So it is in the balance between authenticity and liability. You want Baldo collecting animals from the wild to live in a hotel lobby? Well then, perhaps we can view the exotic specimens in terms of, say, a wildlife rescue program. Or a, what do they call it? A genetic assurance program to guarantee forever the guests’ rights to see what was here long after we achieve our greatest level of development. We can capture a few for making babies for their own good and for ours and everyone’s. Moreover, the question of money has been effectively deferred to contemplation of exponential magnitude, as it were, factoring family and friends in the best possible light, which is that of real value.
“My friends,” Antonio intones in the somber voice reserved for complete control of the situation. “We can only ask. My brother is sensitive to the perceptions of nature held by those around him. He is unique among men. He is nothing if not honest. He will tell us.”
The mentors look at each other as numbers and concepts briefly muddle, until Mrs. M herself preempts contemplation of value and flamboyance. High heels click on the marble floor like a metronome timed to the eternal elegance that will not fade for many years to come. Her beach robe in translucent saffron highlights the womanly embers within. Billowing no less than flames fanned, it opens on the glowing thighs that don’t chafe and hardly jiggle.
But who’s looking at the thighs anyway with such boom ba ba boom up top? Red silk crisscrosses the mountaintops like bandoleers. It runs around the back and up as well to hang from the neck. Thornton Mayfair smiles tolerantly.
Simón Salvador seeks the attention of a waiter, because it’s time for sweets and more caffeine.
“Buenos días,” she says.
“Good morning, dear. You look ravishing, as usual.”
“Mm,” she purrs. “I feel more ravished than usual.” She doesn’t touch Antonio or look at him, but the touch and look are hardly necessary to reference the marathon intimacy of last night’s homecoming. Going to midnight might not seem so late, unless you begin immediately after cocktails, as a man engulfed by loneliness and disappointment is wont to do. But why these people seem so driven to wallow in their own indelicacy is beyond the reason of any man. Now it’s Antonio’s turn to feel the blood rise and shade his tawny good looks to undeniable magenta.
Thornton Mayfair stares with amusement. How can this be? Well, of course they have a modern arrangement, but still, some things are very hard to understand.
“Taking the morning off?” She asks Antonio, who jumps from contemplation of ficky fick and an enriched future back to the moment with its practical need. He looks at his watch, the new one with the combination silver- and gold-linked band and the gold-rimmed face.
¡Ay! Nine o’clock already.
Stretching again, he sees that the pool is lined with guests. Some are sleeping. Some sip coffee. Some stare into space. All verge perilously on boredom or worse, a review of their lives at home, down to the commute, the years remaining on their mortgages and lives, their paltry joys, and the hours of the days.
“¡Chihuahua!” he lowly moans. “My guests are thinking.”
“See what I mean?” Thornton Mayfair says with conviction.
“No,” Mrs. M perks. “Tell me what you mean.”
XV
Where Love Lay Hidden All Along
Lyria Alvarez lies awake in the bed of her own making, which is not to say her own bed but is rather that of Viorica Valenzuela. She’s far from home, where she lay only this morning, wondering how she came to feel lost and alone.
How did she arrive here, only four blocks down and two blocks over, to feel anything but alone? “Love is like life,” Viorica whispers. “We cannot arrange it neatly on a shelf. We can’t do anything about it. But we can play and have fun. So why not?”
Surrounded by soft light, linens, and the soft caress of Viorica, Lyria feels the knowing sinking in. Smiling in the dark, she opens the little door in her heart for the one patiently knocking since a brief and random meeting only this afternoon. A poor, confused hotel maid who barred the door grants entry and now steps back, unafraid.
Viorica breathes gently beside her. Viorica fills her with a touch. Viorica fills the room with the presence of a goddess. How can this be so? Do not women lying together face holy repercussion? But if sin is to be feared in the eyes of God, then why is this presence so easily revered? How can it feel so good and provide such relief?
Like a prisoner loosened from her bindings at last, Lyria stretches lazily and feels her soul yawn with awakening.
Viorica wakens beside her and feels the soft, smooth flank as a sculptress might feel a finished marble.
Lyria turns to Viorica and wonders who could see such a beautiful face and guess the unlikely place it most wanted to be? She smiles at the thought of it, which is funny in its way. She trembles with the warmth welling inside her, her smile stretching to laughter, which puts her at the top, however briefly, of the difficult mountain called life. If Viorica wants to do those things in her gentle way, things that Antonio revels in so boisterously, what’s the harm? Lyria feels herself between the legs and trembles again at the thought of it.
“This is easy,” Viorica says, picking up the thread of Lyria’s thought from where it dangles. “You’re pregnant with Baldo’s child. You must make a choice now, because you can’t make a choice later. If you wait until later, the choice you didn’t make may well haunt you and your child, who may wish she were never born. Believe me. I have had such a wish.”
“You have wished to miss your own birth?” Lyria asks incredulously.
Viorica’s diffident half-smile is a sad, stern confirmation.
“But you’re happy,” Lyria says. “How can you wish you were never born? If you were never born, you could never be happy.”
“You’ve been going to church,” Viorica says. “That’s where you learn to think without logic. If you were never born, my dear, you could never be unhappy. Believe me, happiness is very capable of getting along without us. I’m happy now, because you’re here. I learned a long time ago to take happiness where I can. It doesn’t last. It’s no deeper than the time it takes it to go away. I want to experience Lyria Alvarez. I admit that I want this passionately. I think perhaps that passion is the depth of happiness. Already I have her body, and I think her mind will be as sweet. How long can we stay married?”
“Married?”
They roll apart and lay side by side, staring up.
“Exactly. The two of us in bed having our fill. Like we were married. I think I like this more than you do. It doesn’t matter. How long until we seek something different, something new? You make me happy. In a little while or a long while, happiness will go away. You think I help you see things in a different light. Soon you will see for yourself. Maybe you will help me see something. Maybe not. I’m not saying this is bad, or that I don’t want to be alive right now. I’m only saying that life is up and down. I used to wish that I’d never been born. Now I think I wouldn’t mind if I’d never been born. This is an improvement. No?”
“This is very sad.”
“It’s only sad when you make me explain. Happiness is when you feel no need to explain anything. It doesn’t come along very often, unless you’re alone. I like being alone. But I like being with you better, for now.”
They lay silently in flickering candlelight watching the playful shadows, until Viorica turns and says, “You make me lose my thought. You must choose now, which is every woman’s right, no matter what the men say. You must choose to have your baby and raise it and care for it and work to make the money with no help from the father. This you know. Or you must choose to spare it the suffering with an abortion.”
Lyria does not move but scrutinizes the shadow play on the walls and ceiling. She turns to Viorica’s gentle countenance, fairly certain of the preference therein, which leans toward independence and freedom from responsibility.
How blessed the comfort of a sturdy, soft bed to diffuse the burden of choice.
How heavily the burden presses, yet it eases. Waiting for an answer to arrive on its own seems the best thing for a young woman to do, until Viorica reads these thoughts too and admonishes those who wait. The answer will not come by itself, without your help. It must be chosen.
“I think you can help me with either choice I make,” Lyria says, feeling suddenly mobile in the world of knowing.
“Yes. I can,” Viorica says, leaning in for a kiss on Lyria’s neck, a kiss she, Lyria, would call disgusting if it passed between Antonio and the old puta. But this is different; not that Antonio or anyone will have the chance to call it anything. “You don’t need to choose right now. But soon. You must also make another choice.”
Lyria waits fearfully for the balance of her destiny to be told.
“You must choose to remain a hotel maid, or to become a woman of financial independence.”
Lyria smiles and frowns. She casts her eyes down and then up. “You mean that I must be a maid or a prostitute?”
Viorica laughs quietly. “No. I think a prostitute has sexual relations for money. She will for the most part have sexual relations with anyone who can pay the price, with as many men as possible, if they can pay. Wives have sexual relations with these same men, perhaps not so often, but then the money is also less and must be begged. A woman of independent means chooses her client and is very well paid for her affection. If she chooses wisely, the affection is not so difficult and in time may become natural.”
“You make it sound natural. But you also sound like these arrangements of affection are only temporary.”
Viorica shrugs. “Like I have told you, this is the nature of happiness. It’s the same as love or flowers or anything that’s nice. It goes away. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t seem so nice while it was here. Maybe you’ll find the man to grow old with. Maybe you’ll win the lottery. Anything is possible.”
They wait for things to settle, and soon Viorica sleeps again.
Lyria thinks until she’s too sleepy, but the middle of the night is time for sleep, unless your head caroms with this and that, demanding resolution. The little flame flickers but will not die.
Lyria loves the way her choices were presented, not as ultimatum, with either one dependent on goodness or badness or assuring damnation from one school or another. These are separate choices, either of which can be correct. She can have a baby or not and be a puta or not.
Yes, I know; it’s not a puta because of blah, blah, blah. So why, Miss Smarty pants, does all of society consider such women to be putas?
Viorica slips deeper and soon verges on a dainty snore.
Lyria knows the answer. It is because society knows what is best for those at the top of the heap. Society is valued and defined by those in comfort, those who have seen Lyria Alvarez wiping the rim and sucking the lint and foil wrappers from under the bed, those who would see her into the future as a hotel maid.
Or a puta.
The thing of it is, Lyria as a maid is easy to see, and the other is nobody’s business but my own. But then who will pay for the affection of a beautiful woman, which is exactly what I am, with a baby? Or a child, or a teenager, or a young adult? Because a baby will surely go through life in phases as I have done, which seems tortuous on reflection and a very good reason for independence and freedom from responsibility. And what would a child think of a puta for a mother? The answers require no mystical analysis. Every car has its buyer. Some have more or fewer buyers, depending on make, model, and options. And of course the mileage, unless the maintenance has been good.
Anything is possible. As far as the baby’s growth and changing phases, she can only hope for happiness.
Isn’t that what the church says? This is very difficult. What if a woman wants someone to grow old with, and he wants his own son?
The answer here too seems known, because the likelihood of a man wanting his own son is no greater than that of a man willing to accept the son that comes to him. After all, standing naked in low light as Viorica bid her do so the last vestige of the lower life could be shorn away, Lyria could see the beauty for herself.
Viorica traced the curvature of her body with fingertips and lips. Viorica called her beautiful, and assured her that beauty is often taken for granted; it seems such a simple contour but in fact outlines the greatest longing of men. It is the most valuable resource granted by God. Affection does not come from the loins but from the heart. It is something else, perhaps not entirely removed from this lovely curvature with its curious bumps and crevasses, and it can be learned in time, with patience. In the meantime, we can practice patiently on each other.
But doesn’t that mean that a well-mannered, properly schooled woman like Lyria Alvarez will be expected to behave like Mrs. Mayfair in her later years?
This too is simple. She, Lyria, will have no need for such wanton flamboyance, so it will not be necessary.
Happiness depends on faith, which is exactly what the church has been trying to teach. Faith must be its own reward, in case the happiness doesn’t follow. These and other thoughts clarify their meaning in the dancing light, even as Viorica gently snores.
Lyria slips down into the soft warmth, causing Viorica to shift in deference to her dream. Their bodies snuggle precisely and meld with matched breathing until all knowing is as easy as falling off a log.
The little flame expires: hsst. Lyria’s muscles loosen on the cinnamon-scented smoke. She moans and nestles in. Viorica squeezes gently from her dream, and they sleep.
They surface when darkness ebbs.
One wakens and slides under for that which the other has only heard about before yesterday. Hearing of such a thing falls short of the actual event, with its many surprises and sensations, its dynamic range of pace and vigor and, if you’re lucky, it’s tireless pursuit, until the little birds flutter out of nowhere and take riotous flight to everywhere.
So wakens the other, yielding to the torrent nature provides.
The one rises to the pillow nearby with a soft, “Buenos días.”
The other feels indebted, as properly schooled girls in the region will feel. The love at hand is creamy rich. They wallow in it, until each feels indebted, neither will resist, and the happiness may be shared. Cautiously yielding to guiding hands for proper alignment of smiles, they yield to pace and vigor. Control is not so cut and dried once initiative becomes mutual, and happiness is soon secure for both.
Moaning and gasping feels overwhelming and further removed from an ear grab than Oaxtapec from Uranus. This nuance and subtlety and numbing wave of lovely comfort go hand in glove with tireless persistence and, if you will, with a certain character found only in women. On this last critical point, the one insists: not in men, but only women.
The other will understand, even as she wonders what was subtle.
Full claim and comprehension will come with cafe con leche and jugo de naranja and tamales con mole. Breakfast comes after the flock screeches and sings to the horizon and the steaming shower and the shampoo massaged thoroughly to displace prior thought. Then the cream rinse and leisurely dry and some lovely new things and another walk, this one light and clear as the brand new day. It’s only the café two blocks down and six over, but it fits with what Lyria has learned, that happiness is hers for the taking, if only she will.
The catch is that it must be taken, or it will not be.
She cannot love Viorica Valenzuela as Viorica might love her, yet she loves this feeling of relief and … and everything. She would tell these things to Viorica but feels certain Viorica knows.
Viorica affirms the feeling with a shrug, meaning that every now and then we find it. She takes Lyria’s hand, because now they have found it together.
Lyria nods and can’t keep from grinning, which Viorica can’t help but mirror, as if the joke is theirs to have on all else. “What? Tell me, chica. What?”
“I don’t want … I don’t …”
“What?”
“I will have my baby.”
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br /> Viorica rolls her eyes. “If that’s what you want, then good. You have thought and made a choice. So few do, you know.”
Lyria blushes. “I only want it …” She hesitates, fearing a blunder and the appearance of stupidity. She proceeds to test the mettle of her new friendship. “I only want it to be Antonio’s.”
Viorica’s eyebrows arch. “You want what would have been easy. Now it could be difficult. Let me think …”
Viorica thinks. Lyria waits.
Viorica speaks, sharing the process of solution. “I have too many times considered a thing impossible. Some things are impossible, but most are not. Most things are only as we see them. I will think on this, because what we have …”
She stops when Lyria is suddenly startled. “What?”
“I have missed my work.”
Viorica shrugs. “So? You have made your second choice. Besides, I’m thinking.”
But Lyria’s head shakes vigorously now, because Viorica obviously doesn’t understand that work is not like life; it is much more necessary and much less forgiving. While the end of one is blessedly beyond pain or desire, the end of the other is unemployment with the rent due and the cupboard bare. “You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. You need money on Friday. Am I right?”
“Yes. I must work to live.” Her eyes lower so she can speak with pride, preempting what she senses. “I cannot take money from you.”
“I want you to work for me.”
“I know that. But I am with child. How can I work with you? I mean for you.”
“It is not a problem. You will need some time off, but not for a while. By then, you will make more money than any hotel maid ever dreamed of.”
Suddenly the tamales look cold. They shrivel under the congealed mole with a skin on top. It looks like glop and smells mephitic. Perhaps those words, by then, bring home the reality of this newfound comfort and mobility and leisurely breakfast in a café, not to mention the warmth and understanding, which will continue until then only by allowing the pingas of many men to slide freely between her legs.
Toucan Whisper, Toucan Sing Page 23