“What are you talking about? I get surprised.” She thinks I’m calm and in control? That’s good though, right?
Her lashes are damp. They’re clumping together. “Yeah? When?”
“Well.” I think for a moment. “Halloween. When you . . .” I nod at her. “You know.”
She stops laughing. She wets her lips. Her eyes drop to my mouth.
I can’t help it. I wet my lips too. Inside, my heart taps a merengue beat.
“You didn’t look surprised.” Her voice is softer. “You didn’t feel surprised either. It almost felt like . . .” She traces her smile with a pink fingernail.
“Like what?”
Her gaze swings back to me. “Like you knew I was coming.”
I close my mouth. I remind myself to swallow.
“So why did you bring me into that car?” she asks.
“Doesn’t matter. Just . . . I was going to show you something.”
“Show me what?”
The other day, on the train, I almost didn’t show her what I’d written. I’ve never been more nervous. A bottom-of-the-ninth playoff game with bases loaded, us up one run and me on the mound, has nothing on that afternoon. I felt naked, watching Isa read. She smiled. And what she said? Her words were like robes of fur and velvet, making me feel like a king. Making me feel like I could do anything. Be anyone. Not just what everyone expects.
Isa bumps me with her arm. She’s waiting for an answer.
I shrug. “Something I wrote.”
Her mouth makes a small O shape. “But how?” she asks.
I tell her how I spoke with a conductor who was from La Vega. How he confirmed how long it takes to run the whole line, how many trips a day a train can make. There’s still luck involved. Some trains get switched out on the weekend. I tried to account for that by planting extras.
Cool fingers burrow into my fist. “Come on,” she says. She tries to pull me to the door.
I don’t budge. “No. I don’t want you going in there again.”
“Listen.” She’s smiling at me. “I don’t care about that. I’ve smelled worse.”
“You have? Like in dance school? Dancer feet, they smell like that?”
She ignores my joke and bounces on her toes. “I want to see what you wrote.” Her fingers tap against my palm. “Please? Show me?”
I take her arm. I draw an exaggerated breath. I wait for her to do the same. I yank open the first door, and the second. I rush us inside. The poem I left for Isa is at the other end, tucked under the seat beside the framed poem by Enrico García, a thirty-eight-year-old Nuyorican with a wavy website.
Isa’s eyes glow. She doesn’t look away from me.
I reach down and feel along the edge of the two-person bench. I untape the folded note. I hand it to Isa. I try to pull her out, to get her into the next car.
“Wait.” She snaps it open. The paper covers her face as she reads.
I look away. The homeless guy is checking us out. He has reason to be suspicious. Bryan and I once saw some dudes with blue bandanas beating up a homeless person. We were only in seventh grade. There was nothing we could do. And I was too afraid of the cop outside the station to tell him what was going down beside the tracks. I should have told him though. I think about that homeless person sometimes.
I give our fellow passenger a nod. As if to say, “Hey. You cool, I’m cool.”
He nods back.
My eyes are watering. ¡Guay! Maybe we’re cool but that be a powerful smell. It’s like dead fish and dead mice are having a zombie party.
Isa’s eyes are teary too. Her lip shivers. Is she cold?
“How?” she says. She draws a breath through her mouth. “How do you write this?”
I’m afraid to ask. But I need to. “You like it?”
“Look at me.” She rattles the paper at her face. “You made me cry.” Her lip shivers again.
“Here.” I draw her hand around my back. My arms close around her shoulders. She’s going to feel the thudding in my chest. But I don’t know what else to do.
Her nose rubs against my hoodie. She sighs, and I dip my face to her hair. She’s like a breeze off the ocean. “You smell good,” I breathe. “I can barely smell the stanky feet.”
She laughs against me.
“Come on.” I tow her to the door. Push us through to another car.
She’s still leaning against me. I can’t see her face. But I hear her smile.
“Read me the poem?” She passes the note into my hand. I don’t take it. I recite from memory.
I LOVE
The oiled leather of my glove
baking in my full-sun window,
The untouched pages of a new book,
The tip of a freshly shaved pencil
you hand to me,
My madrastra’s cooking,
Papi’s rare not-frown,
Your hair,
wet or dry or in between.
Cool cotton sheets
on legs sore from sprinting and sliding,
Snow drifting
onto eyelids and uncovered cheeks,
Shavings of coco-flavored ice
on outstretched tongues,
Your hand melting in mine
on an ever-moving train.
Arms tighten around me. Fists bury into my sides. “Can you do it in Spanish?”
I can.
She tilts her face up. Her smile hits me like a ninety-five-mile-per-hour ball to the chest. I was downed by one last year. At a game against JFK High. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t hear what Coach and Papi were shouting at me. It wasn’t until they brought that heart-shocking machine next to me that I gasped and pushed the paddles away. This time, I wouldn’t push them away. I need that machine. Because it aches too much.
Isa’s hand slides off me. My heart shifts into a panic step. I don’t want her to take it away.
She doesn’t. She touches my face. She draws a line from my cheek to my jaw to my chin.
There’s no way she can’t feel my heart. It’s fighting its way out to her.
“Alex,” she whispers. Her fingers slide to the back of my neck.
Her hands are cool. But her lips, on mine, are warm and wet. She makes a small noise. I can’t help myself. I reach under her. I lift her to an empty seat. Her arms wrap around my shoulders, my head. She makes another noise, and I almost lose it. I grab her to me. Her leg is around my waist. Holy God.
The side door opens. The homeless guy shuffles in. “Get a room! Get a room! Get a room!” he shouts at us.
Isa pulls away. She keeps her forehead pressed to mine. She’s laughing.
The train doors open.
“Hold on.” I pick Isa up.
“My bag!” she cries.
I snag it from the seat. She still clutches my note in her hand.
I don’t put her down until we’re on the platform.
“Kiss me,” she says.
I do.
People stream by us. We’re like rocks in a river. Isa pulls me toward the wall. Behind a column that says SIXTY-SIX. Coño. That homeless saved us. We would have missed her stop.
Isa’s hands are on my back. At the waistline of my pants. I bring her fingers to my chest. They slide to my face. I can’t breathe. I don’t need air. All I need is her. The roar of the passing express is distant. I don’t want to stop. But she’s going to be late.