I almost said, His mother died trying to get him here, but I didn’t want to risk sounding like a hysterical TV Cuban, so I pulled my book from my desk and held it in my lap to give my hands something to hold on to and added instead, She wanted a better life for him. It’s really, really bad there.
—But you’ve never actually been there yourself, she said. Right?
Another question I got a lot at Rawlings, usually after Jillian’s She’s Cuban introduction. I never got asked this in Miami, and I’d never asked it of anyone after learning where their parents or grandparents had been born (You’re Irish? Have you ever been to Ireland?). I knew saying no to Jillian’s question would, for some reason, wreck the credibility of anything else I said, which is maybe what she was trying to do, so I said the truth: I have a lot of family still there, on both my mom’s side and my dad’s side.
—And you talk to them? I’ve never heard you talking to anyone in Cuba.
—It’s not like calling someone in another state. You can’t just call people.
—That’s ridiculous.
—Not everyone has phones, I said as she hoisted her duffel by its long strap onto the bed and started pulling out clothes I’d never seen.
—And I’ll tell you what else is ridiculous, she said. All the Cubans down there saying he’s going to stay. No offense, but that’s just insane.
I couldn’t talk—I dropped the textbook on my lap and held on to the arms of my desk chair to keep from jumping up. I’d been on the other side of this conversation with my mom and Leidy just a couple days before, but I suddenly couldn’t remember any of it, what I’d said or why I’d said it—only the part where I’d asked for sources and made my mom angry. When everything in Jillian’s bag was newly sprawled on her bed and I still hadn’t said anything, she announced with a sigh, I’m just saying it seems totally clear he shouldn’t stay.
I slammed my book shut and slid my chair back into my desk to block the drawer where I’d hidden the hearing notice. Jillian didn’t know anything about my academic integrity hearing, had no idea that the blazer she’d loaned me before Thanksgiving break was not for a presentation in my writing seminar. I said, No, I don’t think it’s that totally clear.
—Of course you don’t, she said. You’re too connected to the whole thing.
I tossed the book on the desk behind me and said—too loud and leaning too far forward—What the fuck does that mean, connected? I’m not fucking related to the kid.
—Don’t get ghetto, Liz, she said. I’m just saying that, no offense, but as a Cuban person, you can’t really expect people to believe that you’ll be completely rational about this.
She held the water bottle loosely now, between only a couple fingers. I tried to match her ease by leaning back in my chair.
—I was born in this country, I said, not knowing what point I was trying to make.
I righted my chair and tried again. I said, Look, I would argue that I – I can speak more intelligently about this than you because I know more about it than you ever could.
—Wow, she said, her water bottle heading back to her mouth. Let’s just leave that there before you get any more racist.
I didn’t think I’d said anything racist, and I’d let her ghetto comment slide because I couldn’t in that second articulate why it bothered me. Jillian had read more books and had taken more AP classes than me; I guessed she knew how to cite things properly in a research paper; she’d even been to other continents already: if she thought I was being ghetto, then there was a chance, in my head, that she was right. She screwed the cap back on her bottle and turned away from me, to the clothes on her bed.
—I am not being racist, I said to her back. I can know things you don’t know because of where I grew up. That’s not me being racist.
She kept ripping tags from the clothes, mumbling Shit and checking the corner of her thumbnail after one gave her trouble. She didn’t look at me as she dropped the tags in the recycling bin, then grabbed a fist’s worth of hangers from her closet.
—Well, whatever, she said to a long-sleeved blouse as she tugged it onto a hanger. I’m sorry, but I’m just saying people of color can be racist, too.
I covered my face with my hands, finally feeling the heat of the room on my neck, in the sting of my armpits. I dragged my hands down and let them slap my lap.
—Fine. That kid lives in a house two blocks from my mom’s apartment, I finally admitted.
She dropped the hangers on her bed—her new clothes suddenly way less interesting—and came over to my desk. She looked down at my textbook, capped one of my almost-dried-out highlighters, and said, Well, I hope for your mom’s sake that people can manage to stay calm.
So she hadn’t assumed that my mom was part of the perceived hysteria, and I was grateful for that. I took the highlighter from Jillian’s hand—her nails still wet-looking with a burgundy polish, her cuticles nonexistent—and dropped it into my desk drawer.
I said, I hope so too.
I shoved my hand in the drawer, pushed the mittens and the letter back even more, and asked Jillian if she minded, but could I borrow that blazer again.