Excerpt:
It was New York, my New York, but it felt different. I had only been away three months but I had already lost the feeling for the crowds, the faster pace. Intending to go straight home, I had taken the A train at 34th. Then I remembered what Chanelle had said about having to explain what I had been doing in school. My parents would expect the saem, and I wanted to see Gabi first. I got off the train at 125th and walked down to her block.

The brownstones on 122nd had been converted to two apartments and sometimes more on each floor. Morningside Park was across the wide avenue and gave an airy feel to the block. A wide variety of brown-skinned girls were jumping double Dutch on the sidewalk. Some young boys were sitting on a stoop, a boom box just above them spewing out a rap song. They stared at passersby, daring them to make a comment on either the volume or the string of profanities. I looked to see if Gabi's younger brother, Rafael, was among them; he wasn't.

Gabi's bell was still broken, with the wires coming from the wooden doorframe. As I had a hundred times, I took the wires in my hands and touched them together to ring the bell. A moment later I heard the buzzer and pushed open the door. The hallway was must, and the smells from the mixture of different foods cooking competed in the vestibule.

There were flights up to the top floor and her apartment. The book I had bought Gabi was still in my overnight bag, and I wished I had giftwrapped it even though it was only a used copy of Gabriela Mistral's poems, translated by Langston Hughes. Gabi had been named, by her grandfather, for the Chilean poet.

The door opened. Rafael.

"Yo, what's going on?" Street tough. We touched fists and he moved away from the door.

"So, what's up?"

"The world's still spinning," Rafael said. "And I ain't fell off yet so I must be doing something right."

Rafael was thirteen and smart, but didn't want anyone to know it. He pointed to a chair and told me to "cop a squat" while he went to get Gabi.