The Girls in Queens by Christine Kandic Torres

Author:Christine Kandic Torres
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

November 2006

Janet guided me into a room in her family’s Pelham Bay house that she called the salon and asked me to wait there while she washed up from her workout. It made me uncomfortable whenever people referred to salons, or dens, or drawing rooms; the luxury of gratuitous rooms made me itchy.

She’d moved back home after the incident, I’d learned, when we spoke briefly over the phone so I could get directions to her parents’ house in Westchester.

I figured the house was going to be intimidating, but I didn’t expect to be greeted by landscaped cypresses lining the enormous, sprawling lawn leading up to the red-painted door when I stepped out of the cab. Standing at the threshold, peeking in the windows that lined the doorframe, I had taken a moment to gather the resolve to press the doorbell.

In the salon, a fire glowed in the hearth between twin peach-colored armchairs. Delicate-looking designer wallpaper had been pasted above wainscoting that covered the walls. In our apartment at home, Mami hung crucifixes on the cement walls with 3M tape to not upset our landlord.

I picked up a framed picture on the sideboard next to the couch. A younger Janet stood on a podium in a tracksuit holding flowers. So she was an athlete, too. The photo next to it showed Janet as a kid, maybe twelve or thirteen, wearing frayed denim shorts and a FILA top, crouching on a wooden dock with six other girls, their arms around each other’s shoulders, skin red and pink from the sun, cousins, maybe, or camp friends. In the back row were pairs of parents, some men with heavy mustaches, others with aviator sunglasses. Everyone’s face was wide and open, smiling as if in midconversation, mid-“cheese.” My throat felt sore then, my eyes welling for reasons I couldn’t dare explain.

I turned my attention to the bookcases, which appeared to be filled with hundreds of hardcover books, but when I picked one up, three others came off the shelf with it, attached and hollow.

“The hell . . .” I panicked, placing it back down quickly.

“They’re ridiculous, I know,” Janet said behind me, and I jumped, embarrassed. “Why not just take your time and build an actual library?”

She rolled her eyes before placing a tray holding two glasses of water on an ottoman, ice clinking.

“My dad has no patience,” she said, picking up one of the glasses and handing it to me. “Just wants things to look put together right away.”

I took the glass from her and nodded.

“Your parents still together?” I asked. Of course they are, I thought. What a stupid question.

“Yeah,” she said, frowning slightly, scooping her own glass up and onto a coaster beside one of the peach armchairs. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” I said, clearing my throat as I sat down in the chair opposite her, “it’s just kind of rare, don’t you think? Don’t know if I know anyone whose parents aren’t split up.”

Janet raised her eyebrows.

“Guess I’m lucky.”

I stared at

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