CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Nico
“So where is your sister?” Layla asks sometime around one in the afternoon.
It’s been hours of sleeping, fucking, sleeping, fucking. No, that’s wrong. I feel like a pussy saying “making love,” but this hasn’t been just sex. If I’m being honest, it’s never just sex with Layla. I’m going to have to get used to that.
So, we’re only a little bit closer to making it out of the bedroom for the day than we were at seven this morning. I ran into the kitchen a couple of times to grab us whatever food I had left in the house. Leftover rice and beans probably isn’t the most nutritious thing I could have given Layla, but it tastes damn good after the workout we’ve had. Now, though, we’ve both had our fills of salty leftovers, so we’ve decided to grab some sandwiches at the diner on the corner before I have to put Layla on a train back to Chinatown. She needs to study, and I am not going to get in the way of my baby’s future. No fuckin’ way.
I shrug on a black hoodie over a t-shirt and jeans while Layla pulls on her dress from last night. Fucking hell. Her coat only goes to her hips, and with those boots on, she’s going to earn a whistle from every motherfucker on the block. Suddenly, the idea of making her ride the train alone sounds absolutely terrible.
I whistle at her anyway, and she blushes, then scowls.
“Shut up,” she jokes, and throws a pillow at me.
I parry it away and pull her flush against me. All of a sudden, I’m starving all over again, and not for food.
“That dress should be burned,” I say as I nibble on her ear. “You have no idea how your ass looks in that thing. It makes me want to do very, very dirty things to you, Ms. Barros.”
“You have a thing for asses, don’t you?” she asks as I nuzzle deeper into her neck.
In response, my hands drift down to grab that exact part of her body, and she squeaks loudly.
“Maybe a little,” I say with a chuckle. “But yours takes the motherfuckin’ cake, baby.”
I squeeze her again before letting go, shaking my head. I’m a little scared to walk outside with her, you wanna know the truth. She has no idea as she ties up her hair into a knot on top of her head and checks herself in the mirror next to my door. She could stop traffic––in this neighborhood, a girl like Layla is every guy’s wet dream.
“Seriously, though,” she says. “Did we wake anyone up last night? Or today, for that matter?”
I shake my head again before putting on my Yankees cap backward. “No, sweetie, there’s no one here but us. My sister’s back with her boyfriend, so her room is empty right now.”
“How often does she come?”
I pick up my clothes off the floor and toss them into the basket next to the armchair. Sitting down on the bed, I start putting on my black Adidas sneakers. “Maggie and Jimmy––that’s Allie’s dad––are kind of...well, they have a hard time with self-control, let’s just put it that way. They try to make it work for Allie’s sake, but sometimes she needs a break. So I keep the room empty for them.”
I don’t tell her that it’s because I’m pretty sure one day Jimmy is going to get locked up himself again. I don’t have proof of it, but I’ve seen my sister applying thick makeup to her cheek or eyebrows one too many times. I’ve talked to her enough times to be told to fuck off, but we grew up with too many of our mom’s shitty boyfriends not to know the signs of an abusive relationship. One day I hope she and Allie will just come to stay. I wouldn’t mind. Jimmy wants to question that, he can talk to me. Or my fist.
Layla watches me like she’s trying to figure something out, then just goes back to putting on her coat.
“How old is your niece?” she asks.
I look up. “Allie’s three.”
“What’s Allie short for?”
“Alejandra, actually,” I clarify with the correct Spanish pronunciation. “But that’s way too serious a name for a baby, you know? So we call her Allie.”
Layla smiles. “That’s cute. I hope I can meet her one day.”
I smile back, and then I shake my head. Whoa. The idea of Layla holding a little black-haired baby sounds way too good to me. You are twenty-six, Nico. She is nineteen. You are both way too young to be thinking about kids.
“How can you afford this apartment by yourself?” Layla interrupts me. “It’s huge.”
I look around, trying to see what she sees. My place isn’t that nice, but it is pretty big as far as New York apartments go, which is why I’ve never moved. I forget that until I go into the rat traps that pass as studios these days. Even though I’m not in one of the ritzier areas of the island, this is still Manhattan, which is crazy expensive. So when K.C.’s cousin left the city and offered his lease to me, I jumped. Getting a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan is like winning the lottery.
I finish tying my shoes, stand up, and grab my leather jacket off the back of my desk chair. Then I grin. “Rent control, baby.” I grab Layla’s hand. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat.”
~
Layla
We walk a few blocks over to Broadway, and it’s then I realize just how far uptown we are. The street sign on the corner reads “W 138th Street: Dominican City.” Looking around, I see immediately that this is a completely different world than the streets of lower Manhattan. The buildings, most of them brick apartments and brownstones like the rest of the island, are clearly not as well maintained as in the more affluent and predominantly white neighborhoods below 95th Street. Sprawling stains and graffiti mark up several buildings and their ragged awnings; laundry hangs out to dry from more than one window, even in this cold.
A few blocks from City College, this section of Broadway bustles with a completely different energy, particularly since ninety percent of the voices I hear speak Spanish. About half of the signs on the local businesses, which at first glance include a couple of bodegas, tchotchke shops, a laundromat, and a bunch of restaurants, are written in Spanish as well, and most of the people passing us on the street look like they are either completely or part Hispanic.
Being half-Brazilian myself, I feel like I should belong here. My thick hair and curvy body fit in perfectly with the other girls I see, but I feel whiter than ever as we pass a group of Latinas chatting loudly in a mix of Spanish and English. They are loud and jovial, expansive with slicked bangs, long acrylic nails, gold monogram necklaces, and dark liner ringing their mouths. One catches my eyes for a split second before she yells “Coño!” and launches into a tirade in Spanish that I can’t understand. So very different from the contained mannerisms of my father’s wealthy family in Brazil and my mom’s in Washington.
We pass another small group of men lounging on the steps of a building next to a Dominican restaurant. One wears a bandana tied around his forehead, and another fiddles with the ends of a set of cornrows. They can’t be older than me—as evidenced by their hairless faces that make them look more innocent than they probably want. Bandana catches me looking at him and nods with a smile.
“Hey ma,” he jeers at me, flashing a set of bright white teeth.
It’s hardly the first catcall I’ve received in New York—any woman who has breasts or visible legs gets them on most street corners. And like most women, I just ignore them and keep walking. But for some reason I’m more put off than normal by it. Maybe it’s because I already feel like I stick out in this neighborhood, but I don’t like the way his eyes look me up and down, like I’m a piece of meat he’s thinking about buying.
Nico shoots Bandana a dirty look and grabs my hand, which effectively shuts the guy up. It’s basically an unspoken code with men: don’t check out another dude’s woman when he’s standing right there––not unless you want trouble. At that thought, a small thrill runs up my spine. Apparently, now I’m Nico’s woman. It’s not an idea I hate.
Nico tows me to a diner near the subway entrance on the corner of 137th and holds the door open as we enter. It’s a long, thin space, with a counter on one side where singles eat, and several small tables against the opposite wall all the way to the back. The white, linoleum-tiled floors are as grimy as the large man flipping burgers behind the counter, and the smell of frying potatoes and sizzling meat is dense in the air.
I follow Nico to a small table in the back, and we are followed by a waitress clearly from the neighborhood, if the length of her fingernails and curly black hair are any indication.
She rattles off a few questions in Spanish to Nico, either because she recognizes him or just assumes he speaks Spanish. Nico doesn’t even look at the menu, just grins at the waitress and rattles off a ridiculously fast answer in response, causing the girl to giggle. Mid-order, he interrupts himself in English, looking at me.
“Oh, baby, you like steak, right?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Dude. I’m Brazilian. We practically live on barbecue.”
That earns me another heart-stopping grin before he turns back to the waitress and finishes our orders. She picks up our menus and struts away in her high tops, but not before she gives me a sharp, suspicious glare.
“What, I don’t even get to pick out my own food now?” I joke.
Nico reaches across the table and picks up my hand, swirling his thumb across the lines of my palm. It’s amazing how such a simple touch makes me want to drag him out of the restaurant and back to his bedroom. If my lady parts didn’t need a serious rest, I probably would.
“Sorry,” he admits with another sly smile. “But there’s really only one thing to order here. They make the best cheese steak outside of Philly.”
I’m really going to have to hit the gym hard tonight. First gobs of heavy beans and rice for breakfast, and now a greasy sandwich for lunch. I haven’t worked out all week, and I’m already hitting my calorie limit before my day is halfway over.
“So...I didn’t realize you speak Spanish so well,” I venture. I don’t want to say it directly, but it’s kind of intimidating. He mentioned it before, and I’ve definitely heard him curse in it, but he speaks it like it’s his native language.
“What? Sí, sí, lo hablo,” he confirms with another cheeky smile. “Of course I do. My mom doesn’t speak English, baby. Spanish is my first language.”
That surprises me. Of course she speaks Spanish—I should have already realized that. But she must have lived in the states for, well, close to thirty years if she had Nico here. How could you live in a place for that long and not learn the language?
“Wait,” I say. “I have a question. If you’re mom is from Cuba, doesn’t that make you Cuban, not Puerto Rican?”
Nico glances around and then gives me a funny look. “Ah, I don’t know, you want to know the truth. I mean...she grew up in Puerto Rico, lived there since she was two. Ethnically, there’s not that much of a difference. Culturally, that’s all she knows. It’s how she talks, in the food she likes, in everything about her. She calls herself boricua, even though there are plenty on the island who would say she’s not.” He shrugs. “My dad’s part Puerto Rican too. I think that qualifies me.” He taps his fingers on the table. “Are you any less American because your dad’s from Brazil?”
I frown. It’s not quite the same thing, but I see what he’s saying. I don’t really feel as American as a lot of the white kids whose families have been here for centuries. But his words remind me more of Brazil, which, much like the United States, is a country full of immigrants, stemming back hundreds of years, all mixed with indigenous groups too (some more than others). My dad’s family only came to Brazil following World War II, over from Italy, like a lot of other wealthy families. But they wouldn’t call themselves Italian. Not anymore.
“What about you?” Nico interrupts my train of thought. “Don’t you understand any Spanish? It’s pretty close to Portuguese, right?”
I shake my head. “My parents didn’t speak Portuguese at home, remember? I picked up a few words when we visited Brazil, but I don’t speak it that well. And my dad wanted me to take French instead of Spanish in school. He thought it was more civili––”
The word’s halfway out before I can censor myself completely. I clap my hands across my mouth, but Nico looks at me knowingly.
“More civilized than Spanish?” he asks, suddenly preoccupied with stirring the straw around in his water. When he looks up, his eyes are dark and searching.
My face flushes. “I don’t think that,” I say. “My dad...shit. I’m sorry. My dad can be kind of an asshole.”
But Nico just shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it, baby,” he says. “I get it. He’s just looking out for you.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
Nico raises one brow, like he’s surprised I don’t understand. “Layla, a lot of immigrants don’t want their kids to learn English like a second language. And if their kids can pass as white, like you, their lives are just easier.” He shrugs, like it makes perfect sense.
I think about my dad, about how he’s always cursing his accent, which he can never quite get rid of. How he would always refuse to teach me Portuguese when I was little, no matter how many times I asked. The way he won’t let anyone call him or me Latino, unless it’s on a college application.
“You’re not like them,” he’ll so often say when we pass people with darker skin, who look like they might be Mexican or South American. “Why would you even want to be?”
I look at Nico. Like me, like so many people in this city, he comes from a mix of ethnicities––Cuban, Puerto Rican, Italian, maybe more––but his skin is darker, too dark for anyone to confuse him with a white man. He’s so beautiful, it makes my chest hurt. I can’t deny that it’s probably put him at a disadvantage that I’d never felt because of the way I look. But at the same time...I envy him. Even with the complex cultural background he claims, he knows who and what he is. That’s a knowledge that feels like it’s been kept from me my whole life.
“Would you do it?” I ask. “Keep your kids from learning Spanish?”
He looks up in surprise. “Of course not. I love my culture. I wouldn’t want them to lose out on knowing that side of themselves.”
He watches me for a moment, but I look away first, out the window.
“I wouldn’t want that either,” I murmur softly.
On the street, more groups of kids walk past, chattering loudly in a patois of Spanish, English, and what sound like bits of Creole thrown in there. They look so comfortable with each other, all speaking languages that wouldn’t be considered legitimate by anyone else but the people who live in this small corner of New York. And yet...they are languages, nonetheless.
“There’s a good Brazilian barbecue place in midtown,” Nico’s saying, jerking me out of my thoughts once again. “We should go there sometime.”
He’s looking at me with a kind expression. I wonder for a moment if he can read my thoughts.
“Are you talking about Marcio’s?” I reply.
“Yeah, you been there?”
I nod. “Yeah, my dad and I went when I started school. It was okay. They didn’t really have very good side dishes, and that’s the best part. No farofa or beans or anything. It was just meat and a salad bar.”
Nico furrows his brow, and I’m taken by how adorable his face becomes when he’s confused. He usually looks so sure of himself, his dark features lightened by the constant smile and laughter he’s never afraid to display. He twists his full lips around as he ponders my remark.
“What’s fa-dow-fa?” he asks in a poor imitation of my accent.
I almost laugh, he’s so damn cute trying to pronounce a Brazilian word.
“Farofa is a side dish made of ground yucca. It’s usually cooked with things like pork rinds and egg and beans. Salty and so good. But most Brazilian places in the US don’t ever have it. Actually, the best barbecue I’ve had in the US is in Boston—they have a pretty big Brazilian community up there. We went there to look at schools when I was applying, and my dad and I went out for churrasco. Not as good as in Brazil, but not bad.”
All this talk of barbecue makes my stomach growl, and it’s right then that the waitress returns with our food. She brings two massive steak sandwiches in toasted hoagies, piled with thinly sliced French fries on the side, and also sets down two sodas with a lightning-fast comment to Nico, who replies in kind with what must be a big, booming joke. His bright smile and deep voice has her in giggles in a second, and as she shuffles off, I catch her glancing back at him in a way that doesn’t hide her attraction. I sigh; I think I’m going to have to get used to that. I also think I’m going to have to learn Spanish.
I look back at my food and take a sip of the soda. At the taste, I raise an eyebrow at Nico.
“Ginger ale?”
“Hangover,” he says through a mouthful of sandwich. “Thought you could use it.”
“I don’t have a—” I start to say, but stop when I realize he actually called that one correctly.
As giddy as I am about being with my new man today—not to mention the fact that he is going to stay my man until further notice—my head is undeniably foggy in the aftereffects of too much to drink last night and not enough sleep. I look down at my sandwich and realize the best thing I can do is eat, if only to soak up the remnants of the alcohol still in my system.
“Wait, baby, hold on.” He brushes my hands off the sandwich and takes off the top of the hoagie so he can press a handful of French fries on top before replacing the bread. “You gotta eat it like that. That’s how everybody eats ‘em here. It’s the best. Trust me, NYU.”
Gingerly, I hold the now stuffed sandwich up and take a small bite, and then a bigger one.
“Well?” Nico’s expressive features are wide, eager to see what I think.
I grin. “Dude. That is really good.”
“Ha, HA!” He laughs, slapping the tabletop. “Didn’t I tell you, baby?”
I feel somehow like my ability to enjoy this sandwich is a test of some sort, which I just passed with flying colors. I am triumphant.
We drink our ginger ales and polish off the rest of our sandwiches, with Nico eating the last third of mine. I can eat a lot, but it was way too much, even for me. He drops some cash on the table to pay for the meal, waving away my efforts to split the tab with him.
Nico walks me out of the restaurant and down into the subway station, waiting with me just outside the turnstiles for the train that will take me back downtown. People pass us on their way downtown. People who look like him, and people who look like me too. Sort of.
“Well, NYU, what do you think?” he asks.
He hooks his thumbs in the pockets of my coat and pulls me close, so we are almost forehead to forehead, allowing me to look into those gorgeous chocolate eyes of his. This close, I can see that they have small flecks of gold that glisten under the lights of the station. Nico smiles, but I see a hint of trepidation. He’s waiting for something, but I don’t know what.
“What do I think about what?” I ask.
Unnerved myself now, I lick my lips, which are still salty from the sandwich. Nico’s gaze follows the motion, then snaps back up.
“Here. My neighborhood. My place. You think you wouldn’t mind visiting me up here in the ghetto?”
Oh. He’s worried I might feel his neighborhood isn’t good enough. Guilt floods through me. Sure, I feel a little out of place here, but that has nothing to do with the economic class of the neighborhood. To begin with, Dominican City is hardly a slum; it’s just middle-class New York. It’s a million miles from Seattle suburbs, but that’s exactly why I like it here.
“Please,” I say with a snort and a light slap on his chest. “You and I both know this is the last thing from a ghetto. Plus, that sandwich alone is enough reason for me to come back.”
That earns me a quick laugh, and he’s quick to give me a thorough, relieved kiss, slipping a little tongue in there for good measure and a mischievous squeeze of his favorite part of my anatomy. I don’t want to leave, but I’m dying to change out of this dress, and I really need to get some homework done. And maybe take a quick nap.
We hear the train approaching with a groan down the track, so Nico gives me one more quick kiss before turning to go.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, beautiful. Go study,” he rumbles in my ear, and I swear the vibration I feel is from more than just the train.
I pass through the turnstile and walk through the automatic doors into the waiting car. Through the scratched window, I smile as he blows me a kiss. Then he turns back up the stairs to the neighborhood that he navigates with such ease and comfort. And I go back to my neighborhood, where I may or may not belong.
~