Bronx Masquerade Read Online Free Page A

didn’t even know what soy milk was a year ago.
    “Gloria.” Raynard pokes me in the arm, gestures toward the front of the room. Mr. Ward is heading in my direction. I put my shopping list away before he can ask me what soy milk has to do with Zora Neale Hurston and the book he’s been reading to us, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I turn to Raynard and nod thanks. He doesn’t say much, but he always looks out for me.
    I shoulda made a shopping list before I left the house this morning, but I barely got out as it is. Angel spit up on my shirt right when I was headed out the door. It’s like he picks the time to do it. Like he doesn’t want me to leave. It took me ten minutes to clean him up and find myself another shirt. If Mami hadn’t done the laundry for me yesterday, I wouldn’t even have a clean one to wear.
    I was stupid to think I could do this on my own. Even with Mami’s help, I hardly have time to study or do my homework. Last week, Lupe asked if I could hang out with her after school and I just about laughed in her face. “Chica,” I wanted to say, “them days are over for me.” I go straight home now, except for maybe stopping at the grocery. It’s no more Gloria Loca, party girl. Fun ain’t even in my vocabulary anymore.
    Once you have a kid, everything changes.
    If I could go back, do things over ... but I can’t. No sense dreaming about it.
    I love my Angel, and that’s no lie. But I wish he didn’t cry so much. He always wants something—his bottle, a new diaper, the teddy he dropped on the floor for the sixteenth time in a row. Or else he wants me to hold him, like I can rock a baby and write a paper at the same time! And forget about sleep. He wakes me up in the middle of the night so much, I practically wake up on my own now.
    Two weeks ago, he wakes up crying with a fever. I don’t know what to do. I rub him with cold wash-cloths, and then I take his temperature. I give him baby Tylenol, walk him up and down, and I take his temperature. I sing to him, I rock him, I give him a bottle of water, and take his temperature. I must’ve taken his temperature ten times before his fever finally broke. Then I put him in bed with me so I can watch him. By the time I close my eyes, the clock radio says 3:16 A.M. The next day, I have a math test. Which I flunk, of course. I keep nodding off between reading the problems and working out the solutions. I was a mess. Lucky for me, when I explained what happened, the teacher let me take the test over.
    I still got two years to go before I graduate. But I’ve got to make it, and I’ve got to go to college. Period. Angel’s father already told me straight-up he ain’t having nothing to do with this baby, so it’s on me. Mami says she’ll help, but it’s me who has to make a good life for Angel. It’s like she says, my life ain’t about just me anymore. It’s about my son.
    Lupe has no idea how lucky she is.
    How can I get through to her?

OPEN MIKE
    Message to a Friend
    BY GLORIA MARTINEZ
     
     
    That girl in the mirror,
daughter of San Juan
made of sunshine and sugarcane,
looks like me.
She used to run, weightless,
Time a perfumed bottle
hanging from her neck,
mañana a song
she made up the words to
while she skipped —
until the day she stopped,
caught the toothless, squirming bundle
heaven dropped into her arms
and gravity kicked in.
Her life took a new spin.
This screaming gift did not
lead her to dream places
or fill all her empty spaces
like she thought.
Silly chica. She bought into
Hollywood’s lie,
    that love is mostly what you get
instead of what you give,
and what it costs,
like the perfumed bottle
ripped from her neck
and sent flying to the ground.
The crashing sound
of years lost
shattered in her ears,
and new fears emerged
from the looking glass.
Sometimes I wonder
if she’ll ever sing again.

Tyrone
    Girl’s got a lot of heart, coming back to school after havin’ a baby. I saw her around here last