He had to ask himself why he was worried, that being the case. Immediately after that, he wanted to punch something. He was allowing himself to come undone mentally, the worst thing he could possibly do. He forced himself to get up, lock up, and step out into the night.
The beginning of summer was usually Julien’s favorite part of the year, and yet this year it had felt joyless and hollow. Even so, the balmy evening air caressed his face and, in it, he could feel her. It seemed she wasn’t so far away from him.
He made his way down Broadway, reached the front door of his building, and passed it, heading into the park instead. Rogelio was at the stone table, jaunty red cap cocked to the side, playing chess with a friend with round glasses and honey-colored locs.
“Dax,” he said, acknowledging Julien with a nod. “You’re next. But just letting you know, it could be a hot minute. Games can go long when you’re this well matched.” He winked at the woman across from him.
Julien nodded back and took a seat at the adjacent table to watch them play. Indeed, the game moved slowly. The woman seemed to anticipate Rogelio’s every move, and she snatched up the spaces on the chessboard before he could move his pieces there. Likewise, Rogelio knew just how to block her when she tried to make a bold move forward. They chortled with glee when one blocked or frustrated the other. It was all part of the game, and they were in it, although maybe not to win it, at the rate they were going.
He couldn’t watch them without thinking of Lumi. He couldn’t imagine living the rest of his life this way, not being able to talk to her, not being able to tell her the insane things that had happened in his day, not being able to share it all with her. If marriage was all that was standing in the way, was it truly necessary?
For the first time in his life, he had the desire to have a family of his own . . . with her. He had envisioned himself having what his parents had once he found the right person, but he knew that wasn’t the only way.
“I have been rude. This is Celeste, my partner of thirty-five years,” Rogelio said.
Celeste smiled and bobbed in her seat.
Partners. His first impulse was to call Lumi, but he decided to sit with his thoughts, think about it a little more. It wasn’t time yet, but the time would come. They would find a way, marriage or no marriage. He needed to be with her. He stood up, readying himself to leave.
“Not playing today, Dax?”
Julien shook his head. “Another day, my friend.” He walked away as Celeste called a tie, and Rogelio leaned in for a kiss.
45
Lumi
The crackle of tiny featherlight feet stepping over plastic wrappers rankled Lumi’s nerves as she tried to nap on the couch. She had exiled herself there, since every time she lay down on her bed she ended up retreating because she could feel Julien haunting her.
“Damn it,” she muttered, “now I have a mouse in here to boot.”
The fact remained that she just couldn’t relax. Trying to begin the job search in the weeks since her argument with Julien had only compounded her anxiety. She still had not found a single thing to eat that would ease it, even a little. And the guilt . . . once again she found herself plagued by guilt when she remembered the hurt on his face.
And it was even worse because part of her had wanted to say yes, and it was not such a small part. She did want to be with him forever. She did want to wake up next to him every morning, knowing they could count on each other, finding little ways to make him smile. She loved all the things she imagined about their future life together. Having confined herself to her apartment, all that played over in her mind were those first days when she had come home from the hospital, when he came day after day to tend to her. And how he had believed in her dreams.
But the voices would not cease their whispers; their roots were too strong and had been twisted into her psyche for too long. She repeated a now-familiar pattern of taking out her phone, bringing up his name, staring at the screen, and then chucking the phone into a corner, covering her mouth with a pillow so she could scream out her frustration without her neighbors thinking someone was getting killed.
“Why am I even here anymore?” she sputtered aloud, surveying the crunched-up candy wrappers strewn across the floor.
She didn’t have an answer. Barely seeing through her swimming eyes, she punched the numbers on her phone screen.
The first sound she heard was the melody of old-time Dominican merengue music and her mother yelling, “Ana, apagame esa vaina! Turn off the hot plate before the coffee bubbles out.”
So her mother and aunt were still boiling espresso on the hot plate they had fashioned out of broken flat irons in the back room of the hair salon. It all was a siren song beckoning her with a single command.
“Aló? Salon AnaInés,” her mother grunted into the phone.
“Mami?” she sniffled. “I’m coming home.”
46
Lumi
Lumi sat on a folding chair in the matchbox-sized kitchen of the salon, making grilled cheese sandwiches with Wonder Bread as she boiled coffee on the makeshift hot plate. The comfort food of her childhood still did the trick, and making food with no thought to artistry was refreshing.
Her mother and aunt were happy to have her and, thankfully, had not asked too many questions. They had bought her plenty of bread and set her up in the guest bedroom. To Lumi’s surprise, there hadn’t been any “I told you sos,” although she would have been remiss if she hadn’t noticed that since the day her mother sat with her in the hospital, she had been a little more reserved than usual.
It was a slow afternoon at the usually bustling salon. Lumi flipped through the glossy hair-color books and tugged at the multihued swatches in fascination, grateful to be in a different and yet familiar environment. Anahilda sat in a salon chair, checking her text messages. Except for a few wrinkles, she had barely changed since Lumi was a child. If anything, the gentle crinkles that deepened around her eyes made her look well loved and well lived.
Inés didn’t look too different either. Same clay-set features, same wiry copper curls tied up in a paisley bandanna to keep them out of her way while she worked. There was an element of comfort in that, and Lumi briefly wondered what her life would have been like if she had stayed in Miami.
New York was not the only place to cook. She could have gone to Johnson & Wales, apprenticed herself, and perhaps by now she’d be an executive chef with no responsibilities, no business to shoulder, and no debts.
She probably would never have met him. DAX was not the kind of place she would have gone for her own enjoyment. She would have never tasted of him, never known there was someone out there who had reserves of electric surges just for her. Lumi sighed loudly at her inner thoughts.
Anahilda heard and swiveled her salon chair toward her niece. “What is it, m’ija?” she asked gently.
“Oh, Tía.” Lumi sighed.
Anahilda reached out to Lumi, smoothing the side of her arm. “Whatever it was, it must’ve been big for you to come back here to stay awhile. You didn’t even come back when you got burned.”
This was enough to open the floodgates. As Anahilda drew closer and put her arm around her, Inés inched over. Inés gingerly patted Lumi on the hand.