With the Fire on High Read online

  We walk with our arms around each other’s waists into the kitchen.

  Lovers & Friends

  In the beginning, Tyrone and I tried to make our non-relationship work. After we found out about Babygirl, I mean. Truth is, Tyrone wasn’t ever really trying to be with only me, and he didn’t lie when he told me he didn’t want anything serious. So after we found out I was pregnant we both felt kind of stuck. His parents kept telling him it probably wasn’t his, that a fourteen-year-old who gets pregnant her freshman year probably had a few people she was letting scratch her itch. And I don’t know that I could ever forgive that Tyrone barely defended me to them, even though he knew I was a virgin before him. Even still, during my pregnancy and after Emma was born, we played at being together.

  And Tyrone is a good dad, but he gets to run away when he’s done. During my pregnancy he never really could get why I was annoyed or got upset easily. Just told me to stop trippin’. And after Emma was born he kept wanting to fool around, apparently now because I had his kid it should be like that, but the two or three times we had sex I didn’t feel good about it, and although I already had a kid, I still felt like we had to sneak around to do it.

  So, what do you do with a guy who’s eighteen and a better father than he is a boyfriend? I read a quote once that said, “The best thing a father can do for his child is love the mother.” But some days I think the best thing Tyrone could do for Babygirl is leave her mother the hell alone.

  Returns

  On Sunday evening, ’Buela and I watch reruns of Beat Bobby Flay and eat her Fairhill-famous pernil and tostones. I was too jittery all day to cook and ’Buela has been too nervous to stand still. The whole weekend when I wasn’t at work ’Buela and I have circled around each other, neither one of us wanting to say that we miss Babygirl. You’d think that finally having a day free would mean I would go out with Angelica or enjoy not having to be responsible for a whole other human, but instead it feels like a rip in the fabric of my life that won’t get stitched back together until Babygirl walks through the door.

  Babygirl gets home at 7:03, and ’Buela is the one who answers the door in a mad rush and pulls her from Tyrone’s arms. She passes Babygirl to me and I wrap my arms around her little body. Tyrone gives us a brief update before heading back to the car, but I don’t hear a word.

  “Mommy missed you so much, Mommy missed you so, so much,” I say into her soft cheek. It’s like our entire apartment had been holding its breath, but now that Babygirl’s returned, even the breeze coming in through the window heaves a sigh of relief. ’Buela and I sit on the couch with Babygirl between us listening to her baby-sing about Moana, PAW Patrol, and cookies. Our dinner is forgotten; Bobby Flay is put on mute. For the rest of the night Babygirl is front and center, the candlelight we read the world by.

  Mama

  It’s a strange thing to become a mom when the only example you ever had wasn’t even your own mother. Not that I don’t think of ’Buela as my parent, but I also know that the way she raised me was different from how she raised my own father, that she thinks she failed by him and wants to make sure she doesn’t fail me. That she’s tired, and although she loves Babygirl, she wishes things could be easier for me. For us.

  If I said I didn’t have a ton of questions about my mother, I’d be lying. All the time I catch myself thinking: Would she be proud of me? If she were around, would I have gotten pregnant and had Babygirl? If she were still alive, would my father have stayed in Philadelphia?

  From my mom’s family I only keep in touch with her oldest sister, Aunt Sarah. She still lives in North Carolina and the only time I met her I was too young to remember: it was at my mom’s funeral. We used to only talk during random phone calls around the holidays, but ever since she got a smartphone a few years back we’ve begun emailing once or twice a month. She sends me family recipes when she has a moment to type them out, although she cooks the way I do: no actual measurements, only ingredients and partial directions. When I remix the recipes and make them my own, I send them back to her so she can see how her niece hooked it up. She’s invited me to come down south in the summer, but the summers are when Julio visits me, and after having Babygirl, I couldn’t imagine traveling so far with her or without her. But I hold this connection close, since Julio never talks about my mother, and ’Buela just didn’t know her well enough to tell me much. Sometimes Aunt Sarah’s recipes will include a tidbit about my mother trying that food for the first time.

  My mother’s name was Nya, and I thought about making that Babygirl’s middle name, but it didn’t feel right, when I never knew her. I didn’t know what kind of future I would be handing down to my daughter by pressing a name on her from the past. ’Buela raised me pretty superstitious about things like that.

  Can you miss someone you never met? Of course, the answer is yes. I’ve made up a story about who my mother was, and I miss that person whether it’s how my actual mom would have been or not. I imagine her patient, but strict. Someone who would paint her nails with me, and straighten my hair, and take me prom-dress shopping, but who would also demand good grades, and go to every parent-teacher conference, and wouldn’t just say my food was good, but give me tough criticism.

  On my bedside is a picture of my mother and father holding hands. He’s wearing an Iverson jersey and she’s in straight-leg jeans and a bright-blue T-shirt with a smiley face over her large belly. I’m the lump under the smiley face. It’s the only picture I have of the three of us: my parents cheesin’ and in love and holding hands, and me fully formed inside her belly, knocking on the door of skin, impatient to get out before everyone left.

  New Things

  The next morning, even though it breaks my heart, I say goodbye to Babygirl and rush out the door as ’Buela gets her ready for school. It’s wild to miss someone so much, and yet in order to care for them you have to constantly say goodbye.

  When I walk into Advisory Ms. Fuentes is passing out sheets of paper.

  “Okay, on your desks you’ll see your revised schedules.”

  Hmr—Advisory, Ms. Fuentes

  Engl—Advanced English, McCormack

  Math—Applied Math, Gaines

  Soc—US Government, Ulf

  For Lang—Latin III, Gatlin

  Sci—Intermediate Physics, Ordway

  Elec—Culinary Arts: Spain Immersion, Ayden

  I was accepted into the class. The new boy, Malachi, stares out the window. I look back at the sheet. There’s my name at the top. My other classes are the same. I try to keep cool even though I’m so excited my hands shake.

  “You’ll report for your first day of electives starting today. Let me know after class if you have any problems; now, take out the outline of your college essay. We still have fifteen minutes and we’ll use them to revise the themes of your essays.”

  College Essay: First Draft

  My father’s name is Julio. And like the warm-weather month he’s named after, he comes to visit once a year.

  My grandmother says that my father couldn’t handle being a single parent after my mother died. That before that, my mother kept him in check, but he’d had an itch under his skin to return to his island. My grandmother and grandfather moved when he was only fourteen, and they say he didn’t adjust easily to the cold, the English, the way these streets were run so different from his own.

  My grandmother chose to raise me when my father settled me onto her lap, asking her to watch me for a while, and then left the hospital. “A while” became seventeen years. It was in that exchange of my body from his hands to hers that the entire course of my life changed.

  People say that you’re stuck with the family you’re born into. And for most people, that’s probably true. But we all make choices about people. Who we want to hold close, who we want to remain in our lives, and who we are just fine without. I choose not to dwell on my father’s rotating-door style of parenting, and instead reflect on my grandmother’s choice to not only bring me home from the hosp
ital and raise me, but also to offer me a fighting chance.

  The world is a turntable that never stops spinning; as humans we merely choose the tracks we want to sit out and the ones that inspire us to dance.

  An Art Form

  I try to keep myself from weeping when I first walk into the commercial-style kitchen. I’ve only ever seen a professional kitchen on TV and this one isn’t nearly as updated, but it’s still nicer than any kitchen I’ve ever been in. Against the far wall are two sets of double sinks and big metal cages full of mixing bowls, tongs, large wooden spoons, and serving utensils. Along the wall to my right are two full gas stoves and ovens. To my left, three massive fridges are framed by pantries that I assume hold dry ingredients. Pots and pans hang from the ceiling, hooked up like steel chandeliers. In the center of the room, five metal tables create a rectangle around a single table.

  I’ve never been to an opera, but this must be what it’s like for a conductor to walk into an opera house, see the stage lit and the curtains drawn back, and know that they were meant to make the walls echo with music.

  The instructor—I’m assuming Chef Ayden, since a chef’s coat is buttoned neatly around the pudge of his stomach and he’s wearing comfortable-looking checkered pants—walks out from his office in the back of the room just as Malachi rushes into class. For a second they stare at each other as the rest of us look between them. Chef Ayden isn’t a tall man and has the kind of dark skin that’s so free of blemishes it looks polished. Malachi walks to the only open spot next to Pretty Leslie, and for a second I think Chef Ayden is going to kick him out for being late. This boy would be in this damn class with me, and I don’t know why it annoys me so much.

  “This is not just another class. This is an actual kitchen. We have real knives, we have real food, and we have a real clock ticking on the wall that measures everything we can accomplish during a class period. And, as some of you might have heard, we have a real trip to another country planned for the spring. If you can’t handle showing up on time to this class, I’m definitely not taking you abroad.

  “I am not here because I always dreamed of being a teacher. I’m here because I love to cook, because you all had an opening for culinary arts in your school, and because I know how to run a kitchen. Before this is a school classroom it’s a kitchen, and you all will respect it as such. Understood?”

  He stops speaking, and clearly he means for us to answer. Some of us mumble, some of us nod. I wish I was in the classroom alone and could inspect the knives, and burners, and spice pantry.

  He looks around the entire room, making eye contact with each of us before moving on. “Cooking is about respect. Respect for the food, respect for your space, respect for your colleagues, and respect for your diners. The chef who ignores one of those is not a chef at all. If you have a problem with respect, this is not the class for you. Please let me know and I’ll sign the form for you to drop.” Chef Ayden looks around the room again but nobody moves. His eyes land on me and I hold his gaze.

  “First things first: By the end of this week you’ll have to fill out the loan form to borrow a chef’s jacket and hat. When you walk into this room you aren’t Schomburg Charter students—you’re kitchen-staff-in-training.”

  I have a feeling that this dude has a lot of lectures he wants to give. Although I do like what he said about respect.

  “Today you aren’t even going to touch food.” He waves a butter knife in the air. “Today you learn how to hold a knife.”

  I try to hold back a sigh that would rival any one of Angelica’s, but it squeezes out my chest anyway and Chef Ayden’s eyes zoom back my way.

  For a second, when Chef was talking, I thought he must know what it’s like in the places we’re from. He sure sounded like he understood what it’s like being from the city. But this butter-knife business lets me know he must be from somewhere else, because most of us in the room have probably been cooking and using knives our whole lives—not to mention we’ve seen them used on each other.

  Everyone else must feel the same way because a couple of people shuffle their feet and Pretty Leslie clears her throat from across the room. “Um, Chef, I don’t mean to be rude or whatever, but I thought this was a cooking class? I’m pretty sure most of us know how to hold a knife.” See? Even Pretty Leslie feels me, and that girl is as contrary as I don’t know what.

  “Cooking class? No. This is a culinary arts class. As in, this is about creativity, and heart, and science—an art form. And no artist begins a masterpiece without understanding their tools and their medium. Anyone can teach you how to cook; you can google that. If you want to learn how to make art, stay here.”

  Pretty Leslie flips her hair and gives a small shrug, but she doesn’t leave the classroom.

  Neither do I.

  Malachi

  “Hey, Santiago,” a voice behind me calls. I look over my shoulder and see Malachi jogging up, narrowly avoiding bumping into a couple of football players. He doesn’t even notice the way they grill him.

  “Hey. Malachi, right?” I say. “You know you can call me Emoni? Only Ms. Fuentes does the last-name thing.” I make sure not to slow down or change my walk in any way. I don’t want this boy thinking for a second he’s got any reason to talk to me.

  Unfortunately, he has pretty long legs and it doesn’t take much for him to keep up with my short ones.

  “I don’t think I knew that was your first name. I like it. Isn’t Imani one of the days you celebrate during Kwanzaa? I didn’t think you were Black-black.”

  I can’t help how hard my eyes roll. Here we go. “And why, Malachi, did you not think I was ‘Black-black’?”

  “Well, your last name is Santiago, you’re light-skinned, and your hair’s wild curly. I assumed you were Spanish,” he says, pulling on a strand. I swat at his hand.

  “Boy, don’t touch me,” I say. “My father is Puerto Rican and he’s darker than my mom was, and her whole family is straight-from-the-Carolinas Black. And her hair was just as curly as mine. Not all Black women, and Latinas, look the same.”

  He throws his hands up in surrender mode. “My bad. Didn’t mean to offend you none. I just wanted to know where you’re from since you don’t seem regular Black.”

  I take a deep breath. Because I know he didn’t mean anything by his question. “I get you. And yes, I’m Black on both sides. Although my Puerto Rican side speaks Spanish, and my American side speaks English.”

  “I appreciate the race lesson.”

  He’s trying to charm me. And I am not here for it. “Did you need something?” I ask, winding around a corner. Who made this boy think I had time for him? Got me out here wasting all my good words.

  But then he smiles. Dimples popping out on both cheeks like billboards for joy and I stumble over my own feet. Shit, that smile should come with a trigger warning. Because blao! It’s playing target practice with my emotions. It’s even making me curse, and even though it’s only in my head, I promised I would work on it. Now I’m really annoyed.

  “Nah, Santiago. I just wanted to say hello. I’m glad we have this class together. I’d love to try your cooking.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Was that some weird sexual innuendo?”

  His eyes widen and he barks out a laugh. “Dang, yo! I’m just trying to be nice. Get your mind out the gutter!”

  “Oh, well, yeah. I guess tasting will be a part of the class.” I stop in front of my English class. Angelica is sitting by the door and I see her already taking down notes. “This is me. . . .” And then because ’Buela didn’t raise me to be rude, “Thanks for walking me to class.”

  “No problem, Santi.”

  Black Like Me

  I’ve lived my whole life having people question what race I am. Not necessarily the homies I grew up with. In Fairhill, we are mostly Spanish-speaking Caribbeans and Philly-raised Black Americans with roots in the South. Which means, in my hood everyone’s parents or great-grandparents got some kind of accent that ain’t a P
hilly one. But when people from a different neighborhood first meet me, they wonder why I don’t fit certain modes. The Latina grandmothers at the Papi store tsk-tsk when they ask me a question in Spanish and I answer with my chopped-up tongue, or worse, in English. And I don’t have enough skills to tell them ’Buela didn’t raise me speaking much Spanish. I can understand a lot of it because of her, but English is the language I learned at school and watched on TV and, for the most part, even the one we speak at home. I try not to be self-conscious about how little Spanish I know, but some days it feels like not speaking Spanish automatically makes me a Bad Boricua. One who’s forgotten her roots.

  But on the flip side, folks wonder if I’m Black American enough. As if my Puerto Rican side cancels out any Blackness, although if we go only according to skin, my Puerto Rican side is as Black as my Black American side. Not to mention, Julio may be a lot of things, but he sure is proud of his African roots and he’s made sure I never forget our history. And ’Buela doesn’t shy away from her Blackness either, even if she’s quieter with how she talks about it. I don’t know how many times someone has asked ’Buela for directions in the street and the moment they hear her accent a surprised “Oh, you Spanish?” slips out of their mouths.

  I’m constantly having to give people geography and history lessons on how my grandmother’s hometown is 65 percent Afro–Puerto Rican, on how the majority of slaves were dropped off in the Caribbean and Latin America, on how just because our Black comes with bomba and mofongo doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. And it seems I’m always defending the parts of me that I’ve inherited from my mother: the roots that come from this country, the facts that Aunt Sarah tells me about our people in the Raleigh area, the little sayings she slips into her emails that I know come from her mother, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother, to the first African mother who touched foot on this here land. The same wisdom I whisper to Babygirl every now and then, a reminder of where, and who, we are from.