An Island Like You Read online

  “I want to stay here with you,” she said to him one day as he kissed her face, leaving her skin sticky with saliva as always, so that she had to wash off her makeup several times a day and start doing her face all over again. She saw his mother time her while she did this, and she knew the ten or fifteen minutes that she spent in the bathroom were taken off her time sheet.

  “Sure, honey. You can stay here. You can stay with me. I’ll fix it so you can. But what about your papa? Will he come shoot me? Hey, I know how these Puerto Rican men are, they shoot first, ask questions later. Am I right?”

  It had been just a few hours ago that Frank’s mother had come down the stairs with a dilapidated suitcase in her hand. She hadn’t said a word to Anita as she walked out the door toward the waiting taxi. Anita had seen Frank bend down and kiss his mother on the cheek, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. When he came back to the store, he winked at her and said, “Today’s the day. Tonight’s the night.”

  “I can come stay with you?” Anita ran into his arms. But there was a customer coming in the door at that moment. It was the breakfast rush, and soon the old regulars would be in for their coffee.

  “Can I go home and get a few things?” she had asked Frank, who just nodded, since he was busy having a conversation about sports with his customer. As she was walking out, he had yelled, “Be back by lunch. We gonna be busy today.” So that’s how Anita had found herself sneaking into her apartment that morning to put some clothes and things into a bag. She had been surprised to find her father at home at that hour. He and her mother were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa having an intense talk, it looked like.

  “Anita, what are you doing home? Are you sick?” Her mother had come up to her and tried to feel her forehead.

  “No, I just forgot something.” Anita shook off her mother’s hand. “What’s he doing here at this hour? Did he quit his job?” Her father gave her a look that said, Don’t start trouble.

  “I’ve been coming home for lunch, Anita. I’m working at the garage down the street, so I have more time now. Anything else you wanna know?”

  Anita didn’t say anything. She started to walk into her room. Whatever was going on with them wasn’t her problem anymore. She was going to have a life of her own. But first she had to get out of the house without arousing their suspicions. Her plan was to call home when it was too late for them to do anything about it — to tell them that she was engaged.

  “How’s your job at the Italian deli going?” Her mother followed her into her room.

  “It’s going great. Just great. But if I don’t get my apron and get back before lunch, I’m not gonna have a job.”

  “Okay, hija. I’ll see you tonight. I’m making arroz con camarones for dinner. I know how you like shrimp, so don’t eat before you come home.”

  Anita leaves the apartment without her parents even noticing. They’re involved in a conversation that for once the neighbors couldn’t hear through the walls.

  Anita sips the soda that Mario’s wife, Mirta, has poured for her. Mirta runs back and forth between counter and cash register as the customers come in. Her blouse is sticking to her with sweat, and there’s a chocolate stain on her apron. But she seems in a good mood, joking with people. When things slow down, she turns to Anita.

  “Hey, Anita. Will you watch the register for me while I go change in the back?” Anita nods in agreement, then notices the HELP WANTED sign taped to the door.

  “You got your hands full, huh, Mirta?” she asks the young woman, who married Mario last year. Besides helping run the business, Mirta is also going to school at night to learn accounting. Anita has seen the couple hunched over books in one of the window booths at night after the CLOSED sign is on the door.

  “Yeah. We need some help. You got a summer job yet?”

  “I’m working at Francesco’s Deli.” Anita checks her watch again. Quarter till one. She slips off the stool.

  “Better watch out for that Frank, girl,” Mirta says, winking at Anita as she ties a clean white apron.

  “Why? Frank’s a nice guy,” Anita says, holding her bag to her chest as if to protect her heart from what Mirta may say next.

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t. He asked me out in high school. He was a senior when I was a freshman.”

  “Did you date him?” Anita doesn’t really want to hear about Frank’s past relationships. They don’t concern her. But her feet seem to be stuck to the floor tiles.

  “Honey, I would’ve killed to go out with that hunk. But my mother would’ve had a screaming fit if I got mixed up with an Italiano. She’s strict that way. Besides, his mother is a witch. She wants him to marry a nice old-fashioned girl, you know, somebody who will wait on them both. And take care of her when she retires.” Mirta looks closely at Anita. “Is he hitting on you?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Anita tries to smile, but feels a little shook up at the thought there’re a lot of things about Frank she doesn’t know. “Gotta go.” Anita pays for her soda and starts to leave. Mirta grabs her hand.

  “Anita, you having problems?”

  Anita shakes her head but can’t look Mirta in the eyes.

  “You come back sometime and we’ll talk. Okay?”

  “Sure. See you.”

  Anita walks out onto the white-hot pavement and slowly away from her block. When she arrives at the deli, she stops to look back where she came from. El Building seems small and distant. Around her she hears words in Italian that sound almost like Spanish, but as if spoken by a child or a drunk, drawled out, too many l’s and vowels in the wrong places. She presses her face to the glass, right under the letters that spell out FRANCESCO’S DELI. At first she thinks she sees Frank leaning over the counter as if to kiss a girl who looks about fourteen. But she’s wrong. He just likes to get close to people when he’s talking, that’s all. Anita keeps watching the silent scene in the store while she gets herself mentally ready to go in and start her new life with Frank. There’ll be no turning back.

  She watches Frank put his elbows on the counter top and his chin in his hands so he can be at eye level with the girl. Anita knows what it’s like when he looks into your eyes. The girl seems to be hypnotized. She’s got stringy hair in two shades of orange, and has a cigarette in her hand that she occasionally brings to her mouth. She looks like a kid disguised as a biker in torn jeans and a black leather vest. She’s nodding in agreement at something Frank’s said. Anita watches him getting out of his apron. He looks at his watch, then out the glass storefront. He acts surprised to see her looking in, but gives her a big smile. Then gestures to her to wait as he comes around the counter.

  Anita starts to panic — no longer sure that she wants to enter this place — Frank’s territory, which she’s just imagined as a sticky spiderweb. She shakes her head to drive away the strange thought.

  He’s almost out the door when Anita finally shakes herself out of her trance. The redheaded girl follows him out and leans on the wall, crossing her arms over her chest and letting her cigarette hang from her red mouth. She is unnaturally pale in the light of day and has purple circles around her eyes. She smirks at Anita, who’s been staring.

  Anita turns away and starts walking fast. She doesn’t slow down when she hears Frank call out her name. It’s like her feet have a will of their own, and they are leading her back where she came from.

  “Wait! Where’re you going?”

  “I quit, Frank,” Anita hears herself say. She hadn’t planned that, or any of this. But now it seems absolutely necessary that she get away from this place.

  “You can’t quit, I need the afternoon off!” Frank yells, following her down the street.

  “Hey, darling. Are you mad at me?” Frank catches up with her at the corner and holds her by the elbow. He whispers in her ear, “I just gotta go see a sick friend for a while, baby. Listen to me. We can be alone tonight. Mama won’t be back from Aunt Lucrezia’s until tomorrow.”

  She looks at him unbe
lieving. Then she breaks free from his hold and runs.

  “Hey, that’s what you wanted. To stay with me, right?”

  Frank is still calling Anita as she runs across the intersection at the edge of her barrio. With each step, El Building looms larger in front of her. She’s always thought that the old gray tenement building with its iron fire escapes hanging from its sides like bars made it look like a prison or an insane asylum. But right now she just wants to let the place swallow her. She wants to be in its belly. Safe within the four walls of her room where she can sort out her thoughts and try to discover what it is that she really wants. She almost laughs aloud even though she’s close to tears, thinking, I want to go home to El Building. I must be crazy!

  Once on her street, Anita slows down to catch her breath. She smells the cuchifrito frying in the kitchen of Cheo’s bodega, and the café con leche Doña Corazon is preparing for the after-lunch crowd who come to Corazon’s Café, her store, more to visit with her and each other than to buy. Both these places keep their front door open during the summer, and you can always hear and smell everything that’s happening inside. But Mirta has said that it uses up too much air conditioning, and her business is run in the American way: always sealed tight against the weather. Anita taps the glass at Mario’s and waves at Mirta, who is reading a book at the counter. At the corner in front of El Building, Anita stops to wait for the WALK signal. She is calmer now, but feels like someone who’s just narrowly escaped a disaster. Climbing the stairs to her apartment, she can hear her parents talking excitedly and moving around the apartment. She listens for a minute at the door but can’t make out the words, only the rise and fall of their voices; they could be either fighting or dancing, no way to know for sure from the outside. Then Anita takes a deep breath and steps back into her life.

  Rick Sanchez was dead, and nobody in the barrio knew or cared. I had found out about it only because I called him and got his machine with a good-bye message on it from Rick himself. It said that by the time anyone heard it, he’d be gone. He said that he especially wanted some of us in the barrio to know that he expected us to finish the project we had started. I couldn’t help myself, I started crying when I heard him say my name.

  “And, Doris, now that you have decided not to be invisible all the time, maybe you can keep the others from fading away too,” he said.

  That was our private joke. See, when Rick had first come to our barrio to start the theater group, I had hung back like I usually do, just watching, trying not to be noticed. But Rick showed up at our building in his new BMW. He started knocking on doors to talk people into backing his idea of a young people’s theater, which he planned to sponsor. Rick was rich even though he had started out in the barrio like us.

  But our parents, most of them anyway, told us to stay away from him and his friend, Joe Martini. We — that is, the kids here — didn’t need to be warned against doing stuff like putting on a stupid play, especially during summer vacation, but I, for one, was curious to know why my father turned red when Rick Sanchez’s name was mentioned. If I asked a question, Papi just said, he’s not one of us. I got together with Sandi, Teresa, Arturo, and some of the others, and they said the same thing had happened at their places. Of course, all it took was for us to get a look at Rick and his “partner,” Martini, to know what our fathers were getting so upset about. I mean, they didn’t hold hands or kiss in public or anything that we saw. We spied on them from the fire escape in Connie Colón’s apartment — from where we have a pretty good view of the whole street in front of our building, and also of the fenced-in back lot where Rick and his friend were taking measurements for an outdoor stage. But they were a couple, and that was obvious.

  Connie put on a pretty funny imitation for us of the way Martini walks. I didn’t see that he moved like that at all, but Connie took little steps and made her hips swing back and forth, which is more like the way she walks, especially when there are boys around. I laughed and joined in the fun when Teresa told a few “pervert jokes.” But then I noticed that Arturo was looking uncomfortable. He’s the only boy here who acts decently around girls, so I tried to change the subject.

  “Did you see the car?” I pointed to it parked right in front of our building. From where we were, it looked like some kind of black jewel sparkling in the sun.

  “He’d better keep an eye on it,” Arturo said in his soft voice. “I bet even the hubcaps are worth a bundle.”

  “Rick Sanchez used to live here, right?” Teresa asked.

  “My mother says he was the son of that old lady who died a couple of years ago, what was her name? She told people’s fortunes with cards.” You could depend on Connie Colón to know everyone’s past, present, and future. She was a walking encyclopedia of barrio gossip.

  We waited for Connie to give us the details about Rick Sanchez’s early life, and we weren’t disappointed. Connie sat on her windowsill while we huddled together on the fire escape, four stories above where Rick and Martini were taking down measurements on the back lot. They looked like tropical birds in their bright-colored shirts. When they raised their arms to point at something, the wind made the big sleeves flap like wings.

  “My mother said that Rick Sanchez’s father left home when he was a little boy. Then Rick had a lot of trouble in school. See, Rick wasn’t like other boys, if you know what I mean. Then he ran away from home when he was fifteen or sixteen. The next time anybody heard anything about him was when they saw him on a commercial on TV for a Broadway show.”

  “So that’s how he got rich. He’s an actor.” I wanted to know the name of the show because I love movies and plays. Not like I’m an expert or anything. Only thing I get to see onstage every week is our fat principal screeching into the microphone about important things like how the graffiti on the bathroom walls is a disgrace to our school. The spring performance of a Shakespeare play is usually pretty terrible, but this year Arturo got to play Romeo and he was good. I really admire Arturo for doing it. He had to take a lot of abuse from Luis Cintrón and the other muchachos around here, especially that Kenny Matoa, who thinks he’s so tough.

  Connie waited for us to beg her a little more, then she continued: “Anyway, Rick was not allowed to come home until his father died. Then his mother got real sick. Mami says that Rick sent her checks and went to see her at the hospital. That’s all I know.”

  “I heard something from my father.” I was surprised to hear Arturo saying this. He hates gossip and will not even stay around when we get together to “talk down” somebody.

  “I heard that Rick Sanchez has AIDS.” Arturo said this in a sort of whisper. Then he looked down at the men in the yard with such a sad look on his face that we all sort of got quiet for a few minutes.

  “So why does he want to come here and give it to us?” Connie suddenly asked, so loud that I thought they had heard it down on the yard.

  “Connie, are you stupid? You know it ain’t that easy to get AIDS,” Sandi said. “But what is he doing here?”

  I thought about Rick’s life in the barrio as a “different” boy. I know from experience that you basically have two choices once you’re made to feel unwanted here: to leave home or try to become invisible like me. I imagined boys like the Tiburones had a field day persecuting someone like Rick. I could just see him being ridiculed for his clothes, his way of walking and talking, and especially for not being a tough macho, until one day he just couldn’t take it anymore. I understood why he ran away, and I was glad that he had made it big in the city, but I had to wonder too why he had returned.

  We found out in a letter that he put in each of our mailboxes. He said in the first line that he was HIV-positive and it was not a secret, and that he was under a doctor’s care. He wanted to spend the time left to him starting a barrio theater group. He would pay the actors and staff, and he also needed stagehands and workers to help build an outdoor stage. Since it was the start of summer vacation and most of us had been ordered to get jobs by our parents,
there was a big turnout for the first meeting Rick called. He held it in the back of Corazon’s Café, a bodega in our barrio. Doña Corazon was really taking a chance letting him do it. If our parents decided to boycott her store, she was going to be out of luck. But Doña Corazon always did what she wanted. She had Cokes for all of us, and her assistant, the Peruvian Indian, Inocencia, had cleared out a space in the middle of the storage room for us to sit down. Even Luis and Matoa showed up, but I could tell by the sarcastic expressions on their faces that they were going to be trouble.

  Rick and Martini hung back and watched us come in. Rick was really a good-looking guy, but was he skinny. Martini was built. I mean he really had a body on him. And when he flashed his Pepsodent smile, it made you want to put on your shades. I think we all stared. I saw Luis punch Matoa in the ribs, and they both laughed. Rick just stared at them without smiling until they both sat down on the floor like the rest of us. Luis and Matoa were not so easily put down, though. I watched them making faces, batting their eyelashes at each other like girls. I wondered why Rick didn’t throw them out.

  But that just wasn’t his way of doing things. He explained his project and handed out some papers for us to have our parents sign if we wanted to work for pay. The pay wasn’t that great. I could make more helping clean the nightclub where my parents worked, which is what I always did Saturday mornings anyway. I knew Teresa could get a job at the park again, and Doña Corazon always hired baggers in the summer at her bodega. But I liked the idea of a theater just for us.

  “I’d like for you all to see a real play on Broadway,” Rick told us at the meeting. “There will be tickets for you at the window for a matinee on Saturday, August 10. You’ll have to take the bus into the city, but Joe and I will meet you when you get there. More details to come — keep watching your mail!” Rick spoke with an actor’s voice and made big gestures with his arms. This sent some of the kids into fits of laughter. Joe Martini crossed his big, muscular arms in front of his chest and frowned, looking straight at Matoa, who was rolling around like a dog on the floor. But Rick just waited for everyone to calm down again.