With the Fire on High(59)
“Emoni, you coming home?” Pretty Leslie yells from halfway up the hill to our homestay. I shake my head. And she looks from me to Malachi through narrowed eyes.
“Pretty Leslie didn’t handle the end of y’all talking well, did she?” I ask Malachi as we take a turn that leads not to the house but to another little street. The streets of Sevilla have ice-cream shops sprinkled on almost every block the way Papi stores and Starbucks are back home. I pass an ice-cream shop every morning and I know it’s exactly the kind of place Malachi would love. I lead the way.
He shrugs. “She and I had an honest conversation. I told you from the beginning I thought she was a cool girl, and I still think so . . . even if she says some dumb shit when she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t care what people think.”
I want to ask for more details, but I figure it’s not my business. Although Malachi says he was only her friend, I wonder if she wanted to be more.
Malachi takes my hand. His long fingers close over my own and he tugs me to him when we pass a couple on the street. I look over at him. His dark brown cheeks, his high forehead. The wisps of hair on his chin and the sideburns shaped into a perfect Philly point. He’s not smiling, and I want to make him smile more than anything. He’s a different person when he smiles, a friendlier Malachi that I imagine is someone I can talk to about this Malachi standing next to me that I don’t know what the hell to do with.
The streetlights glint against the stone streets. My hand is still in Malachi’s and he gives it a light squeeze before sticking his hands in the pockets of his black jacket and pulling my hand in with him. Outside of a restaurant a man plays a guitar and sings a slow, sad song that sounds like it comes from the bottom of his gut.
This moment is one I don’t ever want to end. And my breath stops short. This is exactly why I don’t hang out with guys. Angelica would tell me I’m being stupid, since I don’t hang out with girls, either. And she would be right. This is why I don’t get close to people. Because it makes it too easy to hurt them. Be hurt by them.
I stop walking and Malachi stutters to a halt. I pull up on my tippy-toes, grip the hand that’s holding mine, and begin meeting his mouth for a kiss, when I feel a sharp tug on my shoulder and I drop my hands to see that a little kid has taken off, clutching my purse.
Children
Malachi is right behind him before I can even get a breath out. The little boy is quick and ducks around people and pivots hard into different alleyways. I follow as close as I can, keeping sight of Malachi. He never loses a beat. For a split second between gasping for air it hits me what it must have been like for him growing up in Newark if his eyes are so sharp and his reflexes so fast that he can keep up with a young boy in a city he doesn’t know. I also realize that I need to start working out with Angelica, because I fall far behind after the second block. Then Malachi has the boy by the back of his coat and I speed up before he can hurt him.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I say, taking back the purse. The boy has long lashes framing bright green eyes. Tears are falling down his grubby cheeks. He shakes in Malachi’s hands. I touch Malachi’s shoulder. “He’s just a kid.”
His hand grips the coat tighter. “Ask him why.”
I touch his hand. “Mal, stop. He wanted money. Let him go.”
“Ask him why, Emoni.” He never uses my first name. I clutch my purse tight in one arm and turn to the child.
“?Porqué robaste la cartera?” I ask him. My words come out slow as I try to remember each one and make sure I’m saying them right. I’ve always understood Spanish better than I’ve spoken it, but I must have gotten my question across since the boy’s eyes widen even more when he looks at me.
His own Spanish sounds garbled because he’s talking through tears. “I wouldn’t have if I knew you two were black,” he says, and I almost laugh. “I didn’t see you from the front.”
“Not being black would have made a difference?”
He runs a hand across his runny nose, avoids Malachi’s hands. “Everyone knows you guys run fast.”
“Not all of us. Just like not all of you steal, right?”
He looks down at the ground. “My baby sister, she’s hungry. My parents don’t like it, but we beg. Because we’re cuter.” He blinks innocently and smiles sadly. And he’s right—I would have given him money. He’s cute as hell.
I look up at Malachi. He still hasn’t let go of the boy, but his eyes seem far away. He snaps his attention back to me when I speak. “He was hungry. He says he has a sister who’s hungry, too.”
“Tell Little Man to take us to her. I want to see where they are staying.”
“Malachi, let go of him. You’re scaring him and we can’t force him to take us to his family if he doesn’t want to. I have my purse back. It’s not that serious.”
But the boy must understand some English because he points into an alleyway not too far from us. A small face is peeking out around the wall. Malachi drops his hand from the boy’s shoulder.
Malachi doesn’t say anything. I reach into my bag and pull out five euros. I put them in the little boy’s palm and he runs to the little girl, scooping her up and walking deep into the alleyway and out of sight.
“I just can’t get over how young they are,” I say to Malachi. She was only two or three years older than Babygirl. I turn to Malachi, but he’s still watching the darkness that the two kids ran into.