Mami turned and started rinsing off her coffee mug, then my already-washed glass of water from the previous night.
Leidy cleared her throat and said, She made it, while slicing at the air across her neck with a flat hand. She’s made a bunch of them, she added while shaking her head no.
—Oh, I said.
I turned the shirt around to see the back: a black-and-white photo of a smiling Ariel and the words ARIEL NO SE VA!
—It’s good! I said. It’s informative.
Leidy put her coffee cup down and slapped her hand to her face. From outside came loud voices, women passing by.
—We better go, Mami said into the sink. She turned around, wiping her hands with a dishcloth she then folded and returned to the counter. You ready? You sure?
I nodded, avoiding Leidy’s stare, even when she coughed and Dante smacked her on the chest with both his hands after she started, turning the cough real if it wasn’t already.
*
Even from two blocks away, the rally hummed with voices and music. As we got closer, I felt a false chill: the humidity was low, even for December, and it made the morning feel cold enough that I was thrown off by the absence of the cloud of my breath—the face fog that had marked my every outdoor moment at Rawlings since October. It freaked me out to feel cold but see nothing.
Despite the growing number of people ahead, most of the houses and apartment buildings we passed were dark and quiet, and I pictured all the hungover people behind the windows, still in bed, sheets pulled over their heads, greeting the new year with headaches stronger than the one hiding behind my eyes. As we walked, the clumps of posters and displays increased in density: chain-link fences showcased slogans on banners and photos of Ariel, all attached to the metal with curls of ribbon—the kind used to wrap presents. Some posters had fake flowers—roses, daisies—glued to their corners: others were heavy on glitter or puff paint. On one poster, a crooked row of American flag stickers separated the handwriting of a grown-up from the unsure print of a child, revealing the poster to be a family project. Tied up right next to that one, the work of another family: the words Welcome Home in tall bubble letters around a black-and-white photo of Ariel—the same photo on the shirt my mom made, which hung against my leg, threaded through a belt loop on my shorts. Someone had filled in Ariel’s brown eyes with an inexplicable blue, the artist having taken liberties with his appearance. The bubble letters were painted in with two kinds of green—the first green marker apparently running out halfway through the m in Welcome, a lighter green finishing the job. Stickers—this time, foil stars like the kind elementary school teachers put on A-plus work—framed the photo in a wobbly box. I imagined an adult’s hand wrapped around a child’s wrist, guiding their sticker-tipped finger despite a Let me do it whine, the frame closing in around Ariel’s face with each press. The handmade signs went on and on, up and down the block on both sides of the street, each one a kind of story. I was about to see into the next one when a voice I’d never heard before yelled my mom’s name.
Mami stopped to let the woman hug her. The stranger floated inside another handmade T-shirt sporting a smaller shot of Ariel looking forlorn and the phrase BACK TO NO FUTURE? on it. She wore her brass-colored hair parted down the middle and hugging her face like brackets—a more processed-looking version of my mom’s style. They pulled apart and kissed each other on the cheek, exchanging hearty Feliz A?o Nuevo greetings as they both turned to walk straight into the thickening crowd.
When the woman noticed me following, she reached for my shoulder and said Feliz A?o Nuevo to me but with a leftover smile. She leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, and I froze: even though I’d been doing it my whole life, to kiss a stranger in greeting now felt very weird. It was the inverse of what I’d first felt at Rawlings when I met Jaquelin. As this woman pulled away from me, she began talking as if I’d just interrupted some conversation.
—Bueno yo no salí anoche, she said.
—Me neither, my mom said. Too dangerous.
—?Ay, sí! she said. So many crazy people out for New Year’s. I’ll stay in my house to drink. No drunk drivers there. You see how many people they arrested? Four hundred DUIs! And that’s on the Palmetto nadamás.
—Four hundred! my mom said.
The woman nodded, but I had a harder time believing that large a number.
—Are you sure it was just the Palmetto and not all the expressways in Miami? I said, my voice sounding dry, not ready to be awake. Four hundred’s just – that’s a lot.
She sucked her teeth and said, I heard it this morning! On the news! They said it like eighteen times!
—Hmmm, I said, nodding.
—Y dicen que ese negro – ?como se llama? – Puff Daddy? He was at South Beach and his security people made them shut down the club and take away everyone’s cameras.