Juliet Takes a Breath Read online

  “Love you too, Titi,” I replied, trying to maintain some control over the emotions flooding my insides. Tears welled up in my eyes. The unconditional love in her voice leveled me.

  Titi Wepa could always love-bully me into being calm. She and my Mom existed in this polar opposite energy field. Wepa was the fire-starter, the one who stood in your face and pounded her fists on the table until her truth was heard and her love was felt. Mom rubbed worried heads, found nervous hands under blankets, and held them while she cooked pots of rice and beans. I should have called Mom but I was afraid that her bedroom door would still be closed and that she wouldn’t want to talk.

  Titi Wepa was right. I crawled back into the attic. I opened the box and picked out a scrap with the name Lolita Lebrón on it. I had no idea who she was but I liked her name. I grabbed another name from the box. “Sophia/Wisdom” was written on green construction paper without a last name. Maybe it would all be okay? With Mom and Wepa in my heart, Lolita and Sophia in my hands, I decided to be brave and embrace what I came here to find, even though I had no idea what that was.

  5. Sin Ropa

  Sophia and Lolita were out there in the world somewhere. I wasn’t convinced that I could find out who they were but I had to try. I had to do something that didn’t involve thinking about the lack of phone calls from Mom or Lainie. I hoped that diving into this world of unknown women would help me forget the women in my life who were absent. I pressed the slips of paper with their names into my composition notebook, stuffed it into my book bag, and descended the attic steps.

  In Harlowe’s kitchen I was confronted by a naked Asian guy. He stood in the window frame, so tall that his spine bent like a crescent moon to fit. His presence startled me. Was I still in Harlowe’s home, or had the dimensions switched on me? Wishbone thin, his arms and legs were long and poised to move. He turned and held my gaze from the windowsill. I’d never seen a flaccid penis before in real life. It reminded me of the fat slugs that would emerge after heavy rainfall and slide along our driveway at home. I wondered if they all looked like that. Were they supposed to be so thick and rubbery looking? I realized I was staring at him, right there. I blushed hard and turned my face away. I was caught between embarrassed laughter and nervousness.

  “Phen, did you ask Juliet if she’s okay with your nudity?” Harlowe called from somewhere.

  Phen gazed down at me without altering his humorless expression. “Juliet, are you okay with my nudity?” he asked.

  I blinked first and looked away. Well, at least I was in the right dimension. “I’m good, yo. Be as naked as you wanna be,” I said, walking around him to fill up my water bottle at the sink.

  “You could be naked and free too, Juliet.” Phen offered, “You must first let go of your internalized fear of nudity and the societal pressures placed upon women to have perfect figures. The choice is yours,” Phen said as he grabbed an apple from the table and chomped into it.

  “My internalized fear of nudity?” I asked, “I didn’t know that I had one. So you’re the naked guy and the judgmental guy all in one guy?” I folded my arms and looked at him hard.

  Footsteps padded into the kitchen where the naked Asian and the unimpressed Puerto Rican were having a stare down. Harlowe breezed in wearing a Big Bird yellow ultra fluffy robe. Her feet were bare and she carried a coffee mug that read Praise Witches. “Phen, I’m feeling the energy in this room and the goddesses are telling me that your naked phallus is disrupting our ovarian flow. Now if today was Wednesday, I’m sure your phallic energy would be in sync with our yonic organisms but it’s Monday and that sure as hell ain’t the case. Maybe cover up just a little.”

  Phen shot me the deadliest look, biting deep into his apple.

  “It’s because of her, isn’t it? You’ve never made me put on clothes before, Harlowe. I don’t see why I have to get dressed because she’s not enlightened enough to handle my nudity.”

  I stiffened. Kids in the Bronx always told me I was too weird or white-acting to be Puerto Rican. Now this Phen dude was telling me that I was too indoctrinated by mainstream society to be down with nakedness. I didn’t even know what to say. Can I live, yo? Harlowe took note of my anti-response and rallied to my defense.

  “Phen, if the goddesses tell me that the energy is off, then I must adjust to their will. No matter what other entities are in my presence,” Harlowe said, without malice. She picked up her copy of The Mountain Astrologer and continued, “Second, Juliet is my guest. It would be in the best interest of all our energies if you got to know her before passing any judgment.”

  Harlowe turned back to her mountain astrology magazine. I poured myself a bowl of Granola O’s with a heavy helping of Harlowe’s fake milk and hoped for the best. I added Phen to the long list of jerks I navigated in high school. Harlowe hadn’t mentioned anyone else living here or visiting. Perhaps Phen landed unannounced and would leave soon. I hoped that was true. My thoughts went back to Lolita, Sophia, and finding the nearest library. Did Portland have a subway system? Why hadn’t I asked about that?

  Phen grabbed a lilac sarong from behind Harlowe’s chair and wrapped it around his waist. The outline of taut muscles along his stomach and hips made me wonder if he was a dancer. Phen was kind of beautiful, like, for a judgmental random naked guy.

  I touched Harlowe’s hand with my finger and said, “I’ve got two names in my book bag and I’m ready to do some work. Got any tips for navigating the transportation system and finding a library?”

  “Juliet, you might want to wait for your aura to sync up with the city and with mine before you start. I gave you all the information today so that it could start to sink into your pores and your soul,” she said, rolling a cigarette, “Not so that you felt pressured to start. Give yourself time. You’ll know when your aura is ready.”

  Phen sucked his teeth. “What does she even know about auras?” he asked.

  Harlowe whipped her head around. “Jealousy does not become you, Phen.” Harlowe once again sipped from her Praise Witches coffee mug. “I think it would be an exercise in patience and understanding if the two of you ventured out into Portland,” she said, as if pulling this idea from all the alleged energies swirling around the room.

  Phen and I looked at each other. Neither of us said a word.

  The absolute last thing I had any desire to do was spend the afternoon with Phen and all of his judgment. I wanted to wander alone or with Harlowe, not with him. What if he found out that I really didn’t know anything at all about auras and that I was panicked about not knowing what a synced aura felt like? I didn’t come to Portland to hang out with boys. There were enough boys in the Bronx and I didn’t ever want to deal with them either. Well, except for Lil’ Melvin, of course.

  Harlowe pulled out a purple jar with a metal clasp and a soft velvet pouch from the cabinet above her stove. She flipped open the jar’s lid to reveal a small mountain of bright green bud. This was not your typical dry ass bag of regs littered with seeds and stems that you got from so-and-so’s cousin up the block. No, this was manna from the weed gods. These nugs glimmered in the light with shiny crystals and red fibers that crisscrossed their fatness like electrical wires. The smell alone got me geeked. Harlowe removed a glass pipe from the velvet pouch. It was clear along the mouth and turned blood orange the further it got to the bowl.

  “These are my trees and my Saturn-ruled smoking pipe,” Harlowe said, voice melodic and calm. “Juliet, whenever you want to partake, feel free. Use as much as you want whenever you want. All I ask is that you use my instruments with care and return them to a safe place. Saturn doesn’t always want to be kept in the cupboard. She will let you know her desired resting place.”

  I felt honored, excited. It was nice to not be in some white boy’s dorm room trying to clear a five-foot bong while listening to Dave Matthews with everyone chanting, “Toke! Toke! Toke!” The three of us took hits off of Saturn.

  Phen blew out a slow spiral of smoke. “Harlowe,” he said, “
maybe I should also take Juliet to Powell’s so she can see where the reading is going to be.”

  Harlowe slapped her hand on the table. “Yes, oh my goddess, how could I forget? Juliet, another part of your time here will be helping me prepare for this mega reading I have at Powell’s for Raging Flower.” Her grin was wide, dimples flashing wild. Harlowe’s face was open to the world; it pulled in all of the light from the room. Her excitement was infectious and brilliant. I breathed it in with the weed smoke. The Harlowe Brisbane needed my help with a reading at a fancy bookstore.

  Phen brought up the first time he met Harlowe. It was at an open mic night in Olympia. Harlowe read excerpts of what would become Raging Flower. I watched them exchange easy remember-whens. I munched on my cereal and hoped I would know Harlowe like that one day.

  Researching badass women in history and organizing a book reading worked for me. The two components made sense. Readings at school were often all-white—boring. People read things about the silences in the trees and most nights some privileged wannabe “outsider” white boy claimed the open mic to lament the fact that no chicks would bang them. LGBTQ events didn’t feel like family yet, either. Even the letters themselves made me feel like I was hovering above a movement and not connected to it via blood and tissue. The on-campus LGBTQ group called itself the Gay Brigade. I always needed a few drinks to loosen up and feel comfortable in my skin at their events. I was like one of one Latinas in the group anyway. Mainly, I went to snuggle up with Lainie in public, surrounded by other self-identified homos. A reading from Raging Flower in Portland with real-life adult gay people sounded like it could break open my chest. Whatever Harlowe needed me to do, I’d do it.

  Phen looked at me and placed his hand on my arm. “Juliet, I apologize for being rude and for imposing my nakedness on you. I would feel blessed if you let me take you around Portland.”

  Through the haze of our morning smoke-fest, I saw him as a misfit in a sarong, an equal.

  “No worries, man,” I said, “I’d love to bounce around this city with you.”

  6. PGPs and Big Punisher

  We caught the Tri-Met bus on East Burnside and 16th. Phen wore a tattered red Che Guevara T-shirt, ripped army green work pants that cut off right below his knees, and dusty black combat boots. His tall frame made it look like he had robbed a militant ten-year-old of his clothes. Thick little me had on my favorite Baby Phat jeans and black and white Bx T-shirt. I wore red plastic-framed glasses and had my labret pierced; glasses because I was a nerd with bad vision and the labret in attempt to hide both of those facts. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the crispy Jordans. They’d be broken in perfect by summer’s end.

  Waiting at the bus stop we looked like a streetlamp and a fire hydrant out for a day trip. A bus pulled up and Phen ushered me in first. My nose twitched and eyes watered. What the fuck? A stench I had never known infiltrated my olfactory sense. I couldn’t comprehend how a bus full of white people smelled so bad. Didn’t they have mothers? When I was 11 and my chubby chest turned into actual breasts, Mom swooped in, handed me some Dove deodorant and gave me the low down on covering up.

  “Nena, from now on you must always wear a bra. Your breasts will get bigger like mine and Grandma’s. You must protect them. Trust me, eventually you will need the support, as well. Men in public or even in the house should never be able to see the outline of your tetitas or the poke of your nipples. Put your bra on the second you wake up in the morning. Men can’t handle seeing those things. It makes them crazy. Remember, they’re just not as smart as we are, mama. From now on, you must shower every day and always wear deodorant and perfume. I do not want my little girl to be stinky. You are too pretty for that.”

  Boom. Instant knowledge of appropriate feminine hygiene. This must have been a busload of no-shame-having motherless children because there were loose sagging tits, sweat stains and B.O. running free like locusts. Some of the men on the bus looked like normal white guys but their beards were thick, unkempt, and their T-shirts were yellowed from sweat. I didn’t understand them. What kind of white people were they?

  Back home, my brother and my cousins hit up Butta Cutterz, the local barbershop, once a week to get tight shape ups. My older cousins wore the best colognes, too. Real talk, sometimes the hood stinks, but I was not prepared to find myself in the middle of a sucio fest here in Portland.

  I parked my curvy ass on an open window seat and counted how long I could hold my breath. Phen was unfazed and judging by the ocean deep sweat marks under his pits, he felt right at home. I sat there breathing all crazy and feeling demasiado grossed out. How was I supposed to survive here? These Portlanders were an entirely different breed of white people.

  From an all-girls Catholic school in Westchester County, New York to the private liberal arts college I attended in Baltimore, Maryland (yea scholarships!), I was used to the buttoned up, wealthy, Casper-skinned whites that always spoke in their library voices and used words like sassy and spicy to describe me. I was used to white people that embodied the suburban American dream. White people like Lainie’s parents, who wished their daughters weren’t dating me but tolerated it and engaged me in discussions about affirmative action and how I benefited from it. White people that informed me that my fellow Latinos were “genetically more violent” than the average white boy all while inviting me to their summer home on the Cape. I was comfortable with white people that only sweat during a friendly game of tennis with their law school buddies. Those law school buddies would often have sons who would try and seduce me in secluded walkways and darkened corridors in other wings of their giant homes. They were careful to avoid their perfect cheerleader girlfriends while putting the moves on me. Flawed as the set-up was, those were the blanquitos I knew. The devils you know and whatnot. These cats over here made me wish I had santos to pray to for guidance. I didn’t know how to navigate hippie white.

  A storm cloud of hypocrisy slid over me. I felt kind of sick. My mother didn’t raise me this way. Who was I to assume that these stinky ass people had no home training? Or that they were any worse than the other uppity whites I was more familiar with? Who was I to judge how these hippie-types chose to live in their own bodies? I closed my eyes and breathed in these new people. Still stanky. After a few long minutes, I got used to the rawness of it and filed the smell in my brain as earthy. I could do earthy. I swiveled around and went back to scoping everyone. Some of these hippie white girls looked summer-sweet like the type you make wild love to lakeside somewhere surrounded by dandelions, possibly on hallucinogenic drugs. Damn that girl in the corner is beautiful with her brown dreadlocks, blue eyes, and grass stained overalls. She smiled at me and I couldn’t help but grin back. Beautiful-hippie-stranger girl reached for the yellow tape to indicate her stop and a chia pet of pit hair popped out from under her arm. I choked and spun back around to look out of the window. Being open-minded about everything earthy entailed was going to take a hot minute.

  Phen stared at me, unsmiling. He crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “So Juliet, how do you identify? What are your preferred gender pronouns?”

  “I’m sorry, what? How do I identify what?” I asked, my voice quiet. A gender pronoun? I wanted to ask what a preferred gender pronoun was but Phen’s face, his raised eyebrow, his entire manner kept me from feeling comfortable. The way Phen asked—so casually, like this was common knowledge—made the air between us shift into a hazy thickness.

  Phen half rolled his eyes, “Oh c’mon, do you identify as queer? As a dyke? Are you trans?” he asked, spitting phrases at me, amused by my ignorance. “And PGPs are so important even though I think we should drop preferred and call them mandatory gender pronouns. So, are you she, he, ze, they?”

  I shrugged and said, “I’m just Juliet.” I chewed my pinky nail, looking down at the floor.

  I was surrounded by hippies and the only person in the world who knew my name on this bus was sitting across from me speaking another language. His judgment slid into my
heart and carved a space for itself. Trans? Ze? PGPs? Those words weren’t a part of my vocabulary. No one in the Bronx or even in college asked me if I was a Ze or a trans. Was that even how they fit into sentences? I felt small, constricted, and stupid, very stupid. Phen dangled these phrases over my head. He was waiting for me to jump up and beg to be educated, beg for him to explain the world he inhabited.

  “How did you even get here?” Phen asked, unblinking. “Harlowe told me she didn’t need any help this summer because she found you, some Internet fan girl.” Phen rolled a cigarette with organic tobacco and dye-free rolling papers. “I bet you’re not even really gay. You’re just feeling trendy because you’re going to a liberal arts college.”

  I started to tear up. I stood and walked to the back of the bus. Phen wasn’t going to see me cry or take pleasure in my silence. The moment to retaliate passed by, leaving brass knuckle bruises on my ego. His queer questions brought back memories of Puerto Rican kids asking me if I knew all the words to Big Pun’s part on Twinz (Deep Cover ‘98). Pun spit lyrics so twisted they choked the tightest vine-tongued wannabe. But for some reason this song was the test: Are you Puerto Rican enough, Juliet Palante? Do you know the words? Are you down with us? Or are you just a white girl with brown skin?

  Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know

  That we riddled some middleman who didn’t do diddily

  No, I didn’t know the words. No, I didn’t know my preferred gender pronouns. All of the moments where I was made to feel like an outsider in a group that was supposed to have room for me added up and left me feeling so much shame. Burning hot cheeks, eyes swollen with tears that were all the words I couldn’t say—that’s what my shame looked like. I wanted to run. The world is filled with enough room to flee at any moment. In any situation, there’s a window, a crowbar to blast through a locked door, or even the ability to just jump across the roof or down an entire flight of steps; there’s always some way to escape.