When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [105]
Bonnie got up, smiled, and went out.
The elegant woman stretched her hand out for me to shake. “We will notify your school in a few weeks. It was very nice to meet you.”
I shook hands all around then backed out of the room in a fog, silent, as if the pantomime had taken my voice and the urge to speak.
On the way home Mami kept asking what had happened, and I kept mumbling, “Nothing. Nothing happened,” ashamed that, after all the hours of practice with Mrs. Johnson, Mr. Barone, and Mr. Gatti, after the expense of new clothes and shoes, after Mami had to take a day off from work to take me into Manhattan, after all that, I had failed the audition and would never, ever, get out of Brooklyn.
EPILOGUE: ONE OF THESE DAYS
El mismo jíbaro con diferente caballo.
Same jíbaro, different horse.
A decade after my graduation from Performing Arts, I visited the school. I was by then living in Boston, a scholarship student at Harvard University. The tall, elegant woman of my audition had become my mentor through my three years there. Since my graduation, she had married the school principal.
“I remember your audition,” she said, her chiseled face dreamy, her lips toying with a smile that she seemed, still, to have to control.
I had forgotten the skinny brown girl with the curled hair, wool jumper, and lively hands. But she hadn’t. She told me that the panel had had to ask me to leave so that they could laugh, because it was so funny to see a fourteen-year-old Puerto Rican girl jabbering out a monologue about a possessive mother-in-law at the turn of the century, the words incomprehensible because they went by so fast.
“We admired,” she said, “the courage it took to stand in front of us and do what you did.”
“So you mean I didn’t get into the school because of my talent, but because I had chutzpah?” We both laughed.
“Are any of your sisters and brothers in college?”
“No, I’m the only one, so far.”
“How many of you are there?”
“By the time I graduated from high school there were eleven of us.”
“Eleven!” She looked at me for a long time, until I had to look down. “Do you ever think about how far you’ve come?” she asked.
“No.” I answered. “I never stop to think about it. It might jinx the momentum.”
“Let me tell you another story, then,” she said. “The first day of your first year, you were absent. We called your house. You said you couldn’t come to school because you had nothing to wear. I wasn’t sure if you were joking. I asked to speak to your mother, and you translated what she said. She needed you to go somewhere with her to interpret. At first you wouldn’t tell me where, but then you admitted you were going to the welfare office. You were crying, and I had to assure you that you were not the only student in this school whose family received public assistance. The next day you were here, bright and eager. And now here you are, about to graduate from Harvard.”
“I’m glad you made that phone call,” I said.
“And I’m glad you came to see me, but right now I have to teach a class.” She stood up, as graceful as I remembered. “Take care.”
Her warm embrace, fragrant of expensive perfume, took me by surprise. “Thank you,” I said as she went around the corner to her classroom.
I walked the halls of the school, looking for the room where my life had changed. It was across from the science lab, a few doors down from the big bulletin board where someone with neat handwriting still wrote the letters “P A.” followed by the graduating year along the edges of newspaper clippings featuring famous alumni.
“P.A. ’66,” I said to no one in particular. “One of these days.”
GLOSSARY
A otro perro con ese hueso (Ah au-troh peh-rroh cun ess-eh oo-eh-soh) : Literally, another dog for that bone. Used to dismiss a story one knows to be untrue.
Abuela (Ah-boo-eh-lah): Grandmother
Abuelo (Ah-boo-eh-loh): Grandfather
acerola (ah-ceh-ro-lah): West Indian cherry
achiote (ah-chee-oh-teh):