Efrain's Secret (7 page)

Suddenly a loud rattle comes from across the street. Awilda and her seven-year-old daughter Serenity come out of the Laundromat up the block. Serenity struggles to push a shopping cart overloaded with bloated canvas bags while Awilda juggles Rubio’s baby on her hip even as she drags a stroller behind her. Serenity hits a crack in the pavement, and the laundry cart pops, then spills. The loud clang it makes when it hits the concrete scares Rubio’s baby, and he shrieks. Awilda has her hands full because now the baby won’t go in the stroller so she can give her daughter a hand. Nestor calls Awilda’s name and motions for her to wait. He bounds down the steps and onto the sidewalk. “Ain’t you comin’?”

“Nah, man, I have to go check on Mandy.” My sister probably
sneaks over there after school while I work and then rushes home when she knows I should be on my way. Besides, the last thing I need is for Awilda to see me with Nestor and go flap to Rubio, who’ll bother my moms again.

Nestor shakes his head as if to say
That’s messed up
, so I shrug back to tell him
It’s like that
. If he wants to be chivalrous, I ain’t mad at him, but don’t hate on me because I have my own family to attend to.

In fact, it’s all I think about as I walk the three flights up to my apartment. My parents aren’t officially divorced, and my mother has too much pride to sic the courts on Rubio for child support. From time to time, he swings by the crib to give us money or hands Mandy some cash when he sees her playing outside, but that’s just it. From time to time, when it crosses Rubio’s mind, if Awilda’s not around to give him grief … In two words: never enough. And forget about hitting the man up for any money for something beyond the basics. What kind of man lets a woman tell him which of his kids he can and cannot father? Unless Awilda “tells” Rubio to do what he wants to do anyway.

Worst of all, my mother has to deal with this every day. Bad enough he played Moms dirty left and right; this time he had to go knock up some breezy around the way. Rubio wasn’t even man enough to tell her about the pregnancy himself. Sleazy Awilda waited until she was four months along, rolled into Yannis’s store, and lifted her T-shirt to show off her belly. “This,” she said, “is Rubio’s.” My mother had heard the gossip before then—we all did—but she refused to believe it until the proof was literally in her face.

So now Moms makes Mandy and me lug our dirty clothes to the Laundromat three blocks away. She claims that the dryers across the street cheat you out of two minutes of the ten your quarter is supposed to buy. Mandy believes her, but I know she
doesn’t want to bump into Awilda or any of her people. It’s one reason why I can’t wait to leave for college. I can’t stand to see the look on my mother’s face whenever that
mujeriego’s
in her line of sight or she overhears some humiliating
chisme
about his latest exploits. But when all you make is seven twenty-five an hour, running an errand a quarter mile out of your way is the only escape you can afford.

Oscillate
(
v
.) to sway from one side to the other

After I get upstairs and check in on Mandy, I jump on my college applications. When I started this process, I put myself on a schedule and stick to it. Homework can wait. Then I make the mistake of trying to tackle the financial aid forms on my own. Harvard costs thirty-two G’s. So does Princeton. Yale is thirty-five. If I did want to go to Columbia and decided to commute into Manhattan every day instead of moving into a dorm to save eight thousand dollars each year in room and board, tuition alone would still set me back thirty-seven grand. I lose my way in the stack of paper and figures, and I try so hard to refocus, I give myself a headache and have to lie down. Then the phone rings.

“You promised to call me, son,” yells Chingy.

“Man, I forgot.”

“Don’t make me go over there and chop you in the neck. You didn’t see GiGi yet, did you?”

“That’s what I forgot.”

“You must be on crack to forget that you had a date with Jessica Alba Junior.”

I laugh hard. Chingy just kills me with his lines. “I swear, kid, I forgot. A brother has a lot on the mind.”

“Even more reason to go over there.”

“Chingy, after struggling for the past two months in physics,
how am I going to roll up in Mr. Harris’s class with not one but two perfect assignments?”

“Yeah, that might make him suspicious.”

“You think?”

“Shut up, cuz. I’m trying to help you. Okay, when you get the assignment from GiGi, jack up enough of the answers to maintain your lousy average.”

“Ha, ha, ha.” I hear the call-waiting beep. When things are not hectic at the store, my mother calls to check in on us. “Yo, Chingy, my moms is on the line. Let me holla back at you in a few.”

“A’ight. One, cuz.”

The beep sounds again. “Peace.” I hit the Talk button on the cordless. “Hello?”

“Efrain!”

Who’s this strange girl screaming on me? Then it hits me. “GiGi?”

“Don’t get it twisted, Efrain,” she yells. “I have better things to do than finish your stupid physics homework and wait for you to come and get it.”

“GiGi, I’m really sorry,” I say, and I actually find myself meaning it. “It’s just that my mother works late, and I really can’t leave my little sister here by herself.” Not a total lie. Mandy’s not so young that I can’t leave her alone for a while sometimes. After all, she’s alone for two hours every school day while I tutor. But when it gets dark earlier, my mother’s not too keen on my leaving Mandy alone for too long. Truth is, I’m not too crazy about doing it either. I might hang out on the stoop, run to the bodega, or even catch a game of hoops with Chingy and some guys at People’s Park. But if Mandy really needs me, all she has to do is throw open a window and holler, because my family is the only one in the free world without cell phones.

“Oh.” GiGi almost sounds sorry, but in true girl fashion, she
doesn’t apologize, and Candace flashes through my mind. She says, “So, when are you coming over?”

“Man, GiGi, I appreciate you lookin’ out for me, I really do.” Again, I find myself meaning it. “But I just don’t think I’m going to make it over there tonight.”

GiGi sighs. “Well, how about I give you the answers over the telephone?”

“Yeah, that’s peace.” I reach for my worksheet and pen. “Ready when you are.”

As she gives me the answers, GiGi is mad sweet, sometimes even explaining the right answer to me. I think it actually makes her feel good to help, but I have mixed feelings about her attentiveness.

After giving me the final answer, GiGi yells, “Now you owe me, Efrain.”

All I say is, “All right, GiGi.” I knock on my desk. “But I gotta go now.”

“You owe me big-time!” GiGi finally hangs up on me.

I don’t know what she wants from me, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have it. I don’t have what
I
want, and I don’t even want it all. Being Brown and broke has been a seventeen-year-test in just how badly I want an average life. A life where doing the right thing is punished with the luxury of having to choose between the things I need and those that I want. Why does the valedictorian have to choose between his class ring and an SAT prep class? Why does a clean-cut teenager have to decide between showing up to his minimum-wage job and going to the movies with the most popular girl in school? Why do I have to fight so hard just for the mere chance to have it all?

A real knock on my door interrupts my funky train of thoughts. “Efrain, are you there?”

“C’mon in, Mami.”

My mother pokes her head through my door. “You okay, honey?”

“Just studying.”

“Did you eat?”

“No, I got caught up in homework. I was thinking of just running down to the pizzeria for a slice.”

“That’s a good idea.” My mother reaches into her pocket and pulls out a twenty. “Why don’t you pick up a pie for all of us?”

“Save that,” I say as I slip on my kicks. “My treat.”

My moms smiles at me in that sad way of hers and leaves the room. Did she always look like that when she smiled, and I’m only noticing it now because she has reason to be sad? Or has all the drama with Rubio broken her smile? Can I do anything to fix it even though I’m just a son? Can Moms stand strong for Mandy until I can reach back to them?

Mandy sits in the living room watching a stupid reality show where a bunch of D-listers move in together and work each other’s nerves, hoping to convince the network to give them their
own
stupid reality show. “Turn off that garbage,” I tease as I head for the apartment door.

She jumps to her feet and catches up to me. “Efrain, can I go with you to the pizzeria?” Before I can answer, she reaches for her jacket. Oh, so now she has love for her big brother.

“Nah, stay here.” I didn’t mean to snap at her. It’s just that I really wasn’t hungry, never mind craving pizza. I just needed an excuse to go outside without raising my mother’s suspicions, and I can’t risk Mandy overhearing my conversation. To make up for my nastiness, I ask, “So what you want, Beyoncé? Pepperoni or sausage? How ’bout both?”

She cuts me a look. “I don’t care.” Then Mandy spins around and marches back into the living room. Poor thing’s been cooped up in the apartment all afternoon.

“Okay, I’ll get half and half.” I can’t be mad at her. And she’ll get over it.

When I hit the sidewalk, I cross the street toward the bodega where Nestor plies his trade. “What’s up, E.?” He’s with two other guys that are usually out there with him. The corner boys wish me peace, and I return the favor. In a neighborhood like mine, you don’t turn your nose up at the thugs just because you don’t roll with them. You holler but keep it moving to avoid static. My moms taught me that so I wouldn’t be book smart but street dumb. That’s the kind of thing a son should learn from his father, but Rubio was too busy looking for younger women to turn into single mothers.

Without breaking my stride, I say to Nestor, “Yo, roll with me to the pizzeria, kid. I need to holler at you about something.”

“No doubt,” says Nestor as he falls into step behind me. “What’s up?”

“Can you hook me up with a job?”

Obstinate
(adj.)
not yielding easily, stubborn

Although I’ve been to Hunts Point to shop for clothes on Southern Boulevard, I’ve never walked through the neighborhood on the other side of the Bruckner. At first, it doesn’t seem much different than mine in Port Morris. There are tenement buildings and walkups, bodegas and
lechoneras
, liquor stores and nightclubs. As Nestor leads me farther away from the highway, it becomes less residential—huge loft buildings, with no lights through the broken, dusty windows. On one side of the street is a McDonald’s with an indoor playground, but on the other side is a strip club. A group of young girls strut down the avenue, trying to act grown.

Nestor juts his chin toward them. “Little hos.”

“Malo.”
I jab him in the arm. “You wrong for that.”

Nestor jabs me back. “For real, those little girls are on the stroll.”

“You’re kidding me?” I stare at one wearing a jacket that looks just like one Mandy owns. The thick eyeliner and heavy lipstick can’t hide that she is not a day over thirteen. She turns and catches me. When she flutters her lashes, I look away.

Within minutes Nestor leads me to the most industrial part of the neighborhood, practically at the Bronx River. There are large factories with garages wide enough for trucks. I ask, “Just where are you taking me, kid?”

“Right here.” Nestor leads me to this small door a few yards
down from a closed garage. He pulls out a cell phone and dials a number. He says, “Yeah, it’s Nes with my boy E. We’re outside. Okay.”

We wait for a minute, and the door opens. The Black guy behind it seems a bit older than we are. From the Pelle Pelle leather jacket on his back to the Air Tour Spectators on his feet, he’s official. “What’s up, son?” Nestor grips his hand, and they pull toward each other for what my sister calls an “ug.” She says that boys don’t get close enough to each other, so they should never call it a hug. The guy catches me smiling at the thought, so I switch up my grille so he won’t think I’m an herb.