Watched by Marina Budhos

Author:Marina Budhos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2016-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

“Anything new?”

“Not much.”

“I noticed.”

My stomach hurts. For the first time, instead of a quick meeting where they hand me a few bills, Taylor and Sanchez and me are meeting in the open. Totally not procedure. They’ve driven me to some neighborhood in a part of Queens I don’t know, which has me on edge. It’s like I’ve been brought into the station house all over again. Or hauled up before Mrs. D or one of my old teachers for a missed assignment. I haven’t delivered.

“Though you look good.”

“Thanks.”

“Filled out. Confident. What’re you eating these days?”

“Not a whole lot.” I scratch at my jaw, which is itchy from the new beard growth. “I’m fasting.”

His eyebrows rise. “You’re really into this. Playing the role.”

“It’s not a role,” I say, annoyed.

I notice Taylor has on sunglasses and a jacket, even though it’s warm out. Sanchez trudges behind. We pass houses with aluminum siding, tight up next to each other. One’s got four mailboxes, a thick rope of cables snaking up the side of the house, four satellite dishes tilted on the roof. I know these places—where the Dominican or the Chinese busboys live on mattresses, sometimes taking shifts. They keep their money in nylon pouches tight against their bodies. Abba once lived like that, when he first came here. To this day he always sleeps in a few minutes after my stepmother rises, says he wants to know what it feels to stretch his toes in his own bed.

Taylor stops in front of an arbor dripping with plump bunches of glistening grapes. He plucks one and pops it in his mouth. “Want one?” he asks.

I hesitate.

“Sorry. I forgot.”

Just a grape, I tell myself. I take it, and the juice squirts tart into my mouth; the seeds crunch. I almost want to cry out with pleasure. Then I’m flooded with shame. Who am I? A guy who’s faking he’s devout? Or is this me?

“Not bad, huh? My grandmother used to have grapes out back at our house,” he says.

“Where was that?”

“Bellerose. Right by Alley Pond Park.” He grabs another grape. “She had a fig tree too. Brought it all the way from Italy, crazy lady. Every fall she’d cover it with burlap. I swear she treated it like another baby.”

“So your family is from Italy?” I ask. “How’d you get a name like Taylor?”

He shrugs. “Believe it or not, my grandfather was a tailor. Sort of. He cut patterns for a company. My parents thought Taylor sounded right. Gave the old man his due. He died before I was born. But the old lady, she lived in a bedroom off the kitchen. My whole life.”

“But you don’t—you don’t look Italian,” I protest.

He smiles. “They’re from the north, that’s all. Blond.”

“There’re all kinds,” Sanchez laughs, from behind.

All kinds, I think, rolling the phrase in my mind. I’ve always pegged Taylor as some all-American Fordham guy. But it’s as if I can see his house, a wedge of brick and Tudor, the little bedroom, even the arbor draped in purple grapes out back.

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