After two whole weeks of being open, Michael Morgan’s new club is closed until further notice. It’s under investigation by the NYPD for letting in underage people. I feel bad whenever that happens because only a year ago that could have been us getting a whole business shut down and I am sympathetic towards small-business owners. Also, if we had been able to continue that little gig every weekend, it would have solved all our problems. We sat in the kitchen counting out our cash. Gala was still short on her end by three hundred dollars. Each time I thought about the end of the month approaching, my stomach dropped. To distract ourselves, we went downstairs to our stoop, where Lucian and Jeffrey were talking about the history of France. Lucian said, “A little bit of monarchy, a little bit of empire.”
I told Lucian that Gala was still short on her half of the rent. Tanya, our next-door neighbour, was out front of her house preparing the barbeque and overheard. She said, “How is that possible? I see you girls. You are working at all times of night. If you can’t afford the rent out here, those damn hippies are ripping you off.” I told them how much Maggie was charging us. Tanya whistled, and Lucian put his hand over his heart. “That is even more than what those white girls are charging me!” My mouth dropped. “What?” Lucian handed me and Gala a Gauloises each. He said, “Those girls charge us at least two-point-five times their actual rent.” I gasped. “But they’re rich already!” Gala cocked her head. “So what? Good for them. Tell me you wouldn’t do the same if you were in their position.” I told her she was not helping, and that Maggie was, in fact, bleeding us dry. I asked Lucian how he knew for sure, and he said, “Haven’t you girls seen the lease on the kitchen table? It’s been sitting out for days.” I ran upstairs to look at it. The rent, in total, for the whole house, was twelve hundred dollars per month. I shrieked, “Maggie and Alex pay four hundred dollars each!” Gala and Lucian could hear me from the stoop.
It became clear that Gala and I were financing Maggie’s freewheeling summer of surf at her place in Rockaway Beach. Because of her, I can’t remember the last time I ate a vegetable. We decided to go to the beach to confront her or at least negotiate some suitable terms. Gala had found the address on a postcard in Alex’s room. Doesn’t Maggie know Far Rockaway is still Queens? We packed some beach essentials, changed into our bathing suits, and looked up how to get there.
We had been out of the house for less than five minutes when an unusually pale man came up to us, asking me something in Spanish. I said I didn’t speak it, and he switched to English and asked for directions. Seeing as Gala and I are the worst at directions, we said, “Sorry! We don’t know.” We carried on walking. Both of us quietly realized the man was following us. He walked at a quick pace, trying to catch up. He followed us for two blocks and managed to get about a foot behind us. I could hear him whispering things under his breath. At the same time, Gala and I grabbed each other’s hand and broke into a run. The less time spent in public, the safer girls feel. That’s not incidental; the world was built that way.
Once we knew we had lost him, we crossed the street to a pickup selling watermelons. The man selling them was wearing a straw hat, belted denim shorts, and bright white sneakers. The watermelons were cut in quarters and wrapped in plastic. They were a rich pink, and I could tell they were ripe. I gave him three dollars, and he smiled. “Where ya girls going? To play tennis?” I guess he meant me; I was wearing Gala’s tennis skirt. I carried the watermelon nestled between my arm and waist. The sun was making it warm, and my fingers were sticky. We waited for the A at Utica. It was even hotter on the platform than it was outside. It’s weird to think the last time I was there I had just arrived in New York. It felt like so long ago, and yet, it didn’t really feel like anything had happened in the interim. The listlessness of a summer trying to make ends meet.
Whenever I’m on the subway or walking in the street alone, there’s a constant feeling of being on display. It’s a feeling I’ve never felt so strongly anywhere else. It’s so tiring, and sometimes I lie in bed not wanting to leave the house because of it. Simply appearing in public means that at any moment someone is free to come up to me, call out to me, graze me. Gala is never bothered by it. She never gets nervous, and she never gets scared. Sometimes she gets into strangers’ cars because she is an iconoclast to Common Sense. In some ways I admire her, but, then again, I’m always worried. Our bodies don’t make it safe to be fearless, yet Gala still is.
We got off the Rockaway Park Shuttle at Beach Ninety-Eighth Street. Gala was hungry and I was impatient. There was a taco place that looked like a shack a couple blocks away. When we gave our names for the order and the cashier raised his eyebrows and said in a Midwestern accent, “Are those really your names?” Gala told him not to skimp on the guacamole. Because we were so hungry, we ordered two tacos each, yucca fries, and no drinks because Gala had filled up a water bottle at home. The bill came to over twenty dollars. Gala was aghast. She said, “Wait, if we ordered at a window, do we still have to tip? But they’ve built the tip into the tacos!” It wasn’t as great as everyone around us was saying it was. Either they were lying, or they had never had a good taco before. The tortilla was dry and came apart like layers of paper towel, and the whitefish was bitter and left a metallic taste in my mouth. Apparently that happens if the fish takes too long to die. Gala licked her fingers, and I asked her if she liked it. She shrugged and said, “Does it matter? I don’t know. I mean, I ate it.” I overheard a girl behind me say, “Love this place! So cheap! Practically authentic!” We were still hungry. I usually make the journey to East Thirteenth Street to get tostadas at a Mexican deli. Gala and I never spend more than a collective ten dollars there, and we get drinks. That’s where we really splurge; sometimes I get a Jarritos or an Inca Kola, but I especially like a Kolashampan. I used to drink it when I was little.
After our tacos we walked to the address Gala had found in Alex’s room. The house was beige with white shingles, and it wasn’t brick but had aluminum siding. I guess that’s what all the houses are made of near the beach. Gala looked through the window and said, “No one’s home. What do we do?” We could have waited, but it seemed stupid; our pilgrimage was about action, not inaction. Plus, I am very good at investigating. We walked back to the taco stand, and the cashier said, “It’s Ina and Gallo!” We asked him if he knew someone named Maggie, who was three inches taller than us, had strange taste in shoes, and surfed. The cashier squinted. “Dunlop’s girlfriend? Oh yeah, I know her. She’s probably at the beach now. Try Rippers. It’s 2 p.m., she must be reloading calories. Try the juice bar.”
Maggie was sitting on a bench in sun-washed colours. She was wearing a dusty-pink crochet shirt and perfectly worn-in shorts. Gala called out to her, and Maggie shielded her eyes from the sun. “Oh hey, girls, funny bumping into you! Isn’t it so nice to be a train away from the beach?” She was sipping at a carrot and ginger smoothie. At least someone was getting her nutrients. I pulled the lease from my bag and waved it in her face She recoiled a little bit. “Listen, we can’t keep paying what you’re charging us. You know it’s too much!” I was not going to be gentle. Maggie shrugged, “I’m charging you double occupancy.” Gala’s brow wrinkled, and she put her hand on her hip, “But for how much we pay to share a bed, we could’ve had a room each!” Maggie stood up from the bench and said it wasn’t her fault we weren’t familiar with real-estate prices. She looked at me. “Why are you holding a watermelon?”
For someone who seemingly prides herself on being spiritually non-materialistic, Maggie really doubled down. She said, “If you can’t afford it, someone else can. I had Plans for my summer.” Gala was stunned. “So did we! We’re good tenants. We let you sneak around the room whenever you want and never complain!” Maggie rolled her eyes. “You girls are messy.” Gala looked at me as if I were to blame. Maggie said if we couldn’t pay by August 1, “Pack your bags.” I thought about what Lucian said before we left: “How do you think the rich get richer? They screw the vulnerable—and that’s you, honey.”
Gala and I walked away from the boardwalk and onto the beach. We tried to shake off the feeling that things were crumbling around us. Part of the beach was closed off from the heavy damage the hurricane had caused. In the distance you could see some debris still littered across the shore. Gala asked if the water was the ocean because she had never been to the ocean before. There are big lakes where we’re from, but no ocean. I told her, “I guess it’s the ocean eventually.” We set our towels on the sand where it wasn’t so busy. I borrowed a little of Gala’s sunscreen. It is the first summer I’ve noticed dark spots on my skin. I have one now, spread across the fingers on my left hand from my pinky finger to index, shaped like an undiscovered island. Unlike Lucian, I like to be tanned. When I was little, I never went outside that much when it was sunny, or else I’d get “too dark” or “swarthy.” Now, I like it; it has always done wonders to affirm my difference. People ask fewer questions, and I look healthier somehow. The bags under my eyes (which I have had since childhood and which make me look perpetually tired) seem to fade in the summer.
The only time I’ve ever been sunburned was when Gala and I were seventeen. A friend of ours picked us up from a party at four in the morning. We were supposed to leave that early to go on a trip to the sandbanks. We got there at seven and walked the dunes. That day I saw a dead fish so far away from the water I wondered how it got there. Gala and I were so tired from the party we fell asleep on the beach, and for the rest of the summer I had the outline of my hand on my stomach. The aftermath was painful. The skin peeled around my forehead and nose, and the tops of my shoulders radiated stinging heat. We made a promise to go back every summer but never had anyone to take us.
Gala rolled over on her side to face me. “For two people who never buy anything, how are we left with no money?” I told her we had expenses. She was pretty flippant about the whole thing. “Why don’t you front the money for my half of the rent? I’ll pay you back.” I asked her how exactly she planned on paying me back, since once the clock strikes August 1, we’ll have to start from scratch for September’s rent. Gala laid back down and waved her hand. “Honestly, Isa, it’s not a big deal. We’ll figure it out. We always do.” What she means is I figure it out, I always do. I said, “Well I guess I could stay somewhere like Nicolas’s house or Lilou’s.” Gala rolled over on her towel to face me again. “What about me?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard asking someone to let two of us stay somewhere. That’s actually imposing.” I unwrapped the watermelon carefully, trying to shelter it from any sand caught in the wind. Gala looked at me. “How are you gonna eat that? You didn’t even get a spoon.” I brought the watermelon close to my face and bit into it. The juice ran down my arms, and I wiped my elbows on the towel. I handed the watermelon to Gala. “You just eat the other half, and don’t eat the same side as me.”