Countryside Suzuki

Amaily was pouring a packet of powdered juice into a plastic bowl when she saw a red Suzuki motorbike roar up the rocky dirt road and stop right in front of her mother’s house. Amaily was in the kitchen shack, a wooden structure covered by a rusted tin roof that housed two clay burners and a plastic table.

From there, she could see two women swing their legs off the motorbike and greet her mother. A thick forest of plantain trees covered the horizon, blurred by the dust rising from the motorbike wheels and down the unpaved road.

The orange powder disintegrated in the bowl of water as Amaily stirred with a wooden spoon, tasting the juice on the last swoop. She prepared three cups, pouring the juice into glass cups covered in a foliate glaze and wrapping them in thin napkins. After placing the three cups on a metal serving tray, Amaily walked from the kitchen shack and into the main brick house through the back door and saw her mother, Doña Isidra, and sitting on rocking chairs with two women who Amaily had never seen before, Señora Gardenia and her daughter Neidis. Señora Gardenia was swinging back in laughter.

“Oh, thank the Lord, here are the juices,” Doña Isidra snickered. “How do you suppose she got those breasts?” she said, going back to a previous topic. “Obviously, he bought them for her!” she laughed, twisting her body to grab one of the napkin-covered glasses off the tray.

Señora Gardenia, the visiting mother, laughed, and then, catching a glimpse of Amaily, she tucked her fingers into her chest, saying, “Wait. You didn’t tell me your daughter was this beautiful, Isidra.”

“This one? She would be more beautiful if she did her eyebrows and fixed her hair once in a while. Have you seen my eldest? She’s twenty-two years old and is already engaged to a man who lives in New York. This one here is nineteen and has never even had a boyfriend.”

Amaily walked to Señora Gardenia, bending her knees slightly so that she could grab the one of the glass cups.

“Nineteen is too young to have a serious boyfriend,” Neidis interjected, the surety in her voice causing Amaily to look up from her metal tray. “I am nineteen too and I’m in no rush,” she said. Her straightened brown hair fell over her bare brown shoulders like silk curtains. It stopped just above her waist. Glaring up at Amaily, who was staring at her blankly, Neidis said, “What do you think?”

In almost a whisper, Amaily said, “I’m focused on my studies right now.”

Neidis smirked and lifted the cup to her glossed lips.

“Tell her,” Doña Isidra sarcastically clamored, “tell her how much studying helps! I went to school for four years to be a teacher but turns out there aren’t enough schools. My daughter wants to be in tourism, but she lives out here in the countryside. There’s just no reason to spend all that time doing a program that won’t even get you a job. What both of you need to do is find husbands with land, cattle, and a line of workers.”

“I like the tourism sector,” Amaily said assuredly, her thick brows gathering in the center. “You get to meet people from all over the world, international people, Americans, Europeans. Even Japanese.”

Doña Isidra placed palms over the arms of the rocking chair, pushing herself up. “Where do you see Japanese?” She twisted her body side to side, pretending to look around.

“In the capital. In Santo Domingo.”

“My God.”

“You should let the girl travel,” Señora Gardenia said. “Neidis has never been out of the country, like I have. But she went to high school in Santo Domingo when I left the first time.”

“Yes, and I plan to go back to Santo Domingo,” Neidis said. “As soon as I get my master’s in business administration.”

“Now, that’ a career!” Doña Isidra said. “You could open up a salon like my eldest daughter Juli.”

Amaily placed the tray down and took a seat on one of the rocking chairs. She leaned on her elbows towards Neidis, resting her chin in her palms. “Where do you go to school?” Amaily asked.

Neidis’ lips parted to show a neat row of square teeth. “At the National College.”

“Oh, that’s where my program is too,” Amaily said, betraying a sliver of delight. “It makes sense, honestly. It’s one of the only colleges around here. But I can’t believe I haven’t seen you before…”

The doorknob to the main house twisted and Juli, Doña Isidra’s eldest daughter, walked in with plastic bags in her hands and a phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder. “I saw the photo. Tell her that no, she can’t go blonder this month. Her hair is going to fall right out. Yes, tell her to come back in a few weeks.” She slipped the phone into the back pocket of her tight jeans and politely waved at the four women, slipping into the room that she and Amaily shared.

“Amaily, go get make us some coffee and take back these cups.” Doña Isidra said.

“No, no, don’t make us coffee.” Señora Gardenia said. “We have more people to visit before I leave to the states again. I’m trying to take Neidis around so that people from here remember her. Last time they saw her she was a little girl. Now look at her, a whole woman.”

“And about to be a businesswoman,” Doña Isidra added.

Doña Isidra and Señora Gardenia got up from their rocking chairs and huddled in a corner, Gardenia showing Isidra all of the rings she had purchased in New York.

Neidis got up and rested her fingers on the wood of Amaily’s rocking chair. “You have classes on Monday?”

“I do,” Amaily responded, getting up furtively to place the glass cups on the tray.

“Let me take you. We don’t live far from here.”

Amaily paused. “My uncle usually takes me. But I can let him know not to come. I have class at noon, how about you?”

“At one. I don’t mind getting there a little early. It allows me to prepare. I’ll swing by on Monday then.”

“Wonderful, see you then,” Amaily said,

Señora Gardenia and her daughter Neidis shuffled out of the house, climbed back on the red Suzuki, and drove down the unpaved road, leaving another trail of dust behind to form a film of powder over the foliate landscape.

The first time Amaily wrapped her arms around Neidis’ stomach, it was on the back of that red Suzuki. Something felt fragile about holding onto Neidis’ stomach while racing down the unpaved road, like if the balance tilted, they would fall and shatter into a million pieces. While they balanced over the motorbike, Amaily took pleasure in the feel of Neidis’ long hair brushing against her face, the sound of the roaring wind moving through pockets of air, and the feel of Neidis’ denim-covered hips against hers.

After a few weeks, the sound of the red Suzuki acquired a sound unique from all the other bikes that went up that road. As the rubber wheels roared through the winding hill, the hairs on the back of Amaily’s neck would rise and tingles would rush down her legs.

The two would take the long road to the college, looping up the arborous hill before coming down the other end. Neidis would tell Amaily about the buildings in Santo Domingo, how you could catch taxis instead of hitching rides, and about the tourists that would gather in Boca Chica, the white women taking off their bras. Amaily told her about the morning runs into the field to cut down plantains and the time she put down wet grains for the hogs and one of them tried to bite off her hand.

On one of their afternoon trips back to Los Guayos, where Amaily lived, Neidis stopped at the top of a hill and switched off the engine.

“Why are we stopping here?”

“I’m stopping to take this all in. This place is beautiful.”

As the red Suzuki laid cradled over the unpaved road, the women looked out at the island flora spreading in every direction. “You really want to leave this place?” Neidis asked.

“All I’ve seen in life is this, Neidis. I want to do more, see more.”

“What is it that you really want?” Neidis said, looking out into the distance.

“What I’ve just said, I…”

“Why do you want to see more, when many people are born and die in Los Guayos, and they live happily.”

Amaily locked her eyes on Neidis. “Would you be content dying here, knowing that you’ve never seen any other place?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve seen so little myself, so I ask myself that same question all the time. Would I die on this island, having never see another place? My mom made it all the way to New York. I’m happy for her, but she never even offered to get me a visa. She just left after meeting her man and only now came back to visit.”

“She seems to really love you. She lets you live your life.”

“That’s because she doesn’t want me to chase after hers.”

“Would you go? If she got you a visa?” Her stomach tightened as soon as she asked.

Neidis paused for a moment, digging her the tip of her boot into the dirt. “I think I would.”

The knot in Amaily’s stomach tightened further. “Oh…” After a few moments, she said, “I don’t think I would go. I heard people in New York work in factories and can’t even visit each other because they’re always working,” she sucked her teeth. “I don’t want to live that life. I want to live in Santo Domingo and build a family here, on one island.”

Neidis looked towards the forested landscape, but her eyes glazed over to Amaily. “Do you think you’ll fall in love with a man?”

Amaily paused before saying, “Sure, why not? I haven’t loved a man yet, but I think I will eventually.”

“What about a woman? Have you ever loved a woman?”

Amaily’s eyes fell onto the road and Neidis walked back to the motorbike, lifting it up in one single swoop.

“Yes,” Amaily wanted to say, but she didn’t.

Juli was taking her morning coffee in the veranda of the main brick house, looking through the rusted metal iron bars at the rocky dirt road, when the sound of the Suzuki bellowed in the distance. Neidis was coming to pick up Amaily again. Amaily jauntily rushed out of the house in tight jeans and a floral blouse, her hair in a long braid with two strands deliberately left out in the front. “Oh, you do your hair now? Who’s the lucky boy?” Juli asked, a sardonic grin over her face.

Amaily sneered at Juli before hastily lifting and pulling the thick slide bolt, opening the door to the veranda. When the dusty road settled and the engine turned off, Neidis appeared over her red Suzuki wearing a blue leather skirt and a black button-down. She held onto the rubber handlebars and kicked her foot back, lifting herself off the motorbike.

“Hm, you’re lighting up,” Juli commented, wrinkling her nose in disgust, and tilting her chin towards her sister. “Don’t tell me you…”

Neidis approached the iron bars of the veranda, a smile cast politely towards Juli. “Hi, I’m Neidis. I was here a few weeks ago with my mom.”

“Yes, I remember,” Juli said, scanning Neidis’ outfit.

Neidis turned to Amaily without dropping her forged smile, “You ready?”

“Yes, let’s go!”

The young women sped off in the red Suzuki, Amaily’s arms wrapped tightly around Neidis. Amaily wanted to tell her that she had been thinking of her the whole evening. That she had never been so enthralled with someone, let alone a woman.

She wanted to ask Neidis whether she ever thought of women the way that Amaily thought about her. She wondered if it was normal to picture Neidis straddling her how she straddled the red Suzuki. As they sped down the unpaved road, Amaily inched closer to Neidis.

Crossing her arms tightly around Neidis’ stomach, Amaily brushed her fingertips over Neidi’s waist, feeling the warm leather. When she let her arms untangle and her hands fall over Amaily’s thighs, she quickly latched onto Neidi’s muscles, pretending to have lost her balance.

But she could see Neidis’ smile widen and her cheeks flush. There was a long moment of silence before Neidis said,

“Would you want to leave with me today?”

Amaily laughed. “Leave to where?”

“To the capital. Right now.”

“Ha! Right now?”

“Yes, said you wanted leave this place. Why not just go now?”

“Well, I…”

“We could get a hotel. It would only take us a few days to get there. I could get my old job back, and you could go to school and work at the same time.”

“Wow, I never thought…”

“I like you Amaily,” Neidis interjected.

“I…I like you too.”

Neidis turned her neck to look back at her. She smiled softly, softening her long eyes.

But when she turned back around and they both gazed out in front of them, they saw that they were quickly coming head-to-head with a lone saddle-colored cow that had wandered into the dirt road.

“Look out!” Amaily yelled.

Neidis instantly swerved the Suzuki in a forceful jerk that sent the bike in a sharp loop. Neidis held on tightly to the handles, trying to straighten the front wheel, but the speed made it impossible, and the bike jolted to one side.

The Suzuki crashed against the dirt road and the two women flew off, Neidis falling on top of Amaily. Neidis’ legs were instantly peeled by the impact, but her torso rested untouched over Amaily’s chest. Amaily knew she was in extreme pain but couldn’t feel exactly were. Everything hurt all at once.

All she could feel was Neidis’ howling breath over hers, how Neidi’s long hair fell across her cheeks as Neidis looked down to touch her face, and what it felt like when Neidis put her lips on hers.

But then Neidis was yelling out and, suddenly, there was darkness. The balance had broken, and the so had she.