“No reason they can’t get into both,” Zwena counters, pulling the girls in for a group hug and not letting go.
“I’m only paying for Princeton,” I reply, pointing my spatula back and forth between Lou and Coco. Currently, I can’t pay for either, but I don’t fool around when it comes to my daughters’ education.
“So, you almost killed Mrs. Eisenberg, eh?” Zwena asks, finally letting go of Lou and Coco so she can open the fridge in search of dipping sauce.
This morning I invited Krish and Zwena over for dinner with the lure of one of my tía Fernanda’s recipes and juicy airport gossip. Krish is busy covering a couple of extra shifts for sick coworkers, saving up for yet another turntable, but when I hinted to Zwena that I almost killed someone, she came right over.
“Murder is never good, my friends,” Zwena warns in her thick Kenyan accent like she’s doling out words to live by. Coco’s and Lou’s eyes go wide.
“I did not actually almost kill Mrs. Eisenberg,” I assure, squashing Zwena’s attempt to spread fake news. “I accidentally ejected her out of her wheelchair, that’s all.” Cooking over a cast iron skillet feels like August in San Juan, but still I shiver from yesterday’s near miss fresh in my mind.
“Then tell us what happened.”
I hold up a finger to Zwena indicatingone minute.
“Girls, get out of here and go finish your winter break homework. I know what you have due in language arts, Ms. Martin and I talk.” If my wayward husband’s parents are helping me pay for Saint Anne, I’m getting our money’s worth of teacher time and attention.
“Aw, Mom, when are you going to stop checking up on us?” Coco whines, always demanding more freedom than she’s earned. Lou stays quiet, focused on figuring out how the adhesive works on her new nails.
“When you two graduate from college, that’s when. Nowout.” Marking my words, Zwena stamps her foot and swiftly points to the kitchen door, trying on the strict-aunt persona. The four of us double over in hysterics. Zwena doesn’t have a stern bone in her body when it comes to my girls, her love for them limitless. And bylimitless, I mean she spoils them with all the little extras I have to say no to as the family accountant. Lou plucks a couple of sorullitos off the paper towel, hands one to her sister, and high-fives Zwena over the awesomeness of press-on nails on the way to their room.
When the girls have cleared the stairs, I drop a few more sorullitos in the skillet and turn to Zwena. “Mrs. Eisenberg’s grandson isBah-lack,” I enunciate as if the word has two syllables. Zwena pulls her head back in disbelief. Mydoubt me if you want toexpression doesn’t crack.
“Are you for real? You’re telling me that Betty White has a dark-skinned grandson?” I nod, refuting Zwena’s doubt. “How exactly does that work?”
“I didn’t climb all up in the Eisenberg family tree, Z. What I do know is Mrs. Eisenberg’s granddaughter, Livy, is White, but her grandson, Ash, is a full-on brotha.” I give Zwena another minute to ponder this fact. I’ve been pondering it since last night.
“And on top of that shocking truth, right there in front of carousel six, my past and my present collided.”
“Don’t tell me while you were doing wheelies with Mrs. Eisenberg, you ran into your ex bringing his namaste nonsense back to town. You know I have no tolerance whatsoever for Simon Evans. Plus, I thought we were done with him.”
“You know he is not my ex yet. He is Coco and Lou’s father, so no, we do not get to be done with Simon.”
“Hey, you’re the one who started going by Arroyo within weeks of Simon leaving, so I thought we were.” Zwena makes a slashing motion at her throat, demonstrating exactly how much tolerance she does not have for my runaway spouse.
“Back on track, Z, this drama has nothing to do with that one. Last night was compliments of my pre-Simon past. Think: young Toni.”
As a child, I was a little girl who liked to blow shit up. After school when other kids were at the playground, double Dutching in parking lots or playing kickball in dead-end alleys, I would be mixing up all kinds of concoctions like watered-down dish soap, peanut butter, and iodized salt, keeping detailed notes of my ingredients and their reaction upon interaction.
Every other Friday when my dad got paid, he entrusted me with enough money to grab my twin brothers and walk them down to the corner store to buy candy and soda from Mr. Kim. While David and Gabriel fought over what they should choose in the chips aisle, I always chose the same two things: Mentos and a sixteen-ounce plastic bottle of Diet Coke.
I would put on the safety goggles I’d begged my parents for, drop the packet of Mentos into the open bottle, hop back several feet, and watch the fountain erupt. When the soda settled, I would measure the highest point and the widest width the liquid had splashed across the stucco and record the date and data. And then I’d wash the stickiness off with the garden hose before my mother called me in for chores.
I was the independent, bookish eldest child of the passionate Afro–Puerto Rican pairing of my father, Sebas, who made the living, and my mother, Gloria, who made sure Sebas’s life was worth living. Six days a week my dad went to work managing a Safeway across town, where his suave personality made him wildly popular with men and women alike, and my mom ruled the home and, by default, us kids. My parents weresecure in their roles and in their marital love, and our home was filled with a solid example of a true and traditional partnership.
I remember sitting on my parents’ bed for hours watching my mom get ready for her Saturday nights out at salsa clubs with Papi. When my mom caught a rhythm, my dad’s eyes danced like it was the very first moment he had ever seen her. As Mami meticulously put her face together, she would recite her beauty tricks on how to draw a cat eye with black liner, rub in rouge atop cheekbones, and put on nylons without creating a run. I know my mom thought she was imparting the skills necessary to grow into my womanhood, but all I was wondering was if her mascara brush could clean a pipette.
My parents left Las Marías and ended up in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill. All they ever heard in church, on the Muni bus, or at Safeway was how attractive I was and what a blessing I would be to a man one day. My caramel-colored skin, smooth like a sucked-on Werther’s Original candy, was neither blanquito nor negrito. Soft, loose, dark curls and hazel eyes as large as quarters were compliments of my Black mother and my blue-eyed Spanish father. My beauty was what my parents saw, even when my report cards proved that I was far more than a pretty face.
When I was nearly fifteen, I earned a distinguished California state science student award and was invited to summer camp at the University of California, Los Angeles. As much as my father tried to work the numbers, my parents couldn’t afford to send me, and my mother was completely mystified as to why I would choose a college campus over a summer quinceañera.
Undeterred from attending, that spring, while my mom cruised secondhand shops for dresses to mark my “becoming a woman,” I nearly put Mr. Kim and his corner store out of business I was slinging candy bars and Skittles so hard in my high school hallways.
I promised my parents a delayed fifteenth celebration, and that summer on the UCLA campus, I found my people and I found my place. Just like me, the other four hundred students from all over California wanted nothing more than to study physics, chemistry, andbiology. This was a community of people who, though few looked like me, also liked to blow shit up. When I started my sophomore year in high school, I had a singular goal: earning a full ride to UCLA for college. Nothing but my grades mattered to me. My mom was constantly trying to get me to hang out with at least one of the boys who tried to holler at me, but I was too busy dating the periodic table. When spending time with elements, there’s always a spark.
Staying true to myself, while living with parents who pinned their hopes and dreams on my younger twin brothers and only marriage prospects on me, took monumental conviction. I appeased my mother’s concern for my lack of interest in boys by spending Friday nights at the movies with her catching the latest romantic comedy. What my mom didn’t realize is that while she thought these movies full of meet-cutes and anticipated first kisses in the rain would spark my interest in dating, what they did was make me believe that holding out for a Mr. Right like my dad, versus a Mr. Right Now, was worth the wait.
Once I got my acceptance spring of my senior year in high school, I refused to let anything stop me from going to UCLA to become a Bruin.
