32 
A Boy in My Life
32 Pierre and Marie Claire haven’t said a word about it, but I know it must have been Headmistress O’Biden who called a few minutes after dinner. After Tonton Pierre hung up, I could hear them from my room while I tried and failed to concentrate on my homework. Have you ever noticed how loud a whisper can be? It must be the least secretive way to have a conversation, like saying to anyone in the house, Put your ear to the door and listen hard to every word we say.
I hear only broken phrases from the living room.
Marie Claire: “What video? What boy?”
Pierre: “… send her to a girls school, and all they do is put them with boys? … not what I pay good money for …”
Marie Claire: “… the girl misses her mother … only natural …”
Pierre: “… and what business is it of these children whether she’s alive or dead …”
That’s when Pierre begins to cry. Without seeing it, I can picture what is happening. Marie Claire is kneeling now, by the chair her husband spends half his life sitting in. She is hugging him, comforting him.
I haven’t cried in front of them. Not once since I arrived. My memories are my only comfort.
And now, a knock on the door. Marie Claire checking on me, asking if I need anything, a little something to eat, though we finished a large meal of malanga only an hour ago. Is your homework going okay? Do you need any help on it? Neither my aunt nor my uncle has ever offered to help me with homework. They did not go to school in this country, so how could they?
I tell her, No, I’m fine, Auntie, and she takes my chin in her hand, kisses my forehead. I know, she says wordlessly. I know you are fine.
The matter will never be discussed openly between us. That’s not the way things are done in our family. Pierre and Marie Claire will treat me very gently for a few days, and then, hopefully, they will forget about it.
And so will I. You see, having people find out about Maman is not the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
It is not even close.
Doucet. Maman’s name, and mine, too.
When friends and relatives of my mother meet me for the first time, they are so surprised by our likeness, they do not know quite what to say. They take a step back and hold a hand over their heart.
Doucet. It comes from the French word for “gentle.” The French word for “sweet.”
They say that I act like her, too. That I think before I speak, that I am careful and precise. We are the sweet ones in the family, the kind ones, the ones with the delicate features; everyone says it’s true.
But they did not know Maman like I knew Maman. And they do not know how strong we can be. Strong as stone. Tough as leather. Prickly as barbed wire.
Maman knew how to survive. I am her daughter, and I know, too.
My uncle falls asleep in his chair most nights. As the weeks and months and years without Maman have passed, he still does not know what to say. But I don’t blame him.
Maybe my likeness to Maman is the reason he never wants to let me out of his sight. Maybe the pain is too great. Maybe he is just tired of missing her.
It’s different for me, though. If I didn’t have the few photographs that I keep in the drawer next to my bed, I’m not sure I would remember what she looked like at all. My memories of her are fading, too, like those images worn thin from too much touching. Smells, feelings … I remember those. But the memories of her face, her expressions, were the first to go. The woman in the photos looks like half a stranger now.
Until I look in the mirror, and remember.
Maybe that’s why I refuse to talk about Maman in the past tense.
Because I see her every day, first thing in the morning, staring me right in the face.
“Are you sure there’s no way for me to convince you to come to rehearsal tomorrow?” Mary Agnes asks. We’re riding the 2 train on a Tuesday, after school, grasping a portion of the cold steel pole that stands in the middle of the subway car like a leafless winter tree. “You know, he won’t even be there.”
I have refused to let her even speak Alex’s name for a week. And thankfully, I haven’t had to see him myself. He has been forbidden from participating in Musicale.
“Thank you for asking,” I say. “I do appreciate it, really. But I would rather just watch, okay?”
“Listen, Bijou, I know you don’t want to talk about him, and I hear you,” Mary Agnes says with extra care. “But let me say this. If he has anything to say about the video, any explanation, you should at least hear him out.”
“You forgot to say, ‘You owe him that much,’” I say.
“You don’t owe him anything.” She pulls her gum out of her mouth and places it delicately in a napkin. “But maybe you owe it to yourself.”
“What does that mean?”
“Look, Bijou, I consider you a friend. And I hope you think of me as one, too, even though we’re pretty different. But maybe you could use more than one friend. And Alex? No matter what it seems like he did, he’s the kind of boy you want in your life. Believe me.”
My answer is a smile and a shrug; that is all I can give her right now.
“Talk to him, okay? See what he has to say for himself.”
“I will think about it,” I say as Mary Agnes struggles to pull on her backpack that probably weighs half what she does. “And Mary Agnes, you are my friend. Thank you, okay?” She might be bossy, she might be silly at times, but I know a friend when I see one.
“Of course, sweetie, of course.” I kiss her twice on her cheeks, a gesture she is finally growing used to after these nearly three months with me.
Alone now, transferring to the Q train, I wonder, is Alex the kind of boy I want in my life?
I have been in America for only twelve weeks. I survived the biggest earthquake in the history of my country, and the death of the person closest to me in the world. I am surviving Brooklyn, its strange people, its confusing rules, its freezing weather, its dirty subway platforms. And I am fine.
So why would I need a boy in my life at all?
I had a good talk with Mary Agnes today, and I do understand that you were not trying to be mean. And that nothing that happened was actually even your fault. I know you are not a bad person and that you would never try to hurt me on purpose.
But I do think that we come from very, very different places and have had very different lives. People in America like to pretend that that doesn’t matter, but I believe it does.
I like you, Alex, and you’ve told me you like me, too. For a moment, I was beginning to think that that was enough. But now I’ve found out—I’ve learned the hard way—that it’s not.
I’m sorry, Alex. I know you want to get to know me better. You want to be close friends. But for me, right now, this is not possible.
I’ll see you … sometime.
Bijou