CHAPTER 14

AFTER THE “INCIDENT” (as everyone began to call Jimmy’s story), even after I went back to work, it ‘wasn’t full-time right away. I went back slowly, adding a few hours here and there, trying to ease my way back in. I was afraid of what I’d find at the Wash-N-Dry—afraid that because I’d taken time off, certain things wouldn’t be done right, or they’d been ignored, and I figured my desk—Nena’s old desk in the back—would be sky high with piles of paperwork.

But the truth is, on that first day I dropped by just to visit, there was nothing for me to do. Everything was in order—detergent and supplies were taken care of, banking and bookkeeping was up to date, the Very Fine machine was stocked, and there were even new flyers I’d been meaning to get out to an apartment building that had just rehabbed and had a slew of potential new customers. The flyers had an adorable little drawing of the Wash-N-Dry, a before-and-after thing in which a little cartoon guy went in to the laundromat all dirty and came out all shiny and clean.

Tía Zenaida, thinking I’d be happy that everything was under control, had put her old business skills to work and had everything running at a cool and even pace. “I hadn’t done anything since I used to sell Raúl’s paintings more than thirty years ago,” she said proudly, “but they all came back—all my talents—and it made me so happy. See, Juani? We can run the Wash-N-Dry as good as you or Nena.”

It was supposed to make me feel good but it didn’t. I knew how to run the business because Nena had trained me, but I hadn’t trained anybody, and here they didn’t need me anyway.

When I told Patricia about it, she laughed, she was so amused. “Well, it’s a totally predictable, classic case of disappointment,” she said, immediately going into analytic mode, as she always does.

I felt foolish and useless. The bright lights of the laundromat just magnified my aimlessness. If I looked up at them, I got a headache. And no matter what I tried to do to distract myself, I was handicapped by the bandages and pain that continued to assault my breast and arm. I couldn’t write for long periods of time, so my journal turned into a silly series of notes. I kept trying to jot down what had really happened—I wanted a record of the truth somewhere—but I just couldn’t hold a pen and since Nena had moved, I didn’t have access to a typewriter. Worse, I couldn’t play Lethal Enforcer because it required all the muscles that had been savaged in “the incident.”

So I hung out at the Wash-N-Dry like a lost dog, chatting it up with the customers—but not too much because I didn’t want to have to talk about what had happened. As soon as anybody alluded to it, I’d lower my eyes and signal that it wasn’t a good topic to discuss in front of my family.

“But I wanna hear—from you—how you kicked the guy in the balls and made him run out the place,” said one of our Mortal Kombat regulars. I just looked at him, this little skinny runt, his eyes all eager.

“Not now,” I said, shaking my head. “You know…my aunts…not cool, okay?”

And he nodded, fast, then rushed off, his hands full of quarters to surrender to our machines.

To kill time, I read the shallow celebrity magazines we put out for customers. I cleaned out the filters on the dryers, because that doesn’t require any real strength or mobility. I stared for hours through the window onto Milwaukee Avenue, where life seemed to have gone on without missing a beat. The salesmen were still idled at Polonia Furniture, the white artists on the second floor still splashed their paints and shone their mystery lights on the walls. Traffic came and went in a slow blur. Delivery trucks plucked boxes from behind locked metal doors and dropped them off like presents up and down the street. People huddled at the bus stop, hunching down into their scarves and coats as the weather worsened. Flurries fell and vanished on the shiny, wet sidewalks.

I did all this—all this nothing—while careful to avoid Jimmy. I just didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to be taunted by him—to be reminded that he’d done me such a huge favor, to have to examine and evaluate every little thing to make sure I wasn’t mirroring him, or to be made aware of my own cowardice and shame by his mere presence. I hated him. Whenever it got close to when he came home from work at the hospital, I just bolted out of the laundromat—sometimes practically running, my breast in my hand and held against my chest, through the biting cold air of Milwaukee Avenue and back to the warm dark of my apartment a few blocks away.

All along, I missed Gina something fierce. It was a worse sickness than any I might have imagined. I fought my impulses every day but, no matter how difficult, I beat them back: I didn’t call her, I didn’t try to see her, and, most importantly, I didn’t seek out information about her. I just didn’t want to torture myself more than I had to—and I knew no matter how tormenting it was to avoid her, it would be doubly agonizing to see her, to know what was going on in her life and not be a part of it.

No matter how often her number ran through my head, how many times my fingers danced in the air above the touch-tone pad of my phone, how badly I wished every blinking light on my message machine was her—I didn’t call. I didn’t dial star sixty-nine, I didn’t get caller ID.

When Caridad drove me to the doctor’s office (in the Ford Escort she’s trying to get rid of now), no matter how close she got to Gina’s house—and I swear sometimes she drove right by deliberately, just to see my reaction—I didn’t turn, I didn’t look, I didn’t comment on what she’d done, I didn’t even lose my place in conversation. I refused to be tempted, I declined all bait. “You know, I saw Gina today, she—” Cari would start sometimes but I wouldn’t let her finish. I’d make like a zipper with my fingers across my mouth and, if she insisted, walk out of the room. If she followed me, I’d lock myself in the bathroom, turn on the water and start singing.

“Mi prima Cari me quiere gobernar,” I’d belt out while tapping out a rhythm on my laundry basket. “Y yo le sigo/ le sigo la corriente/ porque no quiero que diga la gente/ que mi prima Cari me quiere gobernar.”

Caridad would pound on my bathroom door and I’d sing louder and louder; sometimes I’d flush the toilet, anything to drown her out. Then she’d laugh and try to tell me whatever piece of gossip she had heard by screaming over all the noise I was making. Eventually I’d open the door and we’d pretend we’d stopped for a few minutes, then she’d start again, “Mira, Juani, according to Gina’s friend, Ana, she—” And then I’d plug my ears with my fingers, walk over to my front door while singing (“Ay que vamos a la playa/ y allá voy/ coje la maleta/ y la cojo…”), open it and bow in exaggerated fashion for her to leave.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she’d say, and finally give in, usually hugging me or kissing my cheek or otherwise letting me know she loved me anyway.

But I was sick, sick, sick—and I knew it. Whenever I heard Gina’s name, or footsteps that sounded like her boots, my heart pounded dangerously in my chest. I felt like a huge church bell, swinging and shaking and about to crack and tumble through the termite-riddled rafters at any moment. When I was alone, I’d lie down on the couch and watch the flesh on my stomach tremble. To me, my belly looked like a balloon filled with water. I felt swollen and pale. My mouth was sticky. I was incapable of focusing on anything, and so jumpy I was constantly startled, constantly irritated.

“What can we do to get your mind off what’s bothering you?” Patricia asked. She’d come over with a stuffed pizza for dinner. She’d set the pizza box on my coffee table and sat herself down on the couch.

After “the incident,” I always felt that Patricia, perhaps more than anybody else, had a sense that there was more to the story than Jimmy’s version. When she first heard it, she’d interrupted him, looking over at me all bruised and stupefied in the hospital bed, and asked if that was how things had really happened.

“And then the guy grabbed the chair and hit Gina in the back, like on a TV show,” Jimmy told her. “And the chair broke up into pieces, so Juani took a leg to defend herself, and, like, sparred with the guy.”

I’d nodded silently, slipping lower under the blankets until I almost disappeared. Patricia was so openly skeptical that Jimmy finally told her to go to hell and stomped out of the room.

But, curiously, Patricia didn’t ask questions once he’d left. She just stroked my arm and told me a few bad jokes Ira had shared with her and offered to help in whatever way I needed. During my convalescence at home, Patricia would usually come over after she’d finished teaching classes and bring me dinner.

I stared at the big gooey slab of cheese she’d set on a plate for me. “You know, Patricia, I’m not Pauli,” I said, annoyed.

“Yeah…and what is that supposed to mean?” she asked coolly.

I pointed to the pizza with my whole hand. I thought my point was self-evident, but Patricia looked at me blankly. “And…?”

“I’m not the one who likes stuffed pizza. I only eat it to please Pauli. In my real life, I hate stuffed pizza, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, in your real life, of course,” Patricia said as she pulled a slice off the big thick wheel of cheese and crust for herself. “I forgot about your real life. Imagine that….”

I couldn’t believe her. “Excuse me…” I said, “what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean I forgot you had a real life, “ Patricia said, still dripping sarcasm, and now melted cheese and tomato sauce too. She grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her mouth and chin. “Wow, this is messy. When you think about it, that’s probably why Pauli likes this kind of stuff. It has a certain…hmmm…sensual quality, don’t you think?” She wasn’t trying to change the subject or make me feel better, I knew that. Pauli was still in Mexico, taking her sweet time coming home, and my resentment spilled onto her too.

“Look, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Eating stuffed pizza, which you just told me you hate. So more for me, right?”

I grabbed the slice she’d cut for me with my bare hands and threw it back in the pizza box. “Please, just go,” I said as I closed the cardboard lid.

“Is this your new thing?” Patricia asked. “When you don’t like what people say, you ask them to leave? At least Caridad gets a song.”

“I just want some respect, okay? I mean, this is my house.”

She nodded but continued eating. She had no intention of leaving. “Seems fair enough,” Patricia said. “Now, can we get back to what you were talking about—about your real life?”

I sighed. “I just meant I don’t like stuffed pizza and I’d appreciate it if you’d asked me what I like—if you don’t know—before bringing food over.”

Patricia smirked. “Oh, okay—and what, no “Thanks for bringing me dinner, Patti, I realize I live totally out of your way and you’ve probably had a hard day teaching today and I’m just a little itty bitty bit grouchy’?”

I dropped down on the couch next to her. “Okay, I’m sorry,” I said, embarrassed. I looked up at her. She was totally forgiving. “You’re right, I’m grumpy lately.”

“I know,” she said with just a tad of exaggeration. Then she handed me my pizza. “You’d better eat this ‘cause I’m not going back out for something else. And if you don’t want it, tell me, because Ira will gladly eat it.”

“No, no,” I said, looking to see what part of the thing I could bear in my mouth. “I’ll eat it.” I felt I had to, just to prove my gratitude.

“So…?” She said, having finished her slice. She sat back on the couch as if she were appraising me.

“ ‘So…’ what?” I asked, filling my mouth with what surely tasted like glue.

“Your so-called real life.”

“Oh, come on, can we get off it?” I asked, my mouth stuffed; I could barely talk.

“No, I’m serious,” she said. “You’re twenty-four years old, you’ve just had a most traumatizing experience, and you just found out your family—your wonderful, weird family—doesn’t need you to run the laundromat. So what are you going to do with yourself?”

I laughed a little. I wanted to say something witty back at her but I couldn’t: The thick muck in my mouth wouldn’t let me make any kind of intelligible sound. I tried to chew it up fast so I could speak, but the pizza had turned into a big wad of gum—it just got chewier and chewier. And then—as I was sitting there, struggling with this monster in my mouth while we both laughed—I realized exactly what I wanted to do. I grabbed a napkin and pulled the big yellow thing out, spitting and drooling in the process. Patricia was just cracking up, handing me napkin after napkin while I made a disgusting mess.

“Okay, okay—I know what I want,” I finally said. I was glowing, I could tell. It was just so right. “And you’re the perfect person to help with this, Patricia.”

“Yeah?” she asked, leaning up. She was excited too, I could tell.

“I want to go to Cuba.”

To my surprise, Patricia wasn’t thrilled with my decision. Shockingly, she actually sounded somewhat like I’d expect my parents to respond. “Oh, god, Juani, why?” she asked, making a face. “It’s nothing like it used to be. In fact, there’s nothing there.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Did I just hear you correctly?” I asked incredulously.

Patricia nodded. “I mean, sure, if you want to go, I’ll help you with the paperwork and stuff, but I mean, why?” she went on. “The revolution’s dead, Cuba’s just another miserable little Third World country, only a little more romantic than the others because Fidel’s so charismatic. What would you do there anyway?”

So I told her—except I left out how my whole inspiration came from the fight with Gina and her friends—how I just wanted to see Cuba with my own eyes, walk the streets of Havana by myself, see where we used to live, talk to people, ask questions.

“I don’t know, maybe visit crazy cousin Titi,” I said.

Patricia finally smiled. “Yeah, well, that one is special, all right, but probably for different reasons than most of us here think…”

I was hoping she’d say more but she just got a strange, faraway look on her face. When she saw me staring at her, she smiled and shook her head, as if to shake off spirits, or memory.

“You should visit her, why not?” Patricia asked rhetorically. “Of course, you should write her first—let her know you’re coming, ask what she needs. I have a friend in my department who’s going to Cuba in the next month or so, so he could probably take it for you. That way she’ll get it for sure.”

“God, what would I say?”

Patricia stood and started cleaning up. “Well, I don’t know,” she said. “That’s up to you.”

“I don’t even know if my written Spanish is that good,” I confessed.

“Well, don’t worry about that,” she said. “I can fix that for you—if you don’t mind me reading the letter.”

It was one of those American things you could expect from Patricia: She would, of course, assume the letter was private and confidential—even if it was to a stranger. Of course she’d ask if I minded. Most other cousins would have assumed the opposite, that it was family property, like a bulletin board or magnets on the fridge.

“I don’t mind you reading the letter,” I said, deciding to take her seriously and not to rib her about her little americanadas. I’d always thought it was unfair to kid her about being Americanized when she is, in fact, American-born. Besides, Patricia’s always known more about Cuba than all of us put together—our parents included.

“Cool,” she said, now wiping the coffee table where I’d made such a mess. “Figure out how much time you want to spend there, then figure out what you want to do when you get back.”

“What do you mean, ‘When I get back’?”

Patricia stood up straight. “Look, you’re not going back to the laundromat—not permanently,” she said. “Try to figure out what you want to do…if you can’t, at least consider coming down to campus and talking to a career counselor, okay?”

It was another americanada, that was clear—but what could I do? I needed her help, to go to Cuba and in so many other ways. And there was no question she was coming from a big warm Cuban heart that loved me tons. I nodded.

“Okay,” I said, feeling tiny and grateful. “I’ll think about it.”