Like Vanessa, page 13
“Maybe she doesn’t want to swim,” Lanetta Gainer says innocently, but that doesn’t stop Maricela from giving her the evil eye.
“She’s right. Swimming ain’t my thing anyway,” I say back, trying my best to brush off Julicza’s dis. I pull out a copy of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to show her and everyone else that reading was my plan all along. “Maybe I’ll put my toes in the water, but that’s about it.”
Miss New Jersey leads us through the locker room. The walls are made of glass, the air smells of mint, and harps are playing through the speakers. Everyone’s oohing and aahing at how fancy this place is. Meanwhile Beatriz busts out with, “Yo, enough of the classical music. They need to play some rap and salsa!”
Mrs. Walton stops short, turns around, and cuts Beatriz the most hateful look. “Decorum, Miss Mendez.”
But Beatriz can’t help being loud. “What in the world is a decorum? Some kind of decoration or something?” Her voice echoes against the glass.
All the girls start laughing. I pretend I dropped my hair tie and start looking on the floor so Mrs. Walton won’t think I’m part of Beatriz’s shenanigans, funny as she is.
“Means manners. Have some manners.” Stephanie Bowles’s chipmunky voice breaks everyone out of their laughter.
Before Beatriz can even crack back, Miss New Jersey lets out a loud cough and swings open the doors of the pool hall.
The pool at the Seaside Suites is dope! First of all, it’s indoor and heated, so no battling the cold weather outside. Second, they got the most comfy chairs to chill in. Palm trees are everywhere, like we’re in the Caribbean. Third, not only is there a pool, there’s a Jacuzzi too. We are really rolling big-time in Atlantic City. Miss New Jersey rounds up the teachers and leads them to the double doors just outside the pool.
“We’ll be right over here, ladies. We have to sign some paperwork,” Mrs. Moore calls out to us as we place our swim bags on the chairs.
“May I take your drink order?” a waitress walks over to me, Beatriz, Julicza, and Maricela.
Beatriz orders Shirley Temples for all of us. Doesn’t even ask if that’s what we really want. But I don’t say a word. I ain’t never had that drink anyway. There’s a first time for everything.
Next thing I know, I hear Stephanie, Lanetta, Brianna, and Kayla ordering the same drink. And then a few more of the girls.
“Such followers,” Maricela says, popping a piece of Bubblicious in her mouth.
Melissa Hoffman, one of the seventh graders, starts roaming around and comes across a radio, right by the entrance doors. “Hey, guys! Look what I found,” she calls, her voice all sneaky sounding.
Beatriz starts to chant, “Do it! Do it! Do it!” And all the girls chime in.
Melissa changes the classical stuff and moves straight to rap. Run-D.M.C.’s “It’s Like That” starts booming through the speakers. Melissa turns the volume up, and the girls begin jumping in the pool, swimming and jamming to the beat. Maricela puts her drink down, squeezes her nose, and cannonballs to the deep end.
I sit near the edge, but not too close, while everyone else swims. Beatriz and Julicza each finish off their Shirley Temple. Stephanie’s lagging behind, not because she doesn’t want to get in but because she is literally putting on every piece of swim gear imaginable. Hair cap, goggles, nose clip, earplugs, flippers. The girl is turning herself into a doggone scuba diver.
I scope out the scene. The sun’s pouring in through the glass windows, and the trees outside are whipping with the ocean winds, like they’re fighting to feel the warmth we’re soaking in. The music seeps into my soul, lyrics transporting me to a place far beyond the moment. Like the song suggests, you gotta search for meaning in life. One thing’s for sure, I been looking for answers, that special something to make everything all right. It’s out there, waiting for me. I close my eyes, and the bass courses through my spine.
The beat drops. Earthquaking from wall to wall. Suddenly my back kicks in. Something snaps like branches tumbling to the ground in the middle of a tornado. My body lunges forward. Cold. Wet. Sinking. The floor disappears beneath me. I open my eyes, water stinging like acid. Close them up again, fighting to stop the burn. My throat fills, swells with water. My arms, like wings, spread out, but they fail to send me soaring. It’s like the visions in my night terrors, only this time come true. Somewhere beyond the gushing waters, my ears catch the faintest of screams.
Two arms. One heartbeat. Lifting me from the depths.
Air catches hold of my throat. Fills me up. I am panting. Coughing. Crying.
“You okay, chica?” Still gripping me tight, Beatriz pulls me so close, I’m sure she can smell the fear on my breath.
By now all of the girls are swimming fast our way, and the teachers are busting through the doors.
“What in God’s name happened?” Mrs. Walton is screaming over the music.
“Turn that crap off!” Mrs. Caldwell orders someone to silence the radio. Kayla Knight hops out of the water and quickly does as she’s told.
The teachers hoist me out of the pool while Julicza covers me with towels. I’m coughing violently, throwing up the water I still feel burning me up on the inside.
“Some jokes aren’t funny, you know,” Julicza says.
“Yeah, not cool, Stephanie,” Beatriz adds.
My breath cuts short. Stephanie Bowles pushed me in the pool? For what?
Stephanie’s face turns stone blue. “I didn’t! Wait, you can’t possibly think I—”
Mrs. Ruiz throws her hands on her hips and puts her face real close to Stephanie’s, like she’s searching for the truth in her eyes. “Young lady, did you push Vanessa into the pool? Did anyone see what happened?”
Everyone starts shrugging their shoulders, except for Beatriz and Julicza, who point straight at Stephanie.
All of a sudden the tears start flowing, and Mrs. Ruiz and Mrs. Caldwell are escorting Stephanie, the sad scuba diver, out the doors and to the locker room. Some of the girls start whispering.
“Why would she do that?”
“Didn’t she know Vanessa didn’t want to get in?”
“Dang, she’s so immature. Sixth graders!”
“We didn’t see anything, ’cause we were doing headstands under the water.”
Julicza’s got this smirk on her face, like she’s happy Stephanie’s in the locker room getting reamed out. All the contestants gather around me and Beatriz, seated on the cold, wet floor.
“You gotta learn how to swim, chica,” Beatriz whispers softly in my ear. Both her arms are folded around my shoulders, fingers locked tighter than Daddy’s chamber door. She breathes in. I breathe out. Together, like the perfect lyric over a hip-hop beat. The swelling on my insides has faded away, but that feeling I’ve been trying to shake long before today lingers. Sinking, sinking, sinking.
Water Rising Higher
After we leave the hotel, the teachers take us to have dinner at the Boathouse, which is a restaurant shaped like a boat right on the boardwalk. The buffet is laid out with the dopest spread I’ve ever seen. There’s a carving station with turkey, roast beef, pork shoulder, and leg of lamb. Each meat has its own dipping sauce. Honey barbecue. Mint jelly. Wild mushroom. My taste buds are doing backflips, especially because I emptied the contents of my stomach back at the pool.
There’s a dessert station with an assortment of pies, cakes, and ice cream. The salad bar has types of lettuce greens I’ve never seen before and at least twenty toppings. Then there’re plenty of sides: mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green-bean casserole, corn on the cob, rice and beans. My mouth is salivating at the sight of all this food. I swear I want some of everything!
“Now, now, Vanessa.” Mrs. Caldwell creeps up behind me in the buffet line. “Go light on that plate of yours. You wouldn’t want to put on—”
Mrs. Walton’s click-clacking heels cut her off. “Vanessa, get what you’d like and go take a seat with the girls. Mrs. Caldwell, may I have a word with you?” Mrs. Walton’s got this stank attitude painted all over her voice.
I add some green beans to the barbecued chicken on my plate and do as I’m told.
“Vanessa, can I talk to you?” Stephanie touches my arm as I’m walking toward the table. The freckles under her eyes are darker and more clustered than usual. Her lips are cherry red, like she been biting on them to stop the words from coming out.
“I don’t have much to say to you.” I look her straight in the eyes, expecting to see some kind of sign of why she’d play me like that. Immaturity? Jealousy? Anything? But all I see is fear.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.”
“Well, if you didn’t, who did?”
Stephanie’s eyes dart toward Beatriz and Julicza seated at the table, and her lips start to quiver. “Please don’t say anything.”
“Girl, you’re bugging! Clearly you didn’t see the way Beatriz jumped in the pool to rescue me.” I’m all up in her face now. “She wouldn’t let me go until she knew I was okay. But your immature little prank coulda got me killed!”
Stephanie’s eyes start flooding, and I throw one more jab to harden the blow.
“So spare me your boohooing and your fairytales and just own up to what you did.” I roll my eyes at her, do a perfect pivot, and sashay my way back to Beatriz.
Our tables are in front of a large window overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I take my seat in between Beatriz and Julicza, and Maricela sucks her teeth at me like I done committed a crime. I think about saying something to her, but I’m too busy trying to calm my nerves over Stephanie’s stupid behind.
I catch sight of Mrs. Walton and Mrs. Caldwell still standing near the buffet line. Mrs. Walton’s ice-blonde hair is whipping side to side, and she’s popping her neck and snapping her fingers all up in Mrs. Caldwell’s face. I’m not sure what they’re talking ’bout, but it ain’t pretty.
Everybody starts talking about our day. Meeting Miss New Jersey, practicing on the Miss America stage, and how dope the pool party was until somebody ruined it.
“Did you see how sparkly Miss New Jersey’s crown was? I wonder if those were real diamonds,” Maricela says.
“Girl, I’m gonna be the first Puerto Rican Miss America!” Beatriz chimes in. Julicza tosses her mass of dark hair over her shoulder and slaps Beatriz high five.
“I wanna do the pageant too,” Stephanie’s mousy voice chimes in on the conversation.
“En tus sueños,” Beatriz says. Maricela and Julicza start bust-a-gut laughing. The smile on Stephanie’s face is replaced with flushed cheeks and a look of pure confusion. It’s like she knows the joke is on her, but her Spanish ain’t good enough to respond. Not that she would anyway. A sixth grader wouldn’t dare step to an eighth grader. Especially not Beatriz Mendez.
At the beginning of the school year, I was the butt of Beatriz’s crack backs. My, how the tides done changed! At least Beatriz ain’t cracking on me, but boy is she trashing Stephanie something good. Stephanie doesn’t talk much after that. It’s like her whole spirit up and died.
I remain quiet as I listen to the girls go on and on. My eyes stay fixed on the view outside the restaurant window. The sun begins to set, and the sky glows orange, pink, and blue. I smile as the girls continue to rant and rave about our day here at the shore, a long way from Grafton Hill—our ’hood, our world. Someday I’ll find my way back here. Maybe even end up on that stage in Convention Hall and have my moment in the spotlight. Then everything would come together.
We end the day at the souvenir shops on the boardwalk. Pop Pop gave me four dollars this morning and told me to buy something nice for myself. I scour the aisles, looking for something reasonable, but everything is so dang expensive. Most things are in the ten-dollar range. Beatriz’s mom gave her twenty-five dollars, so she’s racking up a T-shirt, saltwater taffy, and a coffee cup. By the cash register, there are baskets with items for a dollar and up. I buy a shot glass that says Atlantic City for Pop Pop (which is probably the last thing he needs), an Atlantic City keychain for TJ, and a small pin shaped like the Miss America crown for myself.
When we get on the bus, everybody’s showing each other what they bought. Everybody except Stephanie. She sits in the back row alone—knees raised to her chin, high-waters rising higher—lonely, quiet, staring out the window. It’s like Beatriz cast a spell on everybody to not talk to Stephanie for the rest of the day, even the sixth graders. I sink low in my seat next to Beatriz and try to block out the noise of the screaming, giggling Miss King Middle contestants.
I clip the pin I bought onto the collar of my shirt and fall asleep, picturing the Miss America crown being placed on my head.
Ain’t a Little Girl
By the time I get home from Atlantic City, my legs are sore something awful. Between exercising so much lately and the long trip, my body is screaming for relief. As I apply some Sol-Glo to my face and neck, I feel a presence in the bathroom. The bathtub. It’s staring at me. Begging me. Please come in. Not today. One near-death experience for the day is enough for me. Tension fills up in my chest, and I shuffle to my room, share my day with Darlene, and hit my pillow hard, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that’s settled in my bones.
Sleep doesn’t come quick, and it takes a long time before I slip into that place of broken memories. Light pours in, and Mama appears before me. Only this is a different version of the mother I’m used to seeing in my dreams. Her beauty is gone. Something done ate it up real good. Got her eyes all weary and bloodshot. Her skin, once vanilla-coated and scattered with freckles, is now grayish and sickly looking.
In the background, cartoons are playing, and I’m in my high chair, laughing and singing along with the characters. She puts a plate of food in front of me, and I stuff my face. Guess some things never change. Then I throw up all over myself. The rancid smell fills the room, and Mama’s lips get real tight. That dismal face of hers turns cherry red, and spit starts flying outta her mouth as she screams, “Girl, I just gave you a bath!”
And then it’s almost like the devil takes over her body. The veins in her neck and forehead protrude so much they’re fighting to break through her skin. In one swift grab, she shakes me out of my high chair. My neck jerks like it wants to detach itself from the rest of my body. I’m sobbing salty tears, molasses-thick. Heaving, breathing in and out, each breath twinged with a high-pitched wheeze. Mama grows angrier, shaking me harder, and all the while a voice inside me begs, Please, Mama, stop.
But she doesn’t. So I close my eyes, and suddenly I’m at the summer carnival in downtown Newark. A happy place. Daddy hoists me up onto the black stallion on the merry-go-round. Mama’s standing behind the gate, waving, smiling, snapping Polaroids. The ride cranks up, and we spin round and round, and I’m screaming, “Whee!” There is no pain here. Only smiles and warm breezes and love. It’s the type of feeling that I’d give all twenty fingers and toes to have again.
Mama yanks me back into reality, peeling my vomit-soaked clothes off and walking me to the bathroom. She throws me in the tub with a rubber duck toy and storms off to her bedroom. The slamming of her door sends my world into a hurricane-like spin, and I dive face-first into the hot water.
Darkness takes over. I can’t see nothing. No black stallion. No smiling Daddy. No happy, picture-snapping Mama. My other senses are working overtime. I can taste metal in my mouth. Smells bad, like flesh rotting in the desert sun. Feels scalding hot, heat seeping through my nose, torching up my insides something bad.
The sound of sirens and high-pitched screams swirl around me. Mama is crying. Daddy is yelling. The fight to hold my breath is intense, but I can’t hold it in anymore, so I just…let go. Water rushes in, the blackness is fading, the white light swallows me whole.
Suddenly a loud car horn blasts all the way to my eighth-floor window. My body jerks forward, hitting the tiled floor with a thud. In and out, in and out, my lungs gasp in the stifling heat of my room, life flowing through me. The walls feel extra close, slowly inching their way toward me as I lie there in the fetal position. I do not understand this dream I had, the meaning of it all. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m not dead. I’m here, living and breathing and longing and feeling. Empty. Like my bed. I look around and realize that everything is on the floor: the top sheet, the covers, the pillow.
I crawl up and look at my bed as I pull back my curtains to let the moonlight in. A small, round pool of blood stares back at me. I crack the window open to let out the heat trapped in my room. A ripple of wind pours in with a whistle that sings a telling message: “You ain’t a little girl no more.”
Desperate Times Call for Homemade Pads
It’s funny how when a girl gets her period for the first time in those cheesy-behind maxi-pad commercials, she’s happy, smiling, and dancing with her friends. I’ll never understand how cramps and bleeding could make somebody wanna bust out in song and dance.
When Pecola gets her period in The Bluest Eye, her foster sisters tell her that she could get pregnant now. Now I’m not that stupid. I know that you gotta do the nasty to get pregnant. There’s plenty of girls in Grafton Hill who do it right in the alley among the garbage and the foul smells. Shameless. Some of them as young as me. Skanks is what Pop Pop calls them. And I ain’t interested in being a skank.
It’s four in the morning, and there aren’t many people I could call to help me with my situation. As I sit there staring at the blood on the bed, I can feel it continuing to slowly gush out of me. My skin turns to sparks. The sparks multiply to flames. Somebody should be here right now with me, helping me clean and turn over this bloody mattress, bringing me a cup of hot tea to calm my achy stomach, giving me a maxi pad wrapped in pink-flowered plastic packaging, and talking to me about the birds and the bees. But all I have are broken visions and this new nightmare.
Even though I’m sure my sweet grandfather wouldn’t mind helping me, I doubt very seriously that he knows how to use a pad. He probably wouldn’t buy me the name-brand ones if I asked him to. I could see him now, hobbling to the bodega to get me some random, no-frills girlie diapers because that’s the kind he can afford. But knowing Pop Pop, he’d rather give me a raggedy cloth and a belt and tell me that’s what women did in the old days.
