Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (9 page)

I’m just about to turn back for home when somebody opens an apartment door inside. It’s Joey Halper. He’s holding his boots in his hands and his army jacket over his shoulder. He looks surprised to see me. Then he stops on the other side of the glass door, cocks his head, and smiles.

“Trying to get in, Toad?” he asks.

“Open up.”

“You have to tell me the secret password.”

“Is it ‘Shut-up-and-open-the-door-Joey ’?”

He snorts and shoves his bare feet into his unlaced work boots. Then he opens the door.

“She ain’t home,” he says as I start to storm past him. He knows exactly who I’m looking for, of course. From the hall, I can hear the canned laughter of the show his father is watching on TV. Joey walks out to the stoop and looks up at the sky as he puts on his coat. The stars are already peeking out. “Come on,” he says.

The cellar door is around the back of the building, right next to the super’s apartment. The basement has always been creepy, and not just because of the super. It has cracked cement floors and those little windows that only show you people’s feet as they go by. When we were little and bored, Joey and I would play hide-and-seek all over the building, but this was the only place I wouldn’t come to find him, even if I knew for sure that he was here. The super had a rule against kids playing in the basement, and I was scared he’d shut me in that cold, dark place forever if he caught me playing there. That feeling never went away. Even when I got old enough to know better, the padlocked door at the far end always scared me. It led to the storage units for each floor, but you could probably hide a body in there and nobody would ever be the wiser.

Joey unlocks the door and lets us in. My teeth are practically chattering from the cold, so he fishes in his pocket for a few quarters and turns on the old dryer. In a few minutes, it gives off heat and a musty odor laced with a touch of bleach. It’s strangely comforting as I press my hands on the sides to warm them. He climbs on top of the dryer as if it’s a chair and gnaws on his cuticles, waiting for me to warm up. Little white puffs of his breath explode from his lips with each pull. One of his wrists is swollen with new ink, I notice. It says:
HOMEMADE PAIN
.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I ask. Last summer, he showed me his tattoo tools: a cigarette lighter, a sewing needle attached like a harpoon to the eraser end of a number-two pencil, and a jar of India ink he swiped from the art room.

He shakes his head.

“I take it like a man.”

“Sure,” I say.

“I’m going get a good one when I’m eighteen. A cobra right here.” He lifts his shirt to show me his hip. His jeans sit just under his navy-blue boxers. The skin on his stomach is smooth and tight, and the slope of his hip bone disappears inside his pants in a way that makes me blush.

Suddenly Joey hops down from the dryer and heads for the storage area. In no time, a dim light is switched on, and I can see one of the rusty doors is hanging open. He’s gone for a long time.

“Joey?”

No answer.

I know I should go home. I should say sorry to Ma. Still, one foot moves in front of the other until I reach the doorway. The ammonia smell that greets me is overpowering.

A bare bulb swings from a chain on the ceiling. There’s an artificial Christmas tree in one corner and stacked boxes. Joey is sitting on a striped mattress on the floor. He doesn’t look up when I step inside. Instead, he keeps staring at something in the corner. That’s when I see an old laundry basket lined with a towel. Inside is the mother tabby suckling two kittens. It’s not ammonia I smell. It’s cat piss. My heart gives a jump. They’re only palm-size, and they’re just fluff with big heads and eyes still closed to the world. They can’t be more than two weeks old. As they nurse, they jerk their paws and heads in blind clumsiness; the orange one even rolls off its mother’s teat helplessly. Joey gets up and picks the kitten up carefully, putting it back near the basket as the mother hisses.

“Shut it,” he tells her.

“Oh, my God,” I say, getting next to him on the mattress. “Where did you find them?”

“Last week, behind the dryer,” he whispers. “I put them in here and feed them, but I let the mother out at night to hunt so she doesn’t get bored.”

“Aren’t you scared the super’s going to catch you?”

Joey smiles. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

Neither one of us speaks for a long time as we watch. After a while, he lies back with his hands folded behind his head. I try not to look at him lying down that way, even though I can feel him staring.

“You glad you moved, Toad?” he asks finally.

From here, it’s as if his eyes are glowing like a cat’s. For once, he isn’t wearing one of those grins. He looks just the way he did when we were ten, soft and open. I look down at him and shake my head slowly.

“No. It’s horrible.”

Joey takes his jacket off and puts it around my shoulders. Then he presses me back gently until he’s on top of me, and his lips are brushing mine. His body feels warm in a way that I need. He cups my face with his tattooed hands, and when I close my eyes, he kisses me.

The super’s TV is a hum in the background as Joey explores my mouth. Over the dryer, I can also hear the angry rise and fall of Mr. Halper’s voice, surely the start of another argument, but Joey doesn’t seem to pay attention to the sound of chairs being dragged, maybe tossed over. Joey runs his lips along my bare neck and nuzzles me like one of the kittens as I take in the smell of his dirty hair. He moves his hands over my bottom until I’m twitchy with need. I don’t know how long we lie there kissing, but when he finally starts to slide his chilly hands inside the back of my pants, I push him and sit up, afraid. My mouth is still tingling; I’m dizzy.

The dryer has stopped, and the cellar is silent and cold as a tomb. I slide off his jacket, but he doesn’t reach for it. Joey turns on his side and stares at the sleeping kittens as I head for the basement door.

“I have to go,” I mumble.

Joey doesn’t say good-bye.

“I’m sick, Ma.”

Lying here in bed, I feel broken into a million pieces. My head is a brick, and my legs don’t want to take me to school. I hold the covers around my chin as Ma frowns and feels my forehead. I can still feel Yaqui’s friends smacking the back of my head.

“That’s what happens when you go out at night,
desabrigada
with no coat,” she says. “It’s a miracle you didn’t get pneumonia.”

I don’t say anything. Who wants to fight again?

According to her palm, I might have a small fever. Ma hurries off to the kitchen and comes back with a cup of tea, aspirin, and a jar of Vicks VapoRub that she sets on the floor by my bed. I’m too old for her to take a sick day for me. Besides, she never takes a day off unless it’s an emergency — like when I had to have my appendix out. And now it’s getting close to the holidays, and the back room at Attronica is becoming a maze of boxes, floor to ceiling, in preparation for the season.

“I’ll call you at lunch. Stay in bed.” She pulls on a jacket. “Lila’s home if you need something,” she adds before she heads out the door.

Relief washes over me as she leaves for the bus stop. Staying home means Yaqui doesn’t have to exist today. I don’t have to disappoint my teachers. I don’t have worry about my shaky ass or anything at all today. I close my eyes and turn over, nestling deep inside my covers for a rest, when I hear the bus pull away from the curb. I’m already drifting off.

I am beautiful, riding on the neck of a huge, jeweled elephant. She’s massive and graceful, and her skin is the mottled green of jade. She trumpets and flaps her ears to warn onlookers to stay back. I can feel people’s fear and respect as we go by. They marvel at my long hair, which trails down my back, at my legs, my balance, my total control
.

I ride down Parsons Boulevard; there are no cars. No one bothers me out here. Crowds stare and applaud. Joey Halper calls out my name. Agustín
Sanchez plays a piano on the rooftop just for me. He hits a high C on the keyboard again, and again, and again
. . .

Someone is leaning on the doorbell.

My clock says eleven thirty; I’ve been asleep for three hours. I crawl across my bed to the window and peek out through the blinds. Lila is staring at me from below. When she spots me, she waves a white paper bag above her head.

“Let me in!” Her voice is muffled through the glass. “I’m freezing to death!”

I wrap the comforter around me and ring her in. A minute later, Lila steps into the apartment, shivering.

“
Cristo
, it feels like December out there.” She hands me a greasy Dunkin’ Donuts bag. “Lunch: special delivery.”

Inside is a Boston cream doughnut, my favorite.

“Oh, I love you.”

“Didn’t you hear me ringing? I was about to knock on the old lady’s door to let me in.” She tosses her jacket on the coatrack and rubs her hands together to warm them. I can see her new nail polish, a navy blue.

“I fell asleep,” I say. “And, anyway, Mrs. Boika wouldn’t have let you in. I don’t know what her problem is. She hasn’t said two words to us since we moved here.”

“Racist old bat,” Lila mutters, and starts for the kitchen, where I settle in at the table, the bulky comforter around me like a cocoon. When I sink my teeth into the doughnut, cream squirts down my chin. Lila makes a face.

“Don’t judge me,” I tell her, licking my fingers. “I’m starved.” My hair is coming out of my ponytail, and my lips are parched and cracked.

She puts the
cafetera
on the burner, opens Ma’s catchall drawer, and pulls out a hairbrush.

“At least let me make you presentable. I’ll comb you out.”

She stands behind me and lowers the comforter as I take another bite of doughnut. Suddenly she sucks in her breath.

“¿Y esto?”

“What?”

She taps the back of my neck with the brush, and I reach for the spot. Is it zits on my back again? Chicken pox?

“You got a nice hickey,
mija
.”

“What?”
I run to the bathroom mirror to check. Sure enough, when I crane my neck, the edges of a dark raspberry are showing. The sight of it makes my heart race. Suddenly I remember Joey at my neck. Now I want to see him again — just to rip off his stupid lips.

“Shit, shit,
shit
.” I hold a hand mirror and turn around to see the full damage. It’s huge and purple as a bruise. The guy has lips like a bass.

Lila follows and leans against the doorway, amused.

“So, who is the little sucker?”

My face goes a deeper red than the hickey.

“Nobody.”

“Really?” she says, laughing. “You gave yourself a
chupón
on the neck? Nice trick. You should join the circus!”

I scowl at her and start to yank my hair out of the matted ponytail. Maybe my hair can hide this until it fades. Tears spring to my eyes as I rip strands from the band. Already, I’m making a mental list of all the turtlenecks I own. Only two. Jesus! I’ve got to get to the store. If Ma spots this, I’m dead.

Lila reaches for my hand to stop me.

“Calm down, already. You don’t want a bald patch, too, do you?”

“What am I going to do?”

“Wait here.” She disappears and comes back holding a sample tube of foundation. “Try this. If it can hide the circles under my eyes, it can hide anything.”

She doesn’t say a word as I glob the tan liquid on the spot. A few minutes later, the hickey is barely there. It’s nothing more than a secret.

When I’m done, Lila steps inside the bathroom and kisses my cheek. She brushes my dirty hair in long strokes until it’s smooth and covering my neck.

“It looks nice down,” she says softly. “It makes you look grown.” She moves her pinkies gently over my full brows and runs her palms over the slope of my cheekbones as she studies my reflection in the mirror.

“What?” I say.

“Your mother is worried about you, Piddy.”

Great. They’ve been talking.

“Ma is always worried.”

“True. But should she be this time? She said you disappeared last night. She didn’t know where you went. That’s not too safe.”

I don’t answer.

She puts her face next to mine as she admires me in the mirror. I can smell the perfume she always dabs behind her ears, until the smell of espresso coming from the small pot on the stove overpowers it.

“Just be careful about letting boys touch you, Piddy. It feels good, but it’s not a game, no matter how much fun you think you’re having.”

I look at her carefully. Fun? Was I having fun with Joey?

“Is that what you think when you’re with Raúl?”

Lila doesn’t blink. It’s a fair question, and she knows it.

“No,” she says. “But I should.”

The phone rings as Lila is draining her mug. The caller ID says
DANIEL JONES HIGH SCHOOL
. I answer it.

“Is this the parent or guardian of Piedad Sanchez?” The voice on the other line is strangely familiar.

“Yes,” I say.

The caller snorts. “Oh,
please
. It is
not
.”