Pride(11)

While I wasn’t looking, Janae went over to dance with Ainsley. She’s in a dreamy haze as he pulls her close. It’s all so corny, and Janae is falling for it. I cross my arms and narrow my eyes.

If Janae is the sticky sweetness keeping us sisters together, then I’m the hard candy shell, the protector. If anyone wants to get to the Benitez sisters, they’ll have to crack open my heart first.





Five


I’M SITTING ON the front stoop, and the words to this college application essay aren’t coming at all, or maybe they’re floating around my head and I just need to look up and grab each one.

Change. Money. College. Job. Space. Family. Home.

If I listen closely enough, I can hear Bushwick’s volume turning down real slowly. Getting quiet. My sisters don’t believe me when I tell them that even though it’s still noisy, our neighborhood is getting quieter and quieter every summer, as if the tiny musical sounds that fill up my hood are popping like bubbles, one by one, and disappearing into empty silence. Anybody who’s been in Bushwick long enough is like a musician, and when they leave, we lose a sound.

Nothing pours out of me. Nothing escapes through my fingers. I sigh and slam my laptop shut just as the front door squeaks open and out comes Janae, wearing strappy sandals and newly shaven, oiled legs. I don’t even have to look at her face to know that she’s got on her signature summer-shimmery-glow makeup and lip gloss.

“What you all dressed up for?” I ask.

“I’m not dressed up,” she says, playing dumb.

I only glance over at her to know that I was right. Janae doesn’t have anything planned for the rest of the summer—no job, no internship, so her butt isn’t going anywhere on a Monday afternoon in July. But her phone keeps buzzing, and she’s texting as if the world is about to end. Janae doesn’t have a lot of friends, either. Or rather, the two who she has are not in this neighborhood anymore, and her college friends are off traveling for the summer.

She glances across the street, and I let out a long, deep sigh.

“What?” she asks.

“You tell me what.”

“Fine. He invited me over.”

I clutch my laptop and stare at those wide double doors. I hate those doors. “Janae, I haven’t seen you in months. Can we do something? Take the bus downtown? The movies? The bookstore? Anything?”

“Yeah, of course. We got the whole summer, Z,” she says, smiling and staring at the house across the street.

“You’re going over there now?”

“Uh, yeah.” She gets up and smooths down the back of her sundress. “I wanna see what it looks like on the inside. To think, they turned that place around in, what, a few months?”

“Almost a year. I saw the whole thing. Every single day. I can imagine what it looks like on the inside. I’ll just draw you a picture if you want.”

She ignores me and steps down from the stoop.

“Papi’s not gonna like this, Nae,” I say as a last resort to keep her from ruining her life. My life. Our lives. Our family gets along with every single person on this block, which makes block parties run smoothly; which makes walking home when it’s dark real safe; which makes walking to the bodega in a night scarf and pajama pants not a big deal. The Darcys moving in changes all that.

“I need to see some design ideas for when I buy my own run-down house in Bushwick and renovate it,” she says in a dreamy, la-la-land voice.

“That’s not gonna happen, Janae, because people like them don’t wanna be around people like us,” I say out loud. “Especially Darius.”

“Zuri, you’re being ridiculous” she says, and sashays her round behind and short summer dress across the street.

“It’s about to rain, Janae!” I shout behind her.

“Good!” Janae says, without looking back.

I try to turn my attention to my essay. I try to not care. I force myself to write, and like always, broken words spill out. A rough, jagged poem, like the steps on this stoop, like the sidewalk in front of this building. Like everything around me right now.

Love is like my sister, Janae. She is springtime tulips

and pastel colors. She is sun rays beaming

through windows where dust particles dance and kiss

in the light. She is tender kissing scenes on TV,

and then afterward practicing on soft pillows

at night. She is the warm space between Mama and Papi

while they sleep and the bills are paid and the fridge is full.

She is made of honey and sugar and summer fruits

oozing gooey sweetness and catching

bees and flies. Buzzing. Annoying. Like the ones

in that house across the street.

Dark clouds over Bushwick have a kind of magic to the them. At least that’s what Madrina says. Clouds are never just clouds in my hood. So when the sun takes cover and the thunder rolls, I know something’s about to go down.

It starts drizzling, and in seconds, it pours. The house across the street tugs at me. Maybe my sister is wishing that I was with her to see the stainless steel appliances and the doctor’s office furniture. Or maybe she can’t stand being in there another second and she doesn’t want to be rude, so my coming over will be her saving grace.

My laptop is getting wet, so I tuck it beneath my shirt, as soon as I step out onto the sidewalk.