Be Good Be Real Be Crazy Page 11

  “And the driver’s my little brother. His name is—”

  “Nobody goes by their given names at the Collective. Down here”—Poncho shifted his feet—“you all are Big Guy, Bean Pole, Little Dude, and Little Mama.”

  “Is ‘the Collective’ the garage?”

  “Nope. That’s what we call Renata’s—Queen Bee’s—place. Get ready. One. Two. Three. Push.” The Banana shot forward.

  “We’re moving.” Einstein’s face in the side mirror was almost split in half with an enormous grin.

  “Little Dude, steer straight until I tell you to turn.” Poncho grunted. “Shit. This thing is a boat. Great paint job, though.”

  Neither Homer nor Sid had the breath to disagree, so the two of them grunted and Poncho swore and hooted and Einstein steered and Mia shouted encouragements and, step by step, they pushed the world’s most hideous car down a poorly lit street somewhere in a city called Hopeville-on-the-Hudson.

  THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS IN A CITY CALLED HOPE

  PONCHO HAD EINSTEIN STEER THE Banana through the entrance of a large brick building with concrete pillars and walls covered in graffiti. Then he pointed to a similar building directly across the street and promised he’d see them there in a few hours.

  “What just happened?” asked Sid.

  No one was able to answer, so they picked up their bags and walked single file to the steps leading up to a large, dented metal door.

  Mia was the first one up the stairs. She ran her finger down the list of tenants and apartment numbers. “Renata. Apartment four,” she read. “I wonder if she has a last name.” Mia pressed a button under the intercom, holding it down until a crackling sound came out of the speaker, followed by buzzing loud enough to make Einstein jump and hit his elbow on the stair’s metal railing.

  “Ow. Ow. Ow.” Einstein held his left elbow in his right hand and tried to speak through gritted teeth. “I think . . . we’re . . . ow . . . supposed to do something with the—” Einstein was cut off by three things: a man and a woman yelling at each other on the corner, the intercom crackling a second time, and the jackhammer-like buzzing once again pounding the air.

  Before all the noise stopped, Mia pushed the door, it opened, and then she stepped inside. After a brief hesitation, Sid, Homer, and, finally, Einstein followed her.

  “Sweet Mother of Jesus,” a voice echoed down the metal stairs as the door swung shut behind Einstein. “I was about to come down there and scream at the kids from Albany Street for playing ding-dong ditch. What took you so long?” The woman who clicked down the stairs and stopped on the first landing had on pink platform heels, black pants, an artfully torn jacket, and a bemused smile that rose higher on one side of her heavily made-up face than the other. “Come on in.” She spun and started clicking upward. Her movements languid and yet quick.

  “Renata, right?” Sid practically bounced up the first steps. “This is where you live? Phew. There’s a lot of stairs. Have you ever counted them? How’d you know we were coming?” Mia, Einstein, and Homer were much slower to reach the top floor. When they did, the woman was still answering Sid’s questions.

  “. . . Yes, the whole fourth floor is mine. I have no idea how many stairs. I just know that the elevator is as reliable as my ex-boyfriend. Finally, I knew to expect you because Poncho texted me. Okay, questions answered. Now, before you enter, you should know three things.” Their guide’s long nails clicked against the door handle as she spoke. “One, this door isn’t as heavy as it looks, so stand back when I open it. Two, the place is a mess. And three . . . hmmm.” She put a hand on her hip. “Can’t remember, so it must not be important.” She planted her heels, flung the door open, and swung one arm in a grand gesture before stepping inside.

  “Welcome, welcome.” The lights flickered before catching, revealing a large open space that once must have held rows and rows of massive machines. The ceiling rose to a shallow vault and the concrete floor was marked by divots and cracks that the mismatched carpets did little to disguise. Slumped sofas, one of them with tire marks across the cushions, dominated three corners, and a circle of beanbag chairs held court near dramatically large windows that overlooked a small park and the river. To call the area nearest the door a kitchen would be generous. The refrigerator, table, plastic chairs, cupboards, and scarred stove looked like they had been dropped from a plane and just happened to land next to one another.

  “This is all yours?” Mia didn’t wait for Renata to answer. “It’s like a playhouse. Like the kind of place you imagined living in as a little kid, you know?” She spun in a slow circle, her eyes wide like she was afraid of missing something, stopped, and drifted toward the windows. “Holy Toledo.” She stood on tiptoe and pressed her forehead against the glass. “You can see for miles and miles, and there’s the bridge we drove over, and a swing set.”

  Homer didn’t know if his feet acted without his head or if the thought happened so quickly he missed it completely, but suddenly he was standing next to Mia, stopping his hand just before it tugged on her sleeve to pull her away from the window. She stepped back a beat later.

  “Homer, what’s wrong? You’re sweating. Right here.” Mia trailed her fingers down the side of Homer’s face. “Are you okay?”

  Homer nodded and Mia took an extra step away from the windows.

  “Where’s the TV?” Einstein said, stepping onto a thin purple-and-gold carpet. He glanced at his feet. “Is this supposed to be the living room? Does anyone actually use that?” He pointed to a claw-foot bathtub in the far corner.

  “All of you, so curious.” Renata clicked her tongue. “Let’s say we start with names and then go from there.” She nodded at Mia. “Ladies first.”

  “I’m Mia Márquez and this is Tadpole Márquez.” She patted her stomach.

  “Cute. Next.”

  “I’m Homer Finn.”

  “Hi. My name is Siddhartha Samir Sahota, but you can call me Sid.”

  “Will do, Sid. And you?” She pointed at Einstein.

  “I’m Einstein Finn. Homer’s my brother.”

  “Oh, that’s too perfect. That makes me Renata, but Poncho’s probably been calling me Queen Bee.” She used the kitchen counter for balance as she took off her heels. “Ah. So much better. I don’t normally wear them around the house, but I need to break these in for a new show.” Renata looked up. “Sid, sweetheart, better close your mouth. Don’t want to catch any flies in there.”

  Sid snapped his mouth shut faster than a screen door with spring hinges. “Sorry. I’m from Delaware. I don’t get out much. Uh, you’re really pretty.” He turned to Einstein. “Is that an S.F.?”

  “Aren’t you a sweet thing.” Renata clapped her hands. “It took me a while to . . . let’s say ‘find’ this look, so your words are like honey for a bear.”

  “Find?” Mia asked, studying the shapes in the faux marble countertop.

  Renata tilted her head. “Poncho didn’t explain anything, did he?” As Renata stepped by him, Homer saw that she was younger than her thick makeup made her seem—maybe five years, ten tops, older than him. Her broad nose and square jaw drew attention to her full lips and sharp cheekbones. Her eyelashes were thick, black, and unabashedly fake. “You’ll have to forgive him. He’s sweetly oblivious.”

  “Already forgiven,” Mia said, glancing up from the countertop. “Did you know you have fish in your counter?” Mia moved her pointer finger one place, then another. “Here and here.”

  “I did not. I think I found a small bird in the floor by the sink. All sorts of critters to be found in scratched linoleum.”

  Sid still looked confused. “I don’t want to be rude, but can I ask—”

  “I bet I already know the question, Sid from Delaware.” Renata flopped on one of the low couches. “I was born a boy. Grew up in a great big city. But that city and that skin didn’t fit me too well, so now I’m Renata.” She snorted. “Just another talented lady who looks good in sequins. A waitress by day. Cabaret singer by night
.”

  “Actually,” Sid said, staring at his feet and blushing, “I was going to ask how you walk in those shoes.” He pointed at the abandoned heels.

  “Lord, that’ll teach me to make assumptions.” Renata’s laughter echoed in the cavernous space. “The answer is practice. I’ve been practicing for heels most of my life.”

  Mia raised her hand. “I have a question.”

  “You are adorable. I might have an answer,” Renata replied, curling her legs up on the couch.

  “Why are you being so nice to us? Wait. That sounds wrong. Let me try again.” Mia closed her eyes, breathed in and out, opened her eyes, and tried again. “What I meant to say is: We’re strangers and you don’t know us and we’re in your apartment. Why?” Mia chewed at her thumbnail.

  Renata leaned back, supporting her head with one hand. She studied Mia’s face, then Einstein’s, then Sid’s, and finally Homer’s, lingering a little longer on him than she had on any of the others’. Homer wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad thing, or why she winked at him before turning back to Mia. “Darling, when it comes to people, I’ve learned to trust my instinct, and she’s telling me you all have good hearts. As to why I’m helping strangers, I’ll give you the short answer: once upon a time, a gracious lady did a nice thing for me and that nice thing changed my life. Now, I believe in paying it forward. If I can help some travelers who, miraculously, break down on my block, well then I’m just giving back a modicum of what the universe has given to me.”

  “What did she do, the nice lady?” Mia asked.

  “She told me I could stay. And then, years and years later, she gave me a way to leave.”

  “Oh.” Mia looked as confused as Homer felt, but neither one of them asked anything more.

  “Now, since your car won’t be fixed until Martha takes a look in the a.m., why don’t you get yourselves settled?” She glanced at Homer. “If you want to clean up, there’s a curtain that pulls around the tub, and a washing machine in the basement.”

  Homer had forgotten about the spilled Slurpee. Most of his front was still wet, but whatever had dried acted like glue, sticking his pants to his skin.

  “We’ll have to pull out the beds—just mattresses, really—but the slumber party won’t start for a long while.” Renata padded across the room toward a wardrobe covered in bumper stickers. “I bet you all are starving,” she said, flinging open the wardrobe doors. “I am so sick of all these old things.” She started pulling out dresses, shirts, skirts, tank tops, dropping each onto a pile at her feet. “I can’t cook worth a damn, but I have Buddha’s Delight on speed dial. You four like Chinese?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I told people to start coming by at ten, but no one will get here before eleven. You can put money on that.” Renata shook her head. “One would think that being fashionably late would have gone out of style once everybody started doing it.”

  “There’s a party? Here? Is it your birthday?” Mia asked.

  “You are just sweet enough to eat. No, darling. We’re alive and it’s a Wednesday night in a city called Hope. In my opinion, those are reasons enough to throw a party.”

  THE PARABLE OF THE GIRL WHO WOULD CHOOSE HER OWN NAME

  THE GIRL WHO WOULD CHOOSE Her Own Name wished she had stronger memories of growing up in Rio and being little and being okay. It’d be so lovely to fall into the recesses of her mind and go back to when the labels “boy” and “girl” meant as much to her as the differences between the various purple crayons. (It wasn’t important whether you called the color “amethyst,” “grape,” or “aubergine.” What mattered was the creation of pictures.)

  Unfortunately, the human mind can hold only so much, and the memories hers clung to, the ones that were so willing to push their way to the surface again and again, came largely from After. After her mother, grandmother, and she left Rio. After the three of them settled in a small apartment in the poorest borough of the largest city in America. After she started feeling angry that she had to answer to a name (a boy’s name) that wasn’t hers, not really.

  She could remember sadness, how her inside-self used to rattle against the walls of its outside-self like a penny in an empty can. The messed-up mantra This is not my body. This is not my body on constant repeat at the very front of her brain.

  When the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name was ten, she told her avó, her grandmother, that God had made a mistake. She was supposed to be a girl, not a boy. Even though it was Saturday and so early that morning cartoons hadn’t started, Avó gave her a swat on her butt and sent the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name to the tiny bedroom she shared with her mother to ask God for perdão.

  When her mãe came home from cleaning rich people’s apartments, the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name was still in the bedroom, looking out the window that faced the street and praying—but not for forgiveness.

  Mãe stood in the doorway watching the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name, and by looking at the dresser mirror, the Girl was able to watch her mother, too. Years and years before that moment, when they had still lived in Rio with Papai, Mãe’s hair had been shiny and black. Now it was streaked with gray. Life had begun to mark Mãe’s pretty face, appearing as thin lines across her forehead, purple half circles beneath her eyes, bite marks on her lips. The Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name hated that she added to the invisible weights that pressed down on Mãe’s shoulders.

  Later that night, once Avó had gone into the second bedroom, Mãe asked if the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name would like to come to work with her on Saturdays from now on. She could use the help, and Avó might be less cranky if she got to watch her telenovelas instead of cartoons.

  Most of the time, Mãe’s clients weren’t home when she came to clean. They were out working, vacationing, eating at fancy restaurants, shopping for fancy things. But one lady was always home. She was sick, she explained. She didn’t go out much. Not like she used to.

  The Sick Lady didn’t mind if the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name accompanied her mother. In fact, she would pay her to help her sort through the files in the library. The Sick Lady said she wanted to have her affairs in order before her time came. That was what she said. Word for word. “Before. Her. Time. Came.”

  The Sick Lady looked like her bones could poke through her skin, and her body was marked by strange lumps and bruises that she tried to hide with swishy pants and bracelets that clicked and clacked. At first, the Sick Lady and her library scared the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name. Both seemed haunted by memories and ghosts.

  But after a few months of Saturdays, her afternoons with the Sick Lady became the best part of the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name’s week.

  As they went through her files and books, the Sick Lady told the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name all about “Before,” when she had sung in clubs all over “the City.” She had worn glittering dresses and had stood by glistening pianos. Her fans followed her uptown, downtown, across the river, and to all five boroughs. Strangers sent her flowers and marriage proposals. But, she said, success wasn’t enough to keep the past from creeping in, armed with its favorite weapons: guilt and regret. Sad memories made her do stupid and desperate things, things that would momentarily tame the monster trapped in her chest. These things were the reason she was sick. If she could go back, she said, she would have faced her sadness—tried to understand it instead of always pushing it out of the way.

  The Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name didn’t get what the Sick Lady meant one hundred percent of the time, but she loved the melody of her voice and the elegant words she used. Good things were “exquisite.” Bad ones “deplorable.” Nothing was so-so. The Sick Lady did not believe, she explained, in “in-betweens.”

  As the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name got older and was allowed to take the subway on her own, she sometimes went to the Sick Lady’s apartment without Mãe. On those days, they didn’t work. Instead they watched old movies and played old music, and the Sick Lady wou
ld talk and the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name would listen.

  The last time the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name saw her friend, the Sick Lady was lying in bed with beeping machines, tubes, and orange pill bottles all around her. The nurse said that this was no place for a teenage boy, but the Sick Lady shooed the cranky woman out of the room and pointed to the chair next to the bed. The Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name sat down and promised herself that she wasn’t going to cry.

  “I see you,” the Sick Lady said.

  “I see you because I was you. I wish I could make it easier. But I’m not going to start lying just because I’m making my final exit. You will always be who you once were and you will spend the rest of your life trying to figure out who you are now. Looking for yourself will keep you brave. It will show you strengths unimaginable.”

  In her will, the Sick Lady left the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name a bank account she couldn’t touch until she turned twenty-five, her collection of costume jewelry, and the posters that had hung on her dressing room walls at Café le Rouge. The Sick Lady once called the jewelry and posters “priceless,” and without price they remained. Not even when the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name went through a really bad time, not even then, did she sell her gifts.

  Eventually, the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name got her head on straight. And when she did, she realized that she could not stay in the City if she was to become who she was. She left the apartment with Avó yelling condemnations and Mãe weeping tears of heartbreak and understanding.

  Once she was on her own, the Girl Who Would Choose Her Own Name decided she needed a new name for her new self.

  The one she picked, it meant “reborn.”

  THE WAREHOUSE OF DANCERS AND DREAMERS

  SID WAS STILL IN THE shower when the first of Renata’s friends arrived. The curtain hid him, but his singing rang loud and clear from the back corner to the front door.