“You’re the one flirting the moment we came through the door. If anyone should be insulted, it’s me.”
“You walked away first.”
“Pilar dragged me away.”
“Then, tell me why we haven’t been here before tonight? We’ve been invited, but you’ve always found an excuse not to come.”
He knows I came tonight because of the possibility of a new movie role, but he wants to hear me say it. I don’t feel like placating him. Instead, I stand up and take his hand, tugging gently. “Let’s not fight. Dance with me.”
A string band plays beside a wooden dance floor laid over the grass. Couples glide under strung yellow blubs shaped like sunlit tears. I want to join them, but Alfonso doesn’t budge. He likes this power play, his childish, pouting act. Usually, I give in, pacify, apologize, giggle and smile and lure him into the bedroom reminding him of all the things I love about him.
Tonight, I have no desire to expend the energy he needs to feel good about himself.
I pick up my drink, finish it off and say, “Fine, I’ll find someone else to dance with.”
I do. There are plenty of dance partners, the blue-eyed bartender, for one, and I have no idea Alfonso has left without me until I stumble up to the driveway hours later and see that his Cadillac is gone. I shiver, suddenly aware of how cool it’s gotten and how drunk I am.
Pilar, who has walked up the stone steps with me, puts an arm around my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, honey. You can stay here.”
For the first time all night, I think of you, daughter. “No, thank you.” I shake my head. “I’ll call a taxi. I need to get home to Nina.”
Only, I am too late.
Chapter Five
* * *
Hide and Crawl Away
Mother,
I am watching Gunsmoke when Alfonso stumbles into the living room, knocking into the side table and making such a racket that I miss the final question. I glare at him as he pours a drink from the bar cart. Grandmother Maria went to bed hours ago, her door closed against the sound of our television drifting down the hall.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask, glancing toward the front door, which he forgot to close all the way.
He shrugs and sits sullenly in the orange chair. For a moment, I consider telling him that your last husband killed himself in that chair but decide against it. “I’m going to bed,” I say, standing up. “Do you want the television on?”
He nods, and I leave him staring at a Campbell’s Soup can dancing across the screen with little arms and legs waving out from it.
I put on my nightgown, a kitten print that I still love, and crawl into bed without brushing my teeth. I am tired, and I ate too much pie. My stomach has a distended, bloated feeling, and I roll onto my side and drift into an uncomfortable sleep. I don’t know what time it is when I feel the weight of a body climbing into my bed, Alfonso’s acrid mix of cologne and sweat and alcohol pulling me out of a dark dreamlessness. His hand is in my hair, his fingers tugging through the strands, and I can’t understand why he’s doing that, or why, when I open my eyes, I see him lying under my blanket. He moves his hand from my hair to my shoulder, and I go cold as his fingers trace my collarbone, stopping to rest in the divot below my neck. He presses slightly, and I wonder if he means to choke me. I want to scream, but I am paralyzed, my mouth frozen shut. Then I feel his penis through his pants, hard against my thigh. I don’t know how I even know what it is, but I do. I want to throw up. I want to cry out for you, for my grandmother. Only, I can’t. My twelve-year-old mind has nowhere to put this dreadful, unknowable thing. I squeeze my eyes shut, little pops of light bursting behind my lids, all of my neatly constructed boxes, my precise angles, flying apart.
Alfonso’s breath is warm and wet against my neck, his fingers working their way to the bottom of my nightgown that he begins to edge up my leg. I should shove him away, tell him to stop, but I can barely gulp air into my lungs. My heart races, and my stomach seizes as he presses his hand between my legs.
And then, “Nina?”
My eyes shoot open as the light clicks on, the ceiling a blinding white above me. There is a throaty scream, your scream, and I struggle to sit up as Alfonso scrambles from the bed. You are standing in the doorway, your eyes startled wide. Your expression makes me think I have done something terrible and you will hate me for it.
Everything moves very quickly, the room nauseatingly bright. Alfonso is barely on his feet when Grandmother Maria’s bulk shoves past you so quickly I can’t imagine how she got out of bed that fast. She pulls me to my feet with a look I’ve never seen before. I feel skeletal and laid bare.
“Dios mio,” she cries. “What have you done?” I think she is angry with me, but she shakes her fist at Alfonso, who pulls back, confused.
“What?” he says. “She cried out, and I was comforting her.”
“You a sick, sick man!” Grandmother Maria spits at his feet. “Fuera de aca, fuera!”
She begins wailing, and Alfonso moves to the doorway where you stand with your hand clamped over your mouth. He reaches out as if to touch you, but your hand flies from your face and smacks his away. I want you to spit in his eye like Grandmother spat at his feet, but you just turn your head, and he slinks past into the hallway.
Grandmother Maria sits me on the edge of the bed, her cries trailing off to small groans, and you hurry over, sitting next to me and smoothing my hair out of my face.
“Did he hurt you?” you say, your voice weak as a thread.
I look into my hands, not knowing which kind of hurt you mean.
Reaching behind me, Grandmother Maria yanks back the covers and says, “There is no blood. Is your underwear still on?”
My face flames with embarrassment, and I don’t answer, wishing Grandmother Maria would go away and let you handle this.
A silent exchange passes between the two of you, something fierce and personal. I don’t know what it means, or who is angry with whom.
Your fingers are cool as ice as you take my hand and ease me back into bed. You don’t make a joke or smile or try to sing the sadness away. That is how I know what has happened is catastrophic.
“Can you sleep?” you say. Such simple words.
I whisper “I think so,” and you wince as though I’ve pinched you.
Grandmother Maria watches from the doorway, her shoulders pulled back as if trying to hold us all up with them.
You kiss my forehead, and Grandmother Maria clicks off the light. The room fills with shadows and shapes and a ringing silence. I want to hold on to you, but you slide your arm away and slip out the door into the dark hallway. I wonder if you are going to comfort Alfonso, and I think about shutting my door and pushing my chair under it in case he tries to come back. I wish you’d stayed and lain next to me singing songs into the darkness like you used to.
After a while I drift into a thin sleep, waking to the soft whisper of Grandmother Maria, her breath pungent in my face. “Come.” She guides me to my feet, her hands gentler than when she’d pulled me from bed earlier.
Out the window, a pale strip of dawn leaks through the dark sky. I take the skirt and blouse my grandmother holds out, the stockings and shoes, and put them on without question. I am too tired to ask what we are doing. Grandmother Maria leads me out the front door, and we climb into the car. It isn’t until I see my teal luggage in the back seat—Nina Martinez embossed above the Samsonite label—that I worry. “Where are we going?”
My grandmother is already backing out of the driveway. “School.” She yanks the gear crank toward the steering wheel and takes off down the road with a screech of the tires. She always drives too fast.
“I’m not supposed to go back for another week,” I protest but half-heartedly. School suddenly seems promising, an escape. I never want to see Alfonso again, and I am afraid to face you in the light of day, afrai
d of what you will think of me.
A breeze whistles through the cracked open window, and I lean my head against the glass and let the air caress my forehead. You want to be rid of me. That was the look that passed between you and Grandmother.
I would want to be rid of me, too.
Grandmother Maria doesn’t like the freeway so we drive through Studio City and Toluca Lake on flat, wide roads lined with low buildings and large billboards where mustached men advertise Wilson cigarettes. In thirty minutes we are in Burbank, racing down the long driveway to Villa Cabrini Academy. The car circles the drive, and our brakes slam as we halt in front of the stone steps leading to the three arched doorways of the shaded portico.
Above the twisted columns, Jesus stands with his arms outstretched in welcome. But he is not the statue I pray to. On the hot, dusty lawn, flanked by stubby palms that look like overgrown pineapples, stands a ten-foot-tall statue of Mother Cabrini, a stone mantle frozen over her head. I do not believe in God, or Jesus, but I believe in that statue.
She was the first thing I saw from the back seat of the car when I arrived at Cabrini Academy as a little girl, squished next to Grandmother Maria who had strategically positioned herself between us, her fat thigh pinning me to the window. The sun beat off the stone figure, and the glare stung my eyes, but there was life in Mother Cabrini. I could see breath unfurling from her mouth like moisture in cold air. I decided right then and there that I would pray only to her, this larger-than-life statue of Mother Cabrini, and at night she’d kneel at my window, tall enough to see right in, and sing me to sleep like you used to.
Only today, in the shadow of a morning that doesn’t feel real, she looks lifeless. I stare into her huge, vacant eyes, wanting to make them shift and blink as I used to, but they don’t move. She is just stone. There is nothing to pray to. No Mother.
My grandmother and I climb out of the car, dust and gravel embracing us as we make our way up the wide steps. Old Sister Katherine is at the door, circling her arms around my grandmother, her chin leaking from under her habit like soft rubber. Grandmother Maria must have called her the moment the gong sounded at 4:00 a.m. Humiliated to think that Sister Katherine knows what happened, I drop my eyes to the floor as we move inside where Sister Caroline—a woman I suspect is quite pretty beneath her shrouds—hugs my grandmother with the same, sorry look on her face as Sister Katherine. She gives me a sickly sweet smile. “Come. Let’s get you settled in.”
Upstairs, the dorm room smells of bleach so strong it smarts my eyes. It is strange being the only one here. The twin beds are stripped bare, the desk is a clean slate of wood, the hangers are empty in the closet. It reminds me of a deserted ghost town I once saw in a book, shells of houses with missing walls and neatly arranged, abandoned furniture.
Sister Caroline pats my shoulder, her eyes a delicate brown. “Your suitcases are being brought up, and you can unpack before breakfast. You’ll get to eat with us in the dining room until the other girls arrive. Won’t that be fun? I assure you—” she leans in with a hand propped on each knee as if speaking to a small child “—the coffee cake is worth the boredom of Sister Mary detailing every ailment she’s ever had, but don’t say I said so.” She puts a conspiratorial finger to her lips, smiles and leaves Grandmother Maria and me to our goodbyes.
This is not the first time I’ve been left by my grandmother—when you were on set or singing in Palm Springs or at Radio City Music Hall—and yet the look on her face says that everything is different.
She plants a firm hand on each shoulder, holding me at arm’s length and looking me sharply in the eye. “Last night had nothing to do with you. Do you understand?” It had everything to do with me, but I nod in agreement. “It’s not your fault. There are wicked men in the world. Sometimes we stumble into their path, and there’s nothing we can do but hurry on out of it. I’m going to fix this, I promise you that.” She embraces me with strong arms. Her fleshy bosom and the smell of talc fill me with complicated sadness.
She doesn’t let go until I do.
Chapter Six
* * *
Perimeters
Daughter,
When I wake I am covered in sweat and hot sunlight and my head is pounding. I have fallen asleep in my slip, and it sticks like tape to the inside of my legs. There is a sick feeling in my stomach, as if something awful has happened, but I don’t remember what that is until I sit up.
I barely make it to the bathroom before I vomit over the toilet, strands of hair falling into my face. My stomach lurches over and over as if my body thinks it can purge the image of Alfonso in your bed. It can’t. When I am emptied, I kneel on the bathroom floor, the tiles cool under my calves, my heart pounding, my hair sticky with bile. The house is silent, and I wonder where everyone is. I know I should find you straightaway, but I don’t want you to see me like this so I pull myself to my feet and start the shower, stepping into scalding water and letting it pound over my face. I shampoo, condition, brush my teeth, towel dry my hair and lotion my face with the illusion that if I hold on to normalcy, I can defuse the severity of the situation.
I do not yet know that our lives have changed completely, and I will never be able to set things right.
Mamá’s hushed and hurried voice drifts down the hall as I make my way to the kitchen still zipping the back of my dress. I think she is talking to you until I step into the room and see that she is on the telephone. Sunlight peppers the red speckled Formica tabletop and the backs of the empty chairs. You are nowhere in sight. The clock on the wall says ten fifteen. You never sleep this late, and I am about to go to your room when I hear muffled Spanish through the line. I take a step toward Mamá, but she turns her back, cupping the receiver to her mouth and hunching over as if I mean to grab the phone from her.
“Si, si, adios,” she says quickly and hangs up.
The only people Mamá speaks Spanish to other than me are in Cuba: Papa, who she calls on the first of each month, and my sisters, who she calls every Sunday.
It is not the first of the month or Sunday.
“Who was that? Where is Nina?”
The collected, steady look on Mamá’s face worries me. I prop my arm against the counter, pour a glass of water, rinse and spit the lingering taste of vomit from my mouth into the sink. I see your face from last night, washed white under the shock of the overhead light, Alfonso scrambling from your bed, guilt writ large on his arresting face. I remember the strangled scream that escaped my throat, my body realizing that it had come upon a crisis even as I tried to convince myself it was a mistake and I had the wrong idea.
“Where is Nina?” I ask again, certain now that you are not here and neither is Alfonso.
Mamá faces me, legs apart, hands clasped, and I think of the time after the revolution when she handed me that plantain and told me to chop. She is ready to defend whatever it is she’s done. “Donde esta Nina?” I repeat, my voice rising with frustration.
“At school.”
“School? When did you take her?”
“Early this morning. I arranged it with Sister Katherine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were asleep.”
“You could have woken me.”
“I thought it best not to.”
I refill my glass with tap water, drink it down, the cool expanding through my chest. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye but relieved that you are gone. I have no idea how to face this humiliation. I think of the blonde at Duke’s party in her short, colorful dress and wish he’d gone home with her, cheated on me like a regular man, returning hangdog in the accusing light of day. Then I could have kicked him out properly. Told neighbors and friends he was unfaithful, and everyone would understand. What do I say now? He likes little girls. Children. My child. It sickens me to think of it.
Out the window over the sink, I watch a crow land on the fe
nce post, screeching hideously. We will never talk about last night, I decide. No one can know. It will harm you, and me, more than it will harm him.
“Where is Alfonso?” I say, keeping my back to Mamá.
“In Hell, God willing.”
I don’t argue. “You haven’t seen him this morning?”
“He was asleep on the couch when I left and gone when I got back.”
“Who was on the phone?”
“Chu Chu.”
I whirl around, the glass teetering on the edge of the counter. “What? Why would you call Chu Chu? What did you tell him?”
“The truth.”
“Why would you do that?”
This is what she’s prepared to defend. She has called your father and my ex-husband, a man who made me choose either my career or him. I am trembling, the water I just drank sloshing around in my hollow stomach. The thought of your father knowing what kind of a man I brought into my house, into your life, drowns me in shame. No matter how small a role he has played in our lives over the years, his opinion still holds power over me. Mamá, sanctimonious and determined, moves from the window and sits at the table. I am reminded of the revolution, how my parents sat across from each other, stoic and calm in the face of tragedy. This is my tragedy, now, and I feel totally out of control.
“Why did you call Chu Chu?” I say, steadying my voice. “What can he possibly do?”
“He will kick Alfonso out of this house. His daughter’s safety is in jeopardy, and if you are too pigheaded to see that, Chu Chu will make you.”
I tingle with anger. “I can kick him out myself!”
“You haven’t yet.”
“It’s barely morning! I just woke up!”
Mamá locks eyes with me, her voice low. “You should have kicked him out immediately.”
Find Me in Havana Page 5