Ambitious (8 page)

“Anyways, I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m not that basketball star anymore. And I want to do this on my own. I’m grateful for this opportunity at Premiere, and I sincerely want to remain a student here. But if I don’t keep my grades up, I’ll be out on the street.”

“What does that have to do with me?” I asked.

“Will you help me pass math? You’re obviously pretty smart if you’re taking advanced classes,” he said. “I won’t require a lot of your time. Just a couple of hours a week. And I’ll pay you.”

“You mean like a tutor?” I asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” he said.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” I explained. “I’m preparing
for Dance America right now. And we barely have enough time as it is.”

Jasmine nodded her head in agreement.

“Just one day a week is all I need, Mari.”

“Let me think about it,” I told him. I wasn’t going to be overzealous again. But I had to admit that the thought of spending one-on-one time with Drew was exciting. However, I wasn’t sure how I’d pull it off. Having a slice of pizza at Manny’s was one thing, but tutoring someone would require more time. What would I tell my parents?

“Let me know,” he said. “No pressure. There are lots of people who would love the job, but it’s gotta be somebody that I enjoy hanging out with. That’s why I chose you.”

I blushed at the compliment and hoped that nobody noticed. As I finished my Cherry Coke, I smiled to myself. I already knew that I’d tutor Drew, but I wanted to make him suffer. He deserved it for not asking me to the fall social. Didn’t he know when he’d broken a girl’s heart?

Marisol

I was
so excited, I nearly ran home from the subway station. I couldn’t wait to get with Luz and go over our dance routine. My backpack in tow, I looked for any sight of Luz, Kristina and Grace as I turned the corner. The Block was empty, except for the younger boys popping wheelies on their dirt bikes.

“Where is everybody?” I asked Hector, Grace’s younger brother.

“Fight broke out,” he explained. “Some guys were trying to fight your brother.”

“Nico?” I asked. “What guys?’

“Some gang members,” Hector said. “Everybody’s over there.”

“Where?”

“The next block over.”

I dropped my bag onto the steps of our two-family house and took off running to the next block. A crowd had gathered, and I spotted Kristina and Grace in the midst of it.

“What’s going on?” I asked them.

“Some boys have beef with Nico,” Kristina explained.

I pushed my way through to the center of it all. Alejandro and Fernando stood in the center with their arms folded across their chests. In the midst of the crowd, my brother argued with a guy dressed in sagging jeans, an oversize hoodie and a bandanna tied around his head. As I got a closer look, I realized it was Diego, the boy who I’d seen being arrested and thrown into a police car. Diego grew up in our neighborhood, yet somehow had taken a wrong turn. He was a gang member who had been in and out of the juvenile detention center since our first year in middle school. He and Nico were once good friends. Diego had spent several nights at our house, and our families had attended the same church. When Diego’s father died of cancer, he was angry. Angry with his mother; angry at the world for allowing his father to die. He started rebelling and ended up in a gang. Rumor had it that he’d even killed a few people, although I couldn’t imagine Diego hurting a fly. He was one of the quietest boys I’d ever known—straight-laced; very respectable. And why he was standing here in the middle of the street having an altercation with my brother was beyond me.

Standing in between Nico and Diego, I asked, “What’s going on here?”

I was confused. Especially since I’d just seen Diego at the mall, and he had pledged his innocence. He’d talked about how the cops were always harassing him for nothing, yet he was standing in the middle of the street hav
ing an issue with my brother. I didn’t know what to make of it.

“Go home, Mari. This has nothing to do with you,” Nico yelled.

“It has everything to do with me. You’re my brother!” I yelled and then turned to Diego. “Diego, what’s going on here?”

“Do what your brother said, Mari, and go home,” said Diego. “This is between me and him.”

“You want me to take him out?” asked a guy who was standing behind Diego. He was someone I didn’t recognize from our neighborhood. He was tall and wore a do-rag on his head. With tattoos plastered all over his neck and arms, and a permanent frown on his face, he said, “Nobody disrespects us like that.”

I stood there, confused. How had Nico disrespected them? I wanted to ask, but it didn’t seem as if they were up for much conversation. I quickly realized that talking was definitely not what Diego had in mind after I spotted the silver gun he held close to his side, with his finger strategically placed on the trigger. At that moment, my heart started pounding. I was the bravest girl in the world—standing in front of my brother, daring anyone to hurt him. But instantly, my knees began to shake and I wondered if Nico and I would both die in the middle of the street in front of all our friends. What would become of our parents if both their children were murdered in broad
daylight? Mami wouldn’t survive the tragedy, and Poppy would be heartbroken for the rest of his life.

Our parents had done their best to shelter us from the trouble that surrounded our Brooklyn neighborhood—gang activity, drugs and violence. In fact, there was a cluster of families in our neighborhood who had refused to allow the streets to destroy their children. The families on The Block were wholesome, working-class people with strict values. The parents had formed a pact to protect their children from the streets, and had done so for many years. Besides being neighbors for several years, we were one big family.

Diego’s family had been a part of our big family—that is until his father was no longer around. Mr. Reyes had been the glue that held the family together, and once he was gone, Mrs. Reyes could no longer control Diego. She lost him to the streets. Eventually, Mrs. Reyes wasn’t able to maintain their home and was forced to move to a one-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg. Diego had dropped out of school, so he was no longer classmates with any of the rest of us, and church wasn’t an option for him anymore, either. His days of being an altar boy at our Catholic church were long over.

“This isn’t over, Garcia,” Diego said to my brother, as his finger slowly eased from the trigger. “You’ll hear from me again.”

Nico stood there, a mean mug on his face, as he stared at Diego, his eyes piercing. I wondered if he felt the same
relief that I felt as Diego stuffed the gun into the pocket of his jeans and began to walk away.

“Let’s go,” Diego barked to his tall, tattooed sidekick. The two of them took off walking.

“Why did you do that?” Nico yelled at me.

“Do what?”

“Stand in front of me like that! You could’ve gotten us both killed.” Nico was enraged.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t need your help, Mari. I can fight my own battles.” He started walking toward home—Alejandro and Fernando beside him.

I followed. “What was that all about anyway?” I asked.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Mari. Stay out of it!”

“I’m telling Mami and Poppy.”

Nico stopped in his tracks. He grabbed my arm and gripped it tightly; gave me that same piercing look that he’d given Diego earlier. “You better not breathe a word of this to them. You understand me?”

I swallowed hard. Nodded my head yes. He eased the grip on my arm. I watched as he walked away and turned the corner toward home. Kristina and Grace caught up to me.

“Mari, that was so scary. I thought Diego was going to shoot Nico,” said Grace, “and all because Nico refuses to join their stupid gang.”

“Diego has changed a lot!” Grace added. “He’s not the same boy that I kissed on my front stoop in first grade.”

She’d kissed him, too?

“Is that what this is about? Nico won’t join their gang?” I asked.

“I think he told them he would and then backed out,” Grace explained. “I’m glad he reconsidered, because those guys are just bad news.”

I sighed. I wasn’t sure if I was more worried because gang members were hassling Nico for doing the right thing, or because he had considered joining them in the first place.

“Where’s Luz?” I finally asked.

It was odd that she wasn’t anywhere in the midst of the crowd. The entire neighborhood had gathered to see what was going on.

“She’s at home,” Kristina said. “She’s locked in her room with Catalina Sanchez.”

“Who’s Catalina Sanchez?” I asked.

“You know, the girl who took the dance class with you and Luz last spring at the community center. She was like one of J.C.’s favorites in the class, always trying to outdo everybody,” said Grace.

“She was the girl who wanted to beat you up last summer because she liked Fernando, and he wouldn’t pay any attention to her because Fernando likes you,” Kristina added.

“Fernando doesn’t like me like that. He’s like a brother to me,” I explained.

“I hate to tell you, Mari, but Fernando doesn’t want to
be your brother.” Grace giggled. “He’s liked you for a long time.”

“What’s Luz doing locked in her room with Catalina?”

“She and Luz have been pretty tight since you started going to Premiere. She doesn’t even hang with us at school that much. It’s always Catalina this, Catalina that,” said Grace.

“I don’t trust her,” Kristina said. “Luz didn’t tell you about Dance America?”

“Tell me what?”

“She and Catalina are dance partners now. They’re trying out for Dance America together,” Kristina explained.

“What do you mean? She’s already trying out for Dance America with Jasmine and me. We already have a group. Brooklyn Bellezas. Remember?” I asked.

Grace shrugged. I could tell that she was trying to stay out of it.

“She claims that she’s not a part of that group anymore,” Kristina explained.

“When was she going to tell me?” I asked, and both Grace and Kristina shrugged.

“You know how Luz is sometimes, Mari. I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Grace.

Easier said than done. It bothered me that Luz would leave the group without even telling me. But worse than that, she’d already formed a partnership with someone else—someone she knew I didn’t get along with. I walked just a little bit faster, headed for Luz’s redbrick-front house.
I stomped up her stairs and rang the bell. She swung the door open. A bottle of Jarritos soft drink in her hand and her hair pulled up into a ponytail, she stood there with a smug look on her face. Just past her, I could see Catalina standing in the doorway of the kitchen, wearing leotards and patting her face with a towel.

“Hola,”
Luz said.

“What’s this about you getting a new dance partner?” I asked. “What happened to the Brooklyn Bellezas?”

“That’s your group, Mari. Yours and Jasmine’s. I’m doing my own thing now,” she said.

“When were you going to tell me?” I asked.

“I was going to tell you—” she looked over my shoulder and peered at Grace and Kristina “—it’s just that the two big mouths beat me to it.”

“I didn’t say a word, Luz,” Grace, the peacemaker, said.

“She deserved to know,” Kristina said.

“So you’re gonna go up against me in the competition?” I asked just to be clear about it.

My best friend since
forever
was now my opponent. It felt strange. It felt as if a part of me had begun to die right there on Luz’s stoop—a stoop that I’d stood on so many days before, eating paletas and watching the older girls jump double Dutch, at least until we were old enough to jump, too. It was the same stoop where Luz and I shared our deepest, darkest secrets with each other—about boys, about how our bodies began to change during puberty and about life. We became blood sisters on that stoop; prick
ing our fingers with a safety pin and smashing the blood together. We were inseparable for life—at least that’s what we promised.

“Hi, Mari.” Catalina appeared in the doorway next to Luz.

The two of them grinned, and I walked away. I was fuming as I hopped down Luz’s concrete steps and crossed the street toward my own house. Grace and Kristina followed.

“Don’t worry about it, Mari. She’s just jealous of your friendship with Jasmine.” Kristina tried to console me.

“Yeah, just brush it off, Chica. She’ll come around,” Grace said.

I grabbed my bag from the stairs. “Thanks,” I whispered to them before going inside.

I felt as if the world around me had come crashing down in a matter of minutes. How do you repair your world when it’s shattered in a bunch of pieces?

Drew

With
my backpack draped across my shoulder, I strode with Preston down West Forty-Second Street in the heart of Manhattan. Sometimes we just walked the streets of New York because we had nothing better to do. We ended up near McDonald’s in Times Square, where loud music enticed tourists to come inside for a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. With the restaurant’s bright lights, loud music and big-screen televisions, we couldn’t resist going inside.

“Order me a chocolate shake,” Preston said. “I gotta find the restroom.”

He disappeared into the crowd of people, and I stood in the long never-ending line waiting to order Preston a shake and myself a large fries. Not that I needed to eat again after having pizza at Manny’s, but who could resist McDonald’s fries? Besides, the McDonald’s in Times Square was always a nice place to meet beautiful girls who might be visiting the city for a weekend. You could always tell who the tourists were. They were the ones looking up at the skyscrapers, with their video cameras in hand. Or they were the
ones who stopped in the middle of the sidewalk with no clue that they were holding up the foot traffic. You could always find tourists taking photographs with the life-size wax statue of Morgan Freeman or some other celebrity just outside the wax museum on West Forty-second Street.

Finally making it to the counter, I ordered Preston’s chocolate shake and a large order of fries. I spotted Preston having a conversation with a blond-haired girl wearing a short miniskirt and a cropped top with her stomach hanging out. She definitely wasn’t his type, and I could tell that she was invading his space.

Preston was reserved and laid-back. He was the guy who cared what girls were feeling or thinking, and he couldn’t bear to see a girl cry. Which is why his last girlfriend, Dusty, had walked all over him. She mistook his kindness for weakness. From then on, any girl who he ended up with him had to meet my approval. I became his conscience. I was the one who reminded him that he had enough money and enough charm to have any girl in the state of New York, or New Jersey for that matter.

“You just can’t be so eager, man,” I’d told him. “You have to play hard to get a little bit. Make ’em work for the love.”

“Make them work for it?” he’d asked with a laugh.

“You laugh, but I’m serious. That’s why you’re always heartbroken at the end of your relationships with women. You put too much of yourself into it. You can’t give them your all—not all at once.”

I think that he took my advice to heart, because right after that he dated three different girls all at once, and not one of them had captured his heart. From across the room it appeared that the blond-haired girl had accomplished what she’d set out to do: extort money from my very rich friend. He pulled out his wallet and pulled a bill out; handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said just as I walked up.

He gave her a grin, and I all but dragged him out of McDonald’s by his hair. He’d lived in this area all his life, and he still seemed more like a tourist than a native. Being rich didn’t allow you to interact with those who were less fortunate. Before Preston met me, he’d never even walked the streets of the city. He’d been chauffeur-driven most of his life—at least until he was able to drive himself around. Before last summer, he hadn’t ever tasted a real New York hot dog from a street vendor or ate a slice of Italian pizza. He’d never ridden the subway, tasted Junior’s cheesecake from the flagship Brooklyn restaurant or stopped for a latte at Starbucks in SoHo. He’d never been to any of the boroughs besides Manhattan. He’d been sheltered.

“What are you doing, man?” I asked after we were outside.

“She said she was hungry. Said she hadn’t eaten anything in two days.” He was serious.

“She was hustling you, man.”

“Really? No.”

“Yes,” I said. “She didn’t look hungry at all. If she hadn’t
eaten in two days, you should’ve taken her to the counter and bought her a cheeseburger instead of giving her cash.”

“She said she was going to the counter and ordering her food right away.”

I turned around just in time to see Preston’s blond-haired friend walking quickly down West Forty-Second Street—no cheeseburger, no large fry, no chocolate shake.

“You see that?” I pointed her out. “She hustled you.”

He laughed when he saw her. “She hustled me.”

Wearing nothing more than our T-shirts, boxer shorts and tube socks, Preston and I shot hoops using a pair of dress socks as the ball and a makeshift basketball goal—a trash can. He tried with everything he had to block my shot, but I was too smooth. I maneuvered around him with precision and shot the socks into the trash can.

“Two points!” I yelled.

“You win,” he said and then headed for the kitchen. “What you got to drink in here?”

I collapsed onto the sofa to catch my breath. ESPN was on mute on the flat-screen television, while Rihanna’s sexy voice rang loudly through my dad’s expensive speakers—a Caribbean-style song featuring Drake. I started dancing around the room as Preston tossed me a bottle of Gatorade. Having the house to myself for a weekend was not unusual, especially with a sportscaster father who traveled a lot. And it wasn’t unusual for Preston to hang out at my place for the weekend, or for me to hang out at his.

Without any adult supervision, we’d probably find ourselves playing sock basketball until we were tired or bored; whichever came first. I’d teach him a few hip-hop dances and laugh when he actually tried to do them. Around midnight, we’d take a walk into Midtown and grab some Korean food or a couple of cannoli from the late-night Sicilian place on the corner. In the past, we’d walked over to ESPN Zone and played a few video games—that is, before they closed down in New York.

As we listened to Mister Cee on Hot 97’s Friday Night Live, I bounced to the music. I had energy and the night was young. For some strange reason, I had an urge to talk to Mari; wondered what she was doing. With parents as strict as hers, she was probably in bed already. Unfortunately, I hadn’t taken the time to get her cell phone number, so contacting her would be a long shot.

“So what you wanna do, man?” I asked Preston.

“I got a taste for pancakes,” he said.

“Pancakes? At nine o’clock at night?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“There’s IHOP or Junior’s. Which one?” I asked.

“Junior’s!” he exclaimed. “In Brooklyn.”

“Why Brooklyn? There’s a Junior’s right here in Manhattan.”

“I bet the pancakes are better in Brooklyn,” he said and grinned, and then I knew. He was thinking of Jasmine and wanting to be close to her.

“Have you been talking to her?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Jasmine. That’s who.”

“Only at Manny’s a couple of times. I would like to talk to her more, but I don’t think she’s feeling me.”

“You gotta loosen up a little, man. You’re too uptight. And you gotta be a little more assertive. Ask the girl for her number,” I told him.

I’d watched him drool over Jasmine for days but never having the courage to ask her out. Whenever he threw any hints, she played him off. It seemed as if they were from two totally different worlds. Jasmine didn’t seem refined at all. She smoked cigarettes, which was a huge turnoff. She was from Bed-Stuy, which was a place I was sure that Preston had never set foot in. And if he ever visited there, he’d stick out like a sore thumb. A preppy white dude wearing a pair of Calvin Klein jeans, low-top Converses and an expensive blazer, who didn’t appear street-smart, shouldn’t be casually walking around some streets in Brooklyn.

“I’ll get around to it,” he said.

“When?”

“As soon as you ask Mari for hers,” he said matter-of-factly.

“What? I don’t need her number,” I said. “Well, maybe when she starts tutoring me in math…I’ll probably need it then or something…”

“Do you realize that you always say
or something
when you’re lying?”

“What? That’s dumb.”

“You do,” he said with a smile. “You like her, and you know you like her. Why don’t you just admit it?”

“I think she’s cool. She’s fun to hang out with…
or something.
”

“Let’s go to Brooklyn for pancakes,” Preston said.

Before I knew it, Preston and I were dressed in old, grubby sweats and on the subway headed for Brooklyn. Using his computer expertise, Preston had located an address and phone number for Jasmine. He called her and she’d agreed to meet us at Junior’s on Flatbush Avenue at midnight. For her to take the risk of sneaking out of the house that late, she was obviously as interested in Preston as he was in her.

Jasmine was already seated in a corner booth at Junior’s, a small boy next to her—his jaws filled with pancakes as she wiped syrup from his mouth. She gave us a wave as we entered the restaurant.

“Hi,” Preston smiled.

“Hi,” she said. “I went ahead and grabbed us a booth.”

“Thanks. That was very thoughtful,” Preston said and slid in next to Jasmine.

I removed my Yankees cap and took a seat also.

“Who are you?” asked the little boy.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Jasmine scolded him. “This is my little brother, Xavier. My parents work nights, so he had to tag along.”

As I watched Jasmine and Preston nervously chitchat
about absolutely nothing, I found myself staring at her. She was pretty, but I honestly couldn’t understand Preston’s infatuation with her. There were several pretty girls who would jump at the chance to be with him. Girls who were much more refined and way prettier. But for this girl, he was willing to ride the subway to Brooklyn in the middle of the night and order nothing more than a Diet Coke.

They were so caught up in their conversation that Xavier and I were completely ignored. I was bored.

“So you got Mari’s number?” I asked Jasmine.

“Why?”

“Because I wanna talk to her,” I said. “Can I have it?”

“Hmm…I don’t know. What do you need to talk to her about?”

“It’s personal.”

“I don’t know if I should be giving her number out. Especially if you’re planning on calling her right now.”

“Well, maybe you can call her and ask her if it’s okay.”

She pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her jacket; dialed a number.

“Hey, Mari, it’s me, Jasmine…”

After talking about everything else, including the dances that they’d learned during their lunch hour that day, Jasmine finally got around to asking Mari if she could pass her number on to me. She gave me a look as she continued her conversation.

After hanging up, she looked my way. “She said it’s cool.”

I keyed Mari’s number into my phone. I didn’t want to
seem too anxious, so I waited around before calling; pretended that it wasn’t that serious. In reality, I couldn’t wait to get her on the phone. I wondered if there was any chance that I could see her before heading back to Manhattan.

“I’m gonna step outside for some fresh air.” I made up an excuse to leave the table; needed privacy. I stepped out into the Brooklyn night air, pulled my cell phone out and dialed Mari’s number. She picked up on the second ring.

“Hello,” she said.

“What’s up, kid?” There was a smile in my voice, and I tried to hide it. “It’s Drew…from school.”

“Hi.” She sounded as if she’d been sleeping.

“Did I wake you?”

“Not really,” she said, but I could tell that I had.

“Guess where I am.”

“Brooklyn. Jasmine told me,” she said. “What are you doing in Brooklyn?”

“It’s Preston. He had a strong urge for Junior’s pancakes…so…”

“So you came all the way to Brooklyn for pancakes?” she giggled. “There’s a Junior’s in Manhattan.”

“Truth?” I asked.

“Truth.”

“Okay, Preston wanted to see Jasmine…badly.”

“Really? He must really like her.”

“He does, even though he won’t admit how much.”

“So, you just tagged along for the ride?”

“Pretty much,” I lied. “Any chance you can get out of the house?”

“Not a chance. They have chains on all the doors around here,” she said and laughed. “But it’s nice to know that you’re so close.”

Was she trying to pull my heartstrings? Because it was working.

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll talk to you later. Even though it’s Friday night and the night is still young…um…”

“Maybe you can call me when you get home,” she said. “You know…just to let me know that you made it there.”

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to be sleeping, are you?” I asked.

“I’ll wait up,” she said.

And with that, I went back inside. I was suddenly in a hurry to get home. I had a phone date—or something. Whatever it was, I was excited about it.

“Okay, bro. We need to get back to the city,” I told Preston. “Let’s wrap up this little rendezvous. Jasmine…nice seeing you again. Xavier, good to meet you…”

Xavier gave me a wide grin, and it was then that I noticed his missing two front teeth. I held my hand out, grabbed his little hand in mine and gave him a firm handshake.

“Stay in school,” I told him.

“Okay.” He giggled.

“So I guess I’ll see you at Manny’s on Monday,” Jasmine told Preston.

“I guess so,” Preston said, agreeing that Manny’s would be their next meeting place. “Can I call you a cab or something?”

“No. We’ll be fine.” She smiled. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, Manny’s on Monday.”

“You can call me tomorrow if you want to,” she told Preston.

“Can I call you tonight? Just to make sure that you and my new little friend here, Xavier, made it home safely.” He gave Xavier a high five.

“You can call me tonight,” said Jasmine.

I had to pry Preston kicking and screaming from Junior’s. I slipped my Yankees cap back onto my head as we walked to the subway station.