Authors: Renee Lewin
“I know.”
Joey searches my eyes for any sign of resentment. “If I could have been a better person that day and had my act together, then I would have been there for you,” he says with tender conviction that fills an emptiness that was inside of me.
“Joey, I know. I know.” I reach across the table and entwine my fingers with his. I smile as I see his relief. He relaxes and I marvel at the light roughness of the inside of his hand and how its warmth travels through my hand, up my arm and to the rest of my body. I reluctantly release his fingers and we return to eating our lunches.
“It really bothers me that I’m friends with people that hurt you in the past. I hope you can be comfortable with them and trust them again. I want you to come back to this same mall with Denise and Marisol and have it be like old times.”
“That’s very sweet of you to want that for me,” I say between bites of my over-salted shrimp fried rice. “It would be wonderful, but I won’t get my hopes up and neither should you.”
“You’ve got to keep putting yourself out there, Elaine. Let a few walls down. I’m not saying that you’re responsible for it all. I just think sometimes you forget that to talk to you they have to let walls down and put themselves out there, too.”
I nod and continue to eat. Joey gives me concerned glances every now and then. I’m not mad. He’s right. I forget that it’s hard for Denise, Marisol, and other folks to be comfortable with me. Approaching me is a dangerous move. They’ve sensed the intense, negative feelings I’ve had towards them for years. What could I have done differently to make things right long ago? Should I have done anything differently? I could have forgiven Denise,
Ariella
and Marisol for not caring that I was almost raped. Then, when word got around about the rent thing, they might have stood by me.
Or not.
I wish I could stop thinking about the past because I can’t change it. Maybe I should go to Cesar’s party. I could have new experiences and forget the painful history.
Joey doesn’t know about what happened to me. Would he be encouraging me to salvage broken friendships if he knew? Would he still be friends with Denise and Marisol? He holds his large circle of friends close to his heart and does whatever he can to not lose them. I’ve only been friends with Joey for a few weeks. It wouldn’t surprise me if he took their side. I imagine how that fateful moment might play out. He’d call me a liar. He’d call me a tease again. My mind froze with fear when Joey called me that word. According to my girlfriends, being a “tease” was reason enough for Richie to assault me.
In the moment Joey spit out that word, I was certain he knew my secret. I had run home afterwards in a daze of paranoia. Who had told him? Finally, I saw that I was being irrational. My irrational thoughts reminded me of my father and the mental illness that could be lurking within me. I know that if I vocalized every worry I have about that issue I would hear, “Don’t be silly. You’re perfectly healthy.” The thing is
,
everyone’s fine until the second that they aren’t.
Right now, I’m not worrying about it. Joey has a lot to do with that. There’s a connection between Joey and I that comforts me. He is a link to my mother and my brother, both of whom are not here with me. He reminds me of my mother’s compassion and my brother’s openness.
“I’ve gotta take a piss,” Joey announces.
I drop my fried rice laden fork onto my plate. “Ugh!
My delicate sensibilities!”
I complain.
Jokingly, Joey snorts at my claim and leaves our table. By the time I finish the last of my food, he returns. I gasp. He’s wearing the outfit I bought him. “You sneaky snake,”
I pout. I hadn’t noticed that he brought his bags with him to the restroom. He plops down in his seat and pushes his aviator glasses off of his face and onto his head, oblivious to the girls at a nearby table whispering about him and giggling. He was right. It’s my fault. I created this dapper monster. “That outfit is supposed to be special. Why are you wearing it to sit around in a greasy food court?”
“This outfit costs hundreds of dollars. I’m not going to wait until the one day a year that’s special enough to pull it out of my closet and dust it off. I’m going to get mileage out of it starting today. Besides, the museum at the university is classy enough.”
“I guess.”
Our plan is to visit the University of Arizona, my old prospective college. It’s only a ten minute drive from this mall and has six different museums showcasing anything from minerals and meteorites to 13
th
century European oil paintings.
Swiftly, Joey grabs our trays and empties them into the trash. I peer up at him from my seat as he stands towering over me. “Madame,” he says and gives me his arm. I stand and hook my arm with his. As we walk away, I hear the previously giggling teenage girls sigh in disappointment.
Walls of red brick form fortresses of knowledge on the U of A campus. Skinny fan-leaf palm trees, tough Ebony trees and fat green Saguaro cacti populate the rocky gardens. The school is at the foothills of the western segment of the Santa Catalina Mountains. White clouds halo their dark, stoic peaks. The view is magnificent, but the heat propels Joey and me indoors. As we walk down the halls, through the galleries, across the quads and inside the centers, we receive occasional stares from students and staff. Not anything negative, just curiosity. Joey doesn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t comment on them, so I guess it didn’t bother him.
It doesn’t bother me, either. This is quite a change. I’m letting more things roll off my back these days because I know I have someone on my side. When Raul was the person I called my friend, I couldn’t exactly rely on him to speak up if people were disrespectful to me. I relied on Raul’s popularity with the Park Kids to extinguish conflict before it could start. My peers were quieted, but they were still my enemies. There was no real guarantee that I could let my guard down and feel safe. It wasn’t a relationship like Joey and I have.
I am so used to everyone outside of my family being the enemy. Today, right now, the wall has been lowered. I know the students at this university campus aren’t out to get me. Everyone is just living his or her life, taking it day by day, decision by decision. As I walk with Joey around the lively college grounds and pass the engineering building, I think of Manny. I think about where I expected he and I would be at our age and the reality of where we ended up. I was supposed to be living here in Tucson and Manny was to live in Pasadena. My twin brother and I have now been forcibly pulled apart. I will never again ask for me and my brother to go separate ways.
“Elaine, what’s wrong?” Joey grasps my arm and stops us in the middle of the courtyard. He noticed the tears in my eyes.
Why do I insist on embarrassing myself this way? I’m sure he thinks I’m a weak person. Of course, berating myself makes me want to cry more. “I knocked Manny for not having the courage to go off to school without me, but there’s no way I would have lasted long at this school alone. Now I see I can’t make any decisions in my life without him. I have to know that he supports me. I need to be near him.” I focus my watery vision onto the ground and brace myself for Joey’s reaction. He doesn’t say anything. I feel his hand rub my back, which is comforting, but he’s silent. I wipe my face and look up at him. He wants to say something. I can tell by the way his lips are slightly parted.
“I think you are stronger than you believe,” is his cryptic response.
That’s all he has to say? Suspicion clenches me. Is he hiding something from me? Is it that same secret that Manny’s been keeping from me? I open my mouth to begin some interrogation, but I second guess myself. Maybe I was just being paranoid. Maybe I was just slipping back into my old way of tagging everyone as my enemy. I decide I just need to chill out. I survey our surroundings and settle on the campus bookstore. There’s nothing like a bookstore to calm my nerves.
After two minutes of convincing Joey that I am okay, we go inside. Once we head up from the textbooks on the first floor to the second floor where the general books are located, I put my sadness out of my mind and get excited. I marvel at the large globe at the center of the bookstore, so big that three people could hug their arms around its circumference. Joey smiles at my wonder. “Let’s play a little game,” I propose. Joey’s eyes brighten with curiosity. “How about we both find a book for each other, a book the other would enjoy. The catch is we only get two minutes to find it.”
Joey scratches his chin and his eyes dart around to tally the dozens of bookshelves. “I’ll meet the challenge,” he nods with a smirk.
“Okay, we’ll meet back here at this
grande
globe in two minutes.” The slim red second hand of the clock above the checkout counter skims across the number 11. I begin the countdown.
“Five, four, three, two, one.”
Joey dashes away to the other side of the bookstore before I can blink. “So damn competitive,” I mumble and scurry over to the poetry section.
Eight minutes later, I make my giddy way over to the globe with the book I selected hidden behind my back. Joey isn’t there yet. I begin to worry. Was I unfair to give him only 2 minutes? I do technically have an advantage. I’ve visited this bookstore before, two years ago. No, I have more than a
slight
advantage. For God’s sake, the boy is having trouble seeing! What is wrong with me? Why would I challenge him to pick through the miniscule type on the slim spines of thousands of books?
“Oh!” I yelp as someone lightly pinches my side. I turn around to find Joey standing there with his hands behind his back. I glance at the clock and back at his amused expression. “You made it with five seconds to spare. Was it hard for you?” I tease.
“Of course it was. You’re very high maintenance,” he says matter-of-factly.
“Sure. Okay, let’s switch.” I hand him what I’d found. It is a biography and collection of the artwork and provocative poetry of E. E. Cummings. Joey had mentioned in his journal that he admired the poet’s style. With my other hand, I receive a book with a mysterious cover. It has no title. A golden fabric has been stretched across the thick covers. The shimmering fabric is embroidered with twisted copper dew drops and thirteen-petal flowers. The pattern is reminiscent of Indian or Persian paisley. I open the book and leaf through its many pages. Joey and I look up from our books at the same time.
“This is so awesome,” Joey beams.
The smile on my face is as big as his, but mine quivers a little.
“I’m so happy you like it because mine is absolutely
perfect
.” I hug it to my chest. Inside the book he picked out for me, every single page is blank.
******
Yesterday in Tucson was fun once I suppressed the flashbacks I kept having of my ex-stepfather. When we left the mall and went to U of A, I wasn’t as paranoid because, what would that idiot be doing on a college campus? The amount of college guys that were leering at Elaine was ridiculous. My temper has seriously leveled out these days because I let the dudes live to see another day and I didn’t complain about it to Elaine. Besides, I don’t think Elaine would have appreciated it. She’s not mine to be possessive over. She probably would’ve thought I was being immature and hotheaded. My worst fear is Elaine’s fear; I don’t want her to be afraid of me. My mother lived in fear when she was married. I don’t intend to do that to the person I care about.
I had a great time in Tucson. I faced my fears and opened my mind. Spending time with Elaine was great, but it was hard. I don’t want to be just friends. I thought it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I thought that going back to a situation where she and I weren’t friends at all would be a worse hell. I’m not so sure anymore. It’s complicated. I don’t want to go, yet it upsets me to stay. I’m hoping Manny can help me make sense of my feelings today.
When I arrive at the Roberts’ home, Elaine is still getting ready. I lean against the doorway of the bathroom and silently watch her brush her shiny black hair up and gather it between her hands. She winds her rubber band around it to form a neat bun. I glance at her hair tie from yesterday still around my wrist. I’m sure she won’t miss it. She has dozens of them in weird places all over her house. Why she’d need a hair tie along with some silverware is anybody’s guess. Next I have the privilege of seeing her get her boots on. She has to tighten her laces so she bends
overrr
…
Elaine Frankie Roberts, will you marry me?