MARY SAT AT the usual table waiting for Diego to walk through the door of Sol’s Barbecue. He had never been late before, and she was uncomfortable sitting alone in a public place. She was afraid Diego would not show up—leave her sitting alone. They would ask her to leave—she knew it. Maybe no one would notice her. But people had always noticed her. “I was pretty and men liked pretty—and women liked pretty, too. Crazy—crazy isn’t pretty. I’m better, really I’m better.” She looked down at herself. “Maybe I’m better, but I’ll never be pretty again,” she whispered. She looked around the room nervously and distracted herself by playing with her newly painted nails. The lavender of the hard nail polish looked purple against her pale skin. She smiled at her hands as she stretched them out in front of her. She snapped her fingers and giggled. She looked up and watched Diego as he skipped through the door, and noticed the lightness of his footsteps. As he waved, her fear disappeared. “Johnny—hey honey,” she said, “see my nails! Ain’t they somethin’?”
Diego nodded at her. He wanted to reassure her because she seemed to always need to be reassured. He kept smiling at her almost stiffly. He had a large box in his hands tied with a huge pink ribbon. He placed it on the table in front of her and smirked.
Mary looked at the box and pretended a casual interest. Diego said nothing, but played with the pink ribbon. Finally, she was unable to keep her silence. “That’s an awful big box, Johnny.”
“Want to know what’s in it?” His hands skipped happily as he wrote.
“I figured if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me. Ain’t that right? My mama said men don’t care for women who want to know too much.”
He moved the box toward her side of the table. “For you,” he wrote in capital letters.
“Oh!” She took a deep breath like an actress in a play, the whole restaurant hearing her breathy exclamation. “Ain’t that somethin’.” She looked at the box and then looked at Diego. “You’re so good to Mary! How come you’re so good, huh, honey?”
Diego shrugged his shoulders. “Tomorrow’s Easter,” he wrote. “I thought you should have something special. Go ahead and open it.”
She looked at the box again. “What a pretty pink ribbon. I just love pink, Johnny, pink reminds me of the songs birds sing—I’ve always thought that.” She stopped talking and looked around the room nervously. “Ain’t that silly?” She undid the ribbon slowly. Her eyes opened wide and her hands trembled.
Diego kept his eyes on her face.
Mary finished unwrapping the box clumsily. She tried to remember the last time anyone had given her a gift. “Do you like it, Mommy? Do you really, really like it?” “I love it, my angel, the most beautiful dress ever made—and you bought this for me—all by yourself?” “Daddy helped. Daddy helped …” She could feel she was going to cry. Just don’t cry, just don’t. She took the lid off the box. Just keep acting, just say words. She sat motionless for an instant, staring at the contents of the box. “Oh! My word, Johnny! If that ain’t the most gorgeous thing I ever saw. Oh! My sweetest Lord, ain’t that nice? Oh, sugar, you shouldn’t have.”
“Do you really like it?” Diego wrote.
“Oh, Johnny, I love it. I adore it! You are absolutely the kindest man I ever met.” She kept staring inside the box. “I just can’t believe it.” She put her hand on her chest as the tears ran down her face.
“Don’t cry, Mary,” he wrote.
She wiped her tears with a paper napkin and looked at Diego’s note. “I’m sorry, honey, it’s just that I’m a damn fool sometimes. Ain’t it just like a woman to spoil everything with tears? Ain’t it though?”
“Tears are nice,” he wrote, “like rain.”
She shook her head gently as she read the note. “Johnny, you’re sweet—you’re so, so sweet.” She folded up his note with her lavender fingernails.
“Don’t you want to model it for me?”
She reached over and gave Diego a kiss on the cheek. She smiled and took the white, wide-brimmed hat out of the box. Little yellow flowers were sewn into the borders and a wide yellow ribbon adorned it. She combed her hair back and put the hat on, tilting it to one side. She stretched her arms out as wide as she could. “How do I look?” Mary placed a finger under her chin. Diego stared at her painted nails. “I knew I should have painted my nails yellow—I just knew it.”
Diego smiled. “Purple’s fine.”
“You really think so?”
Diego nodded.
“You know somethin’, honey? I ain’t had a hat like this since I was a little girl. My mama used to buy one for me every Easter, and she used to take me to church, and I’d sit and stare at my white shoes and roll my white socks up and down—up and down—and I was so happy, Johnny. Life is good to children, ain’t it, sugar?”
Diego nodded. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t true, wasn’t true at all. “You want to go to church with me tomorrow?”
Mary stared at his written question. “Which church you go to, Johnny?”
“Usually Sacred Heart, but sometimes the cathedral.”
“Oh, I like that one,” she said, “all them windows. It reminds me of a garden—like I died and went to heaven.”
“You want to go with me? We can go to church there if you want?”
She thought a minute. “Well, honey, I ain’t never been to one of those church services before.”
“You’ve never been to a Mass?”
She nodded, “I ain’t Catholic.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
She tilted her hat to the right, then to the left, “I guess you’re right, a church is a church, ain’t it? And I sure would like to wear my hat to church—it being Easter Sunday and all.”
“I’ll meet you at the plaza. We can walk from there, OK?”
“Oh! Yes, Johnny! That would be so lovely,” She placed her hands on her cheeks; her worn face blushed; she looked down at the skirt she was wearing. A new hat and no nice clothes, she thought, they’ll look at me, they’ll all look at me. Everyone’s always staring at us. Can’t take it, anymore, goddamnit! Get yourself to a place where no one will have to see you. You’re always causing a scene—just get the fuck out of my life … She looked down at her bag, and was immediately lost in a thought.
“Something wrong?”
She stared at Diego’s note and then his eyes. “Johnny, honey, Mary’s got to get busy.” She leaned over and kissed him again. “Mary’s got to run.” She took her hat off and placed it carefully in the box. “It’s a treasure, Johnny.” She smiled at him.
“Where are you going? We haven’t had lunch yet.”
“Mary’s got to go find something to wear,” She took some crackers off the table, placed the hat back in the box, and rushed out the door. Diego shook his head and laughed. She came rushing back in, breathless, and asked, “I nearly forgot, sugar, what time do I meet you at the park tomorrow?”
“Ten o’clock?” he wrote. She took the note and put it down her blouse.
“Tomorrow at ten. Mary’s gonna look fine, sugar. Sun’s gonna shine for Mary.”
Diego winked at her. She winked back as she hurried out into the city.
Diego got up from the table and headed toward the shops on Stanton Street. He thought maybe he’d buy himself a new shirt. Maybe even a tie. He thought about what Mundo had told him about his clothes. He walked into some shops and finally decided to buy a yellow shirt and a gray tie. He tried on the shirt and looked in a mirror. The color looked good on him, he thought. He nodded—and kept nodding. Mary would like it—even Luz would like it. Maybe he should get a hat, too. He looked at all the hats they had, trying them on, one after another—a black one, a white one, a gray one. The hats made him look like a little boy playing dress-up. He remembered the hats the men used to wear when his mother took him to church. The men would take off their hats, make the sign of the cross, and hold them over their hearts. He had thought at the time that they looked very holy. He decided to buy an imitation gray fedora. He looked in the mirror and smiled to himself. “If that doesn’t get me some good stares,” he said to himself, “then nothing will. It would be nice to be looked at.”
When Mary arrived back at her apartment, she frantically looked through her closets for the right dress. Finally, she found one—yellow with printed white flowers. She tried to shake the wrinkles out of it. She looked in the mirror as she placed the dress in front of her. She wondered if Diego would like it. He was a kind man, and he would say he liked it even if he didn’t. She imagined herself standing in front of him, and him reaching over and kissing her. His kisses would be soft. He would not know what to do, but she would show him. She felt as if she had come back from a long journey. I don’t want to be me anymore. I don’t need— She noticed a man standing in her doorway.
“Put it on,” he said.
She stared up at the voice. She knew who he was. She had noticed him watching her on the street, staring, staring.
He moved closer to her. “Put the goddamned dress on,” he said.
She froze. She had never heard him use that tone.
“I’ll scream,” she said.
“I’ll kill you if you do.”
She felt herself slipping away as she took her off her clothes. She felt the feel of the dress she had found just for Diego on her skin. She felt hands push up the dress. “Diego,” she whispered as the man entered her, “Diego tell me it’s you, tell me …”