My parents let me skip church on Sunday so I could go to the Cloisters with Tía Nona. Mami wasn’t all that happy about it, though. “Don’t you want to go too?” she asked Gracie about a million times.
But Gracie was eager to be rid of Tía Nona for a day. “No, no, no,” she said. “You know museums are Anamay’s thing. I’ll be bored to death if I go.”
Juan Miguel had some business meeting, so he dropped Tía Nona off at our building and continued in the taxicab, saying he would come back around dinnertime. Tía Nona and I waited in the lobby for Ruben and Claudia. Ruben’s mom walked him over. “You behave yourself,” she told him as she straightened out the collar on his polo shirt and ran her fingers through his curls.
“Stop it!” Ruben backed away from his mom and frowned.
“I gave him money for lunch and a souvenir,” Mrs. Rivera said to Tía Nona.
“Oh, no, he’s our guest,” my aunt said. “I’ll take care of everything.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Mrs. Rivera said. “But it doesn’t surprise me that Mecho’s sister would be so sweet.”
Tía Nona and Mrs. Rivera were best friends by the time Claudia arrived. She jumped out of her mom’s car and rushed toward my building. She turned around and waved when she reached the glass door to the lobby. Her mom sped away. She never parked her car in our neighborhood because she was afraid it might get stolen.
“It’s so great to meet Anamay’s friends!” Tía Nona said after Mrs. Rivera left. “I’ll bet you’re both smart and talented, just like my niece.”
“Ruben’s the youngest kid in our grade at school,” I said as we walked out the door. “He started school early because he learned to read when he was three.”
“Impressive,” Tía Nona said. Ruben blushed.
“And Claudia’s going to be a singer-songwriter when she grows up. She’s already published a few poems.” Then I told Claudia in English what I had just said.
“I understood you,” Claudia said. She smiled and nudged me with her elbow.
“Oh, sorry.” Whenever Claudia’s parents spoke to her in Spanish, she answered in English. And I always had to translate for her whenever Mami said anything because Claudia insisted Mami spoke way too fast. But she actually tried to speak Spanish as we walked with my aunt, and she was pretty good. By the time we arrived at the Cloisters twenty minutes later, I swear she was almost fluent.
Of course, Tía Nona wanted to practice her English too, so all day we went back and forth speaking in both languages. It was like talking with my sisters, except way more interesting. At the museum, Tía Nona explained the artwork to us. During lunch, she told us about Madrid and some of her other trips, while I ate a delicious club sandwich with french fries. (Not real food, according to Mami.) It was the best day ever, until Claudia mentioned the Eleanor School.
“Did Anamay tell you she might go to my school for eighth grade?” she asked my aunt.
“Yes, and it sounds like a wonderful opportunity.” Tía Nona turned to Ruben. “Are you going to apply for a scholarship there too?”
Ruben shook his head. “My mom doesn’t want me to go to school with a bunch of rich snobs.” He looked at Claudia and quickly added, “No offense.”
But how could she not be offended? I would be, if someone called me a rich snob. So, of course, Claudia was too. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at Ruben.
“Does anyone want dessert?” Tía Nona said in a super cheerful voice.
“The chocolate cake looks good,” I said. Then we had a way-too-long conversation about dessert, just Tía Nona and me. When the waitress came, Claudia glanced at the menu and right away ordered the raspberry sorbet. Then she snapped the menu shut and glared at Ruben. He wouldn’t look at her.
“I’ll have the vanilla ice cream,” he said to the waitress. “No fancy desserts for me.” Then he clinked the ice cubes in his glass of cola until the server came over with our food. It was a long few minutes, with Ruben clinking, Claudia glaring, and Tía Nona chattering away about sweets from around the world while she glanced back and forth between the two of them.
After lunch, we waited outside the restaurant until Claudia’s mom came to pick her up. “Can’t I go spend the night at Anamay’s?” Claudia asked. She already had a toothbrush and extra underwear at my house, just in case. I had the same at her house. But even though Claudia had her own room with two big beds in it, she preferred to stay in a sleeping bag on the floor in my house.
“No, sweetie,” Claudia’s mom said. “We need to get you packed up for camp.”
Claudia groaned, then hugged me and Tía Nona goodbye. “See you around, Ruben,” she mumbled.
“Bye,” Ruben said. He still wouldn’t look at her.
Tía Nona’s phone rang as we were walking back to our apartment building. “It’s Juan Miguel,” she said. “You kids walk ahead. I’ll catch up.” She fell a few steps behind.
“Why were you so rude to Claudia?” I said to Ruben.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t want you to go to a different school.”
“We’ll still see each other,” I said. “We live two blocks apart. Plus we’ll hang out at the library and after church.”
Ruben kicked a pebble up the hill toward my house. “I know, but still.”
“You know I can only go to Eleanor if I get a full scholarship,” I said. “That might not happen.”
Ruben looked up at me and smiled. “Well, you can always go to Science.”
I shook my head. “I’m worried. I mean, what if I don’t get into Eleanor or Science?”
“Why would you think that?” Ruben said.
“You remember what your mom told us,” I said.
As the head librarian of our local public library, Mrs. Rivera followed a lot of kids’ educations. “Back when I was your age,” she told Ruben and me one day, “we just woke up on a Saturday morning, hopped on the subway, and walked in to take the test for Science. The smarter kids got in, and that was that. Now people with money hire tutors and enroll their children in prep courses. It’s getting harder and harder for our kids from Washington Heights to get accepted.” So she planned to hire a tutor for Ruben even though she didn’t have a whole lot of money. Like Claudia, Ruben was an only child. But my parents didn’t get a tutor for Gracie, so of course they probably wouldn’t do it for me either.
“Don’t worry,” Ruben said. “You’re the smartest person I know. If you can’t get in, nobody can.”
I smiled. “I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am,” Ruben said. He focused on his pebble again. “I don’t think Claudia’s a snob or anything. And I know you won’t become one either. It’s just that I’ll miss you.”
“I know. I’ll miss you too.”
There wasn’t anything more to say, so we didn’t. We just walked with our arms looped together, Ruben kicking his pebble. People walking past us probably thought he was my little brother. Mami always told me not to get used to being taller than Ruben. “Boys shoot up in high school,” she said. “Before you know it, you’ll be craning your neck to look at him.”
Maybe she was right, but for now, when I looked at him, I wondered: If I did have a little brother, would he be like Ruben? If he was, I’d be okay with that.