One
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up. But it’s not just the junky stuff they’ll get rid of. People can be thrown away too, like last night’s trash left out on sidewalks or pushed to the edge of wherever all broken things go. What those rich people don’t always know is that broken and forgotten neighborhoods were first built out of love.
The new owners are moving into the mini-mansion across the street today. For the last few months, construction crews have been giving that abandoned house an Extreme Makeover: Bushwick Edition. They gutted and renovated the best thing on our block—that run-down, weed-infested, boarded-up house. Now it looks like something that belongs in the suburbs, with its wide double doors, sparkling windows, and tiny manicured lawn.
I pull back the curtains to greet my little corner of Bushwick and Jefferson Avenues, my very own way of stretching out my arms and yawning at the morning sun. This is where I see words swim in and around my neighborhood like dust from overhead train tracks. It’s all poetry. So I pull those words together and try to make sense of it all: my hood, my Brooklyn, my life, my world, and me in it.
Everything is how it’s supposed to be—except for that mini-mansion that’s like a newly polished pair of Jordans thrown in with a bunch of well-worn knockoffs.
Still, I remind myself that today is special, and I won’t let those new neighbors moving in mess that up. My big sister, Janae, is coming home from her first year of college, and after finishing up a school internship, she’ll be spending the rest of her summer break with me. Mama’s got a Welcome Back dinner all planned out. I fluff up my thick, kinky fro and throw on an old pair of jean shorts. They’re hand-me-downs from Janae, and they’re even tighter than they were last summer. Mama has joked that my curves have finally kicked in at seventeen—not that I was waiting for them. The Haitian-Dominican Benitez sisters already get enough attention on the street and at school as it is.
I slept in late, but I can hear my younger sisters, Marisol, Layla, and Kayla, joking and laughing in the kitchen as they help Mama with the Welcome Back dinner—peeling batatas, seasoning the chicken, boiling the habichuelas, and soaking the dry salted fish for bacalao. Papi must be sleeping in because he worked overtime last night, and I know he wants to avoid all that noise. I get it, though.
Sometimes I would rather hear the sound of roaring buses, zooming cars, and blaring music over my sisters’ constant cackling—and Mama’s too. She’s the loudest of them all, and she can be the most embarrassing. Me, Papi, and Janae are the quiet ones in my family. All three of us would rather fold into each other on the couch, reading a book or watching a documentary, than gossip with Mama.
I’m about to head into the kitchen when I see it. Across the street, a blacked-out SUV pulls up in front of the new mini-mansion. They’re here! We all took bets on what these fools were going to look like—black and rich, or white and rich. One thing’s for sure: they had to be rich to move into that house. The passenger side door opens and—never one to lose a bet—I yell out at the top of my lungs, “The rich people are here!”
In no time, Marisol, who’s two years younger, is standing right beside me. Not because she’s the fastest, but because she has the most to lose with this bet. Me and my money-hungry sister, aka Money Love Mari, bet a whole twenty dollars that it’s a young white family moving in, because that’s what’s been happening all over Bushwick.
“Come on, white boy, come on,” Marisol says while clapping and pushing up her thick glasses. “Let’s make this money!”
But a black woman gets out from the passenger side, just as Layla walks in and shouts, “Yes! We won! Give us our money!” She and her twin, Kayla, bet that it would be a rapper or a basketball player and his supermodel wife, and we’d all be famous by association just ’cause we live on the same block.
But then the driver hops out, along with two passengers, and we can’t believe our eyes. Stepping out of the back of the car are two of the finest boys we’ve ever seen. Fine, black teenage boys. Marisol and I have definitely lost the bet, but no one cares.
The entire family gathers on the sidewalk and look as if they’ve stepped into a different country. And as I watch them, I realize there’s a difference between expensive-looking clothes and actually being expensive. The woman is wearing all white, as if she’s going to a fancy boat party, and uses her sunglasses to push back her long, shiny hair. The man has on a sky-blue button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and he keeps his sunglasses on. And then there are those two boys.
“Oh. My. God!” Layla is the first to say anything, as usual. “Who are they?”
“Rappers and ballers! Give us our money, Marisol,” Kayla says.
“No they’re not! Those boys look like they’re from One Direction or something,” Layla says. “Look at how they’re dressed. I know a baller when I see one. And no rapper will be wearing them kinda shoes.”
“They’re more like Wrong Direction. They don’t look like they belong here,” I say.
“But they’re cute. Are they our age? Let’s go say hi.” Kayla grabs her twin’s hand and rushes out of the bedroom. The twins just graduated from middle school, and ever since they turned thirteen, it’s been all about teen everything—clothes, music, and teenage boys. They have way more swag than me, Marisol, and Janae put together, with their matching outfits and hairstyles.
I rush to follow my sisters, but Mama steps out of the kitchen and stops me in my tracks by holding a wooden spoon out in front of me.
“Ey, no you don’t,” she says with a hand on her hip. Then she turns toward the door. “Kayla and Layla! Get back in here!”
The twins stomp back into the living room.
“But Mama,” Marisol says. “The new neighbors are here! And they’re black!”
Mama brings down the wooden spoon and raises her eyebrows. Her hair is tucked beneath a colorful satin scarf, and her wide gold hoop earrings almost touch her shoulders. She’s rocking her signature pink velour sweatpants, even though it’ll be hot as hell in that kitchen. A smidgen of bright red lipstick only covers her bottom lip, and the blush on her deep-brown cheeks shows she’s making an effort for Papi. I know exactly what she’s about to say, so I count down in my head. Five, four, three . . .
“Zuri, you should’ve been at the Laundromat by now. All the dryers’ll be full. Marisol, you sorted the darks already? Layla and Kayla, strip your beds and strip ours too, if your father is up. Zuri, sweep the front stoop and the staircase when you get back. I want it all perfect for Janae,” Mama says, in almost one breath. Then she walks right past us and into our bedroom to look out the window.
When Mama kept having baby girls back-to-back, our parents decided to turn the big living room into a bedroom for all five of us. Mama and Papi sleep in the bedroom in the back, near the kitchen and bathroom, and in what was supposed to be a dining room is where we all gather on the couch to eat and watch TV.
In less than a minute, Mama returns from our bedroom wearing a big, bright smile. “On second thought, I think y’all should go say hi to our new neighbors! And sweep the front stoop while you’re at it.”
I let my sisters rush out ahead of me just as Papi shuffles out of the back bedroom.
“Janae’s home?” he asks while scratching his pot belly. His thick, curly fro is smashed on one side and one eye is bloodshot. He didn’t get enough sleep. He’s been working nights at the hospital cafeteria again.
Mama shakes her head. “No, but you can go introduce yourself to those nice folks across the street.”
He waves his hand. “I already did. They came to check out the house last week.”
“Papi! Why didn’t you tell us?” I say.
“What’s to tell?” He plops down in his usual spot on the recliner chair and grabs an old Howard Zinn book that he’s read a hundred times. Papi reads as if the world is running out of books. Sometimes he’s more interested in stories and history than people.
“Zuri! You coming?” Kayla yells from downstairs. The whole block is used to our loud mouths by now, but I wonder what the new neighbors will think when we yell each other’s names out from windows, down the block, and even from the corner bodega.
Outside, Marisol and Layla are already across the street, talking with the two boys. Their parents must have gone inside. Kayla grabs my arm, and before I know it, I’m headed across the street too. My little sister is holding my hand like I’m some kid, but by the time we step onto the curb, I pull away from her and cross my arms.
Both of the boys look to be about my age, seventeen or so. They have smooth brown faces that look unreal—the forehead, eyebrows, and cheekbones of models. One of them is a little taller and slimmer than the other, but they definitely look alike. They have to be brothers. The shorter one has a head full of thick hair and, even though he’s shorter than his brother, he still towers over my sisters and me. The tall, slim one has a close-cropped fade with a hard jawline that moves from side to side as if he’s gnashing his teeth. I try hard not to stare, but it doesn’t really matter—my sisters are already holding it down in the thirst department.
“And this is ZZ from the Block. Aka Zuri Luz Benitez.” Layla pronounces my whole name while pointing at me.
“Hi, it’s just Zuri,” I say, holding out my hand to the taller boy with the fade. “My friends call me ZZ.”
“Darius.” He takes my hand but only grabs the tips of my fingers and shakes them softly. I quickly pull away, but he keeps staring down at me out from under his thick eyelashes.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing,” this boy named Darius says as he rubs his chin and fidgets with his collar. He’s still looking at me.
So I roll my eyes at him. But I can still feel him staring even as I turn my whole body away from him and face his brother.
“I’m Ainsley,” the other boy says, giving me a firm shake. “We, uh, just moved in. Obviously!”
“Nice to meet you,” I reply, using the good manners that Mama has drilled into us.
“Totally! I can’t wait to explore Bushwick. Your sister has been telling us all about it,” Ainsley says. He’s smiling way too hard. It’s the kind of smile that’ll get him punched in the face if he bumps into the wrong guys from around the way. But still, he’s nice, like a happy puppy in a handmade sweater that the white people in our hood like to walk around, while Darius seems more like a cranky bodega cat. “And please ignore my baby brother, he’s just grumpy that we had to leave Manhattan.”
“Dude, hey, I am not grumpy. It’s just an . . . adjustment,” Darius says, crossing his arms.
“What a hard adjustment for you,” I say, my curiosity about these boys turning off like a switch. I don’t appreciate anyone throwing shade at my neighborhood, especially from people who say words like “totally” and “dude.” I give Darius my mean Bushwick mug, but it doesn’t seem to register. He just stands there with his upper lip curled up as if he’s smelling his own stank attitude.
“We’ve been living here our whole lives. So you can ask me anything,” Layla continues. “I can show you where the basketball courts are, and introduce you to some of the brothas on the block. You gotta meet Colin. He cool. But Marisol knows where you can get the best prices for bread and milk. Don’t go to Hernando’s bodega, though. He jacked up the prices ever since he put up that ‘organic’ sign.”
I’m about to stop Layla from embarrassing herself further when Marisol interrupts her first, ready to initiate one of her business transactions.
“I’m Marisol, but you can call me Money Love Mari, for reasons you will soon understand. Can I interest you in any financial advisory services? It doesn’t look like y’all need any, but things are a little different out here. You might wanna learn how to stretch a million dollars in the hood. I charge by the hour. Small bills, please,” she says, revealing her signature braces and pushing up her glasses.
“Stretch a million dollars in the hood? Okay.” Ainsley laughs. “Money Love Mari. I like that.”
Marisol smiles, looks down, and hugs herself. She didn’t see that coming—a compliment, followed by a dimpled, bright smile. She can’t even look him in the eye after that.
“Y’all need to come over here and help me!” someone yells from across the street. A yellow cab eases up to our building, and I see Janae poke her head out the back window.
I start to run to her across the street, but a bike bell makes my heart leap out of my chest. I freeze as a bike screeches toward me, and I don’t even react when one of the boys pulls me out of the way. The bike races past me with the rider holding up his middle finger as if I almost totaled his hipster bike with my five-foot four-inch frame. I knew these new bike lanes were trouble. No one watches where they’re going anymore.
I catch my breath and realize that it’s Darius who has a firm grip on my arm as my sisters surround me. The shock wears off, but he’s still squeezing my arm a little too tight.
“Uh, you can let go now,” I say.
“Right.” Darius releases his hand. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Oh, thank you,” I mumble, trying to be polite. He steps away from me, and his face is a little more relaxed now, but I can still smell his stank attitude. Thanks, but no thanks, I say in my head.
Janae jumps out of the cab, looks both ways on the busy avenue, and rushes over to me.
“Zuri!” she says as she wraps me in a hug. “I know you missed me, but don’t go jumping in front of traffic for me!”
“Missed you too, Nae-nae,” I say and give her a squeeze. We both rock from side to side before we let go, but Ainsley has already stolen Janae’s attention. Her eyes are glued on him, and I know that in less than a second, she’s taken in his whole swag—haircut, face, body, clothes, smile, and even his teeth. I don’t blame her.
“And you are?” Janae asks, grinning from ear to ear.
“Ainsley,” he says, only smiling back at her. “Ainsley Darcy. We just moved in. And this is my younger brother, Darius.”
“Oh, hey,” Janae says with her usual sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. Then there’s a long second of awkward silence, except for the usual Bushwick noise. I can tell that Janae is looking for something interesting to say, as if she didn’t just come down from upstate after meeting new people and having new experiences and learning new things. My big sister is not good at this whole game, even though she’s spent a year away at college.
Ainsley grabs her hand and says, “I’m sorry. You didn’t tell me your name.”
“That’s our big sister, Janae Lise Benitez!” Layla says. “She goes to Syracuse.”
“Syracuse?” Ainsley says. “I go to school upstate too. Cornell.”
“That’s nice,” Janae responds, trying really hard to look cool while the twins start giggling.
I’d be lying if I said Janae wasn’t like a second mother to me, to us—especially after Mama had the twins and she was busy doing any and everything for them. Nae-nae never tried to take our mother’s place, though. She was simply our big sister—two years older than me, and six years older than the twins. She did our hair, helped pick out our outfits, gave us advice but still let us make decisions for ourselves. She was the sticky sweetness that held us all together.
My sisters bawled their eyes out the day she left for college. I took a long walk from here to the Brooklyn Bridge, because that’s how I deal with stuff. Now she’s home for the summer, and we are back to being the Fierce and Fabulous Five Benitez Sisters, according to the twins. Or, the All About the Benjamins Benitez Sisters, according to Money Love Mari. Or the Five Heartbeats, according to Janae, because she says we are her heart.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Darius shaking his head, as if this whole scene is nonsense. I turn to him and shake my head too, letting him know that we were on the same page, that everybody except him and me are being ridiculous. But he doesn’t return the gesture. He looks away. Whatever.
The cab driver honks at us, still waiting for his fare.
“Oh, shoot, I got to go pay for that,” Janae says and starts to head back across the street. My sisters and I follow her.
“Bye, Ainsley! Bye, Darius!” Layla calls out behind us.
“Bye . . . Janae!” Ainsley says, and Janae reaches for my hand and squeezes it as if to say she can’t believe any of this—that those boys look good, and they’re going to be living across the street, and the one named Ainsley was seriously checking for her.
It’s not until I reach our stoop that I look back to see if Darius smiled, or waved, or watched me cross the street, or if he stayed as stiff and cold as a tree in winter. But he’s already gone inside the house.
TWO
Something about the Darcys moving in makes me want to hold Bushwick a little bit tighter and for a little bit longer, as if it’s slowly slipping away—like Janae, and high school, and me being small enough to curl into Papi’s arm while he reads the New York Times. The streets are fully alive as a hot summer night sets in, loud with the sounds of the wheels on a shopping cart rolling across jagged sidewalks, the J train passing by on the aboveground tracks on Broadway, and hip-hop and reggaeton dancing out of someone’s opened window.
Our apartment is busy with Mama finishing up Janae’s Welcome Back dinner.
Mama treats our special family dinners as if they’re a block party—she invites the whole building, and sometimes even all of Jefferson and Bushwick Avenues too. So if my sisters and I don’t grab our plates before Madrina and her nephew, Colin, come up for their share, there won’t be any left. Even though the dinner is for Janae, it’s possible she could miss out on the food too.
That’s just how Mama is—she’s the heart of the neighborhood, pumping stewed chicken, banan pezé, sancocho, bacalao, pastelitos, and black rice to just about every single household on our block. And in exchange, she gets all the gossip.
Madrina, the owner of our building, who lets us rent for mad cheap, has to catch her breath when she reaches our apartment. She celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday last year and rarely makes it up because of her bum knee and her weak heart. She’s wearing her signature white dress and white head wrap. She’s always draped in all white because according to her, she has to be a walking and talking crystal ball for all the fortune-telling she does (although she hates it when we call it fortune-telling). “Es para los espíritus,” she says—so the orishas can see her when she asks them for favors.
Her colorful beaded elekes hang long and low from her neck, and they sway from side to side like a pendulum when she walks. Madrina claims that she was a beauty queen back in her day in San Juan. That’s how she got crowned as a Santería priestess of Oshun. She embraces all that is love and beauty. So she walks around with a full face of makeup. Her powdered foundation is always two shades too light, her blue eyeshadow is applied so thick that it’s almost navy, her eyebrows are a thin drawn-in line, and some of her red lipstick is on her teeth.
“Oh, mija! Look at you, college girl!” Madrina bellows when she sees Janae. Madrina’s thick arms almost wrap around Janae twice. She limps over to the couch where Marisol, the twins, and I are huddled together, eating from our plates. We all get up to make room for her as she slowly eases down near the armrest. We take spots on the carpeted floor, and when Madrina’s finally settled, it feels as if the whole apartment has let out a deep, long sigh.
The warm, smoky smells in the apartment are a big, wide hug. Mama’s high-pitched laughs and Madrina’s booming words are music—bongos and congas in a merengue band. When she sings her orisha praise songs during her ceremonies down in the basement, I can feel it all the way up here on the third floor. And when Papi looks up from his food to add his two cents to the conversation, it’s like his words are a tambora adding deep wisdom to all that superficial gossip. My sisters’ giggles are güiras, and together, it’s a party, even without actual music.
Even though I’m planning to leave home for college, I know all that music will still be here, waiting for me, when I get back.
“Beni!” Madrina calls out to Papi. “Did you see the blessings that Oshun has brought to your door? Dios mío! Your prayers have been answered!”
“What are you talking about, Madrina?” Papi grunts. He’s in his usual spot on the recliner in a corner of the room where he can be away from it all but still keep a close eye. His cup of black Bustelo coffee sits on a nearby stack of books, and he’s inhaling a plate of arroz con habichuelas. We all know that Papi doesn’t like to be interrupted when he eats. But Madrina doesn’t care.
“Your rich son-in-laws just moved in across the street. Their father is an investor. Oshun has delivered your daughters’ husbands nice and early so you have a few years to get to know them. You should invite them over.”
We’re all as quiet as a steaming pot of rice as we wait to see Papi’s reaction to hearing the word “husbands.”
Then Madrina lets out her usual deep, booming laugh, and the whole apartment seems to shake. She laughs so hard that no other sound comes out of her wide mouth. Her face is wound up into a knot and a tear rolls down her cheek. “Look at your father’s face, girls! He don’t want you to date. He wants you all to stay right under him until each one of you is old and gray like me.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Mama says. She always tries to one-up Madrina by shouting even louder. But she doesn’t have the same depth in her voice, so she’s just loud. “I won’t mind at all if my daughters are playas. Have fun, date around, see what’s out there. Don’t tie yourselves down like I did. Those boys are cute, aren’t they, Janae? Which one you like? I like the one with the afro for you. I saw him waving.”
Papi shakes his head at Mama. “I’m outta here,” he mumbles, getting up from his recliner and taking his plate with him.
Janae and I exchange looks, because we already have our lives figured out and they don’t involve these new boys across the street. After college, she’s getting a teaching job and her own apartment in Bushwick. And I’m going to Howard University and will live on campus in my own dorm room where I can stretch out my arms and legs and not have to hit a little sister in the head while doing so. After I graduate, I’ll get a job and my own apartment here too. None of those scenarios involve a boyfriend or a husband. So I say, “I have no interest in either of those boys, Madrina. I’m going to college and getting a job—I don’t need an investor to take care of me.”
Papi comes out of the kitchen where he was getting started on the dishes, comes over to me, and gives me one of his awkward fist bumps. “Now that’s my baby girl! She got her own mind.”
“So who are those two boys for, Madrina? Me and Kayla?” Layla asks. Of course she does. Layla is the boy craziest one out of all of us. “Ey, slow down, Speedy Benitez!” Madrina says. “You get in line behind Marisol. And then the baby, Kayla, is right after you.”
“So I’m not gonna get married until Marisol gets married?” Layla whines. “Do you see her, Madrina? I’ll be waiting forever!”
“Yes, you will. And there are two ways to examine the institution of marriage,” Marisol begins, and the whole room sighs because she’s about to spill out a series of facts, numbers, and statistics that all have to do with the thing she loves most in the world: money. “It can either mean that marriage is the false notion that love is forever and a woman is left to depend on her husband for financial support, or that two incomes are better than one. Love is abstract. Money is not.”
“Hah! Now she’s the one who’ll marry for money,” Madrina says. “Put all your eggs in that basket, Beni.”
“Aw, come on!” Janae finally says, and everybody gets quiet. “This is the future, Madrina. We’re thinking about our careers and goals and breaking barriers. And yes, Marisol, we’re thinking about making money!”
“Career before family? Como una gringa?”
“No, Madrina,” I say. “Not like a white girl! Like . . . a woman! Any woman.”
“Como Beyoncé y Jennifer Lopez,” Janae adds.
“My baby,” Mama says, smiling and cocking her head to the side. “She spends one year at college and she thinks she knows everything.”
Janae’s face drops, and I can tell that stung her a bit. My big sister is carrying the whole intellectual weight of the family now that she’s the first one to go to a four-year college.
Mama had Janae while she was a teenager herself and only went for a couple of semesters before dropping out when she got pregnant with me. Papi did two years at a community college and is proud of his associate’s degree. They got married at a very, very young age. And thank los espíritus, as Madrina would say, that they at least liked each other. They more than liked each other, though. They are actually still in love.
I know this because as we’re all yapping in the living room, Papi washes the dishes, cleans the kitchen, and comes back to offer Mama a glass of water while he takes her empty plate. Some of the other men on the block—Bobbito, Wayne, and Hernando—have always teased him for being such a lover boy. I’ve seen him do little things like this all my life. And I know in my heart of hearts that their kind of love is very rare.
While Madrina and Mama are still running their mouths, I nod at Janae. She gets up to wash her dish, and when she’s done, she slips out the door. I keep my eye on the twins because they’ll be the first to notice. But they’re on their phones now, probably going through their endless stream of selfies. I wait a couple of minutes before I tiptoe across the small living room and quietly shut the door behind me.
Janae is in the hallway waiting for me. We grin at each other.
“Well, hello, ladies,” someone says from the second floor, and we both jump.
We look down over the banister to see Colin’s big ol’ head coming up the last flight of stairs. Janae and I sigh and roll our eyes at the same time.
“And may I add, you look hella fine, Janae,” Colin says when he gets to our door.
“Oh, shut up, Colin,” I say.
But he ignores me and goes straight for my sister. He takes her hand and kisses it, pretending to be a gentleman and not the thirsty player that he is.
We’ve known Colin all our lives because he’s Madrina’s nephew. And since Madrina doesn’t have any children, she sort of adopted Colin as her own—she’s even said that Colin is going to inherit the building. Every summer he’d spend weeks with her, with us. When we were little, Colin was like the big brother we never had. He turned the rope for us when we needed an even game of Double Dutch, he pretended to be whatever we wanted him to be—a monster, a chupacabra, a Death Eater—so he could chase us around Maria Hernandez Park. But three summers ago, he turned eighteen, moved in with Madrina, and started acting funny around us—with an almost full beard, and a much deeper voice. He stopped playing games with us, and one day he approached Janae with a letter professing his undying love for her. Since then, it’s never been the same.
“Welcome back, Janae,” he says, all smooth and looking up at her with puppy-dog eyes.
Janae pulls her hand away and shakes her head. “Hurry up before the food’s all gone.”
When he opens the apartment door, the first thing Madrina says is, “Colin, mi primo! Did you see your competition that just moved in across the street?”
The door slams shut behind him, and finally Janae and I have a quiet moment to laugh at all the ridiculousness that is our home, our family, our lives.
THREE
A narrow door at the end of the hallway opens up to a ladder that leads to the roof. This is our happy place, way above it all. It’s also our secret place, because Papi forbids us to go up there for obvious reasons: we might fall to our deaths. So even though he padlocked that door a few years ago, we managed to find a way to unlock it and escape out onto the clouds.
If Madrina’s basement is where the tamboras, los espíritus, and old ancestral memories live, then the roof is where wind chimes, dreams, and possibilities float with the stars, where Janae and I share our secrets and plan to travel all over the world, Haiti and the Dominican Republic being our first stop.
Janae always has a pin in her hair, and it only takes her a second to crack open the lock. We climb the ladder, open the horizontal door, and step out into the warm early evening air.
Late June in Brooklyn is like the very beginning of a party—when the music is really good, but you know that it’s about to get way better, so you just do a little two-step before the real turn-up starts. It’s still light outside at eight o’clock in the evening, and from up here on the roof, we can watch the comings and goings of everybody on Bushwick and Jefferson Avenues.
And just like from our bedroom window, we can’t avoid the fancy mini-mansion across the street. All my life, I’ve stared at a gaping hole in the roof, the boarded-up windows, the slow, creeping forest that was starting to suffocate that house. Once, my sisters and I took bets that a tree would grow right in the middle of the floor and it would keep growing and take the house with it. And then we could claim it as our very own tree house—our home in the sky.
But no. It’s a mini-mansion now. The gaping hole is fixed, the forest around it has been cut down into a perfect patch of too-green-for-the-hood lawn, and the new windows are so tall and wide that we can see right into the top and bottom floors of the house, with its shiny hardwood floors, white walls, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, art that looks like it was made by a kindergartener, and furniture that looks like it belongs in a doctor’s office.
For weeks, there were so many people coming in and out of that house painting, moving furniture, and decorating that we thought it was going to be a museum or, as Janae suggested when I texted her a picture, a bed-and-breakfast.
“I can’t believe they had other people decorate their house,” I say while stepping closer to the edge of the roof. “Like, they have enough money to pay someone else’s salary for something they could’ve done themselves.”
Janae gently pulls me away from the edge. “I’m just wondering why they’d want to move here. I mean, they could’ve done that upstate or something. When I take the bus up to school, you should see all these big houses on top of hills, Z.”
“Really? Did you meet any friends who live in those houses? Were they . . . black?” I ask sarcastically.
“You do know there are black people who have money out there in the world, Z, right?”
“Of course there are. But why come into the hood? I thought everybody was trying to kick us out.”
Janae stands beside me. Our shoulders touch, so I put my arm around her and pull her in. She puts her arm around my waist and leans her head on my shoulder. “Maybe we can ask them,” she says, almost whispering.
“Ask who?”
“Ainsley and Darius. They look good, Z.”
“I don’t think so, Nae,” I say. “They live too close. It’ll be awkward.”
Just as I say this, we spot Ainsley in one of the windows. He’s running his fingers through his thick fro, which, even I have to admit, makes him look really, really good. Janae and I glance at each other, and she smirks. Ainsley doesn’t look up. But we step back so he can’t see us, anyway.
There’s a wide blue tarp hidden beneath an old wooden slat on the roof. Janae and I pull it out and lay it across the sun-warmed tar, away from the edge of the building where only two feet of brick and concrete keep us from open sky. I sit cross-legged on the tarp while Janae pulls her knees up to her chest.
“How come rich people don’t like curtains?” I ask no one in particular.
“They’re showing off,” Janae says, lifting her head from my shoulder.
“You think they’re that rich?”
“No. They probably got a good deal on that house.”
“They definitely got a good deal on that house. So they’re just hood rich.”
“They’re more than just hood rich, Z. But anyway, Ainsley was nice,” Janae says as she spreads her legs out in front of her.
“Janae . . . ,” I warn. “Sistas before mistas!” I ease closer to her and put my head on her shoulder now. After a long minute of taking in the warm air and sounds on our block, I ask, “Does it feel good to finally be home?”
“Yeah, but I can’t wait to go back,” she says.
I pull my head up from off her shoulder and stare at her. “What? You just got here.”
“I know, but Z, I need the space. I need the wide-open space to stretch out my arms. I need the quiet to hear myself think.”
“Oh no, Janae! Mama was right. One year at college, and you decide you don’t wanna be in the hood no more?”
She pauses and takes in the dead-serious look on my face before responding in her sweet, calm voice. “Honestly, I don’t. I’m applying for some study abroad programs. I wanna travel, Z. I wanna see the world. Then I can come back.”
I never knew that’s what she wanted. I can hardly imagine it—my sister on the other side of the world? What if she decides to never come back? “Aw, come on, Nae. You’ve been outta the state. Let’s see,” I say, counting on my fingers. “That time with Mama when we went to the mall in New Jersey, the water park in Pennsylvania . . .” I keep two fingers up, thinking of anywhere else we’ve been and if they count as a whole other state.
“Don’t think too hard, Z, ’cause that’s it. We’ve been to a mall and a water park out of state. That doesn’t count for anything.”
“Dang,” I say, and let my shoulders drop because she’s right. Only once have Mama and Papi taken a bus up to Syracuse for a weekend. It would’ve cost too much for my sisters and me to go, so we stayed behind, and they sent us videos and pictures of the bus ride through woods and small towns and places nothing like Bushwick or Brooklyn. “Read to travel,” Papi always says. Every book is a different hood, a different country, a different world. Reading is how I visit places and people and ideas. And when something rings true or if I still have a question, I outline it with a bright yellow highlighter so that it’s lit up in my mind, like a lightbulb or a torch leading the way to somewhere new. It’s usually enough to make me forget I’ve barely left Bushwick.
“Okay, Z,” she says. “Enough with the pity party. Senior year’s coming up. What’s the master plan? ’Cause you gotta get out of that apartment.”
“Gotta get out of that apartment,” I repeat. “Wow. I can’t believe by this time next year, I’ll be leaving for college. Marisol and the twins are gonna lose their minds ’cause there’ll be two less bodies up in that house!”
“That’s what I said about you before I left.”
“But I didn’t lose my mind. I missed you, Nae-nae.”
“No, no, no. You’re not allowed to miss me. You gotta get your mind right from now, Z. Start studying for your SATs, get your college list ready, financial-aid packages, scholarships. . . .”
“I know, I know,” I say.
“Seriously, Z. If you don’t do these things, you won’t ever get outta there. Home will always be here, and Bushwick will always be Bushwick.”
“Will it, though?”
She’s quiet for a moment and looks out over the other houses and buildings. “Okay, well, what if you come back home and get started on your career, and then you could actually buy something in Bushwick and afford Hernando’s bodega prices no matter how many ‘organic’ signs he puts up.”
I laugh, and then remember what I’m supposed to be working on this summer. “You think this will make a good topic for my essay to get into Howard?” I ask. “How to save the hood?”
“It depends on how you frame it. What’s your angle, your thesis statement? What are you trying to say?”
I pause for a moment, thinking about my hood and how even though families grew up and changed, things essentially stayed the same, until now.
I uncross my legs, and at the same moment, the door to the mini-mansion opens and out come the Darcys. Each of them has changed into something different. The mother is now wearing a flowery sundress and the father is in a pink button-down with khaki slacks. Ainsley is dressed in a crisp T-shirt and jeans. Darius is dressed exactly like his father.
“Hi, Darius! Hi, Ainsley!” We hear someone yell out from below. It’s Layla, of course, yelling out the window.
The two boys look up. Only Ainsley smiles and waves back. Then he looks up even farther and sees Janae. She freezes, and I can tell that she doesn’t know whether to wave or scoot back so he doesn’t see her. Then she relaxes and stares until Ainsley disappears into the back seat of the SUV, along with Darius, who never once even looked up.
The Darcys drive away and turn down Bushwick Avenue. I wonder where they’re going. They just walked into that fancy house—why would they leave it so soon, even if it’s for a few minutes? I wonder if they’ve been out of the state, out of the country. I wonder about all the places and things and new experiences their money has been able to buy them.
So I start to ask Janae, thinking that she might have the answers, but her eyes are fixed on the setting sun, and I’m sure her dreams are floating with the clouds.
I can see the dim moon in the distance, the orange-blue sky, and can hear the bustling sounds of Bushwick as they wrap around us, and this roof becomes like a cupped hand holding the two of us up.
“Z?” Janae says without looking at me.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I have a chance?”
“With who?” I ask.
“Ainsley,” she says, her voice soft.
“Shit” is all I say.
FOUR
It’s the first Friday morning of summer vacation, and the apartment is a delicate bubble—quiet, full, and round with me and all four of my sisters squeezed into one room. We’re all about the same size and height now, still sleeping in the beds we’ve had since we were little.
Two bunk beds are pushed against the walls in our bedroom, and Janae’s single bed is right beneath the front window.
I’m up before my sisters and in the middle of my book, a highlighter and pencil in hand, just like Papi taught me. I’m reading Between the World and Me and thinking about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s mecca, Howard University, and how it’ll be like a whole other country with no outsiders moving in to change things up and throw things away; where the faces of the people are the same now as they were back in 1867, when Howard was first founded; where even though people come from different parts of the country and the world, they speak the same language—and that’s black, and African, and Caribbean, and Afro-Latinx, all the things that make up me: Haitian, Dominican, and all black.
I finish the chapter I’m on and peek out the window—checking to see if anyone is setting up for the block party yet. But all I see are the Darcy boys in front of their house. Ainsley is jumping about, punching the air as if he’s ready to fight. Darius is stretching out his legs, and both of them have patches of sweat around the necklines of their T-shirts. Something about the way they’re dressed lets me know that they definitely weren’t playing ball at the park, nor were they doing pull-ups on the monkey bars like all the other guys in the hood.
On the corner, a white woman is scooping up her dog’s poop with her plastic bag-covered hand. She pulls off the bag, ties it up, and tosses it into a nearby bin, then pets her dog as if he’s done a good job. I spot Mr. Turner from down the block, standing outside Hernando’s with his cup of coffee. Soon he’ll pull out the plastic crates, turn them over on their sides, and wait for Señor Feliciano, Stoney, Ascencio, Mr. Wright, and some of the other grandpas to join him in a daily game of dominos or cards while smack-talking about politics and the latest soccer match.
By late afternoon, they’ll move out of the way for the younger guys—Colin and his crew, who just stand there checking out girls, drinking not-juice from bottles, and also smack-talking about politics and the latest basketball game. Then the block party and the music will move in, and everyone will eat and dance late into the night. It’s one of my favorite days of the year. And it’s like a smaller version of my other favorite days: going to the Dominican Day parade with Papi and the Puerto Rican Day parade with Madrina, and repping the Haitian flag at the West Indian Day parade with Mama. Our block parties bring everybody in our hood together, though—the Dominicans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Panamanians, African Americans, and white couples too, who are buying up a lot of the brownstones down the block.
My neighborhood is made of love, but it’s money and buildings and food and jobs that keep it alive—and even I have to admit that the new people moving in, with their extra money and dreams, can sometimes make things better. We’ll have to figure out a way to make both sides of Bushwick work.
That gives me an idea. I grab my small laptop and type the first words of my college application essay to Howard.
Sometimes love is not enough to keep a community together. There needs to be something more tangible, like fair housing, opportunities, and access to resources.
My younger sister, who is a self-proclaimed finance whiz, says it best: Love is abstract. Money is not.
I type, delete, type, and delete over and over again. I inhale. Close my eyes. And let my fingers dance across the keyboard.
How to Save the Hood
If my name was Robin, I’d steal the tight corners
Where hope and certainty intersect
To form perfectly chiseled bricks stacked high
Like the walls surrounding my Bushwick.
Sometimes I don’t go to the other side
Where Bed-Stuy or Fort Greene are guarded
And armed with coffee mugs and poodles on leashes.
I’ve never seen a homeless pet, a stray dog or cat
Like the ones that used to gather in a junkyard on Wyckoff Avenue
Beneath the overhead train tracks like the marks on the junkies
Who used to join in on those dog-and-cat meetings in Papi’s day
Hope is wishing that corners will turn into long, unending streets
Where all the traffic lights turn green.
Certainty is knowing that corners will always be home
Where ninety-degree angles are the constant shapes in our lives.
Always a sharp turn.
By late afternoon, our apartment is a smoky sauna of Mama’s cooking for the block party. I’ve gotten used to the smells by now, and so has our block, and maybe our whole neighborhood too.
All the windows are wide open to let out the smoke, and my sisters and I have stripped down to just shorts, tank tops, and aprons, along with hair nets and gloves when we’re handling the food.
The new people moving into our neighborhood probably think that our part of Bushwick can’t get any louder than on a random Saturday night in July.
The bass has been pumping since noon, and with that kind of noise, there’s no reading, thinking, or dreamily staring out the window for me. The deejay is set up right in front of our stoop, and our whole building seems to dance to the rhythm of the music. None of us can sit still. Even as I help cook, I bop, snap, do a little two-step, and follow along as Layla and Kayla practice their dance moves for the block party’s talent show.
The block party is something we’ve been putting together for the last couple of years, ever since Mama became the one-woman planning committee of the block association. She manages to bring together the ladies on Jefferson and Bushwick to cook and set up a few tables at the other end of the block, while Papi and his homies set up grills on the sidewalk and large coolers of beer near our stoop. People from other blocks sit on lawn chairs all up and down the sidewalk. Kids run and ride their scooters. On each end of the block, two or three cars block off traffic. This is Mama’s dinners on steroids.
Finally we’re done cooking and everything is ready to go into aluminum containers. We help carry everything downstairs, and then are free to go enjoy the party. Janae goes to fix her makeup before coming to join me on the stoop. She holds a plastic cup of ice cream and sits next to me while bopping her head to the deejay’s latest beat. Behind the deejay is a ministage where the talent show contestants will perform—right in front of the Darcy house. This was never a big deal before, since it used to be abandoned.
“You think they’re pissed?” Janae asks as she scoops up a spoonful of ice cream.
“Who?” I ask, playing dumb.
“You know who I’m talking about. The Darcys. They’re not even here a week and already our block is bringing all this noise to their doorstep.”
“I don’t care,” I say.
“Yes, you do.”
“No. I do not.”
“You should’ve seen your face when Darius saved you from that bike.”
“I don’t care what I looked like, Janae!”
She just laughs at me, and I give in and laugh too. No one can stay mad at Janae for long.
I spot Charlise making her way over to us from Bushwick Avenue. And as if she already knows I’m looking straight at her, our eyes meet. She smiles her Charlise smile—a head nod and one corner of her mouth turned up.
I hadn’t texted her that the new neighbors had shown up, because I wanted her to see them for herself.
“Z-Money. What up?” she says when she reaches our stoop, giving me one of her hard daps with her man hands. Charlise is a baller who’s been accepted to Duke on a basketball scholarship. She’s a year older than me, and between her and Janae, I know all about what to expect for applying to college. But Charlise is planning on coming back after Duke too.
I roll my shoulders back, clap one time, do a little two-step with my feet while still sitting on the stoop, a little dance move with my hands, and Charlise figures it out real quick.
She gasps, nudges Janae so she can sit in between us, faces me, and asks with wide eyes, “What happened, Z? Is this an inside story, or an outside story? Hot tea or iced tea? Spill it! I got my teacup right here!” She pretends to sip from a tiny cup while holding out her pinkie.
Both Janae and I start laughing. Charlise loves neighborhood gossip just like Mama.
I fix my mouth to start telling the story of how those Darcy boys moved into the hood when the music changes and some of the kids rush to the deejay to do the latest dance moves.
“Aw, yeah! That’s my joint right there!” Charlise sings, and takes my hand to pull me up, and that’s when I see the Darcys coming out of their house. I automatically stop dancing and sit back down.
“What happened?” Janae asks, finishing her ice cream.
“Nothing,” I say, only bopping to the beat a little.
But Janae knows me too well, so she stands up and sees what I just saw. And of course, she waves. “They’re coming over here.”
“I’m out.” I start to stand to go back upstairs, but Janae stops me.
“Aw, come on! What’s wrong with you, Zuri? We can’t avoid them for the rest of our lives.”
“Rest of our lives? Who says we’ll know them for the rest of our lives?”
“What are y’all talking about?” Charlise asks. She’s still dancing and hasn’t noticed the boys.
Janae taps her shoulder and points toward the Darcys with her chin.
“Oh. Hello!” Charlise says. “Who are they?”
“Those’re the boys who moved into that house,” Janae says.
“What? For real, for real?” Charlise says, smiling and wide-eyed.
“For real,” both Janae and I say together.
“Damn. They’re hella fine.”
Janae throws me a told-you-so look.
“I’m not blind, Janae. I know they look good. It’s just that they’re off-limits,” I say.
“Zuri doesn’t like them just ’cause they live across the street,” Janae tells Charlise.
“I feel you, Z,” says Charlise. “The way y’all do things on this block, it’ll be like they’re your cousins.”
“Thank you!” I say. “But, wait. No. I mean, it’ll be complicated. They won’t be like our cousins. I mean, look at that house.”
“Okay. They’ll be like your rich cousins,” Charlise says. “But they won’t be my cousins. Introduce me, Zuri.”
“No!” I almost yell. “Not you too!”
“Look,” Janae says. “If those Darcys did all that stuff to that house, then they’re gonna be here for a very, very long time too. We might as well get to know them.”
“They’re not really trying to get to know us, Nae. Yeah, they fixed up that house, and soon they’ll want to fix up our whole block. I don’t think they’re feeling this block party.”
“Oh, yeah? Look,” she says, pointing with her chin.
Ainsley has joined the group of kids dancing with the deejay. He’s wearing a big ol’ smile.
Janae starts dancing along. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” she sings to the music, acting just as corny as Ainsley.
Charlise doesn’t join them, thank goodness. She just watches Ainsley and giggles.
Ainsley turns to us, still dancing, and somehow, he and Janae manage to dance with each other while he’s a few feet away and she’s still on the stoop. Ainsley calls her over. Janae shakes her head and calls him over instead. He and my sister are acting like complete cornballs.
“No, Janae. Please don’t,” I mutter under my breath.
But Ainsley doesn’t move, and in no time, Layla makes her way over to him and starts dancing.
“Uh-uh. No she didn’t!” Janae says.
“Your little sister don’t waste no time,” says Charlise.
The music changes to something different, with a faster beat, and instead of stepping away from Ainsley, Layla grabs Kayla and they surround him.
“Oh, no,” I say. “Where is Papi when we need him?”
“They’re just having fun,” Charlise says.
Ainsley goes along with the whole thing as if he’s been accosted by thirteen-year-olds before. He knows all the dance moves, even though he’s a little off beat, and this makes him look kind of cute. I’m mad at myself for even thinking that.
I spot Darius watching them too. He’s not bopping his head, smiling, or even looking at all the kids around him. He just stands there on the sidewalk, with his arms crossed, acting like he’s too good for all this.
“That’s the younger brother, over there in the white shirt. Darius,” I say to Charlise. “I can’t stand him.”
“Didn’t he just move here?” she says.
“Yeah, but look at him!”
“I see what you mean. He has no swag whatsoever. Neither of them do. But at least that Ainsley is trying. Come on! Introduce me!”
Then, suddenly, Layla walks over and starts dancing with Darius. I can see from all the way over here that his nose is flared, his lips are turned up, and his brows are furrowed, as if my little sister disgusts him. Layla doesn’t notice a thing.
“Do you see his face, Charlise? That whole family might as well be white.” I start to get up from the stoop.
“Z! Leave them alone. They’re just having fun!”
I ignore Charlise and quickly walk down the stoop, stomp though the crowd of dancing kids, and head straight for Layla. I yank her arm and pull her aside.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Zuri?” Layla shouts.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Darius, before turning to my sister. “You need to slow down. He don’t want you all up on him like that.”
“We’re just dancing,” she says, rubbing her arm.
“No, you’re just dancing, while he’s over here looking at you like you’re a pile of crap.”
“Excuse me?” Darius says, eyebrows raised.
“You’re excused,” I say, side-eyeing him.
In a huff, Layla pulls away from me and heads back to her friends. But I’m not done with this boy, so I give him a death stare. Darius cocks his head back and looks at me as if I’m the one who did something wrong.
“I’m sorry. Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asks.
“I’m talking to you, Darius Darcy! I saw how you were looking at my sister.”
“She came up to me. I didn’t know that was your sister.” His voice is deeper than I remember, and he has a little bit of an accent I can’t place. It’s definitely not Bushwickese or anything close to a Brooklyn twang. “And don’t talk to me that way. I’m not one of your boys from the hood.”
I throw my hands up and look every which way to see if anyone else is hearing this.
“Oh, trust me.” I laugh. “I know for damn sure you’re not one of my boys. And it doesn’t matter if she’s my sister or not. You’ve met her! If you would’ve looked at us, you would’ve known that. But I guess money doesn’t buy manners, right?”
He doesn’t have an answer for that question, of course. His jawline moves from side to side, and he looks over me, around me, and maybe even through me. Finally he says, “Well, I know when I’m not welcome,” and then he turns and walks back into his mini-mansion.
I stare at Darius’s back, my fingernails digging into my palms. I take a deep breath to release negative energy, like Madrina taught me to do. “Be like the river and go with the flow,” she says. The block party is only getting started, and I can’t let Darius Darcy and his stank attitude kill my vibe. I breathe out.
While I wasn’t looking, Janae went over to dance with Ainsley. She’s in a dreamy haze as he pulls her close. It’s all so corny, and Janae is falling for it. I cross my arms and narrow my eyes.
If Janae is the sticky sweetness keeping us sisters together, then I’m the hard candy shell, the protector. If anyone wants to get to the Benitez sisters, they’ll have to crack open my heart first.
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