legs. They grew back thick and dark after I cut them. I didn’t show him mine, but I wanted to so he’d stop thinking he was so much more grown up. And he smelled funny. Deodorant, he said. Something called Right Guard. It was strong, like mouthwash; even after he left the room, I could still smell him.
The first night, after we pulled the boys’ cots onto the porch and tented them in mosquito nets, we sat on the veranda eating fried chicken and tostones . With Blake there, we didn’t fit at our table anymore. So we sat on the benches outside and held our plates in our laps, listening to Omar talk like he knew everything in the world. I wanted to remind him of what a coward he’d been the summer before, when we’d played Dare. I wanted to tell Blake how he’d whimpered in the dark outside the jíbaros bar. He might have forgotten that in the States, but I was here. I remembered everything.
“I want to be a baseball player,” he announced, his mouth crunchy and slick. He wore a Yankees cap, and his eyes shone as black as beetles beneath.
“I’m going to practice all summer with Blake. We got all the stuff.” He pulled a glove and some balls from his bag.
I didn’t know much about baseball, but I knew you needed a bat, and I didn’t see that in there. “Real baseball players have bats. You got one, or you plan to use a stick?”
Mamá frowned at me and Papi wrinkled his brow, but I didn’t care. They could be mad, it didn’t matter; they were having another baby anyhow.
“I got ten bats at home. They didn’t fit in my suitcase.” He eyed me from underneath his cap, then picked plantain from his teeth.
I missed Omar, but I couldn’t tell him that. Not with Blake around. Not while he was acting all high and mighty. So, instead, I let how I felt about Mamá and Papi spill onto him. I didn’t know how to feel about Blake yet. He was a guest, and I’d been raised not to be rude to guests. Family was one thing. They were part of you. You could hate your leg for cramping up or your eye for twitching. You could be mad all you wanted at your parts, but in the end, they were still there. You wouldn’t be you if you cut them off. All the families in our barrio were related somehow, and the ones that weren’t blood were at least Boricua. There weren’t any strangers.
But Blake was a stranger to me, to my island, to everybody. I didn’t want to like him. I tried to ignore him at first—speaking a mix of Spanish and English whenever he was nearby, so he wouldn’t know what was going on. Sohe would know I knew more than he did. This was my home. He talked funny, too. Omar said he was from some-place called Amherst County in Virginia, and even though it was in the States, it was a lot like Puerto Rico. Blake grew up on a finca with chickens and goats and some of the same crops we had: corn and tobacco. He called his papi just plain “Pa” and it made me laugh every time he said it. His family had to sell their finca because they had bad crops, and his pa had to get work in the city driving a delivery truck. That’s how they ended up on Omar’s street.
He was pale and blond and blue-eyed and looked like the brother of the Simplicity girl I’d chopped up. The first day he was out in the sun, he burned blister-red and Mamá broke every stem of the aloe vera plant to rub on his face and shoulders. He didn’t cry, though, didn’t make one sound when the bubbles oozed yellow and left pink holes in his skin. I’d never seen skin do that. Not Puerto Rican skin, at least. I wondered if it would grow back brown like mine, if he was shedding his old skin for island skin. When he first got burned, I was glad he was in pain, glad that my island sun had hurt him, but then he tanned over and his eyes shone brighter than before. He was changing, becoming more Puerto Rican and less American. I wondered if that happened both ways.
But it wasn’t just his outside that was different. When he first came, he was quiet
The first night, after we pulled the boys’ cots onto the porch and tented them in mosquito nets, we sat on the veranda eating fried chicken and tostones . With Blake there, we didn’t fit at our table anymore. So we sat on the benches outside and held our plates in our laps, listening to Omar talk like he knew everything in the world. I wanted to remind him of what a coward he’d been the summer before, when we’d played Dare. I wanted to tell Blake how he’d whimpered in the dark outside the jíbaros bar. He might have forgotten that in the States, but I was here. I remembered everything.
“I want to be a baseball player,” he announced, his mouth crunchy and slick. He wore a Yankees cap, and his eyes shone as black as beetles beneath.
“I’m going to practice all summer with Blake. We got all the stuff.” He pulled a glove and some balls from his bag.
I didn’t know much about baseball, but I knew you needed a bat, and I didn’t see that in there. “Real baseball players have bats. You got one, or you plan to use a stick?”
Mamá frowned at me and Papi wrinkled his brow, but I didn’t care. They could be mad, it didn’t matter; they were having another baby anyhow.
“I got ten bats at home. They didn’t fit in my suitcase.” He eyed me from underneath his cap, then picked plantain from his teeth.
I missed Omar, but I couldn’t tell him that. Not with Blake around. Not while he was acting all high and mighty. So, instead, I let how I felt about Mamá and Papi spill onto him. I didn’t know how to feel about Blake yet. He was a guest, and I’d been raised not to be rude to guests. Family was one thing. They were part of you. You could hate your leg for cramping up or your eye for twitching. You could be mad all you wanted at your parts, but in the end, they were still there. You wouldn’t be you if you cut them off. All the families in our barrio were related somehow, and the ones that weren’t blood were at least Boricua. There weren’t any strangers.
But Blake was a stranger to me, to my island, to everybody. I didn’t want to like him. I tried to ignore him at first—speaking a mix of Spanish and English whenever he was nearby, so he wouldn’t know what was going on. Sohe would know I knew more than he did. This was my home. He talked funny, too. Omar said he was from some-place called Amherst County in Virginia, and even though it was in the States, it was a lot like Puerto Rico. Blake grew up on a finca with chickens and goats and some of the same crops we had: corn and tobacco. He called his papi just plain “Pa” and it made me laugh every time he said it. His family had to sell their finca because they had bad crops, and his pa had to get work in the city driving a delivery truck. That’s how they ended up on Omar’s street.
He was pale and blond and blue-eyed and looked like the brother of the Simplicity girl I’d chopped up. The first day he was out in the sun, he burned blister-red and Mamá broke every stem of the aloe vera plant to rub on his face and shoulders. He didn’t cry, though, didn’t make one sound when the bubbles oozed yellow and left pink holes in his skin. I’d never seen skin do that. Not Puerto Rican skin, at least. I wondered if it would grow back brown like mine, if he was shedding his old skin for island skin. When he first got burned, I was glad he was in pain, glad that my island sun had hurt him, but then he tanned over and his eyes shone brighter than before. He was changing, becoming more Puerto Rican and less American. I wondered if that happened both ways.
But it wasn’t just his outside that was different. When he first came, he was quiet
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