Uncle Tomás and I listen as the rest of the family talks. We’re both quiet, on the sidelines of conversation. He leans close.
“You got a girlfriend, boy?” He asks this every time we meet. He runs through his list of fetishes: “Italian? Chinese? Dominicans? Any Dominican girls? C’mon, what do you like?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I reply. I still haven’t told him that I did back in high school. A white girl who rowed crew, dirty blond with freckles and denim short-shorts. Her name was Glory. He would make fun of me. It’s been almost four years, but I miss her sometimes. Every once in a while I think I recognize her in a crowd: on campus or the subway or downtown maybe. She is a fleeting image, the plain threads of her hair separated by breeze and her ears bare, emerging now and then fro
