With the Fire on High(68)
“I’m happy. I’m just nervous at all the new changes.”
“And Mami with her new boyfriend.”
I’m stunned. ’Buela told him about Mr. Jagoda? “She told me.” And I realize I asked that question out loud.
“You’ll figure it out, Emoni. You’ve had some of the most difficult challenges thrown your way and you’ve always figured it out. You got angels on your shoulder.”
And I can only hope he’s right.
Next Steps
“Ms. Santiago, how was your trip?” Ms. Fuentes asks from her desk.
I hope she doesn’t look at me too closely or she’ll be able to tell I was crying into my pillow all night. “It was amazing. I hope I can go back one day.”
“Did you end up checking those college admissions?”
I walk to my desk and pull out a textbook immediately. I need to bury my face somewhere. “I got into Drexel.”
“That’s amazing, Ms. Santiago!” Ms. Fuentes claps her hands together. She drops them when I stare unenthusiastically at my closed Applied Math book. “You don’t seem excited. What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. Still jet-lagged, I guess.”
I don’t look at Malachi when he walks in, but I can feel his eyes on me the entire thirty minutes of class. We spoke on the phone last night after my conversation with ’Buela. Well, mostly I spoke, which is a change for us. He listened as I listed my fears and as I cried about ’Buela. I’m so happy for her, and I’m so afraid of change.
At lunch, I can’t even pretend to play with my food.
“Emoni, please explain to me why you’re in crisis mode again today? You just got back from a beautiful country, you have a boyfriend, a college acceptance, and the best best friend a person could have. So what is the problem?” Angelica never has much patience with me when I’m moping.
“I feel like I’m being pulled in a hundred directions and my feet are stuck in cement.”
She pushes her glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose. “So, you went to Spain and became a poet?”
I pull my hand from underneath hers and flick applesauce at her blond curls.
“Hey!” She ducks out of the way before any lands on her and pretends to hide under the table.
“Girl, get up. I’m done reminding you who’s boss here.”
“Yeah, okay. Wait until I get this weave out. It’s going to be straight-up applesauce war.”
And absolutely nothing has changed. But for a few moments my chest feels lighter.
Love
Since I miss her so much, I pick up Babygirl from daycare even though it’s an extra half hour each way when I go there after school. Mamá Clara is super sweet and can’t stop showing me Babygirl’s artwork and finger paintings and all the little dresses she uses on her dolls. I haul Babygirl onto the bus and let her sing to me.
“She’s such an adorable child,” an older white woman says from across the aisle. “Your sister?”
I smile at Babygirl. “No, ma’am. My daughter.”
The smile fades from her face but mine stays right where it is. I’ve met this kind of woman before. The kind with real strict ideas about what makes certain people respectable. The kind that gets sour-faced at learning Babygirl is my daughter, but who would have sympathy if I was of a paler complexion. The kind that looks at Angelica’s colorful hair and calls her ghetto under her breath, but thinks a white tween with purple cornrows is charming and creative. She looks like the kind of woman who will break a stereotype down the middle and hold one half up for white kids and one up for black ones. And maybe I’m stereotyping her, too. Pretending to know what kind of woman she is because of the kind of women who have hated on me, and Angelica, and all the black and brown girls we know from home; who have shaken their heads and tsked their teeth, and reminded us we weren’t welcome in their part of the city, on their side of the bus, in their world.
The smile stays on my face. I nuzzle Babygirl. Just the two of us. We can make it if we try.
Part Three
The Bittersweet
EMONI’S
“When the World Tries to Break You, Break Beer Bread with Those You Love”
RECIPE
Serves: Your strength when you feel alone.
Ingredients:
Three double scoops of flour Four thumbs of white sugar Half a stick of melted butter Two bottles of beer
A sprinkle of sage
A sprinkle of island oregano Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix all the ingredients except herbs until it’s a smooth mixture. Mix sage and island oregano into the batter.
2. Spread the mixture into a greased bread pan. Spread some more butter over the top.
3. Bake the bread for the entirety of Bad Bunny’s last album.
4. Take the bread out of the oven and let cool.
*Best eaten with honey butter while listening to your own gut.
Stuck
Over the next couple of weeks everyone keeps asking me about where I’m going to school. I usually just smile and shrug. Only ’Buela looks ready to wring my neck because she wants to write the check for the deposit, but the truth is, I know what I want to do, I just don’t know how to tell anyone. Not even the people closest to me. Angelica has tried to get me to tell her about my future plans, doing everything from threatening me to mothering me to get me to talk, and today at lunch is no different.