AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (3) Music In My Pink Room (Non-Fiction) A personal reflection about a girl and how muic and her mother affected her young life. [1,443 words] [Relationships] Nick (Non-Fiction) A short story about young first love written in a young girls perspective. [1,063 words] [Relationships] The Voice Of Melodi (Short Stories) - [2,641 words] [Mystical]
Blood Sister's GutierrezJ
Janie Chavez was my best friend, living downstairs on Bennett Avenue. She lived in apartment #4, across and below my apartment #23. I remember when she moved into the apartment with her family. It was her mom, dad, her little brother Bobby and Princess the evil Chihuahua that used to bite my ankles. I saw them all moving in boxes and her playing with her brother outside. I could see right into her apartment from the second floor where I lived. I remember I used to sit in my kitchen window and wait to see them go to their kitchen, so I could see what they were going to eat. This old man had lived in that apartment for years before Janie moved in with her family. An old friend and I once went in his apartment when he was taken away to a nursing home, and I remember us thinking it was haunted. I don’t quite know how we got in there.
I saw Janie moving in and automatically I was drawn to her. She was a new girl and she looked like she was my age, so I went down to talk to her, and we started hanging out all the time after that. We hung out so much that you would think I lived in her house, or that we were related in some way, yet we were total opposites. She was tall and chubby and I was short and skinny, but together we were a team. We used to tie cups onto string and pass things through the windows back and forth to each other. We had our “tar beach” on the roof in the summer time, and we played hide and go seek in the building with Tatina and Destina, the smelly Greek sisters from across the street.
I slept over Janie’s house and she slept in mine, but I slept more in her house, her mom was funny about that; Janie was Cuban, and in her culture, sleepovers were not cool I think. Janie’s mom let me sleep in her house all the time. Sleeping over at Janie’s was the best; we never wanted to go to sleep. Hearing her mom yell down the hall for us to shut up in Spanish was unbearable, so we would try to whisper and make believe we were asleep. We used to talk all day on the phone, and play outside with our jump rope; we went to the RKO movie theatre down the block every chance we could get to see the latest horror movies like every episode of “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and every episode of “Friday the Thirteenth.”
We often bought the same outfits and tried to put our hair in the same style with the same clips. We could not hang out at night so we would sit by our bedroom windows that faced each other and we would write notes and push them against the windows. My mom would hear me laughing out loud from her room and wonder who I was talking to. I remember laughing so hard my stomach hurt and I remember Janie’s face and her big smile with her two front teeth that stuck out.
Janie was my best friend, and there was Karine too. We all lived at 23 Bennett Avenue. Karine lived in apartment #22, next to me. Karine’s mom never let her do sleepovers at all, and her house smelled funny, so I never slept there. Karine was Russian. Karine came here after Janie and I were friends, she did not know much English and she was very nervous about it. Janie and I taught her a lot of English, mostly bad words. We played jump rope together and hung out in front of the building a lot. The Lobby and the roof were also our spots. We directed Karine, and she followed us, I think Janie got a kick out of that.
One day we decided to become blood sisters. We were outside hanging out in front of the building, and I told Janie and Karine I heard somewhere that if we mixed our blood we could be blood sisters. So we did it. We pricked our index fingers and one by one we mixed our blood together, giggling the whole time. We really felt a bond that day. We truly believed we were now blood sisters, inseparable- to be friends forever. It is a remarkable thing that I have no idea where Janie or Karine are today. Yet that day, we were forever bonded. We were three little girls with idealistic views of life, full of hope and faith in friendship. Girls can be that way-I know I was.
Our archenemies were Destina, and her sister Tatina, from across the street, and Norma from down the block. For some reason, we never got to be true friends. We fought more than anything. I think we hated them so much because they all thought they were better than us. Janie and I were best buddies, and they made fun of us, saying we were poor and could not afford nice clothes or the latest sneakers, but they were just jealous. Even today, if I see them in the street, we give each other this look of contempt, yet I hardly ever see them now, since I moved out of Apartment 23, on Bennett Avenue. I don’t miss them at all. They never slept in my house anyway.
When Janie and I had our little girl fights about whom we chose to be friends with, and who was better than whom, I would leave notes at her door. I would tell her off in a letter and then the next day we were buddies again. I had a lot of paper supplies and had my own room, so when we were bored we played “office.” I was always the boss of course. We also loved to run around her house in our pajamas singing and dancing. We loved to sing together. There was one time we had this big concert in her living room. We memorized Madonna songs, made up dances to them, and then we put together this show for our friends, family and neighbors. We charged like a dollar fifty and we had costumes and lights set up, in our very own low budget style. It was a blast.
Janie was there for my first kiss. We went to this block party together, dressed alike, and I met a guy there, Junior. He walked me home after the party and Janie went up to my house while I stayed with him in the hallway of my building. We made out for what seemed like hours on the stairs of my lobby, but it was really only a few minutes.
I remember seeing stars and my whole body was shaking. I ran upstairs to Janie and she was laughing saying she saw me kissing him. She was asking me how it was, and I just sat there smiling. I sat in the big chair in my living room just repeating the picture over and over again in my head of that kiss. It was wonderful. Janie just giggled, and I sat dazed and in heaven looking forward to kissing again.
Most times I was mad at Janie were very superficial. There was one thing that made me so mad, and it was something that was not even her fault. Janie menstruated before me, and this was devastating to me. She told my mom and everyone was just happy for her, except me. I cried in shame and jealousy. My mom was hugging and kissing her, telling her she was a woman now and I just stood there and looked at Janie like she just stabbed me in my heart. I will never forget that feeling.
This meant she was grown up and I was still a little girl. She was eleven, and I was ten. She had breasts and hips and I had nothing, not a curve. Janie looked at me like she was sorry, like she saw it hurt me. She looked miserable in fact, and embarrassed that everyone made such a big deal out of it. She had this look on her face like she did not want her period, and I could not understand that, because I wanted it so badly. I even prayed to God to give me breasts every day. Now that I look back on this, I don’t blame her for that look of disgust she had. Who the heck wants all that mess, and once a month too? Janie and I were so close, but things changed years later. She moved away and I stayed on Bennett Avenue. I think she is married now with a son, but we don’t really keep in touch.
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