"Bodega Girls" by Dawn Elardo
A selection from our Summer 2023 issue. On July 25th, Dawn Elardo will be reading along with other contributors at the launch party for the issue. Visit our Eventbrite page for more information.
Come night, we weren’t allowed to walk the neighborhood alone anymore. Someone’s mother would chaperone from house to house. This made us feel safe and unsafe. We’d overheard our parents talking to each other, foreheads scrunched up like pugs, listening to the evening news. Do you know where your children are? A white van always wedged somewhere in our neighborhood.
After school, the yellow bus delivered us blocks from our spot. Our parents working, the day would stretch into the gleaming sun, shielding us from lurking shadows. The crux and cracks not yet belonging to us. Those afternoons, we stuck to our routine, fluttering toward our place. Our bodega. There’s my Bodega Girls. Niñas, que pasa? Wha-can-I-get-you? Manny would ask from behind the counter, a scratched-up partition with its own stories to tell. Manny’s throne, much higher than our gaze. Our eyes drooled, filled with junk food fantasies. The possibilities were endless. Talia got her usual puff Cheetos—fingers smeared—sucking them off before wiping them. The waft of Gabby’s Cool Ranch made everyone jealous. Ximena with her plantain chips, always wanting to trade. Me, I stuck to my jalapeño cheddar, stinging and delighting my tongue at once. American ingenuity. I was hooked. We quaffed our bright red Slurpees, surging straight to our heads and pouring out our skin. Our short shorts and hoop earrings lolloping down the runways of our youth. We wanted to look like Beyoncé. To be loved. To be worshipped. The star in the movie of our budding lives pretending to be feminists. Like Queen B; we didn’t have to understand what that meant. At least not yet. It wouldn’t be till much later I’d calculate women—half of the human population—have yet to realize where they’re going. Where they’ve been. Something to do with not learning herstory. Our ancestors’ glaring absence through history—the why of it all.
Our cackle trickled into the streets before us, reaching the crew of young men hovering in the park. Pssssst! Pssssst! They hollered. Wassup ladies, lookin’ good! One said. Chinita, those eyes are sexy as hell, another said, his ribbed wife-beater peaking beneath his robe-open shirt, construction boots too large for his feet. Zoe, he’s hollerin’ at you, girl, Ximena said. Sometimes I’d forget how different I looked from the other Bodega Girls. Their luscious curls. Me with my straight, black, lifeless strands. I’d tried curling it, but the loops kept gnarling like roots from a tree, wanting to go their separate ways. You wish, I whispered loudly. Most days, we felt cute and all. But these men, they saw something else they wanted. Their eyes kept licking and licking, tracing our pubescent bodies. So we kept walking. Emboldened with the knowledge that we were much more than their street calls. Much more than their ideas of us.
Ximena’s practiced giggle echoed from behind, her pouty painted lips propped in her resting-pursed face. Her leg swiveling side to side as she spoke to one of them. Xi, let’s go! We hollered. Gave him my number, she said, catching up to us, asked if we wanted to chill with him and his boys Sunday at the park. Girl, you crazy, Talia said, her punishing beauty punctuated by the birthmark above her mouth. C’mon Bitches, Ximena said, walking backward. For some reason, it always startled me when girls called other girls bitches. Mommy’d kill me if she found out, Talia said. Anyways—Sunday’s God’s Day. Me, I lied, told her I had a paper due Monday. Xi turned to Gabby. I could go if Zoe covers, Gabby said, putting me on the spot, swiping her rippled hair away from her face.
At school Monday, Xi wore a crop turtleneck, held the collar down, revealing two enormous hickeys mapped out on her neck. Oh my God. Xi, they look like big ol’ bruises, I said. Ximena laughed, her teeth practically protruding from her mouth. Bitch, she said, jealous? I kind of was a little. But mostly, I was disgusted. He at least cute? Talia asked. He had some busted gold teeth, Gabby said. The four of us crowed and snorted, leaning over each other until we were leaking.
Saturday, we went to Gabby’s for a sleepover, got there early after piano lesson. Gabby’s mom cooked some spicy macaroni pasta. Puerto Rican style. Most nights, my mother worked late. A slap was always just around the corner. Soon as Ximena and Talia arrived, we migrated to Gabby’s room, slipping into our pajamas. Xi pulled out a blunt, said she’d scored it from her infamous older cousin Isa and put on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill—also cousin Isa’s recommendation—loud enough to obscure any unquenchable coughing on our part. We took turns puffing out the window. Except for Talia. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, I kept imagining her chanting in her head. But the smoke clung to us, swaying us all to sea. Talia wearing a long t-shirt that said Jesus Saves—saves what?—became more and more chatty as the altitude sharpened. Her eyes glittering. Cheeks frozen wide. “Can’t Take My Eyes off of You” came on, filling our heads with boy troubles rather than discovering the world and dreaming of conquering it. Talia jutted her leg, mirroring Xi. C’mon, girls. Les make a video, Xi said, bobbing as if riding a horse, when we both saw it: thin scars, starting from Xi’s inner thigh warping toward the front. But the moment dropped.
When the song ended, we slid onto the floor, spreading into each other’s pillows. Floating along on clouds into space. The space we’d created. We lay there glowing with sweat, pleased with ourselves, holding the whole world in our small little circle. The air smelled of our sudor tinged with our peach-oil perfume. Our bodies carrying the last specks of purity. The faint smell of a fresh infant’s soft fuzzy head. Everything was ours, our reality untamed by time and misogyny, and the price we’d pay for living remained alien to us. Then at some point, the topic of boys became central focus. Our young female minds well on their way, cementing the prescription to overlook ourselves. Christopher came up, the girls exchanging looks. Christopher: tall and pretty and smart, the Afro-Latino boy in my STEM classes I’d had a crush on. His perfectly brown eyes, butterfly lashes, his lips so full they almost looked injected with acid fillers, not Kardashian style, perverse and cartoony, more like Angelina Jolie’s, natural and impossibly juicy. Sometimes, I’d fantasize about those lips going down on me. Kissing me softly. You’re just too good to be true / Can’t take my eyes off you / You’d be like heaven to touch.
He likes you, Gabby said, her words swirling around my head. The air felt thick yet soft, like water. Nah, I said. Lots of girls had crushes on Christopher—Gabby being one of them. Gabby, my closest friend, my best friend, really, but in the way girls are. The unspoken constant competition cloaked in camaraderie. The aching envy always between us. The grounds for patriarchy incessantly roaring its ugly head. Seriously, she kept on. He wants to talk to you Monday. I told her to drop it. Thankfully, Gabby’s mom brought snacks, the smell of microwaved popcorn clobbering the whole Christopher thing aside.
Ending up homeless in high school and overcoming his mother’s death from her long battle with diabetes, Christopher would end up coming up to Columbia with me. The brain and the athlete, he’d be worshipped for his basketball skills by the Columbia Spectator’s sports section throughout college. He’d still be a playboy, except taller, more distinguished, and annoyingly irresistible In the way meritocratic Ivy Leaguers are. There was that one night. But we decided to act like it never happened. Christopher would move to California for Apple, eventually marrying a Filipino American, Stanford grad engineer. They’d have a beautiful son and a Golden Retriever. I’d somehow wind up on their Christmas photo list each year. Their dog smiling wider than the rest of them.
After we finished The Blair Witch Project. I kept thinking of the three film students venturing into the woods in Burkittsville, Maryland—to investigate a local myth about some sinister witch—and never making it out. Snatched into some other dimension. In my dream, the Bodega Girls together as usual. The yellow bus. Our Bodega. The gleaming sun. But when we reached the park, I was alone in the darkest of woods. My hair perfectly spiraled, wearing a white frilly dress with a matching veil. It was so very cold, my nipples scraping against the lace. I could hear the faint howling of coyotes getting closer. They flashed between trees, the silhouette of their fangs materializing, my heart rushing through my fingers. The dream reminded me of the chase scene from that movie Tenebrae by that Italian director who’d directed his own daughter naked, raped, and murdered. I lay there mulling over the cuts on X’’s thighs. I’d tried it once before, washing a long cooking knife doing dishes. For reasons I couldn’t identify, I sliced the inside of my left arm, slow and calculated, the fascination of my skin giving way and the shininess of my blood oozing.
When I awoke in the early light, going to the bathroom I noticed Talia missing. She went home early. Church, Gabby said, her eyelids drooping, legs and arms extending as if moving underwater.
That Monday, Talia wasn’t at homeroom. Or next day. We hadn’t spoken to her since Saturday. We’d all messaged her, checked her socials—nothing. By Friday, still no Talia. After school, I went to her place with the girls, forgoing Our Bodega along the way. Talia’s little sister opened the door. Mija, who is it? we heard her mother saying. When her mom told us what’d happened—it wasn’t sinking in—said Talia wasn’t up to seeing anyone. Was daytime when she left, right? Ximena asked on our way home. Was light out. Da’s why I did’int wake mommy, Gabby said. Police cars combing the streets, making us feel safe and unsafe. Just the three of us Bodega Girls together only italicized our incompleteness. A dark cloud swirled over us, bloating our chests, punishing us for letting her walk home alone. When she finally returned, we were rhapsodic to complete Manny’s Bodega Girls once more. But Talia held tight to her distance. Like those film students, she was gone, plucked into some other dimension.
Talia started wearing short-sleeve turtlenecks and stopped coming with us to Our Bodega. Bible Study, she’d always say. Isn’t Bible Study on Sundays? Ximena asked once, but Talia acted like sh’’d heard nothing, disappearing into the crowd post-lockdown. Face more feverish than usual from that daunting drill. Having to hide in our classrooms, under our desks, barricading ourselves in silence. Our fourth and last drill for the school year.
Talia’s obsession with God escalated, only speaking to us about Bible Study now. After mass one Sunday—dragged by my mother—I decided to go. My mother, who only had time for work, never missed church. She, too, had impregnated herself with God. Zoe—I’m glad you came, Talia said when she found me hypnotized by people dunking their fingers in the murky holy water. She’d donned an embroidered white dress. It took me a few minutes to absorb her presence, confirm it was her. Still. Her eyes remained vacant.
We walked over to the rectory and waited for Father Malone to let us in. Inside was a spartan living room. Flannel-upholstered furniture dotted the common area, derailing curious eyes. Seven of us showed up, around the same age, four other girls, Talia, a boy, and me. We set up a circular seating arrangement, Talia placing a Bible on each chair. I noticed when Father Malone put his hand on her back her entire demeanor softened. Their whole interaction presented as effortless, and I wondered how long she’d known Father Malone in this way. Eyes twinkling, she sat next to him, away from me. A crazed grin plastered on her face like that time at Gabby’s slumber party. Father Malone began by praising us for dedicating our Sunday getting closer to the words of Jesus, seeking out his true intentions and applying his wisdom in our daily adolescent lives.
We opened our Bibles to Mathew 13, Luke 8:2, “The Parable of the Sower.” Father Malone was stressing women’s roles as Jesus’s most loyal disciples. Luke mentions Mary Magdalene in this passage, Father Malone said. And certain women, who’ve been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went out seven devils—he continued. When he said this, he gazed at Talia, and she at him. The two of them existing in their own made-up dimension—it becoming clearer to me the world Talia now occupied. Not only had she dumped her best friends, but she’d replaced us with Father Malone. There was something sleazy about it, surrendering herself like that. Reading along this passage with Father Malone, him playing the all-knowing seemed so performative and phony, stirring my growing allergy to religion. Why was it always women empowering wannabe-cult leaders? I remembered watching a news segment once about Jesus marrying Magdalene. Apparently, they might’ve had two children together. There are many versions of Mary Magdalene’s trajectory, but what people favor most is the prostitute narrative. In this narrative, people get to preserve the whore separate from the Madonna. Preserve Dante’s SHE-WOLF OF INCONTINENCE poesia. Talia barely spoke to me afterward. Just something like, See you at school.
It was twilight. No sightings of the white van since Talia’s accident. Still, I quickened my pace before darkness caught up to me. Cast as a secondary character in their B movie, everyone was leaving me behind. Talia with her God and Father Malone fetish. Ximena and Gabby hanging out with those cheesy guys from the park every weekend. Their sleepovers reduced exclusively for two.
One Saturday, I called Gabby. It’d been a minute since we hung out. She had plans with Ximena, of course, some post-mortem debriefing, letting it slip that Ximena had performed her very first blowjob for Mr. Gold Teeth. Apparently, Xi sucked him off the night before, despite his heavily cologned balls, as she tried mightily not to gag. Delirious laughter lingered, closing the distance between us until we hung up. At my block, a group of guys—older, maybe—passed by me. One of them holding a red balloon. Like something out of Le Ballon Rouge: the red balloon boy skipped toward me, except older and terribly attractive. OK, maybe not skipping. Hi, I’m Jude. Here, he said, his friends rooting. He resembled the lead singer of Depeche Mode. This younger version preferred baggy jeans with a flannel shirt, giving off a coziness that made him seem ridiculously huggable. He smelled of fresh rain after a day of pounding heat. A soft musk redolent of rubbing alcohol emanated from his pores. Thanks, I said, holding the balloon like a torch over us. Surprised, I learned he only lived five blocks away. All my life, he said. I envisioned nights when we’d both slept in our own beds. So close but so far away. Now was my chance. To be someone’s someone—I think. But my suspicions brewed. The happenstance of it all.
Just a matter of time till we met, Jude said over the phone that night. Talking to him felt more like catching up than getting to know each other. His confidence turned me on, making me feel safe and unsafe. For hours, or so it seemed—mother hissing now and then—Jude told me all kinds of things about himself. He was into old-school hip hop: Nas, Wu-Tang, Beastie Boys. He thought Jay-Z and Queen B were sellouts. Thought Kendrick Lamar a genius. Liked some Kanye but considered him a buffoon. Figured it was due to Kanye being bipolar—like Jude’s father—and not taking his meds. Eventually, he divulged he was heavily into graffiti and the peace he felt when tagging at night while everyone was asleep. After debating about Banksy a while, My father committed suicide last year. Jumped off the apartment complex we still live in, he said. It was privileged information I knew, but his voice oozed a mere sliver of agony. I felt seen. When my father died, I was relieved, too.
Jude would become my first everything. Our relationship spanning a few years. We’d be each other’s surrogate mother and father. He’d introduce me to playing hooky, smoking copious amounts of pot, tripping on acid and shrooms, and mollying our way through partying nights. He had a thing with doing stuff in public places. One night coming back from a club, sometime between two and three in the morning—me wearing a dress he’d been tugging at all night—he tried to convince me to let him go down on me in an empty train that went above ground. I thought he was joking, but then he started to kiss me, and the next thing I knew— The illicitness of this act freed us, overlooking the city, floating in our own little bubble just like that ballon rouge. I ended it not long after that night. I knew our time would end eventually because I was never going to be the person he was going to be. Last I’d heard of him: he’d dropped out of community college freshman year and was living rent-free at an apartment building in the East Village as the fix-it-guy. Once, I was awestruck to find his work in a book from an art gallery in Chelsea. I’d plucked out his number from an old phone to congratulate him. How are you? was the first thing I said. I’m tired, he said. I’m tired.
The following week, Ximena and Gabby kept on about the Walgreens by my house. We’d stopped going to Our Bodega entirely by then. They filled me in on what they’d been doing. How this particular Walgreens had favorable blind spots. No Tick-R tapes on small items. We really hadn’t hung out since Talia’s accident. So I went with them. We made sure we were shrouded inside the blind spots, comparing and contrasting: “Pink Sizzle” versus “Smokin’ Hot Scarlet” versus “Rich Girl Red,” shoving our chosen ones here, there, and there. Later, hiding by the card’s condolence section, I could hear Xi and Gabby cackling outside, waiting for me, and for an instant, the Bodega Girls were back. One particular card caught my eye: While the rest of the world carries on as though nothing has happened, remember that others know your world will never be the same. I got caught that day. The crimson-stained bruises my mother gave would eventually disappear. But the gashes inside me would patiently metastasize.
Once, I bumped into Gabby somewhere in Midtown, waiting for the Hampton Jitney for a long weekend to do research I’d been putting off. She was coming from night school at Hunter on her way to work. She and Ximena waitressed at some strip club down by the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Can’t believe I’m bumping into you here, she said. She looked the same, not physically necessarily, but her mannerisms. Xi and I were just talkin’ bout you. A sunbeam illuminated a snicker on one side of her face. Your book, she said. We were sayin’ how much we like that title. What’s it called: Feminism What’s It Good For? A book that came out of my dissertation. I asked her what she thought of it. She said she hadn’t read it but saw it at Shakespeare & Co., getting textbooks. You know all this: me too this and that bullshit. I’m with those old French women. Why hate on men? Stupid, righhh? Her eyes beamed hollow. I didn’t feel like correcting her. Instead, I told her I’d be teaching a class at Hunter next semester. Look at you, girl. Mommy’d be real proud. What class? I hesitated. Women’s False Narrative of Sexual Power. The air had turned dense, the thick heat rising beneath us through the subway shaft wasn’t helping. I needed to stir this along. And Our fourth Bodega Girl, heard from her lately? Oh . . . She—ended up. Gabby searched my face. She killed herself . . . It wasn’t on my face. The wind sending chills up the back of my neck, arms, and the bottoms of my feet. Rumors about some priest forcing her to have an abortion. From Bible Study—I think, Gabby continued. Faces passing us began to blur altogether. Didn’t you go with her couple times? I don’t remember, I said. —was so long ago. The Jitney pulled up, smoke from the exhaust drifting toward us. Good to see you. I—should go. I squeezed her arm and went inside.
Dawn Elardo is a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA Fiction Program, where she served as a Fiction Board Member at the Columbia Journal. Dawn has mentored elementary students for the National Novel Writing competition and worked with underserved high school students to perform at the Len Fest Young Writer’s Present. Dawn was a semifinalist for the inaugural Jesmyn Ward Fiction Prize. She lives in New York, where she’s currently working on a novel about 9/11 survivors and a book of short stories. She teaches at Columbia’s Creative Writing Immersive Program.
