When She Was Bad...

‘Lita!’

Lita Morales stopped scrubbing off her parents’ scratched Formica counter-top and turned around to see her mother smiling and proudly waving an envelope.

‘Happy birthday, sweetheart.’ Mama kissed her on the cheek, tugging on her gloves against the Bronx November cold. Outside their tiny apartment, the street lamps of Wheeler Avenue were silhouetted against the pale gold, icy dawn sky. It was half-past six and Mama had to head out to take the subway to Manhattan soon. ‘Your father and me got you a gift.’

Lita smiled and took the card in the crisp paper envelope. It had a picture of a hedgehog holding some balloons; a kid’s card, really. Mama had probably gotten it cheap, because one corner was frayed, and in the Morales household, they watched every cent. Inside the card was seventeen dollars, one for every year of her life, her traditional birthday

present. It looked like a lot of money to Lita.

‘Thanks, Mom.’ She hugged her.

‘I got to go. Try to get back early, OK?’

‘OK,’ Lira agreed.

Mama left quickly and, of course, Pappy had already gone. He might be back to snatch a little sleep some time this afternoon. Lita couldn’t resent that nobody was here for her birthday. Her parents had to work, and Chico, snoring in his room, didn’t count. She carefully put her seventeen-dollar fortune away in the old sock under her bed, reserving two dollars for emergencies today.

Now it was time to clear away the breakfast dishes. Lira worked quickly, not wanting to be late for school. The city, in the dawn, out past her kitchen window, depressed her. There was some new graffiti from one of the gangs on the Chinese laundry acr-oss the street. She hoped it wasn’t Chico’s gang. For once.

Lita loved her brother, but he really annoyed her. He had a serious aversion to using his brain.

She was going to be eighteen next year. She really had to start

thinking hard about a job, about some way out of here. Otherwise she’d be stuck in a dead-end job like her mother, or else start hanging out on

the corner like Chico, causing nothing but trouble, wasting time. That wasn’t the life that Lita wanted.

To wind up like Mama and Pappy, dark-skinned and dark-eyed, looking ten years older than the thirty-seven they actually were. Mama’s fine bones held up well, but her face was sallow from lack of sleep. Mama had a stoop from being bent over her sewing machine all hours at the garment sweatshop in Alphabet City, a place that paid her slave wages and no benefits, that ruined her health and her eyesight, so now her lovely dark eyes were hidden behind Coke-bottle glasses. And Pappy drove that cab up and down the city, day and night, working double shift, his skin paper-thin from smoking and stress.

In a way, it was no wonder that Chico didn’t want to work. Pappy yelled at him. If they were ever going to get accepted in this country, he said, to be more than ‘wetbacks’, to get respect and not insults, they needed more men like Pappy, more guys prepared to do an honest day’s work. Chico said that was for chumps. His entire generation was opting out of it. Besides, wasn’t there supposed to be an honest day’s pay in there somewhere? Which they obviously weren’t making, crammed into a three-room apartment in the worst part of town.

Pappy’s answer was to strike Chico. So far her brother had not responded, just balled up his fists, glowered and strode o.. But it was coming. Lita knew it.

She stayed in school, which Chico had not’done, promising his father that he’d work construction. Pappy hadn’t taken much persuading. Book-learning didn’t seem to benefit the family much; you couldn’t say the same for that good, off.-the-books construction money. That was manly work. Besides, it wasn’t good for Chico to be idle. So Pappy said it was OK if Chico didn’t finish high school. Pappy hadn’t, and he’d done OK, hadn’t he? A roof over their heads, the same place for four years, rent always on time, and even a little stashed away for emergencies. Maybe his son could do better. That was what every father hoped for.

Carlos Sr didn’t think much about Lita. She was blossoming, but her mother dressed her nice, in long, shapeless skirts and blouses, so that the boys didn’t try and get too fresh with her. Since Lita had turned down her Mama’s proposal of a job at the sweatshop so angrily, he had backed off suggesting she follow in her brother’s footsteps. If Lita wanted a high-school graduation, maybe that was OK, too. It was true she was another mouth to feed, one that made no contribution to the house, but he worked her hard enough that it seemed fair. Their cramped

apartment was spotless; the windows gleamed, even though the neighbourhood was filthy. Lita had to do her chores before she got to start her homework.

For her classmates, homework was a drag. For Lita, it was a reward. She didn’t get to sit down at the tiny desk in her minute bedroom until the apartment sparkled like an ad for kitchen cleaner. The Bronx might be dirty and covered in graffiti, but the Morales’ apartment was clean enough for Betty Crocker to cook in.

Pappy liked it that way, so there was nothing more said about Lira going to the sweatshop.

Besides, as she grew, he started to hope there was something more for her. Maybe, with that fancy high-school diploma, she could learn to type, get a job as a secretary. They had women in the front office at the cab company, making coffee and filing. That was a good life for a girl. Soft clerical work that didn’t ruin their hands. Plus, not even Carlos Morales could ignore the way his daughter was developing.

At thirteen, she’d been the prettiest girl in school. At fifteen, she’d been the prettiest girl in Soundview. And at seventeen, she might just be the prettiest girl in the entire Bronx.

The long skirts and shapeless blouses were just no match for Mother Nature, who was shaping Lita up in a most unmotherly way. Her breasts had budded early, grown and just kept on growing, until she could fill out a tight sweater like Lana Turner, not that Mama would ever give her a tight sweater. Hand-me-down brassieres from her cousins didn’t fit Lira any more. She had to go to Marshall’s and pick up special ones, with Mama wincing as she doled the money out carefully from her pocketbook. Lira possessed only three bras at seventeen, functional, sturdy contraptions that held her softness tight against her chest, without a whisper of lace or a suggestion of silk. But they could not stop her feehng sexy.

Lita felt the eyes of the boys on her whenever she walked down the street. They lingered on her breasts when she was coming, and on her butt when she was going. The exercise revolution would not start for another ten years, but Lira was trim, naturally firm, and her glorious butt, jutting out from her tiny, handspan waist, was high and tight, and it rolled just a little when she walked with th(t natural, disturbing sway to her hips.

Lira didn’t want to encounter her father’s belt. She didn’t bait him the way Chico did. She submitted to the ankle-length skirts and wrist hugging blouses, but it was no good - she made whatever she wore look sexy. The narrow, straight skirts just emphasized all that hape - her tiny waist, her firm, flaring ass, and the breasts the sturdy cotton bras fought

to confine. And she didn’t bother with drugs or booze, not because she was a good girl but because she was arrogant.

Lira wasn’t going to wind up like her brother Chico. She wasn’t going to wind up like Elena Ayala down the street, nineteen and already the mother of twin screaming brats.

Lira Morales was going to get out. And this year was the year she was going to do it.

‘Oh, baby, where you goin’, lookin’ like that? You sure are wearin’ those jeans, girl. Sure are.’

Lita walked on, her face impassive, her banged-up satchel slung over one shoulder. She got just as many compliments in her skirts as in her Levi’s, and just as much trouble, too. Boys on the street corners yelling and whistling as she walked by. The one good thing about winter was that she got to wear her large, cheap blue coat, the one Mama had handed down to her. It covered up all that shape, as Rico Gonzalez called it, and it enabled her to walk the eight blocks to her building without too much trouble. The white boys were the worst, man. Yelling out that she was a hot tamale, mamacita, and all that jive. Lira despised them. They lumped all Hispanics into one basket, the Cubans, the Mexicans, the Puerto l

She had a kind of boyfriend anyway, Hector Fernandez. Hector was ambitious, which was one reason she liked him.,He was respectful, most of the time, though he pretended to ignore her when he was hanging out with his boys. Hector’s father owned two rental apartments, and his family had a little money. Hector himself got to drive his older brother’s ‘Cuda, a flash convertible. Lita loved to get driven around in it when she had time before she had to get home, even if Hector liked to try and slide his hand up her knee. And Hector was a jock, which kept the worst of the school catcalls away. She was looking forward to seeing what he’d gotten her for her birthday. She’d had to get back home today, but Hector was going to see her tomorrow, nice and early. They were meeting up before school.

He’d been in class today, and leaned over and told her he had to meet her then.

4

‘It’s really important, baby.’

Lira smiled back at him, her dark eyes flashing over his. ‘You got something for me?’

Hector had grinned, that same sly, easy grin he flashed at the cheerleaders when he thought Lita wasn’t looking.

‘Yeah, I sure do. Drop by tomorrow and pick it up.’

‘I will,’ she promised, then spun in her seat to face the blackboard before Mrs Meyer turned around and bawled them out.

Lita marched onto the corner of Wheeler and Seward. There was a bodega on the corner, and she ducked inside.

‘Lita.’ Mr Perez, the owner, was a friend of her mother’s, sometimes even giving them a little credit. ‘How you doing today, querida?’

‘Pretty good.’ She flashed him one of those million-buck smiles that had gotten pretty disturbing of late. Jose Perez had played with Lita when she was a little girl. He hastily turned away as she selected some

eggs and bread and riffled through his magazine rack.

‘Here, you want this?’

He offered her a dog-eared copy of Vogue. ‘Somebody spilled coffee on it. I didn’t see, or I’d have made them pay. I can’t sell it.’

She picked up the treasured object gingerly by the corner. ‘For real? You don’t want it?’

‘You take it, you take it,’ he said, hurriedly giving her change for her purchases and shooing her away. Carlos Morales would kill him for what he was thinking. ‘See you again.’

Lira stuffed the magazine into her satchel and ran down the block to her building. Her key twisted in the lock and she bounded up four sets of stairs as though they didn’t’exist. A quick look around told her her mother wasn’t back yet. Chico would be down on some corner with his boys, looking to scam a dollar, if he wasn’t at the site, and Pappy wouldn’t be back until it was time to eat. Chico’s dishes from breakfast were stacked high in the sink, because she’d left before he was done. Lita felt a pang. She wanted to get out and read her magazine, but she had never skipped out on her duties and today would not be a first. Quickly she ran the water, squeezed a tiny bit of liquid onto a rag and cleaned up the sink. When the dishes were dried and put away she swept the floor, washed down the table arid made her parents’ bed. Chico’s room was clean, mostly because he was never there, and her own tiny space was immaculate.

She might want to skimp, but she never did. Roaches ‘didn’t take the day off. Theirs was the only place she knew that had no infestation - the bugs didn’t come because Lita left them nothing to eat. She was mad that Mama had left dirty dishes out for four hours, but she knew her

parents would blame her. Lira had gone to school early today to take an extra class. Drama. Her father would say she should have waited here instead to wash up.

Whatever. The apartment was clean, and now she was free. Lita went into her room, peeled off her clothes and grabbed the beach towel they used in the bathroom because Mama had found it on sale five years ago. It was great to have the place to herself, to be able to take a shower without Chico or Pappy banging on the bathroom door. They had no money for luxuries like shower gel, but that was OK. She soaped herself up, revelling in the hot water, scrubbing the dust of the Bronx from her skin. Cheap shampoo and conditioner lathered up her glossy hair, and Lira dried off quickly, hanging up her school clothes and picking a dress. Her mother was nowhere to be seen, so she chose the red one she kept in the back of her closet, the one she never wore in front of her. It came to just below the knee and had a V-neck, dropping to show just a hint of her cleavage. It was thin and badly cut, but it clung to her curves like a second skin and the fluted hem whipped around her thin legs. Lita picked her black cropped jacket to wear over the top.