Pride(5)

Papi shakes his head at Mama. “I’m outta here,” he mumbles, getting up from his recliner and taking his plate with him.

Janae and I exchange looks, because we already have our lives figured out and they don’t involve these new boys across the street. After college, she’s getting a teaching job and her own apartment in Bushwick. And I’m going to Howard University and will live on campus in my own dorm room where I can stretch out my arms and legs and not have to hit a little sister in the head while doing so. After I graduate, I’ll get a job and my own apartment here too. None of those scenarios involve a boyfriend or a husband. So I say, “I have no interest in either of those boys, Madrina. I’m going to college and getting a job—I don’t need an investor to take care of me.”

Papi comes out of the kitchen where he was getting started on the dishes, comes over to me, and gives me one of his awkward fist bumps. “Now that’s my baby girl! She got her own mind.”

“So who are those two boys for, Madrina? Me and Kayla?” Layla asks. Of course she does. Layla is the boy craziest one out of all of us. “Ey, slow down, Speedy Benitez!” Madrina says. “You get in line behind Marisol. And then the baby, Kayla, is right after you.”

“So I’m not gonna get married until Marisol gets married?” Layla whines. “Do you see her, Madrina? I’ll be waiting forever!”

“Yes, you will. And there are two ways to examine the institution of marriage,” Marisol begins, and the whole room sighs because she’s about to spill out a series of facts, numbers, and statistics that all have to do with the thing she loves most in the world: money. “It can mean either that marriage is the false notion that love is forever and a woman is left to depend on her husband for financial support, or that two incomes are better than one. Love is abstract. Money is not.”

“Hah! Now she’s the one who’ll marry for money,” Madrina says. “Put all your eggs in that basket, Beni.”

“Aw, come on!” Janae finally says, and everybody gets quiet. “This is the future, Madrina. We’re thinking about our careers and goals and breaking barriers. And yes, Marisol, we’re thinking about making money!”

“Career before family? Como una gringa?”

“No, Madrina,” I say. “Not like a white girl! Like . . . a woman! Any woman.”

“Como Beyoncé y Jennifer Lopez,” Janae adds.

“My baby,” Mama says, smiling and cocking her head to the side. “She spends one year at college and she thinks she knows everything.”

Janae’s face drops, and I can tell that stung her a bit. My big sister is carrying the whole intellectual weight of the family now that she’s the first one to go to a four-year college.

Mama had Janae while she was a teenager herself and only went for a couple of semesters before dropping out when she got pregnant with me. Papi did two years at a community college and is proud of his associate’s degree. They got married at a very, very young age. And thank los espíritus, as Madrina would say, that they at least liked each other. They more than liked each other, though. They are actually still in love.

I know this because as we’re all yapping in the living room, Papi washes the dishes, cleans the kitchen, and comes back to offer Mama a glass of water while he takes her empty plate. Some of the other men on the block—Bobbito, Wayne, and Hernando—have always teased him for being such a lover boy. I’ve seen him do little things like this all my life. And I know in my heart of hearts that their kind of love is very rare.

While Madrina and Mama are still running their mouths, I nod at Janae. She gets up to wash her dish, and when she’s done, she slips out the door. I keep my eye on the twins because they’ll be the first to notice. But they’re on their phones now, probably going through their endless streams of selfies. I wait a couple of minutes before I tiptoe across the small living room and quietly shut the door behind me.

Janae is in the hallway waiting for me. We grin at each other.

“Well, hello, ladies,” someone says from the second floor, and we both jump.

We look down over the banister to see Colin’s big ol’ head coming up the last flight of stairs. Janae and I sigh and roll our eyes at the same time.

“And may I add, you look hella fine, Janae,” Colin says when he gets to our door.

“Oh, shut up, Colin,” I say.

But he ignores me and goes straight for my sister. He takes her hand and kisses it, pretending to be a gentleman and not the thirsty player that he is.

We’ve known Colin all our lives because he’s Madrina’s nephew. And since Madrina doesn’t have any children, she sort of adopted Colin as her own—she’s even said that Colin is going to inherit the building. Every summer he’d spend weeks with her, with us. When we were little, Colin was like the big brother we never had. He turned the rope for us when we needed an even game of double Dutch, he pretended to be whatever we wanted him to be—a monster, a chupacabra, a Death Eater—so he could chase us around Maria Hernandez Park. But three summers ago, he turned eighteen, moved in with Madrina, and started acting funny around us—with an almost full beard, and a much deeper voice. He stopped playing games with us, and one day he approached Janae with a letter professing his undying love for her. Since then, it’s never been the same.