Authors: Rosie Perez
On the day before Christmas, to my utter surprise, I was told that I was going on a five-day home visit for the holidays. “A home visit! To my mommie’s?” Nope. It was to Tia’s house. My heart dropped just for a second. Despite the rejection, a kid still wants
her mother to want her, you know? But I was excited to go. I still don’t know what changed, but I was going!
Tia and her best friend, Doña Ida, came to pick me up. As we rode the Metro-North down to the city, even though I was so happy to be with Tia, I kept wondering if our mother Lydia picked up my “half-siblings” or whether they went it alone, like most of the kids did. I kept wondering what her house looked like. I wondered if she would ever come to like me one day.
Tia, Doña Ida, and I entered into the main hall of Grand Central Station. Wow! The place seemed so big and scary and beautiful. My head was spinning—from the ride, the masses of people, and the architectural grandeur. I don’t remember arriving at Tia’s. But I do remember that her apartment smelled of yummy food!
At first everything looked and felt foreign to me. I felt lost going from one room to another. Little things would make me close up, especially when I saw the French doors to Tia’s bedroom. I just froze and went silent. Tia tried not to freak out over my reactions, acting as if they weren’t a big deal, as if I’d never left, as if the fact that I was ripped away from her and sent to a home never happened. She played it as if I had just been away for a brief moment and now I was back. But it didn’t work. Her anxiety was too close to the surface.
Like when Millie first saw me, she cried and cried and picked me up, twirling me around. I went silent again. It was too overwhelming. Tia, with a controlled yet panicked command, told Millie to put me down: “No! Don’t!
De
nuns say she don’t like to be touched!” Or when my cousins would ask, “Rosie, you wanna play with …” “No!” Tia would yell in a whisper. “You have to call her Rosemary now. That’s what
de
nuns say.”
What the hell was up with that name? I stomped my foot on that one, demanding they all call me Rosie. It drove me crazy, like Rosie was dead and this “Rosemary” had taken her place. Their
whispering about me when they thought I wasn’t listening drove me bonkers as well. They would lean into each other and say things like, “I feel so sorry for her,” “She looks so sad,” “I can’t believe Lydia didn’t want her to stay at her house for the holidays,” etc. Their intention was wonderful but misguided: the “handle with care” treatment came off more like “handle with anxiety.” It made me self-conscious and even more aware of the fact that I lived at the Home.
The medium-sized Christmas tree in the living room paled in comparison to the one at the Home and was decorated in the weirdest way. It just had Christmas balls on it—all the same color—and a string of lights. That was it. Tia wasn’t big on decor.
Titi and Millie put on “Soul Man.” “Come on, Rosie, dance, dance.” The pout on my face from my little fit over them calling me “Rosemary” quickly disappeared. Millie grabbed my hands and swayed me to the beat while everyone else formed a little circle, clapping their hands, encouraging me to dance. The ham in me couldn’t resist. How could I let a captive audience down? The beat took over my tiny body, and I was gone. I bounced, twirled, bobbed my head, and jumped up and down. My goodness, I was in heaven. What made that day even better was that Tia had made
arroz y gandules
and
pasteles
(similar to a tamale, made of green plantains instead of cornmeal, and stewed meat, pork, chicken, or seafood in the middle, wrapped in banana leaves) that night: heaven all over. I stuffed my face like a fat little pig until my potbelly swelled even bigger.
Tia took me into the bathroom to bathe me. I immediately tensed up. For the past six months I’d been showering with twelve strangers, feeling humiliated each time. Tia’s bathroom was really narrow, making me feel claustrophobic. She began to take off my clothes while I stood next to the porcelain tub. “No!” I said with a paranoid pout.
“What’s the matter,
mija?
” Tia asked confusedly.
“I wanna do it … please,” I replied with my eyes cast down toward the cheap linoleum floor. I felt so bad being so curt and mean to her.
“Okay,” she softly said with a warm smile.
She let me undress myself, and I slowly got in the old-fashioned bear-claw tub. Tia sat on the toilet seat. Cookie came in shouting, “Mommie, me and Millie are going to the park. See you later, Rosemary!” I tensed up again. “Don’t come back too late!” Tia shouted back as they left. She looked at me and started laughing. “
Ay
, you look so mad again. No worry. I’ll tell them to call you Rosita, ’kay?”
I exhaled a sigh of relief. Tia looked at me, smiled, and said with her thick Spanish accent, “God bless America two times that they left. They drive me crazy.” Then she made a silly face. I cracked up. She cracked up with me, both of us cackling in unison. She took the big white bar of soap and gently washed me. It felt good, soothing. I started to play with the soap, letting it slip in and out of my hands.
Tia picked me up out of the bath, wrapped me in a towel, and carried me into her bedroom. Gosh, that felt so good, to be held like that. Nuns never held us, not ever. When I saw the French doors again, a smile began to form at the corner of my mouth. I looked down at the peach bedspread with the little puffy balls as she set me on it. I laid my head down, ran my hands over it, stuck my thumb in my mouth, and drifted off to sleep. I was home, even if I didn’t know it. I was home.
• • •
After the third day or so, things started to become more familiar, and I was happy to be there. I still couldn’t shake the feeling of being left out, of not being with my mother and my new siblings. But since I had learned to keep my feelings to myself at the Home, I tried not to let on how it was affecting me.
On Saturday my cousins and I gathered around the TV set and watched Stevie Wonder or someone like that lip-synch on
American Bandstand
while Tia went to work, under the table, for the Jews, selling the irregulars from the dress factory door to door throughout the neighborhood. I think she got 20 percent of each sale.
Titi, Millie, and Cookie, with their hair all in big-ass rollers wrapped in a fake silk scarf, got up and tried out the new dances the
Bandstand
dancers were doing. All of them knew how to dance, and they’d criticize all the white people for dancing so corny and would show off how they knew how to do the dances correctly. “Nah, nah, you doin’ it wrong. That’s not how it goes,” Titi, who was the coolest chick on the block, said to Millie. “Lemme show youse. It goes like this,” and she would do the steps. “
Perate! Perate!
[Wait! Wait!]
Mira
. [Look.] Ahhh!” answered Millie, who was the jokester, trying to outshine her older sister. “Both of ya’ll look stupid,” interjected Cookie—who had the best wit—as she did her thing, killing them both. I sat there with a smile on my face watching my sister-cousins dazzle and shine.
Saturday was housecleaning day. A holiday party was happening that night so the house had to be extra clean, which meant it was going to take all day. Since Tia was always working and too tired to tidy up and my cousins were lazy—except Cookie, who was a neat freak—by Friday the house was a cluttered mess. There were always dishes piled up and clothes thrown all over the beds. That was shocking for me to see since the Nazi nuns kept everything spotless and in its place at the Home. Tia and all her kids except Cookie, of course, would take off their street clothes as soon as they came in the door—including Tia’s “American Express” (her girdle: she never left home without it … get it? I know, corny, but true)—fling them on their beds, and put on a
bata
, also referred to as a
bata de casa
, which literally means “housedress.” All
batas
looked pretty much alike—a sleeveless, semi-baby-doll-looking, plain dress, often with a paisley print, that hit at the knee. There
was no zipper, but the head opening was large enough that you could just whip it on. Every Latin female has or has had a relative who’s worn one.
So, after Bandstand, the cleanup started, and it seemed like nothing had changed in the six months that I’d been away. On Saturdays Cookie was always the anal housecleaning sergeant, ordering everyone around with a broom in her hand, a joint—yes, folks, a joint—dangling from her lip, wearing a
bata
or shorts and a tank, with her fake silk scarf wrapped around her big pink-and-blue hair rollers that she wore from when she got up until she went to hang at night. The record player or radio was always blaring, and it had to be her choice of music. If anyone dared to change it, she’d scream at the top of her lungs in her husky, low-octave voice, “Leave iiiittttt!” And it would take her hours to clean because if one of her favorite songs was playing, like “Grazing in the Grass” by the Friends of Distinction, she’d start singing, then dancing, then the other girls would join in, and then she’d take me by the hand and dance with me too. By the time dinnertime came and went, the house would start to be messy again from all the company—the neighbors, friends, family—who’d stop by.
But I digress.
Tia loved company. She loved parties even more, although she’d get stressed out over them. Mostly she hated the cleanup afterwards, but she also hated the preparation, except for the hair and makeup part. For most Nuyoricans, getting ready for a party is just as big of an event as the party itself. I loved watching the girls put on their makeup. Titi used the most, at least twenty or so strokes of mascara—no lie. The amount of mascara and black eye liner that was used in just our house was not to be believed. However, being Puerto Rican, the hair took precedence—it was all about the hair, first and foremost. Right after breakfast everyone started the ritual of shampooing, conditioning, and roller-setting.
Everyone would wash their hair with either Lustre Cream or
Prell shampoo. I forget what kind of conditioner we used, but we used
a lot
. Since we were so freaking poor, we used Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion as a leave-in. (Yes, we were ahead of our time with the leave-in shit.) Miss Cool setting lotion was applied afterwards, and then the hair was rolled up real tight with those big-ass plastic hair rollers and bobby pins. It was a hilarious sight, the three girls and Tia, all in big-ass hair rollers, cleaning and cooking up a storm. My hair was done last just in case I messed it up before the company came. Millie usually did my hair. Dippity-Do was gently applied to my cotton candy and produced two pigtails with the smoothest looped curls.
Sorry, digressed again—conversations over hair will do that to me.
That night the house was packed. Everyone was dressed up. I had on a blue velvet dress with a white ribbon wrapped around it, just below my chest, white laced bobby socks, and black patent leather Mary Janes. The salsa music was flowing. Boogaloo was still in fashion, but the latest sound was jazz salsa; Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, Eddie Palmieri, and all the new Fania All-Stars took precedence. Tia loved to dance salsa. She was so cute when she did. I loved it when she’d take my two hands and partner with me. The best part was when we’d break and do our little solos. I tried my very best to do it just like her.
While I was enjoying the party, dancing in my little frock, I felt a tug at my blue velvet dress with the white ribbon wrapped around it. I turned and saw Tio Ismael clapping and smiling with a glassy look in his eyes. I recognized him instantly! I remember that he had on such a nice suit too. He was sitting in Tia’s blue wingback sofa chair with a glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream on the rocks. “Psst. Psst. Rosamarie. Come over here,” he said in a drunken whisper. “Please. Come here. One minute.” I slowly and cautiously walked toward him.
Oh God
, I thought.
I hope and pray this man doesn’t start crying again
.
He grabbed me close. “Rosa. I mean, Rosemary. Rosemary, right?” he clumsily slurred. “I’m your daddy.”
Say what!
There was an awkward pause. My face tensed up into a stern frown. “I’m your daddy. Me. Tio Ismael. Okay? I daddy. Okay. Me. I’m your daddy,” he kept saying over and over. I shook my head no. I couldn’t stop. I kept shaking it no over and over again each time he repeated those words. I couldn’t speak. This man isn’t my father. I hate him. I hate him so much.
“It’s true, Rosie. I am.”
No! No, you’re not. Oh no. I knew it to be true. Why? I don’t know. I just knew it to be true. I didn’t want it to be true. Why? I didn’t know. I don’t know!
“No! I hate you!” I finally shouted and ran to Tia, crying, burying my face into her dress.
“
¿Pero que paso?
[But what happened?]” she asked me.
“
Yo le dije, yo le dije
[I told her, I told her],” my uncle-father loudly declared. “
Es verdad
. [It’s the truth.]
Tu ya sabes
. [You know it.]
Todo el mundo sabe!
[Everyone knows!]”
A few of the party guests who were dancing nearby stopped.
“
Callate, studipo
[Shut up, stupid].
Por que esta haciendo esto?
[Why are you doing this?]” Tia said. “You’re drunk.” She turned to everyone. “He’s drunk. Pay him no mind. Don’t cry,
mija
[my daughter]. He’s stupid. It’s not true. He’s so stupid. Tell her, Ismael! Tell her, please!”
My father looked dead at me and smiled. “I’m your daddy.” Tia ran over and started to hit him.
“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I was kidding. I’m Tio. Okay. Sorry.”
Tia’s friends pulled her back. She scooped me up in her arms and carried me into her bedroom through the French doors. As she was carrying me, I turned my head back and looked at him, giving him an angry, pissed-off look. He looked up at me, smiled through his drunken tears, and mouthed,
I’m your daddy. I love you
.
• • •
Millie told me that after that first Christmas back home, Tia went on a mission to try to get custody of me. But Child Welfare Services told her that the “mother” or “father” (meaning my mother’s husband—my dad was not recognized on the birth certificate), along with the Catholic Church and the state of New York, were the only ones who had any say over me.