Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (43 page)

When we entered the house, every surface gleamed and smelled of Pine Sol, Pledge, or Windex. Jurgen and Donny sat on the edge of the recently purchased plastic-covered sofa in front of the new console television set. With help from those of us old enough to work, Mami had managed to decorate the house to her taste, with new furniture, pretty curtains, a lace tablecloth for the largest dining room table she could find, the seats of its high-backed chairs sealed in plastic.

Jurgen and Mami talked through me or my sisters and brothers. She asked him the same questions she'd asked me the day before over the phone, and a few more based on the information I'd made up the previous night. Jurgen was cool and relaxed, pretending that his English was worse than it actually was when he didn't know what I'd told Mami. She was both puzzled and charmed by him, but when he formally asked for my hand, she conceded it with a smile.

Jurgen informed us that because of his travel schedule, the wedding must be in less than a month. I nearly slid off the armchair, but Mami wasn't fazed by the challenge. “We'll have to order your dress tomorrow,” she said.

Even though Mami and Tata had prepared a meal, I wanted to get away before Mami discovered the truth. I reminded Jurgen and Donny that we still had to pick up Laryssa. The Porsche had drawn curious neighbors to the windows and sidewalk. We came out of our house, trailed by my mother and siblings, and I couldn't hide the pride I felt. If I had been one of the neighbors, I'd have been jealous of me as I climbed into the bucket seat next to my good-looking fiance. Donny squeezed his pudgy frame in the tiny back seat, and within seconds, Jurgen revved the many horses in his chariot and we peeled off, scattering dust and litter into the sidewalks of East New York.

It was impossible to hold a conversation in the Porsche. It was a noisy car, especially with the top down. Jurgen turned up the radio. Diana Ross wailed that a love child was never meant to be as Jurgen raced from Brooklyn to Long Island. The wind pelted my hair against my cheeks, into my eyes. I sank further into the seat, but that didn't help. Every time I moved, I received a mouthful of my own hair.

Laryssa's house sat in the middle of a pine grove in a community of homes that were copies of one another except for the landscaping and color. As we walked into the house, a cat slithered under a LA-Z-BOY in front of a console television set much larger than ours. Laryssa greeted us dressed in a yellow top and turquoise shorts, her blonde hair tied into a long ponytail. She offered us
iced tea and a tuna sandwich in the sunny kitchen with a glass door that overlooked a yard with a swimming pool. Two people lounged by the pool, didn't come to greet us, and Laryssa didn't take us out there to meet them. She left us in the kitchen and went to change. A young woman came out of one of the bedrooms, her hair in curlers, her slender, well-tanned body clothed in a sheer baby doll with frilly panties. Donny and Jurgen exchanged a look.

“Hi,” she purred, “I'm Jen. Laryssa's sister.” The men stood up to shake her hand and, as an afterthought, introduced me. Jen poured herself a glass of tea, excused herself, went back down the hall into the door through which Laryssa disappeared. Within seconds, there was yelling, to the effect that Laryssa should have told Jen that she had guests. Laryssa countered that Jen shouldn't walk around half naked. “In the middle of the day, too!” Laryssa screeched. The men and I quietly munched our sandwiches and sipped our iced teas, our eyes on the shut door. The two sisters continued their argument, which ended when Laryssa stormed out of the room, a packed beach bag over her shoulder. “Let's go,” she said. Before she led us out, she called through the door. “See you later Mom, Dad!” The two figures by the pool waved without turning around.

Laryssa and Donny went in her VW Beetle. Jurgen and I followed, and, over the roar of the Porsche's motor and the wind, Jurgen said, “That's what I don't like about American girls.” He didn't elaborate, which left me to wonder if he meant Jen's near nakedness, the argument between the two sisters, or the parents who didn't care who their daughters went out with as long as they weren't disturbed.

At the beach, we drove around the parking lot a couple of times, bypassed several likely spots until Jurgen pulled up next to a copper-colored Jaguar convertible, inside which a young man was slumped fast asleep in the driver's seat. Jurgen hurdled out of the Porsche, banged the nose of the Jaguar with his fists, and the young man awoke with a start, his black eyes round with panic.
When he saw Jurgen, he jumped out, hugged Jurgen warmly, and the two chattered in German until Jurgen remembered I was there.

His friend's name was Felipe, but everyone called him Flip. “Are you Spanish?” I asked.

“Mexican,” he said. He had straight black hair and slanted eyes; skin browner than mine; a muscled, slightly bowlegged body. He wore rubber flip-flops, walked with a side-to-side roll, on the outside edge of his feet. From what I could gather, Jurgen, Donny, and Flip had arranged to meet at Jones Beach. Flip had driven the Jaguar from California, which explained why he passed out on a beach blanket under Laryssa's umbrella and slept the rest of the day. Jurgen went over the car with the same attention he had invested in the Porsche the previous day. He lifted the hood, looked at the motor, opened and closed the doors, examined the body, popped the trunk and inspected it.

“It's a good car,” he finally said, and shook Flip's hand.

I had on the bikini Avery Lee had bought me, yellow with white squares, not nearly as small as Laryssa's. The men also wore tiny bikinis, which made me feel overdressed, even though it was the first time I'd revealed my abdomen in public. Because I couldn't swim, I sat in the sand while Donny, Laryssa, and Jurgen cut long, elegant strokes into the waves and then floated back. In or out of the water, Laryssa and Donny were all over each other. Jurgen kissed me a few times, but I was so uneasy making out half naked in public that he gave up.

At the end of the day, Laryssa went home in her car. We pulled up in front of our house, Jurgen and I in the Porsche, Donny and Flip in the Jaguar. Mami came to the front steps, and Flip called out to Jurgen, “Watch out man. They say the daughters end up looking like their mothers.” The three men laughed. Mami, who understood, scrunched her face into her most unattractive expression. I sent a killer look toward Flip, who shrugged and gave me a sheepish smile.

“He always make jokes,” Jurgen said. He walked me to the
stoop. We planned to meet the next day in the city, which I confirmed in front of Mami. He backed toward the car, waved from the driver's seat, then left, followed by Flip and Donny, who laughed uproariously at something one of them said in German so that I didn't understand.

“Why didn't you ask him in?” Mami asked, looking after them.

“I'm sandy and itchy and tired,” I complained. “I need a bath.”

It bothered me that Flip had said something so hurtful in front of Jurgen, who indulged it. Who was Flip, anyway? He claimed to be Mexican, spoke fluent German, but other than his name, didn't say a word of Spanish to me. He drove across the country in a Jaguar, arrived that same morning at Jones Beach, of all places, and when Jurgen opened the trunk, there was nothing in it. Where was his luggage? He didn't even have a change of clothes in there.

And where did Jurgen get a Porsche? He didn't have it the day before. Why was he buying one if he already owned one? Why did he have a car in New York when he didn't live in the city? The Porsche could have been Donny's. Did bartenders make enough money to own late-model sports cars? I was confused and wary, certain that something strange was going on, not sure what it could be.

The next day, Jurgen and I walked through Central Park on our way to the Lake. He planned to rent a rowboat and take me for a ride. I reminded him that I couldn't swim, was afraid of water, dreaded the thought of being further than a few inches from firm ground. But he was adamant. We had to do this, he said, because rowing was one of his favorite sports. He was on a team, he claimed. Since we were to be husband and wife, I should learn to love the things he loved.

“Can I wear a life vest?” I asked.

“You don't need one,” he laughed. “I'm an excellent swimmer.”

“But I'm not!”

He said it worried him that I didn't trust him with my life. “I will save you, I promise.”

The boat looked bigger once we were inside it. Jurgen placed his jacket across my lap, rolled up his sleeves, pushed off the dock. “Relax,” he chuckled. “Let go of the sides.”

He rowed to the center of the lake, secured the oars, leaned back with a contented sigh. He looked perfectly at home surrounded by water; his hair gleamed gold in the sunlight; his eyes deepened to a blue-gray color, a bottomless ocean. I gripped the sides of the boat. “Can we go back now?”

“Not yet,” he said. The graveness in his voice, the way his body tensed made me shudder. “You have been open with me,” he murmured. “You have introduced me to your family. They are honest people. Your mother is a good woman. But you have not asked about me.”

“Don't say any more,” I covered my face with my hands. The fairy tale was about to end. Now, I thought, he'll confess he's really a waiter at that restaurant where Donny works and has a wife and five kids in Hamburg. “I don't need to know.” We floated in silence for a while, I with my hands still pressed to my face. I felt his eyes on me, and when I looked up, there was a troubled expression in them. So many questions crowded my thoughts that I didn't know where to begin. “Are you married?” I finally asked. He laughed so hard the boat shook. Then he noticed I was serious.

“No,
liebchen,
I'm not married,” he said softly.

I mimed picking up a notebook, a pen, adjusting invisible glasses. I tightened my lips, put on a reedy voice. “Very well, sir, do you have any children?”

He played along. “No, madame.”

“Are you really from Hamburg?”

“Yes, I am, madame.”

“What is your date of birth, sir?”

We were silly for a while, and then Jurgen took up the oars and brought me back to dry land. As we walked along a shaded
path, I asked another question. “What is it that you do? For work, I mean.”

He stopped, turned, searched my eyes. “You really want to know?”

The way he asked made me wish I didn't. I nodded.

“I fly planes,” he said, then started walking again.

I guessed he was an airline pilot, but he shook his head. Did he fly for a cargo company? No. For the air force? Not that either. I gave up.

“I steal planes,” he declared.

I guffawed. He smiled absently. “What do you do with the stolen airplanes?” I giggled. “Hide them in your garage?”

“I sell them.”

According to Jurgen, it was easy to steal a plane. “Small ones, not jumbo jets,” he stipulated. He put on a pilot's uniform, walked into a hangar, chose a plane, flew it to Mexico, sold it.

“So you steal planes and sell them in Mexico,” I snickered.

“Or other places. Depends who orders one.”

“You have seen too many 007 movies,” I concluded.

Jurgen smiled. I was sure he was pulling my leg. “Are Flip and Donny in on this?” I joined his game.

“No. They prefer cars.” Jurgen went on to tell me that he'd dreamed of flying since he was a child and had learned to do it as a young man. When he took planes, he flew very low, to avoid radar, he said. Sometimes, over the ocean, he saw enormous schools of fish, whales, dolphins. He'd flown all over the world and described dangerous air currents around mountains, sudden pockets of air, thunder-and-lightning storms he'd flown into that he feared would ground him forever. It sounded as if he were narrating a dream, but as he spoke, my skepticism ebbed until it hit me that I was about to marry a man who stole planes for a living.

“I can't believe this,” I moaned. I walked over to a nearby bench and sat down because my knees couldn't hold me up. Jurgen put his arm around my shoulder.

“Don't worry,” he whispered into my hair.

“Don't worry? Jurgen, now that I know this, I'm a criminal too. I'm supposed to go to the police or something. . . .”

He stroked my cheek, swore that he must be truthful with me, that it wouldn't be fair if he weren't. In any case, once we were married, I couldn't be made to testify against him should it come to that. I wanted to ask why he didn't wait to tell me until after the wedding but reminded myself that wasn't the issue.

“I'm leaving for Los Angeles,” Jurgen said. “When I come back, I will marry you, if you still want me.” He was sincere. I could hear it in his voice. In some twisted way, his confession was responsible. Still, a part of me wondered if he had fabricated the story to scare me away because the whole marriage thing had gone too far and he didn't want to hurt my feelings.

He escorted me to the subway station. He'd been teaching me a few words of German, and he drilled me as we walked. We pretended that our plans to get married had not changed with his disclosure. On the train back to Brooklyn, I decided that Jurgen wanted to test me. It didn't seem right that if he really did steal planes, he'd tell someone he barely knew. But then, this was the same man who had proposed after three hours. “I am not impulsive man,” he'd told me a couple of days earlier. I made a mental note to look up the word, to see if there was a meaning I'd missed the first time.

Should I call the police? The story was unbelievable. I had no proof. I imagined the scene: a Puerto Rican girl walks into a police station, claims a German she met on the street and agreed to marry after three hours confessed that he steals planes and that his friends steal luxury cars. I could hear the laughter.