In The Heights
'I don't want to go.'
Usnavi looked up at his monkey dæmon, perched on top of a fire hydrant. She wasn't looking at him, instead staring at the salon, lights off and blinds closed. Ynys didn't move her head as Usnavi sat down next to her, leaning against the hydrant.
'It's what we've always wanted. It's what Abuela wanted.' He said, not sure who he was trying to convince.
'I know.' She said, finally looking at him. Her eyes were red rimmed and he expected his were too. 'But that was when it was never going to happen.'
Usnavi nodded and looked down at his feet. Abuela's bag was there, full of all the money he probably should have put in a bank. 'We should be happy. We're going home.'
Ynys sighed, shifting herself onto his shoulder and pressing against his cheek. 'I'm scared. What if I don't like it there? What if it's too hot for me?'
Usnavi smiled weakly, scratching behind her ears. She waited a second before realising he wasn't going to say anything. She looked back at the bottle of champagne, discarded after their fight with Vanessa.
The two sat in silence, thinking of different homes.
Nefes hopped up and down on Nina's lap. They were halfway home, which meant halfway to their parents, which meant halfway to telling them, which meant...which meant...
'You need to calm down,' Nina whispered, her hands moving to hold him still. 'People are staring.'
The pygmy owl glanced about, spotting the people and dæmons looking their way. He chirped, tilting his head apologetically, and turned his head to look up at Nina. 'When the plane lands...'
'When the plane lands, we've still got to get back to Washington Heights.' Nina said, looking out the window at the night sky. 'We'll figure it out. We figure everything out.'
'We didn't figure Stanford out.'
Nina was silent, thumbs brushing against her dæmon's chest. 'No. But that was a big thing. This is just mom and dad.'
'If it's just mom and dad, why are you nervous?'
Nina smirked slightly, pinching Nefes' wing. He squawked indignantly but started laughing anyway. She smiled with him, uncaring of the other passengers glaring at them. They would laugh if they wanted, even if it felt like the world was falling around them, like everything was going wrong, like....
'Nefes?' Nina smiled, kissing his head. 'Breath.'
Benny looked over his shoulder at Nina, stood between her parents, as he left the dispatch booth. His German Shepard dæmon stumbled slightly beside him, almost giddy from the attention Nefes had showed her. Benny got to the main office, sitting down and scratching the back of Abrente's neck.
'You need to calm down.'
Abrante shook her head, dancing around slightly. 'Nefes likes me. He really, really likes me.'
Benny laughed, pulling on the scruff of her neck to keep her still. 'Shush. Mr Rosario will hear you.'
'I don't care.' She laughed, jumping up to nuzzle his neck. 'Nina doesn't care either.'
'We don't know they like us.' Benny said, hugging her lightly as she rested her front feet on his thigh. 'Nina and Nefes are our friends. Nothing more.'
'Nothing more, for now.' Abrante pointed out, tail wagging. She paused as there was a door slam and Nina walked past them, Nefes flying about her head, both clearly agitated. Abrante moved to follow them but Benny grabbed the scruff of her neck and kept her close.
'Nothing more.' He repeated.
Abrante tilted her head. 'They're our friends. We should try to help them.'
Benny nodding, following Nina out.
Vanessa slammed the door to her apartment, breathing deeply. She almost dropped her phone in her panic and Cedo flew around the room, knocking into anything and everything she had left on a counter. Vanessa raised her phone, the light shining on the room but Cedo kept flying, flinging himself against the walls.
'Stop.' Vanessa said, slowly moving herself to the bed to avoid her dæmon hitting her. 'Cedo, stop please. Calm down.'
'Why?' The lorikeet said, coming to a slight rest on Vanessa's chest of drawers. His wings were still flapping, putting Vanessa's possessions in danger. 'Usnavi left, no one cared about us! We're out of power and no one cares about us!'
Vanessa sighed, falling back onto the bed, the light shining up onto the ceiling. 'I care about you. You care about me, right?'
Cedo stopped moving, staring across at Vanessa. 'Of course I care. But that doesn't exactly count, now does it?'
Vanessa shrugged and Cedo flew over, landing next to her shoulder. She turned to look at him, eyes red rimmed. 'We've got each other. Forget the rest of the barrio, you've got me.'
He rested his beak against her forehead. 'You've got me too.'
'No one listens.'
Sonny sighed, leaning back against the wall. Usnavi had given him the afternoon off, too excited about someone winning the lottery to give a damn about Sonny. So Sonny was sat on his own, waiting for someone, for something to happen.
'Sonny, are you listening?'
Sonny turned his head to look at the possum on his knee. He scratched behind Sulnis' ear, trying to give him some comfort.
'Of course I'm listening, Sul. I'm just thinking.
'About the lotto? We didn't win, Sonny. No point think about it.'
Sulnis jumped off Sonny's knee, landing on the sidewalk with his ears dropping. Sonny sighed, leaning his head against the wall.
'Maybe not. But if we could just get the person who did to listen-'
'No one listens.' Sulnis sulked. 'That 96 grand is going straight on a holiday or a new house, somewhere far away from here.'
Sonny frowned, pushing himself off the wall and onto his feet. 'C'mon, lets go find Pete.'
Sulnis paused, ears twitching. 'Usnavi told us not to talk to Pete. Called him a punk.'
Sonny raised an eyebrow. 'You really wanna do what Usnavi says?'
Sulnis smiled, jumping onto Sonny's arm. 'Let's go.'
Daniela rushed into the salon, eyes wide. Her cat dæmon, lounging in one of the salon chairs, looked up lazily. Daniela took a moment to pause and check no one else was in the closed salon- not even Carla- before dropping down in the seat next to her dæmon.
'Did you hear? Tell me you heard?!'
Sapere tilted his head, eyes lidded. 'You've been gone 5 minutes, cariño. How would I have heard?'
'Oh shush, Sapere. It's too hot for me to be annoyed.' Daniela reached over, picking up her dæmon and standing up. Sapere draped himself over Daniela's arm and she started scratching between his ear as she excitedly walked about the room. 'Do you want to know or not.'
Sapere purred, smiling into the crook of Dani's elbow. 'Go on then. What have you heard?'
Dani smirked. 'Nina and Benny.'
'What about them?'
'No, no, no. Nina and Benny.'
Sapere almost fell out of Daniela’s arms as he attempted to twist round. ‘No me diga! How did you hear?’
‘Yolanda saw her leaving his apartment. In his shirt!’
‘A dios mio! We need to tell Carla.’
‘No, we don't.’ Dani smirked, stroking Sapere. ‘I know what to do.’
Carla collapsed on the ground, leaning against Soen. Both girl and giant panda dæmon were laughing tiredly, exhausted from the carnaval. It had ended rather abruptly, several people running after Usnavi. Carla had been interested, always interested in gossip as she was, but too tired to follow them.
‘We’ll find out.’ Soen yawned, shaking his big head.
‘About what?’ Carla said, head rolling back and hand fanning her neck.
‘About Usnavi. Someone will tell someone else and that someone else will tell Daniela. Then everyone will know.’
Carla nodded, turning on her side and curling up against Soen. ‘It's too hot. Why is it so hot, So?’
Soen laughed, bending his nose round to nudge her head. ‘Because it’s summer Carla, and there’s no power. It’s all people have been talking about.’
‘I know, why it’s happened, I want to know why it’s happened to me!’
Another chuckle from the panda, just as fond as before. ‘Who can tell? We last missed church the last...500 Sundays...’
Carla leapt up, well, sat up slowly in the heat. ‘You think that’s it. Oh, we need to go pray, ask for-’
‘Carla, I’m joking. Just relax.’
And so, that’s what they did.
Kevin sank to the floor, head in his hands, unable to do anything else. Useless, absolutely useless. How could he consider himself a proud man, a respectable man, if he couldn’t even support his only daughter, couldn’t even help her through her studies. He was useless and soon the whole barrio would know.
‘It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here, I’ve got you.’ Yarasiz had wrapped herself around his neck, providing what little comfort her small meerkat body could manage. It wasn’t much but hearing her voice in his ear settled him, steadied him. ‘We’ll figure something out, we’ll find a solution.’
‘Why didn’t she tell us?’ Kevin managed to get out, voice trembling. He wasn’t sure if he was mad- at himself or Nina no one could say- or upset or ashamed. Possibly all three, possibly none. The inability to act, to see an immediate solution had rendered him powerless, useless.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ His dæmon whispered, tightening around his neck briefly. ‘What matters is she’s told us now, and she’s home, and we can fix this.’
Kevin nodded, running a hand along Yara’s fur. He would fix this, he would not allow anyone to think him useless ever again.
Yeterli looked behind him as they left. He didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to upset Nefes and Yarasiz but Camilla was leaving so he had to leave. They were heading home, to wait for their loved ones to come crawling back, to be adults and figure out their problems without Camilla and Yeterli’s help.
‘Shouldn’t we stay?’ He whispered, hopping after her as quickly as possible.
Camilla continued walking, barely looking back at the kangaroo. ‘I’m done clearly up their messes. Enough is enough.’
‘But we could help, we could-’
‘They don’t need our help.’ Camilla said as they finally made it hope, Camilla storming into her bedroom and sitting down on her bed with a flourish. ‘They both need to grow up and admit when they need help. Then we will help them. No sooner, no later.’
Yeterli stood beside her, wringing his paws and looking down. ‘What do we do if they don’t?’
Camilla paused, slowly looking up at her dæmon. Her hand slowly moved out, wrapping around him, pulling him closer. They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, just leaning on each other and trying to gain comfort from proximity.
‘I don’t know.’
Louvor looked out at the window, staring up at the stars with old eyes. Claudia looked at Louvor, her eyes old but seeing him in a new way every time she looked. Louvor had Settled when she was eleven years old, young for a Settling but at exactly the time she needed. He was a ground iguana, always reminding her of Cuba and her mother and her home...
‘Claudia.’
She blinked and Louvor was sat on her chest, looking sad. It was lighter outside than it had been before, meaning she had missed the sunrise they’d wanted to watch.
‘I feel asleep.’ She muttered in Spanish. She ran a frail hand along his back and down his tail. She found no end, only Dust, shifting away towards the open window.
‘I don’t think we’ll be awake much longer, querida.’ He said, stepping forward to tuck himself under her neck. He’d always adapted to english better than her, to America. She wish she could have shown him home one last time.
She sighed and smiled, feeling her eyes droop. She wouldn’t be waking from this sleep. Claudia’s hand rested on her dæmon, even as he drifted away. ‘We’ll be home soon.’