Nilda (27 page)

“No,” Nilda said sharply, “I have to go home soon and help my mother do something.”

“Okay,” Hector said softly. “Another time then?”

“Another time,” Nilda said, nodding her head and looking straight ahead, avoiding Hector's glance.

“Let's split, man,” Indio said. “We're gonna miss the whole day, man, wasting time.”

“Indio, you walk on ahead,” said Petra. “We'll meet you at the entrance on 110th Street. Inside. Okay? Don't wait outside, but like where the water fountain is, inside.”

Indio nodded. “Make it snappy,” he said.

The three boys started to walk away. Hector stopped and turned, facing Nilda. “Say hello to your brother for me, will you, Nilda? Tell him he missed a great game and that we murdered them creeps.”

“Yes,” Nilda said, looking at him, “I'll tell him.” She wet her lips and swallowed, hoping she didn't look too embarrassed. The boys left and she heard their voices trailing off as they discussed their victory in today's ball game.

Marge and Petra stood up and looked at the boys as they disappeared from view. “Listen, Nilda … and you, too, Sylvia. Please don't say nothing about this to nobody,” said Petra. “Like if anybody asks, you know, where we went or anything.”

“I won't say a word, Petra,” Nilda said.

“Me, too,” Sylvia said.

“Thanks … it's just …” Petra hesitated. “Nilda, you know how my father is … well anyway, just don't mention nothing.”

“Petra,” Nilda said, “don't get into a sweat. I won't say nothing and neither will Sylvia. Right, Sylvia?” Sylvia nodded. “Go ahead, go on; I won't say nothing.” She watched as the two sisters left, heading toward the park. Sylvia and Nilda sat for a while silently.

“Did you know Hector liked you?” asked Sylvia.

“I don't know that he likes me,” Nilda said, looking away.

“Well, he asked you to go out with him, didn't he?”

“He just asked if I wanted to go rowboating, and he asked you too, didn't he?”

“Big deal!” Sylvia said. “He only asked me because we were together. Honest, come on, did you know? Do you like him, Nilda?”

Nilda looked directly at Sylvia and broke into a smile. “Sylvia, I don't even know him. Honest.”

“But … do you like him?” Sylvia insisted.

Raising her hand to her mouth, Nilda began to giggle. “I don't know … honest! Really, Sylvia.” She began to laugh; then both girls giggled.

“What do you think, huh, Nilda? Maybe you shoulda said yes and gone with them.”

“Right away!” Nilda said. “My mother would only kill me into a thousand pieces, dead.”

“He might ask you out again.”

“Go on, Sylvia, don't be stupid.”

“Well,” Sylvia said, “he did say ‘some other time' and you said ‘yes'.”

“I did not!” snapped Nilda.

“Oh, yes, you did. I heard you. You said, ‘some other time,' and even nodded your head,” Sylvia said loudly.

“Shh … did I? Honest? Oh, my goodness,” said Nilda, covering her face with both hands. “I'll die.”

“Anyway, you're lucky. I wish Frankie would have been here,” Sylvia said. “He never says one word to me. I don't think he likes me.”

“You know what, Sylvia? We might have a party at my house this Christmas. My brother Paul might come home on a furlough. And my brother Victor may be coming home, too; he got wounded
and they gave him a medal. Well, because of all that, he is supposed to be discharged. My mother said she will give a big party, and I'll invite you. I'll ask her, and she won't mind. Okay?”

“All right,” Sylvia said dejectedly.

“Frankie will be at the party.”

“He won't even notice me, I'll bet.”

“Sure he will. There's gonna be dancing and everything.”

“Will you say yes if Hector asks you out again, Nilda?”

“He won't ask,” Nilda said. “Anyway, I don't care; I don't even know him.” The two girls remained seated for a while longer. “I better go up, Sylvia; my mother says I have to help make some packages for my brothers.”

“Walk me home, Nilda?”

“I'll walk you halfway. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They walked along the avenue; it was late in the afternoon and slightly cooler out. “Here we are, Sylvia. This is halfway.”

“Okay. See you at school Monday.”

“So long.” Nilda started back home, walking slowly.

Every time she thought of Hector she felt embarrassed. He's way older; I'll bet he's almost fifteen, and he's Frankie's friend, she said to herself, and recalled that cold night last winter when she had seen Hector running away from the police with Frankie, and she had met Chucho and Manuel. I wish that had never happened, she said to herself. Manuel had been in and out of the hospital since then; he had lost almost all the vision in his left eye. He was going in again for a second operation. Nilda remembered when Manuel first came out with a black patch over his eye; everyone had said he looked just like a pirate in a movie. Her mother had been beside herself with anger. “They would have killed you, Frankie, if they had caught you!” She had yelled and screamed at Frankie. Nilda thought of her mother's constant lectures about boys, and decided that, at least for now, she would put this whole business out of her mind.

N
ilda hurried all the way home. She couldn't believe what she had heard; and yet, everyone knew about it. At first she had been shocked, but now she felt a mixture of sadness and emptiness inside that she could not understand. Nilda felt sorry and frightened for Petra; she knew Petra's parents well, especially her father. He's so strict, thought Nilda. When Petra had stopped seeing her, Nilda had been heartsick and angry because they had been friends since kindergarten, but gradually she had become used to not seeing her friend.

Sylvia had been with her that afternoon when she had heard the news. “Nilda, you know what? Your old ace, Petra, got kicked outa school, man. I heard she's gonna have a baby!” Margarita Rojas had told her. “You know who it is, don't you? It's Indio. That's what everybody's saying. And you know he split; he joined the Navy.”

“Are you sure you know what you're talking about, Margarita?” Nilda had protested. “I don't believe you.”

“I don't care if you do or not. You used to be tight with her, her best friend, and you don't even know? I can't help it if you didn't even know about it. Go ask anybody you want. The whole school knows. Her father already came to school and signed her out and everything.”

“That's right, Nilda,” another girl had said. “She's not jiving you. I heard all about it myself from Diana, who's in her class and lives on her block. Go ask her; she'll tell you.”

Nilda had said nothing in reply, and had walked home with Sylvia, silent most of the way. Sylvia had tried to start a conversation a few times, but Nilda did not respond. Rushing up the
steps, she thought, What's her father gonna do to her? She remembered that he used to beat his daughters. Nilda entered the apartment and went to her room, putting away her books. Then she went into the kitchen; her mother was home.

“Nilda? I left work a little early today; I had a lotta things to do and, at the factoría, things are a little slow this week. Anyway, I got bad news,” she said, and held up a letter. “Look, can you imagine? I just received a letter from that place in Lexington, Kentucky. Your brother cannot come home yet for two months! When I made my visit in July, they told me he would be home for Christmas, that his parole was almost granted already. Here now, they tell me he has to wait!” She shut her eyes, and Nilda could see she was almost in tears. “Paul cannot make it either. I'm sure, because he said if he could come home for the holidays, he would write us last week, and he still did not send any word.” She put down the letter. “I was hoping to have my family together this Christmas, at home and safe.” Nilda did not know what to say, so she listened silently. “They don't tell nothing about Victor. At first they say he got enough points to come home. He was wounded in the shoulder and got a Purple Heart; that they tell me, but now I don't hear nothing. What am I supposed to think?”

“Mamá, it's nothing bad … maybe he's just still getting better.”

“Maybe,” her mother said, shaking her head. “But I was planning something nice, something special. And now … some Christmas!”

“Is Victor's girl still coming for Christmas, Mamá?”

“As far as I know, yes; that's what she says. I don't know any different, and I already wrote to her and her parents and told them that she will be looked after properly in my home. I have been waiting for an answer; maybe when she writes, she'll tell me something about my son.”

Victor had written her mother that he had been corresponding, since he had left for the Army, with a girl he had dated in
high school. All during his stay in the service she had written to him, even when her family had moved to Connecticut. They now planned to become engaged when he returned home. She was of German-Irish descent, and Nilda's mother had been worried about the girl's family and their attitude. “I hope them people don't start that business with us about us being Spanish, Puerto Rican or whatever nonsense, because I will not put up with any of it.” But so far the correspondence had been very friendly, and the young woman in Connecticut had sent a color photo of herself in her high school graduation cap and gown, signed: “To Victor's mother and family, With love from Amy Shuster.”

“She's very pretty,” her mother had said, showing the photo to Nilda. Nilda saw a smiling face with fair skin, pink cheeks and light blue eyes. Her chestnut-brown hair was done up in a soft permanent wave and cut shoulder length. “I don't know, Nilda,” her mother was saying, “somehow, this Christmas is important to me. One never knows if there is going to be another one.”

“¡Mamá!” Nilda said. “What's the matter?” Her mother looked at Nilda and quickly started to say something, then closed her lips tight and decided not to speak. “Mami?” Nilda said in a worried tone.

“Never mind, nena. It's nothing … it will be all right. What will be … well, we shall make the best of it. Like we always manage, okay?” Her mother smiled at her.

“Okay.” Nilda returned her smile, relieved that her mother seemed less depressed. Then she thought about Petra. “Mamá, something happened at school.”

“What happened?”

“I heard something … something about Petra.”

“Petra? What is the matter with her?”

“Well … they say …” Nilda hesitated. “They say she's gonna have a baby.”

“A baby!” Her mother's eyes widened. “Petra? Pregnant? You are fooling me, Nilda!”

“No, Mamá, that's what somebody told me and Sylvia this afternoon. They said her father signed her out.”

“Who told you? Are you sure?”

“Everybody knows it, Mamá. Believe me, I asked. And she's no longer in school.”

“Do they know the boy that is responsible for this?” her mother asked angrily.

“They say it's Indio.”

“Indio? From Frankie's club? Didn't that boy join the service, the Army or Navy?”

“Navy, Mamá; he left in the summer. He didn't go back to school; he quit. Like Paul. Remember you said, ‘Just like Paul, he don't wanna finish school'.”

Her mother shook her head. “Poor Petra, poor fool. ¡La pobrecita, bendito! If I know that rotten Jorge López, I don't know what he would do to that boy if he caught him. Maybe it's better for him that he's away in the service. Because that man would kill Indio for what he did to his daughter. He's so nasty and prejudice, he hates dark people, and that Indio is darker than Paul. Well, I know Indio's parents, the Carrions, and they are very nice people; maybe they can work it out so that their son will do right by this girl and protect her honor.” Her mother made the sign of the cross. “What a disgrace that girl has brought to her family. What a shame!”

There was a short pause and Nilda wondered what she should say, perhaps in defense of Petra. Her mother's voice was sharp and angry. “Nilda! Look at me!” Nilda looked at her mother. Her mother walked up to her and, standing in front of her, shouted, “You don't disgrace me. You don't bring me shame. Nilda! When you want to fool around, think of that girl, think of
Petra. What kind of life will she have? Finished, no more school, no more fun—no more nothing!”

Nilda continued to sit silently, frightened; she did not dare say a word. Her mother seemed very angry; she had stopped speaking and had sat down, covering her face with her hands. Nilda watched her and worried, wondering what her mother might be thinking. “Mami,” she said softly, “are you all right?”

Without lifting her head, her mother said, “I'm all right, Nilda. Go do your homework; leave me; go on.”

Nilda left the kitchen and entered her room. What's she so mad about anyway, thought Nilda. Petra's gonna have a baby, not me! She thought of her friend. Wow, a baby! she whispered to herself. And for the first time in a very long while, she remembered Baby Jimmy. Once, about a year ago, she recalled that she had asked her mother if they would ever go to visit Baby Jimmy. “He's no longer ours, Nilda,” her mother had said. “You must stop asking about him and thinking about him. Sophie is married to somebody else; Jimmy did not do right by that girl.”

Nilda had never mentioned the baby again, and hardly thought about him anymore. But now, this afternoon, she vividly recalled what he had looked like when she first saw him, and what it had felt like to say good-bye when her brother and Sophie had taken him away.

Nilda sat down and, opening her schoolbooks, stared at her homework assignment for a long while. She closed the books and took out a piece of white paper and a fountain pen, and began to write to her brother Paul.