CHAPTER 9

WHEN PAULI CAME BACK TO TOWN after Tío Pepe died, she stayed with Tía Celia. Then everything changed. Tía Celia, who had seemed so lost those few days between Tío Pepe’s death and the funeral, suddenly came back to life. Mami and I commented on how worried we’d been—Tía Celia had a blank look about her without Tío Pepe, as if she could miss a step and fall down the stairs or forget to eat. But as soon as the burial was over, as soon as the funeral stickers were peeled off the car windows on the way back from the cemetery, Tía Celia emerged from her haze. She was not her old self—not the humiliated wife with infinite patience and blind loyalty—but a whole new person. At the reception after the funeral, we were all awed by her, tossing her hair and rolling her new granddaughter on her lap.

Although Cubans don’t normally have people over after funerals, Father Sean had explained to our family that this was an American tradition that made some sense. At first it sounded too much like a party to us. Cubans prefer to hold an all-night prayer vigil and bury the body immediately. Mami was concerned that Tía Celia would think the kind of gathering Father Sean suggested might be offensive to Tío Pepe’s memory. But Father Sean said, “It’s a healing thing. It’s not a celebration, but a reassurance.” I thought it was a good idea, as did Patricia, who’d actually been to a few American funerals, so we decided to try it.

After the burial, after Tía Celia had tossed a handful of Cuban dirt on the casket (brought from the island by Tomás Joaquín for precisely this purpose) and the neat line of cars that had followed Tío Pepe to the cemetery had scattered all over the roads, we gathered at Tía Celia’s house, where the windows and mirrors were all covered with black cloth. People from all over the neighborhood brought plates of black beans and rice, guacamole, yuca con mojo, freshly baked breads, baskets of fruits, flan and tres leches, and about a dozen other kinds of dessert. I realized most of us were Latino, awkwardly trying to perform an American custom, and didn’t really have much sense of what to do. Luckily, Patricia played host to the crowds, directing people to Tía Celia, who sat on the couch as if on a throne. As folks came in, Nena would grab whatever food they’d brought and determine if it needed to go directly to the buffet table, to the kitchen for heating, or into the fridge.

“Do we play music?” asked my father anxiously. “Mozart or something like that, soft?”

“No, no music,” said Ira, Patricia’s husband. He’s a tall, skinny fellow with frizzy hair. “I mean, I think no music…” He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

Papi shook his head. “What kind of an American is he?” he asked, incredulously.

“He’s Jewish, Tío Alberto,” Patricia said, as if that meant anything in particular to my father.

While we greeted people and ripped tin foil off casseroles and pulled things in and out of the oven and the fridge, Tía Celia tried on her new role: savvy, delighted grandmother to Rosa, Pauli’s plumb little baby. “Isn’t she beautiful?” she’d ask of everyone who came to her with condolences. “Yes, yes, of course,” they’d say, confused because they’d been expecting a shattered widow and were instead being greeted by this glowing woman. When Rosa grabbed her hair—coils of braids expertly placed on her head—Tía Celia laughed, reached up and undid the pins, letting a cascade of dark brown and gray curls fall to her shoulders. “Isn’t she gorgeous?” Tía Celia exclaimed yet again about her granddaughter, her eyes sparkling.

Later in the afternoon, when the men’s ties had loosened and piles of used paper plates mounted on the buffet table, Tía Celia got up from the couch where she’d been receiving guests and went from mirror to mirror, window to window, quietly removing the black cloths and letting in the light. All the while, Rosa nestled sleepily on her shoulder.

Although no one would admit it, Tío Pepe’s passing seemed to free Tía Celia. She foundered a bit at first. For instance, she said she wanted to re-decorate the house but didn’t know how, then felt guilty and worried that people might think she was trying to erase Tío Pepe from her life. Eventually, she bought new curtains and painted the bedroom an off-white that showed off the new pictures of Rosa on the wall and on her bureau. Tía Celia hadn’t had citrus fruits for more than thirty years because Tío Pepe was horrifically allergic to them and now, without him to worry about, she gorged on oranges and pineapples, grapefruits and mangoes. When she served water at her house, lemon slices floated with the ice.

But what really seemed to animate Tía Celia was the presence of Pauli and her baby. The two of them gave Tía Celia things to do: cooking and laundry, shopping and cleaning, singing Rosa to sleep, sewing little jumpsuits for her to roll in around the house and the laundromat.

No one was surprised that Tía Celia took Rosa in as her grandchild. No one was surprised that, with Tío Pepe gone and Caridad married, a part of Tía Celia clearly relished having someone new to care for. That had always been her style, to press her loved ones, literally and metaphorically, against her ample bosom for protection and nourishment.

What no one expected was that Tía Celia would become Pauli’s champion and Rosa’s mentor. Suddenly, Tía Celia shone with pride about her daughter, the previously problematic child who had so often embarrassed her. Pauli’s intellect—which no one had ever doubted—became a badge. Tía Celia talked about her as if she were a genius. Even Pauli was a bit embarrassed. And her crazy independence, her sexuality and vigor, all these became medals of honor. To hear Tía Celia, Pauli was a kind of new woman, a pioneer who did not need men or approval. And she was the first to defend Pauli’s right to silence about the identity of Rosa’s father.

“It took Pauli nine months to have this baby,” Tía Celia would say in Pauli’s defense. “The father? It took him nine minutes. Who cares who he is? Right now, he will only complicate our lives. Besides, it is Pauli’s business, that is all.”

Because of Pauli’s stubbornness, it was impossible to tell just what new blood had been injected into the family. Rosa, with her round black eyes and lashes like arching spider legs, had the thickest, blackest and straightest hair. Mami thought Rosa’s father was un indio, a Mexican or Guatemalan perhaps, with a heavy indigenous heritage, but Patricia and I thought Rosa had a whole other look about her, something even more ancient than Aztec or Mayan, something both serene and cruel that was new to us as a family. Nena was sure Rosa looked like a man she’d seen Pauli talk to once at a Middle Eastern restaurant but nobody else could remember him so we weren’t sure if it meant anything.

When Pauli came home, I asked her about Rosa’s father. She shrugged, telling me I’d probably seen him, but that she had no intention of telling me who he was. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Juani, because you know I do,” she explained. “It’s just that I’m not ready to talk about it with anybody, and I’m afraid if I told you who it was, eventually the whole family would figure out you knew—you know how these things just get out sometimes—and then I would have put you in a terrible position, trying to figure out who you should be loyal to, them or me.”

I wanted to tell her I was pretty sure I could withstand the pressure and, more importantly, that I had no conflict about my loyalties when it came to her, but the truth is that I wasn’t certain what I’d do if Gina asked me. I could resist telling my parents without effort, but I knew withholding from Gina would be critical. How could I ask her anything then? How could I expect her to tell me things en confianza?

Curiously, Tía Celia’s new embracing attitudes did not extend to Caridad. Or rather, they seemed to recast Caridad, especially in her marriage to Jimmy. Where once Tía Celia would shrug her shoulders about Caridad and Jimmy’s tempestuous relationship, she now rolled her eyes and openly disapproved. It was as if she’d taken on Tío Pepe’s disapproval, but where he had surrendered, she had a harder, more judgmental edge.

“Being loyal to your husband does not mean letting him hit you,” she said to us one day at the laundromat.

Mami and I glanced at each other. Tía Celia’s pronouncement seemed to come out of nowhere.

“You know what I’m talking about,” she said. She stopped folding clothes. “Where does it say that a woman has to be a punching bag for her husband? I don’t know where she got the idea that was all right.”

“Well, Celia, I think Caridad and Jimmy have had their troubles but they’re trying to work things out,” Mami offered.

“How is that?” Tía Celia asked. “They’re not going to counseling, they’re not going to see the priest. They’re not even talking about the problem, okay? They’re just taking a break. I ask Cari about it and she tells me to mind my own business. I say, okay. But you’d think she’d understand what killed her father, you’d think she’d throw Jimmy out in the streets by now—if nothing else, to honor her father’s memory.”

“Celia, Celia,” Mami said as she tried to hug her. “Cari has to live her own life, make her own decisions.”

“Of course!” Tía Celia exclaimed, pushing Mami away from her. “But that is not what she is doing. She is living Jimmy’s life, being his slave. He is really Jimmy Frankenstein, just like Pauli says.” She grabbed a pair of pants from the folding table and began to crease them. “You know who’s leading her own life? Pauli. I don’t say I approve, but I admire. Everything she does is her decision, good or bad. How many of us can say that, huh?”

As Tía Celia talked, I looked around the Wash-N-Dry, with its immaculate whiteness and shiny features. For how much longer would this be my life? I loved running the business, making decisions, having the respect of my family. But in my heart, I could not see myself here, doing the books, refilling the Very Fine machine and picking out new video games, for too many more years. It’d get old, it’d become a trap I could never undo if I overstayed. The problem was, unlike Nena, who’d always wanted that PR career she was now off to in Miami, I had no clue what I could, or wanted, to do.

“Not many people are that independent, it’s true,” Mami said, “but I’m not sure, Celia. Pauli is happy about the baby, yes, but I don’t know how happy she is about being here, about being back.”

Tía Celia shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said. “Pauli is a very different creature. She is doing exactly what she wants, all the time.”

I pictured Pauli at Tío Pepe’s funeral, pale and exhausted. Everyone had said it was because she was overwhelmed by grief, but I wondered if that could be true. Pauli had never been close to Tío Pepe—could barely even look at him, she disliked him so much. At the funeral, she cried and cried until her eyes became red-ringed and puffy. Could she really have been that traumatized by her father’s death?

I remembered a few days ago, her thin frame bent over a stuffed garbage can in the alley behind her mother’s house. She was trying to cram yet one more bag in it and the weight and force of her pushing finally caused the bag to break, spilling trash all over her feet. I was on my way to the Wash-N-Dry when I saw her, standing over the mess and shaking her head. When I ran over to help her, Pauli seemed embarrassed, frustrated.

“Don’t,” she said without even looking at me. Her shoulder was half turned away as she bent over to pick up diapers and rotting food. I stopped in my tracks. “I can do this,” she said. “Go back to work, okay?”

Ordinarily, I would have brushed aside her comments, rushed to my knees and picked up every last grain of rice for her, but this time, I stepped back. Pauli, her hair falling in her face, her lips trembling as she grabbed handfuls of garbage from the ground, looked doomed.

While Mami and Tía Celia continued their discussion about Pauli and Caridad, I wandered up to Cari and Jimmy’s apartment. It was time for a break anyway and I thought it might be good to check in with Cari. She’d been a mess in the weeks since her father’s death, but in a totally different way than Pauli. After the funeral, Caridad had remained a zombie. She sat in front of the TV all day, staring aimlessly while the remote idled on the coffee table, untouched. Cari’s only movements were to get a cigarette, light it and then sit back. Other than that, she just sat there, eyes wide open, her mouth slightly open, as if she were a corpse propped up for a macabre joke.

When I knocked on their door, Jimmy answered. He was wearing his hospital janitor uniform and his hair was wet from a shower. “Hey,” he grunted, letting me in. His face was worried, wrinkles all over his forehead. “God, I don’t know what to do.” His voice cracked a little bit as he nodded in the direction of the living room.

I noticed Caridad’s head bobbing above the couch like a target at a carnival. She was going for a cigarette. The room had a blue haze.

“I’ve tried everything, Juani, I’m not kidding. I’m so fucking worried, and I can’t take any more time off work,” Jimmy said, pacing in the vestibule.

“I can stay for a little while,” I offered, hesitantly, knowing he wasn’t fond of me being alone with Caridad, “but not for long. I mean, I’ve gotta get back to work.”

“Nah, that’s not so good,” he said. “But I swear she’s going to light the place on fire. All she does is sit there and smoke and smoke and smoke. And she doesn’t care where the ashes land. She’s burned holes all over the couch and the rug. I don’t know what to do, man, it’s just crazy.”

“Maybe she needs a change of scenery,” I suggested. “Maybe being here, with the family and everything, isn’t so good.”

Jimmy shook his head, smirked. “Don’t get any ideas,” he said, grinning malevolently. “If she goes anywhere, it’ll be with me.”

I ignored him. “Maybe she could go to Mexico with Pauli,” I said. “Pauli’s gotta go back and get her stuff if she’s staying here, and maybe the trip would be good for Cari—you know, time with her sister to talk about their father and everything. It might be good for Pauli too, I think she’s kind of fucked up about Tío Pepe’s dying,” I added.

“The only way Pauli’s taking Caridad from here is if she leaves Rosa as ransom,” Jimmy said, laughing now. “And you know she ain’t gonna do that.”

With that he spun into the living room, kissed Caridad on top of her head, said good-bye and pushed me out the door with him.

“Hey asshole, I didn’t even get to say hello,” I said as he pulled on my arm and tried to take me down the stairs with him.

“Missed your chance,” he said, grinning, triumphant as usual.