Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa

Table of Contents

 

 

 

Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa

 

RAZORBILL

 

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group
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eISBN : 978-1-440-67857-8

Copyright 2006 © Micol Ostow

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To my mother, the original
boriqua
babe.

I
t's hot.

It's very hot.

Inexplicably, it is about three thousand degrees in this overstuffed funeral home, a fact that is not abetted by the number of sweat-shiny mourners pressed against one another, fanning themselves.

At the front of the room is my grandmother Rosa's casket, propped open in full display. I did not know my grandmother Rosa, and I did not, until this very day, have any idea that my mother's extended family was so large.

There are probably a hundred or so relatives at this wake and at least fifty too many stuffed into this room. A rickety fan whirs forlornly in the far corner, but it's too far away to do much good from where I sit. I don't think it's doing anything other than stirring the thick, heavy air anyway. Everyone is clamoring to get closer to the casket, to finger the rosary beads interlaced through my grandmother's unfeeling fingers, to glance from the framed photo that stands on a small side table to my grandmother and back to the photo again.

I hear murmurs, reviews of her lifelike appearance. But I never knew my grandmother in life, so I am not in a position to comment.

This is a day of firsts, my grandmother's body being only one of the several things I am seeing for the very first time today: Puerto Rico, a wake, an open casket, rosary beads. My mother's family, the Ramírezes.

My father, brother, Max, and I stand at the very back of the room and try not to look self-conscious. This is no easy feat. We could not stand out more if we were wearing matching neon jumpsuits.

There is a trick I picked up back, I think, on the first day of middle school, a trick to looking like you aren't feeling out of place. The trick is to stand very, very still and be very, very quiet.

Sometimes people see this behavior and assume—mistakenly—that you are supremely pissed off. But it's all about getting the lay of the land. Looking at my mother, who stands just next to the casket, holding one of her three sisters' hands, I think that it will take more time than I can even imagine to get the lay of
this
land.

Sometimes people take me for being aloof or even stuck-up, I know. At least they did in school before they got to know me, before they realized that I was just shy. But being stuck-up is infinitely better than sticking out, I think.

My mother runs her fingertips along the smooth, polished wood of the casket. She looks confused. Behind her stand her three older sisters, all jostling to get closer to the body. They remind me of a set of dolls I had as a child, identical wooden carvings that grew successively smaller, each cradled inside the doll one larger until, ultimately, they were all swallowed by the largest. A matched set.

My mother and her sisters have the same cocoa-colored skin, the same rich brown eyes, the same thick dark hair.

It is like watching the results of some elaborate long-term psychological study, the ones with the twins separated at birth. After being raised under vastly polarized circumstances, they come back together to discover that they are inherently the same nonetheless.

I know the story: my mother came to New York as a coed, the only one of her sisters to go to college. What I don't know is whether or not she ever planned to return to Puerto Rico. She met my father during her sophomore year and married him just after they graduated. She got her PhD in women's studies and a cushy position at a CUNY outpost; he went to law school. At some point they fled the city in pursuit of the suburban yuppie dream: an SUV, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, private school for myself and for Max. I shouldn't sound so bitchy, though; I never minded it. The only thing I didn't have was contact with my mother's family.

Over the years I'd formed my own opinions as to why that was. In my mind the situation morphs into a glamorous if tragic melodrama, a Cinderella story of a self-made woman forced to choose between two lives. Surveying the sea of ill-fitting suits, scuffed shoes, and wrinkled faces before me, I think I can understand why she made the choice that she did. If only she didn't look so miserable.

To my right, Max elbows me in the ribs. “I think someone's getting set to speak.”

I follow his gaze. Indeed, at the front of the room, a stocky man, bursting out of his best outfit, is pushing off from his seat. My brother raises his eyebrows to show what he thinks of this development. “Let's go while the going's good.” He turns to my father and tugs at his suit jacket. “We have to hit the bathroom.”

My dad pivots and shoots us both a pleading look. He stands stiffly, at least three paces from the nearest relative. He clearly does not want to be left alone. But really, we're all three of us alone here together. There isn't much I can do for him in this room at this moment as this surreal scene unfolds.

Also, I think I'm melting deep into the waistband of my matte jersey skirt. Gross.

“We'll be right back,” I whisper to my dad, not necessarily meaning it. I pat his back reassuringly, and Max and I slip out the back exit, unnoticed.

Max and I sat in the living room, pretending not to be arguing over whether we'd watch reruns of
The Simpsons
or
Friends
. Business as usual. No sign of trouble, heart or otherwise.

Outside of the funeral parlor, Max points out a thicket of shrubbery in desperate need of watering. “Here,” he says, and ducks behind it. He digs into his pocket and pulls out a pack of Marlboros. He fishes a cigarette from the pack and a lighter from his other pocket. In one deft motion, the cigarette is lit. All at once he's inhaling in quick, thick gulps. He turns his face from me and exhales forcefully, a steady stream of smoke, more of a sigh than anything else. He runs his free hand through his hair. “Jesus.”

I nod. Mostly I'm stunned that he's got the whole routine down to under ten seconds—my brother, the high school freshman.

I wonder what else he knows how to do. At the same time, I don't want to ask.

I realize I'm feeling slightly dizzy from the heat. The fresh air is a relief, but the sun beats down mercilessly. The humidity is cloying. The atmosphere hangs on me like wet cotton. I am very resentful of the fact that I am wearing stockings; I'm, like, the only one here who is. Other than my mother, of course.

Max gestures toward a collection of children playing a makeshift game—it looks like it could be jacks or maybe marbles—over near a spindly bush of their own. The girls' braids are coming undone, and the boys' shoes are untied. The toys that they are playing with strike the ground and cough up clouds of dust, causing everyone to laugh.