18
Our Own Gran Bwa

I walk down Flatbush Avenue, following Alex’s instructions exactly. The note is right where he said it would be, stuffed into a small knot in the tree outside Trini-Daddy’s. I don’t know about this crazy boy, leaving me notes in bushes and trees. What is he going to say? There is a part of me that is excited, and flattered, but a bigger part of me that is terrified of anyone seeing me. Especially my uncle, although yes, I do know that Tonton Pierre is not following me around, looking at everything I do. It only feels that way.

I look at the tree, which is a very tall one, at least twenty-five feet, impressive for a sidewalk in the middle of a busy city. Did Alex realize that he was directing me to our own Gran Bwa? The tree’s branches spread wide, like open arms, like a giant conductor that organizes the honking car horns, the throaty yells of the street, into a driving, powerful rhythm.

How strange it must look for a girl to pull paper out of a tree. And how embarrassing. But Alex was smart about one thing: this section of Flatbush Avenue is as busy as it gets. I could be walking down the street with half my clothes off in the middle of winter, and no one would be bothered. These New York people, they keep their eyes in front of them at all times and do not bother with the doings of others.

I look in both directions, pull the note out, then quickly enter the stream of walking traffic.

Dear Bijou,

Please God, I hope it’s you, Bijou, reading this, and not some creep on the street. (If this is a creep on the street, you should put this letter down right now because it’s not for you. It belongs to me, and it belongs to Bijou, but anybody else? Well, it’s none of your business, so put it back where it belongs so Bijou can find it the way she’s meant to.)

Anyway, Bijou, did I ever tell you about the first time I saw you? I’m pretty sure you couldn’t, or didn’t, see me, but I saw you. And you know how in movies, you hear people say things like “my heart stopped” or “time stopped” or “love hit me like an arrow”? Well, I always thought that was a bunch of junk, but when I first saw you at Peas n’ Pickles with Mary Agnes, it was exactly like that. Like my life had changed in a millisecond, and I would never be the same.

I felt different, as in like the person I was before but bigger and better. I felt like, and I don’t mean this to sound strange, but I felt like I was meant to know you, that somehow you were going to be a part of my life. Don’t ask me how, but I knew it.

It’s not because you’re pretty. I mean, you’re really, really, really pretty, prettier than any other girl I’ve ever seen, but it’s not like that at all. It’s more like there was something about you that made me think we were meant to get to know each other better. (A look in your eyes? An expression? I honestly don’t know for sure.) And not just to be a “couple,” but really, truly get to know each other. And I knew I needed to do whatever I could to get to meet you.

I hope that doesn’t sound weird, but it’s the truth!

If you want to write me back, and I hope you do, you can leave a letter for me right here in this tree.

Your friend,

Alex

P.S. I’m seeing you for the movie Saturday, right? I hope so….

He is not holding anything back, is he? I look up and down the street, making sure that no one I know can see me. If Alex is trying to make me blush as badly as he does, he is succeeding, and even my complexion is not able to hide it. This is a sweet boy I have met, a very sweet one.

Which is why I have so many different feelings as I read the letter, then read it a second time, taking care not to bump into anyone on the crowded sidewalk. Have I ever been so excited to see someone? I don’t think so! Thinking about this sweet, blushing boy, it gives me gooseflesh.

But another part of me feels guilty, so guilty and wrong, for lying to Pierre and Marie Claire.

It took nearly an hour of pleading, almost begging, before they would allow me to do what they think I am going to do on Saturday afternoon: spend it with Maricel and Mary Agnes at Mary Agnes’s house. “Even the suggestion is outrageous!” was the first thing Tonton Pierre said when I brought up the idea of spending only a few hours with a couple of friends from school.

I did do one thing right, though: I brought it up with Marie Claire first. And I made sure to tell her all about the girls, who had been “so supportive and kind” to me during these first months in America.

“Pierre, this is what American girls do: they spend time together,” Marie Claire said only a few minutes later, trying to build up my case to Uncle. “They get to know each other.”

“They cannot ‘get to know each other’ in school?”

In the end, though, she convinced him, on the condition that he would speak to Mary Agnes’s mother beforehand, and that he would have the phone number and address of the Bradys’ house in Park Slope, only a couple of miles from Flatbush. (He even wanted to go by the Bradys’ house and look at it, but we talked him out of it, thank God.) Finally, he made me swear that I would be seeing only the two girls and that I would not leave Mary Agnes’s house during the entire time I was to be there, under any circumstances.

Uh-oh. I did swear to it. I lied to the face of my mother’s brother. To see a boy! I can only pray that everything goes exactly as planned, because if I get caught, that will be the end.

Can Mary Agnes really be right, that we can go out to the movie without her mother noticing? According to Mary Agnes, every Saturday afternoon, no exceptions, her mother leaves at 2 p.m. and does not return until five. The movie begins at two thirty and will end before four thirty. That gives us a few minutes to say good-bye to the boys before returning to Mary Agnes’s house, which is only three blocks from the theater. Then my uncle will pick me up at exactly six o’clock. He is never late.

So, yes, a part of me is so frightened that some small detail in our plan will go wrong. But there is another part of me, almost as big, that doesn’t care at all, that wants to tell Tonton Pierre, “You are not my father, and you are not the boss of me!”

And this, too: now that I am in America, is it so wrong that I should be allowed to enjoy the simple things that other American kids do? It is so hard being here, so far away from those I truly do consider family—Maman and Gran-Papa—that I feel I should be able to do what I want. I have lost so much; shouldn’t I be allowed to have even a little fun? I think so.