In Between Men

by Mary Castillo

“What does that have to do with this?”

  “He’s always picking them over me. Is that what you’re gonna do?”

  “I would never pick anyone over you.”

  “But you’re gonna have a boyfriend someday, right?”

  “Maybe. But he’ll know that you come first.”

  “Are you sure you’re not boyfriend and girlfriend with Alex?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. And if we were—” She paused, wondering if she should even be going there. “Why would that bother you? I thought you liked Alex.”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  She didn’t even try figuring out his logic. “Alex and I are friends. Now are you going to be cool?”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  And she hoped she would too.

  “I’ve seen them together!”

  “Seen who?” Patty demanded. They knew each other for so long that she didn’t even have to ask who was calling.

  “Alex and Isa,” Susan hissed into her cell phone.

  “Together together?”

  “No, gochina. They were kissing in the bathroom. I was right.”

  Susan looked over her shoulder at Isa’s bathroom door. It remained shut and everyone was still eating in the dining room. But this was a tiny apartment and the walls were thin.

  “It’s just an affair,” Patty replied blithely. “I told you what his aura said.”

  “Nonsense. You owe me money.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “‘Mariana de la Noche’ is coming back on,” Patty said. “I don’t have time for this.”

  Click. “Patty!” With a groan Susan slipped her cell back into the pocket of her linen jacket.

  Sore loser, Susan thought. She’d get her money one way or another and when she did she was going—

  Stiffening, Susan had the feeling she wasn’t the only person in the bathroom. In a whirl she reached for the door handle and then screamed when someone stood there on the other side.

  “Were you talking about me?”

  “Isa! Why would you—”

  Isa bullied her back into the bathroom and then shut the door behind her. “Stop it right now.”

  “Why I—” Susan could hardly catch her breath.

  “I mean it. Alex told me about Patty taking a picture of him and Andrew. Why can’t you guys get a life and leave us alone?”

  Well! For a second Susan was absolutely speechless. But she soon caught her stride.

  “¿Con permiso? This is the thanks I get for rushing to your home, finding someone to fix those pipes and then bringing food this time of the night?”

  “Oh, knock it off,” Isa snapped. This was going to stop and it was going to stop now. “If you keep doing these things, you’ll drive him away.”

  “Away? You mean that—”

  “This is my business,” Isa stood firm. God help her for leading Susan to believe that she and Alex were serious. But if that’s what it took to get her out of Isa’s hair, than it would have to be done. And in a few more weeks, Isa could just explain that they hadn’t worked out and no one would get hurt. “Or, Alex’s and my business,” she clarified in case Susan didn’t get the point.

  She gulped down the bait. “Well, you don’t have to be so grosera about it.”

  “Susan, I know you mean well but just let things take their course.”

  Susan breathed in and then patted her perfect hair. “Fine.” She gave Isa the eye. “I just don’t want you to die alone.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now listen to me. Look at Patty. Look at what a dried up, bitter old woman she’s become. If you don’t go out there and live, m’ija, you could end up the same way.”

  Steering Susan to the door, Isa assured her that she wouldn’t die alone or end up like Patty. One, Isa couldn’t quite see herself in a leopard-print mumu. Two, she wasn’t bitter, and three, her twenty minutes in the backseat of Alex’s SUV proved she was anything but dried out.

  20

  Alex wished Isa had invited him to stay a little longer after Susan and John left. But he couldn’t blame her when Andrew hadn’t warmed up to him since he caught them in the bathroom. He felt like a jerk for wanting to have Andrew’s mother all to himself.

  “Where’ve you been?” June asked when he walked through the door. “Christine’s been calling all around for you. Something went wrong with her tuition check.”

  Alex’s heart stopped beating a good two seconds as he stared at June, who had propped up her foot on the coffee table, polishing her nails.

  Fascinated by the two women on television, a blonde and a brunette, calling each other bitches, June’s eyes were glazed with fascination. “So where’ve you been?”

  “Isa’s.”

  He heard the snap in her spine when she perked up. “Really? What’s going on?”

  His chest was shaking. He’d transferred money from his savings just to be sure.

  “Alex?” June asked. “Is Isa okay?”

  “Yeah. Her place got flooded but we fixed it.”

  “So why do you look like something just flew up your butt?”

  “I don’t—never mind.” He started down the hallway before he said something he’d later regret.

  June stood up, balancing on the heels of her feet. “If there’s something, I mean, if you need help—”

  “I don’t need your help just like I don’t need to play twenty questions every time I come home.”

  June’s expression told him uh-oh. Thrusting the little brush back into the bottle, she muttered, “Fine. Whatever. I give up.”

  “June, I’m sorry. I just had—”

  “I’m going home.”

  “But you are home.”

  “No it isn’t! This isn’t my home or my family, it’s yours!” She grabbed the bottle of nail polish. “I mean real home where people actually like having friends and call each other when they need help. No one shares anything around here with their damn secrets.”

  Alex wished he’d never come home. “June, this is Ted’s home, which makes it yours too.”

  “I’m tired of waiting for Ted. I just want…I thought I was being…never mind.”

  He followed her down the hall then stopped himself. June was his brother’s wife, not his responsibility. But he saw her lips trembling, a sure sign of tears and he’d been responsible for it.

  He switched off the TV and then stood there, his panicked breathing the only sound in the room. What would he tell Christine if the check bounced? Maybe it was time to tell his dad. He had money saved away, but probably not enough to cover her tuition. Damn it though, he’d promised Christine that he would help her. He took the burden off everyone else and maybe it was just a misunderstanding or the check was late. Unless he absolutely had to, he wasn’t asking his dad for money.

  Alex found his dad working on his miniature train set in the garage.

  “Oh hey, m’ijo. Wondering where you took off to,” he said over the sound of tiny wheels clacketing over the tracks. Alex sniffed oil mixed with the tang of the opened boxes of fertilizer his dad kept on the dusty shelves.

  “I was helping a friend.”

  “Ahh.”

  Alex watched his dad carefully take the tiny engine apart, his thick fingers somehow nimble enough to work with the parts. “Dad, did you talk to Christine today?”

  His dad turned from the tiny train engine he was putting back together and leveled a look at Alex over his glasses. “No, why?”

  “Nothing. June said she called.” Alex shot a guilty look over his shoulder where moths flapped around the patio light, in case June hovered by the door listening. “I think it might’ve been a mistake to have her stay with us. We kinda lost our tempers with each other and she’s threatening to go home.”

  “She don’t have friends except that Isa girl she mentions,” Dad said thoughtfully. “She’s on the phone a lot with her people back home or at the movies or doing something to her face.”

  “You
think Ted’ll get pissed if she leaves?”

  “Hard to tell with your brother.”

  “I should talk to her,” Alex decided. “Maybe I’ll take her out for a burger or something.”

  His dad sighed, setting the dismembered train on the table Alex had built for him. “Leave it be. She’s not your wife.”

  “Jeez, give me some credit.”

  “I know your generation thinks men and women can be friends and maybe so, but you’d just be walking through a door you have no business going through. She’s a lonely woman living away from everything she knows,” he said knowingly. “And you’re a handsome single man. Comprende?”

  His dad put some ugly images in Alex’s mind that he frankly could’ve done without.

  “Well what do you think I should do?” Alex asked.

  Something vaguely resembling unease and sweat tickled his spine at the way his dad grinned. “Call that Isa friend of yours. I bet she’d give her the woman’s perspective because m’ijo, you and I don’t have a chance.”

  Alex grabbed a shower, took a quick look at his checking balance that was still fine, and made a call to Christine before he followed his dad’s advice and dialed Isa’s number.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Alex said when Isa picked up the line.

  “Oh, hi,” she said with surprise.

  “It’s not too late to call, is it? I need a favor.” He glanced down and wondered if he should’ve put on a clean shirt over his jeans.

  “Okay.”

  Where did he start with this? “You know June is living here with me and Dad.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, I got into a fight with her and then she started yelling about going home because no one here wants to be her friend.”

  “Oh.”

  “So do you know anything I don’t know?”

  “She’s lonely. Maybe I should ask her over for dinner or something.”

  “Can I ask you again not to say anything about my job situation? I don’t want her to be any more upset.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t. But is that what the fight was about?”

  Even though he squirmed under the question, he was relieved that he had someone to talk to about this. “Yeah. Christine, my sister, she called looking for me because the school hadn’t received my check. It’s okay,” he hastily added. “I couldn’t tell June and I snapped at her.”

  He could hear Isa’s TV in the background. It was a lonely sound.

  “Alex, I really think you should tell your family. And if I know her, she was probably trying to help.”

  “She was.”

  The knot in his chest loosened and he let himself take in a deep gulp of a breath. “What else did she tell you?” Isa asked, and he didn’t feel judged.

  “She was going on about how people don’t call for help and people who keep secrets.” He wished this was one of those calls a guy made to a girl just because he missed the sound of her voice. “When she gets mad, she gets a little irrational.”

  “Yeah well, we women tend to do that, don’t we?” Isa said dryly.

  He smiled and braced his foot against the back of his chair. “I’m not answering that question.”

  She laughed. “Get off the phone so you can start your TV watching.”

  “Wait.” This probably wasn’t a good idea but he said it anyway. “I’m not ready to let you go.”

  She didn’t say anything but he could hear the soft purr of her breath.

  “I miss you.” Too late for him to snatch it back.

  Even from across town her surprise was evident. “Me too,” she finally said. “What are you doing other than taking care of your sister-in-law?”

  His spine bowed under the relief that she hadn’t tried to politely wiggle away from him. “Just sitting in the dark trying to decide if I should read the paper or watch the news. You?”

  “Making my lunch.”

  “Yeah? What are you making?”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “Okay, what are you wearing then?”

  When she laughed, he could almost forget that her son had walked in on them earlier tonight.

  “Do you want the fantasy version of what I’m wearing or the reality?”

  A grin sneaked across his face and Alex leaned back against his pillows. “You choose.”

  Isa went to sleep that night feeling the unmistakable dance of giddiness in her stomach from a late-night phone call with a guy she had a crush on. It lasted all the way through the morning when she woke up before her alarm, smiling in spite of herself.

  With the things they’d talked about, from her students to how they felt about the last Harry Potter book—she still couldn’t get over the fact that he’d actually read all of them—she never would’ve thought they’d done it in the backseat of his car.

  Isa didn’t mind feeling cheesy but after last night, she felt like they regained some of the innocence that they’d lost. But then she remembered Andrew and her smile dimmed.

  Isa shook her head, puzzled that of all the men that could enter her life, Andrew would hate the idea of her and Alex.

  “What do you want?” June snapped when Isa leaned over the counter.

  Isa took a deep breath. “I brought you this.” She slipped a tall nonfat mocha latte with whipped cream and shaved chocolate sprinkles across the countertop.

  “I don’t want it.” The keys clattered under the blur of her fingers.

  “June, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Her typing raced to a staccato.

  “If you’re mad because I didn’t call you last night, then tell me.”

  June answered her with more typing.

  “I wasn’t trying to snub you,” Isa tried again.

  “But you didn’t even think to call me, did you? I thought we made a breakthough yesterday.”

  “I had it under control and I didn’t want to ruin your night.”

  June pirouetted in her chair and flew towards the back office.

  “Well, have a nice morning,” Isa said to no one in particular.

  She’d come around, Isa thought as she pushed out into the jostling, shrieking stew of kids. And if she didn’t, well, Isa would have more time to grade papers and tend to her students.

  That idea didn’t hold the appeal it used to and she realized, belatedly, that she finally got used to the idea of June as her friend.

  Isa got to the bottom of the steps when she heard her name.

  “Ted hasn’t written,” June hollered from the top of the steps. She bounced all the way down, her voice strained from holding back her tears. “He hasn’t called. I don’t know where he is or anything.”

  “But you said you got an email yesterday.”

  Isa took a closer look at her friend. No eye shadow or blush. Not even mascara on a woman who hadn’t left her home without it since she was thirteen.

  “I lied. I know you’ll never want to talk to me again but I lied,” June cried. “This woman I made friends with back in Georgia—” She gulped before continuing. “She emailed me because she heard from her husband who’s in Ted’s unit and…well, I…I don’t know. I came down yesterday to tell you and then I couldn’t help but say it was from Ted because I guess I wanted it to be but I’m scared. I have this really bad feeling an—

  “You think I’m terrible don’t you?” June pleaded for Isa not to say yes.

  “It’s natural to feel worried but I’m sure he’s fine. Did you ask your friend in Georgia?”

  “She hasn’t emailed me back.”

  Isa had to say something that would wash away the naked shame in June’s eyes. “I’ve been having conversations with Joan Collins in my bathroom,” she blurted.

  June blinked. “Seriously?”

  June took Isa’s hand, her flesh solid but cold. “So I guess we’re both crazy, huh?”

  “Maybe Ted’s on the move,” Isa guessed even though the thought of ambushed convoys and car bombs flashed through her mind. “Or the mail could
be slow. You never know.”

  “That’s the worst part.” June pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and Isa had never seen real fear until now. “I can’t tell Alex or his father. I should, but if I do, it might seem real.”

  “Is there someone you can call?”

  “I’m too afraid.”

  “We’ll call together at lunch.”

  June nodded, catching her tears before they fell. “I just need to say something. I know you’ve got that good friend up in L.A. already but I just, I just need someone to go to the movies or have lunch with.” Her eyes filled with more tears. “Or make up lies with and stuff.”

  Isa tried to smile reassuringly but it came out twisted.

  “But I won’t be able to do lunch or movies for a while,” Isa admitted. “I have to get my kids ready for a presentation to the board.”

  June released her hand. “Oh. Look you don’t have to be nice about it. I mean all this time, if you wanted to, you could’ve just said something and I would’ve understood.”

  Isa was suddenly so glad she never did. Especially in the beginning, when June showed up at her classroom door like clockwork every lunch hour.

  “Hey,” she said, lightly touching June’s arm. “It’s not like that, okay?”

  Her vulnerability cracked a chink in Isa’s heart. “You don’t have to say that.”

  “Yes I do. We’ve become friends because you’re more willing to go after friendship than most people.”

  June’s chest swelled with indignation. “Are you sayin’ I’m desperate?”

  “No. I’m saying you’re a better person who’s a lot more generous with her friendship than I am.”

  “Really?” The idea so delighted her that some of June’s sass and sparkle came to life.

  “And by that time you’ll have heard from Ted so we’ll celebrate with wine coolers and a movie.”

  June hugged her with all her might and Isa tried to hug back with her arms pressed tight against her sides.

  “You’ll bring the movie?” Isa squeezed out.

  “Oh, no. Alcohol is my specialty.”

  21

  ALEX’S AURA READING