Dominicana, page 17
Hey, guys, this is my little sister.
She’s a looker, one says.
Keep it in your pants, César scolds.
Suddenly, a crowd surrounds me.
One at a time, fellas.
I hand over two pastelitos at a time, while César collects the money and manages the crowd.
Two for twenty-five, have your money ready!
I go with César’s price, though at ten cents each I was ready to haggle. But the food goes faster than I’m able to remember their faces. In minutes, my pastelitos sell out.
Sorry, fellas, another day, César says, holding the last two for himself.
He takes me to a small bench by a building and points, This is FIT, the university for fashion.
Efayti, I say. I want to go to the university.
Why? You’re a rich woman now.
Where’s my money, then?
César transfers all the coins from his different pockets to my bag.
Six whole dollars, I say, swishing the coins around.
What you going to do with all your fortune? He bites into a pastelito and licks his lips.
Send my sister a money order so she starts beauty school.
What you gonna make us tomorrow?
Will I get in trouble for this?
He seems to forget that until we have our papers we have to be extra careful. My tourist visa expired months ago. When the baby’s born I will apply for permanent residence; so will Juan. Then I can solicit my mother. And Juan can solicit César. And I Lenny and Yohnny.
It’s America. You supply, people buy. Next thing you know, we have a chain like McDonald’s.
You live in the clouds, César. It’s not so easy. Look how hard you have it with the restaurant in Dominican Republic. It’s loss and more loss.
Ah, my brothers eat with their eyes and not their stomach. You start slow by making us lunch. Then you get a cart. Then a store. Then a bunch of stores. Small steps lead to big steps.
A rush of people in suits run to lunch, carrying briefcases. I suck in my cheeks like the wiry models with big hats who point their noses in the air. Goddesses. Must be strange to see the top of people’s heads first, before eyes or even smiles. How cool, to hold a briefcase filled with important papers and speak English perfectly.
My name is Ana.… I like watch television.… I like learn Efayti.… I like sit in sun with César.
What time will you be home tonight? I ask, not caring if I sound possessive.
Why? Miss me already?
Should I make dinner or not?
If he only knew how I counted the minutes until he arrived so we can sit at the table, eat together and talk about our day, what I’d learned from Sister Lucía, what happened in the latest Corona de Lágrimas.
I gotta go. Time’s up. Add more raisins next time. Gonna call your pastelitos Mini Anas—sweet and salty all at the same time. When you look at them, you wonder what’s hiding under the golden crust and—bam!—there it is, the surprise. So much goodness.
I giggle with embarrassment.
See ju later, alligator, he says.
What?
It’s what Americans say.
César and I decide not to tell Juan about our food business.
When Juan calls, of course, we laugh and almost give ourselves away. I snap the kitchen rag on César’s hands so he stays quiet. I turn my back on him and twirl the springy phone cord in my fingers, trying to sound composed and uninteresting.
What’s so funny between you two? Juan asks. He isn’t stupid.
Nothing, I say. Some stupid TV show. The phone has a delay and our conversation echoes.
How are things over there? Over there?
I don’t know. Everything moves slow here, he says. The gun-crazies running about at night. Offices open one day, close another. And the noise is outrageous: helicopters and bullhorns, people politicking and selling crap. People’ll sell you their own mother to get in with the government, and no one except the Americans know what direction it’ll go. I’m trying to make sure we don’t lose the little we have.
Papers. Papers. Papers. Juan has many papers to set straight.
Tell me you love me, he says before hanging up.
I love love you you, I say, and wink at César.
* * *
We eat dinner. César moans when he eats.
You’re a noisy eater.
It’s ’cause you cook so damn good, he says.
César wipes his mouth, gets up from the table, and sits on the sofa with his legs spread wide apart. He leans forward to get a better look at me. My legs are crossed, my bare feet under my thighs.
Come sit by me, he says.
Oh, I’ve got so much to do.
I spring up and gather the dishes, turn my back on him.
Put the dishes down and come over here.
I search for something urgent to do, a moment to breathe. Something between us is shifting fast.
Sit on the chair.
César points to the one across from the sofa where he sits.
I want to trust him. I tug at the hemline of my skirt and sit with my legs clamped shut.
Please don’t disappoint me, César. I beg him with my eyes.
He drags the chair by the legs so our knees almost touch. He picks up one of my feet and says, Relax, sister.
That’s right, I say, relieved. We’re family.
Both his hands encircle my foot, his thumbs pressing on my sole, kneading.
It tickles, I say, confused, curious, scared.
He pulls on my toes gently and massages my calf around my knee. His touch is firm. His fingertips glide up and down my legs. Goose bumps emerge as if there’s a cool breeze in the room. I hold my breath.The baby presses against my lower belly. Dampness between my legs. So nice to be touched.
Don’t pregnant women love foot massages?
He props my massaged feet on his thighs and leans back on the sofa. He lights the cigarette tucked behind his ear and stares at the ceiling.
You’re different than all your brothers, I say, studying the triangle of skin exposed above his low-slung jeans every time he lifts his arms to take a drag.
In what way?
For one, you don’t seem to care what anyone thinks.
Is that a good thing?
He sits up, leans toward me as if to kiss me. Fills his mouth with smoke and blows into my face. I cough.
Idiot, I say, waving the smoke away.
Wanna see a Bruce Lee movie?
Now?
After I clean up we can go watch some cool karate moves at the San Juan.
I jump up, grateful for the wooden slabs, firm and warm under my feet. I rush to the window. The movie crowd, filled with squeals and laughter, already assembles outside the San Juan Theater. Women’s heads on boyfriends’ shoulders. The long kisses between teenagers. Mothers holding on to their children. So much happiness on the ticket line. And to think that just a few months ago, above the San Juan Theater, inside the Audubon Ballroom, a man had died. The building, a large altar. That’s how the world is, everything’s forgotten.
César stands behind me, his breath on my neck as he looks to the Audubon. A rise in my chest, a softening at my knees. He grabs my arm, his fingers accidentally caressing the side of my breast. César, my brother, also the closest of friends. I try to halt the throb between my legs, the lump in my throat.
What does it feel like? I ask Yohnny this after I caught him on his knees. Juanita was standing up, her back pressed against the cement walls. His mouth was pressed up between her legs. Her eyes closed, her chin up, her hands directing his head. They hid behind a cluster of palm trees, on a large bedsheet by the beach shore, after swimming, at a distance from the others, who lie lazily out of sight.
We’re at the beach in Los Guayacanes. We’ve hauled a big pot of spaghetti. We’re a large pack that day because even Juanita, who Mamá tries to keep away from Yohnny, was allowed to join us.
Yohnny hands me a peach.
Bite into it, he says.
The skin pops and the fleshy juicy parts explode in my mouth.
Now press your lips in there.
He points into the fleshy parts of my peach.
Go on, press your lips and rub against it softly.
Are you crazy?
Don’t you want to know?
My lips are covered in sweetness; the fleshiness slips away and into my mouth. I lick it, touch the seed with my tongue. I pull away.
Now you know why I love peaches, he says, winking the way he does.
Salty, sweaty peaches.
You have to stop with Juanita, I say, or you’ll get in trouble with Mamá.
Don’t worry, little sister, I have a plan.
You do?
You think I’m gonna spend my life around here waiting for someone to save me from this hole? I’m not as pretty as you, he says.
I don’t need anyone to save me.
I’m just saying that soon soon I’m going to take that road and never look back. Try my luck in a city like New York. Make some real money. Drink that New York City water straight from a faucet. You know what I mean?
Because the food sales are going so well, César can’t sleep. All he thinks about is expansion.
The sun hasn’t even come up. Wake up. Wake up! He calls for me in the dark.
What happened?
He turns on the lamp. My eyes hurt. My head spins from a dream: Yohnny running onto a road away from our house—except the road is more like a stream with large rocks, and he hops from one to another carrying some kind of object. Mamá yelling, Come back!
César wears a red scarf around his neck, and a long white skirt is draped over his shoulder. I finger the gauzy cotton, unwind the tape measure from César’s neck, then roll out of bed to follow him to the living room. The living room lamps are still on, the sewing machine out, and the Dominican flag, which Juan keeps folded in the closet among the suits, is splayed on the coffee table.
Is it Carnival?
We’re going to be rich, he says. It’s a side of César I’ve never seen before.
Calm down. You’re scaring me.
The World’s Fair is two dollars a ticket. We need four dollars to enter. Every day, half a million people visit, and I bet none of them have ever tasted pastelitos.
I pull my hair into a knot over my head. I splash water on my face to wash away the image of Yohnny in the stream. Where was he going? I try to focus on what César is saying, but Yohnny’s eyes haunt me—his but not his. Back home, young men have been throwing themselves onto the streets. But I hope Yohnny knows better.
Still half asleep, I drag myself to the kitchen where I fill the percolator with water—there was so much water in that stream. I press down the coffee.
Last year, César is saying, the food lines at the fair were outrageous. Everyone complained about it.
You think those white people would want to eat pastelitos?
César strips off his pajamas to try on a pair of white cotton pants and a white shirt. The red scarf pops out of it. He turns on the record player, plays an old perico ripiao, and starts to move. Like a dancer from another time, his hands fold behind his back, his feet dig into the floor.
Oh, Mr. O’Brien will complain. It’s too early.
He brings down the straw hat from high on the shelf, with a miniature flag poked into it, and places it on his head.
And at the Dominican Pavilion, they’re only serving rum.
Dominican Republic has a pavilion?
I search through the cabinets for a new container of oatmeal. I sniff some cinnamon sticks and pour out a few cloves onto a paper towel. With a knife, I poke open a can of evaporated milk.
Look at this. He dangles a dress as if it’s on a hanger. The dress has white ruffles along the neckline and a stretchy elastic band at the waist with a full long skirt.
Wow, so pretty! I tear it from him, skip to the mirror in the hallway, and hold the dress in front of me.
But look at Miss Dominican Republic, I say to my reflection. I do the fake wave and smile. César opens his palm, invites me to the small floor space between the coffee table and sofa, and with knees bent slightly and his shoulder scrunched he starts to move like the country old-timers do, and I follow along, swishing the skirt and shaking my shoulders.
The percolater whistles.
The coffee! I jump to catch it before it spills over—but it’s too late.
Now look what you made me do! I call out to César. Now Miss Dominican Republic has to clean the stove.
Don’t worry about that. At the World’s Fair she’ll sell half a million pastelitos!
He takes the fake rose from the vase on the shelf and places it between his teeth.
We wake up at four in the morning to fry pastelitos to sell at the fair. César has ten dollars saved, enough to make three hundred pastelitos. If we sell them all, together we will make seventy-five dollars. We have to use the same oil at least five times, way more than I am comfortable with, but if we want to make a profit, sacrifices have to be made. I separate the layers of pastelitos with paper towels. How long will they keep before they go soggy? Will people buy them?
César, don’t you think twenty-five cents is too much?
Ana Banana, my boss told me so, a frankfurter cost twenty-five cents at the fair. And that’s dog meat. And we’ll have to dress the part. Pretend we’re part of the exhibition.
Can we get in trouble?
With your panza and my smile?
I’ve seen the World’s Fair advertised on the television. A man in a spacesuit flying over people’s heads. Africans wearing masks, playing drums and dancing. A ride with dinosaurs; exhibitions of fancy cars from all over the globe. The world and the future are visiting Queens, from Spain to India, Italy to Hong Kong!
What if the police get us? I ask, I don’t have my papers.
Don’t worry, Ana Dominicana. Trust me.
* * *
We ride the train downtown and then transfer to the fancy number 7. Painted a sea-blue and steel-gray, it looks like a bluebird. There is a policeman in every car. In every station. People on the subway stare at us in a way that makes me tuck in my feet. Juan found these nursing shoes in the garbage, but I gave them a good scrub so they look new. Thank goodness the skirt skims the floor. I hope the rose César has tucked in my hair distracts people from looking at my ugly feet. They’re the only shoes I tolerate when my feet and ankles swell as thick as an elephant’s. Between the frying and wiping the grease off the walls, I’ve already done lots of standing.
Look at the Dominican princess! he says.
Playing dress-up with him is fun. He too now, from another time, our parents’ time, visiting the future.
At the entrance of the World’s Fair protestors slip us flyers and more flyers.
STOP THE WAR!
NO WORLD’S FAIR UNLESS FAIR WORLD.
END JIM CROW.
So many people! Still we stand out in our costumes, and the ticket collector does a double take at our heavy cloth-covered baskets. Knowing the line is too long for anyone to hold us back, César says, Dominican Republic, as if it works like a key to a door.
At the entrance, our eyes widen at the sight of an enormous globe. Taller than the building we live in, high enough to be seen from all the corners of the park. Where is Dominican Republic on that globe? The fountains shoot up foamy water. Flags, from all the countries represented, flap wildly.
C’mon! César tugs on my shirt. We will sell more near the food pavilion.
He’s tied our flag around his neck like a cape and placed one of the smaller baskets of pastelitos on my head. He carries the bigger basket.
A horse-drawn carriage passes us. Children point at us. A tourist takes a photograph of us.
César urges me to smile.
I’m not some doll! I whisper, annoyed.
Pastelitos! Pastelitos! César sings in the tone of the farmers from back home who sell fruits and vegetables from their carts. He flashes his smile, moving his head to the left and right as if he is riding on a float in a parade.
Twenty-five cents! Pastelitos!
People walk by us without taking César’s bait.
I’m already getting tired. The last time I carried something on my head, it was a water pail from the well. But it was half the size and I wasn’t almost six months pregnant. I no longer feel like playing Country Girl or Folkloric Ana in an America heading to the future—a future growing in my own belly.
I put down the heavy basket, stretch out my neck, and search for a patch of grass to stretch my legs on.
But we just got here, Ana—gimme that.
César sucks his teeth and takes my basket.
Just wave and smile to people. We have to keep moving. We’re not that far from the food pavilion where we will catch all those hungry people who don’t want to wait on lines.
I stroll alongside the Japanese geishas, the Chinese drummers, the Indian fakirs, the Spanish guitarists, and hundreds of other people.
I lift my chin and wave at everyone, putting on the same smile I’ve practiced with Juan, with Marisela, at the ESL classes, with my neighbors, the super, in my letters back home.
Pastelitos, twenty-five cents! César calls out.
We stop to rest and stand there like show monkeys.
Over here! someone says in Spanish.
We walk a few feet over to the man and his family.
Where you from? The man speaks in a funny accent.
Dominican Republic, sir. César lifts the cloth draped over the basket.
Give me five for a dollar.
I look toward a patch of grass. Finally a place to sit. I also need a bathroom.
Where you from? César asks the man.
Spain. But I’ve got a house on your island. We visit every summer, but with this stupid war …
César hands over five pastelitos and takes the dollar. He quickly covers the basket to save them from the flies. The man’s children jump to snatch the food from their father, who suddenly looks teary-eyed.
