They were starving. All he had in his fridge was a pack of la masa y un chin de queso. It wasn’t the first of the month; therefore, he hadn’t been able to borrow his mother’s EBT card to make compras yet. There was rice under the sink and dried beans soaking on the stove.
She was new but already proved to be the smartest girl in Julia De Burgos High. Girls like her spent their time swimming in numbers and pressing up on books. But she was also a rebel, and would cursed a teacher out without using insults but by saying what she really thought.
Boys like him were not supposed to have girls like her sitting in their living rooms.
She sat on his couch, the plastic still on it. She held onto her phone like it was a friend. He didn’t know that her pupils were burning from the light on the screen, and she was trying everything not to look back at him. She had never cut school to be with a boy before. He had never cut school at all.
You cook? She pouted her lips to point at the masa on his hands.
I know how to fry pastelitos.
Pastelitos ain’t no real meal.
They good though, right? He didn’t know how to cook rice and beans, but he knew how to fry something quick. He bent down to pick up the canola oil and ignored the small mouse scurrying around in the dark corners of the kitchen. From the oven, he bought out the frying pan.
Pastelitos de queso, he whispered to himself, his chest proud.
Con cachu?
Siempre, he replied. She shivered at the word always. Like he wasn’t just talking about a food condiment.
You cook? He asked.
No, she moved closer to where he was. She tucked her phone into her back pocket. He unwrapped the masa, and set it next to her, cut a piece of white cheese and placed it on one of the sides of the circle. He wet the fork with water. Watch me. He folded the circle in half and it cradled the piece of cheese. He then used the fork to make dents along the edges that sealed the masa. Every time he pressed down, the veins on his forearms popped and she wanted to bite into him.
Your turn, he said.
She took the lead. Perfect pastelitos on her first try.
You smart, you real smart, he smirked.
They could survive anywhere.
He twisted the cap on the stove, put the back of his hand to his hip. He thought about all of the things he could teach her to fry. Why don’t you know how to cook?
My dad wanted me to focus on school.
Ven, he said. He moved closer to the stove when the oil started crackling.
Throw it in there, you can do it, he said.
¿Tu ‘ta loco?
The heat kicked louder and the oil yelled. And she prayed that the oil wouldn’t get her face. She slipped the uncooked pastelito into the pan and then they both hurried away, coming back only to turn the pastelito over.
When all four pastelitos were done they sat on the couch and dipped them into ketchup before biting into them. She covered her mouth and blew through her teeth.
Then they watched TV. He laughed loudly at The Office. She smirked, not sure what the joke was.
You don’t get it?
No. My ESL teacher told me that it would take me a while to get jokes and metaphors in English. I’ve only been here eight months.
He’s just stupid, he said.
Stupidity isn’t funny to me anyway. She smacked her lips.
That’s cause you’re smart.
She only got A’s in school. He didn’t.
So are you, she said. He read thick books and said words her tongue could not twist to pronounce.
He smiled, twitching at his cheek. He didn’t believe it but he liked to think he could be talented or smart.
During lunch periods, she wouldn’t give him the time of day. He was tall and lanky and his facial hair had come too early making him look like a dork instead of a man. She hung out with her girls, and her girls hung out with the basketball team. And he was not the type to jump or run. He liked to ride horses and teach them to dance bachata with his uncles back in Santiago. But then Mr. Rubin placed them in the same math working group, and their third partner got sick with the flu. That’s when then got to talk while the rest of the class caught up with how quick they did their work. That’s when she told him she want to cut school and he said, I got open crib, like he had heard other boys say. She smiled––all the confirmation he needed.
They played Uno, and when she won, she got up and hollered, !Es que yo si sé de esto! And he licked his lips. She bent at her waist and kissed him holding the back of his head. His mouth was warm, and her tongue felt like a flying thing to him. When she pulled away to breathe, the shame of being all the boys his mother told him not to be settled in his chest.
We don’t have to, Mari.
I want to, she held his hand. I was the one that kissed you, Ulisses. No seas palomo.
His hands found hers behind her back. His fingers became a series of magnets that stuck to her. The lingering scent of cheese on her lips. She bit him softly and before he let go, to look at this girl who had just come from the island and was all brains, he tasted his own blood.
