SOMETIMES I FEEL AS THOUGH I’VE LIVED MY ENTIRE LIFE THROUGH Frida. She was the one who had adventures; she was the one who experienced magnificent emotions. I wore life secondhand, just as I wore Frida’s old clothes. My very first taste of love was Frida and Alex. I had infatuations, and boys would wink at me and tease, but the delicious secret aches, the volcanoes spewing lava in my breast, the feeling of dissolving into liquid in his arms, that wasn’t about me and anyone, that was about Frida and Alex. My first kiss was when Alex kissed Frida. Wherever I went, she had been there before. The great love of my life had been her lover first. Sometimes, even when they’re close, sisters go through life independently, each reaching toward her own destiny. But not in my case. The simple truth is, without Frida, there is no Cristi.
When it came to love, I knew everything and I knew nothing. I’m talking about when I was fifteen or so. I knew the mechanics of what went on between men and women, of course. Even though Abuelita thought that dogs should wear diapers so you couldn’t see their privates, with a sister like Frida, how could I not know what fit into what? But how it felt to be with a boy, all that, I experienced through Frida.
The day she met Alex in the city was full of bad omens. The atmosphere was heavy and menacing. Tufts of sooty cotton blanketed the sky. The wind slapped against a tree, causing the branches to flail crazily. A wooden box danced around in drunken circles, then crashed against the side of a church. How do I know? Because she told me, of course. Countless times. Or maybe I’ve reconstructed the scene in my mind so many times that it’s as though I actually lived it myself.
Alex sat down on the edge of the bed. Frida huddled next to him and buried her face in his chest. A mother called to her little boy: “Pancho, come in! It’s going to start!” A vendor called to his helper: “Hurry, get the stuff in the cart! I felt a drop!” Alex took Frida’s chin in his hand and tilted her face upward.
“Don’t worry, little princess, it’s just rain.” It’s as if I was there, it’s as if it were me. I’ve lived that moment so many times in my mind, in my dreams. What did that hotel room really look like? How could I know? And yet I can see it—simple, with traditional, rustic wooden furniture, a washbasin, an oil lamp. The reek of mildew. The warm, moist air.
He kisses her tenderly, first her forehead, her eyebrows, her eyes. Just like in a movie. Frida feels his fingers move down her arm. His thumb circles the back of her elbow, and she shivers with pleasure.
“Alex,” she whispers. “Alex, protect me from the storm!” Like Emma Padilla in … what’s the name of that film?
“What can I do to protect you from the storm?” he says. “Can I make it stop raining?”
“Alex! ”
“You’re safe here. The storm won’t bother us here.”
“I love you, Alex. Tell me you love me!”
Alex runs his lips lightly over Frida’s cheek, then kisses her on the mouth. She clings to him, pressing her mouth against his, thrusting her tongue between his teeth. He brings his hand up under her blouse and caresses her back. Things they never show in the movies; at least, they never showed them back then. But I can see it all when I close my eyes. Frida feels the warmth of his touch run through her veins. She unbuttons her blouse and slips it off.
Maudlin, isn’t it! Go ahead and say it. Cristina Kahlo loves a mushy love scene. I suppose that if someone told me about fucking in a cheap hotel today, it wouldn’t produce the same effect, but don’t forget that when Frida told me this story, I was fifteen years old. An impressionable age when it comes to love and brassieres and stuff. And those are the images I’ve carried with me all these years.
“Alex,” she pleaded. “Tell me that you love me!”
The first drops of rain were lashing the window. The tufts of cotton had turned murky and shroudlike.
Frida pushed herself up on her knee so that her breasts were even with Alex’s lips. Swaying gently from side to side, she ran her nipples over his mouth.
“Kiss me,” she insisted. “Kiss me.”
She felt heady with pleasure, and yet a ball of pain the size of a marble was beginning to form under her sternum.
“That’s good, Alex. That’s beautiful, Alex. But tell me that you love me!”
Frida unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off. She kissed his back, his shoulders, the moist hair of his chest.
“Tell me that you love me!”
“My little Frida. My little Prepa girl.”
“Not my little Frida! Not my little Prepa girl! Frida, I love you. Say it, Alex, say it.” Oh God, what was Frida feeling? Fear fusing with the pain, causing the ball under her breastbone to expand, press upward, obstruct her breathing.
“Alex, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, Frida. Nothing, my little princess.”
She had to ask him. She didn’t want to, but she had to. Uncertainty was killing her.
“Alex, it’s true you made love to La Reyna, isn’t it?”
“Fridita,” he murmured. “You promised we wouldn’t talk about that again.”
Men can be so heartless, so treacherous.
“I’m not mad! Really, I’m not!” Frida told Alex.
“Frida, please,” he kept insisting. “It was just an accident, something that happened. I don’t want to talk about Agustina Reyna any more.”
“No, okay. She’s an adorable girl, and if you love her … well, then, I love her too. I love everyone that you love.”
They lay there for a long while. Then Frida started up again: “Alex …”
“Mmm?”
“You think we’ll go to San Francisco someday? Now that I’m working again, I can save money.” Frida planned to work after school and during vacations when she went back to the Prepa. Only, the truth is, she wasn’t going to be saving up to go to San Francisco. She was going to help Papá put food on the table because his business was in shambles. At that time, she was kind of between jobs. She was helping out Papá in the studio, but that practically didn’t count because she wasn’t bringing in any extra money. She had had a decent job at a pharmacy, but they fired her for bungling the books. At the end of the day, she was always short. She was supposedly great at math, but somehow she couldn’t make the figures work. Still, she wanted to work, because she felt guilty. After all, why was it that we never had enough money? Frida’s health, her medical expenses, her schooling …
Alex didn’t answer. He took her hand in his and kissed the palm, then the back, then the wrist. “You know what I like about working at Papá’s studio?” she whispered. “It’s easier to sneak out to see you.”
Alex smiled and touched her breasts with the tips of his fingers. Frida had wonderful breasts, smooth and firm. No wonder she liked to paint herself in the nude. She loved to stand in front of the mirror and look at her body. Such a little girl, such heroic breasts.
Something was wrong. Alex was going through the motions, but at the same time, he was pulling away. Frida shifted her weight against him and he fell back on the bed. She wriggled on top of his body. He was stiff and ready, but somewhere else.
The storm was taking on Old Testament proportions. Knots of water slapped against the window. The panes trembled and moaned.
“I hate having go to a hotel,” complained Alex. “I’m not comfortable in this hole.”
“Well, we can’t go to my house in Coyoacán. It’s too far, and besides, my mother’s always there. She doesn’t even want me to be your girlfriend. Imagine what she would do if she knew we made love.”
Alex laughed.
“And we can’t use your house. Even when your parents are gone, there are the servants. Is that it, Alex? Is that what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he whispered, pulling her toward him. A spider of light ignited the sky. Seconds later, a clap of thunder reverberated through the streets. Water pounded the ground mercilessly, and the wind threatened to tear the houses from their very roots.
Frida let her skirt drop to the floor. Then she untied her clunky, ugly shoes and pulled off her hose. Carefully, she folded her clothes and laid them on a chair. She hid her shoes under her skirt and blouse, folding the cloth around them so that they wouldn’t fall and wouldn’t show. Alex was unbuttoning his pants.
Frida made love with genuine artistry, as though she were an experienced courtesan and not a schoolgirl. She was proud of her finesse. She bragged all the time.
Alex closed his eyes and moaned. “Let me,” she cooed. “I know what you like. Little Frida knows what you like.”
They moved with the precision of two accomplished dancers, rising and falling, soaring, leaping, breathing in cadence with the rain. That’s how Frida described it.
When it was over, they lay in each others’ arms, listening to the drops thwack the pane. The winds had subsided. There was no more thunder. The water fell in orbs, not daggers. Alex closed his eyes. When she was sure he was asleep, Frida turned over and peered out the window at the saturated gray sky.
She felt horribly alone.
“When I was a little girl,” she told me, “and I felt the way I did then, lying there next to Alex, I could conjure up Frida Zoraída.” A tear welled up and trickled out of the corner of her eye. She wiped it away with her hand, so that Alex wouldn’t see it. What difference does it make if he sees me cry? she thought. Besides, he’s sleeping. But she patted her cheeks one more time, just to make sure they were dry.