The Optimist

by Sophie Kipner

  Through the dirty window, I saw Ernesto stroke his wife’s hair so tenderly it was like he was caressing a rose petal. I was so envious I felt the sick start to crawl into my esophagus but I kept swallowing to keep it down, despite my gag reflex. His fingers caressed her hair with such love I could almost taste it from the outside. They ran down her dark chocolate locks and wove in toward her nape, grabbing it firmly as he pulled her in for a kiss. I had never seen anything so beautiful before. I tried to imagine myself being his wife, what it would be like to have him in my bed each night and wake up to him each morning, but that felt a little creepy so I just continued to watch them through the window. His gaze was dreamy as her body seemed to collapse in his embrace. It was just too perfect. Too gorgeous and delicious a moment to witness that I had this epiphany: I wanted love like that. I guess I knew I wanted love with Ernesto but I had no idea what that would entail until seeing it up close. I wanted Mexican love. I wanted romantic love that filled me with so much happiness it would feel like I exploded from the inside out and all of my parts would be scattered around the room in disarray. I wanted love to blow up my heart like it was going to war against reality. The world was so bright and colorful and full of potential. It was so exciting that I went to clap my hands in delight at the thought of being loved by a Mexican who knew how to give it, but I forgot that I was three feet higher than the ground, lurching on the edge of their window.

  ‘Ah!’ I screamed as I fell backwards onto a bed of what I unpleasantly discovered were actually rose bushes.

  When I looked up I saw Ernesto and his beautiful (sigh) wife peering down at me in confusion through the window.

  ‘Tabitha?’ Ernesto said, clearly quite perplexed as to why I was in his garden. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to see you,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  Why? Ha! He was such a joker! Oh, Ernesto! He was obviously quite shy and didn’t want to ruin his marriage by admitting that he was in love with me as well, all of which I totally understood. In fact, I didn’t want him to tell the truth because it would have hurt her. That would have been so cruel and I don’t believe in cruelty, so all I could say was, ‘I wanted to know what was for dessert today.’

  I begged, internally, for him to tell me he had some sort of Mexican confection, or that I was for dessert, that he’d eat me, but he just said, ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I jumped in the back of your truck.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he sighed. ‘You could have gotten yourself hurt, little girl.’

  Sometimes I would forget I was little until it was pointed out, because I felt so big. I was so much bigger than myself, like a compact Border terrier who barks at the big dogs because he thinks he’s as big as his wolfhound best friend. I didn’t have a bigger best friend but I think you get the picture.

  ‘Your mother must be so worried,’ his wife said. Her voice creamy and inviting, like a female Ernesto. I could have married her, too.

  ‘Ernesto,’ she added. ‘Call her mother so she doesn’t worry she’s been kidnapped!’

  He held out his hand to help me up but the minute I moved I realized I was wedged between thorns, digging at me, reminding me how much more painful this situation could have been if I hadn’t let go when I did.

  I went inside and sat on the couch while Ernesto called my mother.

  ‘Twilda, hi,’ he started, unsure. ‘It’s Ernesto. I have Tabitha here.’

  ‘Who?’ I heard her say through the phone.

  I heard him try to explain to her that I was there but it sounded like she was drunk because he kept repeating himself, as if she wasn’t understanding the problem. ‘Okay!’ I kept hearing her say, the word sounding so joyful it was as if Ernesto had said he’d do her garden for free for an entire year. At least she was happy. That was a good sign.

  ‘I’ll bring her home now,’ he said before hanging up.

  For the first part of the car ride home I just sat quietly in the front seat next to him, looking out the window because that’s what women do in the movies when things aren’t going well with their lives. Eventually he looked over at me and broke the silence.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked. ‘You know, at home?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Of course. Why?’

  ‘It’s just your mother, she . . .’

  ‘Oh, she’s fine!’ I said. ‘Did she sound tired? She’s been really tired lately. She’s a single parent, you know? Two babies.’

  ‘But you’re nine,’ he said, throwing me off.

  ‘Well she calls me baby all the time. Anyway, I’m pretty mature for my age, but we can be a little . . . wild!’ I couldn’t stop blushing but he didn’t say anything. He just kept his eyes on the road ahead.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t want your wife to know,’ I said. ‘That would have been really difficult for her.’

  ‘Know what?’ he asked.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘That we’re in love!’

  ‘We’re what?’ he blurted, swerving, almost crashing. ‘Tabitha, we’re not in love. I love Cynthia, my wife. I’m too old for you anyway. Aren’t there a ton of guys your age to be in love with?’

  Men my age? Oh Ernesto, sweet Ernesto, he just didn’t understand. It wasn’t even about men, it was about him. Chemistry like that can’t be made in a laboratory. I tried to concentrate on what I wanted but all I could think about was how Cynthia didn’t sound too Mexican a name and that I still may have a chance.

  ‘I want to be Mexican!’ I shouted. ‘You know, I might even be Mexican, by birth.’

  He knew the truth: I wasn’t Mexican. My hair eventually turned a sort of sandy blonde so maybe my mother never had that affair with Hector, the mailman, all those years ago as I had wondered, as I had hoped. It was just my wishful thinking. I really am my father’s daughter.

  I wondered sometimes what my father was doing: Did he have another family by now? Did he eat shellfish without getting a reaction on his tongue? Did he take walks after dinner with his new wife, hand in hand, as the cool evening breeze tickled their skin like I wished Ernesto would tickle me with his mustache?

  I waited. Holding my breath, searching, biting the insides of my cheeks, itching to get to the heart of it: ‘Is it because I’m not Mexican?’

  ‘Tabitha,’ Ernesto said, laughing. ‘Of course not! That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard from you . . . and that’s saying a lot.’

  ‘My teacher says there are no stupid questions,’ I said. Now upset.

  ‘That’s a good point,’ he said, his voice softening my hard corners. ‘That wasn’t a silly question. Just a little ridiculous.’

  We rode in silence for the rest of the car journey. The only problem in seeing Ernesto and his wife so deeply in love was that I became overwhelmed with affection for them both. Maybe the ‘care’ was never in his macaroni, but I didn’t want it anymore after seeing him in his living-room light. Okay . . . That’s a lie: I did, but I would heal.

  When we walked into the house, my mother hardly noticed we were there. She was in the corner of the kitchen on the phone with the cord wrapped around her body in dizzying patterns while she stirred duck in a thick stew with a long wooden stick her mother used to use. She was giggling into the phone.

  ‘She’s talking to her new boyfriend,’ I explained. ‘He’s fat. But she says it’s nice to have something warm to hold on to and I totally know what she means.’

  Ernesto nodded. Mom waved a healthy wave once she saw us and freed her stew-stirring hand to top up her wine glass. She was so good at multi-tasking.

  ‘Okay, kid,’ my Ernesto said. ‘Be good. I’ll see you soon. And stop searching for love. One day you’ll have so much of it you won’t know what to do with it.’

  That was the moment I discovered I could have a lifetime of what Ernesto and his wife had. A lifetime of sex with ­Mexican lovers who would touch my hair and grab my neck and tell me they loved me until they had no breath left in them. Maybe the Mexicans w
ould lead me to the Caucasians and the beautiful black men and Arab and Asian men and all of the men who would eventually lead me to the one who would love me the most and never let me go. I mean, if Ernesto let me go, he must really love his wife because, well, look at me! But I am so glad he did. I’m so relieved because if I hadn’t seen the love he had with his wife, I might never have known it was out there.

  The smell of the stew was so potent it danced around the house. Stew is what my mother cooked for us when she was trying to be motherly and comforting. The rest of the house was dark except for the light emanating from the kitchen and my bedroom. I wondered how it would look from the other side of the street. I wondered what Ernesto’s house looked like at that exact moment, how many rooms were lit. I got mad at myself for not having looked from the other side of the street when I was there but I was too close to the window to be able to see what it looked like from afar.

  I sat at the end of the bed, on the corner where the peg was – my favorite place – and looked out the window to Milk’s house. He was in his parents’ room, also sat on the end of the bed as his dad walked around the room, moving his hands, talking. Father and son. I looked around for Paige, his mother, but didn’t see any other lights on. She probably wasn’t back from work yet. Milk saw me looking at them and waved to me, from one home to another. I did love a good wave, as I’ve admitted, and sometimes he’d look kind of cute but he was just too white, too pretty almost, too unnervingly gentle. I wanted rough and tough but soft with me; I wanted spicy with a kick of sweet. Milk just wasn’t Mexican enough. It would be too weird.

  ‘Tabitha!’ my mother screamed in a high-pitched voice. ‘Dinner!’

  My mother sat at the far end of the table. Her face seemed a bit bloated but she said that people bloat when they are about to feel really happy. It was what she called ‘Anticipatory Bloat.’ I wanted her to ask me about Ernesto and our love. I wanted her to ask me about my heart and what my heart would look like in ten years but all she asked me was if I liked the stew.

  ‘It’s very . . . hearty,’ I said, stuck on the word like my fingers clenched to that windowsill. ‘I have one question, though.’

  She nodded for me to go on, ask away.

  ‘Did you ever tell Dad you wanted him to touch your hair, to kiss your neck? Maybe you just didn’t spell it out enough?’

  ‘I asked him every day for years,’ she sighed, talking as if on autopilot, mesmerized by her cooking. ‘But the bastard never did.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he said he didn’t want to because I had asked. Said it wasn’t a surprise if I asked him to, to let him do it organically because when you tell someone to do something, it takes all the goodness away from it. He’d get into a mood and never wanted to do anything because he felt like I asked for everything before he’d have the chance to do it. But did he? No! Isn’t that ridiculous?’ I nodded. ‘I’d tell him to just fucking do it so I didn’t have to ask.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, supporting her, having her back because no one else had ours. ‘Like flowers, right? He’d never bring you flowers because he knew you wanted him to.’

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘It’s like asking for flowers. You blow it forever the minute you ask.’

  ‘But,’ I started, unable to drop it. ‘He acted like he loved you, though. I remember you both kissing a lot. I remember seeing him watch you get ready and you both laughing with each other, teasing and playing. I remember it so well.’

  ‘You only remember a part of it. You only remember the good times. It wasn’t always fun.’

  ‘So it’s supposed to always be exciting?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ she told me. ‘Or else it feels like death.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could die from boredom.’

  ‘Look around,’ my mother noted. ‘People are dead everywhere.’

  As I watched my mother pour herself another glass of wine, I wondered if she would have turned out differently if she had only been with Hector, the mailman. I thought about how her soups may have tasted if she knew that kind of love. She always thought she found it, but it would evaporate before she could grasp it fully and bottle it up. It was another way my mother reminded me of Heralda: just a couple of swinging broads, tragically unable to keep a hold of anything solid.

  Life is like making soup. Sometimes, even if you follow the recipe, it can turn out watery and weak but you have to remember that as long as you start off with good stock, you can always add to it; it’s never too late. My mother’s approach to cooking varied daily. Some days she’d follow the recipe too closely or not at all. Sometimes she’d experiment, wine and spices mixed and matched. A little paprika here, a dash of cumin there. Sumac if she was feeling especially wild. Sometimes it would result in an epic fail but sometimes the results were spectacular.

  I do think the best things happen to me when I just think outside the box and do my own thing. I go with my gut, and it’s usually right. RIRs, or Rules, Instructions and Recipes, are so average, so expected! They’re just recipes for life disasters. I couldn’t go to sleep that night because I was so riled up about all the soups I’d make in my life, the meals I’d serve the men who would have my heart and how they’d probably tell me to stop looking at them when they tasted my soups because I’d want to see every twitch and expression on their face. I’d want to witness it all so badly I’d be too scared to look away in fear of missing the upward lift of the lip, the first smile.

  Ernesto stopped working for our family about a week after I jumped in the back of his truck. Maybe his wife picked up on our chemistry and banned him from coming back. Sometimes I’d go into the garden when my mother wasn’t looking and when the sun was extra bright the rays would make out his shape. A vision. Angel Ernesto, whose faint outline reminded me that there was still a man out there who could put the care in my macaroni.

  Since then I’ve had affairs with three Mexicans, but they weren’t Ernesto. One of them was even a gardener, but he didn’t understand how to play the waitress game. When I was seventeen, I picked up a guy named Carlos in the alley behind a McDonald’s in Canoga Park. He had part of his eyebrows shaved off in patterns. Kind of a dreamboat, being both a fighter and a Mexican.

  ‘Was that intentional or more of a fight by-product?’ I asked him, not wasting any time.

  ‘You kinda coo-coo, yeah?’ he replied.

  ‘Where’s that accent from?’

  ‘East LA,’ he said. Damn.

  ‘You are Mexican, though, aren’t you?’

  Carlos looked at me without blinking and didn’t move at all. I wondered if we were engaging in a blinking contest but I blink profusely so I dropped it, blinking, knowing I’d never win.

  ‘Can I see your eyebrows a bit closer?’ I asked as I leaned in, hoping it was a good way to get in close, to smell him, taste his Latin gangsterness and protection.

  As expected, it drove me wild. I kissed the bald spots in his eyebrows hoping my lips would magically make the hair grow back because there was so much love behind them. But they didn’t.

  I moved in even closer because I thought maybe he needed to know I was signaling a green light. I hoisted my leg over one side of his hips, as we were standing up, and threw my arms around him, imagining he were Ernesto and we were finally reunited. I tried to dry hump him from this peculiar angle – I was pretty resourceful – and noticed he was really hard. Like super-hard, harder than anything I’ve ever felt before. I started to giggle, playing shy.

  ‘Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’ I said, channeling Mae West, laughing at my own joke. But he didn’t laugh. His glare was just stern, serious, unimpressed.

  The space between us became immensely cold and he shoved me back and whipped a real gun out of his pant pocket with frightening speed.

  ‘Holy shit!’ I screamed. ‘You really do have a gun in your pocket!’

  He started at me and I jumped in fright. This wasn’t fun anymore. I escaped down the dark a
lleyway towards the streetlights, the sound of his snicker drowning out the further I ran.

  ‘Run, Forrest!’ he yelled, laughing callously. ‘Run, little puta!’

  By the time I reached my car, I was panting really hard, pissed off that finally I was panting but for the wrong reason. I looked around and spotted some Mexicans but it didn’t elicit a reaction between my legs: Nothing pulsed, nothing beat. It was dead. That was when I knew I’d reached the end of my love affair with Mexicans.

  As I retraced the steps I’d taken a thousand times from my car to my house, I thought about how each time I’ve walked those steps, I’ve been different. Same steps, new me. Some people may think I’m going backwards, or in circles, but they’re just going the other direction so they can’t tell I’m progressing. I’m wiser now, after all these relationships. Sure, I wish I’d ended up with Ernesto, but it was a successful adventure: I learned not to sit in soil without underwear and that all people don’t tongue each other like dishwashers, that real love exists and that Mexicans may or may not be the only ones who know this. I learned that sometimes men have metal guns in their pockets instead of hard-ons. I thought about what would have happened if I hadn’t run away after Carlos pulled his Glock out. Would it have been one of those scenes in a movie when the man makes love to the woman with a gun to her head, but you knew she loved it? Or would it have ended badly?

  Before I went in, I stood on the other side of the street, looking over at my house as if I didn’t live there. There was just one lamp on, the one cowering in the kitchen. I wanted to scream and shout and light balls of enthusiasm and throw them through our windows into our living room so our whole house would ignite. I couldn’t take it being so dark.

  When I opened the door, I saw my mother sitting alone in the living room, her legs curled up to protect her heart. She was crying, which meant one of two things: One, she was heartbroken, or two, she had had too much wine and the ad for adopting abandoned dogs had come on TV with Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Angel’ tugging at the world’s heartstrings in the background. I was pretty sure it was number one.