Love on the Ledge (3 page)

I kiss my dreams of a few laps in the pool goodbye. Missing breakfast would require an explanation. They’d think I was skipping meals. They’d think I was in my room crying (again). I throw on a pair of plaid shorts and a surf-green polo. I tie my hair back in a ponytail and skip my contacts for glasses. I’ll make it to a body of water eventually.

Down in the dining room, Las Viejas, Uncle Pepe and Tony, Leti, and cousin Maria are already eating.

“Good morning,” I say as cheerily as I can.

Maria is a teacher at a Catholic high school in the Bronx. She dresses like she’s a middle-aged real estate agent, and acts like she’s one of Las Viejas instead of twenty-five and single.

Only when she waves at me, she makes sure I see the rock on her finger. Make that twenty-five and engaged.

“So,” Maria says, “I hear you’re taking time off?”

My mom makes a face. She touches the gold necklace she always wears—a gold stamp of the Virgin Mary.

“Yeah,” I say with a smile on my face. I take the orange juice and pour myself a glass. “There wasn’t really room for me to grow in the unit. I’m thinking of going into social work.”

“Wouldn’t you have to go back to school?” Maria asks.

There are people in your life who are secretly rooting for you to fail. They disguise themselves with smiling faces and fake wishes of success. Maria is this person in my life. Ever since she was little she was right beside me competing for grades, Uncle Pepe’s attention, Abuela Gloria’s favor.

“Only for a year or two,” I say. “I was going to get my master’s no matter what. At least I would be doing something I actually want this time.”

Uncle Pepe holds out his glass. “Whatever you need, love. I’ll be there for you if you want ten master’s.”

I smile sheepishly, and Maria’s lips pinch like she ate a lemon.

“Isn’t it scary?” Maria asks. “Starting over?”

“I’m not starting over,” I say, adding extra cream cheese to my bagel.

She shrugs and takes sliced cheese and ham onto her plate. She butters her bread with the thinnest layer. “New school, new career. You’d hardly have time to have a life.”

My left eye twitches. It’s the Maria twitch. Every time she finds a good dig, my eye does an irritated cha-cha. “I like to think of it as a continuation of the path I was on.”

Leti yawns loudly. “You could also come with me to Amsterdam. They have medical schools there. Way better than here, FYI.”

I give Leti a look that I hope will calm her. The two of them have hated each other since Maria told on Leti about Leti’s belly button piercing in high school. There was nothing we could do to get back at Maria. She’s saint-like, in addition to being a judgmental, nosy biatch.

“Leti!” my mom groans. “Don’t put ideas in her head.”

Yes, God forbid I get ideas of traveling the world.

Aunt Salomé nods. “Just because you abandoned your mother doesn’t mean Sky has to do the same.”

“Ma,” Leti says, giving her mom a smothering hug. “I didn’t abandon you.”

“What’s in Amsterdam?” Maria asks.

“Hookers and ganja,” Leti says, winking her long lashes at Maria.

Aunt Salomé slaps Leti’s arm playfully. Pepe giggles to himself. My mom purses her lips and cuts her breakfast sandwich in half. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they’re siblings.

Maria grumbles deeply. “Sky doesn’t need that in her life on top of everything.”

My ears burn. My mom says that your ears burn when someone is talking about you behind your back. It’s some superstitious crap—Maria’s not doing it behind my back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I drop my fork and it clatters against my plate. I feel someone place a hand on top of mine, but I pull my hand away.

“I mean your life is kind of a mess,” she says. “I’m sorry, but someone has to say it. You had a good job, a relationship. Now you’re living at home again. Running around a city like Amsterdam isn’t exactly going to do you any favors.”

I stand so quickly that my chair falls backward onto the floor and echoes in the quiet of the dining room.

“Sky,” they call after me. “Come back.”

All except Maria.

I walk out back where the ruckus of hammers and wood provides a barrier between my family and me. I go past the crystal blue pool and the lawn that’s going to be the stage for the wedding in a few weeks, until I reach the line of trees that leads to a small patch of woods.

In the shade of a tree, I sit on the grass and lean my head back against the trunk. I wonder whether, if I sit here long enough, a deer will come out from the woods. I’ll be like the Snow White of West Hampton Beach. When we were in high school, Leti and I would sit really still and wait for deer to sneak into the backyard to eat the leaves on Uncle’s Tony’s fancy bushes.

The rustle behind me makes me jump up. I’m expecting to see an animal, but instead there’s him.

Hayden Robertson the Third.

Tripp.

Don’t call him that, Sky
, I tell myself.
That’s not a real name
.

He’s wearing a t-shirt that covers that glorious torso, and that charming smile. There’s a toolbelt around his waist. He’s like a blue-collar Batman.

“Nurse,” he says, “I’m so glad you’re here. I have this pain I want you to take a look at.”

I glance at the house. They’re all still at breakfast. No one’s going to come for me.

His eyes are so blue. Bluer than the summer sky. Bluer than the pool. So blue I want to jump into them and swim as many laps as it would take to get lost.

“Yeah?” I ask, laughing. Usually when guys say this to me it sounds smarmy. When Hayden says it, I know he’s just being cute. “Where?”

I love the way he looks at me. It’s like he takes in every part of my body. My face, my neck, my breasts, my thighs. He lingers everywhere.

He takes the pencil tucked behind his ear and taps it once, twice, over his heart.

I laugh. “That’s terrible. How did that happen?”

He shrugs. “You wouldn’t tell me your name.”

And just like that all the ugliness I was feeling vaporizes with a turn of his smile.

“It’s pretty easy to guess,” I say. “All you have to do is look up.”

His brow furrows. He parts his lips to say something. I could just tell him. It’s not that big of a deal. But there’s something about him that makes me want to be playful. Something I haven’t felt in such a long time. It’s wonderful and ridiculous.

“Tripp!” Mr. Robertson walks towards the tree line and stops when he sees me. “Sorry to bother you.”

I shake my head. “No bother. I was just taking a walk.”

Hayden taps his toolbelt. I forgot he’s working and didn’t just appear to brighten my day because I keep thinking about him.

“I have the measurements, Dad.”

“Then get to it. Stop bothering the young lady.”

“He’s not bothering me,” I say.

The old man furrows his brow and turns around as if I didn’t say anything. “Get back to work. You’ve got a lot of free labor to do.”

Hayden follows after his dad, but not before he winks at me and digs the end of his pencil into his chest one more time.

I roll my eyes and pretend he doesn’t make my insides flutter like petals in a sweet breeze. He doesn’t take his gaze off me as we walk parallel to each other across the lawn. So to hide from the blazing sun, the sear of his blue eyes, and the gossiping tongues of my family, I do the one thing I’ve wanted to do since I woke up—I dive headfirst into the pool, clothes and all.

I hold a white lily up to my mother’s nose. “I like this one.”

“Too funeral,” my mom says, batting it away. We’re picking out flowers for the wedding, and my mom insisted on coming along.

“Didn’t you hear?” I tell her. “That’s what my generation calls getting married. Sorry Pepe.”

“You don’t have to tell me,
nena
.” He faux pushes me away. “I’m the last person I thought would ever get hitched.”

“Because all your ex-boyfriends could populate Texas?”

He sucks his teeth, and my mom doesn’t look amused.

“Don’t encourage her,” my mom says.

Pepe isn’t a typical uncle. Most of my uncles are middle-aged with mustaches and bellies that show how many beers they’ve had over the years. Pepe is fit from his days as a celebrity trainer. He’s middle-aged but doesn’t act like it. He’s more like a brother than anything else. Hence, I’m his maid of honor.

“And don’t talk like that, Sky,” my mom says, followed by an exasperated sigh. “It’ll happen for you. I got married late—twenty-three.”

It’s hard to think that at my age my mother already had a husband and a child on the way. That life is so far away from my plans, yet here it is being shoved in my face while I plan someone else’s happily-ever-after.

Pepe’s hip starts to flash. His phone is programmed to do that when it rings, which is seizure-inducing. “It’s Paris,” he says excitedly, then puts his hand over the phone and adds, “The
country
.”

He’s not usually so boastful, but the family deserves it after the way they treated him growing up.

My mom shakes her head, and I can see her clutch her purse tightly, the way she does when she wants to make the sign of the cross over her body and say a prayer. But she doesn’t. Instead, she takes all of that pent-up family guilt and turns it over to me. I’m such a winner.

“We’ve been trying to pick wedding flowers for hours. It’s not your wedding, and they both said they like the sunflowers,” I say.

“Sunflowers don’t say wedding by the beach. It says wedding on a farm.”

“Ma, no it doesn’t. And also, the ceremony is at their house, not on the beach. Just trust me, okay?”

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

I have a flashback of my mother standing in my way at the door to our old apartment, back when she had two jobs and always looked tired. Back before Pepe told her he’d take care of her the way she did for him when he was little. I’d be going to the library and she’d pitch a fit. River never had that issue. Then again, maybe if her parents had paid more attention, River wouldn’t have gotten into so much trouble over the years.

My mom didn’t need to tell me to stay away from boys. I got that all on my own from watching the tears my mom shed every day over my father’s infidelities. Still, she didn’t let a day pass without insinuating that I was doing everything except studying. Back then, the worst thing that could have happened to me was getting pregnant. Why has that changed only ten years later? Why is the absence of a man and the promise of that same baby also bad, only in a different way?

“I’m not in a hurry. We’ve just been here for hours. These sandals are giving me blisters. It’s hot as balls, even in the AC, and you’re driving me crazy.”

“
No me hables así
, Sky Magdalena Lopez. I gave birth to you.”

That “I gave birth to you” argument is going to follow me around forever. Why do Latin mothers, or maybe all mothers, like to hold that over our heads?

I gave birth to you, wash the dishes.

I gave birth to you, get a 4.0 GPA.

I gave birth to you, I’m not going to die without being a grandma.

“That’s not my fault,” I say, and receive an old-fashioned smack on the back of the head. Fine, I deserve that. But being around her makes me revert back to a teenager, and those were the worst years of my life.

“Are you seeing someone we don’t know about?”

“What? No.” Hayden’s face, his impossibly beautiful face, flashes in my mind’s eye, and I’m sure a blush spreads across my body.

“Sky, I’m worried about you.” She pinches the bridge of her nose.

The tension goes out of my body because I hate when she’s upset. I put a hand on her shoulder. “I know, Ma.”

“Are you sure you can’t work things out with Bradley?”

I snatch back my hand from her shoulder like she’s made of acid.

“Don’t be dramatic, Sky. You know what I mean. Men are weak. You can’t always blame them. Sometimes, they can’t get everything they need from you, so they have to—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, Ma.”

“I want you to have financial stability. If you won’t give Bradley another chance, then I know a nice young doctor. You might remember him—”

“Can you stop?” I want to tear my hair from my skull. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need someone else’s checkbook.”

“Sky.” She tries to reach for me but I take a step back, sending a delicate vase full of soft pink flowers shattering to the ground. “Listen to me.”

“
No
. I don’t care how much Bradley is worth on paper. I’d rather not have a dime to my name than let him touch me ever again. I’m not like you.”

I turn away from her, pushing away the tears that swell in my eyes and put on a smile that I don’t feel. The front door jingles.

A sales lady comes running from some storage room with a crease on her forehead.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, choking on the sorry. “I’m here for the Vargas-Antonucci wedding. We’ll take a mix of the white and blush tea roses for the aisle. Sunflowers for the centerpieces. White and sunflower mixes for the four bouquets. And I’ll pay for that vase separately.”

The sales lady’s frown quickly disappears when I hand her my credit card.

No amount of money will fix my broken heart, but at least it’ll pay for this broken vase.

• • •

After we get home from the florist, I sit on my balcony sipping a bottle of water, and my heart does a little flip when I see Hayden standing in the center of the lawn, towards the line of trees, hammering a platform together. I suddenly realize that almost every guy I’ve ever dated has been blond.

My dad was short, but muscular. He never shaved his mustache, and it was always a glossy black. His skin was darker than mine and he never smiled. He wasn’t the kind of man who chased after skirts. He was that angry, silent man who made women want to know why he was so serious. It made them come to him.

I’ve made sure that every guy I’ve dated is nothing like my father physically, and somehow I still ended up in the same situation as my mom. Maybe it has nothing to do with race or culture. Maybe my mom’s right, men are weak. That doesn’t mean I have to be weak as well.