Bella (11 page)

José stared at him, blinking, suddenly far away from the scene.

Where did you go? Where do you go when that happens?
she wondered.

José shook his head and came to life again.

She met him as he stepped up onto the curb. “Are you all right? What happened?”

José shook his head, eyes moist. “Let's go.”

“Don't tell me he fired you!”

He just stared at her. Oh no.

“I can't believe him! He is such a piece of—”

“He's been good to me.”

Okay, fine. Family loyalty and all that. She got it. She adjusted
her purse. “I guess we did ruin his day.” She held up a shopping bag, made it a peace offering of sorts. “Got some things for the trip.”

“Let's go.”

“Did Pieter say anything?”

“No.”

“Did you say anything to him about me?”

“No. But I'm sure he guessed I knew.”

That was okay with Nina. Let Pieter squirm a little bit. He deserved to.

“Let's get a train. I'm ready for the beach after all of that.”

“Okay,” Nina said.

They made their way to Penn Station. Nina thought about her decision. She could hardly blame this baby for canceling out her dreams. And she could hardly say it would keep her from reaching her goals. She'd done that on her own. It wasn't going to be easy. Today would end and there'd be another day to make the
real
decision.

They waited at a crosswalk near the station.

“When did you know you wanted to be a dancer?” José asked.

That was easy. “It was my father. He could cut quite the rug.”

“Excuse me?”

“American expression. He could really dance himself.”

“Your father, eh? Not your mother?”

“No. She's the more quiet type. Sometimes I wondered how they ended up together. My father was from the South and he loved dancing and parties. My mom just wanted to be home with her ‘little family,' as she always called us.” The light changed, and they crossed the street. “I knew I wanted to dance when my father told me one day that I had the prettiest arms he'd ever seen—”

“You have nice arms.”

“Thanks. And he told me I moved them gracefully.” She kicked up a foot. “My feet too.”

José took her elbow as they stepped off the curb.

“So, he asked if I wanted lessons, and after that first one, I just knew. Sometimes you feel like you were made to do something, be somebody.”

“Yes, I know.”

They stepped up onto the opposite curb, skirting around a group of people waiting for cabs.

They entered the station.

“Maybe, you go back and start dancing again.”

“Not pregnant, I can't.” There, let him chew on that.

“Afterward.”

“After what?”

“After you have the baby.”

They stopped by the ticket booth.

“I told you—”

“Yes, I know.” He put a couple of twenties on the counter. “Two tickets for Long Island.”

Now this was
a better train ride. José looked past Nina and out the window. He didn't like subways much, but trains were another story altogether. The rhythm of the wheels on the tracks, the way the car swayed slightly, the soothing quality of scenery going by for you to see without the distraction of driving.

Not that he'd driven for a long time. Not since that day.

He closed his eyes.

“I could really use a bath and some Marvin Gaye.” Nina's voice brought him around.

“You can take a bath at my parents'. They have Tito Puente. I don't know about Marvin Gaye.”

“I thought we were going to the beach.”

“They live at the beach.”

“And they probably know what happened at Manny's today.”

“Don't worry.”

Nina settled herself more comfortably in her seat. “Oh, I don't worry. I used to worry, then I did a little research and I found out that ten out of ten people die.” She laid her hands on the armrest. “Do you think that is all there is? That we only live once?”

“Well, so far I haven't met anyone who's lived twice.”

There, that made her smile. Good. The beach was a good idea.

“Nina, can I ask you a question?”

“No.”

He looked down at his hands. Well, okay.

“I'm kidding!” She laughed. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Just ask!”

Might as well just say it. This was what the day was supposed to be about. “Have you thought about adoption?”

“Do we have to talk about this right now?”

“No.”

She looked out the window, then back at José. “I can't carry around a living thing inside of my body for nine months and then—what? Leave it on a doorstep in a basket for some stranger? To me, that's worse than anything.”

“It doesn't have to be a stranger.”

Nina grated out a laugh. “So I just start calling up my relatives? My
relative
? ‘Hey, Mom, I haven't talked to you in five years, but I got something for you!' Or how about this?
You
can have it. I bet Manny could teach it a thing or two. The Suviran boys can raise little Nina because right now you're probably the only one in the world I trust.”

There. That should
quiet him down. Put a little of the responsibility on him and see how far it goes from there on out. Maybe he'd head to the clinic with her next Wednesday. She didn't know if she even wanted that, but going alone would be horrible. Somebody had to know in case she started bleeding afterward or something.

She reached into the bag and pulled out a tart, green apple. Granny Smith. She handed it to José.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You're welcome.” Might as well have one too. Amazing how people continued to breathe, walk, ride trains, eat apples, when their lives were falling apart.

The landscape sped by. Industrial buildings choked with smoke, and she hated cities so much. Why come to dance and then stay when the dream faded? That was silly. She bit into the apple. He bit into his again. Back and forth the sounds of their chomping cut the silence between them.

It was nice.

“Do you want to dance again?” José asked.

“It's been a long time. I'm not conditioned.”

“I think you could do it.”

Nina shook her head. “I believe you do.”

She needed someone to believe in her. It had been so long.

An hour later, they exited the train at the Hampton station. Nina wished she could have grown up at the beach. Memories of her father filled her.

“Nina! Nina!”

Oh. She'd turned the wrong way.

José put an arm around her waist and directed her toward the stairs. They climbed up toward the sunlight and the smell of salty air.

Fourteen

T
he rusty gate to the front yard creaked in the wind, open to the street. “Loochi!”

Celia ran, her shoes pounding the heated cement, sending the jarring contact up her spine to the base of her skull.

And brakes squealed, and her child
screamed, and a dull thump echoed across the face of the buildings.

Oh, God
. A silence settled the air in an instant.

And Celia knew. She ran through the open gate. And Lucinda lay on the black road, limp. She threw aside the camera as the heat of fear slammed down onto her. “Loochi! No! No!”

She ran to her child, barely noticing the shiny black car. “No! Oh no!” she screamed, kneeling down next to Lucinda, the blood fanning from the little body out into the street, a river, a crimson river eating Celia alive, consuming her life, everything.

She could barely breathe.

“Somebody call an ambulance! Somebody help me!” She pressed her ear to the tiny chest. Nothing, not a sound.

Oh no. Oh, God! Please!

The face, so pale. The ponytails askew. No.

Loochi. Oh my baby.

The driver appeared, his face pale, his eyes drowned in shock. Celia turned on him. “No! You!” she screamed, raising her fists and beating him as he took her into his arms. “No,” she moaned. “No.”

He whispered into her hair, trying to calm her.

“No! Oh no!” She pushed away from him and took Lucinda into her arms. Feeling the tiny bones of her daughter's legs and arms fall against her own.

But something overtook her at the sight of Lucinda's face. Dead and dead and dead. And a great groaning released from her core, accompanied by the oceans and oceans of love once destined to be released in gentle lappings, now spilled all at once onto her daughter, the street, the car, and the people now gathered on the sidewalk as she melted quickly into what all parents pray they'll never become.

Fifteen

T
hey walked from the train station to José's house. Nina tasted the salty air as she inhaled through her nose, feeling that jangling roominess one experiences upon leaving the city for the first time in months. No tall buildings loomed overhead blocking air and sunshine, and vistas that reached farther than the next block.

See
, she thought,
dancing is a little like this, a bit of spaciousness
and freedom in a world where only those who can are
allowed it
. And she could. She could move her feet and sway her arms gracefully, that taut yet somehow fluid arc of movement. It wasn't with pride she thought about it, but with a sense of accomplishment.

Well, she used to feel that way anyway. She hadn't danced a step in a year. Every once in a while she stretched in front of the TV, but that was the extent of it there in her cramped apartment.

She breathed in again, louder this time.

“This is good?” José asked.

“Yes. I don't know why I don't get out of the city more.”

“I think we all say that.”

“The city is no place to raise a child.” Nina thought about the test strip and suddenly her life had become so important once again, as if all the things she'd stripped away of her own volition were back in play and in danger of being stripped away again by unwelcome circumstances.

“The fact is, I'm not a dancer, and I wasn't in danger of becoming one with the way my life worked out.”
Okay,
that was a little random
, she thought, but José didn't seem to notice. He just kept walking along, hands in his pockets, breathing in the sea air just like she did.

She continued forward past well-kept houses and thick lawns bearing springtime flowers, some obviously in some sort of yard war. Nina never saw such perfection.

They rounded a corner and came upon a yard with more lawn ornaments than she'd ever seen. “I like those kinds of people. They don't realize that lawn ornaments aren't classy. They just like them. Nobody ever told them ‘less is more' so they think more is more, and the more lawn ornaments the better. I'd like to be that person, José. I'd like to not care what other people think.”

“You don't seem like that.”

“Maybe not to you.”

They came to an intersection, and José pointed across the street to a white Dutch colonial with a perfect yard. “There it is. That is my parents' house.”

“Okay . . .”

“Don't worry.” He took her arm as they crossed the street. “You will love it here.”

A man came barreling down the drive with an empty handcart. He stopped at the back of a red pickup filled with shrubbery.

“Qué paso, Papá?”

The man turned. His black eyes widened, then filled with concern. A flood of Spanish came out of his mouth as they approached. Nina felt a sick wave of uncertainty mix with the sea air.

Of course his
father was surprised. José hadn't been home since he moved into the city to work at Manny's restaurant. It seemed he could only be one place at a time, live one life, and traveling out to Long Island regularly was not part of that life. His life was sleeping, praying, going to church, cooking, and coming home to read and sleep. That was enough. In fact, sometimes if the resolve it took to accomplish all that gave any indication, he was downright heroic.

Manuel Suviran Sr., olive skin weathered from days outside on his ranch in Mexico, spat out his worry. José felt badly that Nina wouldn't understand, but his father refused to speak English. “
José, where have you been? Your brother's
been calling all day. He said you walked out
.” He looked at Nina and then back at his son. “
What's happening, Son?
”

José replied in kind. They all suspected Manuel understood more than he let on, but they respected him too much to push the language issue. “
I'll tell you later
.”

“
Is everything all right?
”

“
Don't worry, old man.
”

His father embraced him. When most of his friends decided they were too old for hugs, their fathers acquiesced, but not Manuel. He saw it through.

“Remember Nina?”
José asked. “
From the restaurant
?”

Well, of course!
” He turned to Nina with a little bow. ““
This is your home
.”

Nina looked back up at the tidy home, so neat and well cared for, and José was proud. “It's beautiful,” she said.

“
At your service
.”

Nina tried replying in Spanish. “Gracias.”

He laughed. “
Listen to her. With that dress she looks like a
real Mexican lady!
”

Nina drew her brows together. “What did he say?”

“He said you look like a Mexican.”

She smiled. “Oh, thank you!”

José reached for a bush. Looked like an azalea. “
Is Mom
inside?”

No. She went shopping. I'm going to cook an oyster plate.
“
You're staying for dinner, right
?”

“He's inviting us to dinner,” José said to Nina. “Should we stay? He's making oysters.”