46
Vivian
“
T
hanks, Jacqs.” Vivian hugs me tight, her big American breasts pressing against my own not-too-shabby pair. “I really needed this.”
“We should do it again, under different circumstances.” I hug her back, ignoring the driver who’s checking us out and his watch. He has just twenty-five minutes to get her to the airport for her flight back to San Francisco. “Promise me you’ll check in on Natasha. She’s being so cheery on the phone. I’m worried that she’s killed Jesus and is marinating his body in the bathtub.”
“Will do.” Vivian holds me at arm’s length. “I’m sorry about you and what’s-his-name.”
“Eh, no big deal.” As far as Vivian knows, Nate and I had a pleasant but spark-free dinner and I came back to my hotel room well fed but unlaid. Thanks to Natasha’s generosity with the pharmaceuticals, Vivian was sound asleep when I sneaked in. “Like I said, we parted on good terms. We’re better friends than anything else.”
“I wish I could be more like you, Jacqs.” Vivian sighs, lets me go and steps into the car.
“I think one of me is all I can handle.” I wave to her and watch her taxi pull away. “Barely.”
47
Noel
O
n my way to Union Station I try Mrs. Mayor again. I haven’t spoken to her since we left Carmel and I’m getting worried. After leaving another message with London I promise myself I won’t call her again.
I called my mother and told her that the Santa Barbara train would arrive at 3
PM
and let her know where to pick me up outside the station. I feel bad lying to her, but I’d feel worse if I had to admit I had spent almost three days in LA while pretending to be somewhere else because I didn’t want to spend it with them.
My family is very reliable when it comes to pickups. Someone will always come—a cousin, aunt, or even (once) the whole family. Because of this, I know my ride will be from someone who remembers me from my pudgy pimply phase, and will bring it up, astonished that I’m not that girl anymore. And because of this, I always make sure to look as put-together as possible.
I arrive at 2:30, just in case my ride gets here early, and wait. At a little before 3, I start looking around for a familiar face.
“Hey, dorkolina, what’s shaking?” From behind, my brother Noel puts a death grip on my shoulders.
“Hey! Rico Suave!” I turn around and give him a big hug. Noel is my favorite and, I think, the most heartbreaking of all my siblings and we’re a pretty sorry lot. He’s been arrested a few times (nothing serious, but seriously stupid) and has trouble holding down a job. He barely made it out of high school but has a few semesters of college under his belt.
He’s the quintessential underachiever, but he’s so charming that it’s easy to overlook all his faults and just enjoy his company. He can do no wrong in my parents’ eyes, which makes the rest of us resent him to varying degrees.
“So what are you doing in this dump?” he asks, cuffing the back of my head softly. Each time I see him, he seems better looking. He’s one of those guys who get more handsome with age. Kind of like George.
“I’m here to mix with the natives. Hey, I thought your license was revoked,” I say, punching him on the arm. Solid muscle and, thankfully, no tattoos.
“Just a little misunderstanding between me and the fine city of Glendale. I’m legit, don’t worry,
hermanita
.”
“So did they make you pick up trash by the side of the freeway again?” This actually happened right after Noel turned sixteen. To teach him (and us) a lesson, my father made us drive by and watch. It was one of the few times I saw my mother, father
and
Noel cry. “Sorry I missed it.”
“I think I can make a real career of it,” he says, as if it’s no big deal.
“Our parents must be so proud.” I point to my bags.
“Here, Jacqs, let me get those for you.”
“Thanks, Noel! You’re my favorite brother.”
I watch him heave them up.
“You’re looking fit.” I don’t want to make a crack about prison workouts, but I’m tempted.
“I’m working at a gym right now.” He flexes his bicep so I can give it a squeeze.
“You are?” My mother hasn’t mentioned this. Usually she fills me in on all the doings of my brothers and sisters. In detail. “Selling steroids?”
“Nah. I fix the machines and unclog toilets. Really thrilling. Especially when I get to go into the women’s locker room. I can get you a guest pass if you want.”
“Thanks.” My brother might not have much, but he’s always been generous with what he does have. “How are
Mamá
and
Papá?
”
“Fighting. As usual.”
Noel rolls his head back and forth, which causes his muscles to issue popping noises that he knows gross me out. He still lives at home, in his old room that he used to have to share. He doesn’t pay rent, but does help around the house.
“I’m thinking of getting my own place.”
“Are you sure you’re ready? You’re only, like, thirty?” We wait to cross the street into the parking lot. It’s very warm and the air seems drier on this side of Los Angeles.
“Yeah. It’s time for me to spread my wings and fly. Giselle is giving me a hard time.”
Noel’s girlfriend has been suffering for his full and undivided attention for about four years. I don’t even want to know what keeps her coming back for more. My mother has made her an honorary daughter-in-law (for whatever that’s worth), but still hasn’t added her name to the family Bible. Nate’s name wasn’t recorded in ink, but hasn’t been erased either. My mother said we’d have to get married in front of a priest first or have a kid (she’d kill me if I had a kid before getting married by priest) so I guess she’s still holding out some hope.
“She wants to get married.” He tosses my bags into the back of his car and has to slam the trunk twice, hard, before it catches.
“Don’t do it!” I say a little too quickly. “I mean, that’s a big step.”
“Don’t worry. I have no plans to get married. I might go back to school. This job is pretty flexible.” He smiles, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners.
“That would be good.” I try not to sound overly enthusiastic. Noel always has plans—big ones, little ones, and in the end very little to show for all his talk.
We pull up to the parking attendant. Noel digs out the parking ticket from his pocket. I casually hand over parking money. Noel doesn’t refuse it, but he doesn’t acknowledge it either.
After a brief car ride choreographed to the first couple of tracks of some Pink Floyd album, we come to a squeaky stop in front of my parents’ house, with its neatly tended front yard and slightly dingy-looking paint job.
My heart gives a lurch, and I reach for the car door handle. The door doesn’t budge. This is not a good sign.
“Hold on. It’s sort of broken. I have to open it from the outside.” Noel climbs out and comes around and opens my door. “I’ll get your bags. Go on in.
Mamá
has been dying to see you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go on.” I know he wants to smoke a cigarette, something my mother forbids in the house and my father envies since he had to quit. “They’re all waiting for you.”
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
48
Mamá
A
t the front door I stop and knock, like a stranger. From inside I hear muffled footsteps.
“Jacquelyn!
Mija!
Why do you knock? Come in! Where is your
hermano?
” My mother’s eagle eyes, now permanently behind glasses, scan over my shoulder, looking out for Noel, as always.
“He’s saying the rosary in his car.” I briefly bury my face in her crinkly neck and inhale.
“Grosera.”
My mother swats me gently on the butt and squeezes me tight. “I’m so glad you’re here, Jacquelyn. You look so beautiful.”
“Thank you,
Mamá
. You look good. I like your hair.” I can tell she recently got her hair cut and colored, something she tends to let go. Since my father retired, my mother looks older and is more careless with her appearance.
“It was driving me crazy. I had to do something with it. Carmen did it.”
“Oh. Her.” My aunt, who owns a beauty salon, gave me a perm in the seventh grade that fried my hair to a crisp. When my mother mentioned it, she blamed me, saying I must have done something wrong.
“It still looks nice. None of those skunk streaks she calls highlights.”
“Watch your mouth. Noel!
Apague ese
cigarette and get to work! Jacquelyn, go have a rest in your room.”
Even though we’ve never taken a flight together, my mother knows I can never sleep on airplanes.
“OK,
Mamá
.” Now that I’m home I can let my mother control my every thought and action because I know she won’t let anything bad happen to me or let me be bad to anyone.
“Later we’ll go out to the mall.” She holds the door open so Noel can dump my bags on the living room floor. He dashes out before my mother has a chance to sniff him for telltale odors.
“Sounds like fun,” I say as I sleepwalk to my old room. I collapse onto the bed, covered with the quilt my grandmother made me, and close my eyes. “I’m glad to be home,
Mamá
.”
“We’re glad to have you back.
Duérmase, mija
. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”
Behind my closed eyes, I can make out my mom moving around the room unpacking my suitcase. I’ve stowed anything incriminating in the tote George gave me, it’s best to hide some crimes right out in the open. She stands over me. I try to keep very still. She reaches down and smoothes my hair out of my face. She tiptoes to the door and pauses.
“Oh, we’re meeting Carmen and your cousin Lina there.” She quickly steps out, and the door clicks closed.
“Oh, fuck,
Mamá
.” I pull the pillow over my head and try to smother myself.
49
Mamá, Tía Carmen and Lina
L
unch out for my mom means the food court at the Glendale Galleria—my mother is addicted to Panda Express and she claims this particular Panda Express makes orange-flavored chicken like no other.
She escapes to the mall every chance she gets. When she retires (if Latina mothers ever do such a thing), I’m sure she’ll get a place next to a mall the way some old people buy a condo on a golf course.
Shopping is her sport, her therapy, her salvation. With a life like hers, filled with the needs of others, shopping lets her indulge her basic need for something that is all her own—even though she mostly ends up buying stuff for other people, not herself.
“
Tu madre
says you were in New York?” my aunt asks casually, as if it’s no big deal.
Tía
Carmen once caught me making out with a boyfriend and since then I’ve been nothing short of a fallen woman in her eyes. The quickie marriage and divorce didn’t do much for my image either. I’m sure she thinks her little Lina is as pure as the driven snow. Actually, as far as I know, Lina
is
a virgin. Poor thing.
“That was last month. We stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria,” I say, knowing my family will not recognize the name. I also recognize how patronizing I sound. Who cares that I stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria? I care, but why should my family?
“Is that the place Donald Trump owns?” my mother asks politely.
“No, he owns the Plaza, I think.” I knew that my family would have been more impressed if I had stayed in Donald Trump’s hotel, not one they’ve never really heard about.
“He cheated on his wife, you know,” my mother says, as if she’s revealing a dirty secret about a neighbor. “
Con una mujer mucho más joven
. A teenager!”
“Men generally fool around with younger women, not just Donald Trump,
Mamá
.” I was a little too involved in myself at the time to really pay attention, but I do remember studying Marla Maples’s pictures and thinking that it was the tits that got his attention. Marla Maples had great boobs and big American teeth. Something Ivana was lacking because she grew up Communist.
“She got something like $25 million
en el divorcio
. Can you believe that?” my mother continues.
“Really?” Why does my mother know this? What is she trying to tell me about divorce? It’s OK as long as you make him pay through the nose? My divorce was mutual. There was no honey on the side. There wasn’t even a prenup. We sat down and put everything on the table and divided it all in a civil manner. “I feel stupid for settling for the flat. Maybe Nate had millions stashed away somewhere?”
“No. No. Just something a
mujer
must be aware of.” My mother pats my hand.
“What? If her husband has a mistress or where he keeps his money,
Mamá?
”
“Both,” my mother says, as if it’s a normal part of marriage to monitor your husband’s wallet and zipper.
“You’re whacked,
Mamá
. No more orange chicken for you.”
“Nothing could make up for a man cheating on his wife.
Nada
. Not money or an apology. If she took the money, shame on her.”
Tía
Carmen sniffs. Her husband is a well-known womanizer. Something
Tía
Carmen aggressively ignores. She exacts her revenge not by the threat of divorce but by the finality of her commitment to never release him from the bonds of marriage. She’s a good Catholic, that woman.
“So
Lina,
what’s new in
your
life?” So far, my cousin Lina has had little to say. I’ve tried to engage her in conversation, but her mother cuts her off before she has a chance to answer.
Surprisingly, Lina doesn’t live at home, but exactly twelve minutes away in a condo she purchased with a settlement from a malpractice suit. She lost one of her ovaries, but she gained a modicum of freedom from her mother.
“Lina just got a promotion at work.”
Tía
Carmen gives me a smug look.
“That’s great, Lina. Where’s work again?” I ask and notice that Lina could use a facial and an upper-lip wax. I wonder if a long weekend is enough to give her a physical and emotional makeover? If I had it my way, by the end of my short, short stay, she’d look fabulous, have some good sex and tell her mother to go to hell.
“I’m the office manager now. With the sanitation department,” Lina mumbles and looks over at her mom.
Since I don’t have any plans for my visit, I’ll stick close to Lina and turn her to the dark side with me. I’m lonely here all by myself.
“Oh, wow! That’s cool.” I’m not being condescending at all. I really like Lina. I just wish she’d stand up for herself.
“Lina also has a boyfriend.
Un médico
.” My aunt looks at me pointedly as she says this.
“Who is he?” What kind of person would be able to get around
Tía
Carmen? She must have vetted the poor creature within an inch of his life.
“He’s a dentist. I met him when I got my teeth fixed.” Lina smiles. She has a mouth full of clear braces. Her mother refused to get them for her when she was growing up, but at the ripe old age of twenty-six, Lina finally took matters into her own hands.
“He’s a real nice guy,” my mother adds, as if to assure me that Lina hasn’t ended up with a male version of her mother. “You should have seen him
para tus dientes,
Jacquelyn.”
“Yeah. Too bad.” I got my teeth fixed a few years ago, veneers, laser whitening, the whole bit. I had to do something useful with all the dot-com cash that was busting out of my wallet and distract myself from the fact that I was doing nothing useful with my life.
“Maybe we could go out to dinner together while you’re here,” Lina offers.
Next to her, my aunt stiffens. The last thing she wants me to do is to meet what might be her daughter’s only hope at marriage. I am a slut, after all.
“Great. When?”
“Tonight? I don’t know when—” Lina finally has some color in her face.
“Tonight is great!” I say before
Tía
Carmen gets a chance to unleash her forked tongue. I smile sweetly at my aunt. Surprisingly, she doesn’t smile back.