Model Ricans

Dad

Dad turns the corner and I am completely silent in the backseat while watching Sky Bowman grab his basketball, then jump into a Mercedes with Manuel and Georgie.

"Who were those boys?"

I almost say The Lost Boys, but then I say, "No one."

"I don't want you talking to those boys," he says as we sit at a stoplight. "Boys have only one thing on their mind."

"Why do you always say that?"

"Because I know."

I roll my eyes because I know he can't see me in the backseat. Then I add, with my mouth chewing my face like Claire Huxtable, "Are you saying that because Manuel is black? He's actually Mexican and black."

"Black or Mexican – doesn't matter, I don't want you hanging out with boys."

"I'm not gonna get pregnant, dad."

"Famous last words," he says as a car from the right lane cuts him off and weaves into the left turn lane.

Dad curses at the driver.

This makes me want to curse at him.

Instead I say, "I'm so sick of being a kid. I'm not allowed to do anything because you and Mom always think I'm gonna get pregnant."

Dad laughs. "You're too young to be sick of anything."

"I'm sick of you and Mom never letting me do anything."

"Little girl, we let you do plenty."

"Like what? I used to have sleepovers with my friends in New York all the time but I don't have any friends here and there's nothing to do. So boring. It's the same thing over and over again. Can't I go dancing at the teen club? Why do you always say no?"

Dad shakes his head and chuckles like he's never been so amused. "You're too young, Desiree."

"When will I be old enough?"

"When you're 18!" Dad is pissed now. So I'm pissed.

"When I'm 18 I'm going back to New York!"

"Good, you do that," says Dad.

We don't speak for the rest of the ride as tears blur my eyes and the brown station wagon feels like it's going 88 miles per hour. Hmm. Again? Suddenly I'm aware that every time I am stressed or upset, I start to time travel.

Oh.

Hmmm. Am I like the Incredible Hulk when I'm stressed? He turns green and gargantuan under stress, and when I get stressed...

I time travel.

I must be going crazy. I don't even have a flux capacitor like Doc Brown.  As I stare at the trees swishing by through the window, I wonder if I'm more like Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, tesseracting into the fourth dimension.

Hmmm.

If stress equals time travel, usually to a time in New York I used to love, I wonder if I can control the direction and go to the future instead. 

I close my eyes, forcing my tears to stop, and imagine myself at 18 years old in New York. I mentally push all the stress into the space between my eyeballs and when I open my eyes, my heart is beating at 88 miles per hour and I can't help thinking about Back to the Future II when everyone goes thirty years into the future, oh my God, I can't control it, I am fast-forwarding, I'm going, I'm going and...............

Woah. Robots. There are freaking robots EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!

Oh, God, how do I get out of this, everywhere I walk there are robots. I'm back in New York, just like I told Dad I would, but nothing looks the same, everyone is walking around on sidewalks with weird little computers in their hands, holy shit, how do I get out of here? Oh no. I should have known. Like Dad says, I'm just a kid, there is no way I can drive myself. Please, God, please, take me back home. I run and I run until I'm crossing the Williamsburg Bridge and then I am jumping off the bridge going down, down, down until I am back in Dad's station wagon.

What the hell???

Oh my gosh. As much as I don't want to admit, it's a freaking relief to see the back of Dad's head, his black curly hair, so shiny and full as he faces forward, looking through the windshield toward the future.

Yikes. That was a little bit scary.

I am not sure what I just witnessed or experienced but my time traveling is getting weird and I wonder for a moment if I should ask Dad for help, I am breathing so heavy, he doesn't even notice, he's just driving and listening to the dumb oldies radio station like always, so I say, "Dad, do you think it's possible to travel through time?"

Dad doesn't answer for a while, he keeps driving down University Boulevard but I can tell he's thinking about an answer until he speaks words that have nothing to do with my question. "Did you know the sun is 93 million miles away from the earth? I was a blah blah scholar, it was the most prestigious award in math."

I nod my head and look out the window.

Dad can't hear me as he pulls the station wagon into the circular driveway of the weird house we moved into a few years ago. I hate it. I hate the pie shape of the property, I hate the pink walls of my bedroom, I hate the white tiles on the floor, I hate the vertical blinds on the windows, I hate the island-flavored palm tree screened in pool, but most of all, I hate being tucked inside a cookie cutter subdivision of land named Glen East. It doesn't matter what I say or how many times I jump out the window or in front of him, Dad can't hear me and he can't see me. I am invisible.

And then, as I open the car door, while Dad is still talking about the size of Jupiter and the distance of the moon to the Earth, I suddenly understand why Marga is mad at me.

I gotta call her.

I gotta call her now.