He comes out a few minutes later smelling like clean. He looks at the table. “Sweet.” Then he starts to eat, fast and two-handed, like he’s afraid you’re going to take his food away.
“We’ll get them, you’ll see.” He’s talking about the Spin-heads, of course.
“Yeah, we will.”
“Spinman’ll want the chance to kick us down. Won’t happen.”
I rip a pita in half and scoop up some hummus. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.
He looks into my eyes. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Good.” He squeezes my hand, a natural thing for him.
Zin lives by his own rules, and he does it well. My dad would say that he marches to the beat of his own drummer. It’s true. He doesn’t judge success by other people’s standards. He doesn’t judge, period.
Neither does he talk about his past. Not much, anyway. I know that his family came from Yemen about twelve years ago and settled in Queens. Zin realized fast that he didn’t exactly have golden-boy potential. He knew practically no English, and what he picked up, he picked up on the street. By sixteen he’d dropped out of school and started working as a busboy. He moved out on his own when he started working at Evermore.
When people ask me if we’re dating, I tell them we’re just friends. But we aren’t, not really. We’re something more, and we both know it. Zin is magnet and I am metal. It’s been that way from the start.
BEGUILING
The phone rings.
I hope it’s a telemarketer. When it’s the ghost, you know dinner’s ruined.
Mom answers it, leaves the room with the phone. Dad and I are thinking, but not saying, What now? What kind of trouble is he in, and how much money does he want?
I don’t take another bite of my food. If I eat when I’m tense, I get a stomachache. I can already feel the muscles in my gut tightening up.
Tonight is my dinner night, and I made enchiladas poblanos. It’s slices of chicken in a wrap, smothered in guacamole and covered in cheese. I ordered something similar last week when I went out to eat with Zin and figured I could do it myself. My parents were impressed.
Dad continues to eat. I watch my food get cold.
Mom comes back a few minutes later. She always looks like she has a cold when she’s upset—nose red, eyes watery. “He’s been laid off.”
Amazing, but he’s never been fired. Laid off every time.
Yeah, right.
It’s amazing that he can still crush her hopes. It’s amazing that she still has hope. Hope that he’ll keep a job, hope that he’ll clean up. Hope that he’ll get help.
I hate seeing her upset. Hate it.
“How much does he want this time?” I ask.
Mom shakes her head. She doesn’t like to talk about the amount of money flowing from their bank account.
“Why don’t you just cut him off?” I ask.
“We don’t want him on the street.” Mom’s answer never changes.
They don’t want him homeless. They will give up every last cent so they at least know he has a roof over his head.
“For all we know, he could be homeless already,” I say. “Was he calling collect?”
She nods. “He said he’s staying at a rooming house. It’s three hundred a month.”
“He can get that money from the government.”
“We’d prefer it come from us,” Dad says. It’s a moral thing with them. Although the ghost is an adult now, they still consider him their child, their responsibility, not the state’s.
“But you know what he’s using the money for.”
“If we can’t stop him from using, at least we can stop those dealers from coming after him,” Mom explains, as if we haven’t had this conversation a hundred times.
“You’re enabling him. Maybe if he didn’t have money, he’d stop.” But I don’t believe that. Still, I feel I should come up with a solution. Every problem has a solution, right?
The truth: I know he won’t stop. I know he’ll do anything to feed his habit. And I’ve heard what guys sometimes do to pay for drugs. And I don’t want that. I can’t even think of that.
I hate that they’re giving him money. But I’m glad they are.
♦ ♦ ♦
Two hours later my cell rings.
It’s Zin.
“Training?” he asks.
“ ’Course.” I’m breathing hard. I wipe the sweat off my forehead with a swipe of my palm.
“How about taking the night off?”
“What, you’re gonna entertain me?”
“Sure. I’m not working tonight.”
“Great. Let me shower. I’ll be over soon.” I pick up my boom box and head down the hall to my room. Mom and Dad have designated the extra bedroom as my workout/training room, which means I don’t have to brave the dank, unfinished basement.
After a shower, I give my hair a quick upside down blow-dry and let it hang loose around my shoulders. My outfit is my usual jeans and a purple velvet hoodie.
An hour later I buzz his apartment.
No answer. Maybe he’s in the shower. I wait a few seconds, then try again. No answer.
I check my cell to see if he left a message. Nada.
“Nic!”
I look around, see nothing.
“Up here!”
I crane my neck. Zin is standing on the roof. “Are you coming up?”
“Are you gonna buzz me in or what?”
“Can’t you climb? I did!” He laughs. “Fine! I’ll buzz you in!”
Seconds later I hear the buzz, and I skip stairs up to the roof. Breaking’s given me the kind of endurance that lets you do that type of thing without feeling like you’re having a heart attack.
Speaking of heart attacks, Zin is standing in the doorway of the roof entrance, illuminated by the glow of a nearby streetlight. His black hair looks wet, as if he just showered. He’s wearing a long-sleeved black tee and jeans, typical attire for him, even though it’s February. I’ve told him more than once that he’ll catch his death dressing like that, but he doesn’t care. He says his Arab blood makes him immune to cold. I say that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
“Nic, you’ve come.”
He’s always saying things like that. It’s as if me coming over is a special event or something.
He opens his arms and catches me in a hug. He has a way of hugging me like he means it.
“I’m glad you called. I needed to get out.”
“Something wrong?”
“No more than usual.”
“He called?”
“Yeah. Money, same old. It’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before.”
“I know. Still.”
I breathe deeply against his chest, like somehow I’m getting air from his lungs.
“I didn’t want to see the show alone,” he says.
“What show?”
“The universe’s birthday.”
“That’s a new one.”
“Actually, it’s an old one. Come.”
He leads me across the roof, climbs on top of a big block of concrete, probably a generator of some kind, and pulls me up. On top is a wool blanket.
“Now hold still.”
He wraps me up, swaddling me like a baby. “If you’re not warm, you won’t have the patience to wait.”
“I’m not the one who’s gonna freeze, Zin. It’s thirty degrees.”
“I drank tea, don’t worry.”
I roll my eyes, then sit back. “So what are we looking for?”
“You’ll see.”
I look up at the stars, drinking in a breath of cold air, exhaling white mist. “You’re a bartender, a dancer, a philosopher, and now an astronomer. Am I missing anything?”
“You’re missing a lot of things.” I can hear the smile in his voice.
“You know what, Zin? Sometimes I think you came to America just to entertain me.”
“Sometimes I think so too.”
&nbs
p; We sit in silence. Just like Zin to know the exact moment of some spectacular event.
The blanket and his closeness keep me warm. I feel his hand touch mine.
“There.”
I follow his finger, and then I see it, above Orion’s Belt. A shower of fiery golden bursts.
“Wow. What was that?”
“A meteor shower. I call it the universe’s birthday because it looks like fireworks in space.”
“That’s amazing.” I turn to him. His face is a pale blur in the darkness, but I see the outline of lips smiling. “Thanks for showing me.”
“Thank you, Nic. Aloneness is overrated.”
“Yeah.” But the truth is that if we weren’t together tonight, he wouldn’t have to be alone. There are any number of girls who’d love for him to call. Girls flock to Zin. Not only breaker groupies—and he has enough of those. Everyone. Even the waitresses at Evermore adore him.
But Zin and I have something in common; we don’t like stillness, we don’t like quiet. I have too many thoughts of a ghost. Zin’s mind works a mile a minute, and if he isn’t focused on something, he’ll start thinking deep thoughts and eventually feel down. He says it’s the curse of being philosophical.
“Do you ever wonder about the end of the world?” He throws the question into the darkness.
“Not a lot.” But I want to keep him talking. “Do you think about it?”
“Only if I let myself. It’s depressing. I don’t like to think of what comes . . . at the end.”
“It’s not like we’ll be around to see it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his head turn my way. “Maybe we will.”
“You believe in reincarnation?”
“I’m not sure. I just know that everything must have an end. No matter how long we go around in circles, someday, sometime, it will all stop.”
“What does Islam say?”
“It tells of a day of judgment—a day when God accepts the good people into paradise.”
“Like Christianity, I guess. Heaven for the righteous.”
He looks at me. “You believe in heaven?”
“Yeah. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“I thought you were Muslim.”
“I was, a long time ago.”
“So what happened?”
“Events in my life took me in another direction.”
“Well, maybe life will take you back one day.”
“I envy you, Nic. Faith is comforting.”
I think of my parents. They need God. So do I. “You probably think people invented God to comfort themselves, right?”
“Maybe.”
“You might be right. Then again, you might not be.”
“If I’m wrong, I’m screwed. I doubt God would let me in.”
“Come on, Zin. Don’t say that. You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.”
“And one of the most selfish.”
“Well, I don’t see it. We all have flaws. If there is a God, I’m sure he knows that.”
“Yeah, but some of us have more than we deserve. And if there’s any justice in this world, we’ll have to pay for it.”
“That’s morbid.”
“That’s life.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Ghosts leave things behind.
Objects moved from where they used to be.
Coins scattered in weird places.
Cold and warm spots where they once passed.
Guilt.
My parents wonder if they could have done something differently. Something that would have changed the outcome.
Should they have been harder with him? Softer?
And me, I have guilt too. Guilt for all the things I said. Guilt for words like “I hate you” and “Admit it, you fucked up,” and “Get it together.”
Guilt for wishing he would go.
Guilt for him going.
EVER DARE
It’s just a fact that Thursday night means Hip-Hop ’n Bowl.
After Rambo gets off work at nine p.m., he goes home to shower and cologne himself, then picks us all up in his fly ride. Too bad Zin can’t participate in the ritual—while we’re cruising out to Long Island for a prebooked lane at ten o’clock, he’s starting his shift at Evermore.
The music is blaring, and I’m squished in the backseat with Chen and Kim. She keeps giggling, so I’m guessing he’s feeling her up underneath her jacket, but it’s too dark to know for sure. I like Chen and Kim, apart and together. They’re a happy couple, but they don’t make you feel like a fifth wheel if you’re hanging around with them.
It hits me how much my life has changed since that night at the club when I saw the Toprocks in action for the first time. In those days, I hung around with the same group of girls I’d met in eighth grade when my family moved here from Connecticut. I had nothing in common with those girls, and when I drifted away from them, no one was surprised.
It was nobody’s fault. I was always looking for something different, something I couldn’t put my finger on. I’m not a tomboy, but I think I was born to be friends with guys—they laugh, they don’t backstab, they make dirty jokes, and they don’t give a shit.
And then there’s Kim. She transferred into our school in September from JFK High because our school offered more AP classes. She’s the type of girl that Chen’s got to work to hang on to—the type who knows her worth. She has short black hair with a swathe of blue in her bangs and several gorgeous tattoos. Kim is not a breaker and has no interest in becoming one. Her idea of dancing is limited to intricate hand movements that, the guys tease her, make her look like a mime.
The bowling lanes are already hopping when we claim our lane and glide on the shiny floors with our smooth-soled bowling shoes.
“No, you didn’t!” I say. Rambo has made good on his promise to buy his own bowling shoes—ultrashiny black ones.
He does a moonwalk and spin.
It’s time to bowl. The only difference between Hip-Hop ’n Bowl and regular bowling is that there’s loud hip-hop music. We often burst into spontaneous dancing.
Halfway through the first game, Chen and Rambo are competing for first place, with Slide not far behind. I’m in fourth, and Kim is hardly on the scoreboard, probably because she has skinny arms and has trouble picking up the ball in the first place. She has nothing to prove on the bowling lanes, though, and neither do I. We let the guys battle it out while we chat and eat vinegar-soaked fries.
“Too bad Zin can never come out Thursday nights,” I tell her. “I know he’d love this.”
She smiles at me, and I know what she’s thinking. Part of me wants to deny it, but another part is dying to let her in.
“I’ve gotta be honest with you, Nic. The sexual tension is killing me.”
“Huh?”
“Between you and Zin. When are you going to do something about it?”
“I . . . well . . .” I wasn’t expecting her to put it quite that way. I chew on my lip. “Don’t tell the guys, okay? It could really mess things up.”
“The guys know there’s something going on—or about to go on. They’re usually clueless, yeah, but they see the way you look at each other.”
“You don’t think it’s just me?”
“No.”
“Then why doesn’t he do something about it?”
“Why don’t you?”
“Me? He’s the confident one.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You won’t know unless you make a move.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going to make a move. But I’ll leave the door open for him to. I’ve got to be sure it’s the real thing, otherwise we’ll just mess up our friendship. And I don’t want to be just another girl, you know?”
“I know, and I think you’re wise. Never give a guy what he wants right away if you want him to respect you.”
“Is that how you operated with Chen?”
“That’s still how I operate with him.” She grins. “My man’s a firecrack
er, but I love him to bits.”
♦ ♦ ♦
The first time I saw Zin, he was dancing. I was one of dozens of people crowded around as he and the Toprocks tore up the floor at an under-twenty-one club called Trix.
The air over the dance floor was thick with dry ice, stinging my contacts. Zin burned through the fog like a high-powered flashlight, and I couldn’t look away for a second.
When the show ended, the Toprocks went to the bar for hydration. Instinctively I followed, squeezing through a crush of people, claiming a place at the bar with my elbow.
“Nicole, you showed up!” It was Chen, who was in my bio class. He and Slide had been trying to convince people all over the school to come out that night to support the Toprocks in battle. I’d gotten a couple of friends to go with me, but they were chatting with some jocks from another school.
“You guys were amazing,” I said.
“Thanks!” Slide pounded palms with me. “Glad you came.”
They introduced me to a skinny little guy named Rambo. I imagined the name was a joke of some kind, so I didn’t question it. Then Chen tapped the gorgeous Arab guy on the shoulder, and he turned my way. I was hoping for a smile from him, but he just stared at me like I was some oddity.
“Nicole, this is Zin, our leader,” Chen said. “The man behind the Toprocks.”
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” Zin frowned. “What’s with your eyes?”
“Excuse me?” I reminded myself that he wasn’t asking for the usual reason, since I was wearing my contacts. “Oh, dry ice irritates them.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re covering your eyes. Why?”
My mouth dropped open. No one had ever pegged my dark brown irises as contacts before. They were the most sensible, realistic-looking ones I could find.
Seeing my discomfort, he touched my hand. “It’s cool. So, you liked the breaking, huh?”
“Uh, yeah. I’ve always wanted to learn.”
That’s when Zin showed me, for the first time, the smile that could light up a room.
♦ ♦ ♦