Authors: Carmen Rodrigues
At the dinner table, I am a star.
after dinner, i follow mrs. diaz into the kitchen. i help her
scrape leftover rice and black beans into containers. Then I offer to help her with dishes. “I don’t mind,” I assure her. “Really.”
“Thanks.” She smiles at me, the ends of her lips fluttering. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always preferred to wash dishes by hand. My husband thinks I’m being stubborn, and you know what, maybe I am.”
She fills the sink with soapy water and gives me a long look. “I wanted to thank you for coming over to dinner tonight. It really means a lot to us. We’re really appreciative of you taking your time to help Danny pass this class.”
“Thanks,” I say softly. It was one of the nicest things an adult has ever said to me. “Thanks a lot.” I dig my hands into the suds and feel the sting of the hot water. Mechanically, I begin to wash. I like washing dishes. It gives me time to think.
And right now, I’m thinking, why did I follow Mrs. Diaz into the kitchen instead of sitting just fifteen feet away in the family room with Danny?
Hmm…
Because if I went to the family room, I might eventually be left alone with Danny,
the voice in my head answers back—that is, after Dalia got tired of painting her toenails, and their grandfather finished reading
El Nuevo Herald,
and their father stopped snoozing in the La-Z-Boy recliner. But still, eventually it might have happened. And then what?
I still don’t know why Danny invited me here. There are really only two logical reasons:
Nothing good can come from me obsessing about this now, so I sneak a glance at Mrs. Diaz. She’s rinsing the dishes as I hand them to her, placing them in the dish rack next to her. We are totally in sync.
I like Mrs. Diaz. I like the way her voice curves when she speaks. And the way she seems to be aware of everyone else’s needs. Like at dinner, she made sure everyone was served before she sat down. And there are the other little things. The way she rubs Danny’s hand every time he makes her laugh. The way that Dalia, with her reputation as the wicked witch of OG, loosens up around her. The way that I can suddenly say what I think; admit the things that hurt me; confess to Danny that my mother is dead; and, afterward, hear those words ring in my ears without wanting to cry. Mrs. Diaz is like a great equalizer. Like, suddenly, the world is a little straighter when you’re standing next to her.
“You know, my mother lost her mother at a very young age. I never even got to meet her,” she tells me suddenly. Her voice is wistful. It surprises me. I drop a dish into the suds, sending bubbles splashing everywhere. Mrs. Diaz laughs. The sound gets stuck in her throat and tumbles out in small bits.
“I used to feel so sad for my mother when she’d pull out old photo albums and stare at her pictures.” Mrs. Diaz shakes her head. Her eyes are distant, like she’s back with her mother, back with those photo albums. “The love for a mother is phenomenal,” she says, speaking for the both of us.
“I’m sorry.” She wipes her hands with a dish towel. She turns to me. I look down, embarrassed. She rubs my shoulder with one dry hand. “I like you very much, Susie. You are an amazing girl. And, believe it or not, those are Danny’s words, not mine.” She takes a dish from my hand and dries it. “Which is why I want to share with you something about me, something personal.”
I don’t know what to say. Somehow I manage to lift my chin and look directly at her.
“About ten years ago when Danny and Dalia were only six, my mother died. I was heartbroken. The kids were heartbroken, too. We all lived together in Texas—one big, happy Cuban family unit. My father”—she points to her father, sitting next to Danny on the family room sofa—“was crushed. He could barely function. I had the hardest time getting him to eat. Basically, he wanted to die.”
I look over at Danny’s grandfather—Emmanuel is his name—and I try to picture him being so depressed. He doesn’t seem to have the personality for it, not with the way he sits there silently chuckling to himself over the Sunday funnies.
“I know.” Mrs. Diaz follows my eyes. “It’s hard to believe now, but it’s true.”
“So what did you do?” Suddenly, it’s super-important that I learn how Mrs. Diaz managed to resurrect her dad from the living dead. It’s super-important because maybe I know someone whom I’d like to resurrect from the living dead.
“I didn’t do anything. I mean, I tried.” She makes the sign of the cross. “God knows I tried. But in the end, it took time.”
“How much time?” I ask, my voice filled with disappointment.
She shakes her head sadly and places her hand next to mine on the countertop. “I’m afraid it took quite a bit of time.”
“Oh.” My body slumps a little, and I think about my dad, about how dating Leslie hasn’t brought him back to life (not that I wanted him to come back to life for her, but still). How much more time can I give him? How much more time did we have before I stopped caring at all?
“Do you want to see something?” Mrs. Diaz walks out of the kitchen and returns a minute later with a photo album opened to a picture of a young bride and groom. “Isn’t she beautiful?” I look at the photo and then back to Mrs. Diaz. They’re nearly identical, except that Mrs. Diaz is like twenty years older than the woman in the picture was.
“Can I look?” I ask.
“Sure.” Mrs. Diaz hands me the photo album and turns back to the half-tidied kitchen.
I lean against the countertop, Mrs. Diaz flittering around me, and start to flip through the pages. There are tons and tons of photos of friends, family, parties, and life. There is so much life in these pages. “Is this you?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She turns toward me. “That was my
quince
party. You know, my sweet fifteen.”
I turn the album back around and cradle it in my arms. The pages are worn, like someone has spent a lot of time reliving these memories. “Is this your album?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says over her shoulder. “My mother made it for me a few years before she died. But”—her voice stretches thin as she reaches up to put a wineglass back in the cabinet—“my father keeps it in his room these days. He likes to remember.”
“Oh.” I flip the page to the very beginning and stop at an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo. It is a picture of Mrs. Diaz, about age ten. She is being held in her mother’s arms. The girl smiles at the camera. Smiles at me. Pushes me to feeling things inside me, things that I haven’t felt in so long.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Diaz places her hand over mine. “You keep shaking your head.”
There are so many things that I want to tell her. All these thoughts and feelings that have been sitting on the tip of my tongue for years. Words that I can’t even say to Marisol, words that I can barely say to myself, but, for some reason, now, here with Mrs. Diaz, I want to say them all.
But once again, I can’t. I’m just not ready.
“I’m fine.” I thrust the photo album back at Mrs. Diaz. “I’m fine.” But I’m not. I’m really not. In less than a week it will be the six-year anniversary of my mother’s death and to me, it still feels like yesterday. What if there are some wounds that time can’t heal? What if certain people—people like my father, people like me—can live a lifetime without ever being capable of letting go of the hurt? I hope it’s not true, but what if it is? Is it always going to be like this for me?
She squeezes my hand. “You know, Susie, I just might understand,” she says quietly.
“Oh.” I shake my head, embarrassed. I use all my energy to make my eyes meet hers. “I’m fine…Is there a bathroom that I can use? I think I drank too much water.”
“Sure.” She smiles kindly at me, that same smile that Danny gave me in the yearbook line. Kind. Reassuring. Forgiving. “There’s one down the hall.”
“Thanks.” I speed-walk to the bathroom, and even then with it being barely seven strides away, I make it just before the tears start to fall. I turn on the faucet, sit on the toilet, and listen to the water run and run. I ask myself all the questions that I’ve asked myself before. I ask myself all the questions that never change: Why can’t I let this go? Why can’t I move on?
And then I give myself the only answer that I know:
Because she loved me. And I loved her. She loved me, and I’ll never be the same.
“what happened to you?” the next day at school danny
finds me in the library, deep in the reference section.
“What do you mean?” I don’t really look him in the eyes. I’m still too embarrassed.
“My mom said that one minute you guys were talking and the next minute you were gone.” He turns me so that we are facing each other in the aisle. “Hey,” he says, lifting my chin up. “I’m talking to you.”
“That’s all she said?” My voice quivers a bit because his hand is still on my chin.
“Yeah.” His hand drops to his side, and he kind of takes a step back. “Yeah,” he repeats, his voice a little husky.
He takes a deep breath. “Are you, um, okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell him, but I know that I’m not. Everything is slipping, slipping away. I turn back to the reference books and busy myself looking for something, although I don’t remember what. Maybe if I just busy myself enough, he’ll leave me alone and go back to his friends. I don’t know why he talks to me so much lately or why when no one is looking, he finds all these little ways to touch me. I don’t understand anything about Danny except sometimes when he looks at me, it’s like he really sees me. ME. Why that matters, I don’t know. But it does.
He unzips his book bag and takes something out. Then, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, our hanging out with no previous plans, no specified reason—he slumps down onto the floor, sits Indian style, and starts reading something. I look over my shoulder to see what it is. He’s reading
The Picture of Dorian Gray
. It’s the next book on his list. He must be getting a head start.
I study his face while he’s reading—his thick, black lashes and mocha skin. I think about the conversation we had after I played the guitar at his house on Sunday. I had made fun of him for owning so many
Star Wars
action figures.
“But they’re classics. There’s a difference,” he told me.
I asked him who he would rather be, Han Solo or Luke Sky-walker?
“Han Solo,” he said.
“Why?” We were sitting on his bed, close enough that I could smell his Zest. “’Cause he gets the girl,” he replied, hitting me softly with a raggedy teddy bear.
“But Princess Leia wasn’t that pretty,” I told him, grabbing the bear, pulling it out of his reach.
“She was to him,” he said, snatching the bear out of my hands and hitting me on the head with a furry leg.
“Is that all that matters?” I asked, reaching for the bear, but ending up with my hands grabbed and pulled over my head.
“What?” he said as we struggled. His face was inches from mine and I could smell the faintest bit of mint. His teeth were really, really white.
“Let me go, I can’t breathe.” We were too close. I might have twitched.
“Okay, but first”—he pulled my hands behind my back so that our chests were pressed against each other and I could feel his heart beating—“I have to tell you something.”
“What?” I whispered. My voice caught in my throat.
“That,” Danny whispered back, “you are pretty to me.”
“You’re acting strange.” Danny’s real voice cuts through my memory. I realize he was pretending to read his book.
“No.” I grab a reference book and slide down onto the carpet next to him. “I’m not.” But I am. I wonder if I should tell him about my mom’s memorial service this weekend. I wonder if I should share that with him.
“Yes, you are.” Danny’s eyes fall down to my lap. He reaches across the space between us and tilts the reference book up so he can read its title. “
The History of Automotive Mechanics
?” he says, trying not to laugh. “Strange.”
I look at the spine of the book. Sure enough, it is
The History of Automotive Mechanics
. Then I flip it over so he can’t see the title. Not that it matters anymore.
“I just wanted to look at something in here.” I clear my throat. “That’s all.”
“Yeah.” He reaches back for the book. “Let me see.”
“No.” I hold on tightly. “Leave it alone.”
“Fine.” His hand falls away from the book and rests on my thigh.
“Um.” I look down at his hand, waiting for him to move it. But he just leaves it there, like it’s the most usual thing in the world for him to have his hand resting on my thigh.
It’s so intimate, what he’s doing. So casual. It warms me up. I’ve never even held hands with a boy before, and I wonder how it would feel to have Danny’s hand wrap over mine. Would it create the same burning sensation that I am feeling now? Like my thigh is being eaten alive by acid. Would my hand get lost inside of his? His hands are large. The veins protrude like thick green highways that disappear beneath the neat edges of his Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt.
“Susie?” Danny stops short, and I think that it feels so good to hear him say my name. I wish he would say my name over and over and over again.
“What?” I feel a tingle in my belly that stretches down to the soft space between my thighs.
“Susie, sit closer to me.” His voice fades away, like clouds that disappear after a summer rain.
“Why?” I whisper.
“Because,” he says, like that’s reason enough.
“No,” I answer back, because a
because
is definitely not reason enough to do what he is asking me to do.
“Susie—”
“Stop saying my name. I’m right here.”
But please don’t ever stop saying my name.
“Susie.” Not my name followed by a question mark. But my name, period. “Fine.”
He picks up his book, pretends to read again. I read
The History of Automotive Mechanics.
I flip open to the middle of the book and start to learn about the sixties.
“Are you really reading?” he asks a few minutes later.
“Yes.” I peer at him over my three-hundred-plus-page book, which I noted several seconds earlier is the first volume in a three-volume series. “You?”
“No,” he says, “I’m not.”
“Well,” I keep my voice light, even though my heart is
thump-thump-thump
ing away, “what are you doing?”
“I’m watching you read.”
“Oh.” Oh.
“Susie…” He scurries closer to me. His jeans make a rubbing noise along the carpet, and then his face is next to mine. He is tracing my face with his breath, inhaling my scent with his lips. “Susie,” he says, because, apparently, saying my name is enough to tell me everything he’s trying to tell me. And maybe it is. Maybe.
“Danny.”
And then, in the library, our bodies as close as possible, we kiss. Very, very, slowly.
“you kissed him!”
Curled up under the covers of Marisol’s bed, I describe every single taste I felt as Danny’s tongue entered my mouth.
“It was sweet, like corn.”
“I bet you it was,” Marisol says. “I saw someone eating corn in the cafeteria today.” Marisol sits upside down with her legs on the bed, her back on the floor, and her butt somewhere in between.
“So? What did he say afterward? And why didn’t the librarian catch you? She would have sent you to the office.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t really say much and then Dalia showed up suddenly and took him away. They had to finish a science project they were working on.”
“Did Dalia catching you kissing?” Marisol asks.
“Yeah, kind of. And then he said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch.’” Like I have enough patience to wait for lunch tomorrow?
“Tomorrow at lunch? He wants to eat lunch with you. Well, that’s huge.”
“I know,” I squeal, burying my head in her pillows. “I know.”
“The only problem is that we eat lunch at the canal. We don’t eat at school.” Marisol shrugs like she’s saying
oh well.
I think she’s still a bit bitter about giving up her new lunch routine (eating with Ryan in the cafeteria) to rejoin me in our old lunch routine (eating together at the canal).
“Well, he can come, too.” I don’t care if Marisol is inconvenienced. I remember homecoming. I look at her and she remembers it, too.
“Fine.” Marisol gives me a look. “He can come, too. But on Wednesday, you are either eating lunch with me and Ryan in the cafeteria or you’re eating by yourself.”
“Fine,” I tell her. And for the first time in a long time, I am happy.