Y: A Novel Read Free Page B

Superstar!”
    “Nah,” says Par. He is holding me while Raquelle beats the rag rugs over the balcony.
     He is a decade older than she is, thinks he knows how to raise an industrious, confident
     girl. For starters, he won’t let Raquelle dress me in pink. “I want her to work in
     trades. That’s where the money’s at. Plumber, ’lectrician.” He dangles my rattle in
     front of my face, and I grab it expertly in my small hands. “See how good she is with
     her rattle? Maybe an athlete. Full of sport.”
    Raquelle sniffs. His English embarrasses her. In her worst moments, she looks at herself
     in the mirror and thinks that she shouldn’t have married him, that she could have
     done better. “A dancer,” she says. “I want her to take ballet. I never got to.”
    At night, Raquelle and I take the bus downtown and visit Par at the restaurant. He
     stands behind the host’s lectern in a crisp white shirt and red bow tie, his round
     face beaming. When we walk in he disappears into the kitchen, dries off a small amber
     snifter, and pours Raquelle a little Turkish raki from a bottle he keeps under the
     sink. The restaurant has no liquor license; Par cannot afford it. Raquelle sits at
     a circular table by the window and feeds me from a jar of maraschino cherries. The
     restaurant has only one customer, a man in his seventies with deep-set eyes and skin
     like wax paper. He is hand-rolling a cigarette with loose tobacco and looks over at
     us.
    “Beautiful baby,” he says. His voice is low and Raquelle leans in to hear him. “What
     a lovely family you have.”
    Par stands behind us, one hand on Raquelle’s shoulder, the other holding a mop. “Thank
     you,” he says to the man.
    “She looks just like you,” the man says back, motioning to my little round face.
    Par leans on the mop. The men look at each other for a minute.
    Outside, the street is empty. It is ten o’clock. The light from the movie theater
     marquee across the street flashes through the glass-block window, brightening the
     room intermittently. It is a small restaurant, with ten tables. The tables are still
     perfectly set, except the one where the man with the cigarette is sitting, his napkin
     in a loose pile on top of his plate. He takes a final sip of water and thanks Par
     for the meal. On his way out, he nods at Raquelle and me, flips up the collar of his
     coat, and lights his cigarette in the doorway, waiting until the door has closed behind
     him to blow out the smoke.
    “Thank goodness,” Par says and makes a big show of wiping his brow. He motions to
     his one employee, a teenage girl with a pimple on her forehead. “Go on home now, Liesl.
     See you tomorrow.” We sit there while he mops the floor.
    I like to think that if I’d stayed with them, I would have become a ballerina with
     a pipe-fitting business on the side, but after a year, Par’s restaurant went bankrupt
     and his brother offered him a job back home.
    He is a changed man, angry. He has failed, and now Raquelle and I, too, are a symbol
     of his failure. After he leaves her, Raquelle starts waiting tables at Scott’s downtown,
     where she worked before she got married. She likes the pink vinyl booths and has missed
     the handsome cook, who calls her “dearest” and kisses her hand. The restaurant is
     open twenty-four hours. During her shifts, I am left with the neighbors’ foster children,
     who look after me in exchange for soda pop and comics. We sit on the fire escape and
     I play with a big tabby cat, who runs his sandpaper tongue over my little hand when
     I pat him. The children carry me inside and tell me not to make a sound. They view
     me as a guinea pig or suckerfish—something foreign to be prodded and experimented
     on—something fascinating, but not at all, not for a second, human.
    One day at the restaurant, the cook holds out his hand to Raquelle, a small mound
     of white powder in the webbing between his thumb and index finger. Pretty soon,