Trash Talkin'

I batted my eyelashes and stilled. She had taken to calling me Mami since we moved to New York where we heard Spanglish more than anything else. It made her feel more urban or so she said. Mia started tracing the outline of my lips with a MAC lip pencil, for we only used MAC Glamour Girls products—Spice, for contrast. And I don’t know. She was smelling good, wearing a threadbare tank top that I could see right down and a pair of my boxers. Her dirty blonde curls were piled atop her head save for a few stubborn strands that kept falling into her eyes which, like I said, were staring at me with this intensity. The next thing I know, my hand is wrapped around her wrist and I’m falling back, pulling her with me, and I’m kissing her even though my lips are only half done. I heard the pencil fall to the floor and her breath catch in her throat. I felt my thighs slide apart and press against her sides. And then her left hand was planted against my chest, pushing me away, wiping her lips with her right.

“Jesus, Lettie, why do you always have to go too far?” Mia said. She rolled off the bed and stalked out of the room. I could hear water running in the bathroom and cabinet doors loudly opening and closing.

BLE 2005 Cover I stared at the ceiling, rubbing my stomach and I couldn’t help but smile. I was going to turn that girl out. I hated girls like Mia and all their friends who befriend girls like me to reassure themselves that they are part of their very own rainbow coalition. I do my part of course, adding a little extra boricua to my walk and talk—rolling my r’s and popping my neck; giving a little extra shimmy to my shake when I’m strolling the block. I paint the picture that they want to see and keep everything else to myself.

Mia and I met in her daddy’s peach orchards where my mama worked, when we were both fourteen. For whatever reason, mama had to bring me to work with her one afternoon. She told me to stay out of the way so I started wandering through the orchard, eating bruised peaches that had fallen through the ground.

I was about to take a bite of a fresh peach when I heard a sharp little voice say, “What do you think you’re doing?”

I looked up, and there was Mia, hands on her hips, chin jutting forward looking every inch the little princess I would soon learn that she was.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I asked, taking a bigger bite than usual, never looking away. White girls like her did not impress me.