Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa (4 page)

“It was,” my father says. “It was.”

I peer at him. He's getting at something here. Dancing around it. The something that he isn't saying lurks between us like a huge, honking white elephant. No, not even. A pink one. Screaming fuchsia. I'm dying for him to just spit it out.

“What?” I ask.

“She's not going back,” he says.

I sit up straight in my seat. “What?”

“To the mainland. She's not going back.” He sees my confusion, clarifies. “Not just yet. She says she's not ready. She wants to . . . I'm not sure. But she doesn't want to go back right now.”

“When?” I ask.

Summer session starts in a week or so, and my mother is not the type to flake. Not on career stuff. “Hear her roar,” etc. . . .

“Don't classes start on Tuesday?” I ask.

“Next Tuesday, but that's not the point. She's going to get someone to cover,” he says. “She needs to stay here until she sorts some stuff out.”

“What, like her mom's will?” I ask.

“No, no, sweetie. Inside stuff. Her own stuff.”

My mind reels.
Inside stuff?

“I expect that she'll be out here for at least a month. Maybe two,” my father concludes.

I don't say anything.

After a moment I notice he isn't saying anything either. But he isn't getting up, going back to the room; he isn't telling me to get upstairs and pack . . . he isn't doing much of anything, short of staring at me, sort of wistfully. Weirdly . . .

It hits me. “There's more.”

“She's going to stay with Tía Rosa.”

I nod. “Go on.”

“But like I said, she isn't in great shape, and she hasn't seen her sisters in years. I don't want her here all alone. She needs someone to stay with her.” He swallows. “Emily, she needs you. You have to stay here with your mother.”

A
unt Rosa's house looks different when it's empty. Not bigger, though, like you'd think. Instead it's filled with clutter: big, overstuffed chairs strewn with throw pillows, bright books and school supplies that probably belong to her younger daughters; inexpensive, simple jewelry that might be Lucy's. It's not like Isabelle's house, where the televisions are flat screen and the sofas are sectional. It's not even like my house, where the doorways between rooms are thick and molded. Rosa lives in Río Piedras, which is the primary suburb of San Juan, very middle-class.

Compared to Isabelle and Adrienne,
I'm
middle-class, but thinking about that, making direct comparisons between my home in New York and Rosa's—“
Tía
Rosa,” as she has asked me to call her—makes me feel suddenly, inexplicably guilty.

“And our washing machine is in the back, in the room behind the kitchen,” Tía Rosa says, finishing up on a grand tour of the place. There is a kitchen, a living room, a den, the basement where Max had sought sweet refuge, and four bedrooms. Four bedrooms seem like a lot until you realize that one belongs to Rosa, who has been on her own since her husband died four years ago; one belongs to Lucy; and one is shared between Lucy's three younger sisters, Pilar, Ana, and Dora.

Lucy's older brother, José, has his own room as well. This hardly seems fair given how little time he spends at home—at least, as far as I've seen, which admittedly isn't that much.

Anyway, he's not home now.

Pilar, who is thirteen, can't seem to bring herself to care about the washer-dryer combo, not that I blame her. Ana and Dora, who are ten and eight, respectively, gaze at their mother with appropriate if practiced admiration.

Lucy stands off to one side. Her hand is on her hip, and she is trying not to pout. I note that she is either not trying all that hard or not succeeding.

“Gloria, you and”—she chokes on my name briefly—“
Emily
will stay in Lucy's room.”

“Thanks, Lucy,” I say, trying to coax the sourpuss off her face. “That's really cool of you to share. We don't snore, I promise.”

She shrugs. “It doesn't matter. I'm going to stay in the girls' room.”

My face must give me away because Tía Rosa quickly jumps in. “Don't worry,
chica
, there's plenty of room. We just wanted to be sure that you and your mother have enough privacy.”

Lucy's expression does not change. I don't think she's blinked in, like, twenty minutes. The surface of her eyeballs must be burning.

“Lucy, show them the room,” Tía Rosa says.

Dutifully Lucy jerks her head toward us and then shuffles down a short hallway. Pilar and Ana grab at my mother and my suitcases, shooing us away when we offer to take them ourselves. Of course, the bags aren't that heavy—we'd only packed for a weekend. But still, there is something slightly off about seeing my ten-year-old cousin hoisting my belongings for me.

Lucy stops in her doorway. “It's not exactly a
mansion
,” she says, edgy.

I peer in.

She's right; it's not. But it's not exactly a shack, either. It's just big enough to house a twin bed, a desk, a bureau, and a bookcase, all in matching white wood. There's a poster on the wall of a
tejano
star I vaguely recognize from Spanish teen mags that our AP teacher uses to “stimulate cultural awareness.” There's a calendar of impressionist paintings. June is Degas. There's a stuffed gray Persian kitten on her bed, grinning at us incongruously. The curtains are pink, and the window looks out onto a backyard that contains a small, circular, in-ground pool. The pool is par for the course in Rosa's development, I think.

My biggest concern is the bed. I have no idea how my mother and I are supposed to share it. Neither of us is exactly a sumo wrestler, but, um, twin beds are kind of narrow. I realize, though, that this would not be the ideal time to point this out.

Lucy leads us to the backyard.

“The pool is nice,” I say, aiming for “brightly” and missing it badly. My voice squeaks. I sound desperate.

“We can't afford it,” Lucy says flatly. “But Papi put it in and now Mami wouldn't dare cover it over.” She sniffs, showing us what she thinks of this attitude.

“It must be nice for the evenings, when school is out,” my mother says wistfully. She'd always wanted my father to build a pool, but he balked and made noise about the increase in property taxes.

“I work in the evenings,” Lucy says abruptly.

This is interesting news. I'd always wanted an after-school job—a discount at Abercrombie seemed like a jack-pot to me—but my parents were pretty insistent that nothing get in the way of my schoolwork. “We give you plenty of allowance,” they'd point out.

“Where do you work?” I ask, no longer scrambling to make conversation but honestly wanting to know.

There is no reply. After a moment I realize why. I turn to see that Lucy has slipped away, probably before I'd even asked my question.

Hopefully
before I'd even asked my question.

“I don't think she heard you, sweetie,” my mother says. She reaches out to smooth my hair in a gesture she'd—up until this point—abandoned after I hit adolescence. I duck away from her touch, uncomfortable. She may be right—maybe Lucy hadn't heard me at all—but really, there's no way to tell.

“She heard you.”

My mother starts, and I realize that we have company in the form of a smallish, pixie-faced neighbor child leaning challengingly against the tree that separates her backyard from Lucy's. She pushes off from the tree, walks toward us. Her face is tiny, elfin, with enormous brown eyes and razor-sharp cheekbones. She seems very . . . intense.

She stops just in front of me and holds out her hand. “I'm Marisa.”

We shake, solemnly. “I'm Emily. This is my mother.”

She nods. “You're Lucy's cousin, right?”

“Yes. Did she tell you we were coming to stay for a while?” If Lucy was talking about us, I can only imagine what she would say. . . .

Marisa shrugs. “Nah. You just look like her,” she says, and promptly turns, marching off back to her own yard.

 

“So you're, like, stuck in Puerto Rico?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I say, pacing in small circles around the pool.

I had remained outside after our preliminary tour for a much-needed moment alone. Of course, a moment alone basically consisted of frantically calling Noah, Isabelle, and finally Adrienne, who is the only one who picked up her cell. I explained to her what was going on: Mom freaking out (which, really, I hadn't seen all that much evidence of beyond her newfound chain-smoking). Dad insisting that I stay behind for the
whole summer
. The vaguely unbelievable promises to pack up the remainder of my summer wardrobe and ship it over to me, lest I spend the next six to eight weeks rotating between four pairs of underwear and one set of velour track pants. The Puerto Rican family, all of whom seem to somehow know of Max and me, even though they don't
really
know us. Fried foods the likes of which would make Isabelle faint dead away into her Atkins-friendly fro-yo. Sharing a bedroom with my mother. Sharing a
twin
bed with my mother. Et cetera.

“Wow,” Adrienne breathes after my small explosion has subsided.

“I know.”

“That sucks.” At least she sounds sympathetic. “It's like . . .”

“Like
Fried Green Tomatoes
. Except with tomatillos,” I say.

It's an Isabelle line. Adrienne laughs.

“This means there's no way you'll be able to come on the trip.”

“Looks that way. Unless you guys wanted to postpone it.”

I'm joking, but not.

“I wish we could”—God bless the girl; she actually sounds sincere—“but there's not even a guarantee that you'll be back in six weeks. And we have to leave for orientation in August.”

“I know, Ade, I know. I was kidding. I'd never ask you to put your trip off just for me. It's just . . .” I stop before I can lay on an unintentional guilt trip.

“We'll miss you tons,” she says, demonstrating exactly what it is that I love about her. “We'll send you a million postcards. It'll be just like you were there.”

Well, not quite,
I think, but I'm digging on the sentiment at least.

“I left a message for Isabelle,” I say. “But you know, if you talk to her first, you can tell her. Let her know how bummed I am.”

“Definitely,” Ade assures me. “I think she's out shopping with her mom. I'm sure she'll call you later.” She laughs again. “At least your cell works down there.”

This is true. Unlimited calling. Small miracles and whatever. I contemplate reminding her that Puerto Rico is technically a part of the United States but decide against it because she's being so supportive.

“Did you talk to Noah yet?”

I shake my head, then realize that she can't exactly see this over the phone line. “No. He's not answering. Don't—I mean, you can tell him, but—”

“I won't say anything until you guys talk. You probably want to break it to him yourself.”

“Good call,” I agree, grateful for her newfound psychic powers.

Or was Adrienne always like this? I can't remember, but suddenly, more than anything, I wish it weren't going to be six whole weeks—at least—before I can see her in person again. I have a vision of her, camped out Indian style on the hood of my car, grande latte in hand and sunglasses pushed to the top of her forehead.

This is as close as I've come to homesickness in a while. And I've been in Puerto Rico—what? Four days?

“. . . know what you guys are going to do?”

She's asked me a question while I've been out in la-la land.
Did you guys talk at all? Do you know what you guys are going to do?

She means me and Noah. Like, what we're going to do over the summer. Which strikes me as funny. We didn't know what we were going to do even before any of this happened.

Before my grandmother and Puerto Rico.

Now . . .

“Um, not really. Not yet. I won't be home until August,” I say. “And he's going to Northeastern next year. . .”

. . . which is miles away from Brown.
The unspoken portion of my thought lingers in my brain unpleasantly, causing my stomach to dip and flutter.

“It'll work out,” Adrienne says. “One way or the other.” Which is true enough but not exactly comforting.

“¡Emily! ¡Necesitamos poner la mesa para la cena!”
Tía Rosa's voice breaks through the evening air with enough force to shatter glass. I flinch.

“One sec,” I call out.

“Who is that?” Adrienne asks, dubious.

“My aunt. She wants me . . .” I think back to her words for a moment. “She wants me to help set the table for dinner.”

“She sounds cranky.”

“You think?” I ask rhetorically.

We exchange our good-byes and I hang up, face flushed and feeling guilty. Rosa does sound cranky, for real. Unnecessarily so. I have no idea why she would be, but I'm guessing I'm about to find out.

When I hang up the phone, Marisa, Rosa's next-door neighbor, is in front of me again. She stares at me. It's a little bit creepy.

“You better get inside,” she says. “We do things differently down here.”

I have a feeling she's not wrong about that.

 

“Mira, chica, los platos,”
Tía Rosa says, nodding toward a stack of plates laid out on the counter. I've barely stepped in from outside before she's pointing, gesturing, and offering up orders in rapid-fire Spanish.