LINA
It was the Long Hot Summer of Jimmy Ruffin and The Underdogs,Loving v. Virginia, Newark and Detroit. Twenty-three-year-old Lina Rodriguez Armstrong stood on Livonia Avenue below a sign that saidCHOW MEIN HERE!
Hands on her hips, she squinted at a piece of paper taped to the door of the building.
RESTERANT CLOSED. ROOMS FOUR RENT —
CALL MR. WONG 212-525-3959.
In high school, she’d eaten there while on a date with a guy named Ricardo. She hadn’t felt anything for Ricardo, but that egg roll had been something else. All that yellow crunch, that tasty mix of carrots, pork, and cabbage—she could survive on a desert island with a bunch of those.
She looked up and noticed that one of the windows was planked with wood. Had some boys broken in and robbed the Chinese restaurant?Shame on y’all. Where am I supposed to get my egg rolls?
She was on the hunt for her first apartment, and what a kick it would be to live in the old restaurant. While she was copying down the number on the back of her mother’s pharmacy receipt, she heardthe train hurtling into the station, then the meow of a kitten. It was eyeing her from behind a pillar of the elevated rail.
“Miss Kitty!” she exclaimed. “What do ya think, should I try this place out?”
The kitten stared unblinkingly.
“I could get used to the El. I don’t mind it, do you?”
Lured by the warmth of Lina’s voice, the kitten gradually emerged into view and crept toward Lina until they were nearly in reach of each other. Yet as soon as Lina squatted to pet the creature, the cat darted away and across the street.
“I’ll take that as a yes!”
That night, back at Van Dyke Houses, Lina dialed the number and spoke to a man who said that the “big room” was still available for rent—only fifty bucks a month. She should come by the place with her stuff next week.
It was going to be her first pad. And she’d worked for it: since graduating with her bachelor’s from City College, she’d earned her teacher’s certificate while also working as an assistant to a SoHo artist who made sculptures with rotted beef steaks. At least she’d earned enough from that job to pay back her mami’s medical bills and save cash for a security deposit.
Now it was finally time to move out of her family’s apartment. Altogether, there were eight of them squeezed into that two-bedroom at Van Dyke Houses. Lina loved kids, but not enough to take craps in the next-door neighbor’s bathroom. She didn’t want to leave Brownsville, though; she’d just been hired to teach art at J.H.S. 271. She wanted to be close enough to keep watch over her nieces Gabby and Tania, especially on the evenings her sister Sofia went to accounting class.
The following week, Lina packed paintbrushes and sketchbooks in a suitcase and the spare caldero in a cardboard box, then loaded up her mother’s laundry cart. Dragging the cart in one hand andholding her suitcase in the other, a lampshade on top of her head, she pushed her things the ten blocks from Van Dyke to Canton Kitchen.
Lina was tall with spaghetti limbs, though her chest wasn’t as flat as she would have liked. She had a frizzy Afro that her little sisters begged her to straighten, and thick arched eyebrows that Callie had said made her look like Frida Kahlo. Though she preferred a pair of jeans and sneakers, her mother insisted on a skirt and tights that morningto make a “buena impresión” on “el lanlor.”And yes, she was a chocolate girl, though as her father had liked to say, she was Sugar Baby brown, darker than her Caramel Cream sisters, lighter than her Peppermint Patty brothers. In high school, a bunch of guys had chased her: Black boys, Puerto Rican boys—none of them could take a hint. When she told them she would rather join the Carmelites, they thought she was playing hard to get. Some still thought she was ready for the taking, and her mother wasn’t helping. All summer, Isabella had been trying to pair Lina with that Boricua Sunday school teacher.
When Lina reached the block, she found the restaurant owner waiting on the sidewalk. She recognized him, had seen him taking orders. Suddenly, she found herself wanting to know everything about him. When had he come to America? Could he teach her how to say her name in Chinese, and how to write it with a calligraphy brush?
Mr. Wong was short and muscled, and with the pomade in his jet-black hair, she thought he styled himself more like an Italian than a Chinese.
“You the girl?”
“Yeah,” she said, tucking her lamp hat beneath one elbow and stretching out the opposite hand. “Glad to meet you, sir.”
Ignoring her hand, he rummaged in his pocket for the keys.
“This key goes in the lower lock and this one in the top lock.”
It was a half-Chinese, half-Brooklynese accent, syllables sharp, but ther’s knocked off. “You lock both, coming in and out, and you lock the windows when you leave.”
On the first floor, she heard the laughter of several brothers from the American South, thenAlvin and the Chipmunkson a record player. Already, the place felt homey.
The building must have been a hundred years old or more—the stairs so worn that the steps dipped like spoons. She was remembering more about that date with Ricardo: the way he’d wanted to hold hands even while they were climbing the tapering staircase.
And then she remembered, her brother Lou had liked the restaurant. Lou had loved Chinese food: shrimp dumplings, beef lo mein. Before his deployment, he’d even joked that he’d be fine over there. A chance to try Vietnamese food.
Swallowing her thoughts, Lina refocused her attention on dragging the heavy suitcase up the stairs.
“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been living in Brooklyn?”
