Of course I loved her—isn’t that how all these stories are supposed to begin?
She was from Amsterdam, a black Dominican mother, a white Dutch father, a luminous gale of a girl.  I called her my chabine because that’s what she looked like, only her lips and her hair keeping her from passing completely, from pulling a Jean Toomer.  And the ass she had—my fucking God—it was supersonic—which is to say she couldn’t walk past a group of straight men without pulling out the shingles or shattering the panes of their conversation.