(Call to me stones of the field) is a popular Mexican song originally written and recorded by Cuco Sánchez in 1956. “Speak to me hills and valleys / Call to me stones of the field / When have you seen someone love as I’m loving? / When have you seen someone cry as I’m crying / Die as I’m dying.”
closeoneThat first euphoric swirl
that blossomed between her thighs shook her bony, nine-year-old body as she watched an old episode of Tarzan on TV.
Wearing a loincloth, toasted by the sun, with eyes as green as the jungle and skin oily with tropical sweat, Tarzan had fallen into a thick swamp. His naked torso writhed in his efforts to escape drowning, and his arms flapped like the wings of a pterodactyl.
Lucía didn’t know what came over her. Tremors shook her from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair. It was a different thrill from the one on the slide or the seesaw, and she knew she could not tell anyone about it. She spent many afternoons scouring reruns, but the swamp episode never aired again. It was as if the gentlemen in charge of programming had censored it for her own good. She recreated the scene over and over in her imagination, but only achieved a faint imitation of the thrill.
She lost her virginity nine years later outside her nation’s borders, when she spent a year at a finishing school for young women in Montreux, Switzerland. The school’s motto was “Initiative. Imagination. Independence.” She had gone out with her friends to a bar in the small town. The lounge was decorated like a science lab, with white tiled floors and a bar made of frosted glass. Bartenders in white coats poured flavored martinis into test tubes.
Sprawled on a black leather couch, Lucía and Ximena, her best friend, chain smoked and drank Bellinis as they marveled at the efficiency, cleanliness, punctuality, and modernity of the Swiss. They stood up to dance with some of their classmates, because dancing with other women was normal in Europe. The lights in synch with the beat made everything turn orange, red, or purple. The effect was baffling, as if she were transported to a new spot every time she blinked.
A tall young man with thin lips was leaning against the bar, watching Lucía dance. She stared back at him, a flush spreading across her cheeks. In one feline movement, he strode across the room and stood beside her. His dark, slanted eyes smiled. He introduced himself as Enzo and explained in English that he was from Turin and was there for a master’s degree in economics. The moment he heard a slow song, he took her by the waist and started to oscillate with the fluidity of a metronome. He smelled like booze. She struggled to rest her head in the nook between his chest and his armpit, because she couldn’t reach his shoulder. She felt like she was made of strands of Oaxaca string cheese. The moment the music picked up; Enzo led her off the dance floor.
“Put on your coat and let’s go,” he ordered.
“Where?” said Lucía.
“To my place.”
“Why don’t we go out to get some air?” said Lucía.
“In this cold?”
Lucía and Ximena had a tacit agreement to encourage each other’s conquests. Ximena complied without a second thought. She went to join the ‘nuns’ that were gossiping on another couch, criticizing Lucía.
Enzo and Lucía pushed themselves against the February winds to reach the tram stop. Under the white light of the tram, Enzo seemed a bit lugubrious. He was not as handsome as the loud and gesticulating Italian youths she had seen on the streets of Rome when she and her friends went to mass at St. Peter’s. One of those Italians had given her a loud smooch right in her ear halfway up the Spanish Steps.
Lucía comforted herself imagining that they would just chat in the living room. Enzo would kiss her. They would make out cozily by candlelight. He would take her back to the dorm, and that would be that.
But that wasn’t that. There was no living room. Enzo guided her to his bedroom. A Buddha smiled placidly on a shelf above a mattress laid directly on the wooden floor, its sheets in disarray. Enzo lit a candle and played an unpredictable saxophone tune on the stereo. He laid Lucía down on the mattress. He took off his shirt. His torso, creamy like the marbles at the Vatican, was sprinkled with a constellation of moles. Lucía kissed him around the nipples and on the collarbone. He unbuttoned her blouse and undid her bra. He whipped his belt loose and got naked with the same economy of movement he had displayed all night. Terrified, Lucía peeked at his thick, hard, red penis. She had never seen one up close. Enzo undressed her.
“May I?” he asked.
“No,” she answered.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a virgin.”
He smiled for the second time that night. He rummaged with his hand beneath a pillow, took out a condom, tore the wrapper, and put it on.
Lucía crossed herself mentally. This is it. There’s no going back. Que Dios te agarre confesada—May God have mercy on your soul.
Enzo opened her legs with his and tried to get inside her. Lucía screamed.
“Relax. It will only hurt more if you don’t.”
Lucía closed her legs and squeezed her narrow vagina, trying to keep him out. He burrowed in. She covered his panting with a howl. He silenced her with a heavy, salty hand over her mouth.
Lucía became very docile and tried to breathe like the sweaty women she had seen in labor in the movies. She prayed he’d finish soon. She could not arouse the slightest hint of pleasure, never mind orgasm. To her surprise, he came in a heartbeat compared to the eternity it took him to get there. She breathed with relief when he got off her. A strange emotion pierced her body. She shed two silent tears. Enzo got up and she stayed in bed, in shock, while her organs rearranged themselves beneath the sheets. He came back with two glasses of a transparent liquid that smelled like oranges.
“Congratulations,” he toasted. “I like you because you didn’t cry.”
The sweet and bitter liqueur relaxed her, but as she got up to use the bathroom, she saw the bloodstained sheets. She had imagined that the rupture of her hymen would reveal itself as a little red dot. This looked like a homicide.
She remembered the grotesque words of Sister Márgara, the Prefect of Discipline of her high school, a nun with a face like a rancid olive: “You can’t copulate during menstruation for the simple reason that men smell the blood, like the stallions smell the mares, and the bulls smell the heifers, and the dogs smell the bitches.” That is what the nun said to quell the rumor that ran through the school about not being able to get pregnant if you did it during your period. Imagine the Sister’s face if she saw her now.
“Don’t worry, they can be washed,” Enzo said, bundling up the sheets.
In the bathroom, more blood mixed with other liquids poured out of her. She felt like peeing but couldn’t. Her inner thighs were smeared with dried blood. She wet toilet paper in lukewarm water and cleaned herself up, unable to stop shaking. She came back to bed and laid next to Enzo, who was already snoring. Lucía gazed at his massive shoulders and put her hand on his back, but it felt like a fake gesture, so she took it back. She felt proud and ashamed, happy, and lost, liberated and anguished. Her thoughts fluttered like moths around a flame. The first one she caught was very simple: “Such a big deal... over this?” Despite the pain and the fright, it seemed to her the most natural thing, like the birth of a calf she had once witnessed at a farm. It didn’t seem so sinful. “I’m sure they all fuck, but they don’t talk about it,” she thought.
The heavens did not part and the wrath of God did not descend upon the face of the earth. Lightning did not cleave her in two, the earth did not swallow her, and when Sister Márgara’s ghost appeared to condemn her, Lucía obliterated it with a sigh. “No means no” was a phrase that did not occur to her until several years later, when she found herself in a similar, but much less ambiguous, situation.
Her mother had warned her more than once that men only wanted one thing and that once they got it, they lost respect for you, and that she and her father expected her to be a virgin on her wedding day. She also told her that the first time for a woman was sheer torture and anyone who believed otherwise was an idiot. Thanks to those little pearls of wisdom, Lucía knew not to expect much. It was because of her mother that her first time had not been the biggest letdown of her life. She thought that if the nuns at school would have warned them about how much it hurt, perhaps fewer girls would have gone for it. But what did the creepy nuns know about this bizarre glory?
She wanted to take a shower, but she was embarrassed to wake Enzo up and ask him for a towel. She got dressed quietly and when she opened the door to leave the room, it creaked and woke him.
“Where are you going?” he mumbled.
“To the boarding school. I’ll call a cab.”
“It’s almost five a.m. Stay.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“I have to sleep in the dorm.”
Enzo could not believe her childishness. What is the etiquette for a situation like this? She had been taught not to put her elbows on the dinner table, to say please, excuse me, and thank you, but they hadn’t told her what to say to the guy who pops your cherry and wants you to wake up next to him on his mattress on the floor. She felt an urgent need to get to her room, put on her pajamas and go to bed, praying that the headmistress would not be waiting for her, and that Ximena would be asleep. The shower would have to wait. Enzo called her a cab.
“Ciao,” he said, standing at the door naked. He gave her a minuscule peck on the lips.
“Thanks for everything,” she said.
She pressed her forehead to the icy cab window and watched the town go by. She felt like everything around her was more intense. The fog of dawn. The chemical breath of the car’s heating system. The driver’s abetting silence. She would have liked to shout her news to the four winds and wake up the entire town: “I have passed the trial by fire. I am not the same as before. Grítenme, piedras del campo”.
She got out of the cab distracted but alert at the same time. The porter, a mustachioed and temperamental Turk, eyed her suspiciously. The school’s administration had decided that it was preferable for the girls to come in and out the main door instead of sneaking out of the windows after hours and breaking their ankles and shoulders. When she arrived at the gate, Lucía’s fist unfurled, revealing 10 Swiss Francs. The porter let her in.
She put on her long flannel nightie in the dark, hid the incriminating panties under the mattress, and got into bed.
“Where were you? What happened?” Ximena whispered.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Lucía answered. For now, she had no words.
“Are you okay?” asked Ximena.
“I’m perfect. Goodnight, Xim.”
A moment later, little birds announced a new day.
twoGabriel lifted a cardboard box
tied with a string and slung his backpack on his shoulder. Those two bundles contained all his belongings. His legs unfolded like an accordion, stiff from being constrained for so many hours on the bus. Even though it was only 8 am, hordes of people swarmed at the gates to pick up their relatives, blocking those like Gabriel, who didn’t have a welcoming committee. Female echoes announced unintelligible departures from the loudspeakers. A deafening cacophony of strident cumbias and norteña music pierced his temples.
He walked out of the station and made his way through the stalls of raw meat piled on mounds of spring onions and cilantro surrounded by flies, fruit smoothie stands, tamale stands, and others with the same “Made in Taiwan” plastic junk he had seen in New York’s Chinatown. The smells of street food stirred his appetite, and he ordered some tlacoyos. They tasted like heaven.
He tried to get through the narrow sidewalks teeming with people, next to which rapids of dirty water transported iridescent bubbles of soap, grease, and spittle. Geological layers of ancestral and newly originated dust, of toxic gases and pulverized excrement saturated his lungs. He had almost forgotten the unholy noise of the boomboxes, the honking cars, the insistent chimes of the videogames, and the shouts of the street vendors.
Welcome to fucking Mexico City, he thought.
He changed minibuses three times and walked the dusty streets of his neighborhood, strewn with garbage and adorned by graffitied walls. The evidence of three years of Western Union wires rose in front of him with less dignity than he had expected. The old shack of corrugated metal had become a cement and brick cube painted sky blue, with a white metal door and a little window trapped behind rusted iron bars.
He knocked on the door. He heard the tired slippers of Irma, his mother, drag on the floor. Her voice asked, “Who is it?” with her usual distrust.
“Gabriel.”
When she opened the door, a swift emotion crossed his mother’s dry gaze. She hugged and kissed him and then inspected him from head to toe.
“Look at these rags you are wearing, hijo. Your pants are dropping.”
“It’s the fashion, mamá.”
She bit her lip to hide a disbelieving smile. Gabriel was still thin, but his shoulders had broadened, and now instead of those two straws with which he could barely lift a papaya, his arms were thick with muscle. His face had sharpened. Something in his eyes had hardened.
“What’s that on your ear?” she asked.
“An earring,” he answered. “So what?”
He put his luggage on the cement floor and sat down on a chair. A bare, dangling lightbulb was the only source of light. Gabriel had to touch his hands to his temples to see if he was still wearing his sunglasses. The cold, dark house made him feel uneasy.
“I sent you a shitload of money. ¿Qué pasó? ” he asked his mom.
“Not that much money. You just arrive from Gringoland dressed like a clown and you think you have the right to talk to me like that, canijo escuincle. If you are going to shack up here, don’t whine.”
“Don’t worry, jefa. Tomorrow, I’ll look for my dad to see if he can get me a job. My aunt told me he works as a driver in Las Lomas.”
“He’s not going to get you anything. He hasn’t shown his face or one single cent for fifteen years.”
“Carajo, I arrive after three years of shit in the United States, and you don’t even ask me how I’m doing. You think I came back because I wanted to?”
In all her life, Irma had never heard him say so many words. She didn’t remember exactly when his voice had changed, but the sounds she had committed to memory were those of a screechy teenager. His rich, mature tone surprised her.
“I almost got beat to death. And on top of everything, I got deported. Pero te vale madres—You don’t give a shit.”
Irma did not answer. They had replaced him with another boy, this was an impostor.
Gabriel clung to the metal tube as the minibus jolted up Paseo de la Reforma, pushing him against the bodies pressed around him. The drivers thrust their cars at the passersby, blaring their horns hysterically. The sky was the color of a plucked chicken. His eyes burned and his nose itched, and everything smelled of dust, rust, and sewer. He felt as if a molcajete stone was bouncing inside his head.
He got off the minibus at one of the stops. He walked under the shade of the trees on the boulevard’s median. Here there was greenery. Here, pansies were planted along the pavement like spectators at a parade. He had to run to cross the street in front of the cars that careened down the wide avenue, walled with mansions, as if they were in a Formula One race.
He stopped in front of a wrought iron fence wrapped around a garden sprinkled with isles of roses and perfectly symmetrical shrubbery.
The grand old house looked like a castle. It even had a turret, decorated with a long, stained-glass window with hummingbirds fluttering around immense tulips. Big fat clouds of pink sandstone framed the windows. Three cars glittered in the garage. A surveillance camera and a security stand guarded the door. Gabriel swallowed and rang the bell.
A young woman’s voice chirped through the intercom.
“Who is it?”
“Is Señor Mendoza here?”
“There is no one here by that name.”
“Excuse me.”
Gabriel looked again at the address scribbled on a piece of paper. Reforma 2347. He rang again.
“Who is it?”
“Excuse me, señorita, but I was told that Señor Agustín Mendoza works as a driver in this house.”
The static burp of the intercom answered back.
“Let me see. Please hold on a second. Who is calling?”
“His son Gabriel.”
Gabriel waited at the door for a long time. His stomach cramped. The door opened a sliver. His father was grayer, paunchier, and more wrinkled, although his sour expression was intact. Gabriel recognized it from the only faded photo that his mom had kept, taken in the Alameda Park. It took Agustín a few seconds to recognize in that young man the skinny tyke he had not seen since then.
“How did you find me?”
“My aunt gave me the address.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be in the United States?”
“I’m here now.”
“Why would you come here without letting me know?”
“Necesito chamba—I need a job. Do you know of anything?”
“How am I supposed to know, like this, all of a sudden?”
“Well then, see you later.”
Gabriel started walking, feeling like an idiot for having allowed himself the fantasy—as he waited for his deportation, handcuffed to the ICE van, in the cell at the detention center, at the courthouse, on the plane to San Diego, in the Flecha Amarilla bus to the capital— that his dad would recognize him immediately and would give him a long, tight hug, ruing the day he abandoned him, proud to see him a grown man.
His father ran after him, offering him a couple of crumpled bills he took out of his pocket, but Gabriel turned his back on him and walked away. He waited for a minibus and went back to his mother’s house in San Gregorio Tepehualco.
ThreeLucía whiled the time away,
watching herself puff on a cigarette in the mirror across the living room, which was fogged by a thick cloud of smoke. The guests smoked while they danced, yelled over the music, and drank. The room was decorated with little Mexican flags stuck in plasticine balls inside ashtrays. Green, white, and red paper chains hung over the Fleur de Lis wallpaper.
A tall and pasty drunk, with a reddened face, swollen eyes, and stiff black hair thick with gel crumpled on the sofa next to Lucía and tried to hug her.
“You haven’t been here half an hour and look at you, Luis. You’re plastered.”
“I just came from another party.”
“You’re always wasted. Quítate! ”
Luis laughed and whispered something in her ear. His hands slid all over her legs. She elbowed him hard.
“Pinche alcohólico—Fucking drunk,” she muttered under her breath.
“You are way too wasted, maestro,” interceded an anonymous gentleman with square glasses and an intellectual air. “Go get some fresh air.”
“Finally, someone with class,” said Lucía.
Luis would have liked to defend his manhood, but that required too much effort. He cursed them quietly and stumbled towards the other end of the room.
“Are you okay?” asked the intercessor.
“Yes, thanks. He’s a pain.”
“Ricardo Mestre.”
“Lucía Orozco.”
“Oh, I see. I didn’t know that Adolfo had such a gorgeous sister. And a master of martial arts. . .”
“Come with me to the kitchen,” she ordered, extending her hand so he could lift her off the sofa.
Ricardo followed her. In the kitchen, two young maids, a cook, and a middle-aged servant were replenishing trays, organizing cases of booze, and preparing food. Lucía opened the double doors of the fridge and looked inside.
“Run to the supermarket, Agustín, and bring more beers and more ice. Ask Adolfo for money. Don’t take too long.”
“Yes, señorita.”
“Zenaida, take out the chilaquiles now. These people are getting too drunk.”
“Yes, Señorita Lucía.”
Adolfo Orozco appeared in the kitchen. His body shuddered in a big yawn. His huge green eyes were anchored by pair of dark circles. Except his eyes, everything about him was compact: his lips, the perfectly round mole that floated next to them, his straight blond hair, and his nicotine-stained teeth. He took out a bottle of Crystal vodka from the freezer, opened it and drank straight from the bottle.
“Isn’t my sister a queen, cabrón? You better spoil her. Don’t broosh her,” said Adolfo.
“Bruise,” said Ricardo.
“What?” said Adolfo.
“You mean ‘bruise.’”
“Whatever you say, maextro, just don’t smoosh her.”
“Señor Adolfo, la Señorita Lucía needs me to go get ice and beer,” said Agustín.
“So?” answered Adolfo.
“You are the empresario, and the party was your idea, no?” said his sister.
“My wallet is in a pair of pants I left on my bed. Bring it to me, Agus,” said Adolfo.
Ricardo held the door for Agustín as he left the kitchen carrying two buckets full of beers.
“Can we go out to the garden?” he asked Lucía. “My eyes sting.”
The night was cold and damp. They left their tequila shot glasses on the grill. Lucía took out a cigarette. Ricardo lit it for her.
“Who was the asshole who was all over you?” Ricardo asked.
“Luis Lombardo, Adolfo’s friend.”
“Lombardo of the car dealerships?”
“Indeed.”
Ricardo changed the subject.
“And you go to college?” he asked her.
“Yes. To the Ibero.”
“What do you study?”
“Graphic design.”
“You don’t say. I am an architect.”
“Wow. You build houses.”
“I design spaces.”
The sounds of a ballad drifted from the house.
“Do you want to dance?” asked Ricardo.
Lucía took a sip of tequila and gazed at him flirtatiously.
“Here? No. I want you to give me a little kiss.” She whispered in his ear, exhaling a wisp of breath laced with alcohol. Independence. Initiative. Imagination.
“An itsy-bitsy kiss?”
“Yes. Like this.”
Lucía grazed him delicately with her lips. She caressed the nape of his neck with her fingertips.
“Mmm. You smell like liquor and tobacco,” she purred.
He plunged into her rich-girl aroma of new skin and clean hair.
“And you smell like cotton candy,” he said.
Lucía led him to her father’s studio. A handwritten note on the door read “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT COMING IN.” As she opened the door, shadows shuddered in the dark. It was a couple with half-unbuttoned clothes and messed-up hair.
“Didn’t you see the sign? You can’t be here,” Lucía said.
The couple bolted.
Lucía laughed, locking the door. Ricardo could make out her beckoning smile through the yellow glow of the streetlights.
“You are so beautiful,” said Ricardo.
They kissed and touched for a long time. Lucía gazed at him and swept a quick hand over his crotch, electrifying him. She waited a beat, slid her hand under the elastic band of his briefs, and caressed him, resting her gaze on his happily alarmed face. He sat her on the stately mahogany desk and tried to raise her skirt and lower her tights in order to lose himself inside of her as soon as possible.
“Let’s take it slow,” she said, holding him by the wrist.
She continued rubbing him. It always takes them forever, she thought.
“Don’t mess up my clothes,” she whispered.
Ricardo finished over the desk. He quickly wiped up his semen with a tissue and intended to take care of her next, but after a while, she took his hand off her wet crotch.
“Let’s go to your room.”
“My parents arrive tomorrow.”
“I’ll leave early.”
“It’s already early.”
She gave him a sloppy kiss while she buttoned up. She took a post-it from the desk, wrote down her number and stuck it on Ricardo’s chest.
Four Roberto and Natalia Orozco surveyed
the aftermath of the party like generals touring the battlefield after defeat. A stench of rancid smoke emanated from the wallpaper and the upholstery. Ignacia and Jacinta were on their knees furiously scrubbing the rugs.
“What happened here?” asked Roberto. Agustín came in behind him carrying two valises.
Lucía ran down the stairs to hug her daddy in her pink flannel pajamas. She looked like an angel.
“Hi Daddy! We threw an Independence Day party. We did the Independence Day grito.”
“I’m the one who’s going to be screaming, at your brother,” said her father.
“It was chill, Dad. Not many people came.”
Luis Lombardo came down the stairs buttoning up his coat, his hair disheveled.
“Good afternoon, Sir. Madam,” he said gallantly, bounding down the steps in two strides. Roberto glared at his wife, who let out a bored sigh.
“Where is your brother?” Roberto asked.
“In his room. He helped clean up and went to bed super late.”
“Sure, Lucía.”
Adolfo appeared at the top of the stairs wearing last night’s jeans, shirtless, barefoot, and scratching his head.
“Come in, padres, make yourselves at home.”
“You have no shame, Fito,” said his mother. “We can’t leave you two alone. Zenaidaaa!” First, she yelled and then she whispered. “By the way, how did the maids behave? Did they gobble up all the groceries?”
“No, mamá. Did you bring them anything?” answered Lucía.
Zenaida was already there.
“I didn’t have time. Zenaida, bring me a Coke with ice.”
“Hey, Zen Buddhism, be a good girl and make me some chilaquiles,” said Adolfo.
“Coca-Cola, for you too, Señor?”
“Better make it a brewski, Zenaidiux.”
Zenaida froze.
“Just joking. A Coke with ice, like my mami .”
Zenaida went back to the kitchen.
“It’s not funny, Adolfo,” said Roberto. “Every time we travel, you destroy the house with your parties. The help is not here to clean up your messes.”
“Oh, come on, papá,” intervened Lucía. “Don’t get upset. I promise everyone behaved and it was a mellow night.”
But when Agustín came in with more luggage Roberto took the opportunity to proceed with his inquisition.
“How many cases of liquor were bought, Agustín?”
“Only about three, Licenciado,” lied Agustín.
“This is the last time I’m going to say this, so listen carefully, Agustín, and you too Adolfo: there will be no more parties without my consent while we are away.”
“Yes, Licenciado,” said Agustín.
Adolfo went back to his room and threw himself on his bed. A few minutes later, Lucía came in followed by Jacinta who was carrying a tray with Adolfo’s breakfast.
“How I loathe that cabrón, hijo de su chingada. He is not happy unless he makes my life a living hell.”
“Adolfo!” Lucía advised he should be more discreet in front of the maid.
Jacinta put the tray on the desk, slid a little folding table next to the bed, arranged the breakfast and left.
“No one ever says anything to you. The issue is always with me,” said Adolfo. “I don’t know how you can stand Dad. He is a fucking hypocrite. He takes Mom shopping, so she won’t whine about him fucking his secretaries.”
“And why is Mom still with him? Only for the dough,” Lucía answered.
“For your information, the money is hers. I don’t know why she married that holier-than-thou poser.”
“The house is a mess, and it reeks of weed. What did you expect?” said Lucía.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t dry hump Ricardo Mestre.”
“You should be grateful I defend you. Remember that I keep my mouth shut about the blow, the molly, your entire fucking drugstore, and all the rest of it.”
“The rest of what?” her brother answered but she had already left.
Agustín had spent the entire day avoiding his colleagues, who stared at him inquisitively since Gabriel had rung asking for him. He was done with Zenaida’s inquiring glances.
“It was my son Gabriel. He came back from the United States. He needs a job.”
“Újule, Agustín, why didn’t you ask him in?” asked Zenaida, pinching the masa for the sopes for dinner.
“How am I going to let him in without the bosses’ permission?”
“He’s your kid, isn’t he? How long has it been since you last saw him? Plus, for a few minutes, the bosses don’t have to know.”
Agustín sipped his café con leche. He regretted opening his mouth.
“So, what’s he going to do?” inquired Zenaida.
“I don’t know what he wants me to do, with the way things are in Mexico.”
“Maybe he was homesick. My kids are, very much so. They don’t like California one bit, but they make more money there. They don’t want to cross back. At least your son is here. I haven’t seen my kids in six years.”
Ignacia and Jacinta eavesdropped as they chopped onions and fried the sopes .
“Maybe the Licenciado has a job for him in the office, it all depends on what he’s good at,” said Zenaida.
“How do I know what he’s good at!” Agustín shot back.
Zenaida shrugged. She felt like crying, and she didn’t know if it was because she remembered her boys or because Agustín spoke harshly. The awkward silence was interrupted by the purr of the boss’s car engine. Agustín came out of the kitchen to greet the Licenciado, as he did every single night, Monday through Saturday. Blinded by the Mercedes’ headlights, he listened for the soft click of the closing car door. As usual, the boss activated the alarm even though the car was safely parked in the garage.
“Good evening, Licenciado. Can I help you with your briefcase?”
“It’s not necessary. Here are the car keys.”
“Licenciado, may I have a moment?”
“What is it?”
“One of my kids just came back from the other side and he’s looking for work and if you need a gofer or a messenger for the office, or if you know someone who does, I would be very grateful.”
“I can’t think of anything right now, but I can ask.”
“Thank you very much, Licenciado,” replied Agustín.
“Agustiín! My car keeeeys!” Adolfo yelled, coming in through the main door.
“Where are you going?” Roberto intercepted him.
“To dinner. I’m late.”
“If you want your keys, get them yourself.”
Roberto warned Agustín with one look to not even think of getting the keys. He handed his briefcase to the driver.
“How old is your son, Agustín?”
“He’s around twenty, Licenciado.”
“Let me speak to my wife.”
“Thank you, Licenciado.”
“And you,” he turned to Adolfo, “are going to sit down for dinner with us.”
Natalia shook the little bronze bell to summon one of the maids to bring the red sauce. Roberto waited until the other maid finished serving the sopes.
“How I’d love to throw you out of the house,” Roberto said to Adolfo, “but that’s what you’d like best.”
“You’re equally stubborn, that’s why you can’t stand each other,” said Natalia.
Roberto observed her sitting at the head of the table. She was still winning the battle against the forces of gravity. She slathered creams on her face, bust and neck and did comical facial exercises. A plastic surgeon had already tightened her eyelids. Now she talked about Botox injections to freeze her wrinkles. She was still slender, thanks to her diet of grilled protein and vegetables, two liters of room temperature water a day, white wine, and ultra-light cigarettes.
When he met her at the wedding of his cousin Luisa Lemus, he thought she was even more striking in person than in the society pages she appeared in regularly, escorted by Italian barons, international tennis players, and movie star wannabes. He could never fully explain why she chose him. Perhaps she liked his Mustang convertible or that on their first date he took her to the most expensive restaurant in Mexico and spent a small fortune on her. The Lemaitres did not jump for joy when he asked for her hand in marriage. “Orozco what?” they asked but they did not complain: while other juniors let their hair grow long and got stoned in Avándaro, Roberto’s partying consisted in joining his dad for business meals with industrialists, bankers, and politicians.
Theirs was never an intense passion, rather a calculated assessment of the future: a handsome couple from two good families, each with their real estate properties and assets. In the beginning they traveled, spent money, and had fun. But soon Roberto had to pay more attention to his business to balance their extravagances. Natalia turned out to be very industrious at redecorating the house every three years, renovating her wardrobe assiduously, and organizing weekly lunches with her friends at all the top restaurants. She raised her kids sheltered behind a small squadron of maids commanded by Zenaida, whom she had inherited from her mother. As to her conjugal obligations, once the children were born, she generally pretended to be asleep, had a headache, the kids could hear them, or she was tired. Roberto wondered what she could possibly do all day to be so exhausted.
“Natalia, don’t we need a gofer?” asked Roberto when the maids went back to the kitchen.
“Why would you want to hire someone else? You always complain about how expensive everything is.”
“Agustín asked me to help him find work for his son who just came back from the States. We’re fully staffed at the office.”
“For starters, you know I don’t like servants with children. Why do we have to take in the kids of the maids?” she stage-whispered, splitting half a sinful sope with fork and knife. “I don’t understand why he came back.”
“Mom!” said Lucía. “How long has Agustín been here? Did you even know he had a kid?”
“Don’t you know, they all have kids. Usually, more than one,” said Natalia.
“The man has worked here for almost fifteen years, and he has never asked for anything,” her husband argued.
“Fine, let him help. Ça suffit,” said Natalia with an exhausted gesture. “He can sleep in his dad’s room. There are two beds. The last thing we need is for him to get the maids pregnant.”
FiveLucía exhaled a cloud
of smoke. Sitting on the coarse stone steps, she was taking in the scene while she waited for Ximena. On the other side of the quad, the chidos were sunbathing like lizards around the fountain, with their imitation hobo rags, their predilection for ecological beaches with indigenous names, without running toilets or electric power, their cheap slang and three holes in each earlobe. The scholarship kids stuck together like snails on the grass. The self-conscious middle-classers sat on the benches wearing clothes bought in pathetic malls, feeling inferior. The Ibero was starting to suck big time.
On her side of the stairs were the society people who organized trips to Valle de Bravo or Acapulco each weekend, sometimes to Las Vegas or Miami; the ones who spoke in dollars. Here were the hipsters, stoners with baggy parachute pants, guayaberas, suede sneakers and porkpie hats. Here, feeling important, the MBA princes wore suits and ties as if this assured them an executive spot in a brokerage firm. The school insisted on absurd integration classes where everyone sat in a circle to get to know each other as if it were the first day of kindergarten. Everyone had to pretend to be open-minded.
Ximena sat beside her. Sometimes Lucía thought that Ximena was her friend only to see what it felt like to be a regular girl. Ximena was always shadowed by two bodyguards and traveled in a bulletproof car connected to a security tracker. She lived in an immense and very modern house in Bosques de Las Lomas that had a pool with a retractable roof, a gym with a sauna, a steam bath and tennis courts. She was the daughter of a politician.
“Let’s go to the movies tonight,” said Ximena.
“I’m seeing Ricardo. But tomorrow afternoon if you want,” answered Lucía.
“You’re just going to cocktease him and then you’re gonna dump him, I know you. What a waste.”
“Chill the fuck out! You were at the party. Did you talk to him? No. Did you tell me you liked him? No,” answered Lucía. “What do you want from me?”
“Not all of us are so brazen.”
“Oh, come on. You’re no nun. If I were you, I wouldn’t stick with the other squares sitting in a corner. If you like someone, you have to go for it. Besides, didn’t I introduce you to Iván? What happened?”
“I don’t want your used Kleenex, Lucía. Everyone assumes I am as slutty as you and they act like octopuses. Plus, Iván is a terrible lover.”
“I didn’t think he was so bad.”
Sometimes she felt like strangling Ximena. She was increasingly jealous, hostile, and ridiculously prudish, especially since she happily put out whenever she felt like it. With her millions, Ximena could have any man she wanted just by snapping her fingers. Lucía wondered if Iván was bad in bed or if Ximena was impossible to please. Maybe she was frigid. Maybe she was always testing them since she never knew if they loved her because of her dimples or her dollars. Poor little rich girl, she thought. It must be hard to be coveted just for that.
Marifer and Viviana approached billowing smoke like trains in the distance.
“Where were you?” Lucía complained, air-kissing them.
“Juan José wouldn’t let us out,” said Marifer. “He was fifteen minutes late, so he kept the whole class after to make up for it.”
“He is sick in the head,” said Viviana.
“Hey, Vivis, isn’t Juan José the one you like?” asked Ximena.
“No way!” replied Viviana. Juan José is an Indian. You are confusing him with Javier, the History of Philosophy teacher.
“The one who drools over Lucía,” said Marifer.
“Oh and is he not an Indian?” said Ximena.
“What’s Indian about him?” retorted Lucía.
“That he has a lefty goatee, drives a VW, and he is a naco from the National University,” responded Ximena.
“Yes, but honestly, he has a nice face,” said Marifer.
“You’re all crazy,” said Ximena.
“To Ximena if he is not Swiss, he is low class, no matter how handsome,” Lucía announced.
“At least I have finer criteria,” retorted Ximena. “You fuck everything that moves.”
That night, Ricardo waited for her in the living room shuffling out family names with her mother for twenty minutes, while Lucía put her makeup on and acknowledged, if only to herself, that if Ricardo had vanished after their epic make out session and discarded her like a used rag, she would be crazy about him. But he was too solicitous, and the only one of her dates that her dad liked. Although he was thirteen years older than her, he ticked all the boxes: he was handsome, well educated, had a good last name, and was loaded. He had studied at the American School, finished Architecture at the Anáhuac and was perfectly proper. Together they could be a great couple: he, a world-famous architect, and she an ace in Casa Mexicana-style interior design, until he asked for her hand, and they got married within a year at the ex-convent of Churubusco, honeymooned in the Maldives and came back to live in an exclusive development of six ultramodern houses in Bosques de las Lomas designed by him, with Mexican touches inspired by her.
But something about Ricardo bored her stiff. He was not like Joel, whom she had picked up at the Jupiter simply because he looked like Sting when he was young. Two crowns of thorns in black ink surrounded his biceps and he used an imported pomade to dirty his blond hair. He was always in the company of teenagers. The classic dealer: undernourished and over-partied, but blond and ultra-sexy. Lucía had approached him and said:
“I know you.”
“Well, I don’t know you.”
“Want to dance?” she asked.
His teen friends laughed at her directness. But Joel danced with her, his eyes closed, without touching her. She ended up snorting lines of cheap coke with the groupies in his apartment. A skinny girl with blue hair, who could not have been over sixteen, sank into the sofa next to her. Lucía noted with horror the metal stud protruding from her tongue. She had another stud in her chin, a ring hung from her nose, and her earlobes looked like a spiral notebook. Lucía wondered what kind of degenerate parents let this perforated creature loose in Mexico City at those hours. Lucía asked her age, and she said eighteen, which provoked giggles. “Fifteen is more like it,” someone said.
When she was fifteen, her dad had set her curfew at eleven o’clock at night. She was just fifteen when she was kissed for the first time by Gerardo Alanís, an event that unleashed a long chain of fleeting and unhinged crushes.
Joel lied sprawled on the love seat, petting one of three black puppies that had chewed the furniture and peed and pooped all over the place. I could have gone home instead of doing drugs with a bunch of snot-faced punks from Lomas Verdes in a grungy apartment, she thought. She considered getting an Uber, since the more she surveyed her surroundings, the ickier she felt, but she didn’t want to miss out on Joel. She needed to take the edge off the countless bumps that she had snorted in the Jupiter’s restroom, thanks to her brother, and the ones she’d just done here.
Joel lit a blunt and offered it to her. She took a deep drag. He extended his hand and finally led her to his bedroom, stepping around the bodies of the lost children lying on the rug sprinkled with mysterious particles.
The carpet in his room was black, the walls were black, the satin sheets, covered in dog hair, black. Lucía could hear the puppies whimpering and scratching at the door. She was entranced by the dense blue spheres floating in the syrup of Joel’s lava lamp. Joel stared at her from the wall-to-wall mirror across the bed.
He wore camo pants, a black t-shirt with torn sleeves, and combat boots, like a remnant from the 80s, but from up close he looked ravaged. His hair was beating a retreat, leaving two wide bald patches that he tried to cover up with tousled hair. His eyes were two reddened slits, blue as swimming pools, and his sallow skin was cracked by cigarettes and sleepless nights.
From up close, he seemed a tad sinister to her. But that’s what she was attracted to.
“That’s how you pick everyone up?” he asked, holding her tight.
“Not everyone, only the men I like.”
“Oh. So, you’re easy, then?”
“If I like you, why shouldn’t I flirt with you? Why can’t I ask you to dance? Do I have to wait for you to make the first move?”
Joel stood her in front of the mirror, undressing her as if screening a film just for her. Lucía helped him pull down her jeans and panties, and she admired her own exalted nipples, her black triangle that seemed to fuse into the darkness. She could hear the laughter of the kids in the living room. She figured they could hear them, too, and were laughing at her moans.
Joel threw her on the bed and got on top of her. She tried to kiss him, but he fended her off.
“I don’t like kissing.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too intimate,” responded Joel, penetrating her.
When they were that weird, a part of her receded and stopped arguing.
Despite all the substances that he had drunk, ingested, and inhaled, Joel had exceptional stamina: he was on top of her, then below her, on the side, sitting down, standing up. Lucía melted with delight as she watched scene after scene of her shamelessness in the mirror. A sweaty Lucía kneels on the mattress. Joel takes her from behind, pulls her hair, squeezes her breasts, licks her ear, rubs himself against her like a beast in heat. At some point, he turns her on her belly, facing the mirror, and takes a jar of Vaseline from his drawer.
“What are you doing?” asked Lucía.
“You’re gonna like it.”
“Not there.”
Lucía felt the tip of his penis caress her anus and she became very still. She felt like when she was a little girl, and she had a fever, and the doctor ordered her mother who then ordered her nanny Zenaida to give her a suppository.
It hurt so much she couldn’t even scream. She only implored. “No, please get out, get out, please!” She tried to turn around, wanting to kick him, but he held her wrists, immobilizing her under his weight. What would Sister Márgara think? For the love of God, fucking during your period was the height of innocence compared to this.
“Please stop,” begged Lucía. “It hurts!”
“This is what my uncle did to me when I was little,” Joel blew in her ear.
He pulled her hair and lifted her head so she could watch herself in the mirror. Lucía saw her own reddened face, the veins popping in her neck, her hair dripping with sweat. Joel was rocking on top of her, mesmerized by his own porn movie in the mirror.
“He did this to me when I was twelve.”
“How is that my fault?”
And you were afraid that some dark-skinned, pockmarked judicial police officer would rape you in a hovel where he would slice off your ear and send it to your parents for ransom. But it was you who came on to Joel, it was you who walked into this revolting room. Even though you were having the time of your life until ten minutes ago, this guy is raping you, Lucía! He is raping you because you said no and he didn’t give a shit, even though you let him do everything else to you. And once you say no, they need to respect you. But you deserve this for being a skank, and a horny, dirty whore.
Lucía confirmed in the mirror that Joel kept pushing inside her, but the pain had subsided miraculously. Now Joel was pumping rhythmically inside her, filling her with a disturbing, brutal, inexplicable pleasure which made her shake her hips to get more of that feeling. Joel’s fingers were moving inside the folds of her pubis. She felt his convulsed spasms seconds later.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hold it in,” he said.
She was semi catatonic. His withdrawal hurt like when you haven’t been to the bathroom in three days. Of course, she thought, that hole is designed for things to come out of, not to go in.
Joel gave her little kisses and stroked her hair. As he detached himself from her, Lucía sniffed a familiar sour smell, like when you step on shit on the street.
“Take me home,” she said.
“You can shower here if you want. I’ll give you a towel.”
Showering, of course, was the prudent thing to do. Joel opened the door, and the puppies dashed in, climbing onto the bed and licking Lucía’s face, her legs, and breasts with their tiny, orphaned breaths. Lucía thought she was going to have a panic attack.
“Get them off me!” she screamed.
Joel laughed. She had to pull them off her by herself.
Joel is a fag and he has just given me AIDS.
The hospital-green bathroom tiles were framed with mold. Joel had already showered and was drying himself. He pointed to a linty black towel hanging next to the shower door. Lucía wanted to pee and clean herself off, but she was embarrassed with Joel there, so she turned on the shower, adjusted the temperature and slid into the jet of steaming water. Her knees were trembling. She wanted the water to drag down the drain the dirt, the panic, the memory of that frightening pleasure still sticking to her pores. She used Joel’s Ma Evans shampoo, disgusted by the cracked little sliver of Nórdico soap. She rinsed her mouth and lathered her head shutting her eyes, still fearing that the soap would make her eyes burn like when she was a child. She didn’t know what to do with her anus. She didn’t know if she needed to clean it or how. She let the stream of water from the showerhead do it for her.
She wrapped herself in the damp towel and admonished the Lucía that was looking back at her from the other side of the mirror. Look at your hair, your souvenir bruises. He fucked you in the ass! How did you let him do this without a condom? You will die of AIDS.
Wrapped in the towel, she walked barefoot on the dirty carpet and picked up her clothes strewn all over the bedroom. Joel looked at her from the bed, smoking a cigarette. His penis was curled on top of him, unrecognizable, gentle, and harmless, like a sleeping kitten.
She came down to meet Ricardo with little enthusiasm, pondering why she never felt like doing the crazy things with her official boyfriends that she did with the perfect strangers she picked up at bars or parties.
“Look at these gorgeous flowers! I already asked Zenaida to put them in a vase,” said her mother.
“So pretty, thank you,” said Lucía glancing at the gigantic bouquet of tulips, roses, tuberose, and baby’s breath.
She greeted Ricardo with a peck on the cheek.
“Sorry it took me so long, but I am not feeling too well.”
“No worries, your mom and I had a really nice chat,” he replied.
“Lucía, don’t give poor Ricky a hard time,” said her mom.
If she could, Lucía thought, her mom would bring a priest out from the armoire to marry them on the spot.
“Ay hija, you are in a rotten mood. If you want, I can ask Zenaida to bring you some aspirin.”
“Thanks Mom. We’re leaving.”
“To a party?
“I don’t think so,” said Lucía. “If you don’t mind, Ricardo, I’d rather do something quiet.”
“This girl is so boring,” said Natalia, too eagerly.
Ricardo took her out to dinner to a minimalist place in the Roma neighborhood and then took her to the terrace of the Hotel Downtown where he informed her that he was a close friend of the owner.
“It’s a cool hotel, right? It was featured in Wallpaper,” said Ricardo.
“What is that?”
“You study graphic design, and you don’t know Wallpaper magazine?”
Ricardo held her by the waist and smiled triumphantly as if she was his longtime girlfriend, effusively greeting acquaintances he barely knew. He kissed her conspicuously by the fluorescent glow of the pool. Lucía savored the scent of gin on his breath. While he told her about his life and work, dropping names he thought she should recognize, she inspected the people in the terrace.
“Did I tell you I was in Japan?” he asked.
“Cool.”
“It’s an amazing country, but it’s so expensive. A melon costs forty dollars and a Coke, fifteen.”
“Too many old farts in suits and ties here, right?” said Lucía. “Too many desperate divorcées over forty, too many mid-level executives who think they are first class and are sorely mistaken.”
“It’s the time of day,” said Ricardo. “It gets better later. One of my houses in Malinalco is going to be in Architectural Digest.”
“How cool.”
“The photos are spectacular.”
“Whose house?”
“Álvaro and Cecilia Betancourt’s. Do you know them?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“They are loaded. I have been seducing them with the idea of opening a boutique hotel in Coyoacán.”
“Who’s going to want to stay at a hotel in Coyoacán? It’s so far.”
“But it’s so cool.”
“Well, the last time I was there, I felt nauseous with all the sandal-wearing hippies selling beaded earrings and tie dyes and disgusted by all the elote cobs people throw on the sidewalks.
“You are unbelievably square, but I love you, my love,” laughed Ricardo.
“I am not as square as you think.”
Just as it had happened with all of her official boyfriends, sometimes she lusted after Ricardo and sometimes he gave her the willies, but it was interesting to date someone more mature, serious and sophisticated, someone who didn’t just want to do molly every night, or asked her to split the bill because they were short on cash, or took her to parties to snort one line after another, or all they wanted was to fuck. Ricardo introduced her to “it” people, talked to her about books and movies, and they looked great together. But sometimes she felt she was too stupid for him. He had already given her three books that she had no intention of reading and incomprehensible music records. She found Ricardo’s friends insufferable. She supposed Ricardo felt like the cat’s pajamas going out with someone dumber than him.
After the bar, he proposed taking her to his apartment, but she said she was tired. Ricardo, who had displayed the patience of a saint since that happy night when he met her, duly took her home, parked the car at the door and left the music on. He kissed her long and passionately.
“I don’t like doing this in the car. Then the police come around and say we’re committing faltas a la moral,” said Lucía.
“We could go inside,” said Ricardo.
“My parents are home.”
Ricardo snuggled next to her and fondled her breast. She turned away.
“What’s wrong, Lucía?”
“Nothing. I don’t feel comfortable making out in the car. Take it easy, ok?”
“I don’t get it. You were all over me.”
“Women can get horny too! You think you are the only ones who have the right. Anyway, that day we were drunk, so I was a little out of control. I’m really much more chill, believe it or not.”
“I don’t understand why you like playing hard to get so much. If you think it turns me on, you are mistaken.”
The words “turn me on” vibrated in her like a tuning fork.
“You don’t like it when I’m prim and proper?”
“No.”
“You don’t like it when I’m a little nun?”
“No.”
Lucía unzipped him and placed him in her mouth. She filled with tenderness listening to his helpless moans and feeling his hands sweetly stroke her back and her hair. Ricardo did not fully understand this creature’s contradictions, but her mix of primness and impudence drove him crazy. Red and blue lights silently approached.
“Careful, there’s a police car coming,” said Ricardo, zipping up quickly. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
The patrol car went by very slowly and the policeman at the wheel stared at Lucía, but he didn’t stop. Lucía and Ricardo exchanged relieved glances.
“I have to go. Gotta wake up early for school.”
“Don’t be cruel, Lucía, don’t leave me like this.”
She smiled, gave him a quick kiss on the lips and got out of the car without waiting for him to open the door. Inside the house, she could hear the TV in her parents’ room. She took off her heels and walked through the dark without making a sound. Her mother intercepted her in the hallway, wearing a robe, no makeup, and a turban on her head. Lucía jumped.
“How was it? Did you have a nice time?”
“Very nice, mamá.”
“That young man is a treasure. He’s charming, comes from a good family, and he’s crazy about you. Do not screw it up, I beg you.”
“How am I going to screw it up? Good night, mamá.”
Lucía went to her room and looked out the window, pressing her nose against the cold damp glass. The garden was as black as the sea in a moonless night. When she was a little girl, she would fog up the glass with her breath, creating a canvas to silhouette hearts, smiley faces, or bad words, or she wrote the secret names of the boys she pined for. Her finger wrote the word Ricardo on the frosted glass. She erased it with a breath and wrote: Joel Joel Joel Joel. The images of her apocalyptic sex with him paraded through her mind; their memory still tore a wound in her chest. She never saw him again. She went looking for him (she didn’t have his number) and heard him hiding inside his apartment. She stalked him on Facebook, but he acted as if she didn’t exist.
SixThe next morning,
she looked out the window while she got dressed and saw a scrawny young man leaning against a tree on the median, smoking a cigarette. She thought she saw the flash of a small earring, and she was struck by his sunglasses and the geometrical haircut that made strands of his abundant black hair blow against his face, giving him a rebellious air. He wore a tight white t-shirt and loose jeans tucked into black rubber boots. The elastic of his white briefs was showing. She assumed he was the boyfriend of one of the maids. Though he was far away, she thought he spotted her at the window and was openly staring. It was hard to tell with the shades.
At breakfast, her father mentioned that Agustín’s son did things fast, well, and as soon as he was asked. Lucía felt her cheeks flush. Could he be the guy who had been staring at her from the street? Who would have thought? With such an ugly dad.
“I haven’t seen him,” she said. “When did he get here?”
“Two days ago,” said her mother.
“Wow, I had no idea. What’s his name?” said Lucía.
“Gabriel,” her dad answered.
“Gabriel,” Lucía repeated.
“At least he’s not named Gumersindo,” Adolfo laughed.
Ignacia came in with the tray to pick up the dishes.
“How about that Gumersindo, my Nacha? He ain’t bad at all, right?” Adolfo asked the maid. “Don’t blush, Nachita. I have a feeling you like Agustín’s son. Have you given him a proper welcome?”
“Shut up, Adolfo,” said Roberto.
Lucía thought about how Agustín’s son looked so modern (she could not get used to just “Gabriel”), unlike the classic naco wearing cheap Kalvin Clean or Nino Venrucci jeans, bought at La Merced, with matching moccasins with fringes. With the excuse of getting something from her car, Lucía went out to the garage with her brother.
The doors of Adolfo’s Jetta were unfurled like the wings of a dragonfly. Gabriel was drying the hood with a chamois rag.
“You gonna be long?” Adolfo asked him. He flicked his cigarette ash on the ground.
“No, it’s almost ready. Just waiting for the plastic mats to dry,” Gabriel replied.
His voice was rich and virile, mellifluous like a radio announcer’s. Lucía expected a servile singsong it did not have. In fact, it sounded slightly annoyed. His face reminded her of the pre-Hispanic figurines Sister Cueto showed them at the Anthropology Museum in high school. His eyes were very black and narrow, framed by long lashes. His nose was a little hook, and his mouth was red and fleshy like a strawberry cut in half, with the slanted edges typical of the Olmecs, one of those things you learn in school that you never forget, like the first row of the periodic table or the Anthem to the Flag. His cheekbones and jawline were well-defined. For a naco, he has personality, she thought.
“You dry them, bro. I’m in a hurry,” said Adolfo.
Lucía thought she saw a shadow of contempt darken Gabriel’s eyes, but he obeyed in silence.
“Shit, you take care of the car much better than your dad, man,” Adolfo said.
While Gabriel dried the mats, Adolfo got in the car and turned on the engine without bothering to close the doors. The blast of music startled Gabriel and Lucía. Gabriel hurried to place the mats in the back and closed the rear doors. He put a mat on the front passenger side and walked in front of the car to slide in the last mat. Just then Adolfo hit the gas and burst out laughing behind the windshield. Gabriel bent down to place the last mat under Adolfo’s feet and closed the door without looking at him. Although the windows were closed, the pulsating bass of the electronic music rumbled in the garage. Adolfo opened the gate with the remote and screeched out of the driveway. Lucía noticed the look of disdain in the young servant.
“My brother drives like a maniac. Can you move my mom’s car so I can get mine out?”
“Yes, of course,” Gabriel replied, smiling.
She wanted to say something more but didn’t know what else to say. She had an idea.
“Wait,” she said, taking out a textbook from her bag. “Instead, can you do me a favor? Can you get me some photocopies? From where it’s marked here, to this little paper. Just one set. This should be enough.”
Lucía gave him the book and a twenty-peso bill.
“Where can I get them?” asked Gabriel.
“At the pharmacy in Barrilaco, they have a copier.”
“Alright.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Not really.”
“Well, then ask your dad to tell you. Don’t take too long.”
A pleasant feeling of wellbeing enveloped her. The staff her mother hired were better people, as she used to say, a little whiter, they tended towards progress. None of the servants who worked in her house were like Lolis’s maids, who were indistinguishable from those poor lice-infested women begging on the streets, surrounded by children with hair dulled by pollution and hunger, with snot hanging from their noses --except they had been given baths and dressed in aprons. Gabriel was nothing like that. Neither was Zenaida. Nor Agustín. Nor the other two maids.
Lucía went up to her room to watch TV and read magazines, but she could not focus. She waited for Gabriel by the window, she waited for him while watching TV, while leafing through magazines, while texting her friends, but he didn’t come back. Lucía thought he most likely screwed up the copies and now he was nowhere to be found. She was surprised to see him at her door, over an hour and a half later, with her copies and change. She thought it was Ignacia who was bringing her jicamas with lime and chili.
“Here are your copies, Lucía,” he said, with a voice as thick as hot chocolate.
Lucía? she thought.
“Thank you,” she said, checking the copies. “Keep the change.”
He frowned and put the twelve pesos in his pocket.
“Did you find the place okay?”
“I had to ask people on the street, but I found it. It’s not that close.”
“Did you walk?” asked Lucía. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I thought you’d take the car. Do you know how to drive?”
“Yes. I didn’t know I could take the car.”
In fact, his dad had not allowed him to take the car and had told him to take a minibus and walk the rest of the way.
“We always send your dad in the car. Otherwise, it’s too far. Next time you can take it.”
Gabriel left her room without closing the door behind him. He went back to the garden and watered the plants that his father cared for with more attention than he had ever paid anyone; verdant isles that looked like fantasy kingdoms populated by leafy midget palms surrounded by meticulously pruned shrubs and concentric lines of black irises, hydrangeas, and azaleas. Zenaida had told him that before his dad had arrived, that garden was nothing but wild scrub. Without waiting for anyone to ask, his father started cleaning up the weeds, and mowing the lawn and, little by little, he became so much the boss of the garden that he would not allow the children to play in it. Gabriel found it ridiculous that such a harsh man could be so tender with the little plants, that he was more polite and punctilious with things that did not belong to him.
He went to his room and flopped down on his bed. Little peeling flowers decorated the corners of the scraped white bedside drawer. The lampshade was crooked and festooned with a circle of prancing Smurfs. The beds were covered by thick wool blankets and clean but threadbare sheets. The room was cool when it was hot outside and freezing when it was cold. His father had not hung anything on the walls except for a calendar of Cantina La Antártica with images of Mexican volcanoes, and a small statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe above the drawer. A copy of La Prensa peeked out from under the bed. Gabriel was embarrassed by how stupid he had just been with Lucía. He heard Ignacia and Jacinta go up the service stairs, shrieking as usual. They tried to flirt with him, particularly Ignacia, who was butt-ugly, with her crooked teeth and hairy arms. These two were not fit even for an “open in case of emergency” situation, he thought. But the boss lady was hot, la cabrona. Stuck up, but super-hot. With her tight jeans, and her perky little tits, her big flirty eyes, and her sweet and scratchy voice like a mango-chili lollipop.
I can’t stand having to run errands for your asshole brother. But if it gets me closer to you, princesa, I’ll do it. I’d like to stick my tongue all the way down your throat, but from below. And then do you like an acrobat.
Gabriel turned on his knock-off iPod and put on the headphones to block out the peals of laughter from the maids. He closed his eyes and fantasized about taking off Lucía’s backpack and her sweater. He slurped her round breasts, sweet like vanilla custard, but she scratched him and kicked him. Gabriel overpowered Lucía on top of that tiny bed, and in that servants’ room, made her gag with his milky juice. He felt his hot seed spread on his belly, wet his hairs, and cover his bellybutton. The change that Lucía gave him jangled in his pocket.
SevenThe three maids
were folding the clothes for the charity bazaar as if they were swaddling a baby in her crib. They could have stuck it in garbage bags, but la Señora told them to pack them inside old suitcases so they would not waste time watching TV. Ignacia and Jacinta were laughing hysterically. When he heard them, Gabriel, who was bringing the luggage, stayed outside, eavesdropping on the conversation.
“Well, Adolfo is supposed to be batting for the other team, you know, but he’s always all over me,” Ignacia said. “He keeps asking me to scratch his back.”
Zenaida tried to disguise her alarm.
“He asks me too,” said Jacinta. “Can you believe it?”
“And you both do it?” asked Zenaida.
“Well, I did when I first got here,” said Ignacia, blushing. “But now I play dumb, or I tell him my fingernails are too short.”
“He makes me come up here just to change the channels with the remote. He can’t even do that by himself. Es solo por jorobar,” said Jacinta.
Zenaida was appalled.
“And... has he done anything to you?”
“No. He just wants us to scratch his back, right?” Ignacia confirmed with Jacinta. “And he says, higher, more to the right, lower...”
“He has lots of freckles,” said Jacinta.
The young maids started shrieking again.
“Next time he asks, I will come up myself, see if he wants me to scratch him,” Zenaida said.
“Are these the bags you wanted?” asked Gabriel.
“You didn’t clean them with a rag, Gabrielito? They are disgusting.”
“These people are so lazy that they can’t even handle their own handouts,” said Gabriel. “They can’t clean up their own luggage, they can’t go down to the kitchen to get a glass of Coke, they can’t put a dirty dish in the sink, let alone wash it, and on top of everything, they can’t give to charity without making us work. We might have to wipe their asses too."
Jacinta and Ignacia howled with laughter.
“Don’t be rude,” said Zenaida. “Who do you think feeds you? And what are you laughing about? Stupid girls. La Señora Natalia brought me here when she got married. I went to her wedding. And when Adolfo and Lucía were born, I waited for them at the door, fresh from the hospital. They have given me room and board for thirty years and all you like to do is complain about the bosses. If you don’t like it, Gabriel, we can tell your dad right now, so he can send you back to the street, if you prefer.”
“Let me get the rag,” said Gabriel, rushing off.
It was eleven and lazy-ass Adolfo was still asleep, but the door to Lucía’s room was ajar. Gabriel stopped by the crack and was able to glimpse a slice of the plush pink carpet, and another of a bedcover with big pastel-colored poppies. He gently pushed the door open. Lucía was deep into her magazine, leaning on pillows against the elaborate white rattan headboard, surrounded by plush toys. The TV was on. She had a mini stereo system surrounded by towers of compact discs. On the dresser, bottles of perfume formed a miniature skyscraper island. Gabriel could see lotions, cosmetics, thick and thin makeup brushes, hairbrushes, nail polish bottles, tiny treasure chests laden with rings, earrings, and bracelets. A white basket next to the bed overflowed with magazines.
Gabriel knocked on the door and walked in the room without waiting for an answer.
“Zenaida sent me to ask if you have clothes to donate.”
“You scared the hell out of me. I didn’t hear you knock.”
“I did though.”
“I left them in the TV room, Gabriel.”
Hearing his name from her lips shook him up.
“Okay. I’ll go get them.”
Gabriel left. Lucía noted he was no longer wearing the earring. It had probably been her mother’s idea, as wardrobe designer to the staff, to dress him with the rat-colored pants worn by the menial workers at every school.
Since Gabriel lived in the house, Lucía felt that a red halo of sin hovered over her head announcing her depravity like neon lights outside a seedy cabaret. She took to seeking him out in the garden while he watered the rosebushes, in the garage when he washed the cars, or in the kitchen as he helped unload groceries. Every time they met, she blushed, and her eyes would smile at him. All of this happened in a fraction of a second, unnoticed by anyone else. Why, she wondered, can’t you fall in love with Ricardo like any normal person? Why do you have to be thinking about the son of the driver?
She went back to her Quién magazine. She stared at the photo of the civil wedding of Eugenia Franco, the younger sister of her bitter archenemy, Lourdes Franco de Moguel: the URO, Unidentified Religious Object, now president of the Life and Family Committee of the Annunciation School. There she was, just as Lucía had imagined: with the first two of many children to come, looking like a mummy in her knit Chanel suit, a religious medallion around her neck. The goody two shoes that had branded Lucía a skank for letting Gerardo Alanís make out with her when they were fifteen, the very same one who “ate her sandwich before recess,” even though her sister used to chaperone her; the idiot who believed in the Billings method as if it were the gospel and had to get married without finishing high school, wearing white with lace and blessings, yet with a surprise bundle on the way. But “I swear it was only once. I’ll bear as many children as God grants me.”
Lucía Orozco Lemaitre and Ricardo Mestre Sáenz, “The Golden Couple.” She saw herself featured in the pages of that magazine on her wedding day, but Gabriel appeared in her mind just as she had seen him two minutes ago in her own room, with the inkling of a smile on his lips, his gaze ripe with possibilities.
She jumped out of bed, fogged up the window with her breath and wrote the word “Gabriel” with her finger. Chuckling in disbelief, she erased the word with her fist and hopped back to bed. She visualized the servant’s lips brushing against hers, his hands clasped around her waist. She was astride him in an immense bed with fluffy down pillows, covered by immaculate sheets of the softest cotton, in a suite with translucent curtains that swayed with the breeze. She was lulled by the whisper of the waves while Gabriel caressed her pearly skin, transfixed by the delightful textures of everything touched by his eloquent fingers: the cool marble of the floor, the sandalwood rocking chair, the sea breeze, and the foam and the sand that he was experiencing for the first time in his life, thanks to his benefactress. He fucked her in a bubbling jacuzzi under the stars on a virgin beach on a private island in the Caribbean named after a French saint, where only the créme de la créme are welcome.
Lucía bottled the deep groan of pleasure that tried to escape her lips. A perplexed shiver ran down her spine.
She washed her stubborn jelly off her hands and ran down the stairs to catch her dad in his library. He sometimes worked from home, locked in his inner sanctum with a whisky on the rocks. That’s how she found him, behind his desk, reviewing some contracts.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“What’s wrong Lucía? I am working, honey.”
“I’m here to say hello. You always complain you never see me.”
“You only come here when you need something, I know you.”
“Come on, papá, you don’t trust me? Seriously, I don’t want anything. I just wanted to talk.”
Roberto’s eyebrows raised.
“What do you want to talk about, hija?”
“Well, security on the streets is terrible. I don’t feel safe with so many kidnappings. You don’t know what I’ve been hearing at school: Emilio Zaib was kidnapped to steal his money from the ATM. Someone’s cousin got ambushed in the middle of the freeway and got shot twice because he resisted. A friend of mine, his dad gave him an armored car, with bulletproof glass and everything. And María del Pilar has a bodyguard in a van with tinted windows.”
“You’ve got to be careful, hija, and not hang out late at night, like you and your brother do.”
“This happens in broad daylight, papá. Lots of my friends’ parents got them a driver, so they are not on their own.”
“How many is lots?” asked Roberto, aware that this was the most affordable option. “I am not Ximena’s dad.”
“Marifer’s. And two other girls in my class. Lots of people at the Ibero have drivers.”
“Well then ask Marifer to give you a ride.”
“No way, papá! She lives in San Ángel!” Lucía protested. “Mamá has Agustín. I could use Gabriel. And if Mom or you need him, we can work it out. Really, other than washing and moving cars, he doesn’t do anything else all day.”
“You think that scrawny little thing will defend you? If they see you with a driver, you will call more attention to yourself. I don’t have a driver.”
“Well, you should. What if something happens to you? It’s not the same to stick up one person than two. And this way, the car is protected, and they won’t steal it. Plus, I could study in the car.”
Her father eyed her skeptically.
“I’ll have to pay him extra for driving you around. Have you thought of that?”
“I’ll chip in from my allowance. Seriously.”
“And who gives you your allowance? For you to pay Gabriel, I have to give you more, isn’t that right?”
Lucía smiled with the innocence of an angel. She didn’t usually pay attention to where her cash flow came from.
“In fact, it’s not a bad idea to give your brother a driver so he can stop crashing cars.”
“Of course, Fito and I could share him,” said Lucía, concealing her disappointment.
“But only if you work at the office in the afternoons.”
“When in the afternoon, Dad? Lucía whined. “If I’m not in class, I have homework to do.”
“You have an answer for everything. Fine. If Gabriel has nothing better to do at a given time and you want to use him, you can. Check with Agustín first. You and your brother better not use him for stupid stuff, you hear me? I’m holding you responsible.”
“Thank you, papá ! You have no idea how much this helps.”
Lucía hugged him.
“I thought you came to tell me you are marrying Ricardo.”
“No way! I gotta finish school first. There is plenty of time for that.”
Eight “Hit the gas, I have a test
at ten,” said Lucía from the back seat.
“What is your test for?” asked Gabriel.
“Genealogy of Mexican Objects.”
“Yikes. And is it hard?”
“Yup, it’s like Chinese to me.”
“And do you know it?”
“Not very well. I wanted to go over it on the way.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries.”
Lucía’s lips moved as if she were praying, and she closed her eyelids as if that would help her trap the information. She opened them to check if she had memorized what was in her notebook.
“I am going to fail miserably,” she said.
She closed the notebook.
“I’ll have to copy from Viviana.”
“It would be cool to go to college,” said Gabriel.
“What would you like to study?”
“Computer programming.”
Lucía remembered the little radio jingle: “I signed up at ICM to study computer programming...”
“And why don’t you sign up?” asked Lucía.
Poor guy, she thought, he probably didn’t even finish elementary school.
“Well, right now I gotta work, but once I save up, maybe I’ll go to night school. I don’t want to be a driver for the rest of my life.”
“No, of course, it’s great that you are ambitious. It’s important to move up in life.”
He smirked from the rearview mirror.
“In general, I mean.”
“Don’t try to fix it.”
Lucía smiled.
“Let’s change the subject. What happened to your earring?” asked Lucía.
“Your mom had me take it out,” smiled Gabriel.
“That’s what I thought. She likes uniforms.”
When she got out of the car, he said “Good luck on your exam.”
“Keep your fingers crossed,” she said. “Oh and pick me up at two thirty.”
Gabriel found a spot in the parking lot, opened the windows, put the seat back, turned off the cheesy Spanish pop that Lucía liked, and got ready to take a nap. For a while, he watched students arrive in their own cars and wait for the van that picked them up at the parking lot to drop them off at the school entrance. The other drivers, all older than him, leaned on the cars reading the paper, smoking cigarettes, or chatting among themselves. Some students walked towards school as if they were going towards the firing squad. He would have liked to arrive at the university in his own car, with a briefcase full of books and notebooks.
He went over the tone that Lucía had used when she said goodbye. When she came back at 2:30 he would ask her about the exam; she would be super happy because she’d nailed it; he would say “See? I told you so.” and they would chat all the way home. But Lucía showed up at 3:15 with two girlfriends. He was not in the mood. He had moved the car at 2:20 and had tried to stay close to the entrance (although the security guards kept shooing him away). He hadn’t eaten.
“Aren’t you going to open the door for us?” asked Lucía.
Annoyed, he got out of the car and exaggerated the kind of courteous ministrations his father used when he brought la Señora Natalia home.
“What the hell? It’s after three,” he said.
Lucía was astonished, as were her friends.
“Take us to Plaza Duraznos,” she commanded.
The friends sat in the back, and Lucía rode shotgun, with the pretext of making room for her friends. Her thigh was pressed against the stick shift. When Gabriel changed gears, she did not move it.
“So how was the trip to Cabo?” she asked her friends in the back.
“Deluxe, you have no idea. The hotel was amazeballs. The food was delicious but sixteen-hundred-dollars for a dinner for four people,” said one in English.
“Wow, not even in Europe,” said the other one.
“And the spa treatments were to die for. I had a milk bath. My skin was super soft after that.”
“How much was that?” asked one of them.
“A shitload. Like a hundred and fifty. Without the tip.”
“Adriana had a cactus treatment that’s supposed to reduce cellulite and water retention. She didn’t like it because they slathered her with slime. Lucky chased seagulls on the beach. He had scrambled eggs with salmon and machaca norteña for breakfast, te lo juro.”
People are starving to death and these bitches feed salmon to the dog and smear food on their asses, Gabriel thought. They speak English so I can’t understand. I’m gonna say a couple of things in fucking English, let’s see how they like it.
After taking forever at the movies and coffee after the movies, he had to take them home. One had left her car at the school’s parking lot, the other one lived in Tecamachalco. Lucía stayed in the front seat.
“Do you always eat your bread in front of the poor?” Gabriel asked her.
“What?”
“I mean, with my dad, do you also talk about sixteen-hundred-dollar dinners and hundred-and-fifty-dollar massages, and you cocktease him with your gossip?”
Lucía fell silent.
“I don’t know what you think of me, but I am not who you think I am. And I am not made of stone, okay?”
“Neither am I,” said Lucía, with an impish smile.
They arrived home and he turned off the car. Before he could open the door for her, she gave him a little kiss on the cheek. He nimbly moved his face towards her lips, trying to catch her mouth with a bite, but she ran out of the car.
Nine The Señora's BMW
smelled like synthetic vanilla. It had nothing but an umbrella in the back seat and a box of Kleenex. Adolfo’s Jetta stank of damp smoke. Gabriel was disappointed at not finding anything in the glove compartment that would confirm that Adolfo was a criminal. In the Licenciado’s Mercedes, Gabriel thought he detected the aroma of someone else’s woman mixed with the masculine scent of eau de cologne.
But Lucía’s Focus was a bazaar of wonders. Gabriel would find lipsticks underneath the seats, perfume samples, tissues stained with makeup, bracelets, aspirins, melted chocolates, taquería mints, shopping receipts, vaping cartridges. He would take inventory of his discoveries with the discipline of an anthropologist that researches the remains of an extinct tribe and leave everything worth rescuing as an offering on the driver’s seat. Now he was in the kitchen enjoying a toasted bolillo con cajeta.
“Have you washed the cars?” asked Agustín as he walked into the kitchen and saw his son taking a break. “You know they only need one of us here. You are here only because the Licenciado is a good person. Don’t let them ask you for anything twice. This is how I’ve stayed here for fifteen years.”
Of course, licking their asses with that hungry dog mug you pull every time they give you orders.
On the other side of the door, Zenaida brought a freshly showered Lucía her breakfast. Gabriel caught sight of her as she nibbled on her bolillo with butter and jam. She saw him and said:
“I need you to take me to school and pick me up around three if you don’t mind. Can you?”
“Yes, I can. No problem at all,” he answered.
Agustín intervened.
“Excuse me, Señorita, but your father wants Gabriel to take Señor Fito in your car to drop off his car at the body shop.”
“And why didn’t he ask me if it’s my car?”
“That’s what your father said,” replied Agustín.
“And you can’t drive Fito in my mom’s car?”
“I have to pick her up at the British Hospital.”
“Well, let Gabriel take me first and then he can take Fito. Really, as if Adolfo can’t call an Uber from the shop.”
“Okay, Señorita.”
In the garage, since Agustín was watching, they put on the whole spiel of Gabriel opening the door for her. They left the house. Lucía was furious.
“Turn left at the light,” ordered Lucía suddenly.
Gabriel watched her from the rearview mirror.
“School is not that way.”
“I know,” said Lucía.
“Where are we going?” asked Gabriel, maneuvering to switch lanes.
“I’ll show you.”
Buses lunged at the car, people drove in reverse, the wrong way, on the sidewalks, they ran red lights, they double and triple parked. On every red light, squads of squeegee men aimed at the cars with soapy bottles. Lucía wagged them away. On one corner there were fire-eaters; on the next, children dressed up as clowns did clumsy somersaults, one of them wearing an anachronic rubber mask of President Salinas. Street hawkers (selling knives, bunnies, chewing gum, carnations, fake cellphones) boasted of their merchandise among the cars like toreadors at the bullfighting ring.
“This traffic is terrible,” said Lucía.
“The worst,” Gabriel replied.
Since nothing moved and they were far from home, Lucía moved to the front seat. Gabriel tried to feign indifference.
“Don’t you have to go to school?”
“I changed my plans.”
“Oh.”
This seemingly spontaneous detour had been contemplated by Lucía over days and nights in which she dizzied herself planning how to be alone with Gabriel: where to go, how to begin, what to say. She thought of the Parque Hundido as she explored the geographic possibilities of Mexico City on Google Maps. It was on the other side of town.
“How old are you, Gabriel?”
“Twenty. And you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Make a right on the next street.”
Finding a parking spot took them almost as long as the trip from las Lomas. Finally, a car left a spot on the side of the park. Lucía got out without waiting for Gabriel to open her door.
“Come,” she said. “When I was little, I used to come here often because my granny lived here in Del Valle. Have you been here before?”
“No.”
The park swarmed with balloon vendors, mothers pushing baby carriages, popsicle vendors ringing the bells of their carts; children swooshing by on tricycles and youths on scooters; loners reading the newspaper, getting a shoeshine, or waiting for the right moment to jerk off on a remote park bench. A couple rolled in the grass. Lucía found a bench in the shade, away from the noise of the big avenue. She examined it before she sat down. Gabriel sat down beside her.
“It pisses me off that my dad makes plans for my car without asking me.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I didn’t feel like going to school today.”
“I didn’t feel like working either.”
Lucía smiled, looking at her nails.
“Well, we played hooky, didn’t we?”
They looked at their shoes in silence. Words piled up on Lucía’s gums and trampled over her tongue and wanted to escape through her teeth. She restrained them with her lips until she let them go, and they came out, not stumbling, but delicately in one line, shaping a sentence that surprised her.
“I don’t know, I wanted to be alone with you,” she said.
She neared her pinky finger to his, sparking a flash of desire under her goosebumps. Their hands intertwined like two bodies in bed. His mouth tasted like danger, like something forbidden, like heaven. She sampled his cheek with her tongue. It was salty, a bit sweet and a bit metallic, like the rusty metal tube of the school bus that she sometimes used to lick when she was a little girl. His sweetish breath, tinged with a bitter trace of tar, and his armpit smell were familiar and delicious. Their labored breaths drowned out every sound. Perhaps because of the sharp whistle of the balloon vendor, both stopped and came up to the surface to catch their breath, blinded by daylight, panting, wet, scared, breathless like newborns.
Lucía fixed her clothes. Gabriel tried to hide the stubborn bulge under his gray pants.
“We need a bucket of cold water,” she whispered.
“What we need is a hotel,” said Gabriel.
Each became engrossed in the minutiae of what that could mean. Which hotel? Who was going to pay for it? Lucía thought she had just lost her mind and was getting into the biggest trouble of her life.
“Oof, I forgot that you had to pick Fito up!”
They ran to the car, both aware that Lucía did not forget anything, and neither did Gabriel.
Lucía took out her cellphone and dialed.
“Adolfo? Did I wake you? Oh, it’s just that I had to buy a book for my class and I’m super late because I had to look for it all over Polanco. Gabriel just dropped me off at school, so he’s on his way to get you. The traffic is nuts. I think there might have been an accident. He’ll be there in about half an hour.”
Lucía pressed her foot against the floor of the car, pointing to an imaginary gas pedal.
“Where do you want him to take you? The Blá? Who are you having lunch with? Oh, okay, say ‘Hi’ for me.”
Lucía said goodbye to her brother and hung up.
“Take me to the Palacio de Hierro in Polanco, and after you leave Adolfo at the restaurant, you can pick me up there.”
“He will notice,” Gabriel said.
“He has no idea.”
This is too surreal, who could ever suspect? Lucía thought.
“You are going to get me in trouble, woman,” said Gabriel.
“Too late,” she answered.
He dropped her off at the mall and drove home as fast as he could. Although it took him almost an hour, thanks to the unflappable Mexico City traffic, he still had to wait for Adolfo for over twenty minutes. Finally, the señorito skidded out of the garage in his Jetta, showing no consideration. Gabriel had to run a red light to not lose sight of him and chased him all the way until Adolfo parked, without warning, on the sidewalk in front of a body shop in Legaria, gesturing to Gabriel to double park. A fat, greasy mechanic emerged from the depths of the shop and greeted Adolfo warmly. He screamed at Gabriel for blocking the entrance. Adolfo concluded the negotiation with the mechanic with the exchange of a little bag of powder, then he got in the back seat.
“You drive like a grandpa, bro.”
Fucking asshole, I almost swallowed your sister whole.
“So, I should take you to the restaurant?”
“Take me to the Sonaja first. I have an appointment.”
“But I have to pick up Señorita Lucía at the university,” Gabriel replied.
“I’m sure she can get a ride home.”
“But she will be waiting for me,” said Gabriel, trying not to whimper. “She said to pick her up right after I dropped you off.”
“Well, I have some business to take care of. You wait for me, take me to the Blá, and then you pick her up.”
Gabriel gripped the steering wheel, trying to control himself.
“I need to let her know.”
“You drive. I’ll call her,” said Adolfo.
He took out his phone and tried to leave her a message.
“Her voicemail is full.”
“Tell me how to get there,” said Gabriel.
At the Zona Rosa they drove around in circles trying to find a parking spot close enough to Adolfo’s appointment since he refused to walk. Finally, Adolfo told Gabriel to go into a hotel parking lot.
“Wait for me here, bro,” he told Gabriel. “I won’t be long.”
Gabriel got out of the car and walked up the dark ramps towards the exit. He inhaled the air of the pedestrian street, filled with restaurants with outdoor tables. The smells of fried onions and bacon reminded him that besides the stress, the anger, and the exhaustion, his stomach was grumbling. He called Lucía and indeed, her inbox was full.
Idiot. She treats me just like her brother does. Turn here, do this, do that. I’m just their stupid gofer.
When he came back to the car, Adolfo was waiting for him, freaking out.
“Where the fuck were you?”
“I went outside to call Lucía.”
“Don’t make me wait ever again. Let’s go.”
Adolfo sat in the back and took out a little box. He snorted a bump. That settled him down. Gabriel watched through the rearview mirror.
“Want some?”
“No, thanks.”
“It’s excellent. Have you tried it?”
“No,” Gabriel lied. In New York, sometimes he used to do lines after hours with his girlfriend Kate and the other waiters. He didn’t love it. It gave him heart palpitations and people got annoying. He preferred pot.
“If you ever need some, let me know.”
By the time he arrived to pick her up, Lucía was no longer at the Palacio de Hierro. He called the house. One of the maids answered.
“Can I speak to Lucía?”
“Yes, one moment, who should I say is calling?”
He panicked and hung up.
He came into the kitchen looking desperately for something to eat and ran into Zenaida’s disapproving face. His dad’s face was even worse.
“What happened?” his dad asked. “Miss Lucía had to call a car because you never made it. Where were you?”
“The thing is Adolfo was late and he made me take him to the Zona Rosa first and then I had to wait for him and by the time I could pick her up, she wasn’t there,” said Gabriel.
“Don’t blame other people. Why didn’t you let her know or leave a message here?” asked his dad.
“Her voicemail was full.”
“Ni que fueras bajado del cerro – What are you, some kind of hillbilly?” said his dad. “Help Ignacia with the groceries. Tomorrow you will apologize to Señorita Lucía. And what’s with ‘Adolfo’? Don’t be fresh. It’s ‘Señor Adolfo’ to you.”
He wanted to go up and apologize to the señorita right then, but he could not ignore his father. He helped the maid unload bag after bag and went to his room to hate himself. He did not want to risk visiting Lucía. At dinnertime, he came back to the kitchen.
“Did the señorita come down?” he asked Zenaida.
“She has a headache. She will have dinner in her room.”
He went to his room as well, having gulped down some grilled tortillas. He tossed and turned in bed, ashamed of his stupidity, trying to guess what would happen the following day.
Lucía had heard the engine of her Ford Focus coming into the garage. She had waited in vain for the sound of Gabriel’s footsteps going up the stairs, her doorknob turning, but the last sound she heard was the door of the car closing with medium intensity, as if Gabriel had wanted to slam it but had second thoughts.
Reality gripped her in the pit of her stomach. You let the son of the driver paw you all over! She called Zenaida over the intercom and asked to be brought two grilled ham and cheese quesadillas on corn tortillas and a Coke. Despite being stabbed by constant jabs of regret, she could not stop replaying every caress, every kiss, Gabriel’s amazement as he slurped her face.
The early morning sounds of the house woke her up: the maids’ brisk steps, water flowing down the pipes. She was overwhelmed by anxiety the minute she opened her eyes. She looked out the window. Agustín was watering the garden. She went down to breakfast in her bare feet. Gabriel was not in the kitchen. She was served half a grapefruit with jam. While she waited for the rest of her breakfast, she went out to the garage. The hallway floor was ice cold. Gabriel was washing her mother’s car with the radio on.
You can ring my bell, ring my bell, ding dong ding, ding dong ding, ah!
“What happened to you yesterday?” complained Lucía.
Gabriel dropped the soapy sponge. His arms were translucent from the cold. He peeked into the garden to make sure Agustín wasn’t around.
“Your brother asked me to take him to the Zona Rosa and to wait for him and he would not listen. We tried calling you. I went to get you and you weren’t there.”
“Forget it,” said Lucía. “This is madness.”
TenAdolfo rose at noon.
Something woke him up, he didn’t know what. The vacuum cleaner, the blender, a plane, a police siren, the knife sharpener’s whistle, a truck coughing pestilent black smoke, the goddamned birds: he wanted to murder them all. It was Saturday, for fuck’s sake! He could not open his eyes, although before he went to bed, he had been prudent enough to rinse his nose with warm water and take two Alka-Seltzers. He felt like his throat was a canal of bubbling lava, his ears throbbed with a maddening itch. He moaned, and a whistle came out. He had lost his voice from smoking and yelling. His phlegm and saliva were pasted together; he had a hole in his stomach as if he had not had sustenance in months. Thin rays of sunlight seeped through the edges of the blackout drapes and stabbed his eyes.
He needed a bump, which unfortunately he no longer possessed, to start the painful road to recovery. He had sold most of what he got from the dealer, and, as usual, he went to town with the surplus. He had snorted the last line of coke at dawn, even though his teeth were squeaking, and a bitter bolus had settled between his throat and his septum. Now he didn’t even have the strength to call on the intercom for his chilaquiles and black coffee. He alternated between sweating under the covers and shaking with chills. He planned on taking a cold shower to get rid of the hangover, but he couldn’t find the guts. Under the embrace of a warm shower, he went over the events of the previous night with supreme satisfaction. The life of the party. Mountains of coke. A hot, delirious night with Luis. He got hard and his mind, perhaps inspired by the noises of the daily comings and goings, rambled all the way to the little driver, with his irresistible resentful eyes, whom he imagined washing his car, swirling the water hose in all directions like a Mexican rodeo artist twirling a lasso. Adolfo got in the car and Gabriel dropped the hose, sat next to him, and gave him oral pleasure in the garage. One can dream.
He felt so weak that his knees were shaking. He came down to breakfast in nothing but his bathrobe and shades. He asked Zenaida for very spicy chilaquiles and a cup of black coffee, no good morning, please, or thank you. He did not greet his sister, who also looked like a ghost, he assumed because she had been fucking the architect until late at night. He went out to the garage to see if he ran into Gabriel. He wanted to confirm that his infatuation wasn’t simply a temporary loss of his faculties because of a hangover. The idea of opening his robe and showing himself in all his splendor to the servant, the way God brought him to this earth, filled him with glee. Indeed, Gabriel, who was polishing one of the cars, was as delectable under the cold light of reality as he had been in his Technicolor fantasy. Adolfo considered taking him under his wing. He would show him what music to listen to, what clubs to patronize, what mezcal to drink, how to fuck like a king, and the finest quality coke.
“Why did you go to the garage if your car is at the shop?” Lucía asked him when he came back to the table.
“None of your business,” said Adolfo. “To see if you can lend me your car later.”
“I lent it to you yesterday. I need it today.”
Lucía went on scolding him, but Adolfo unplugged himself from her litany of complaints as if he had found a mute button. He lit a cigarette.
He had taken up smoking and refilling his father’s liquor bottles with water at the age of eleven, even before his voice had changed. Among the concerned parents of the boys of Trinity School, Adolfito Orozco was considered the embodiment of the term “bad company.” Handsome and charming, he had pocketed the admiration of all his classmates, except for the unfortunate nerds he mocked without mercy. Mediocre at sports, terrible at school, excellent at partying, and very successful with the girls, he was the ideal teenager, except for one small detail. He had kissed a couple of girls and cupped his hand over a breast or two with a frightening lack of enthusiasm, that at first, he ascribed to his own inexperience. His father never gave any indication of wanting to initiate him into the mysteries of sex, not by having a talk with him, nor by taking him to prostitutes, like other fathers did. Adolfo could imagine his father confessing his misery to his friends during one of those endless Friday lunches at a cantina: “My own son turned out to be a fag. . . me salió puñal!” he would bawl. His pals would clap his back in consolation, thinking that if they were in the same predicament, they would kill their own son on the spot.
At the age of fourteen, Adolfo joined an expedition with a small group of friends eager to try their luck at a whorehouse in the Cuahutémoc neighborhood, led by Román, the eldest brother of his friend Carlos Ascencio, who was eighteen and had a car. The deal cost about fifty dollars at the time. Luis loaned him part of the money and the rest he saved up from his allowance and scrounged from his mother, with the excuse of buying a birthday present for his girlfriend, Adrianita Lascuráin.
Adolfo had imagined a luxurious living room lit by red fringed lamps, purple velvet sofas and alabaster-skinned hookers with very straight black hair, very long legs, and very red lips, naked under their silk print kimonos, drinking tropical cocktails with little paper umbrellas, as he had once seen in a movie. A busty matron with thick fake eyelashes would show him the merchandise with elegance.
To his profound disillusionment, the brothel was in an apartment decorated like the reception area of a cheap medical office: everything was a peach color, and what was not peach, was mint green. They were received by a woman dressed in rayon who looked like a moody bureaucrat. To the general delight of the boys, she offered them cubas with alcohol. The girls appeared, their movement a combination of walking and sashaying: Yadira, Rocío, Malena, Zafiro, Yessica, Iris. Román had told the boys that for the price they were paying, the girls would be super-hot, and from a distance they looked the part, with dyed blonde and copper hair, but from up close Adolfo could see the gobs of makeup covering their wrinkles and pores as wide as volcanic stone. For the price they were paying, thought Adolfo, who was already an aesthete at his tender age, they could have at least worn better clothes. They looked like pretentious secretaries. Sitting with their legs crossed, the women showed the garter belts that hugged their laced pantyhose. One of them clearly held a high opinion of herself, in long musketeer boots that reached up to her thighs. Another one wore an anklet under her pantyhose, which for Adolfo was as unforgivable a fashion faux pas as wearing socks with sandals. It would not have been half bad if at least they had resembled the effervescent go-go girls from the Mauricio Garcés movies, who still pranced around on TV in washed-out technicolor, wearing babydoll dresses lined with ostrich feathers in million-peso mansions in Pedregal. Alas, everything in this apartment had the clinging funk of thwarted ambition.
His friends laughed nervously, pretending that they were not petrified. Adolfo felt queasy. Rocío selected him. She was dark-skinned, with coppery hair, a decent smile and slender, yet firm, legs. The little flesh she had was concentrated in her breasts, round and hard like soccer balls. She was, as his pals would say, the hottest of them all. She took Adolfo by the hand and led him through a narrow hallway to an airless room, decorated with the now familiar pastel insistence. Dizzied by the stink of the air freshener and the busy print of the bedcover, Adolfo thought that when he dropped his pants, he would not be able to find his tiny little dick. However, because of her vast experience in initiating teens, Rocío was ready for that scenario. She took off her cheap red and black lace lingerie set, revealing a mound of jet-black pubic hair, incompatible with the reddish locks on her head. She got on her knees and helped him out with her mouth. Adolfo imagined that Rocío was slowly licking a delicious ice cream cone, sucking, nibbling, and covering her lips with vanilla. As soon as she noted a discernible erection, she strapped a condom on him and mounted him. She put Adolfo’s hands on her hard, bouncing breasts since he was too traumatized to do it himself. To her surprise, the kid did not come immediately but five seconds later, with the same terrified expression she had seen in all the others.
“Well done, papito,” she said to him. “You are going to be a good lover. Just remember to hold it in as long as possible. It’s not rocket science.”
On their way out, the friends made heroic efforts to brag that they had been tigers in bed, but their eyes were still full of fear. Adolfo could have sworn that Luis’s eyes were swollen, as if he had been crying.
The experience, intended to encourage him to pursue women, had the opposite effect. He already suspected that he was attracted to men. At recess, for instance, he’d sit in the schoolyard and preside over a fantasy contest of the most handsome boys in high school. This terrified him until he got turned on involuntarily by kissing Marina Ocampo at a party. After that, he convinced himself that he was not a faggot, or homosexual, as they were called scientifically, but that he had a fierce appetite for sex, regardless of gender. Moreover, in his fantasies his preference was to be the fucker, not the fucked, which led him to conclude that his masculinity was not only not in danger, but that he was even more of a man for having such a clever dick.
A few days after his deflowering, he realized he was being closely observed as he peed in the school restroom by the handsome Antonio Martínez de Hoyos, who was in senior high. With the excuse of searching for a lost contact lens, he pushed Adolfo into a stall, dropped him on his knees on the pee-encrusted floor, and opened his fly. Adolfo applied himself to the task by imitating Rocío’s maneuvers, his only reference. It did not taste like vanilla ice cream, but he had the spunk to ask his lover to return the favor and Antonio obliged, moved by Adolfito’s precocious gallantry and by his enormous green eyes. This earthly paradise continued over three weeks, during which Adolfo would meet his high school lover in the restroom during class hours, until one Friday Adolfo arrived promptly to the rendezvous, but his lover did not show up. The next day he saw him at the movies, holding hands with Lorena Bofill. Antonio shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “such is life.” Adolfo did not know what made him more bitter: being abandoned without explanation, being dumped for a woman, or realizing that the rest of the world found his romance repugnant. After that, he never allowed himself to fall in love with anyone again and he became an expert teller of faggot jokes. Years later, due to his affection for drugs and alcohol, his tendency to total cars, his cottage industry of narcotics distribution, and his sexual “confusion,” his father would tell him: “I don’t know who you take after. I should have sent you to rot in a military school, you are a disgrace to this family.”
“You are not even listening to me, Fito. What are you thinking about?” Lucía asked.
“Ah, my dearest sisterna. Among the twists and turns of my sad life, I was remembering the first time my heart was broken.”
“By whom?”
“By Lorena Bofill. I was crazy in love with her, but she never cared. She married that moron, Martínez de Hoyos.”
“Aw, poor Fito. As if you haven’t gotten even since then.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your girlfriends. Like poor Berenice. You promised you would marry her when you came back from Europe, and you left her high and dry.”
“Well, one matures on one’s long journey. I met much more worldly women than Bere and I realized I needed more than a boring wife.”
“You didn’t even have the decency to let her know.”
“Well, you party like crazy and no one says anything to you.”
“Because I am more discreet.”
“Because you are a hypocrite. If Dad only knew what you’re up to...”
“What do you mean?” Lucía asked, feigning shock.
“You know full well.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ricardo?”
“Of course not, he’s only a front.”
“You are delusional.”
It was impossible for him to know about Gabriel. No one had seen them.
“I’m just saying that I am not the only one in this house who misbehaves.”
“You’ve been lucky, Fito, that it hasn’t gone worse for you,” said Lucía.
“And you’ve been lucky that I haven’t told my parents about all the gañanes you’ve been with.”
“Or you are, because I haven’t talked about all the drugs you sell. Or about your buddies.”
“What buddies?”
“Come on.”
“If you have something to say, say it, but do not threaten me, cabrona. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, including you.”
Eleven Gabriel locked the door
behind him.
“What are you doing?” Lucía whispered. “Get out of my room.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Get out of my room, or I’ll scream.”
Gabriel was amused by her melodramatic threat. Lucía bit her lip in order not to laugh.
“Close the drapes,” ordered Gabriel.
“You close the drapes,” she countered.
“They’ll see me from the window, dummy.”
Lucía obeyed. The room was immediately cast in pink.
“Did anyone see you come up?”
“No one.”
“We can’t be here. They’re going to hear us.”
“Well, here we are,” said Gabriel.
He kissed her, pressing himself against her. His hands slipped under her clothes, opened zippers, unfastened hooks, freed buttons, tried to get her pants off. She slid her palm under his t-shirt and traveled the length of his torso, supple and warm like a baby’s. Gabriel was rubbing himself against her belly as if he were already inside her. She unbuttoned his pants and revealed his white briefs. She held her breath. She had never seen such a benign penis: smooth, pale, flat, and pointy like an electric eel. She took it tenderly in her hands and covered it with kisses.
“Bend over,” he said and placed her on her knees on the pink carpet.
A fresh breeze blew in her wet hole, followed by licks from side to side, as delicate as those of a kitten drinking milk. Her elbows trembled. No one had ever done anything like that to her. He replaced his tongue with his cock and was about to penetrate her.
“Do you have a condom?” she asked. “I don’t do it without a condom.”
“I’ll pull out,” he suggested.
“No way.”
Gabriel pushed her onto the bed. He rummaged his fingers inside her. She shook her head from side to side, and would look at him in amazement, or cover her eyes as if she could not believe what was happening.
“Touch me,” he asked.
He took her hand, lubricated it with his spit, and showed her how to rub him: hard and fast. His seed squirted over their bellies. She was too nervous to come.
He was dazed by the cosmetics, powders, salts, sponges, perfumes, bottles, jars, seashells, and conches gathered in her bathroom. Lucía jumped out of bed and hugged him from behind, covering him with kisses.
“I don’t want you to leave, but I am freaking out about them finding you in my room, you understand?”
She kissed him once more, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand.
“Go on, leave,” she said, kissing him all over.
“How am I going to leave if you won’t let me?”
There was a knock on the door. They looked at each other, alarmed. The doorknob turned, but the door was locked. Gabriel hid in the closet, naked. She hid their clothes and shoes under the bed.
“Who is it?” Lucía called out.
“Me,” said Adolfo.
“I’m studying. What do you want?”
“Open up, please.”
She put on her pajamas and opened the door. He looked at her with curiosity.
“I hate when you interrupt me while I am studying.”
“Do you have an extra bump? I’m dying.”
“No, I don’t. What about yesterday, Fito? I waited for Gabriel for hours. We had a deal. I lend you my car... “
Adolfo covered his ears melodramatically.
“Shh-shh-shh. It’s not that big a deal.”
“You have no respect for anything.”
He took off his sunglasses and surveyed the room.
“And Ricky? I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“He’s around. Why?”
“Just asking.”
“I have to take a shower. Ciao.”
Lucía pushed him out and locked the door. Adolfo remained in the hallway, lost in thought. After a few moments, Gabriel emerged from the closet. Lucía pointed to the shadow of Adolfo’s feet on the other side of the door. They stood motionless until the shadow disappeared.
“I have a feeling he suspects something,” whispered Lucía. “This cannot happen again.”
She peeked into the hallway and signaled to Gabriel to leave.
Gabriel squeezed Lucía’s hands in his and once he was fully dressed, he left in one step and went down the stairs quickly but without running. He had no idea how long he had been in there. It seemed like hours. He went down to the garden, sniffing his fingers over and over, inhaling Lucía’s intimate sweat.
“Where were you?” His dad startled him.
“I went to the median to smoke.”
“Go to the supermarket. Here’s the list. Don’t take long. And don’t leave the car on the street. Park it inside.”
Agustín handed him the list, the keys to the BMW and a purple five-hundred-peso bill. It was the first time he’d been sent shopping by himself with so much money and in that car. That crisp bill would have come in handy at the Parque Hundido.
Sitting behind the wheel, he remembered that only a few weeks ago he had returned to Mexico with his tail between his legs, owning not much more than what he had when he’d left. After the disappointment of meeting his dad and having to go back to the stifling poverty of his neighborhood, he had considered joining the narcos, concluding that in Mexico one could not make a living doing anything else. In the United States he had been able to save, send money to his mom, pay the rent, and buy stuff for himself. The deportation process and the lawyer who scammed him had wiped him out. In Mexico, his salary was an insult. He had looked for a job as a waiter, but as soon as he mentioned he had worked as a busboy at a bistro in New York, instead of hiring him, they shunned him. However, that bright autumn afternoon, under a rare blue sky, he felt that his adventures and misadventures on the other side had somehow borne fruit.
He strolled around the supermarket aisles steering the cart as if he were a rock star buying provisions for a massive party. He stopped at the soap section to buy Lucía a gift. He waited in the long line for the cold cuts. The list in his hands was filled with exotic minutiae, such as the width, brands, and types of ham, and the quantities of sausage, chorizo, cheeses and patés. When it was his turn, the salesgirl did not offer him a slice of anything, nor tell him which ham was on sale, as she had done with the lady in front of him. Behind him, another doña made impatient sounds with her breath and clicked her tongue to express her displeasure with the slowness of the staff. Gabriel sneaked a look at her. She was not much older than Lucía, but she was dressed like a matron. Perhaps she was annoyed at having to stand in line behind a servant.
“May I have a taste of the Manchego cheese?” Gabriel asked the salesgirl, who hesitated before giving him a morsel of cheese.
Gabriel savored it slowly while the snorts of the woman behind him grew louder. This led him to peruse his list with extra care and to pretend to be undecided between buying quince or guava paste, asking the girl if she could kindly give him a taste of each and a bite of the Panela cheese. The salesgirl sliced the paste as if she had been asked to sever her own arm. While Gabriel compared the sweets, he heard a heel slam.
“Hey, are you going to take much longer?” the lady behind him finally said.
No, my lady, see? I’m almost done here, I beg your pardon, but the thing is I have a very big list, and because I’m very stupid, I don’t know how to do this. But if you want, I can get out of the way so you can do your errands in peace.
Gabriel pulled his best thug face, took a menacing step towards the lady, and stared her straight in the eye.
“I’ll take the time I take and if you don’t like it, you can beat it,” he hissed.
“Pelado—riffraff!” said the lady, red with fury. She clutched her handbag as if Gabriel was about to snatch it away.
TwelveAbout six blocks away
from the house, Lucía jumped into the front seat.
“Why do we have to go all the way downtown?” said Gabriel.
“Because we won’t run into anyone there. It’s less risky.”
They left the car in the underground parking of Bellas Artes and strolled through the streets of the historic center. They passed the Downtown Hotel. Gabriel wanted to go in, but Lucía feared running into someone she knew. He started looking for a hotel. They went by a colonial building with a sign that said “Hotel Mónaco.”
“Here?” said Gabriel.
Lucía screened the facade.
“I don’t know what kind of a place this is,” she said.
“It’s a hotel.”
“Ok, you check it out,” Lucía grumbled.
Gabriel crossed the big wooden doors and stepped into a cool inner courtyard with tiled floors. A small stone fountain gurgled in the middle of the patio. A stone staircase with wrought iron handrails led to the rooms on the second and third floors. Behind the faded wood counter that served as the reception desk, the price list indicated that a room was twice what Gabriel earned in one day.
“It’s a bit expensive,” said Gabriel.
“How much?”
“Three hundred and sixty pesos.”
“Must be full of fleas,” Lucía mumbled.
“Check it out yourself,” said Gabriel.
“Is it for hookers?” Lucía asked disapprovingly.
“I don’t think so!” Gabriel replied.
He pulled her by the hand into the hotel. Lucía felt relief as she saw two Scandinavian looking hippies coming down the stairs. Gabriel leaned on the counter and asked for a room. Lucía stood petrified with her back to the counter, aiming her nerves at the fountain.
“How many nights?” the manager asked casually, stretching his neck to look for luggage.
“Only for today,” said Gabriel.
“It’s 360 pesos.”
His tone was strictly professional, but Lucía found it judgmental.
“No problem,” Gabriel replied.
“Excuse me, payment is required in advance,” said the man.
“Yes. One moment.”
Gabriel pulled out the last hundred-peso bill he had and continued digging in his pockets as if there still was money to be found in their depths.
“One second, please,” he said.
Lucía pretended to be enthralled by the fountain.
“I don’t have enough,” whispered Gabriel. “I need two hundred and sixty.”
Lucía took out three bills and handed them to him without looking.
The room reeked of Pine Sol. Most of it was occupied by a lumpy queen-sized mattress, blanketed in coarse grey wool. The rest of the furniture consisted of a wooden chair and a rickety armoire with four crooked hangers. The narrow bathroom was covered in white tile and included a half-used roll of cheap toilet paper, two threadbare towels and a tiny bar of Rosa Venus soap. A slit that peered into a dark interior patio provided the very limited amount of natural light. On a drawer next to the bed there was a pitcher of water with two plastic cups and a red rotary phone.
Lucía pulled back the blanket to check if the sheets were clean. They were thin and coarse and had a couple of patches but no hairs or stains. Gabriel let her inspect the room. When she finished her review, Gabriel held her, kissed her, and started unbuttoning her blouse.
“Calm down,” she pushed him away.
“It’s not so bad, Luchita. Come on, relax.”
Lucía had done it in legitimate hotels in Valle de Bravo, Ixtapa, and Acapulco. She had done it one afternoon, paranoid and uncomfortable, in a park with yellowish grass in Bosques de las Lomas, and only once in an average hotel in the Colonia Roma with greenish carpeting and bedspreads with cigarette burns.
“Do you have condoms? Which ones did you buy?”
“Jeez, Lucía, I’m not a fucking virus. I have condoms, okay? They’re all the same. Do you always make your boyfriend bag it up?”
While Gabriel went to the bathroom, Lucía inspected the bed, the floor, and the armoire once more. She peered through the slit of window but there was nothing to see. She sat on the bed and listened to the echo of Gabriel’s urine splashing in the toilet, followed by the sound of flushing water. She thought there was still time to escape but she stayed put. He came towards her and kissed and stroked her without embarrassment, roughness, or clumsiness. He laid her on the bed and got on top of her, and they rolled in bed fully clothed, like awkward teenagers. Little by little they found patches of warm skin until they were in their underwear.
“I don’t understand how it took us so long to get to this point,” she panted.
Lucía watched him undress. His white briefs looked a bit like a diaper. His ribs were sticking out of his torso; his elbows, shoulders, and knees pressed against his skin like a soccer ball straining against the net. His belly was hollow, and his thick black bush contrasted sharply against his lean frame.
She held very still while he put on the condom, torn between the panic of the consequences of what was about to happen and the urge to get him inside her; anticipating that miraculous feeling when he found the opening in her flesh by himself. Gabriel could not cease to marvel at having her tangled beneath his body, and at being the reason why her hair was sprawled on the pillow like a web of black silk. He stuck his nostrils and his tongue in her armpits, acrid with sweat and perfume, he tasted the salty nectar of her cunt and the taste of clean soap on her skin. Lucía fucked without inhibition, bouncing violently on the bed, despite, or perhaps because the sheets were coarse. She was turned on by the fact that she was in that dingy hotel without anyone’s knowledge. She started touching herself and moaning louder. Gabriel matched the urgent rhythm of her breath until she exploded with a fearsome howl.
“Yes, come Gabriel, come inside me.”
Gabriel swayed on top of her, whimpering and trembling until he collapsed, exhausted.
He hugged her and covered her in tender kisses.
“Mi princesa caramelo—My princess made of caramel.”
Lucía replied with a long kiss. What could she answer? “My chocolate chauffeur”?
“Did you like it?” she asked.
Who doesn’t?, he thought.
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“Of course... I loved it!” She looked at him soberly and added, “I like you a lot, Gabriel.”
“I like you too.”
They remained braided together for a long time, nuzzling in the vapor of their sleepy bodies.
Lucía had left her bracelets and earrings at home. She had not brought her handbag or her credit cards. She had divided the money between the two front pockets of her jeans, just in case. After they left the hotel, she walked down the streets holding on to Gabriel for dear life, looking back on every corner, trying to identify possible kidnappers or policemen looking for their wages. Men stared at her ravenously or bumped into her on purpose to cop a feel.
They ran into the Zócalo, which she remembered visiting when she was a little girl to see the Christmas decorations. She had glimpsed it from the car one night her daddy took her and Adolfo, in their pajamas, to see the holiday lights in Alameda Park. In the afternoon light, the enormous plaza was somewhere between majestic, as they said on TV, and derelict. The portraits of national heroes made of colored lightbulbs still hung at each of its corners, commemorating the Independence holidays. A group of young men in loincloths and feathered headdresses performed an indigenous dance with flutes, conchs, and pre-Hispanic drums. Beggars posted at the cathedral’s entrance whimpered with pathetic voices, while native peoples, teachers, workers, and professional protesters, all camped under indignant handmade signs they had hung from the cathedral fence.
Lucía imagined herself going to confession inside the cathedral, the only church outside of the Basilica of Guadalupe and St. Peter in Rome large enough to accommodate her countless and monumental sins. “I have just fornicated,” she imagined gleefully whispering to the priest, “with the driver who works in my house, behind my boyfriend’s back. I am a world-class sinner, father. Your rosaries can do nothing for me.”
“Aren’t you starving, mi reina? ” said Gabriel.
“Where can we eat?”
“You tell me.”
“Let me find out what’s around.”
Lucía was not very familiar with the Centro, besides the Downtown Hotel which Ricardo liked and to which she could not take Gabriel. She remembered the Sanborn’s de los Azulejos. She thought Gabriel was a bit alarmed by that suggestion.
“Don’t worry, I’m buying,” she told him.
Inside the grand covered courtyard of the restaurant, Lucía felt that everyone was gaping at them, including the waitress dressed in a long, pleated paper skirt with colored stripes. Gabriel looked at the menu. The prices were shocking.
“Order whatever you want,” Lucía said.
“Well then: a Tlalpeño broth, some enchiladas, sopecitos, one steak Tampiqueña, a banana split and a pecan milkshake.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Lucía.
“Didn’t you say, ‘everything you want’?”
Gabriel ordered a tortilla soup and a steak Tampiqueña; Lucía, Swiss enchiladas.
“Imagine,” said Lucía, “this was the house of a viceroy.”
“Relatives of yours, my love?”
“Seriously, we aren’t that rich.”
Gabriel burst out laughing.
“I swear,” protested Lucía.
They left Sanborn’s feeling satisfied and drowsy. It seemed to Lucía as if she had gone on a trip abroad, as if she was visiting an exotic and distant continent, like India or Africa.
Thirteen“Since she’s been dating Ricardo,
she is nowhere to be found,” commented Ximena.
“She is never home. I called her three times so she could join us and couldn’t reach her,” said Marifer.
“She’s skipping school way too much, right? She’s absent at least once a week” said Viviana, “and she doesn’t care. She hasn’t asked me for my notes, or anything.”
“She must be in love,” said Lolis.
“She can be as much in love as she wants but you don’t ignore your best friends.” said Ximena. “When she has no one to date, she sticks to us like gum, but the minute she finds a boyfriend, she vanishes.”
“I bet Ricardo will ask to marry her soon and she won’t finish college,” said Marifer.
“I’m glad she finally found a serious boyfriend,” said Viviana.
“Yes, it was about time, to tell the truth. I was worried, frankly,” said Ximena.
“Why?” asked Lolis.
They all laughed.
“Because she has a terrible reputation, Lolis,” said Ximena.
“What does she do that’s so bad?” said Lolis.
“She must have told you everything,” said Marifer to Ximena.
“She is my best friend, and she has told me many things. You’re insane if you think I am going to repeat them.”
The girls got quiet. Ximena had no choice but to break the silence.
“I love her,” said Ximena, “but she needs psychological help because she is too irresponsible, and she won’t admit she is hurting herself.”
“I’m afraid someone will take advantage of her,” said Marifer.
“Exactly,” said Ximena. “She thinks she can control everything, but one day it will slip out of her hands”.
“But doesn’t she take precautions? What could possibly happen to her?” asked Viviana.
Ximena sighed.
“You have no idea of the things she does.”
“Like what?” asked Viviana. “I mean, if she takes the pill or makes sure they wear a condom, what’s the problem?”
“No Vivis, it’s that she hooks up with too many guys. Would you come on to a guy the first time you ever saw him at a party at some stranger’s house and two hours later you are in bed with him?” said Ximena.
“Who was the guy?” asked Marifer.
“Who knows!” said Ximena. “A freeloader from the Roma or Nápoles or who knows where.”
“Were you there?” asked Lolis.
“No, but she told me the next day that they made it in the guy’s VW van on the street.”
“Nooo!” they howled. “Where?”
“In Calderón de la Barca, in Polanco,” said Ximena. “Okay, check this out: they were inside the van bouncing in the middle of the street and after a while, Lucía was dying to pee but there was nowhere to do it. The party was long over, and she wasn’t going to ring the bell at 5 am to ask to use the toilet, so the guy tells her to do it behind a bush.”
They were laughing hysterically.
“And what did she do?” asked Lolis.
“Just that,” said Ximena.
“Oh my God!” said Marifer.
“I can tell you thousands of stories like that,” said Ximena.
“How many guys do you think she has been with?” asked Marifer.
Besides Enzo, Lucía had slept with a friend’s boyfriend, possibly belonging to one of these friends, she would not say who; with a gay guy in denial, with a married guy about the age of her dad, with a guy who sang in a rock group that was starting to make it, with a director of commercials she had met at a casting; with a dealer that looked like Sting; with an alcoholic gringo who was like 20 years older; with a French guy, with a middle-aged though very handsome Italian with green eyes and shady businesses, a Venezuelan, and a Belgian. This list did not include the guy in the van, the two official boyfriends, and the untold, anonymous men with whom she just made out.
“Jeez, with a bunch. And I think she hasn’t told me half of it. But from what she has told me, at least fifteen.”
They all did their mental math. On average, each one calculated that between all of them they had fucked no more than fifteen. Not counting Lolis, whose innocence they mistook for virginity.
“No, well then, she is fucked up,” said Lolis.
“I wonder if there is anything we can do to help,” said Marifer.
“I don’t think she needs anyone’s help. She’s happy this way,” said Viviana. Their morally superior attitude towards Lucía annoyed her.
“Remember that time at the sex education class?” continued Ximena, refuting Viviana with more evidence of Lucía’s incorrigibility.
The sex education class was taught once a year by some devout mothers who were especially selected by the nuns for that purpose. That time, in the auditorium, the teenage girls learned for the umpteenth time that copulating before marriage was a sin. The nuns passed around a basket so that the girls could feel free to express their concerns about their sexuality in little anonymous notes.
A few students wrote their questions on the graph paper. Then Mrs. González de la Cueva opened a note and hesitated before reading it, her voice trembling with anger: “What does semen taste like?”
“Remember?” said Marifer.
“The Prefect of Discipline jumped off her chair so fast, it fell over,” said Ximena.
“She looked like she was going to explode when she asked who wrote it,” said Viviana.
“The first thing that came to my mind was that it tastes like lime sherbet,” said Lolis.
After laughing, the friends recited in unison the unforgettable response of Mrs. González de la Cueva:
“That is something I will not answer because I don’t know, and I don’t ever intend to know. It is disgusting.”
“So,” said Ximena, resting her case, “who do you think it was?”
“Nooo,” said Lolis.
“Of course,” said Viviana. “Who else?”
“She told you?” asked Marifer.
“She didn’t have to,” said Ximena, “I know her. If I were Ricardo, I’d be embarrassed to go out with Lucía. You go to a party and half your acquaintances have already scored with her. Let me put it this way: she was so scared, that she even went to get an AIDS test.”
“And what did it say?” asked Lolis.
“Don’t be stupid, Lolis,” said Viviana. “Obviously she was negative.”
“How do you know?” said Marifer. “Maybe she has it.”
“She doesn’t have it,” Ximena assured them.
“Negative means yes, or no?” asked Lolis.
“It means no!” they all laughed.
“But negative means something bad, so if they say you are negative, maybe it means you have it,” explained Lolis.
“Lolis, really. In any case, she was so paranoid,” continued Ximena, “that she didn’t believe the results and retook the test at the British Hospital with the excuse of donating blood.”
“Where did she get it done the first time?” asked Marifer.
“I think at Censida, near Metro Insurgentes,” said Ximena.
They were all horrified.
“Obviously, she wasn’t going to go to her gynecologist,” continued Ximena. “What if he told her mom?”
“The doctor is supposed to keep it confidential,” said Lolis.
“Supposed to,” they all said in unison.
Fourteen Escaping with Gabriel
wasn’t easy. She couldn’t take a single step in that house (which, since things began with Gabriel felt as overpopulated as an anthill) without a relative or servant appearing behind a door. People lurked everywhere, wanting to know where she was going, when she was coming back, how, when, and with whom.
She and Gabriel lived roused by hope and exhausted by frustration, unable to plan ahead, seeking moments to steal hurried kisses. Which is why Sundays were the perfect day to disappear with Gabriel. Half the servants had the day off. Her dad went to play golf. If Natalia didn’t join him at the club, the manicurist would do her nails at home.
But sometimes Roberto either had a guilty conscience or wanted to ruin everyone’s day, so he’d organize a family lunch at the Miravista. On those days, the family arrived in three separate cars. Lucía in Ricardo’s, Adolfo in his Jetta, and the Orozcos in the Mercedes.
Fito was always the last one to arrive, looking haggard and dehydrated. Lucía was always in a foul mood of epic proportions for reasons only she could fathom, and Natalia defended Fito to get a rise out of her husband. When the hostilities began at the table, Ricardo would fix his gaze on his Tampiqueña steak, while Roberto downed several tequilas and put on his martyr face when the check arrived.
“I’m going with my friend Chantal to a luncheon in Pedregal.”
Lucía dipped her concha in the yolk of her soft-boiled egg (Zenaida served them to her without the whites because she hated them).
“Chantal who?” her mother inquired.
“Chantal Bellini. Her parents are Italian diplomats. You don’t know them.”
She had borrowed the last name from a brunch menu.
“You’re not seeing Ricky?”
“In the early evening.”
If everything went well and people didn’t ask too many questions, four o’clock would arrive and Lucía wouldn’t be seized by the claustrophobic anguish that crept up on her every Sunday of her life. She’d only feel sad when she came back from her romance downtown to a dark house, her mom locked in her bedroom, her dad and brother gone, and her boyfriend’s messages on her cellphone.
Gabriel had gone to the hotel by minibus and metro (Sunday was his day off and it was not wise for them to go together). He was very late. Waiting for him in the room creeped her out, so Lucía waited in the lobby, across from the receptionist who ogled her with lewd complicity. She had been sitting on the edge of the little stone fountain for half an hour. Exasperated, she peeked out the big wooden door. Gabriel was walking calmly towards her, as if they had an eternity to spend together.
“I brought you a Tin Larín. A sweet for my sweet,” said Gabriel, all smiles.
“Look at the time,” Lucía replied.
“The minibus was late.”
“We have no time! I’m supposed to see Ricardo tonight.”
“Oh, fuck that shit.”
“I have to see him at some point. They will suspect something if I don’t.”
“Yeah, go tell your grandma that it is for our sake that you fuck the architect. I’m not that big a fool. Are you going to give me the money or what?”
“I already paid.”
“No shit. Really?”
Lucía scowled and took the money out of her wallet.
“You better not,” said Gabriel, snatching the bill.
“What if I pay the guy one day?”, she asked.
“They’ll think I am your private escort.”
“Don’t be so macho.”
She knew that Gabriel didn’t have much money, but she thought that once in a while he could buy her a meal in a cheap place like Vips or at least spring for a movie and popcorn.
“I’m fed up with coming downtown. I’m fed up with this hotel,” she said.
“We can go to the Camino Real if you want.”
“We can, but I’d have to pay for it, like I do everything else.”
“Why are you so stingy, with all the money you have?”
“I pay for everything, and you tell me I’m cheap? Besides, I have no money. You know my dad gives it to me.”
“Come on, tu papá caga lana—your dad shits money.”
“Here we go again. What, you didn’t save any money in the United States? You have nothing left?”
“No. I have nothing left, go figure. Vete al carajo.”
Gabriel stormed out. She ran after him.
“Gabriel! Wait!”
Lucía started crying. The topic of money provoked tears of guilt. She always felt like the villain of the story, not only stingy and insensitive to her lover’s struggles, but as if she were to blame for the fact that he didn’t have a cent.
“Come on, let’s go to the room,” she said. “Here’s the cash. Don’t be mad.”
“You think I enjoy having you pay for everything?”
“No. Please, forgive me.”
Gabriel paid the receptionist and went up the stairs without waiting for her. He was lying in bed when she came in.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, getting flushed just from expressing the thought.
“Beg me,” he said.
“Fuck me, I beg you, te lo suplico.”
He penetrated her without putting on the condom. She writhed like a tadpole, she scratched, bit, and pinched him but she let him overpower her, turned on by their wrestling and by his naked sex pumping inside her without the rubber membrane that was the last barrier against their intimacy. Not without panic, she thought he might come inside her, and imagined his viscous seed spreading quickly, trying to reach her ovaries. But he pulled out.
Satisfied and grateful, Lucía snuggled next to him under the sheets, showering him with kisses. The only sound they heard was the labored breathing of the boilers and generators. There he lay right beside her, naked and placid as a sleeping baby, and she knew nothing about him: what his life was like, where had he gone to school, how had he grown up, if he had ever been in love before. She was afraid to find out, worried that this would increase the differences between them. Yet she felt that in some way she already knew his story: a story of ugliness, cruelty, and deprivation, the story of all of Mexico’s poor. Her mom used to say that Mexicans were a bunch of losers who didn’t know how to succeed in life. Everything they touched, they turned to ashes.
“Why did you come back from the States?” she roused him.
She was eager to hear her lover’s story, excited and alert like when she was a little girl and her daddy used to help her with her homework.
“Because I got deported.”
“How?”
“When I worked at a restaurant in Soho.”
“Which restaurant? Maybe I know it.”
“Le Bistrot.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Was it good?”
“Yes, very good.”
“Were you a cook?”
“No, I was a busboy. I was going to be promoted to waiter.”
“And how much did they pay?” Lucía asked.
“Seven dollars an hour. Minimum wage was eleven eighty.”
“And how much do you make here?”
“Not even worth mentioning.”
“Tell me.”
Gabriel took a long pause.
“Tell me. I want to know.”
“Two hundred dollars a month. How about that?”
Even though math was not her forte, Lucía figured that Gabriel’s monthly salary was less than the price of a cocktail dress from a so-so brand at Bloomingdale’s.
“It’s not a lot,” said Lucía.
“It’s nothing.”
“Okay, tell me about New York. Isn’t it the best?” she said.
“It’s great once you get used to it. But in the beginning, it’s a bitch.”
“Why?”
“Because those of us who aren’t there as tourists, like you, at first you don’t know shit. You don’t speak a word of English, you don’t know anyone, and there are another eighty thousand desperate idiots looking for work, just like you.”
“How did you manage to get there?”
“I paid a coyote 1200 green ones to cross me over.”
“How did you get that much money?”
“I saved, working with my mom in her juice stand. Then my brother and my uncle chipped in, along with some money that a friend loaned me.”
“And how did you cross?” Lucía asked.
“Well, first you arrive at a town called Naco...”
“You are making this up.”
“I swear to God that’s the name of that stupid town,” laughed Gabriel. “Do you want me to tell you or not? In Naco, you stay at a hotel the coyote gets you and you wait until they tell you when they’re crossing you over, three or four days jerking off. And once they let you know, you meet at night with a bunch of people, and you start walking through the desert. You can’t see anything, and it’s fucking freezing. And you walk and walk, and you don’t get anywhere. You cross by sliding under a torn iron fence. The moment the sun rises, the heat is unbearable. Cactus thorns stick to your clothes. You run into poisonous snakes. It feels like you have a red-hot iron on your head. People get tired. They faint. They get disoriented. They get lost. And the coyotes don’t wait.”
“You didn’t help them?”
“At first, I was watching out for them, but they kept falling behind and if I stayed with them, we would all get lost.”
He didn’t tell her that they were women, some with little children, who came from who knows where in El Salvador or Guatemala, who asked for help.
“You think they died?”
“I hope not. But with that heat, I don’t know.”
“You didn’t feel guilty leaving them there?”
“I did. But what do you expect me to do? Would you have waited for them?”
“And what happened once you crossed over?”
“We got to a road, and they stuck us inside a van with no windows. We could hardly breathe, dying in the heat for hours. Then the van stopped suddenly, and they opened the doors. I almost went blind from the sunlight. I could see some buildings in the distance bending in the heat like rubber. They told us that was Tucson and to separate to avoid getting caught by the migra. And they left us there in the middle of that oven. So, I started walking towards the buildings, no water or anything, alone as a dog. I made it to a neighborhood where each house had a swimming pool, and I was so hot that that I took off my clothes, jumped a fence, and I dove into a pool in my briefs. You have no idea how good it felt. I was so thirsty I drank water from the pool. I got out before anyone saw me, I changed clothes, and headed towards the city.”
“And did you find a job?”
“In Tucson it was impossible. The migra won’t leave you alone. I went to pick apples in Washington State, then to Long Island. My buddy Leandro and I went to a town called Farmington, about an hour and a half from New York City on the train. It was a dump. We found a house to rent with a bunch of Mexicans. We had to walk like half an hour to a godammned corner of the town and wait until a gringo picked us up in a van and took us to work. Farmington was terrible, but twenty minutes away, it was a different story: Mansions with pools and gardens. That’s where they’d take us to mow lawns and plant rosebushes and shit like that.
Two days after we got there, a gringo took Leandro and me to seed grass in his garden. We worked all day long with our backs hurting like hell, but at the end he gave us each a 100-dollar bill. He hired us to paint walls and install air conditioners. He saved a shitload of money with us. He’d tell us, “You’re like little hardworking ants, tiny and dark.”
“Did you make a lot?”
“Honey, I had never had so much dough in my life. In four months, I saved about 3,000 dollars. But being the moron that I am, I sent most to my mom, and I paid what I owed.”
“And then?”
“One morning a pickup truck with two blond jocks pulled up at the corner. They picked Leandro and your humble servant, since we stuck together like dirt to a fingernail. They took us to a house under construction. We could tell it was abandoned. The yard was full of broken glass and used needles. We got a bad vibe, but there we were, chasing after the money. They ambushed us inside a barn, and when Leandro tried to run, one of the gringos knocked him out. The other one pulled out a chain. They beat Leandro to a bloody pulp. They broke four of my ribs and almost took my eye out. And you can’t go to the hospital in case the migra is prowling. It was a shitshow.”
Lucía’s eyes clouded over.
“I’m not telling you this so you can pity me,” Gabriel said.
“I don’t pity you. On the contrary, I admire you. I wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in the desert.”
“Of course not. There is no Zenaida there to carry your water canteen.”
Lucía pretended not to hear the comment.
“Did you miss Mexico?”
“I missed my friends. And the food.”
“Not your family?”
“Honestly, no. They are a pain in the ass.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
Lucía could imagine him with his protruding ribs, working under the blazing sun.
“Weren’t you lonely?”
“I got myself some girlfriends.”
“Mexicans?”
“And gringas too.”
“Seriously?”
“Of course, over there it’s a different story,” Gabriel said. “Gringas are much more laid back.”
“Son unas putas.”
“Maybe, but they don’t play hard to get so much.”
Until that day, Lucía’s opinion was that Mexico’s poor insisted on ruining their own lives by having dozens of children they couldn’t afford. The sexual lives of Ignacia, Jacinta, or Zenaida had never crossed her mind. It was a taboo, like picturing her own parents copulating.
“How many gringas did you hook up with?”
“Lots. The güeritas over there don’t look down on you like the ones here, baby. Like Kate, she was all over me.”
“Who?”
“An Irish waitress who worked with me in the restaurant. Every time she arrived, she greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. And again when she went home at night. I used to call her Catalina.”
“And did you score?”
“Of course. She was my girlfriend. But the manager, an asshole gringo called Brian, was after Kate. He saw that she was into me, and he started making my life a living hell. Once, I happened to talk back and the cabrón called ICE. One day, right during lunchtime, they showed up in the kitchen looking for me. They arrested me, locked me up in jail for six months and then deported me.”
Ricardo wanted to stay home and listen to music. Lucía didn’t mind showering, putting on her creams, perfume, and makeup all over again. It turned out that the more sex she had, the more sex she wanted to have. She was turned on by having been with Gabriel only a couple of hours before. She enjoyed comparing her two lovers. She liked sniffing them, tasting them, and identifying their scents and flavors as if she were tasting wines. She liked being desired by two men. And she wanted to feel horny with both, although she didn’t dare do with Ricardo half of the things she did with Gabriel in the hotel, and she had no idea why.
“You seem distracted, Lucía. Are you alright?” asked Ricardo.
“Yes, mi amor. I’m just a bit tired. I didn’t sleep well.”
“Let me put on some chill out music, we’ll have a little wine, and smoke a little weed. What do you want for dinner? We can ask the maid to fix something, or we can order sushi.”
“Sushi.”
“Cool. I have a wonderful sake that I brought from Japan. I can make you some amazing saketinis.”
“Just the sake, thanks.”
“I can add a slice of cucumber for the aroma.”
“I said just the sake!”
Ricardo looked hurt.
“You just don’t listen, Ricky. Let’s go to your room.”
She took him by the hand to lead him there. He didn’t budge.
“Not that I’m complaining, but once in a blue moon when I actually get to see you, it’s either to have lunch with your family, or to fuck,” he said.
“Oh, so if a girl wants to fuck, she is a whore, and if she doesn’t, she is a nun. Are you coming or not?”
Ricardo made a funny frightened face.
“Let me get the weed.”
Ricardo told the maid to call it a night. He ordered an amazing Japanese meal and as background music he chose an album with a woman whispering in French. Lucía would have preferred Luis Miguel, or a normal ballad, but Ricardo said those were cheesy. Her two lovers hated her taste in music. That’s what they had in common.
Lucía was intimidated by the perfection of Ricardo’s apartment. It was like being trapped in a fashion magazine where everyone wore sunglasses and weird Prada clothes, and smiling was frowned upon. After he went to the door to get the sushi, Ricardo came back to the living room looking triumphant.
“Look what I found! Molly! Have you tried it?”
This is too much, thought Lucía. Only a few hours ago, I was melting with the driver and now Ecstasy with this one.
“Never,” she lied.
“Do you feel like trying it?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Let’s take it after we eat,” said Ricardo.
He artfully arranged the sushi on his Japanese ceramic dinnerware with hammered metal chopsticks and linen napkins that matched his Scandinavian shot glasses. Lucía would not have minded eating straight from the plastic tray with the splintered wooden chopsticks instead of having to wait for Ricardo to stop acting like a Geisha. But once Ricardo started feeding her sushi and the sake had relaxed her, she found her boyfriend’s penchant for the finer things in life quite pleasant. After dinner, Ricardo split the pill in two and made Lucía drink a full glass of water. They hugged on the leather sofa waiting for the pill to kick in, listening to the phantasmagoric music. Half an hour later, a feeling of wellbeing descended on Lucía like a silk membrane. The music notes entered through her pores. Handsome, tall Ricardo, with his angelic curls coiled around his forehead, danced with her, following her moves with telepathic precision, which made her utter little yelps of joy. Their bodies brushed against each other, and the texture of his shirt and his chest below it were deliriously soft. Lucía felt that her own smile was going to drip down her chin like a juicy, ripe fruit. Their bodies floated like anemones to the liquid sway of the music. They were one organism. Ricardo kissed her softly. He tasted of sake and the sea. He caressed her as if she were made of glass.
“You are beautiful, Lucía.”
“Hmm.”
“I can’t believe my luck.”
“Me neither.”
Ricardo looked at her in awe, searching for her love in the depths of her eyes. She smiled sweetly at him. They gazed at each other for a long time, very close together, without touching.
“I love you,” he said.
“Shh. Make love to me.”
And he did, with delicious, sweet, tender slowness, their scorching skins melding, their mouths thirsty, the exquisite fever of their pleasure under the cotton sheets as cool as the water that smooths the pebbles in a stream. Lucía felt that in her heart there was room for loving more than one man, love to give and receive.
Fifteen Gabriel touched the wrinkled picture
that he’d gotten from Lucía after begging and swearing that he would hide it in a safe place. Lucía, radiant in a black bikini, was posing on the creamy sands of Acapulco. In fact, the only reason he wanted to meet with Moco and Bolillo was to show off his woman. His lifelong friends: they were all going to hit the States together, until they bailed on him. Later he found out they were resentful and had made fun of his trip. He found them on their eternal break outside of Flacher, Moco’s brother’s body shop, where they were busy dismantling cars.
“What’s the deal with this bro? He is a fucking schmo. He prefers Uncle Sam to the nopal. Fucking loser, güero wannabe, you live in Las Lomas, and you never come see me, you are not my homie,” sang Bolillo, showing off his questionable talent as a rapper. He wanted to give Gabriel a hug but held back.
“Motherfucker, since he got here from the other side, he thinks his shit don’t stink,” said Moco.
“At least I’m not the one who bailed,” said Gabriel, extending his hand as a gesture of peace.
“What brings you here, Güero? Did you come to hand your mom some dirty cash?” Moco said, shaking his hand.
“No, I came to say hello, homes. See what you’re up to.”
“Here we are, practicing automotive engineering, as usual.”
“And your raps, Bolillo, how are they coming along? Have you been signed by the Banda Machos record label?”
“Keep laughing at me, cabrón. At least no one would have kicked my ass like that, motherfucker.”
“You would have scared yourself to death before you even reached the border, pinche gordo maricón—you fucking fat faggot,” interceded Moco.
Just as if they had slept together.
“And how’s life in las Lomas treating you, güey? What do you do?” said Bolillo.
“I’m a driver.”
“With your old man, right? And what ship do you captain?”
“More than one: a Focus, a Jetta, a BMW, and a Mercedes. And, once in a while, an Audi TT.”
Gabriel began to savor his little revenge.
“No shit. They work your ass off at the car dealership,” said Bolillo.
“Your bosses, they shit money, or what?” asked Moco.
“Well, yeah, they’re something else. They wipe their asses with 500-peso bills.”
“If you lift anything, you gotta share,” said Bolillo.
“No way. I am a trusted employee,” Gabriel replied.
“Yeah, a fucking boy scout,” said Moco.
“And what’s up with your old lady, Moco? How many offspring have you brought into the world already?” asked Gabriel.
“I have three enanos, dude. But one is not Lety’s, so don’t open your mouth.”
“How about you, Bolillo?”
“Not even a hooker would go anywhere near this one,” Moco answered.
“Well, I got a broad like you bitches have never seen,” said Gabriel.
“Imported or domestic?” asked Bolillo.
“Imported from las Lomas.”
“Fuck you!”
“She’s my boss, cabrón.”
“Are you screwing the Señora de la casa? ”
“Her daughter, güey.”
“You think we’re pendejos?” said Bolillo.
“Her name is Lucía. Wanna see her picture?”
Gabriel took out the photo from his pocket and was delighted by the astonished faces of his friends.
“Come on, güey, you stole this,” said Moco.
“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to.”
“She sucked it already?” Bolillo inquired.
“Many times.”
“Sss, you fucking liar,” Moco protested.
“It’s for real. How much do you want to bet this is my bitch?”
“A million dollars,” Bolillo proposed.
“A thousand pesos,” Gabriel countered.
“Deal. How are you going to prove it?” asked Moco.
“I will introduce her to you.”
“Maybe she is a hooker you hire to put on a show,” said Bolillo.
“You’re going to meet her in person. Next Sunday in Chapultepec, so it’s not too far for us. At the entrance of the zoo, around 11 am. Yeah?”
He sealed the bet with a handshake for each friend.
“Start getting the dough because you’re going to owe me a thousand pesos. Five hundred each.”
All week long he dreamt of the moment they would see him approaching, Lucía’s hand in his. He didn’t expect them to pay up and didn’t care. This would shut their holes once and for all.
“Let’s go to my room,” he said to her the following day, leading her up the service stairs.
“You’re nuts,” she said.
“I always go to yours. Now it’s your turn.”
Agustín had taken Señora Natalia and Zenaida grocery shopping, and the maids were cleaning the house, deafened by the noise of the vacuum cleaner. Lucía followed Gabriel up the winding white tile stairs which had seemed like an endless spiral when she used to play hide and seek. In reality, they were just ten narrow steps. The servants’ quarters, which she had not set foot in since then, still reeked of gas and damp. As she walked into Gabriel and his dad’s room, she remembered that her childhood furniture had ended up there. Lucía bounced on the mattress of her old bed. It felt looser and lumpier. The headboard still bore the stickers she had placed there in elementary school; the lamp was still adorned with Smurfs. Gabriel hardly fit in that tiny twin bed. Lucía recalled that when she had first discovered how to touch herself, in that very bed in the dark, the Virgin Mary and her own family would materialize above the headboard. Sister Márgara, the priest confessor, her dad, her mom, her girlfriends, and even her pediatrician, would gape at her, craning their necks in disgust.
“Hurry up, Gabriel, I am freaking out that someone will come in.”
Gabriel took his time and held on as long as he could. She had one of those orgasms that fizzle into a shudder. While she got dressed, Gabriel proposed going to Chapultepec, omitting certain details he did not consider relevant to divulge.
“There are too many people on Sundays,” Lucía replied.
“We always do what you want,” Gabriel complained. “I’ve never been to the zoo. We get there early, see the little critters, and then we go to the hotel, okay?”
As he got in the car three blocks away from the house, Gabriel was disappointed to find Lucía at the wheel wearing a jogging suit and no makeup.
“You dress up for Ricardo, but for me, you go out like a sack of potatoes.”
“I am not going to get all dolled up to go to Chapultepec!” she retorted. “We’re going to undress anyway, right?”
“I’m just saying I like it better when you put yourself together.”
“Whatever. You drive.”
Lucía had tied her jacket around her waist, like a schoolgirl. A plastic patch in the shape of a turquoise heart bobbed in the middle of her breasts. Gabriel held her by the waist, and they entered Chapultepec Park, among stalls selling fried snacks and sodas, soap bubble vendors and baskets with giant chicharrones as rough as elephant ears. The leaves of the ahuehuete trees rustled in the breeze. Metallic pinwheels spun flashes of light. Silver balloons bounced happily, shimmying their cartoon characters against the blue sky. Gabriel squeezed her hand, stroked her hair, rubbed her back, kissed the top of her head. These public displays of affection in front of “The Great Mexican Family” embarrassed her.
“You’re sticking to me like glue today,” she said.
Gabriel saw them from afar. Moco and Bolillo were looking for him among the crowd. He got near enough for them to spot him and as soon as they saw him with her, he stopped and kissed her at length. They approached, astonished. He greeted them as if he hadn’t seen them in years, with hearty handshakes and backslaps.
“Wow, no way! What up, homes? Did you come to see the little baby panda? Lucía, let me introduce you to my friends, Beto and Toño, better known as Moco and Bolillo.
“Hello,” Lucía smiled uncomfortably. Moco had a long and ghoulish face, and Bolillo was chubby and spongy, just as their nicknames indicated.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Moco said, extending his hand. Bolillo followed suit.
Lucía shook hands.
“They’re my buddies from the neighborhood,” said Gabriel.
“Oh, which one?” asked Lucía. She hadn’t yet asked Gabriel where he came from.
“San Gregorio Tepehualco,” Bolillo replied.
In sixth grade, her school had organized a Three Kings toy drive, and the nuns had taken the girls to deliver gifts in that slum. Sister Márgara had called it a “poverty belt.” Lucía remembered it vividly. The students and nuns got off the school bus surrounded by clouds of dust and hungry dogs with hanging teats and swollen bellies. The only half-paved street was the main street, so the students, uniformed with pleated skirts and white blouses, had to walk on their toes to avoid getting mud on their moccasins. Some of the “prosperous” houses were ramshackle gray brick cubes with iron bars on the windows. The other houses were huts made of metal and corrugated cardboard. If they needed water, the neighbors had to bring their buckets to a pipe truck. They stole electricity from the lampposts. The girls visited a typical household. It was a metal hut with a dirt floor with a brazier in the middle, chipped pewter pots, shapeless beds hidden behind tattered curtains, and a TV set with terrible reception turned on to the Channel of the Stars. The nun observed that despite their poverty, the inhabitants of the house managed to keep it clean.
They went by a tiny grocery store that sold Chiclets, Chaparritas del Naranjo sodas, Sabritas potato chips, green bottles of bleach, and Jabón Zote soap bars. The greasy counter, infested with flies and crawling with ants, displayed moldy bread and squashed Twinkies and Gansitos. They didn’t buy anything.
Lucía shuddered at the thought that one of the scrawny kids that got their toys and then got in line again; one of those kids that ogled them with mistrust when they got off the bus and, once they brought out the gifts, slathered them with sticky smiles, that maybe one of those cheating kids, hungry for toys, could have been Gabriel’s younger sibling. The voracious leers of Moco and Bolillo reminded her of the ungrateful and dirty looks of the teenagers who interrupted their street soccer game to whistle and scream obscene innuendos at the girls and the nuns. What if she had seen them once before?
“Have you been?” Moco asked rhetorically.
“No,” lied Lucía.
“Let’s take you there,” said Gabriel. “And you’ll get to meet my mom.”
“Oof, the suegra,” said Bolillo making a terrified face.
“She’s a sweetheart,” Moco said mockingly.
Lucía glared at Gabriel with hatred. He implored her with his gaze not to make him look bad in front of his friends.
“Didn’t you want to go to the zoo?” she asked Gabriel.
“I’d rather you see my barrio. We can come here any time.”
They moved away from the group to confer in private.
“Come on, Lucía, don’t make it hard for me. We’ll drive them in the Focus,” insisted Gabriel. “I have never asked you for anything.”
“You did it on purpose,” grumbled Lucía.
“I did not! Come on, be a good girl. These are my best friends. I haven’t seen them in years. Just a little while and we’ll leave, so you can see where I grew up.”
In the car, Gabriel reclined the seat, stretching his arm to reach the steering wheel.
“This is how your brother drives, like a pimp,” he said to Lucía.
Gabriel stepped on the gas.
“It really rips,” said Gabriel.
“Don’t go so fast,” she said.
“My brother-in-law is a fag,” said Gabriel to his friends. “As Lucía says, he thinks he is the last Coca Cola in the desert.”
“Your wheels are cool, Lulú,” said Bolillo, steering the conversation off the topic.
“Thanks,” she replied.
She did not remember which one was Toño and which one was Beto. Bolillo looked like a good person. Moco looked like a criminal.
After crossing the Viaducto and Tlalpan and several unfamiliar arteries, they arrived at an area of the city she no longer recognized. She did not know which way was west or east and had no idea where they were. They drove through narrowing streets, pockmarked by potholes filled with dirty water and speed bumps you can’t see but you can definitely feel. The houses were painted brightly: mamey orange, lime green, Mexican pink, lemon yellow. Some of them had gilded metal lining on the windows, others had iron bars. They passed tire repair shops, chop shops, glass shops, beer depots, kiosks, and a gym called “Jonhy’s,” where there were apparently aerobics, bodybuilding, yoga, and self-defense classes. Stray dogs sniffed inside garbage bags strewn on the sidewalks. Gabriel parked in front of an auto repair shop.
“Welcome to the beautiful barrio of San Gregorio Tepehualco,” said Gabriel. “Here on your right, you can observe Flacher’s world famous automotive repair center. Yours truly was born two blocks away from here.”
Lucía wondered who owned the cars parked on the streets, some of which were quite recent models. Perhaps they were stolen. She couldn’t understand how else they could be there. She pictured herself on the front page of the Casos de Alarma tabloid, naked, bruised, covered in mud, next to the mugshots of her alleged rapists and murderers — better known as Gabriel, Moco, and Bolillo — three thugs frightened by the flash of the camera at the prosecutor’s office.
As for Gabriel, he held his woman by the waist as if he had purchased her at a slave auction.
“How do you like our hood?” he asked his girlfriend. “Lucía went on the subway with me for the first time the other day. She was scared shitless,” he said. “She refuses to ride the minibuses. She thinks someone will kidnap her. Right, my love?”
“Shut up,” said Lucía.
“Your mother-in-law lives around the corner,” said Gabriel, leading the way.
Lucía didn’t want to guess which one of those miserable cement cubes belonged to Gabriel’s mother. She prayed with all her might that the señora wouldn’t be home. They stopped in front of a washed-out blue cube with a white metal door. Gabriel knocked, pressing his ear against the cold metal.
“Mamá! ” he yelled.
The pale woman who opened the door was as diminutive as Gabriel. From her, he had inherited his fleshy lips, melancholic eyes, and ashen complexion. She wore grey cotton jogging pants with a white stripe on the side, a short-sleeved blouse with small flowers, and black plastic flats. She eyed everyone with suspicion.
“Hi Ma! We were passing by and came to say hello,” said Gabriel.
His excitement escaped his pores the minute he saw her long-suffering face.
“Mamá, let me introduce you to my girlfriend, Lucía Orozco.”
Lucía saw a flash of surprise light up the woman’s eyes. She was very young but looked old. Lucía guessed she was in her late thirties.
“Nice to meet you, Señorita.”
“Likewise,” Lucía whispered.
“Afternoon, Señora,” said Moco.
“You’re not going to invite us in?” said Gabriel.
“I haven’t swept, hijo.”
“We came all the way from las Lomas, mamá.”
She let them in. Once her eyes got used to the dark, Lucía noticed she was standing on a cement floor that was unevenly smeared, like cake frosting. She could make out a broken gas range. The oven door had been ripped away and now it served as a pantry. A chipped wooden table and two chairs sat in the middle of the room. A dresser held a small TV set, and a curtain divided the sleeping area. Gabriel handed her a chair.
“Siéntate.”
“Can I offer you something to drink?” asked her suegra.
“No, thank you very much.”
“If I had known you were coming, I would have fixed something to eat.”
“Don’t worry, Señora.”
“A little Coke?” insisted Irma.
Moco and Bolillo found it amusing that Irma, whose temper was legendary, had suddenly become so polite.
“Okay, thanks.”
Irma took a single glass covered with fingerprints out of the oven and from the shadows, a half-empty two-liter bottle of Coke, the kind Lucía detested because the soda always went flat. She barely wet her lips. It was just syrup, and it was lukewarm. She felt a sudden, intense cramp. A cold sweat blossomed through her pores. Her bowels rumbled. She mustered a feeble smile.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she whispered to Gabriel.
“Behind the curtain,” he showed her.
Lucía took her backpack with Kleenex and hand disinfectant. The metal door opened towards her, screeching against the cement floor, making it hard for her to get inside the enclosure, dark and narrow as a catacomb. Lucía searched for the light switch, which she did not find. She discovered a white toilet bowl, without a lid or a seat. There was no toilet paper to be found. She peeked into the plastic barrel next to the toilet and saw it was half-filled with water. A little bucket floated inside. She tried holding it in, walking around in circles, hoping the pain would subside, mortified because she knew that otherwise, the noise would thunder through the entire neighborhood. But the pain overwhelmed her. She had no choice but to squat and expel the inferno that was piercing her bowels. The fucking sushi. The explosion seemed to blast out in quadrophonic sound.
“You okay?” She heard Gabriel’s voice on the other side of the door.
“Yes. Coming.”
She patted the cold sweat off her forehead and, as she poured water from the bucket into the toilet, the toilet water started rising, making her panic. Evidently, this was divine punishment for breaking the social, moral, or whatever order she had broken. She kept up her fight with the little bucket until finally the water receded, gurgling.
“We thought you had escaped,” said Moco when she returned.
“It’s time for us to leave,” Lucía declared. “Thanks for everything, Señora.”
“You are welcome. If you will excuse me,” Irma disappeared behind the curtain.
Bolillo asked Gabriel:
“Shall we go for some beers at Burro’s dive? To celebrate you won the bet.”
By the looks in Gabriel and Moco’s shocked faces, Bolillo realized he had fucked up.
“What bet?” asked Lucía.
“None,” Gabriel replied.
“What did you bet? Did you bet something about me?”
“No, nothing, really.”
His friends laughed nervously.
“How dare you, Gabriel?”
If she had brought her cellphone, she could have called an Uber, but she didn’t because she was afraid it would get stolen in Chapultepec.
“Give me the car keys.”
Gabriel knew it made him look like an idiot, but he handed them over.
“Wait.”
Lucía stepped out and started walking towards the car. Gabriel ran to catch up with her.
“Why did you do this?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. I wanted to show you off to my cuáis. I wanted them to see what a fine woman I have,” he replied.
“This is over,” Lucía said.
She got in the car and left without him.
The lights in the living room were on. Lucía peeked through the kitchen door and saw her mother, her father, Adolfo, and Ricardo conspiring in the living room. It was not the first time she’d come home under hairy circumstances. She had presented herself to her parents, relatives, and friends of the family while high, drunk, or both more than once, and like her brother, she was an expert in mimicking the most inconspicuous normalcy when the situation warranted it. For now, her main concern was that she smelled like a sewer and that they could see she had been crying with panic and rage.
She came in the room dragging her feet, as if she had been wandering in the desert.
“Lucía, where were you, hija? Ricardo has been waiting for you,” her father said.
“We didn’t have any plans today,” Lucía replied, sinking into a sofa.
“I left you several messages,” said Ricardo.
“We went to the movies, and I turned it off.”
“The only person in Mexico who turns off her phone at the movies. What did you see?” Adolfo inquired.
“Some gringo bullshit, I don’t remember the name.”
“Tell us the truth,” demanded Natalia. “Were you involved in an express kidnapping?”
“No, mamá ! I was with Ximena and her bodyguards.”
“And you went out with Ximena dressed like that?” Adolfo said.
“What do you care? Why are you interrogating me?” Lucía snapped.
Her parents exchanged mysterious glances.
“Well, we’ll leave you two alone,” her mother said. “Come on, Adolfo.”
The four of them smiled as if they were in on something.
“I missed you,” said Ricardo, sitting next to her once they were alone.
“I missed you too.”
“I don’t understand what the hell you do on Sundays.”
Lucía sighed wearily. Ricardo cradled her in his arms and kissed her emphatically. When she opened her eyes, a small black velvet box was resting on her lap.
“What is this?” she asked.
“What do you think?” he replied, melting with excitement.
Lucía froze.
“You don’t want to see what’s inside?” asked Ricardo.
“Ricky...” she said faintly.
“Open it, mi amor.”
Lucía opened the box with shaking hands. Inside she found a ring with a considerable diamond.
“I designed it. The base is platinum.”
“Did you speak to my parents?” she asked.
“I only told them I had a surprise for you, but I think they guessed.”
Ricardo kissed her hands.
“Marry me, Lucía. I want you by my side.”
Lucía burst out crying. His eyes also filled with tears. He put the ring on her finger. Lucía felt her as though her fate was sealed, as if she had flipped a coin and this was the outcome. She thought she heard Gabriel’s footsteps going up to her room, though that was impossible. She buried her face in Ricardo’s chest and wept.
“Is that a yes or a no?” asked Ricardo.
“It’s a yes,” Lucía said. “It’s a yes.”
Sixteen They hadn’t seen or
spoken to each other since their argument in Gabriel’s neighborhood. Lucía had spent all week rehearsing how to tell him about her engagement to Ricardo. Now that she was finally alone with him, she couldn’t find the right moment to bring it up. She had made Ricardo and her parents swear they would not tell anyone. They would have plenty of time to celebrate, but she wanted to take things slowly. Her mother was eager to invite the Mestres for a family dinner and start organizing the engagement, but Lucía convinced her to wait, vehemently insisting that she wanted to have a few weeks of quiet with her boyfriend before diving into the wedding whirlwind. She told Gabriel they needed to talk and took him to the Parque Hundido. In the driver’s seat she found a bouquet of flowers that must have cost him half his salary. She was touched but said nothing. They drove in silence. At the park, they sought the magical bench where they had kissed for the first time. A family was resting there so they settled on another bench.
“What’s going to happen with us?” Gabriel asked.
“Nothing can happen except what is already happening,” replied Lucía.
“Why?” asked Gabriel.
“Because we come from different worlds. Can’t you see that? It drives me crazy that you act as if there are no serious differences between us.”
“Such as?”
“Such as money, Gabriel, what else? I always have to pay for everything, which I swear I don’t mind, but that is a fact. And then you make me feel ashamed of what I own, of the life I’m used to. And on top of everything you used me as a trophy to show off to your friends.”
“I already said I was sorry. I introduced you to my mom and my friends, but you hide me. You are ashamed to be seen with me.”
“Well, what did you expect?” protested Lucía.
Her mind was aflutter with tragicomic scenarios.
Gabriel and Adolfo sit side by side at the Sunday family meal at the Miravista, ready to kill each other. Would they invite Agustín, her father-in-law? Or would they leave him snoring in the car while they sipped their Port and nibbled on Manchego cheese and guava paste?
The wedding at the church: her mother cries tears of shame, sitting next to Gabriel’s mother, stoically dressed in her black rubber shoes and a borrowed dress, the kind they regularly give to the secondhand clothes man.
“If it’s only the money, I can make more money,” insisted Gabriel.
“It’s not only that,” she replied. “I am tired of explaining to you that it is not that easy to inform my parents out of nowhere that I am dating the son of the driver. I don’t know what else to say to make you understand this.”
“My name is Gabriel Mendoza, not ‘Son of the Driver’. ”
Lucía covered her face with her hands.
“It’s not the money, Lucía. Money can somehow be found. It’s not just that, right?”
“What?”
“That I am just the lowlife from San Gregorio Tepehualco. Your cheap fuck.”
“That’s not true,” said Lucía.
“Well, if it isn’t true, let’s go away together,” said Gabriel. “Somewhere else, who’s gonna know who we are? Who’s gonna care? Who do we need to ask for permission? No one.”
Lucía saw herself sitting next to him under a palapa at sunset in Pie de la Cuesta, digging into the wet sand with her toes, sticky with sex, her belly full of Yoli, nibbling on the grains of sand stuck to the glass bottle, both dazed by the sun and the sea in their humble but blissful honeymoon. It was possible to be very happy with Gabriel, like when they snuggled in bed and rubbed together their cold feet, the only part of their bodies that was not hot with love. When they soaped each other up under the thin stream of the hotel shower and gave each other wet kisses. When they shared bites of a gloriously fragrant street hot cake smeared with cajeta. With him she could be more crude, less dainty, more of a woman and less of a girl, more of a whore, and less of a princess. But images of scandal and failure interrupted her fantasy: lipsticked Las Lomas mouths aghast or twisted in mocking grimaces; the exiled couple, embittered by the intolerable weight of a life without resources, surrounded by ugliness.
“And where are we going to go?” she asked impatiently.
“I don’t know, to another town, somewhere else. To another fucking neighborhood, carajo.”
“And what are we going to do?”
“Well, we can get a place, live together.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about!” said Lucía.
She saw herself pregnant, boiling beans for five starving children and a dour Gabriel, all living in a brick cube in a muddy slum.
“Okay, let’s say we leave together,” said Lucía. “You should know that I don’t have half a cent to my name. My dad pays for my credit card. He will not help us. No one will give us anything. But let’s say that we live in the hotel while we find a place. You’d be unemployed and I would have to look for a job, but I don’t even know what I could do. I haven’t graduated yet. No one hires you without a diploma. But let’s say that while I get a job in my field, maybe I could work in a boutique or something. If any maid can learn to use a cash register, so can I. We take my car. Maybe we can turn it into an Uber and you drive it God knows how many hours a day. Let’s say that between your salary and mine we try to find an apartment. Where would we live? We won’t even have enough money to afford rent in a low-income housing development. And I am not going to move to provincia. People there are even more narrowminded than here. They hate us chilangos. They will look down on us. We’ll die of boredom. The beach sounds lovely but living there is disgusting. There are no good hospitals, or doctors or medicines, or schools for children. We’ll be eaten alive by bugs”.
“You’ve thought of everything, or what?” Gabriel interrupted her. “How do you know your dad wouldn’t give us a hand? You’re his favorite, right? He could give me a job in his office. He could pay for my computing classes. I can learn fast and we claw our way out.”
Lucía looked at him with a disbelief that verged on sarcasm. The possibility that her parents would react benevolently was zero. She wondered if he was insisting out of love or simply because he wanted to stop being poor. She responded with stone cold silence.
In Mexico it’s impossible to get ahead in life, Gabriel thought.
“Let’s go to New York!” Gabriel exclaimed. “I cross over and from there....”
“But you were deported!”
“I’ll cross back again somehow.”
“Would you do that for me?” asked Lucía.
“Well, yeah.”
Lucía focused on picking out the knots of her angora sweater while she debated with her conscience: You only used him for sex. He only wants you as a meal ticket. What you feel for him is love, and he is the one you really love. Your engagement to Ricardo is not official yet. You don’t have to marry him just because he gave you a ring. You’ve still got time to reconsider. Yeah, sure, let’s leave together. We’ll end up living in a cardboard box, scavenging food in garbage dumps.
“I can’t,” she finally said.
“Why?”
“Because Ricardo proposed.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“The day we went to your house, when I came back, he was waiting for me with the ring.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said yes.”
Gabriel felt an overwhelming urge to strangle her.
“You’re going to marry that ojete?”
“I can’t marry you.”
Gabriel closed his fists to contain his anger. He wanted to pummel her until her entire body was one giant bruise.
“But that doesn’t mean we have to stop seeing each other, Gabriel. We could still be lovers. Since we’ll no longer be living in the house, I could ask my parents to let me take you with me...”
“Go fuck yourself, Lucía. I’m not your personal slave. You only used me to fuck.”
“That’s not true.”
“You treat me like a whore’s underwear. Who do you think I am, your fucking lapdog, you cunt?”
“Forgive me.”
Tears streamed down her face but inside her heart was a corner made of poured concrete she could escape to whenever her mad love for Gabriel made her feel vulnerable. That’s where she hid, crying on the outside, but hardening inside.
SeventeenShe had barely closed the car door
when the alleged future father of her children informed her that he had bought tickets for a concert at the National Auditorium. But how could she tell her boyfriend to stick the VIP tickets he purchased specially to please her up his ass? How could she explain to him that having lunch at Ultramar bored her to death? And how much she loathed having to parade herself around the tables so that Ricardo could comfortably kiss the ass of the entire Ruiz Estrada family, all squeezed into their riding boots, as if they didn’t have time to change before lunch like normal people and not rub it in everyone’s faces that they played polo on Sundays. Or the owner of the Coloso store chain and the Celtel cellphones, his entire family blond, with slicked back hair, whose little grandchild ran rampant among the waiters carrying hot dishes, pursued by a maid dressed like a nurse. She had no interest in attending any more dinners with supposedly intellectual people, like the one she’d have to endure when they reached Coyoacán, with guests who tried to impress each other by dropping illustrious first names without any last names. She never had any idea who they were talking about, and she was not going to make herself look like a fool by asking.
Cecilia was a graphic designer, and her husband Álvaro was a photographer, the scion of a distinguished ex-secretary, ex-minister, ex-chancellor, ex-thief, a latent dinosaur of the PRI. They lived in a colonial stone house with an enormous garden. Inside it: life-sized papier mache skulls and Judases, antique dolls in midget rocking chairs, altars to the virgin of Guadalupe made of soda tops, and incomprehensible abstract paintings. Ricardo fluttered like a moth around a lightbulb, excited by the arrival of a certain Paola. Paola this, Paola that.
“She is the President of the Board of Trustees for the Advancement of Children’s Creativity. She is doing an incredible job. You’re going to love her.”
Ricardo’s friends made her feel inadequate. Both the hostess and Marlene, the other female guest, stared at her so brazenly that she wondered if her pantyhose had a run, if she had snot peeking out her nose, or beans stuck between her teeth. They were casually dressed in jeans and boots, while she was wearing a black cocktail dress, trying too hard to fit in where she didn’t belong. Meanwhile, their husbands were overly solicitous towards her and her legs. For a while she amused herself pretending to be engrossed in conversation with the children of the hosts, who were summoned to greet the guests in their flannel pajamas smelling of sour milk. Once the children left, Juan Carlos, Marlene’s husband, remembered she existed and made conversation, asking her what she studied, where she went to school, and what year she was in, as if she were a little girl. Lucía took refuge in the generous glass of red wine that Álvaro, the host, poured her.
As they dined vol au vents with mole, salmon with dill, and potatoes soufflé, the conversation revolved around how different Mexico was in comparison to the civilized world.
“The Mexican mentality drives me up a wall,” said Ricardo. “Everyone wants to rip you off. Things are always done halfway, never delivered on time. If they could, the painters would steal the walls, I swear. Clients complain that construction takes forever in Mexico, but they have no idea what we have to deal with. Some people are hardworking and honest, but everybody always has an excuse: the bus didn’t come, my mom got sick, the paint ran out, the tape got stuck. No one ever says, ‘I made a mistake,’ ‘It was my fault,’ ‘I got lost,’ ‘I forgot,’ ‘I got plastered.’ Sometimes I arrive at the site about an hour late to give them a chance to wake up and clean up their eye gunk, and there they are drinking soda, reading comic books, happy as clams.”
“What gets on my nerves is their subservience,” added Juan Carlos. “Take the waiters: They’re so polite and obsequious, but deep down, they really hate you. That’s the raza. Either they’re sentimental and submissive to the point of being cloying, or they despise you so much that they are ready to mince you into a taco.”
“It’s social hatred,” concluded Marlene.
“Besides, they are incapable of doing things well,” continued Ricardo. “You arrive in Mexico and from the plane it already smells like shit, it’s a total disaster. They try to organize something that’s supposedly first-world, but there’s always a bureaucrat with initiative who disorders the order, doing things without any logic.”
“When something works” chimed in Marlene, “it’s probably because there’s someone with a foreign background behind the scenes. Really, we are the people who propel this country forward because we come from a different culture. We are not whining losers.”
“Democracy works in countries like Switzerland, where people have good judgment, but here, they vote for whoever gives them a tamale sandwich,” said Ricardo.
Lucía kept her face buried in her wine glass. She had been privy to many similar conversations, but this one was making her feel queasy.
Paola arrived after dessert, well past midnight when no one expected her. The hosts, who had sent their kids to bed several hours earlier, smiled resignedly, as if they were used to her eccentricities. They offered to reheat her dinner, but she declined, asking only for a small slice of flan. A blonde with an upturned nose who couldn’t have been older than thirty, she was wrapped in a silk shawl the color of bougainvillea that she claimed she had bought in Kuala Lumpur. She sat at the head of the table and took over the conversation with a story about the Norwegian designer who decorated her hacienda in the Yucatán with the most exquisite taste and ended up falling in love with a Mayan.
“That woman to me represents the corporeality of femininity,” said Paola.
What the fuck is that? Lucía wondered.
“But a Mayan!” continued Paola. “Of course, she lacks the context we have here; she doesn’t understand social classes. And now she is pregnant with the Mayan. Oh my god! Well,” she insisted, wanting to engage Lucía, “what do we care, but still...”
Lucía, who had three glasses of wine on her, replied:
“We don’t care? Everyone cares. Or would you do the same? Wouldn’t you care to fall in love with an Indian?”
It was the second time she had opened her mouth that night. The first was to say that everything was delicious.
“It all depends,” said Paola.
“On what?” said Lucía.
“On who that person is.”
“So, if it were a blond, blue-eyed Mayan, you might fall in love with him.”
“Oh, please, don’t tell me you would.”
“Why not? If you like him, why not?” said Lucía.
She ignored the daggers Ricardo was shooting her with his eyes.
“If that is the case, be my guest,” said Paola.
“That’s what happened to your decorator. And do you know why she liked the Mayan? Because she saw him as more than just a freaking servant.”
“Are you speaking from experience, Lucía, or are you just playing devil’s advocate?” asked Álvaro.
“I don’t speak from experience, but I don’t think it’s impossible... “
“Enough. Let’s change the subject, okay?” interrupted Ricardo.
The table fell silent. The hostess went into the kitchen and Lucía took the opportunity to ask for the restroom, acting as if the discussion hadn’t ruffled her, although she was seething with anger. She held on to the chair’s arm since the living room wobbled as she got up. She had seen Paola in a society photo, wearing the same shawl in a different color like a fancy beggar, standing beside her thief of a husband, the owner of one of the most inefficient banks in Mexico.
Lucía left the restroom and ran into Paola’s unstoppable voice giving a speech. She lingered in the hallway, listening.
“It’s astonishing!” said Paola. “The disparity between the lowest level of poverty and the highest is immeasurable. However, it could be reduced if people moved ahead step by step, instead of wanting to reach the top all at once. People lose hope because they want to become millionaires overnight. They compare themselves to those who have everything, and they fail to see that, little by little, with some credit, if they save, they can make some money. They are not realistic.”
Everybody agreed with such pearls of wisdom. Paola continued:
“I recently hosted a group of British charity ladies, very fine people. They wanted to see the city and asked me to take them both to the poorest and the richest areas. What an idea! So, first, I took them in a van to the depths of Chalco—you know, mud, shacks, garbage, and so on. From there I took them straight to Bosques de las Lomas. They couldn’t believe it. Some of them burst into tears. They had never seen anything like it in their lives.”
As soon as Lucía came back to the dining room, Paola decided that the hosts needed rest, and she put an end to the evening. Ricardo and Lucía left after her. A van was waiting for her, probably armored, with tinted windows and three bodyguards. She sat in the front seat. So that she doesn’t get kidnapped, so people mistake her for the driver’s bitch. Fucking hypocrite, Lucía thought.
“Do you know who that was?” Ricardo asked once they were in the car. “Paola Del Paso de Lavalle! The wife of Alonso...”
“I know perfectly well who she is, so what?”
“She is a charming woman. You were very rude to her.”
“If she weren’t married to that big shit, she would be an idiot just like any other. Besides, why do you have to kiss her ass? Do you think she is going to hire you?”
“You are a terrible drunk.”
“I’m not drunk. Have you ever been to any of the twenty-eight thousand banks her husband owns? I felt like telling her, ‘Tell Alonso that I sent my driver to his bank the other day and he was in line for almost two hours.’ And what about how she went to Chalco and to Bosques de las Lomas and the gringas started bawling. No shit! Ask Paola where she lives. Certainly not in Chalco.”
“Since when did you become a Marxist from las Lomas?”
“I am not a Marxist from las Lomas, but if I had her millions, I’d be ashamed to flaunt it. I am sick of spending my weekends with these insufferable people, Ricardo. I couldn’t care less about who their parents are, and what other assholes they know and what houses they own. They think they’re the shit but take them out of Mexico and no one knows who they are.”
“Maybe it’s you who doesn’t fit the bill, chiquita. Your head wouldn’t fall off if you read a book once in your life. You are bored because you have no idea what they’re discussing. Nothing interests you. You don’t like books; you criticize the music I love. I thought you were more sophisticated, but you are ensconced in your own ignorance. Besides, these assholes are my friends, Lucía. If you don’t like who they are, you don’t like who I am.”
“First, I am more worldly and much less ignorant than you think. And second, well, no, I don’t like who you are. Always brownnosing the ultra-rich. You make me sick.”
“Think about what you are saying. I’m not marrying someone like this.”
“Then don’t marry me.”
Eighteen Gabriel was in the garage,
washing the cars. He turned his back on her. Lucía decided she didn’t want her romance to end with rancor. She could not end things badly with everyone.
“I wanted you to know that I had a fight with the architect,” she said to him.
Gabriel pretended not to hear her and kept working, but he could not keep it in.
“Him too? Why?”
“Because he found out we’re fucking.”
“Really?”
“Of course not, Gabriel. I don’t know. I got tired of his bullshit. He only cares about money and who has more of it.”
“See? That’s why it’s best not to have any,” said Gabriel.
“Damn straight,” she laughed.
She grabbed him by the waist and kissed him.
The door to the garage creaked. They both jumped.
Freshly showered, shaved, and wearing a suit at those ungodly hours, Adolfo stared at them through his sunglasses. It was hard to tell if he could have seen them kissing, or if he overheard their conversation behind the door.
“What’s up? Why so bright and early?” Lucía asked.
“I have a business breakfast,” grumbled Adolfo. Some buddies want me to invest in a new joint in San Ángel, an Oriental-Mexican fusion lounge. I do not understand talking business over huevos motuleños at seven thirty in the morning. It’s sheer savagery.”
“I didn’t know narcos were such early risers,” said his sister.
“I am not in the mood, Lucía. Move my car, bro,” said Adolfo.
“I’m leaving. I was asking Gabriel to get me a notebook I left upstairs,” said Lucía.
“Let him move my car first,” said Adolfo.
Before getting in his Jetta, Adolfo looked at them once more, as if trying to piece things together.
That afternoon, Lucía was attempting to study for her Ergonomics of Perception exam, but Viviana’s meticulous blue handwriting kept jumping out of the notebook and Lucía had a hard time catching it.
“Why did you break up with Ricardo, Lucía?” Adolfo was leaning against her bedroom door, silent and devious like an alligator in a swamp.
“We didn’t break up, we fought because he is full of himself and treats me like an idiot.”
“Reliable sources told me that you picked a fight with Paola del Paso. That you defended a gringa who is dating a Mayan.”
“She was full of shit, Fito. I hated her.”
“Are you in love with an Indian by any chance?” Adolfo asked.
“Of course not! There’s a teacher at school who is in love with me,” she admitted with a shaky smile. “He is in love with me, not I with him.”
“Who?”
“Javier, the History of Philosophy prof. The other day, I was at the library, and he came and sat next to me. I was oblivious. I went to the restroom and when I came back, he had left me a note that said, ‘You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen,’ with his name and phone number. Can you imagine?”
That was true, but it had happened over a year ago. This was her strategy of using truths to tell lies.
“Did you call him?” asked Fito.
“No, but every time I run into him in the hallways or the cafeteria, I die. He always stares at me like he’s silently in love with me.”
That was a lie. Lucía had called him. They met for coffee. They ended up rolling around naked on the carpet in his apartment on Petén Street, in Narvarte. But Lucía regretted it. Javier was a middle-class wannabe with intellectual aspirations. He gave her the willies. His house was the color of snot, furnished with rustic wooden furniture bought on the street; Tamayo Museum posters stuck to the wall with tacks, thirsty plants, and dog-eared books. And as if this weren’t enough, the carpet scratched her ass. Javier smeared his admiration on her like a snail, using pretentious poetic phrases designed to win her heart. He called her the next day and Lucía let him know that she had made a mistake and didn’t think it wise to get involved with a teacher. Months later, his eyes still oozed bitterness.
“Isn’t he a fucking Indian?” her brother asked.
“No, in fact, he is whitish, with brown eyes. Kinda cute.”
“Don’t be vulgar! With a college teacher, Lucía, eew!” exclaimed Adolfo.
“There are plenty of people who think that your love affairs are disgusting too. You tell me what is more repulsive. Get the hell out of my room.”
Adolfo was used to that kind of comment. They made his blood boil, but he was adept at coldly brushing them off.
“Did you return Ricardo’s ring or are you planning to keep it?”
Lucía jumped out of bed and slammed the door in his face.
Adolfo hadn’t seen anything concrete, but he had sensed their alarm, and the possibility of a love affair between the servant and his sister triggered several horrifying thoughts. The first one was: If I can have the hots for the little gofer, why wouldn’t she feel the same way? And if even I think my sister is a hottie, why wouldn’t he? It tormented him that men could defile Lucía’s innocence, that they could abuse her, make her suffer. His sister was a queen. None of them deserved her, especially not that punk. He imagined Gabriel licking his sister’s snowy breasts, crowned by her rosy nipples, stubborn with lust. A black ball of violence settled in his guts.
Nineteen Ximena scrutinized the attire,
makeup, and hairstyles of the people around her: high school smokers in uniforms, mothers and daughters scheming over their coffee cups, Jewesses with multiple baby carriages, professionals in suits and ties. Her gorillas were standing guard without the slightest discretion —one at the entrance to the café, the other one cattycorner to it. Ximena lit a cigarette. Lucía greeted her with a kiss before sitting down.
“Do you want to go to Croissant’s? It’s too crowded here,” said Lucía.
“So? Here is where the gossip’s at. What’s new? What are you up to?”
Lucía had thought of several excuses but had not decided on one.
“You know, running around like crazy.”
They ordered two cappuccinos with cajeta.
“Since you started dating Ricardo, you never call me. And when you call, we never meet up. And when we finally make plans, you cancel at the last minute. What’s going on, güey?” Ximena asked, inhaling dramatically.
“You could also call me. I feel like you get annoyed when we talk about Ricardo.
“Lucía, I swear to you I don’t care.”
“Alright already. In any case, we had a massive fight. We broke up.”
“When?!”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate his friends.”
“And the engagement?”
“I don’t know, Ximena. I don’t know if I want to marry him.”
“That’s not a reason not to get married, especially not to someone like that.”
“Like what? Ricardo is a good person, but I’m not crazy about him. Plus, he treats me as if I were five. As if he were my teacher. As if I am not perfect enough for him. He is not interested in what I have lived through or my experiences.”
“I don’t think any man wants to know about your other guys,” Ximena said, arching her brow, “particularly if there are about five thousand of them.”
“It’s not only that, Ximena. Yes, he treats me really well, buys me little gifts, and takes me out, but I have a feeling that all he cares about is having a trophy at his side.”
“Get over yourself. What happens is that when they adore you, you always send them packing.”
“Not true. He said horrible things to me.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing, I got a little buzzed at a dinner party and I refused to kiss Paola Del Paso’s ass, you know, the owner of Mexibanco.”
“Did you meet Paola Del Paso? Where?”
“You too? She is not the Holy Father, for God’s sake. The point is, Ricardo told me I am ignorant, and I’m not on the same level as his friends, so smart and sophisticated. Jerk.”
“And how are you feeling?”
“Me, I am thrilled. It took a weight off my back.”
Ximena was under the impression that, one, Lucía did not look that thrilled, and two, she said things like that to fuck with her. Ricardo was a burden Ximena would gladly bear.
“Well, you do look a little pale. Don’t tell me it didn’t hurt.”
“Of course it hurt, Ximena. I care about him, but he was super disrespectful. I’m thinking of giving him back his ring.”
“That would be completely stupid,” Ximena responded.
If you only knew, thought Lucía. She couldn’t bear living with the increasingly heavy burden of her secret, without being able to share her ecstasy, her anguish, everything she had learned. She tried guessing what expression Ximena would have, if she would be compassionate or severe, whether she’d remember that Ximena had confided her abortion to her, and Lucía had never told anyone (she did tell, but always carefully omitting the names of the people involved). Lucía had taken Ximena to a medical office in Interlomas, (the culprit didn’t even offer to split the 6,000 pesos, assuming that for Ximena that amount was chump change) and she saw her friend emerge looking green, teary, and nauseated. On the way back, they had to stop on a side street, but when Ximena put her head out the window only howls came out of her.
“Have you heard from Sergio?” Lucía asked.
“No. Just that he had twins with a very religious girl from Monterrey, the bastard. Why?”
“Nothing, I just remembered that day.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“No way!”
A mischievous smile brightened Lucía’s face.
“Then why did you remember all of a sudden?” Ximena asked. “What’s going on with you?”
Lucía’s smile squirmed as she pressed her lips together. She became completely solemn.
“Promise me two things, Ximena.”
“Whatever you want.”
“One, that you will not tell anybody and two, that you won’t be upset.”
“One, you know, no problem. Two, well it all depends. What did you do?”
“I have a lover,” Lucía confessed.
“Aha. I can’t believe it,” said Ximena. “Well, I am upset. That’s fucked up, Lucía. What? Ricardo doesn’t deliver?”
“It’s not that. He’s pretty good, considering.”
“Then what?”
“It’s someone I am crazy about. I couldn’t resist.”
“WHO?”
Lucía smiled, fired up.
“Gerardo Alanís?”
“No, I wish!”
“Guillermo López Regla!” said Ximena.
Lucía shook her head, bursting out laughing.
“Are you going out with Manuel Coronado, cabrona?”
“Of course not,” replied Lucía with clearly fake indignation. She was flattered by the flirtations of her dad’s friend.
“Wait, Ximena. My dad has never come on to you, right?”
“Not him, but Manuel Coronado, yes. Don’t tell me you are a lesbian,” Ximena joked.
“I am and I’ve loved you since I saw you in your underwear in Valle.”
“With the philosophy teacher, Javier?”
“Well… no!”
Ximena imagined the worst situation she could think of. A drug dealer, a bohemian hippie from the Condesa, a rich old fart, a big nosed Jew, someone from the burbs in Satélite—a sateluco.
“Then?” asked Ximena.
“His name is Gabriel.”
“Gabriel what?”
“Gabriel Mendoza.”
“Gabriel Mendoza what?”
“Gabriel Mendoza I Don’t Know.”
“Who is he?”
“He is adorable. He is so handsome. He has a gorgeous voice and a hot body. He is a tiger, and a sweetheart,” Lucía grinned from ear to ear.
“Where did you find him if you don’t mind my asking?”
“He is the son of the driver.”
It took Ximena longer than usual to understand who Lucía was talking about. The son of what driver? This concept was so removed from anything in her mind that she could not find a visual reference. She imagined a chauffeur dressed like the butlers in the telenovelas.
Lucía saw Ximena’s brows frown and stretch until she recognized the shock in her eyes and understood that she had seen Agustín.
“The son of Agustín?” Ximena asked, astonished.
“That is correct.”
The smile vanished from Ximena’s face.
“Jesus Christ, Lucía. You have lost your fucking mind.”
Ximena vaguely recalled the image of an insipid guy.
“He’s a total naco!”
“He is not a naco.”
In fact, since she met Gabriel, Lucía had been observing the nacos with obsessive detail. From the taco guy to the popsicle vendor, the shoeshiner, the guy who watches your car on the street, those who whispered to her “mamacita chula” between their teeth if she was lucky and if not, obscenities so filthy she didn’t know what they meant. Gabriel was not as naco as any of them.
“You are insane,” insisted Ximena.
“I know I’m nuts, but I like him. I liked him the minute I saw him, Ximena. He’s very sexy.”
“Oh, please, Lucía. You are cheating on Ricardo Mestre with the son of your driver? It’s unheard of.”
“Hey, Ricardo has nothing to do with it. They both came into my life more or less at the same time. Well, Ricardo was a little earlier. But I fell for this one. No one knows this except you.”
“Thank goodness! I’ve heard it all, Lucía. Women who sleep with their brother-in-law, and those who fuck their spinning teacher, but this time you went overboard. It’s as if I slept with one of my bodyguards. Eew!”
“Not the same, because your gorillas are hideous, and Gabriel is very handsome.”
“How do you see each other? You go up to the roof to make out?”
Lucía looked offended.
“Well, yes, sometimes,” she said. “The first time I took him to the Parque Hundido, because I couldn’t think of another place. The second time, he came up to my room.”
“My God.”
“With Adolfo asleep in his room, the maids in the kitchen, and his dad puttering around somewhere,” she added with considerable pride. “And from the third time on, we did it in a hotel downtown.”
“Like a whore.”
“And you know what? I loved it.”
“What are you trying to prove? You want to take it out on your parents? Your ambition in life is to be a maid? What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong. I happen to like Gabriel. What do you care?”
“I care, because firstly, for fuck’s sake Lucía, you already had a boyfriend. Secondly, because I think what you are doing is very stupid, and thirdly, you are going to get into so much trouble. You can afford to play with that poor servant because you are going to dump him like all the rest. You chew them up and you spit them out like gum when the flavor’s gone. Besides, what right do you have to get him in trouble?”
“What if I am in love with him?”
“What are you talking about!?” Ximena yelled. “Let’s see. If you love him so much, why don’t you go out with him for real? Tell your parents and your brother. Take him to the movies and restaurants and parties. Show him around at school.”
“It wouldn’t be fair. I don’t want to make him feel bad.”
“Because you’re nothing but a hypocrite. You think you are so open-minded, but you’re only taking advantage of him. You don’t care about him at all. As always, you only care about yourself.”
“That is not true.”
“You have always been selfish.”
For as long as she could remember, that’s what everyone accused her of. On the contrary, she thought that if she were that selfish, she would have never gotten involved with Gabriel. If she were that selfish, she would not have given herself to him with all her body and soul. She shrank in her chair and started sobbing.
“Do you really love him that much?”
“You just don’t know what it means to be with him, Ximena. No one had ever made me feel like this.”
“How?”
“Well, super happy, super in love.”
“Then why did you say yes to Ricardo?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“Tell me something, what do you tell each other when you are together? What do you have in common except for the urge?”
“He tells me about his life, and I tell him about mine. and we talk about music and about New York because he lived there for three years and he speaks English, just so you know. We don’t really have that much time to spend talking. But we talk to each other with kisses. You’re looking at me as if I was speaking Chinese.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Lucía. I don’t understand how you can be with someone so different, someone who is not and never will be at your level, who has nothing to offer, who does not belong to your world. Who has nothing to do with you. You mean to tell me you love him so much that you would spend the rest of your life with him?”
“Sometimes I think I would. I am so happy when I am with him, and when I am not, every minute we’re not together is torture. I keep remembering each time he touches me or kisses me or whispers in my ear.”
“It’s your raging hormones.”
“It’s not just the sex, I swear. We’re friends. We love each other.”
Ximena looked at her with consternation.
“And what are you going to do?”
She was about to confess that she was seriously considering leaving with him. In fact, it dawned on her that even though her reaction had not been very promising, if she asked her, Ximena could lend them the money to leave for New York.
“I have no idea. Try to enjoy it while it lasts,” she ended replying.
“No wonder you suddenly became San Martín de Porres.”
“What?”
“I just got why you became a Zapatista overnight and you defend the nacos from the National University.”
Lucía sighed bitterly.
“Unlike you, I have always been there for you. I have never judged you.”
“You always remind me of that, but I am sick of applauding your irresponsibility like a seal at a circus.”
“You know what? Perhaps if you were a bit more open and less afraid, you could have a boyfriend. No one will steal your money.”
This last sentence left Ximena speechless.
“I should not have told you,” Lucía continued. “I don’t know how I ever thought you’d understand. I hope one day you’ll know what it means to love someone so much you don’t care who he is, where he comes from, and how much money he has.”
And with that, she stood up, took a five hundred-peso note from her purse, and threw it on the table.
Twenty “Let's go, let's go,
let's go,
to the Atayde Brothers Circus Show! There’s EXCITEMENT, there’s FUN for the whole family…!”
Adolfo burst into his sister’s room jumping up and down with a maniacal smile. Although it was Saturday, Lucía was lying on her bed watching TV. It was after 9 pm, and she was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Adolfo shook her as if she were a ragdoll.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Spruce yourself up, we’re going to a partay.”
“Where? It’s almost ten, Fito.”
“To Luis’. A Day of the Dead shindig.”
It wasn’t a bad idea to go out. Since her confrontation with Ricardo, she had no one to go out with. He hadn’t called her in a week, and she was not going to call him, mainly because she didn’t know what to do. She still had his ring, but she wasn’t ready to return it yet as that would force her to make a decision. Gabriel seemed willing to do anything for her. He was the true love of her life. And you cannot let your true love go, because according to what she’d heard, there’s only one. What if she lost him forever? While she decided, she had started saving money from her allowances and just in case, asked her dad for extra funds with the excuse of final projects for school. In any case, one couldn’t live worrying about what people thought. Too bad if it was scandalous: it wasn’t her fault that everyone was so narrow-minded. It would be nice to dance a little, have a little weed, and do some coke to distract her from her terrible dilemma for a while.
“Okay. But I have to take a shower and blow dry my hair and everything.”
“Yay!” exclaimed her brother. “Hurry up.”
She lathered up with her sensitive skin gel, getting excited about smoking and drinking a lot, maybe even taking some molly to let loose. She chose a lingerie set of a black push-up bra and lace string bikini she had bought in Paris, black leather pants, a tight black semi-sheer t-shirt with a plunging neckline, and stiletto booties. “Only the whip is missing”, she thought. She vamped herself up with smoky eyeshadow, lots of mascara, red lips. She dabbed two drops of Opium behind her earlobes and one between her breasts, and decked herself out with earrings, rings, and bracelets.
“Steady, Fido,” she amused herself, coming down the stairs. She swung open the kitchen door as if she were about to sashay down a runway, anticipating Gabriel’s reaction when he saw her dressed like a femme fatale.
Zenaida and the maids were fixing their own dinner, but Gabriel wasn’t there. She realized she had dressed up for him.
“Where’s Adolfo?” she asked.
“They’re waiting for you in the car, Señorita,” said Zenaida.
She didn’t realize that her brother wasn’t driving until she sat in the front seat and saw a pair of rat-colored pants in the seat beside her.
“Sit with me here in the back, my little Lulu,” said her brother, patting the back seat. “Unless you want to sit in the front with the driver”.
Lucía moved to the back. She felt like throwing up.
“Gabriel will take us to the party and wait for us so we can get plastered in peace. Am I a genius, or what?”
Gabriel stared out the window, so he didn’t have to accidentally make eye contact with the siblings.
“Fito,” Lucía spoke, choosing her words carefully, “isn’t it a bit too much to ask Gabriel to wait for us? We can ask someone for a ride back. He needs to get up early tomorrow.”
“If I am not mistaken, tomorrow is Sunday, and my pal here doesn’t have to work. It’s his day of rest. Right, bro?”
“That’s correct,” Gabriel replied.
“Well, I don’t think it’s right that we use the driver to take us to parties. Besides, you didn’t even ask me. You should have asked me first.”
“You bought him? How much did you pay?”
“Don’t be a moron, Fito, you know he is my driver, and you have no right to tell him what to do. At least ask me first, dammit.”
“I thought you would love the idea,” said Adolfo.
Before Lucía could continue betraying herself, Gabriel interrupted them.
“Where to?” he asked.
“To Bosques de Pirules, in Bosques de las Lomas,” said Adolfo.
“Do you know the way?” asked Lucía.
“No, Señorita.”
Adolfo snickered.
Lucía tried to feign indifference and gave Gabriel directions. Adolfo gazed at one and the other as if he was following the ball at a ping-pong match.
“Stop it, Fito. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing, I’m just admiring how stunning you look tonight. You’re on fire. Isn’t my sister a beauty, carnal?”
“We’re not there yet and you’re already high. Just shut up.”
“I have never been more sober in my life, sweetheart.”
The block near Luis’ house was lined with cars, some parked on the sidewalks.
“Don’t park too far away. We don’t want to have to go looking for you,” Adolfo ordered.
“I’ll see you inside,” said Lucía, rushing out of the car.
The terracotta flagstones that led to the main door were lit by votive candles and lined by cempazúchitl flowers and little sugar skulls. Two huge moth-eaten doors, almost as big as a church’s, stood wide open. Lucía prayed she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew, but she immediately bumped into Luis and several of her brother’s friends with their respective girlfriends. She had to stop and air kiss everyone. She looked over the vast hall. Luckily, it was dark.
She needed a drink to steady her nerves. She felt as if a magnitude 7.8 quake on the Richter scale had shattered her meticulously built facade. Her knees were shaking.
The bar was not hard to find. A barman wearing a black t-shirt with skeleton bones served drinks under phosphorescent black light. Lucía downed a shot of tequila in a split second, no salt, lime, or sangrita. The alcohol made her eyes well up. She had to calm down and plan a strategy. Perhaps this was a sign that it was time to leave with Gabriel. She could look for him, pack her bags and escape with him in the car, never to see anyone ever again.
She locked herself in the guest bathroom. Votive candles bathed the room in a warm glow. Mounds of sugar skulls stared at her mockingly. How pretentious, pinche Luis, she muttered. She looked at herself in the mirror. Despite the benign lighting of the candles, she looked like a ghost. Her face was out of order, her eyes swollen, her lips twisted in an anguished grimace. She felt dizzy, no doubt because of the tequila. Someone tried to open the door.
“Occupied!” she shouted in a panic. She flushed the toilet and ran the faucet. She tried to fix her face.
Meanwhile, Gabriel drove around the block and found a spot a block and a half away from the party. He hadn’t dared to glance at Lucía through the rearview mirror. He managed to see her from behind as she ran out of the car. Adolfo had asked him for the ride to the party as an urgent favor an hour earlier. “I have to ask my dad,” he had responded, but Adolfo assured him he had already spoken with Agustín, and it was fine. He never mentioned that Lucía would be joining them until he got in the car and said casually that Lucía would be ready shortly. He should have left right after their fight.
I’m not going to sit around here como un pendejo.
He drove towards Avenida de los Bosques. He slowly pressed the pedal, aware of the patrol cars he had seen marauding on the empty avenues, listening to the roar of the engine as the car sped up to seventy, eighty, ninety kilometers per hour. He turned on the radio at full blast, opened the sunroof, rolled down the windows and stepped on the gas. The needle reached 100. He didn’t see the bump with faded stripes. The car went flying and bounced off the asphalt. Though terrified, Gabriel confirmed that nothing serious had happened to him or the car and the adrenaline rush soon gave way to euphoria. For the first time since he had arrived at that fucking house, he felt he was in possession of his own fate.
The avenue narrowed and turned into a two-lane highway. Gabriel did a u turn, wheels skidding. He sped down the wide avenue lined with mansions protected with guardhouses, alarm systems, and dogs that are trained to maul intruders to shreds. Several side streets had been turned into private streets with security gates. He took an open side street and saw mansions that looked like spaceships, with round windows and triangular doors, haughty colonial haciendas boasting colossal walls and pyramid-shaped tile roofs, fairytale castles, houses made of glass, some one story high, others as high as four. He felt like setting fire to them all and incinerating everyone inside them.
Rich people do whatever they please. They don’t want anyone to go down their street, they have it closed. And they install a security gate with two starving morons whose job is to not let the raza in, unless they’re there to fix the garden or do the laundry. We’re a bunch of cowards.
He drove around the residential streets, poisoning his conscience with the memories of the afternoons he spent with Lucía. He was sick of those two spoiled brats bossing him around. And he didn’t like that his woman was going to marry that prick and he was going to have to be at their beck and call and get to fuck her once in a blue moon.
I’m going to give you one last chance, cabrona. Either you come with me when I say vámonos, or you’re fucked.
Lucía opened the restroom door and ran into Ximena. They exchanged awkward glances, unsure whether they should speak to each other or not.
“What’s up?” said Lucía.
“What’s up with you?”
“I’m good and you?” Lucía replied, her voice breaking.
She gripped her friend by the wrist. She felt an immense need to lock herself in the restroom with Ximena and let it all out.
“Excuse me, but I need to go in there,” Ximena said, breaking free and closing the door.
Feeling abandoned, Lucía went looking for Gabriel. She walked the length of the street but failed to find him. Her heart sank, but standing in the cold night air, she thought it was for the best if Gabriel disappeared with the car and never came back. Upon returning to the party, she spotted Ricardo ordering a drink at the bar. Confusion swirled inside her like the sand mixed with saltwater she once swallowed after she was knocked over by a wave. She went towards him, pushing through the crowd like a shipwreck survivor who swims furiously toward a piece of driftwood.
“Hello, Ricardo.”
“What’s up, Lucía.”
“Can I talk to you?” she pleaded.
“I have nothing to say to you. I’m here to have a good time.”
Lucía cried like she hadn’t cried in years. She didn’t know exactly why. She cried because of how she had hurt her poor boyfriend. She cried because she could not find Gabriel. She cried because her brother wasted all his energy on petty nonsense, she cried because no one understood her, because she didn’t know what to do, because she was selfish, because all she really wanted to do in life was to fuck, because she did want a pretty wedding with lots of guests.
Some people stared at her as she bawled. Ricardo led her to a quieter corner, pushing her softly by the shoulders.
“Let them see me cry, I don’t give a fuck,” she babbled.
“Shh,” whispered Ricardo, moved by his beloved’s cascading tears.
“I know I hurt you,” Lucía told him, swallowing her snot.
He didn’t answer.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She was convulsed by another wave of sobbing. Ricardo strived not to forgive her instantly. The banner of pride he was forced to fly to safeguard his own dignity seemed like a hindrance to him.
“Yeah right, Lucía,” he said stoically, handing her a tissue.
“I swear, Ricky. I rushed into things without being sure if I wanted a serious relationship with you. I should have told you.”
Lucía blew her nose.
“You treated me like shit. You said horrible things to me. You can’t treat me like this.”
“I didn’t return the ring because I wanted to think it over and patch things up, I swear.” Lucía explained.
Ricardo stroked her cheek and held her to his chest so tightly he almost crushed her. Lucía allowed him to kiss, caress, and console her, hoping that her brother would walk in on them and understand that he was wrong.
However, at that moment, Adolfo was in the restroom of the master bedroom on the second floor, getting ready to snort a welcome bump, even though his initial intention had been to keep an eye on his sister all night. The Lombardos, owners of one of Mexico’s largest car dealership chains, had an imported toilet from Japan with a heated seat that also sprayed your ass clean. Adolfo pushed all the little buttons on the toilet while Luis was cutting lines with his American Express Onyx with the skill of an experienced taquero.
Surrounded by mirrors, Adolfo ran the jacuzzi, which could comfortably fit four people. While the Roman tub filled up, he rummaged through the medicine cabinets and drawers, inspected the prescriptions and the cosmetics, found Xanax, stole several pills, and undressed. They snorted their lines and got into the hot tub.
Adolfo explained the reason for his euphoria:
“Lucía is fucking Agustín’s son.”
“No way! She stole him from you!” laughed Luis.
“Indeed, mon cher Luis. And tonight, I am going to fuck them both over.”
Twenty-one“All by myself”,
by Eric Carmen. “I’m Not in Love” by Ten CC. “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” sung by Yvonne Elliman. It seemed as if the songs in Radio Universal had been programmed to make fun of his misery. Gabriel turned off the car and stepped out to breathe the night air, which was as biting as in the countryside. He leaned against a car from where he could see the house. A group of noisy guests was ignoring the guard in a suit and tie who urged them to go inside to not disturb the neighbors. “Yeah, soon, man,” they would say, and continue screaming on the street. He could hear the music’s rumble and the indistinct chatter of the guests, and he could picture Lucía flirting and dancing in those clothes she never wore for him.
He crossed the street. The group of rich kids looked him over to see if they recognized him. With each step, he thought they would close ranks, block his entry, and demand explanations, or his ID.
The thing is to walk in as if I own the place.
They stared but didn’t say anything. The guard reviewed him for a fraction of a second and said:
“May I help you?”
“I am a friend of Luis and I’m here for the party.”
The guarura looked at him resentfully but let him in. A Tizoncito taco catering truck stood about 20 meters from the main entrance. Gabriel followed the scent of the tacos al pastor. The garage had been turned into a little town square festooned with colorful paper banners and food stalls, clay pots filled with stews, tables with big glass barrels of aguas frescas, baskets with traditional candied fruits: acitrón, calabazate, and a variety of sweets: natillas, pirulíes, alegrías, pepitorias. Gabriel dove into the hungry crowd and took the opportunity to order four pastor tacos with everything, two sopes, and two freshly handmade quesadillas. They were served to him with inquiring looks, but he got his food.
He crossed the enormous garden, marveling at the rows of votive candles on the wrought iron balconies and the two tall torches spitting fire at the main entrance to the house. A bronze sculpture of an indigenous woman draped in a rebozo waited for him at the door. She looked like she was about to stretch her arm and beg for a handout.
Gabriel went into the house, borne by his own adrenaline, emboldened for having cleared the first hurdle, having enjoyed a fine dinner to boot. It was so crowded that he could not take two steps without bumping into someone. In the dark, the bright gazes of men and women rested briefly on him like fireflies. He gazed back at them. Nothing like keeping your head down to give yourself away, he thought.
Indeterminate shadows huddled around a fireplace. In the back of the living room more people were dancing, and further away he could make out the blue aura of a swimming pool. He couldn’t find Lucía or Adolfo. On the opposite side of the room, a phosphorescent skeleton served drinks, illuminated by black light. He went towards it.
The skeleton hesitated for a second before offering him a drink. Gabriel, who had been lurking in the dark, glanced down and noticed that his white t-shirt had become a big violet neon sign.
“One Don Julio, please.”
As soon as he got his drink, he slinked away from the light. The promise of unlimited free booze and food distracted him briefly from his purpose. He snuggled up to the side of the bar and ordered another tequila. He moved like a lizard, sticking to the walls of the cupola in the vast foyer, decorated with hand-painted flowers and angels. August paintings of somber fruits and withered flowers adorned the walls in which six niches housed bloodied saints and painted wooden archangels. Searching for Lucía amidst the shadows, Gabriel arrived at a traditional Day of the Dead altar covered in Cempazúchitl flowers. At the center of the altar was a picture of a young man posing proudly next to a racecar, his helmet under his arm. Below the photograph, arranged in symmetrical mounds like the ones fruit vendors display in markets, packs of Lucky Strike, Tin Larín chocolate wafers, Japanese peanuts, and baggies of Chamoy, were placed in a half-moon around a bottle of Porfidio tequila, a bottle of champagne, and a bottle of Victoria beer. At the base of the altar, resting on a bed of yellow petals, lay a Paulina Rubio compact disc, a tiny bikini, a bottle of eau de cologne with an unpronounceable name, and a collection of trophies and miniature racecars. Gabriel was captivated by the details reflecting the short, privileged, and depraved life of this individual.
“Did you know my brother Adrián?” inquired the nasal sing-song voice of a rich girl.
For a moment, Gabriel assumed the question wasn’t directed at him, but no one else responded. In the backlight, he could make out the silhouette of a petite girl of about sixteen. She looked like a squirrel, her dainty nose dotted with freckles. She reeked of weed.
“I used to see him around,” Gabriel muttered.
“He was totally insane,” the girl said. “Do you know how he died?”
“How?”
“He was coming from a party in Tecamachalco, completely wasted. At the Monte Líbano bridge, he didn’t realize he was in the wrong lane and tried to avoid the oncoming car. He crashed into the rail and fell off the bridge into the ravine. He took the guy who was driving in the opposite direction and his wife with him, leaving behind orphaned baby twins. The Mercedes was crushed and Adrián was torn to shreds.”
Gabriel was silent for a few seconds and then asked:
“Did you make the altar?”
“No way! It was my brother Luis. I wanted to make an altar for the poor people my brother murdered right next to this one, but they didn’t let me. I’m Amanda. What’s your name?”
“Lorenzo,” he replied to the two shiny, dilated pupils.
“You want to dance?” Amanda asked.
Shit, I’m a hit with the princesses tonight.
Without waiting for his answer, Amanda put her hands on Gabriel’s shoulders, drawing close enough to arouse him. He held her by the waist, and they swayed slowly, ignoring the frantic music. Amanda smiled goofily and gazed at him as if she were discovering an exotic specimen. Whiffs of her dry cigarette breath reached Gabriel’s nostrils in rhythmic puffs. He pressed her lower lip between his teeth. Her spit was sweet and smoky. She clung to him, and he held her as if he wanted to break her spine. He kissed her hard, sticking his tongue in her mouth almost all the way to her uvula.
He would have liked to crush this little thing in his arms until her bones splintered, kiss her until he choked her, and tear off her tiny nose in one bite. But her smell of fancy perfume reminded him that he was there to take his woman, by the hair if necessary.
“I’ll be right back. I’m going to get a drink,” he said.
The skeleton eyed him with increasing suspicion, but it had yet to deny him any drinks. With his third tequila in hand, Gabriel went out to the garden, hypnotized by the serpentine reflections in the water. Cempazúchitl flowers floated in the pool like orange anemones. There weren’t too many people in the garden. Three guys were passing a blunt in a dark corner, discussing a trip to the Caribbean. Gabriel approached. They stared at him with distrust but did not dare confront him, and when the blunt finished going around, he joined their circle in such a way that they had no choice but to include him. He took two eager puffs and passed it along. An awkward silence choked the conversation, and since no one wished to resume it as long as he was there, he moved away from the trio and hovered nearby.
Gabriel walked deep into the garden and found a wooden bench under a leafy tree. These people had their own park with swings and seesaws and everything. The icy dampness of the grass seeped through the rubber soles of his sneakers and into the cracks on the soles of his feet. He got goosebumps. He felt each of his bones get numb, the cold freezing his marrow. He gaped for what felt like an eternity at the luminous dance of the waves in the water, and another eternity at the ghostly shapes billowing from the chimney into the murky sky. His own vapor mimicked the breath of the chimney. The privileged stoners standing in a corner of the garden were also shivering.
Their stink isn’t made of diamonds and their cold isn’t made of silver. They shit, piss and bleed just like the poorest loser. Their come, their snot and their tears are just as salty. In Mexico, the poor resign themselves to be treated like shit because they are the color of shit!
On TV everyone is white. The presidents are white. The owners of the banks are white. Businessmen are white. The kids in commercials, blond, blue-eyed, freckled—white. Even the maids in the telenovelas are white. Miss Mexico is white. The women who sing while wearing miniskirts so short you can almost see their throat, showing their belly buttons with their tits as hard as soccer balls—white. The garbage sifters—brown. The servants, drivers, nurses, gardeners, street sweepers, policemen, supermarket baggers, beggars, street vendors, knife sharpeners, balloon sellers, taco makers, plumbers, cobblers, waiters, maids, guards, cooks, ice cream vendors, fire-eaters, shoeshiners, organ grinders, bricklayers, sweet potato vendors, peons, peasants, garbage collectors, caretakers, secondhand clothes vendors, in their vast majority—brown. Chocolatey, cinnamoned, coffee-colored, chipotle, and molasses-looking, brown.
The thought of his girl lost in the crowd snapped him out of his reverie. He had a mission to accomplish. He headed toward his loyal friend, the skeleton.
“Can I get another tequilita and a Victoria?”
The skeleton glared at him and burrowed his arm into the ice cooler as if he had to descend to the underworld to grab the last beer from the devil himself, although it appeared that there were plenty of beers at the bottom of the icy water. He placed the beer on the bar but did not open it for him. Gabriel reached for the bottle opener.
“I’m out of shot glasses,” the skeleton informed him.
“Pour it in a plastic cup like those, brother, no sweat. Am I not a guest? You’re going to serve me all the drinks I order, and more, cabrón.”
He paused, astonished at the speech that flowed so eloquently from within him.
“Fuck, brother,” he continued. “I’m here in my black Jetta with my stereo and my sunroof, and my magnesium rims, and I live in Parque Vía Reforma 2347, Lomas de Chapultepec, Miguel Hidalgo County, Mexico City, Planet Earth, Solar System, and I am fucking one of your boss’ friends like a king. How about that?”
“Get the fuck out, you fucking drunk stoner,” the skeleton grumbled.
Gabriel pulled out a crumpled Alas from his t-shirt pocket. While he searched for his matches, a girl with curly blond hair came up to him and asked for a cigarette.
I’m telling you, they can’t resist me.
“Hey, can I bum one?”
“Of course. They are unfiltered, though.”
“It’s fine. Everybody’s out.”
Of course. Otherwise, the güerita would have never spoken to him. Gabriel smoothed the cigarette between his fingers, gave it to her and continued searching for his matches. While she investigated him, she took out her lighter and gave it to Gabriel, but she didn’t light up. Gabriel thought he had seen her before.
“Who do you know here? Are you a friend of Luis?” she inquired.
The questioning has begun.
“No, I’m a friend of Amanda and Adrián; que Dios lo tenga en Su gloria,” mumbled Gabriel.
“What’s your name?”
“Lorenzo. And yours?”
“Ximena. Lorenzo what?”
Ximena what, eh? Is she Lucía’s friend? Oh shit...
“Lorenzo Mendoza Bonilla, at your service.”
“And how did you know Adrián?”
“I was his mechanic.”
That’s what you want to hear, right, chata?
“I see. So you were invited to the party.”
“Here I am, aren’t I?”
“No, yes, for sure. And are you having a good time?”
“Yes, it’s chill. Wanna dance?”
Why the hell not? While we’re at it...
“No, thanks, I just needed a cigarette.”
“As many as you want. I’ll give you a light.”
“Thanks, I’m gonna smoke it outside.”
Fucking stuck-up bitch. Call the suited-up gorilla and have him kick me out if you don’t like it.
Gabriel rubbed his eyes and let out a fatalistic sigh. He could take this as a warning from the gods to escape, or he could take Lucía with him forever, after disfiguring her fag of a brother with his fists. He plunged into the dense fog, dizzied by the smell of pot, perfume mixed with sweat, alcohol-laced breaths, and hormones stirred by the sounds of a slow song in English.
Twenty-twoAdolfo and Luis put on fat terrycloth robes
and blow-dried their hair. Adolfo slapped his cheeks with one of Mr. Lombardo’s colognes, and Luis applied a very discreet layer of lip gloss he found in one of the drawers. They snorted one last line and went back to the party. They spotted Lucía dancing with Ricardo. He was holding her by the waist and stroking her back. They were kissing vehemently.
Luis raised an eyebrow.
“I couldn’t have planned this better,” Adolfo said, smiling proudly. “I don’t know what the hell Mestre is doing at this party, but I am so happy to see him.”
“Hadn’t they broken up?” Luis asked.
On the other side of the living room, Ximena was chatting with a purple t-shirt.
“Look who’s there. I can’t believe it,” said Adolfo, pointing toward the strange couple talking at the bar.
“Ximena,” Luis uttered.
“Ximena and who else, imbécil.”
“Oh my God,” Luis gasped. “El Chichifo Deluxe!”
Adolfo decided to circumvent Gabriel for the time being, and ran down the stairs to intercept Ximena, who was heading to the garden. He grabbed her arm.
“Who were you talking to?”
“What?”
“Just now at the bar. Who was that creep? What did he say to you?”
“He’s Adrián’s mechanic,” Ximena explained. “I don’t understand why they invited him.”
“He is no mechanic. He is Agustín’s son.”
“Oh, no wonder he looked familiar. And what’s he doing here?”
“He drove us. He’s shameless, the fucking Indian.”
“He’s super drunk. He even asked me to dance,” Ximena said.
“And what were you doing talking to him?”
“Well, I thought he seemed out of place, so I went to ask who he was. Stupid Luis doesn’t even know who’s in his own house.”
“What has Lucía told you?”
“About what?”
“About him?”
“Nothing. She only mentioned that the driver’s son is her driver.”
“And you’ve never seen him before?”
“I have my own driver and as you know, I must use my own vehicle with my own bodyguards.”
“And why did you two stop talking?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Isn’t it because you hate the idea that this little naco is fucking her?”
“How do you know he’s fucking her?”
“I think I saw them kissing.”
“What do you mean ‘I think’? Either you saw them, or you didn’t.”
“You knew it, Ximena.”
“I didn’t know anything.”
“You knew it. Lucía told you.”
“I swear she didn’t. We argued because I was upset with the way your sister treated Ricky.”
“I don’t know if you’ve seen them yet, but they are all over each other.”
Precisely today, Ricardo had come to the party alone, and she had loosened up and flirted with him and he had been so gentle, so sweet, and that puta had decided to steal him away from her again. Unforgivable.
“Do you think it’s right that my sister and the gofer are fucking?” said Adolfo.
“I think it’s in the worst taste, but I’m not surprised: your sister fucks anything that moves.”
“What should we do?”
“Do? I don’t know, Adolfo. I think we need to discreetly ask him to leave. Have Luis tell the guards to throw him out.”
Lucía buried her face in Ricardo’s shirt, inhaling his dapper aroma of cologne. She closed her eyes and swayed to the beat, as if the music and Ricardo’s arms could protect her from the chaos around her.
“I missed you so much,” Ricardo said. “I thought about calling you a thousand times, but I was too hurt.”
“It was hard for me too.”
I already said I’m sorry, stop going on about it.
“I love you, Lucía.”
“I love you too.”
Ricardo’s tongue began exploring her mouth. For a brief moment, Lucía felt a great weight lift from her shoulders. She would go back to her regular life; eat sushi and drink cosmos, buy new clothes without guilt, tan on the bow of a sailboat in Valle de Bravo every weekend. In the end, they can’t take anything away from you. True, she would miss Gabriel’s passion terribly, his perpetually melancholic air, his playful smile, his warm embrace; those impossibly fleshy and quivering lips that drove her wild. She would miss his hypnotic voice calling her “princess,” his agonizing climaxes, the tenderness with which he gazed at her after making love.
Ximena elbowed her way through the undulating throng to reach Lucía and Ricardo.
“Lucía, I need to tell you something,” she whispered in her friend’s ear.
“We’re back together,” Lucía announced.
“Your driver is here. He was drinking at the bar two minutes ago. He’s wasted,” Ximena whispered.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. I can’t find him.”
“Where’s Adolfo?”
“He saw me talking to him a while ago. You must tell your driver to leave before all hell breaks loose,” Ximena said.
At that moment, they both saw the black mane approaching, its wisps framing the tormented brow, his eyelids halfway open, the whites of his eyes shimmering with anger. Lucía wanted to soothe him, kiss his hair, drink his sweet saliva, comfort him. Yet she didn’t budge. She tried to detach herself from Ricardo, who floated in ecstasy and had not realized that the driver was staring at them as if they were a horrifying insect and that his brother-in-law was rushing towards them.
“Take the car and go home,” Lucía said to Gabriel.
“Don’t order me around. These are not work hours, milady,” Gabriel snapped.
“What the fuck are you doing here, you miserable bastard?” Adolfo said.
“Leave him be, Adolfo,” Lucía interjected, with a mix of recklessness and panic. “Don’t start.”
Ricardo watched the three of them with utter bewilderment. To everyone’s surprise, Gabriel opened his mouth.
“You can go fuck yourself, you fucking faggot. Are you coming with me or not, Lucía? Let’s go!”
Lucía hesitated for a moment and shook her head. As Ricardo saw the expression on the driver’s face, Adolfo’s agitation, and Ximena’s shock, and realized that his girlfriend had cheated on him with the driver, as he debated whether he really needed to pretend to want to beat him up to save his wounded pride, as he grappled with the conflict between his use of reason (preserve your dignity, don’t stoop to his level, don’t get dragged down) and the vertigo of his humiliation (send him to the hospital, fuck her up), Adolfo had already drawn the gun he had borrowed from a corner in his father’s closet and was pointing it at Gabriel.
A couple of girls screamed in panic, but the music was so loud that many people were oblivious to the unfolding situation.
“Calm down, Fito. Put that away, please,” Lucía pleaded.
“What’s wrong with you, Fito? Put that thing down. What’s going on?” Ricardo said.
“Let’s settle this like men, you stupid fucking fag,” Gabriel exclaimed.
“Put the gun down, Adolfo,” Luis ordered. “We don’t need another tragedy in this house.”
“It’s okay, Luigi. Look, I’ve put it away. This is a family matter.”
Adolfo put the gun back in his groin. Its weight made his pants sag and reveal the black elastic band of his designer briefs.
“Fito, let’s leave right now,” Lucía implored.
“I advise you to shut up, Lucía, unless you want to see blood,” Adolfo retorted.
Adolfo was playing the role of dishonored firstborn son with conviction, although to Lucía he sounded as if he was imitating a TV show about cops and robbers. Everything seemed like a ridiculous performance in which she was also playing a role, poorly. She noticed a crowd had gathered to watch like bystanders gaping at a traffic accident. Her gaze was fixed on Gabriel’s, who stood frozen in front of the gun, his expression more daring than fearful, as if he also found Adolfo’s drama ludicrous. She didn’t dare look at Ricardo.
“Give me the gun, Adolfo,” Luis demanded. “And if you’re going to fight, do it outside.”
Adolfo handed the gun to the host, who skillfully removed the bullets and stored them in his pocket.
“Listen, cabrón, I didn’t invite you to this party. You already left. Beat it,” Luis said to Gabriel, snapping his fingers in his face.
“Let’s go, Lucía,” Gabriel repeated, ignoring Luis.
“What do you mean, let’s go?” Ricardo screamed.
“Ricky…” Lucía whimpered.
“Did this Indian lay his hands on you?” Ricardo asked.
“If you are going to fight, get out,” Luis insisted.
Lucía was terrified, but her mind was very alert, as if she’d snorted two lines of coke. She had run out of tears.
“I fucked her and better than you, asshole,” said Gabriel.
An incredulous buzz arose among the onlookers.
“He’s totally wasted. Who could even imagine?” said Lucía.
Ricardo felt as if he had been thrown into a pigsty. His body convulsed with nausea.
“I would never do such a thing, ever,” Lucía insisted.
Gabriel failed to grasp that her humiliating arguments were intended to protect him.
“I have fucked her in her bedroom and mine, and at the Mónaco Hotel thousands of times. She is dirtier and easier than a stray bitch in heat,” said Gabriel.
Ricardo doubled over, covering his mouth with his hand to rein in the torrent of vomit that he emptied into the parquet anyway. The crowd bellowed. Lucía tried to help him, taking him by the arm, but Ricardo pushed her away and made his way through the guests, without even glancing at her. Ximena ran after him. Gabriel decided to lunge at Adolfo and punched him in the ribs, his jaw, his legs. Adolfo fought back by kicking, pulling hair, and throwing punches that didn’t land. Luis allowed a few seconds of this grotesque scene to play out before losing his patience and pouncing on Gabriel.
“Shit, man, it’s on!” someone shouted.
“Leave him alone!” Lucía screamed at her brother and Luis.
But Gabriel was already lying on the floor shrunken like a fetus near the pool of Ricardo’s vomit, taking cover from the kicks and punches by Adolfo, Luis, and several other guests.
Adolfo seized the car keys from Gabriel’s pants pocket. Lucía tried to convince them to let him go. But the Lombardos had a friend in the Judicial Police and Luis had his personal phone number, so instead of two relatively harmless police officers, two leather-jacketed judiciales arrived at the scene. Adolfo and Luis claimed that this drunken individual had entered the premises without permission and had harassed several young ladies. Gabriel protested, saying that Adolfo had threatened him with a gun and that Lucía was his girlfriend, but they barely listened to him because the others said “What gun? What girlfriend? Look at him officer, he’s drunk, just a resentful domestic worker.” Then, from within the crowd the diminutive Amanda Lombardo emerged, her eyes bloodshot from drugs. She accused Gabriel of assaulting her next to the altar for the deceased. The officers decided to take him away. Adolfo, Luis, and Ricardo pooled together a fat wad of cash and handed it to the commander. Despite the preferential treatment, the officers of the law requested a contribution for the home visit, assuring the victims that the intruder would remain safely detained. Ogling Lucía as if he was about to suck every bone in her body, the burly, pockmarked officer asked her: “Were you also accosted and sexually abused by this boy?” Lucía denied it in a barely audible voice and suggested to the officers to release him; he had never intended to harm her at all. But the bribe was already in their pockets.
The next day, her father sent her mother to get her out of bed. He sat Lucía and Natalia on the plush leather sofa in his studio.
“What’s wrong, Lucía?” her father inquired. “Why are you so bent out of shape about the kid? He went to the party to pester you, insulted your brother, and you are crying over him. I want to know why.”
“Because the police took him away. He didn’t do anything.”
“Why did he go to the party looking for you?”
“He wanted to leave, he wanted to let me know he was leaving.”
“Why did you take him to the party?”
“Ask Adolfo, Dad. It was his idea.”
“And what he said about the hotel downtown?” Roberto asked. “Is that why you convinced me to let him drive you around?”
Lucía did not answer. Her defiant gaze met her father’s.
“You are a whore,” he said to her.
“That’s how you raised me,” Lucía replied.
In one step, Roberto reached the sofa where his daughter sat in her pajamas and slapped her so hard that her teeth rattled. Lucía buried her hot, humiliated face between her legs. Her father had never hit her before.
“Tell me what that bastard did to you,” her father demanded.
“He didn’t do anything to me,” Lucía bawled. “We did it to each other.”
“Do you want to be slapped again?”
Lucía raised her face.
“He didn’t fuck me. We fucked.”
“Go to your room if you don’t want me to beat you to a pulp,” his father warned, his fists shaking with rage.
“This is what happens when you let your heart bleed for the children of the servants,” Natalia said, livid with anger.
Lucía stood up in her fragile suit of armor made of hate and walked slowly towards the door.
“Don’t think I don’t know that your brother is a disgusting rat faggot,” Roberto said. “But I swear to you, Lucía, that I will make sure that miserable son of a bitch rots in jail.”
“Serves you right,” her mother said. “Perhaps now you’ll learn to stick with your own kind.”
Twenty-threeThe sober three-thousand-dollar
wedding dress chosen by her mother (bone-colored, long-sleeved, with a buttonhole collar and a long row of chaste buttons running down the back) awaited Lucía on a hanger. It was loose on her, even though they had given it to the seamstress more than once to take in several centimeters and even though a baby had been gestating inside her for about five months. Lucía observed everything that happened around her from above, as if she were a figurine in a miniature model of a residential development, of the kind displayed at shopping malls. She was nothing but a playing piece in that perfect world of tiny moss trees and cellophane swimming pools. They could place her holding a tennis racquet next to a car, on the lawn, or at the entrance of a luxurious residence, standing behind a man with a briefcase. It didn’t matter. She was exhausted. She wanted to slit her wrists.
“You are a romantic vision: vaporous, feminine, diaphanous, but those bags under your eyes are scary, chiquita. Haven’t you slept?” said Flavio, the makeup artist.
“Isn’t she still too pale?” asked the mother of the bride, who observed Flavio as he applied Lucía’s makeup with a surgeon’s precision.
“Well yes, está color axila de lagartija—she’s as pale as a lizard’s armpit,” said Flavio. “But I will take care of that with my magic powders. Don’t worry, Señora, we’re going to make this child dazzle like a shooting star.”
The maids helped Lucía fasten the veil. They gathered the train so she wouldn’t drag it all the way to the garage, where an old-fashioned car festooned with lace, gladiolas and tuberose awaited her. Zenaida held her bouquet, as she helped her get in the car.
“You are very beautiful, Señorita Lulú,” she heard her say in a distant echo. “May God bless you. Here are some María cookies with cajeta, so you can eat something before the wedding.”
Lucía levitates over the church’s aisle, groggy from the tranquilizers. Her mother has instructed her how to reach the altar: one step and stop, two steps and stop. Her upper lip trembles. Her smile hurts. She glances sideways at the maids, who give up their seats for late-arriving guests.
Her father reeks of alcohol. His arm feels as cold and inert as a handrail. Since the morning he hit her, he won’t talk to her, won’t look at her, and won’t touch her. To control her tears, Lucía observes the gaggle of her mother’s friends, some wearing fur coats, although it’s 2 pm on a sweltering Saturday in March.
Her mother wears a sequined chiffon dress straight out of Star Wars. She takes stock of everything everyone says, thinks, and imagines. She is on Adolfo’s arm, who smiles like a fool, since the bump he just had with the groom has kicked in. The in-laws look like they are at a wake. The only one radiating joy is Luis Lombardo, her brother’s “best friend,” who waits for her at the altar, thrilled to see his beautiful bride, whom he will take on trips, dress up, makeover and flaunt, as well as his dashing brother-in-law, flawless in his Hugo Boss tux, whom he will have nearby to love for the rest of his life. It was two for the price of one. ‘He sure took advantage of the clearance sale,’ a guest may have remarked.
Her friends Mercedes, Marifer, Fernanda, Viviana, and Lolis shed crocodile tears. Did they cry like this at Ximena’s wedding to Ricardo?
A few days after the incident, Luis started showing up at Lucía’s house with bouquets of roses and chocolate boxes. He was happy, courteous, and sweet as he gave her the pills she needed to keep from going insane. Roberto and Natalia were alarmed at first, but soon they had to admit that Luisito was their best, and in fact only, option. Locked in her bedroom with him, weak from not eating, lightheaded from the drugs, or dizzy with the pregnancy, Lucía could feel his throat constrict when he forced himself to kiss her. She could sense his repulsion every time he touched her. To punish herself, she urged him:
“Fuck me, faggot.”
The morning Agustín left, Lucía sneaked into the servants’ quarters while the rest of the household was deep in their chores. The walls were still swollen with dampness, the tile floor was icy, and the mattresses now bare, left proof of solitary dreams in their stains and grooves. Agustín was tying his cardboard box with rope. Lucía handed him an envelope containing the fifteen thousand pesos she had managed to save.
“This is all I have,” she told him, “but I hope it can help can get Gabriel out of jail soon.”
“He’s not getting out until God knows when,” Agustín replied.
Lucía burst out crying.
“It wasn’t Gabriel’s fault. It was mine.”
Agustín looked at her coldly.
“Bail is set at 50 thousand pesos, if you really want to help.”
From then on, Lucía spent her days forcing herself to recreate the images of Gabriel, delirious with pleasure, his fingers tracing delicate silk lace on her shoulders. Frustrated by her imperfect memories, she would hug one of her pillows, pretend it was Gabriel, and spend hours expressing her regret, showering it with kisses, and stroking its cover with her hand, burning with pain. Addicted to her daydreams, she masturbated obsessively and walked around with her panties permanently drenched in longing. Naively, she believed that the little secret creature she was harboring would be a miniature Gabriel, to whom she would transfer all her love. But she did not dare visit him in jail.
Luis asked for her hand in marriage on Christmas Eve, and a date was set for early March, shortening considerably the customary engagement period of one year. The wedding preparations overwhelmed her for months, although their challenges seemed far more interesting to her boyfriend: whether to choose filet mignon with soufflé potatoes or salmon en croute with shiitake mushrooms, deciding on birds of paradise or Thai orchids; contemplating ring options, selecting the ringbearers and the dresses for the little flower girls; whether to celebrate it at the San Ángel Inn or the Four Seasons; take photos, or video. With epic reluctance she leafed through hefty wedding magazines and interviewed florists and caterers. She let her mother-in-law and Luis make half the decisions while her mother took care of the other half.
Natalia attempted to win her back by enlisting her in the wedding plans and acting sweetly, taking her out for coffee as if they were best friends. She was the only one that showed any compassion. Anything to keep up appearances.
“I convinced your father that since your in-laws will give you the house as a wedding present, we should give you the honeymoon,” she mentioned during one of their prenuptial outings. “Your dad thinks that the reception is enough, but I think the honeymoon is classier, considering the house is forever. Of course, the wedding is forever too, but it only lasts for one day, while you will live in that house with Luis and your children, God willing, for many years to come. Luis told me you want to go to Tahiti and Bora Bora, which I must say is quite far and a bit costly, but I think it’s splendid, because you need a good rest. Forget about everything. Start again. Besides, it’s paradise and you’ll be able to practice your French.”
Irma brought Gabriel food, soap, and toilet paper by bribing the guards or sacrificing a portion of her food when they let her through. Once, she had to hike up her skirt and squat in front of the uniformed, mangy dogs who searched her in case she was smuggling in any weapons or drugs. As the mother of an “urchin,” a convict without money, if she didn’t pay, her son barely got enough food to eat.
His parents came to visit him one Sunday, together after years of hate. His mother brought him two egg and chorizo tortas and some Boings. Gabriel devoured one with hunger and grief and hid the other one for later. His father looked ashen and his mother’s eyes were swollen from crying.
“How are you, hijo?” his mother asked.
All her questions were one and the same: Have they raped you?
Why do you ask if you don’t want to know?, he wished he could reply.
“Hanging in there, Mom. Thanks for the tortas.”
“Your case is at the bottom of a pile of pending trials,” his father said. The Orozcos want to screw you.”
“But we met with your lawyer, son, the one who will defend you,” his mother added. “He hasn’t come to see you? He said he would. The Señorita gave your dad some money. Maybe we can gather enough for your bail.”
“Give it back to her. I don’t want it,” Gabriel replied.
“It’s around fifteen thousand pesos,” his mother insisted.
“Serves you right for messing around with the lady of the house,” his father grumbled.
Lucía glances back, and for a few seconds, she thinks she glimpses a familiar figure standing at the doors of the church. The afternoon sun etches a halo around him. His posture is still, serene. Wisps of wind tussle his hair. Lucía strains her neck, rises, turns her body towards the church’s entrance, her heart pounding.
Come get me. Take me with you.
Taffeta and lace rustle, the rumors of the fever of her illicit love affairs, of her instability, threaten to unleash like a gale. The priest pronounces her name, Luis squeezes her hand. The apparition turns out to be a popsicle vendor ringing the bells of his cart, hoping to attract sweltering parishioners. Lucía returns to her penitence, and the buzzing subsides. She spends the remainder of the ceremony playing, grateful for the distraction, with the psychedelic green and yellow spots dancing before her eyes, courtesy of the sun.
The ring has been placed on her finger, she has eaten the flesh and drunk the blood. Luis has kissed her lips and lifted her gently by the elbow. Under the rain of applause and cheers of “Vivan los novios!” all that awaits her beyond the church are poisoned rays of light.