I haven’t lived through enough of the twentieth century for it to mean much to me. The first half of it isn’t even in color, and the beginning might as well be prehistoric, so dark it’s a little bit blue. Before 1900, all I can get a sense of is a lump of Play-Doh carelessly mixed together, all brown and dirty. We come from the shadows. The millennium will end in a shade of burnt orange, warm and gloomy. The nineties are all that stands between us and what’s next. People act like it’s some kind of triumph, like they’ve won some epic battle with a horrible monster. The grown-ups all seem burdened by a past full of suffering. They talk down to us, saying kids have it easy these days, like everything’s a piece of cake. Things aren’t as simple for us as they think, but we like to let them believe it’ll all be fine, that if they die soon, they can die in peace and feel like the story had a happy ending. But we know we won’t be that lucky. According to my calculations, we’ll all start dying around 2040. We won’t even be halfway through the story. We’ll be there to witness the upheaval. What will change the course of the future? Domingo says it’s always something. And eventually we’ll be the last ones still holding the torch of these times, when that something has gobbled everything up. Will it be aliens? Time travel? Teleportation? Immortality? Mom’s been talking for a while and I haven’t been listening. I hold the phone to my ear again and try to follow the conversation.
“If you think about it, two thousand years isn’t that long.”
“For God’s sake, Mom.”
“What.”
“Two thousand years is ages.”
“Look, do the math. Two thousand years is eighty lifespans, more or less.”
“Eighty lives?”
“Yeah, right?”
“You did the math wrong.”
“No, hang on, it’s forty.”
“What?”
“It’s forty lives, sweetie.”
“It can’t be, that isn’t enough.”
“If you say so.”
For some reason this number makes us both sad. We talk on the phone a lot and don’t always have much to say, so we spend the time on chitchat. I’m not usually brave enough to bring up anything naughty, and she seems to prefer light, relaxed conversation anyway. I break the silence by asking to talk to Domingo. Mom passes him the phone.
“Dom.”
“What’s up, Partner.”
“I’m gonna ask you something, OK?”
“Fire away.”
“Do you think the future will be OK?”
“OK in what sense?”
“In the sense of will it be really weird.”
“I think I need more information.”
“Let’s see… Like, why are movies about the future so scary?”
“They’re not all scary.”
“Tell me one that isn’t.”
His throat makes an odd sound when he concentrates or does anything complex, like something’s creaking inside him. Here it is, right on cue.
“Total Recall isn’t scary at all,” he says.
“What the hell do you mean it isn’t scary? Don’t remind me!”
“But it’s really fun.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“Look, Partner. Humans have always imagined a pretty dark future, but these days it seems like things are getting better, not worse.”
“Seriously?”
“Looks like it for now.”
“I don’t know, it’s like, it’s always dark in the movies.”
“Because it’s cheaper that way.”
“And because it scares the shit out of people.”
“Come on, Partner, you love horror movies.”
“Some are good but they still freak me out.”
“But you’re in love with Freddy Krueger.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about Freddy. Why did you guys let me see that movie?”
“What do you mean, why did we let you see it? We told you how scary it’d be and you snuck in anyway.”
“And you guys noticed and didn’t say anything!”
“Well there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fear, and anyway you seemed determined.”
“Well, I regret it.”
“Why would you regret it? Freddy’s a really nice guy, you two make a great couple.”
“Don’t say that! Anyway, I wasn’t even talking about horror movies, I said movies about the future.”
“Well, I’ll bet you really like RoboCop.”
“RoboCop totally sucks!”
“You’re such a drama queen.”
“Drama queen? You show me movies that make me crazy, way more than I am right now.”
“Crazy how?”
“Well sometimes the weird stuff I’ve seen piles up in my head and I can’t get it out.”
“I understand. Don’t be scared though, that weird stuff’s harmless.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s weird, plain and simple. It’s no creepier than life, which is very weird indeed.”
“OK.”
“But those sappy little movies of yours are more dangerous, even if you don’t think so.”
“How? The Little Mermaid never gave me any bad thoughts.”
“But they brainwash you. Plant toxic messages in your head.”
“I don’t know about that. But if everything’s weird or evil, is there any way out? Between one thing and another I feel like I’m screwed.”
“Hey, d’you really think you’re crazy?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t and sometimes I do. Like, a lot.”
“Well you know what I say?”
“What?”
“That’s a good sign.”
“What?”
“That you say you think you’re crazy. The real crazies are always saying, ‘I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, let me go!’ That’s what’s really scary – people who say they’re perfectly fine, totally normal, that everything’s under control. Don’t trust those people as far as you can spit.”
“But in that case, what’s the deal? Everyone’s a bit crazy?”
“Pretty much, and anyone who says they aren’t is an idiot, a con artist, or a sicko.”
“But I’m really scared of being crazy.”
“That’s normal. The mind is a very complicated thing. Just look at your mother, always claiming she’s nuts when she’s the most rational woman I’ve ever met.”
I think for a moment, but then one of my favorite theme songs pipes into the living room. I’ve got to hang up right away.
“Gotta go, Domingo, Baywatch is starting.”
“Ugh, for the love of God, and that shit doesn’t scare you?”
“I don’t care, I want to see the bikinis. Bye!”
“You’re such a sucker for good looks, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See you!”
“All right, see you.”
I don’t like missing the opening credits. You never know what’ll happen in an episode, some have more naked flesh than others, but the opening credits are always bursting with it. Luckily at my house they’re pretty permissive, but it’s funny how many grown-ups enjoy horror and let us watch violence, whether it’s real or pretend, when they’re radically opposed to letting us see anything sexy. I have nothing against either, I’m drawn to both, but I’ve noticed sex suits me better and it makes me mad that people think it’s somehow worse than gore. Grandma is a fairer judge than most; anything can interest her. In fact, if there’s blood and guts on one channel and tits on the other, she prefers the tits whether I’m there or not, whereas Domingo would opt for the blood and guts without thinking twice. Baywatch is pretty terrible, but Grandma loves it as much as I do. We both have our reasons.
“Bring the pistachios, honey.”
“You bought pistachios?”
“Yes, this afternoon. Hurry, Mitch Buchannon’s on, look how handsome he is.”
“I don’t like him.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“So who do you like?”
“I don’t like any of the men. I like the women.”
“Ah, and do you like them all or just one?”
“Shauni’s my favorite.”
“Ah, the little blonde with the square face.”
“Yeah.”
“Very pretty girl.”
This afternoon’s conversation was good. Mom’s out of the hospital and was calling from home. I picture her napping all day on the couch, while her wounds heal. Hospitals are nice, I adore doctors, and I wish they’d let me visit, but they freak Mom out so it’s great news that she’s out of there. I’m feeling better. We start in on the nuts and don’t stop. During the commercial break, Macarena’s little brother shows up at the living-room window. He asks if I’m going out. It seems like a real effort. I’d rather stay here and draw my favorite swimsuits when the episode’s over. In the end I get pretty excited and draw a beach packed full of women, all friends with each other. What will my body be like when it’s fully developed? Will I be tall? What kind of tits will I have? It makes me madder and madder that I wasn’t born in a boy’s body. I wonder if it’s as weird for them? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. It must be embarrassing to have your voice change and then lose your hair when you get older, but this is weirdness on a whole other level. I don’t want to get pregnant or give birth, I don’t want to be thought of as weak for suffering more, when really the opposite’s true. I’ve always liked dresses and bows, but the more unhappy I am the more I want, deep down inside, to somehow turn into a boy. I don’t feel fully like a girl, and I doubt I’d feel fully like a boy. I’m neither one nor the other. But if I had to choose, maybe sometimes I’d rather act like a guy.
I complain, but the truth is I don’t know what I’m talking about. I barely know any men. I wish I was more familiar with them. I’m curious about how Domingo shaves, how he’s going bald. When I’m near my cousins I devour them with my eyes, but I don’t get the chance too often. One time, when I was three, I was sitting in the street with Mom and we heard the knife-sharpener go by. I’d never heard him before. She explained what he does, and the superstition – how if you hear the knife-sharpener go by blowing his whistle, you have to put a white cloth on your head and make a wish. That day, I was wearing a little white apron Grandma had sewn me, part of a costume I’d put on over my skirt, and we draped it over our heads, closed our eyes, and each quietly made a wish.
“I want to be a princess,” I thought. I regretted it right away. At the time I had no idea what princesses really did. I’ve never cared for their style, and at this point it seems like a hard and boring job. I asked fate to let me correct my wish and tried again: “I want a dad, a grandpa, or a brother.” They were all as good as each other, and if I could have all at once, even better. I’ve been told stories of absent dads and dead grandpas, but stories don’t have a smell or a voice, you can’t see the ageing skin on their fingers up close. How I longed to feel total trust in one of those larger, coarser creatures called men, the same trust I have in some of the women in my life. I want to know what men are like inside, but if you get even a tiny bit close, you risk being labeled a slut or a tomboy. Which is especially awkward since I don’t see what’s wrong with being a slut or a tomboy. “Boys on one side and girls on the other.” People go on and on about this, pretending to hate the other team and acting kind of disgusted by them. But it’s boring when we don’t mix. It’s not like I haven’t noticed how they stare at our dolls and want to get closer. But their fear of being bullied is stronger so they sabotage their weakness for pink. I get it. I feel bad for them. A lot of them are so scared but want to get to know us so badly that all they can do is come over and annoy us. Lift up our skirts, ruin our dolls. The skirt thing can suck or it can be funny. I usually find it funny since I have a one-track mind and want to be touched any way I can, but still, it bothers me that it has to be this way. Boycotting our games is a cheap kind of terrorism. “Fighting and fucking go together,” I once heard someone say. That theory makes more sense, but I don’t agree with it either. We’re so far removed from each other that all they can do is pull our hair. I refuse to accept getting annoyed as a form of courtship. I’m not very sociable anyway, but if you ask me, I have a whole lot of compelling reasons to reject this state of affairs.
I don’t quite know what to make of Domingo. For example, he claims that men don’t cry, and goes out of his way to make fun of the idea if it comes up for any reason. He has the laugh of a bad little boy. Fake, cruel, affected. I can’t be expected to trust a bad little boy.
Making friends with a boy would be enough to satisfy my curiosity. Sitting next to Juan Carlos in class was really a stroke of luck. We got along pretty well, but it takes a while to build a solid friendship when you’re starting out from such different places, and right when I was about to manage it they carted me off somewhere else. I don’t want to start over again. I’m tired. I’m tormented by that last scene with Lucía. I lost all the points I had left. All I want to do is stay in bed and hold on to my favorite things. Little things are easier to control. I’m feeling more and more attached to my toys, my cartoons, my felt-tip pens, my Dragon Ball cards.
Maybe the rule is that you can’t like anything in this world completely, and especially not all the time. Simple pleasures are what give stability. The basics never let you down. A dish of breaded chicken fillets, a lemon ice-cream, a doll with a nice hairdo, someone showing you their duplicate card collection and finding one you were missing in the middle of the stack. I’m dead serious about these things, since they’re the only loves that wouldn’t be taken away from me if everything went to shit. Just how badly would things have to go for me not to get a popsicle once in a while?
“Grandma.”
“What?” she answers, without lifting her eyes from the white square she’s crocheting.
“Do they serve breaded fillets at convent schools?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know.”
“What about grilled?”
“For sure.”
“I like them grilled too.”
She looks at me over the rim of her spectacles and keeps crocheting.
“You want them for dinner? With a bit of lemon?”
“Oh, yes.”
“With fried eggplant?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
I go into the kitchen with Grandma and watch how she peels the eggplants and sets them to drain. She lights a cigarette and we go out to the patio to water the plants. When we go back inside, I ask if I can put the flour on them myself.
“All right, but you have to shake the eggplant to the rhythm of a baión, that’s how you make them crunchy.”
“OK.”
We drain them and put them in a lidded container with the special flour for frying. I hold it and wait for the signal.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“All right then.”
She starts singing while I shake the eggplants, mixing them with the flour.
I wanna dance the new beat
When they see me go by they say
Girl, where you going?
I’m gonna dance the baión!
Here comes the black zumbón
Dancing the baión like crazy
He’s playing the zambomba
And calling out for the lady.
She repeats both verses, snapping her fingers, and the eggplant is ready for frying. Grandma’s no good at solving big problems and serious difficulties stress her out, but the small ones are her specialty. She won’t save your ass, in other words, but she’ll rub the best ointment on it. That helps too, it’s important. Mom, on the other hand, is the kind of warrior who charges into the front lines screaming, who gets punched in the face and keeps going until she’s completely spent, who’s capable of using her last breath to stab the enemy, never stopping to wonder if her butt is sore from shitting herself in the trenches. Here we are, a little girl and an old lady, setting the table carefully while she’s out there doing battle. Sometimes I think Grandma’s greatest virtue is being a masterful actress, the kind good enough to pretend that she’s actually bad at it, so everyone will trust her since they all think she couldn’t possibly lie. She knows exactly what’s going on, but she focuses fully on the present, on the basic joy of continuing to exist.
“Grandma,” I ask, once the food’s on the table.
“What?”
“Would you know how to make clothes for my dolls?”
“I sure would.”
“Really?”
“Of course. What do you want me to make you?”
“Lots of things, but first a nurse’s outfit and one for a lady surgeon too.”
“One green and one white, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you don’t want one for a princess? I can make you that too.”
I think of the Chabel Cinderella catalog. The outfits I like are clearly for the poor version, before the fairy godmother shows up.
“Yeah, well, one might be nice, but I’d prefer a peasant doll first.”
“Well, look, as soon as we finish this, go to the closet and check in the bag of scraps, there must be something. Bring me some snaps as well, and we’ll see what we can do.”
I finish the dish of eggplant with gusto and run to dive into the mound of bits of fabric. The warmth of hope flares in my chest. If you feel like you’re running out of steam, forget about the war, Mom. Use your last breath to come and see me, no matter how ashamed you are of your wounds.
The hours drag on through our half-hearted activities. Pick jasmine. Watch the flowers open. Smell them. Water the plants. Make croquetas. Draw. Sew. Change my dolls’ clothes. Do their hair. Draw wounds on them so I can make them better again. Watch TV. Listen to the radio. Go to the supermarket. Say hi to the butcher. Talk on the phone. Slowly flip through the pages of twenty- and thirty-year-old magazine patterns that Grandma keeps on the shelf. Mark with an X all the little girls’ dresses I’d like to own, even though I know that between the fact that I’m growing up and the fact that I hardly go outside I’ll never have time to wear them. Macarena and her brother in the living-room window. Me signaling “no” to them with my finger. No, and no again.
Summer is a hot pond four months deep, but from July 20 to August 10 the immersion gets more intense, like the sun’s shining so brightly that the pond-dwelling critters dig down into the mud at the bottom, looking for shelter. Houses turn into dark caves. If I go outside, it’s usually in company, or at four in the afternoon when no one’s around, and I skulk about near Amor’s motorcycle and the windows I think are the creepiest ones. In some of the first- and second-floor apartments, the residents never raise the blinds. I guess they want to hold on to their privacy at all costs. Some of them are elderly hermits. Others just antisocial adults. I picture them fucking all day with their homes dimly lit and hope to see something, maybe a shoe lifted in the air, through an unexpected crack.
Grandma put an air-conditioning unit in the small living room last year that blasts air right into our faces when we watch TV. Our quality of life has improved a lot, in other words. In the apartment Mom and I share with Domingo it’s much worse. Being there often makes me feel like I’m floating in acid. But here, on the ground floor, the room dark and barricaded until eight thirty at night, I feel more like I’m inside a big, calm belly. When I’m nervous, my tummy hurts. To avoid this, I try to keep it entertained with plenty of food, and topics of conversation heavy enough to distract from the burning that speaks from inside my chest. I draw ferocious battles between hellish beasts. I try to make it obvious that they’re gigantic and press really hard with the red crayon. There have to be claws, blood, enormous fangs on display. The bigger and more gruesome the better. I get pretty worked up. I twist limb against limb to the point of absurdity, and then, once my technical failings put an end to that, I take out a lined Renault Clio notebook and, stabbing my pencil into the page, start to outline my own death in the jaws of a great white shark. I would see it coming, see it cutting a path through the crystal-clear water, feel the ripples a fair few seconds before it sank its teeth into my leg, turning everything red, just like in Lucía’s bathtub. Why did I have to argue when she told me about getting her period? It was a good story. Why couldn’t I let her suck on my tongue a bit? There was nothing wrong with that. Will I always stand in my own way when I want something so badly?
“Grandma, are there sharks in Marbella?”
“Well, I don’t know. I think so.”
“For real?”
“There must be. Don’t you know how deep the sea is?”
Her logic is so ironclad that I take it as fact. This means I’ve been in the water with them. I imagine them swimming beneath my feet, surrounding me like a bunch of suitors around a window with iron bars. I could give myself to them easily, since there’d be no escape anyway. It’s midnight now. Our favorite show this summer is on, a mysterious one called The Twilight Zone. The usual happens: I wouldn’t miss it for all the world, but then I have a few terrible nights after watching it. It’s not that it’s all that scary, there are even some funny moments, but the tone makes me question everything I think I understand. Lots of people come on, talking seriously about things that seem like they can’t really exist. What’s up with that? Grandma believes in the paranormal and claims she’s had two encounters with UFOs. Not one, two. She’s told these stories over and over again. The first time was right here, from the same window I’m looking out of now. In the middle of the night, the sky began changing color. Puzzled, Grandma went out into the plaza, and saw, beneath a purplish glow, a kind of gigantic Cruzcampo beer bottle sailing silently across the sky like an airship. The next time, she was driving around the countryside with Manuel, her second husband, when they were blinded by a dazzling light heading toward them at breakneck speed. When it was about to hit them and they tried to shield themselves from the blow, the light took off and vanished into thin air. For her, these stories are as true as the air she breathes is real, and she gets deeply offended if anyone dares to dispute them. Whenever we visit anywhere new, we’re always on the lookout for possible UFOs, and there are always a bunch of false alarms. I don’t know if she’s losing her marbles or trying to drive me nuts, or both. I try, but I can’t believe in aliens. It would help me a lot, I think, but I can’t make myself believe in anything.
How many possible versions of reality are there? Why is the official one so sketchy? Why are none of them convincing? When the fuck will I get to see my mom?
It’s time to go and buy the annual bottle of Gloria Vanderbilt. It’s already August, the city is deserted and burned to a crisp. Grandma gives me a tight, wet, dirty ponytail, we smear sunscreen on our noses and shoulders, and then we go out. She’s wearing pink lipstick, a lilac, Japanese-style dress, and gold earrings. We set out at around six in the evening. The heat doesn’t bother us too much, but sometimes we get an attack of thirst and almost come to blows over the water bottle she keeps in her bag. What does worry me is taking the bus with her. She loves to chat with the other passengers, but I’d usually rather have nothing to do with people. It’s too bad, really, since the trips could be nice, but they always get ruined. Today I’m in luck, there’s no one in this hot rattletrap apart from us, and the driver is clearly hostile to friendly advances, so the only sound on the ride is her voice reading off the signs as they catch her eye. She points out the houses she thinks are pretty, and the gardens and animals.
“Tixe ot orrocos,” she suddenly says. It’s “exit to Socorro” with the words read backward, just as it appears written in the window in front of us. We laugh listlessly. I wanted to wear my jelly sandals to keep me cool, but the soles are so drenched in sweat I’m afraid I’ll slip in my own shoes. When we reach the last stop and stand up, I realize the true enemy is the hellish blisters on my heels. It’s amazing how easily kids’ skin can break. I guess this means if I got cooked I’d be nice and juicy. I’ve seen a bunch of comic strips with babies getting roasted like suckling pigs, usually served up at banquets full of guys in suits. Those cartoons don’t make the prospect especially appetizing. What they tell me, in their inimitable style, is that guys in suits are not to be trusted.
When we get to the department store, I see that it’s true, that where there are lots of suits the mood is anything but relaxed. The perfume section is overwhelming. They produce the swan-shaped bottle in a matter of seconds. I try to spot Mom’s perfume behind the glass counters but it isn’t as common and I can’t find it. While Grandma pays, I go over to another assistant and quickly ask if they carry the brand. She gives me a funny look.
“And who are you with?”
“I’m with my grandma,” I answer, pointing at her. Grandma is at the register, laughing and talking about recipes for split-pea soup. How does she steer so many conversations onto the subject of soup?
“All right, come with me.”
The uniformed assistant leads me to a separate counter and takes a rectangular box out of a drawer. I read the label.
“Yes, yes, this is it! Can I smell it?”
“Well, I don’t have any samples, but you can put your nose up to the bottle if you like.”
“Yes please.”
A free sample of this smell would solve some of my problems in the short term, but this is better than nothing. I take a long, deep sniff at the gold spray pump. Grandma grabs me by the arm.
“Don’t wander off without telling me, honey, you have no idea how much it scares me.”
“It’s OK, I didn’t go far.”
The assistant smiles to show that she was on top of things.
“What are you doing, smelling your mother’s perfume?”
“Yes.”
“Oh Jesus, Lord have mercy.”
Grandma sighs sympathetically without pursuing the matter and says goodbye to the girls from the beauty department. Our next mission is my favorite: picking out a small treat for each of us. In the decor section, she finds a pair of ceramic brown owls, one dancing and the other singing, and pictures them on the TV stand at home. I adjust mentally to my limited budget of a thousand pesetas, give up the idea of the perfume bottle, and melt at the sight of a pink Hello Kitty pencil case with an eraser and pencil sharpener that pop out at the press of a button.
As we wait for the bus home, I peek inside the green-black-and-white plastic bag and look over what’s inside.
“Hey, Grandma.”
“What.”
“Where are the owls?”
“Oh, fuck!”
She opens her purse and takes them out. She stowed them there on her way to the stationery department because she was tired and thought she might drop them. She asked me to remind her before we went up to pay, but I forgot.
“Does that mean we stole them?”
“Well, it was an accident, but yes.”
“How much were they?”
I take one and look at the price tag under its claws. Five hundred and ninety-five pesetas. For two. We piss ourselves laughing on the bus, which is just as empty as the last one. August has its consolations. The neighborhood is quiet until night falls. I water the patio plants while all kinds of land and sea creatures stalk me, and inspect my Hello Kitty pencil case at the table, marveling at the beauty of all its details. The jasmine has opened on the two nightstands. We’ve just had dinner. We’re getting undressed in the bedroom. While she puts on her white polka-dot nightie, I run to the little TV and flip through the channels, looking for something new and interesting.
“There’s a good movie on at eleven.”
We don’t usually agree on what makes a good movie good, but sometimes one comes along whose qualities are obvious to us both. Here it is. It’s from a decade that usually sucks, but in this case everything’s beautiful, magical, and profoundly disturbing. We take the plot very seriously. The main character is a girl called Carrie and her nun-like beauty gives me a knot in my stomach that won’t stop twisting. Everyone shuns this poor angelic girl, and she ends up dead. I don’t want to be the neighborhood Carrie. Grandma is outraged by how she’s treated, since she’s just as pretty as the other girls and knows how to make her own clothes. I have a distressing realization that even the fantasy part of this story is more realistic than Saved by the Bell. Saved by the Bell is the future I want for myself. I’d like to be something like Jessie. Though it’s also distressing not to have telekinetic powers. It would be so handy to be able to move things just by thinking about them. At least then I’d be brave enough to sing and dance in public. Grandma and I laugh and shriek at the scary ending, and it’s like the tension around us has all dissolved. Grandma goes to sleep. I get up and tiptoe into the living room. I look at the cabinets, both full of exotic glasses. My favorites are the brightly colored highball glasses. I try to move them with my stare. Nothing happens. I wish I could’ve used them, for some birthday party maybe, but Grandma never lets anyone touch them, she cherishes them and doesn’t want them to get broken. I guess for her it means keeping the good times with her, the times she spent with her second husband, who she apparently never fought with. Mom, on the other hand, does remember a few fights, and she mentions them with the same rage in her voice as she does those cops in gray uniforms – the really old-school, dangerous ones who gave her a beating once at a protest she’d joined to call for a world that was more fun and less of a total drag. I go to the bathroom, open the cabinet doors, take out all the cosmetics, and scatter them around the sink. I mix them all up in the lid of the never-ending conditioner tub, trying to formulate a particular recipe, but all I know about chemistry is that scientists always look really focused. I put on an earnest face with this in mind and blend some nail polish remover with a smear of Manuel’s ancient hair-growth treatment, adding a few drops of baby cologne and a few more of Gloria Vanderbilt. I hold the concoction up to my nose, hoping to get a whiff of Mom’s distant essence, but I’m disappointed. A loud snore takes me by surprise, and I imagine Carrie melting the bars on the window and floating effortlessly into the living room. I pick up the debris from my failed experiment and go back to bed scared stiff. I cuddle up to the polka-dot nightie.
I’ve got plenty of other credentials, but no gift whatsoever for telekinesis. Still, please, Lord, don’t let me end up like Carrie.
I wake up the next morning alone in the double bed. There’s no one at home. I turn on the TV. I’m pretty depressed it’s so late – I’ve missed all the cartoons. They’re repeating last night’s variety show, because it’s Sunday. Rocío Jurado and Raphael are belting out “Como yo te amo” at the top of their lungs. I’m bawling in no time at all. I stay glued to the screen, tears streaming down my cheeks, until Grandma walks by the window and I wipe my face with my arms, stifling a sob.
“Goodness, we’ve got a loony in pajamas on our hands!” she cries.
“Hi!”
“A little bird told me you’re going to stuff yourself with chicken wings for breakfast.”
“Ooh, lucky me.”
I lean back in the chair and let out a sigh I didn’t know I had pent up inside me. Grandma to the rescue once again. She rushes over to the TV, butcher’s bag in one hand, and raises a finger to stab at the screen:
“See how pretty Rocío Jurado is with those nice boobs.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a looker, that hairdo is really something. Did she sing ‘Señora’?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“‘Señora’ is my favorite, but I like this one too. Look, it gives me goosebumps.”
“Me too.”
“Really? I thought you were more like your mother, a rock ’n’ roll girl.”
“Mom likes lots of things. She likes Rocío Jurado too. And Marifé de Triana.”
“How should I know what your mother likes, she hasn’t got an ounce of shame.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing, honey, it’s OK, your mother is very good at lots of things and she’s crazy about you. Let’s see if she calls.”
She gives me a kiss on the head. The hole in my chest opens up again but I fill it with chicken wings. After we eat the phone rings. Grandma looks at me, raising her eyebrows in hope, letting me know it must be for me. I pick up. It’s Mom.
“Marina!”
“Hi Mom, how are you today?”
“I have good news!”
“What?”
“I just picked up some test results from the hospital and they say I’m better.”
“For real?”
“Yes, sweetie. Hats off to my doctor, that clever bastard, and his fucking mother too.”
“Hats off!”
“And we’re moving to a new neighborhood.”
“What?”
“That’s right.”
“Which neighborhood?”
“One with lots of swimming pools.”
“For real? Are we going to have a pool?”
“Yes.”
“And then what? Where am I going to school?”
“There’s one nearby, I just called and they told me when to send the forms.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow and take you to see it, sound good?”
“Of course! But Mom?”
“What.”
“I don’t know, tell me more.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“I don’t know, more. Like what’s going to happen and stuff.”
“But I’m telling you everything as soon as I find it out.”
“But I’m talking about if the treatment’s going to make you better.”
“Oh, sweetie, there’s no cure for what I have, but as long as my body doesn’t give out we’re going to move somewhere with a communal pool, what do you say?”
My laugh holds so many feelings that it’s more like a stammering croak.
“Communal like the ones in hotels?”
“Yes, the residents get in with a card.”
“And will we have cards?”
“Of course.”
“With photos?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll probably never get around to putting the photos on them. But I’d rather you die somewhere with a pool.”
Now she’s the one laughing with a kind of grunt – dark, bitter, joyful.
“What about the nuns?”
“Don’t worry, they told me you can do your communion along the way if you need to.”
“OK, all right. But couldn’t I have gotten baptized along the way too?”
“You don’t understand what a big deal baptism is for those people.”
“It sucked, I was so embarrassed.”
“But it only took a minute.”
“Mom, I don’t want to do communion, OK?”
“I know, I know.”
“They make kids drink wine, Mom.”
“You’re so scared of wine, it’s really something.”
“So, are you coming tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Around what time?”
“I don’t know, I’ll be in touch.”
I say goodbye, bewildered but happy, and replace the receiver. Don’t the grown-ups realize what they’re doing to their kids when they hit us with these sudden twists and turns, like it’s no big deal? I let myself fall butt first over the arm of the old green chair and land in the seat. I pick up Canica and we lounge in the afternoon sun. Felipe is sprawled out near the phone watching the canary, which won’t stop chirping. Grandma hangs the cage closer to the ceiling every day. I look over at Cristina’s grandma’s balcony. This is where the gifts were when my dad came in dressed up as Balthazar with his friends. Mom looked like a little girl back then. She calls again at ten in the evening. She says she’ll come for me tomorrow at noon. I’d rather not get used to the idea, just in case. I’d rather go to sleep without counting on it.
Mom is supposedly on her way, and I want to savor the realness of her arrival, revel in every step she takes across the distance between us, so I sit in the entryway. I wanted to put on my Minnie Mouse pinafore but there’s still a patch of runny poop on it, so I’m taking another chance on the palm-tree skirt, and a T-shirt with Goku and Vegeta posing on another planet. I’ve brushed my teeth and washed my face. I’ve been sitting alone in the entryway quite a while, leaning on the aluminum railings, opening and closing the gate that leads to the faucet across from the steps. I used to hide things in this dark and greasy hole when I was little. Some of them I forgot about, and they got lost. Others got dirty, which made me sad. Back then I could lift the gate with my finger, but now I have to use a little stick. The heat starts pressing in again. Something moving across the street catches my attention. It’s Mom, walking alone in the dazzling orange light. She’s wearing a black miniskirt, a floral vest, flat shoes, sunglasses, and carrying a purse. She takes off the glasses once she’s closer. I get up, holding inside the tangle of feelings assaulting me all at once, and give her a hug. I don’t know what to say, and what comes out is cold and shallow.
“Hi Mom, you look really pretty.”
“Hi, Marina! So do you. Is Grandma here?”
“Yeah, in the kitchen.”
“I’ll say hi and then we can go on our outing, all right?”
“OK.”
We head to the car hand in hand. Now we’re waiting for the traffic light to change.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve fought with anyone,” she says, out of nowhere.
“Well, if you do, make sure it’s when I’m not around.”
“No, silly, I just said I haven’t done it in a long time.”
“Yeah, right.”
She laughs and shoots a defiant look at the next driver over. It makes me kind of happy since it means she’s getting her strength back, but the last thing I feel like today is dragging a stranger into a scuffle.
“Mom, so, about you being sick, what’s going on? Tell me more.”
“What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“Well, I’ve got more problems than a math textbook, as usual. But listen. As long as I last, we’ll try and live a normal life, all right?”
“OK.”
“I mean, what else should we do?”
“How should I know? That, I guess. What you just said.”
“Well, of course. And things could be worse, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Don’t worry, if it gets any worse I’ll tell you.”
“But you have to tell me, OK?”
“Yes.”
Bringing up these worries has stamped out her appetite for trouble, at least for a while. We’ve managed to avoid the usual scene where she ends up yelling at someone that they’re an asshole and can go fuck themselves while I hang around sighing and trying to look polite. I understand that this is her way of letting off steam, whereas mine is to stay stock-still and weather the storm. In any case I don’t think she’d want to upset me like that, no matter how nervous she is today. We take a wide, dry road that I’ve never seen before. Mom talks about the virtues of the new place, trying to convince me, so I don’t worry and even get excited about it. We drive by without getting out of the car. It’s scorched, flat, and colorful, an oasis of yellow and orange in the middle of a desert of empty lots. It doesn’t look bad. Mom points at a dumpster.
“Hey, sweetie, look at that great little coffee table.”
I agree. We pick it up together, put it in the car, and go back to eat stuffed peppers with Grandma. I admit that I love hauling things out of the trash with Mom. At the traffic lights she beams at me from behind the wheel. Are we really going to live in that place? I’m so happy that I wonder if it’s all just a ploy to get me on board with moving. I’ve gotten much gloomier from being so tense for so long, and now I’m almost mad that it was all for nothing – at least an unhappy ending would’ve made this dismal summer seem like it had more of a point. But I don’t want to get my hopes up either. Happy endings are never permanent around here. I never know how long any situation’s going to last, and I learned when we went to live with Domingo that what you expect isn’t necessarily what’s going to happen. I was only six. I’d gotten used to the idea of Domingo being Mom’s boyfriend, but I thought it was just me and Mom, just the two of us, who were going to live together. I don’t know, I guess I just got confused, you never really know what’s going on at that age, and when we got to the new apartment and there he was, waiting for us, it was like finding a meal you don’t really like when you get home from school. I understood late, and all at once, and I couldn’t even make it feel bad or unfair. It was better for Mom, so it would be better for both of us. And he’s definitely my favorite of all of the men of hers that I’ve met. There were better-looking, richer ones, including my dad. But what makes Domingo so special is that he’s the only one who’s treated me like a person. He knows me. He likes me. It’s such a relief.
“You’re not like other kids, Marina. People say you’re uptight and fussy, but you’re also pretty delightful.”
“Mom!”
“Don’t get all worked up. Listen, OK? I’m telling you something good.”
I listen.
“What I want you to know is, I realize I’m always getting you into sticky situations, and then I try to protect you from the fallout, but it’s impossible.”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t tell you everything. I wish I could, but it’s just not going to happen.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“It’s tough hiding things from you, sweetie. You’ve got no idea how careful I have to be. Especially when you pay so much attention to everything.”
“Sure. I get it.”
“For example, you understand that it’s better for Grandma not to know she has a nephew in prison, right?”
“Of course.”
“And I trust you because I know you’d never snitch. There’d be no point anyway, we’d only upset the poor woman. Not everyone is ready for prison stories. You? You’re good with prison stories, but disease stuff, maybe not yet. But Grandma’s great at disease stories. I’ll bet Grandma hasn’t gotten you worried at all over the summer, has she?”
“No.”
“See? So, enough of that. Tell me, what have you been up to?”
“But we’ve talked a million times, Mom. Don’t make me tell you again.”
“Have you been going to bed really late?”
“No.”
“I’ll bet you stayed up watching TV until three a bunch of times.”
“No way! Two at the latest.”
It was an effective speech. I can’t really argue with her. For my part, I know she has nothing to gain from hearing how many nights I’ve been up till five in the morning – how many times I’ve watched the sun rise this summer, my heart in my mouth. Not everyone can process just any kind of information. You have to feed it in bit by bit, so the machine won’t get jammed.
As we eat dinner and I try to take in the new plan, Mary Santpere appears on TV. She fell asleep on a plane last year and never woke up. Grandma says she thinks that’s a wonderful way to die. Domingo often tells the story of how his grandma had a good death, watching TV in an armchair. I wonder what that would be like. You fall asleep and it’s all over. From one darkness to another. So calm, so dignified, so peaceful.