Woodside

When her prospective lover asked to see New York through her eyes, Rina knew she would have regrets. She didn’t know much about the celebrity sightings on Cornelia Street or the egg bagels tucked away on West 107th. Even if she did, he wouldn’t glean much beyond a Yelp review. That wouldn’t do, not when butterflies hatched from their easy banter and furtive glances, so much so that she wanted him to squeeze her heart.

But first, she had to bear her soul.

And so, Rina left a voice note with instructions for boarding the Queens-bound seven line. They would meet at the Dunkin on 74th, where she would pretend to enjoy his mango refresher before shoveling mouthfuls of chicken biryani at the Indian diner—you know, the one with all those photographs of worldly politicians with their worldly taste buds.

She enjoyed the stroll that followed; although her stomach cramped the entire time they kissed beneath the fire escape of some stranger’s apartment. At least, she hoped it’d been a stranger. The last she visited this part of Woodside, her mother’s go-to seamstress lived upstairs, and that woman spared no gossip. Rina wondered what headline would circulate of the white man’s fingertips ghosting along her hipbone.

She could’ve taken a left at the bowling alley and gone straight down the underpass. There was plenty of sight-seeing there: the 99-cent store she’d pocket mints from; her elementary school up until the fourth grade; the barber shop that perfected her bowl cut. It’d be an easy trek to the trains thereafter, and they’d be well on their way.

“But I want to see where you grew up.”

“We’re already here,” she reminded him gently.

“I meant your home.”

Tamarind chutney seared her throat. Maybe he’d reconsider if she hurled over his loafers.

They turned right instead.

Rina grazed her knuckles over iron grills, wondering when the landlord cared to replace the picket fence. How many complaints of bruised tailbones did it take after she left?

“The boy who lived here used to have a crush on me,” she said.

“Did you like him back?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you ever tell him?”

Her ankles twitched with a sudden pep, as if chalky deposits of hop-scotch past could bring her best friend back from Arizona. She wondered if he missed the humid summers here as his skin flaked in the desert heat. Did he still get carsick, or did his body acclimate to the absence of public transport? Was his girlfriend Desi, too? Hopefully not; Rina liked to think she was the last Bengali woman to make his heart flutter.

“I didn’t.”

Bit by bit, they inched towards the home with green awning. But couldn’t they linger in the spaces in between? There’d been a funeral home whose parking lot served as the neighborhood’s personal skate rink. He thought she was too nice to loathe others, but her nemesis’ family indeed owned the stationary store around the corner, now a butcher’s shop. Rina didn’t even mind showing him the 24-hour laundromat, where her parents decided to split up for good.

“So, this is it, huh?” he asked, squeezing her palm.

The house sold back in 2009 for just under four hundred grand. That was how desperate her parents were to part with the past. On top of never being Desi enough, Rina’s parents weren’t upstanding Muslims either, or so she’d been told. But she didn’t mind the scent of cigarettes or the Modelo in their fridge, so long as the bottles were hidden. They were familiar comforts alongside the stacks of horror novels and cassettes that molded her worldview.

“I think the same lady lives here,” she said, pointing at the Nativity set. “I remember her being super Catholic.”

“You’d think she’d touch up the place.”

The house was already a century old when her family bought it. No amount of white paint could conceal the water damage. Maybe the lady renovated the insides; she seemed to have a good sense for interior design. It wouldn’t be an easy feat, of course. The only other time she’d seen a home this peculiar was in the Upper East Side. They called it a railroad layout.

“I really didn’t want to bring you here,” Rina admitted. She was too afraid to look up. It’d hurt more if she read nothing from his eyes.

“Was it a rough childhood?”

“It was fine.” She was on pleasant enough terms with her parents, who’d gone on to marry spouses with an uncanny talent for smoothing their edges. As for her younger brother, he was the proper amount of avoidant. At least he was capable of playing house with his girlfriend. Rina couldn’t remember the last time she surpassed three months of romantic endeavor.

“It makes you think of what could’ve been had you stayed.” Rina opened her mouth to correct him, but wasn’t finished. “It’s like that with my ex. I can’t go anywhere we’ve been together.”

Rina felt her throat dry. She could only stare at marbled baby Jesus. How young must he have been to anticipate the nails that would pierce his spine and chest?

“How long has it been?” she asked eventually.

“Five years.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“You should totally take her back,” she said with a small grin.

“You don’t think I should move on?”

“Nah.” Rina bent to her knees and plucked a hydrangea through the wire mesh. A little keepsake for when she commuted back to Fort Greene. “Go back to every date spot in the city. Hell, take the Amtrak back to wherever you two met. Relive every moment you totally screwed up until you’re laughing at how dumb you were for thinking things could end any different.”

He looked at her funny. Lacing her fingers through his, she relished the golden hour lengthening the shadows of his lashes. She couldn’t laugh now, but she would in a day or so. There was something divine about seeing herself die again in the same neighborhood: once as a young child, and now as a young woman.

She hoped that reptile brain of hers would evolve like the skin she was shedding.