Chapter 30
Dulce didn’t wait to find out if they got the grant. She took her smart phone to the clinic, and interviewed Nidia and Zara. Then she went to the shelter and began interviewing everyone who would talk to her.
Her mother was still depressed and her sister was still bitchy, but every morning, she headed to the shelter to talk to the women. After gathering hurricane stories, she found herself asking girls she knew in the clinic if they would tell their sex-work stories. Marisol helped her pitch two series of interviews to different media outlets: one of hurricane refugees and one of sex workers. Both got greenlighted, but not for as much money as she’d hoped.
Three weeks later, Dulce still didn’t know if she’d gotten the grant when Marisol called to invite her to participate in a video project to raise money for hurricane relief. Dulce was to go through her interviews and edit them into a ten-minute video.
Dulce threw herself into the project. Not that it paid much, and the night they premiered the video, she still didn’t know if they’d gotten the grant.
She’d decided to do the Puerto Rican oral history work under her own name. So Dulce García was officially on the bill at Marisol’s next event: a big gala fundraiser for hurricane relief in midtown. It was another five-star hotel, and she recalled that time at the La Fleur with Jerry. Everything was different now. Maybe not with Zavier, but still different. She had made a small chunk of change and was contributing to buying groceries. Her sister was showing her a little more respect. Yunisa had announced that she was getting someone to watch the kids tonight so she could go to the hurricane fundraiser. Dulce wasn’t sure if she was coming to support her, or if she was checking to see if Dulce was telling the truth. Maybe she just wanted the free champagne.
A photographer from the Times was there. They had also sent a reporter, but it wouldn’t be Zavier. Dulce had learned from his reporting that he was back in Puerto Rico.
The photographer asked Dulce to pose with Borbón, and the staff and refugees from the clinic. She squeezed between Nidia and Zara.
In between shots, she turned to them. “Where’s the baby?” Dulce asked.
“Back in Marisol’s apartment,” Nidia said. “Serena’s babysitting.”
“Smile for the camera, ladies,” the photographer said.
Wasn’t she smiling? She wondered if maybe it was more of a grimace. Dulce was so nervous, she couldn’t quite feel her face. At least she didn’t have to go on stage and say anything. But Marisol had insisted that she would need to stand and be acknowledged.
After the photo shoot, Dulce leaned against the wall, unsure what to do. She suddenly felt lost in the vastness of possibilities in this new life. Not that she’d ever want to go back to Jerry, but there was something so contained about that lack of freedom. She didn’t need to decide what to wear. Where to stand. He always told her. She was rarely expected to speak. She longed for freedom the whole time. But now she longed to know what she was supposed to do with herself at this very grown up party. She had said hello to Delia Borbón, and the star had embraced her warmly. But she didn’t know the woman well enough to pal around with her for the rest of the party. Why did she rely on her sister to be her date?
Wealthy people were filling up the tables, along with activist types. Everything about her felt wrong. Her clothes. Her hair. She should have spent the money to get the blowout. But they still didn’t know if they were gonna get that grant.
Dulce pulled out her phone and saw a text from Yunisa that she’d be late.
Dulce wondered what she was doing here. She didn’t belong. She was practically having a panic attack when Kim and Jody walked by.
“Oh thank god,” she said, rushing up to them.
Kim laughed. “It’s so easy to get lost at one of Marisol’s big gala events.”
Dulce nodded.
“Stick with us, kid,” Jody said. “We’ll protect you from all the drama.”
Jody grabbed a trio of champagne flutes and they toasted.
“To justice,” Kim said.
They clinked glasses, and over the girlfriends’ shoulders Dulce saw the Times photographer snap a shot of them.
Kim and Jody had a table with another girl from the clinic named Lily. She was apparently a stripper organizer, but also a slam poet.
Kim and Jody set their purses down, then went to get drinks.
“So it’s possible to balance sex work and writing?” Dulce asked.
“Girl, definitely—” Lily stopped abruptly.
Dulce followed her eyes and saw a tall man walking in. From the looks of him, he could have been either black or Latino.
“That’s Terence Moreau,” Lily said. “He wrote Filtration System.”
Dulce didn’t recognize the man or the book title. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties, with a bald head, jeans, and a black leather jacket.
Lily waved, and he headed over to their table.
“Lily Johnson,” he said, grinning. “The sexiest woman who ever wrote a poem.”
He turned to Dulce. “Unless of course you are also a poet, mon cher. Then it would be hard to decide.”
“This is Dulce,” Lily said. “And she’s a journalist.”
“Then I supposed your title is safe, Lily,” Terence said. “Where can I get a drink?”
“Have a seat,” she said. “What are you drinking?”
“Bourbon and water,” he said.
Lily rose, but Dulce put a hand on her arm. “I’ll get it,” she said. “I was gonna grab something from the open bar anyway.”
She hadn’t been planning on getting up, but she didn’t really want to make small talk with a flirty guy right now. Not when the drinks were already free.
She got him the bourbon, plus another rum and coke for Lily, and a glass of wine for herself.
When she returned to the table, Lily was asking, “Does that mean you’ll be teaching at Columbia next year, or you’ll be back at SUNY?”
Dulce didn’t wait to hear the answer.
She was lingering by the kitchen door, hoping they would bring out another tray of snacks, when she heard the audience erupt in wild cheering.
Marisol was emceeing the event. “Yes,” she said. “You heard me right. Terence Moreau is up next.”
More cheering.
“Terence moved to New York as a homeless young refugee from Hurricane Katrina. He wrote rant after rant about the hurricane, and joined one of the New York teams of poets that competed at the National Poetry Slam. He won first place for an individual poet. And later his book Filtration System won the National Book Award for poetry. When we reached out to him about performing at this benefit, he didn’t ask for any money, he didn’t even ask when the event would be. He just said ‘yes, I’ll be there.’ If there’s a man who knows what the people of Puerto Rico are going through right now, it’s one of the writers that put Hurricane Katrina into words. Please give it up for Terence Moreau.”
The audience went wild as he walked to the stage.
After the cheering died down, a young man in the front yelled, “fuck ’em up, Terence!”
Moreau bowed his head and cleared his throat. Then he began by singing:

My, my this American lie
Drove my chevy to the levy
As the water rushed by
And George Bush was drinking whiskey and rye
Singing this will be the day that you die . . .

His voice was gentle, lilting, but then he stopped singing, and his voice turned to a fast, machine-gun delivery:

Modern day middle passage
my people packed in the hold of the slave ship Superdome
same stench

Line by line, his poem built a searing parallel between Hurricane Katrina and slavery. He framed it as an auction block, where black bodies in crisis were sold to the highest bidder, from the Red Cross’ self-serving monopoly on relief funds to the photos of Black Death that made the careers of white journalists to the financial incentives of for-profit prisons.
He wound up the auction with one last sale:

Final contract, rebuilding New Orleans
Big money! Big money!
Good old boy George Bush
Sold to Haliburton
No bid.

He banged suddenly on the microphone like a gavel, and the sharp sound made Dulce jump. Then, before anyone in the audience could catch their breath, he went back to singing.

I met a black girl who sang the blues
And I asked if she had happy news
But she just died and washed away
 
And I went down to the French Quarter
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the ghost there said the music wouldn’t play
 
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried and the pestilence teemed
But not a word was spoken
The government was broken
 
And the man who could have done the most
Was grinning in some camera for the Washington Post
As the hurricane
hit
the Gulf Coast
The day the music died . . .

His resounding voice brought it all back for Dulce. By the end of the poem, she had a lump in her throat.
“One more time for Terence Moreau!” Marisol said. “With both these hurricanes, this country’s racism and brutality has been exposed for all to see. So they’ve upped the official death toll for Hurricane María from sixteen to sixty-four, but we know that’s still a lie. And now the suicide rate is shooting up in Puerto Rico. People need hope and relief. Which is why we’re up here raising money tonight.”
Lily walked up to the stage and handed Marisol a piece of paper.
“This just in!” Marisol said. “Not only did Terence Moreau agree to perform free of charge, he also just agreed to donate five thousand dollars!”
As the cheering echoed throughout the room, Kim approached Dulce and handed her a glass of champagne.
“You look like you need another drink,” Kim said.
“Definitely,” Dulce said, and downed it.
They walked back over to the table, and Dulce hung tight with Kim and Jody for the rest of the evening. The three of them drank lots of champagne. Only much later did Marisol pull Dulce backstage while they showed the ten-minute video of the interviews Dulce had done.
From the wings, Dulce watched, amazed to see her own work on the big screen. The clip was one of the women from the clinic’s shelter. She had closely cropped hair and was somewhere in her twenties:
She held a photo of a middle aged, balding man in a tank top and shorts. “This is my father. He died from an infection that was a direct result of the hurricane, a few weeks after. So when we buried him, I cut out the ‘made in USA’ label on one of my t-shirts and buried it with him. That’s my flesh and blood going into the ground. And I know his death was manufactured right here in the United States.”
Dulce had watched the clip countless times as she edited it. But she was stunned to see the impact it had on the audience. People were wiping their eyes.
Backstage, Marisol whispered to Dulce. “I know I said you didn’t have to make a speech or anything,” Marisol said. “But it would be great if you just said a few words. Are you up for it?”
The booze had given Dulce some unexpected courage, so she found herself agreeing.
After the clip was done, Marisol went back out onto the stage. “Please keep that applause going for the filmmaker,” she said. “Dulce García.”
Filmmaker? As Dulce crossed the stage, she felt like a preschooler walking in her mother’s high heel shoes.
“I don’t know if I’m a filmmaker,” she blurted out. “But I’m a girl with a camera phone, and a free app to edit video.”
The audience laughed.
Dulce shook her head. “I didn’t really prepare anything to say, but . . . I . . . I wanted to collect women’s stories because I was in Puerto Rico during María, and . . . my people are from the Caribbean, so hurricanes were always just a part of life. But there’s nothing natural about these recent storms. Harvey, Irma, María. This is what happens when the people in charge only care about making money, and don’t care about the people or the planet. You can’t fuck with the environment like we’ve done, and have ocean temperatures and levels rising and not have crazy shit happen.”
She suddenly recalled herself. “Sorry,” she said. “Excuse my language.”
But the audience clapped to encourage her.
“Fucked up is fucked up!” a woman called out.
“Tell the truth!” one man yelled from the back.
Dulce looked at Marisol, who nodded.
“The truth is,” Dulce said. “I just . . . I used to think that environmentalism was some white people drama until this climate change practically fucking killed me. And listen up, this shit isn’t gonna be contained to the brown countries for long. People here in New York, you think your money and power can protect you? You can’t buy a new ozone layer or a new worldwide food supply if you fuck up the ones you have. So we need to fight for the people of Puerto Rico and to fight for climate justice like we’re fighting for our own lives. Because we are.”
The audience exploded into applause. She looked out to see them, and her sister was in the front row. And her sister was . . . crying? What? She hadn’t seen Yunisa cry since their brother had been deported.
“I just want to shoutout my family,” Dulce said. “I couldn’t have done it without them. You know? My sister in particular. Cause she taught me how to use a camera phone. Mostly for selfies.”
The audience laughed, and Dulce walked off the stage to loud clapping.
Marisol took the mic smoothly again. “Thank you, Dulce. Next up is a young woman I saw recently at the Nuyorican Poets Café. She’s in town from California. Yes, the Puerto Rican diaspora is worldwide and coast-to-coast in the US and beyond. This is her poem about the hurricane. Please give it up for Elena Dayo!”
A middle aged black woman with long dreadlocks stepped up to the stage. “This poem is called ‘Puerto Rico & Mr. Jones’” she said. And then she gave a little history:
“The Jones Act of 1920, requires that all goods transported by water between US ports (including Puerto Rico) be carried on US ships, made in the US, owned and operated by US citizens. Puerto Rico’s debt to the US is roughly equal to the accumulated revenue potential lost by Puerto Rico under the Jones Act.”
Like the slam poet before her, she began singing. A gender-flipped version of the old Billy Paul tune:

Me and Mister Jones
We got a thing going on . . .

Then she began to speak, and went back and forth for the rest of the poem between speaking and singing:
America loves me. Lets me wear his chain around my neck. Heavy, heavy gold rope got me living larger than any of the other Caribbean islands. He tells me: ain’t nobody’s ships but mine docking up in that port, baby
He says I belong to him.

We both know that it’s wrong
But it’s much too strong
To let it go now

He called a few years ago, mad as hell. I told him:
I know I’ve racked up a lot of debt lately, but it’s not like I don’t wanna work. I mean, if you would just let me—I know the ports belong to you but could I just—? Okay, okay, stop yelling. Yes, I know I owe you a lot of money. Yeah, okay. I’ll cut back on expenses. Tighten the belt. Austerity or whatever. We closed a lot of schools. Cut the civil servants. But still, I got this gold chain around my neck. I belong to him now more than ever.

Because he’s got his own obligations
And so, and so do I

A little while back, word got around the neighborhood that Irma was coming to kick my ass, and he didn’t show up to defend me. But it was cool, right? I’m tough, you know. Not one of those needy chicks. But when María was headed my way, talking bout she was gonna try to take me out for real? She was packing heat, like that bitch was seriously dangerous, okay. I was like papi, you got me, right? You coming for me, right?
 
And the winds came. And the waves crashed. And the houses got beat down. And the fallen trees blocked the road. And the water got contaminated. And the gas supply dried up. And the food rotted in the heat and the dead refrigerator. And the water flooded up to the roof. We up here vomiting. Medicine spoiled. Gangrene set in. Viejitos’ rest homes turning to final resting places.
 
And you didn’t come for me, papi. You didn’t fucking come for me. But you wasn’t gonna let nobody else help.
I
belonged
to you . . .
 
And then she screamed the next two lines, offtune and furious,

Mee-eeee and Mister
Mister Jones!

Since 1900, didn’t I send my children to cut your Hawaiian sugarcane? Since 1917, didn’t I send my sons to your wars? Haven’t I always let your corporate chains put my mom and pop stores out of business? Didn’t I let you play your war games on my Vieques for decades? Didn’t I let you dump towers full of coal ash when your continental US was too good to clean up its own mess? Open ash dumps for the hurricane to knock down? Now your arsenic, mercury, chromium seeping into my people. And Mr. Jones ain’t got a goddamn thing going on to help.
 
Now he’ll go his way
And I’ll go mine
 
Your forefathers threw a hissy fit. Dumped tea into Massachussets Bay to protest King George. How the hell am I gonna get ten stories of coal ash up to Boston Harbor? How do I send this shame back where it belongs? This third world, side chick, shame back?
 
No, Mr. Jones. You need to act like you got some respect.
 
As she repeated the last lines of the poem, she faded out some of the words until she said the final line:
 
No. Jones. Act.
 
When she finished, the crowd applauded wildly.
“That’s right,” Marisol said. “We don’t just want hurricane relief, we want justice. Repeal the Jones Act! And cancel the debt!”
The applause thundered.
Someone in the crowd yelled out “Viva Puerto Rico libre!” Many voices yelled back: “Que viva!”
Dulce felt like she was gonna cry. The side chick metaphor sort of undid her. That was just what it was like. Somebody who held all the cards and came just to take and you had to act like you really liked them.
She needed some air. In the packed room, it took her a while to make her way to the door. She felt like she might burst into tears, or maybe throw up. As she pressed through the crowd, Marisol was back on the mic.
“I want to thank you all for being so financially generous tonight,” she said. “But there’s more that the people of Puerto Rico need from you. Not only your money, but your time, as well. You know you like to go on vacation. Why not spend part of your vacation helping to rebuild Puerto Rico? We got a list of grassroots organizations where you can volunteer to help do all kinds of things . . .”
Dulce finally made it out of the ballroom door, and took the stairs two at a time down to the street. It was an unseasonably warm evening, with temperatures in the low sixties.
Yet her first inhalation wasn’t a deep breath but a gasp. In front of the building stood Zavier. His hair was longer and a little wild. He looked thinner. He had on jeans and a pale blue guayabera shirt. And he was smoking. She turned to go back in, but he had already seen her.
“Great speech,” he said. He sounded like maybe he’d had a few drinks, too.
“Thanks,” she said. “I thought you were back in Puerto Rico.”
“Back and forth,” he said. “You been reading my stuff?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s good. Especially that piece you co-wrote on the increase in violence against women since the hurricane.”
“I kept it on my radar,” he said, and took a drag of the cigarette. “I been reading your work on Puerto Rico, too.” Smoke trailed out of his mouth as he spoke.
Dulce wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Thanks for . . . uh . . . coming out tonight,” she said.
“It was really . . .” he began. “It had me getting all emotional.”
Dulce nodded and pointed to the cigarette. “May I?”
He handed it to her.
“I didn’t realize you were the filmmaker,” he said. “If I had known, I might not have come.”
Dulce took a drag and let the smoke fill her lungs. She used to smoke when she was with Jerry. She’d given it up in Cuba. The times in Puerto Rico didn’t really count. It was a hurricane. She’d been tempted since she got back to New York, but she didn’t want to start again. It cost too much money.
“To be honest, that’s probably a big part of why I’m so emotional,” he said.
“I’m surprised,” she said. “It’s been months. Plenty of time to move on.”
“I’ve been mostly working,” he said. “No time to feel.”
She nodded again and took another drag.
“I also been reading your other columns,” he said. “The ones about sex work.”
“You mean ‘Celia’s’ columns?” Dulce asked with a wry smile.
“I can’t get one of those women’s lines out of my head,” he said. “One of the girls who’d been pimped. The sixteen-year-old.”
“ ‘You learn to come when men call you,’” Dulce knew the line.
“I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe—maybe something—maybe you—”
Dulce could feel her heart beating wildly now. This was the chance to say it. Not that it would make a difference now, but she had always felt so bitter that she never even had that opportunity to explain.
“Yeah,” Dulce said. “That was part of it. Gerard called and I answered.”
“I didn’t mean to bring all this up,” Zavier said.
“It’s okay,” Dulce said. She swallowed to keep her voice from shaking. “Good to air it out.”
He nodded and took another inhalation of smoke.
“There was something else,” Dulce said. If this was her one chance, she might as well fucking say it all. “I never really thought any guy would want a future with me. Guys wanted to fuck me, but really be with me? Nice guys? It just seemed like it wasn’t gonna work. So I should sort of just get out before I got too attached.”
“But what about in Puerto Rico?” he asked. “After I found out you had been a sex worker? You knew I still wanted to be with you.”
Dulce wondered if this was like dreaming about a loved one who had died. To wake up and realize all over again that they were gone. Even hearing him say that he had wanted her, wanted to be with her—it was excruciating to hear him describe it in the past tense.
“I should have told you,” she said. Confession. She recalled the priest from Puerto Rico. “The viejita with the flipped car in her front yard even said so. When you went out of the room, she told me not to keep any secrets from you, but I was scared.”
“Of what?” he asked, bitterly.
“Of everything,” she said, her voice raised, higher in pitch than she expected. “Rejection. Humiliation. I feel like a fucking fraud all the time these days.”
“Most people of color have impostor syndrome,” Zavier said. “It’s not that unusual.”
“You don’t get it,” she fought for the words. “From the time I was fourteen to the time I was eighteen, I had a guy tell me how deep up my ass to put my thong. Everything I know about sex is how to please a man. I know how to fuck, suck dick, tickle your balls—”
“Enough with the details,” Zavier said it as if the words were painful. “You know, I been asking myself since I read what that girl said, could I forgive you? If you even wanted me to. If you even wanted to get back—”
Dulce shook her head. How did he think he was ready to be her man if he couldn’t even listen to a few specifics about what she had done, sometimes was forced to do? “I don’t think you need to forgive me. I think I need to forgive you.”
“Perdón?” he said, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah,” Dulce said, she felt unmoored, reckless. It was over and she would get her final say. “For not even letting me explain. You think you’re so cool with me having been a sex worker as long as it’s something that exists all wrapped up neatly in the past and it never has to touch you. When I went off with Gerard, we had only been on a date and a half, and you already felt like you owned me? Yeah, it’s fucked up that I lied. And I should have told you. But it’s not like I broke a commitment. There’s someplace in your mind you had already started thinking of me as ‘your girl.’ And part of why I lied is because I thought you needed that fantasy. Be honest now. What would you have said that day if I’d told you I was a former sex worker, and that a sugar daddy was calling me? Would you still have thought of me as girlfriend material?”
“If I’m honest?” he asked. “No, but that’s just because it brings up a lot of fucking insecurity in me. I grew up in the hood and broke-ass cats like me never got the girls. They went for the guys with money. How would I know that you wouldn’t just come when someone else calls in the future?”
“You don’t,” she said. “You would need to actually trust me. But first you’d need to take the time to lock it down with me. Even after everything we went through together in Puerto Rico, you never actually asked me to be your girlfriend.”
“I never asked?” he said. “I was sure I’d asked.”
“Trust me,” Dulce said. “I was listening really hard for that question.”
“Okay then,” he asked. “Will you be my girlfriend?”
It was as if all her blood had turned to ice. “Don’t play with me,” she said.
“Wait,” he said. “First I’m supposed to apologize. Dulce, I’m sorry for not giving you a chance to explain what happened. And will you be my girlfriend?”
“Are you serious?” she asked. She wanted to flee. This had to be a trap. Did he want a revenge fuck? Asking if she wanted to be his girlfriend? One more thing a man dangled in front of her to get her off balance, then knock her down. “Because I will fucking kill you if you’re playing with me right now.”
“I’m serious,” he said, and gave her that searing look into her eyes. The one that made her the most uncomfortable of all.
Her blood had gone from ice to fire. Her face flushed. “This isn’t some kind of payback?” she asked. “Get my hopes up only to . . . to . . . ?” The tears were falling now.
He stepped forward and took her hand. “Please, Dulce,” he said. “Will you please be my novia?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing through her tears. “But on the condition that you stop smoking.”
“Whatever you say, baby,” he stubbed out the cigarette.
Just as he leaned in to kiss her, someone called Dulce’s name. It was Yunisa.
“So . . . I just wanted to say I’m headed home,” Yunisa said, looking Zavier up and down.
Dulce introduced them.
“Nice to meet you,” Yunisa said. “I hope your intentions are honorable.”
“Very much so,” he said.
Yunisa sucked her teeth, then turned and waved to them over her shoulder. “See you at home, Luqui,” Yunisa said.
Zavier turned to Dulce with an openmouthed grin. “Luqui!” he said. “I told you I’d find out. Your family nickname is Luqui? Can I call you that?”
Dulce cut her eyes at Yunisa’s retreating back. “I knew my sister would be my downfall.”
* * *
Zavier’s apartment in Brooklyn had once been a single family home, with hardwood floors and tall windows. It had a high-ceilinged living room, a dining room, and a large kitchen with two refrigerators. The walls were decorated with political posters, including one that had a bright, multicolored butterfly that said “migration is beautiful.” On the wall of the kitchen was an elaborate chore wheel and a white board that said “RECYCLED paper products, please” and “when you open a new almond milk, please put a date on it w/ a sharpie.”
Zavier stood at the kitchen sink and washed his hands.
“I like to scrub the subway off when I come home,” he said. He lathered up his hands with dishwashing liquid. Dulce did the same.
A shyness had descended onto her. She was unsure what to say. They dried off their hands and went upstairs.
The second floor had several bedrooms, and another bathroom. Zavier had two small, connected rooms. One had a cozy sofa and desk and the other had a bed and a bureau.
He and Dulce sat down on the couch.
When they had been standing on the street, and she had agreed to be his girlfriend, she was overwhelmed with passion for him. But now, after running into her sister, and a long train ride, she felt awkward. Especially knowing there were other housemates in the apartment.
“How many people live here,” Dulce asked.
“There are five of us,” Zavier said. “It’s a collective. We have rules and house meetings, and stuff.”
“So is there like a policy about overnight guests?” she asked.
“Funny you should ask,” he said. “We have a boyfriend/ girlfriend policy. No more than three overnights per week. And no sex in the bathroom.”
Dulce grinned. “Anything else?” she asked.
“People are expected to just sort of use common sense,” he said.
He pulled out his iPhone and plugged it in to a speaker. “Like if people were going to fool around or something,” he said. “Common sense would be to put on some music. You know, out of courtesy.”
Dulce nodded. “This isn’t awkward at all.”
Zavier laughed. “I thought I’d just play something familiar,” he said. “To put my guest at ease.”
“Guest?”
“Or should I say, new girlfriend?” he asked.
“Much better.”
And then he put on her favorite Nashonna song. Her heart leaped.
She leaned back against the couch. “This is my jam.”
“I had to download it again on the subway,” he said. “I deleted it from my phone when we weren’t talking.”
It was the song she had quoted in one of her tweets. Dulce closed her eyes. She felt the bass of the music, and the melody and rhythm of Nashonna’s yearning voice as she sang and rapped about wanting love.

Mastering lyrics has always been my goal
But love is what I want that I can’t control
Love shoots like a bullet that I try to dodge
Sometimes love finds me then I sabotage
Say I won’t settle for the okey doke
Be sure to ghost good so I don’t get my heart broke

Nashonna’s words brought it all back. The swell of emotion that he wanted to be with her. She had sabotaged the love of her family twice, and his love once. But not again. She wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted love. And maybe he would break her heart. But she was willing to take the risk.
He had that look again. That searing look, but it was different this time. She had nothing to hide anymore. Suddenly all her fears and hesitation felt ridiculous.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. His mouth met hers with an aching hunger, reflecting the yearning of Nashonna’s words.
He kissed her ear, her neck, her shoulders each one of her ribs. She unhooked her bra, and he kissed her breasts, licked her nipples.
When he stood up to take off his shirt, Dulce followed, pressed her tongue into his mouth as he unbuttoned his guayabera shirt. She slid her hands across the smooth muscles of his back, his chest, his shoulders, his sides, his belly.
He was backing away from her.
“Where are you going?” she murmured as he kissed her earlobe.
“To the bed,” he said, one hand sliding down the back of her skirt.
Now, instead of him pulling her, she was pushing him. He nearly stumbled over their shoes as he walked backwards.
With both hands, she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, along with her underwear, a boring yellow cotton pair. Again, she hadn’t waxed anything, but he didn’t seem to care. He slid his hands over her hips, gently squeezed her ass, and cupped her pubic mound with one hand.
She groaned at the contact with her vulva, as he slid his entire hand up and down.
She lay back on the bed, and he leaned down above her. Then he used one finger, and traced it up and down through the hair at the opening.
Gently, with each glide back and forth, he worked that single finger just slightly between her lips.
“You’re so wet,” he murmured.
Dulce could only moan in response.
“Can I come inside you?”
“Yes,” she whispered into his neck.
She lay back on the bed, and he followed. When he entered her, she cried out with the sweetness of it.
“Oh my god,” he said. “You feel so good. It’s all I can do to go slow.”
She moaned with his measured stroke.
“Are you loud?” he asked, conspiratorially.
“Am I what?” Dulce asked, confused, getting pulled out of the moment.
“When you come?” he asked. “Are you loud when you come? Should I turn up the music? Roommate courtesy and all?”
Dulce flushed with sudden shame.
His face shifted from sly to concerned. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked. “Are you okay?” He pulled out, but continued to hold her.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I’m loud or not.”
His brow was furrowed in a frown, but then it smoothed out and his eyes widened. “You’ve never—”
She shook her head, tears falling silently down her face.
“Oh, mi amor,” he said, and wrapped his arms more tightly around her.
She cried into his shoulder.
“I—” she began through the tears.
“You don’t have to explain anything if you don’t want to,” he whispered.
She cried for a moment, then sank into the bed. She lay there, face down, a tumble of hair covering her face.
“Hey baby,” he said gently. “Can you look at me?”
Dulce shook her head beneath the curtain of hair.
Zavier gently put one finger under her chin. As he lifted her face, he said, “You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Easy for you to say,” Dulce mumbled.
“I feel honored,” Zavier said. “I have the pleasure of giving pleasure to the woman I love.”
Dulce’s eyes opened wide. “You love me?”
“Of course,” Zavier said. “Why do you think I was outside the hotel tonight smoking ten cigarettes? Because I’m in love with you, and I have been since we found each other in a fucking hurricane.”
Dulce bit her lip. “I love you too.”
“So you have nothing to be embarrassed about with me,” he said. “Do you want to try again?”
“Yes?” she said, but it came out like a question.
“So there’s this affirmative consent thing,” he said. “You need to really want to do this if we’re gonna go forward.”
“Yes,” she said more firmly. “I want to. I’m just . . . a little nervous.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I really want to do this, too.”
She giggled.
“All you need to do is tell me if you like what I’m doing,” he said. “Okay?”
She nodded, but he raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” she said.
“Can I come back inside you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Carefully, he entered her.
“Do you like this?” he asked, stroking slowly inside her.
“Mmmmm, yes.”
He eased in and out and she moaned with the pleasure of it, but it didn’t ignite the fire she had felt when he went down on her.
He tried harder and faster. He tried slower and more intense. It all felt good, but nothing really seemed to get her going.
“You don’t have to—” she began.
But he shushed her with a finger across her lips. Then he licked his thumb and slid his hand down below her navel. Slowly, without interrupting a stroke, he slid his thumb between her lips.
She gasped with the intensity of it.
“Yes?” he said, with a delighted, openmouthed grin on his face.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“How about this?” he asked, sliding his thumb sideways across her clitoris.
Dulce let out a sharp moan.
He turned his head from her and used a voice command for the speaker system. “Turn the music up to maximum volume,” he said loudly.
So with Nashonna’s voice soaring in the background, Dulce had her first orgasm. And the music still wasn’t loud enough.
* * *
The next morning, Dulce got home a little before noon.
“Where you been?” Yunisa asked.
“Most recently at the bank,” Dulce said. “I got a cashier’s check for half the rent.”
Yunisa took the check. “Oh shit,” she said. “You paying half the renta?”
“Yeah,” Dulce said. “My balance is getting low, but I can help out with groceries, too.”
“You need to keep a little something,” Yunisa said. “Stay sexy for that man of yours. Is he in college?”
“He’s got a Masters degree,” Dulce said.
“He’s skinny but cute,” Yunisa said. “You need to keep him. He make good money?”
“Not really,” Dulce said. “He lives in Brooklyn with four roommates.”
“Where does he work?”
“He’s a freelance journalist, but he has this big project working on a radio documentary about colonization and climate change in Puerto Rico.”
“Damn,” Yunisa said. “He’ll be lucky to break even on some shit like that. Why he waste all that time in college if he wanted to be poor?”
“Because that wouldn’t help raise awareness about Puerto Rico,” Dulce said.
“I know,” Yunisa said. “He’s obviously got a good heart. And he’s good to you?”
“And he knows what I used to do,” Dulce said.
“About Jerry?”
“All of it.”
“Damn,” Yunisa said. “Yeah. He’s for real. Don’t fuck this up.”
* * *
Three days later, Dulce walked over to the Vega clinic to meet with one of the new women who had come to the shelter from PR. She had come from a networking event for young journalists of color. She had a pocket full of cards for editors she could pitch. Her head was buzzing with story ideas.
She had her hair loose. Zavier liked it that way. She didn’t do it for him, but it was just the way her hair was. She had always flatiorned it for men, assuming they liked that better. But if her man didn’t prefer straight hair, then good. It was one less thing to have to do.
As she turned the corner to the Vega clinic, a red Mercedes came around the corner and beeped at her. She ignored it, but the driver called her name and rolled down the window. She peered in and saw Phillip Gerard. Was it the same Mercedes from Santo Domingo? Had he shipped it from the Caribbean? No that was ridiculous. He must have rented it.
“So glad to see everything turned out okay,” he said. “You need a ride anywhere?”
“No thanks,” she said. “I’m not going far.”
“Well, can you talk for a minute?” he asked.
Dulce stopped. The whole thing reminded her of when she was walking down the street as a teenager. Grown men used to yell at her from cars. She would do everything to avoid them. Avoid eye contact. Give evasive responses. But she wasn’t a teenager anymore. She wasn’t going to come when he called, and she wasn’t going to avoid him, either.
“Phillip, I’m not interested anymore in . . . whatever it was we had going,” she said. The words “I have a boyfriend,” almost tumbled out of her mouth. That was her teenage excuse. Even though it wasn’t true then, and it was true now.
“Well, can we catch up?” he asked. “I was worried about you. I felt bad about not helping, you know, once I realized how serious the hurricane was.”
“Well you certainly haven’t wasted any time figuring how to turn things to your advantage,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Your real estate group is buying up plenty of Puerto Rican coastline,” she said.
“That’s not fair,” he said. “I have a plan to turn the land I’m buying into a public land trust.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Dulce said.
“No really,” he said. “I have the papers right here.”
“Let me read the fine print,” she said, and walked over to the car.
He pulled out a leather folder. “Look, it’s all in here. Have a seat. I’ll walk you through it.”
The folder said “San Juan Philanthropic Land Trust.” She sat down in the passenger seat, and he put the folder in her lap.
When he opened it, the wind blew through the windows, almost scattering the papers.
“Let me roll these up,” he said, and as Dulce flipped through the papers, he raised the windows.
It was the click of the locking door that told her something was wrong. But by then, he had floored the pedal and the car screeched away from the curb.
“What the fuck?” she asked.
“Damn bitch,” he said. “You thought you were gonna steal my money. I wasn’t generous enough to you.”
“I never stole a fucking peso from you when we were in the Caribbean.”
He tore up the avenue and cut around a taxi.
“Don’t fucking play dumb with me,” he said. “You know I don’t mean that money. I mean the money in the account.”
“Since when did I have access to any of your accounts,” she asked. “You never even let me use your credit card. I couldn’t even sign for meals in the room.”
“Lying whore!” he said. “I saw you in the New York Times with those two other cunts. The blonde and the Asian chick. Drinking fucking champagne. Celebrating that you took my goddamn money!”
The light had just changed, but he ran the red, barely missing a furniture delivery truck.
Dulce had no idea what he was talking about. Kim and Jody had taken some of his money? How did he even know them?
He turned onto the East Side Highway. Where the hell was he taking her? This wasn’t good. He could go anywhere now that he was on the highway. Could drive for miles and miles. She checked his gas tank. Nearly full. He could drive her to Canada if he wanted.
“I barely know them,” she said. “If they stole some shit from you, I didn’t know anything about it.”
“How did they get my number?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Dulce said. “Are you saying that I’m the only person you’ve given it to?”
Shit. She had given Marisol the number. Could Marisol have robbed him?
“Don’t act like I’m stupid,” he said. “You had the number. She called it out of the blue. Then I saw you together. So we’re going somewhere that I swear I will wring your neck til you tell me where I can find my money.”
Dulce could feel her stomach drop down in her body.
“My friends were just down the street when you pulled up,” Dulce said. “They waved to me. They probably got your license plate.”
“You’re bluffing,” he said. “Nobody knows you’re with me. Just like nobody knows yet that I got robbed. Because you’re gonna help me get that fucking money back before anyone notices it is gone.”
As he spoke, they pulled alongside another car. Dulce turned and banged on the window, trying to alert the other driver.
The woman was singing along to the radio. She had on shades and was swaying to the music. She didn’t seem to notice.
But Gerard did. He began to drive fast, reckless, avoiding getting close enough to other cars that they could see her. Then he pulled into the right hand lane, so there was nothing next to her, just railing and buildings, and New York sky.
No fucking way. She wasn’t going to let him get her somewhere isolated. She looked around for a weapon, but all she had was the leather folder on her lap, and the papers.
Carefully, she unlaced her boot, and slid her foot out of it.
Then, quick as she could, she gripped the instep, and brought it up—heel first—to break the window.
The safety glass shattered, and she opened the folder. Papers flew all around the car. Several stuck to the inside of the windshield. He couldn’t see.
“Fucking crazy bitch!” he said.
The car started to careen across the highway.
With a thud, they collided with another car and the Mercedes bounced off it.
Gerard slowed a bit, and scrabbled at the papers on the windshield, pulling enough down so he could see.
But soon, they heard a siren.
The moment Gerard pulled over, Dulce crashed the rest of the glass out of the window and attempted to climb out. She barely felt the scratches of her arms against the crumbling glass.
“Stay in the car, ma’am,” the police officer’s voice came through over a loudspeaker. It was a motorcycle cop.
Dulce froze, her torso out of the window, the safety glass pressing up through the thin cotton of her shirt.
The officer came toward the car, gun drawn.
“Don’t move,” he ordered.
Dulce slowly lifted her hands up.
“Sir, hands on the steering wheel where I can see them!”
The officer took his time approaching the car.
“Now we’re gonna do this nice and easy,” he said. “Sir, step out of the car. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Carefully, Gerard stepped out of the Mercedes, hands above his head.
“Walk around the car and stand next to her,” the cop ordered.
Gerard walked around the front of the car. “Thank god you stopped us, officer,” Gerard began. “This young lady asked me for a ride, then she simply went crazy. She broke my window—”
“That’s a lie,” Dulce said. “He kidnapped me. He threatened to kill me.”
“Shut up,” the cop said.
“She’s absolutely—”
“Both of you,” the cop said. “Shut up!”
“Now you,” he gestured to Dulce. “Keep your hands over your head and exit the vehicle.”
“How?” she asked. “I can’t open the door with my hands up. Besides, he locked me in.”
The three of them stood there, just looking at each other as the cars whizzed by.
A moment later, a police cruiser pulled up. An older officer stepped out, gun drawn.
The younger cop walked over to Dulce, with the gun in her face: “I’m going to open this door,” he said. “And you are going to duck your body back through the opening, very slowly, keeping your arms over your head.”
As if she were in slow motion, Dulce complied. Soon, she found herself standing out on the highway, one boot and one bare foot on the concrete, the gun pointed straight at her chest.
“Cuff them both,” the older cop said.
“Officer,” Gerard said. “My name is Phillip Gerard. This young lady solicited me for prostitution. I told her I wasn’t interested, but when she told me her sob story, I offered her a ride. I assure you, I’ve learned my lesson.”
“He’s lying,” Dulce said, as calmly as she could. “He kidnapped me.” She was afraid to say anything about the robbery. Could Marisol really have gotten Kim and Jody to rip him off? She didn’t want to snitch on them. But without that piece of information, the whole thing didn’t make any sense.
Dulce looked down at her bleeding arms. Her single boot. Her raggedy jeans. The wind was blowing her wild hair into her face. She must look a mess. Of course they were gonna believe him. She looked like a feral animal. He looked like the kind of citizen they were sworn to protect and serve.
Gerard was standing just behind her now. The officer still had the gun aimed directly at Dulce.
“Seriously,” Gerard said. “The mayor is only a couple of phone calls away for me. Let’s talk this over before you cuff me. Her on the other hand? She needs to be restrained for her own protection.”
The officer in charge nodded to the younger cop.
He walked forward and commanded that Dulce kneel down. He leaned over and pulled her hands behind her back.
Dulce’s heart sank. When they ran her prints or her ID, they’d find her arrest for prostitution. Fuck.
“Excuse me?” a woman’s voice yelled. “Officers?”
A car had pulled over behind the cruiser, and the woman had her head stuck out of the window. Dulce could barely see her face, as she was backlit by all the headlights coming behind them.
The older cop headed toward her.
“This woman was signaling for help,” she said and pointed to Dulce.
“Ma’am, stay in your car,” the cop said. His voice was loud, but the wind was blowing away from the woman. Without the loudspeaker, it swallowed up the sound.
The woman began to exit the car. Dulce looked from the barrel of the younger cop’s gun to the middle-aged blonde walking toward them on the side of the highway.
“She was banging on the window,” the woman continued. “Trying to get away from that man.” The woman had on a long coat, the wind was flapping the hem and blowing her pale, wispy hair to the side.
“Ma’am, get back in your vehicle,” the cop insisted.
“I was listening to music, and by the time I realized what I was seeing, he had taken off,” the woman said. “But I called 911. Then I saw that it was his red Mercedes that was pulled over. I had to come tell you what I saw. I got off at the next exit and turned around and got back on the highway. These men can’t just abduct young girls like that and expect—”
The older officer lifted his gun. “Ma’am, stay where you are.”
The woman broke off mid-sentence. Her eyes opened wide, but she didn’t lift her hands.
From behind Dulce, Gerard started back up. “This has all been a terrible misunderstanding,” he said. “I’m sure I can clear it up. Just let me make that call.”
“Don’t move,” the younger cop said.
“Why is she the one who’s been handcuffed?” the woman asked. “And for god’s sake, why is she on her knees? Like I said, she was banging on the window for help. I called it in.”
“I’m gonna call for additional backup,” the older cop said. “And see if I can verify her 911 call.”
“Thank you,” the woman said. “As I said before, I recognized the car. I recognized the woman.”
“Stop talking,” the younger cop said.
“I just need to make one call,” Gerard insisted.
“You’re not going to let him, are you?” the woman asked.
“Just everybody shut up and stop moving!” the young cop said.
He had the gun trained on Dulce. She wished the woman would shut the fuck up, before this nervous babyfaced white boy shot her by mistake.
Behind her, Gerard had one of his hands down from above his head. It was at the level of his neck, now.
“Officer, I assure you,” Gerard pressed. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with here.”
“Please keep your hands up, sir,” the younger cop said, although he still had the gun trained on Dulce.
“Don’t fall for that,” the woman said from the other side of the cop. “This guy is trying to manipulate you with his big shot bullshit.”
The young cop half-turned to the woman. “Shut up, ma’am. Just shut up!”
He was still half turned when the older cop slammed the cruiser door.
Dulce saw it all.
How the younger cop twitched at the sudden bang sound. How he was still twisted toward the woman, not looking at her or Gerard. Not looking but his hand responded. His trigger finger. He shot the gun.
Dulce saw it all, as if in slow motion. And she felt a delay in the searing of the bullet into her body. Kept waiting for the impact as the sound of the shot echoed in the air and the wind blew a faint scent of cordite toward her.
Only in the split second later, when she heard the thud of flesh on pavement, did she put together what she had seen in her peripheral vision. Only then, did she realize that it was Gerard who had recoiled, then crumpled to the ground. She had been kneeling, so the bullet had cleared her and hit him.
“What the fuck?” the older cop asked.
“My god,” the woman said. “Oh my god.”
The younger cop’s mouth was open, but he couldn’t seem to put words together. “I didn’t—” he stammered. “I thought—”
The older cop rushed to where Gerard lay.
“Call an ambulance,” he ordered the younger cop, who stumbled into motion.
The older cop knelt by the man on the ground. In a flash, he had two fingers on Gerard’s neck. Then, Dulce could tell by the abrupt change in the cop’s speed of movement that Gerard must not have made it. One moment the cop was rushing, and the next, he moved as if underwater, pressing through resistance, lethargy, or dread.