because it was fun to scream when you jump in and out of the water.

In order for the younger kids to play in the waves, someone watched them, while one of us sat on our blanket to make sure no one stole the cooler full of food, Mami's wallet, and our street clothes. I usually volunteered for this, as I found the beach, with its interminable, crashing waves, terrifying. The only time I'd been in that cold ocean, jumping waves with Delsa and Norma, a giant swell had thrust me under a ton of water and dragged me away. I was rescued not by the muscular lifeguard, who never saw me drowning, but by my mother and a bystander, who hauled me out sputtering and coughing, near death from humiliation.

One time after a day at the beach, we persuaded Mami to take us to the amusement park. We packed our stuff, took turns carrying the cooler and blankets, and wandered from one ride to the next, deciding which one we'd choose if we could only go on one, when Mami realized
algo had
happened: Edna was missing. We retraced our steps, called her name, searched in ever-tighter circles toward the spot where one of us always waited surrounded by our things. Mami was hysterical, calling for a police officer, but
there was none to be seen. Finally, one appeared, and in between sobs we explained that Edna was lost, described her, and waited for him to find her. He told us to stay where we were, disappeared for a few moments, then came back saying he had “called it in,” an action that didn't satisfy Mami, who wailed that he was doing nothing while her child was in mortal danger. A few people gathered around. We explained what was wrong, told them what Edna was wearing, when she was last seen. Several men and boys went to search for her while their wives and girlfriends stayed with us, rubbing Mami's shoulder and telling her everything would be fine.

Then the crowd parted. An enormous chestnut horse, mounted by a burly policeman galloped toward us. Sitting in front of the policeman, her face ecstatic, was Edna. The officer handed her down to Mami, who hugged her, kissed her, thanked the police officers, the bystanders, God, and the Virgins for saving her little girl, while we pestered Edna about what it was like to ride a horse.

“It was fun,” she said, “but his hair tickled my legs.”

Back home, we joked and laughed about Edna's adventure, but for the next few nights, I fantasized about being rescued by a good-looking man in uniform atop a horse. I imagined the wind fanning my hair, his arm around my waist, and the way the horse's coat tickled my bare legs. I seized the image of the policeman and his horse as if it were a gift and ignored Mami's litany of the
algos
that could have happened if Edna hadn't been found on time.

Mami was definitely out of mourning when she wanted to go dancing.

“A group from the factory is going,” she told Tata.

“Hummph,” Tata responded, an unspoken “I don't care if the whole world is going, you're not.”

“Tito Puente is playing.” Mami added casually. Tata dragged on her cigarette.

From where I sat reading, I watched Mami sorting socks
and underwear from the clean-laundry basket. Every so often, her eyelids flicked up to gauge Tata's mood. It was funny to see her behave the way I did when I wanted something: the not-so-subtle hints, the “all my friends are doing it” justification, the mention of a celebrity. Tata was as unimpressed with Mami's technique as Mami was with mine.

After a few minutes, she started again. “The girls need to be exposed to those situations, so they know how to behave in them.”

Tata turned her head slowly toward Mami, fixed her with a withering stare. “You want to expose them to a nightclub so that they know how to behave in one?” Tata asked, each word enunciated with such clarity, she could have been one of Dr. Dycke's star voice and diction students, had Dr. Dycke spoken Spanish.

“Negi is studying to be an
artista,
she should meet other
artistas,”
Mami said, inspecting a pair of socks.

“Those places aren't for decent women,” Tata concluded after a while, and that seemed the end of it, because Mami got up, gathered the balled socks into the basket, and went to distribute them in the appropriate drawers.