Valentine

I didn’t know what to do with the poem, or how to use it to ask Analeya if she wanted to be my Valentine. Earlier that day, in English class, Mrs. Frayer had told us to think of someone special and make a Valentine’s Day card for them. The card should contain a poem and, in the end, the question of whether they wanted to go to the dance with us. Analeya was my best friend, so it made all the sense in the world for her to be my Valentine. She always looked so pretty with her hair braided long to her shoulders, and sometimes her braids had little colored beads that made a cute sound when she walked and it was nice because I knew that she was coming without even turning around. We sat at the same table on the first day of kindergarten, and I remember thinking she was pretty. Her skin was a little different than mine, a little tanner, and when she smiled at me I thought I must be the luckiest kid in the class.

“Why is your skin like chocolate?” I asked her, and our teacher, Ms. Gomez, dropped what she was doing and looked at me.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Analeya said and smiled again, and I remember the beauty of her bright, white teeth against her glowing skin, and that tooth gap in the front from a tooth I had yet to lose.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I like your hair. It’s pretty and colorful.”

“It’s called braids.”

“I know how to braid hair!” I shared, excited.

“That’s funny,” she replied. “But my mom says that it’s a bit different when it’s my hair. That’s why she’s the one to do it, or she takes me to a salon to get it done.”

“That sounds like fun,” I said, then extended my hand like I’d seen my parents do whenever they met someone new, “Nice to meet you, what’s your name again?”

“Again?” She asked, with a little smile. “I didn’t tell you.”

We exchanged names. Well, in my case meanings, since it was always easier to explain my name than it was to say it. I was named after a little creek in the village where my mom was born, Yunigo, but everyone called me Yuni. Then I went on to tell her how my mom wasn’t really from here and neither was my dad, but that they both had traveled from different places in the world just to meet so that I could exist. She laughed. Years later, she’d tell me how that sentence would stay with her forever. Yes, it sometimes took random, strange forces, just for one person to exist.

That February 12th, right outside Mrs. Lobe’s classroom, I waited. Should I give her the poem or should I wait? Would she be surprised, would she feel special? I kept waiting. We were in second grade now, and I wasn’t sure about what the protocol was for these things. A special person, Mrs. Frayer had said, that’s who your Valentine should be. Mrs. Frayer was old, at least that’s what Ma used to say every time I’d tell her something she’d said in class.

“Why hasn’t Baba given you a ring?” I asked Ma one day right after pick up.

“What? What are you talking about?” She said, turning around.

“Well, Mrs. Frayer says that a ring is the best thing that can happen to a woman. And that it means a man cares about her. That sometimes women go and have children with men but that those men don’t care enough about them and then leave them. Is Baba gonna leave you?”

I could see her rolling her eyes in the rearview mirror.

“That old witch Mrs. Frayer,” she said. “Don’t worry, love, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Mommy and Daddy are just fine the way they are. Mommy doesn’t like rings anyway. Don’t let her get to you. Most of the stuff she says is as old and stupid as she is.”

I smiled with the reassurance of a 7-year-old who for a second had thought their parents didn’t love each other just to find out they did. Ma was always complaining about the comments that some teachers would make about me and our family. The fact that Baba was a Muslim had never sat well with some of them, and they had raised concerns about my and my sisters’ souls. Being baptized was part of the conditions to be admitted to the school, and Ma had done it behind Baba’s back. Whenever she’d complain, Baba would suggest that maybe we should just switch schools, but for Ma that was unthinkable. Maybe their values were outdated, but Catholic school remained the best alternative to our public school in terms of academics, and Ma wanted her children to be successful. And that’s why we were stuck there. But I was happy because that’s where I met Analeya.

“Hey, hi,” I rehearsed. “I — I have something to give you.”

It didn’t sound right, again, “Hey, how’s it going? I did something for you?”

The bell rang and I heard the chairs inside shifting as people stood up. The door opened and the first person came out, but it took a couple of minutes for me to hear the sound I was waiting for, and see Analeya, her hair with bouncy colors, walking toward me.

“Yuni,” she said, splitting from the group of three other girls that accompanied her. “What’s up? I thought I wouldn’t see you until lunch.”

This year, we weren’t in the same class. At first, it kinda sucked, but then it became fun, longing to see her in the cafeteria. I missed her and it made me happy that I had someone to miss.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, playing with the card squished inside my pocket. “I just had a quick question, you know, about Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah?” I could swear I saw her eyes sparkle a bit.

I cleared my throat, “do you have a Valentine yet?”

She hesitated a bit, as if playing with the words in her tongue, then said, “Yeah, hum, John asked me and I said yes, I guess.”

I felt my little heart as if pinched by a needle, and my eyes started tingling.

I kept my eyes on her shoes as I said, “You guess?”

“I mean, yes, why not.”

She sounded unconvinced, or maybe I just wanted to think I still had a chance. Then she asked me, “Do you know who you’re going with already?”

“No, not yet.”

“I wish we could go together,” she said, but it did nothing to mend my broken heart. “But I asked Mrs. Lobe and she told me that it had to be one boy and one girl.”