Raquel's Abel

by Leigh Barbour

  Owen smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Abel Rollins.”

  “Good to meet you, too, buddy.”

  Maria Elena appeared in the doorway. “Señor, Owen, what you doing?” She charged in. “Señorita Raquel no should be standing.”

  Owen opened his mouth, but stammered.

  “Maria Elena, I’m all right.”

  “Señor Owen, I see Señorita Raquel very tired, she need to eat and sleep.”

  “No, Maria Elena, he was just…”

  Owen held his finger over his mouth as a signal to be quiet. “That’s all right, Raquel, I really need to go any way. I’ve got the lunch shift today.” He leaned over to kiss me goodbye.

  Abel was standing there silently as Owen headed out the door. “Not a bad chap, really. Still, he needs to spend a few months on the battlefield. That would teach him a thing or two.”

  “I bringing your food here. You no moving.” Maria Elena disappeared.

  From the chair, I glared at Abel.

  His face looked angelically innocent. “Why, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were mad at me.”

  “If you had let me have my operation, I probably wouldn’t have fallen and broken my ankle.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but no sound came.

  “I need this operation. You don’t realize it, but my weight is threatening my life.”

  He hung his head and I watched him absent-mindedly fiddle with the edges of the robe. “It’s just that I am very… very scared for you.” He raised his head and peered at me. “I will leave you to consume your victuals in peace.”

  “Oh, but I…”

  He was gone, just vanished.

  “Why do you just take off like that? Just when we’re about to…”

  Maria Elena appeared with a tray of scrambled eggs and bacon. “Hay, Señorita, the ghost, you talking to the ghost?”

  I looked at her guiltily.

  “You grandmother say he very handsome.” She slid a tray over and set the food in front of me.

  I took a bite of a slice of bacon. “He’s absolutely dreamy.”

  “Ah, a handsome man.” She sat down on the settee across from me. Today she was dressed in a pair of long yellow shorts and a white button-down blouse.

  “Maria Elena, have you ever been married or…?” It just occurred to me that I’d never asked about her. When she applied for the job I just wanted information on references and to see how she interacted with Grandmother.

  Her face grew dark and her eyes drew down.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She continued to have that sad look on her face.

  “Who was he?”

  “Oooooooh, he a boy I like very much.” A smile grew across her face and her dark eyes twinkled.

  “You loved him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, he was good.” She looked up at me, then down to her hands that were busy playing with the material of her shorts. “But I got pregnant and my parents got very mad at me.”

  I suddenly remembered back to my mother who had died when I was ten. What would she have done if I’d gotten pregnant without being married? “But they forgave you, though?” She’d never mentioned that she had a child.

  She looked at the window.

  I tried to think of a way to ask about the child as I poked at the scrambled eggs. Hopefully she’d calm down and I could find out about her child.

  She jumped up. “Señorita Raquel, I sorry leave you, but I check on you grandmother.” She ran out before I could protest.

  I wanted to know more about her. Why was she so upset about something that must have happened years ago? She’d been in this country for at least fifteen years.

  Chapter Six

  A few days later, my ankle felt better, but it would be a while before it healed. Grandmother and I sat at one end of the dining room table, long enough to accommodate thirty people. The far end of the table hadn’t been cleaned in so long time the wood appeared to be light gray.

  The paintings of family members, some of them dating back to the tobacco plantation great-granddaddy’s family owned further up the James River, hadn’t been wiped off in so long the tops and bottoms of the frames looked like fancy dust holders. Spider webs ran across my ancestor’s faces, casting odd shadows and making them looked wrinkled. The house was way too big for me to take care of, but I couldn’t bear to leave the house all of my family members had been born in for over a hundred years.

  We were eating a salad Maria Elena had prepared when she walked into the room with a plate covered with a cloth. “Bread fresh,” she said as she sat down next to Grandmother.

  “Smells delicious, Tatiana,” Grandmother said. “Isn’t it amazing that my sister learned to cook, Raquel?”

  “I was cooking in my country,” Maria Elena said as she put a napkin in her lap.

  “You did no such thing, Tatiana. Mother always had Cook with us wherever we went.”

  Maria Elena ignored her. She lifted up the cloth and began to break the warm bread with her hands. She laid a piece on Grandmother’s plate and then handed the plate to me.

  “You know, after the operation, I won’t be able to eat bread any more,” I said.

  “You will be so beautiful, Señorita Raquel.”

  “My mother would never let a doctor touch her without Rasputin present.”

  “Rasputin?” I couldn’t resist. “You knew Rasputin, Grandmother?”

  “He was a priest, but I was always scared of him. Those eyes, you know.”

  She never ceased to amaze me with her knowledge of the royal family. I knew about the Romanovs since I was once requested to do a biography on the last czar. I declined, though, since his shortsightedness had caused Russia to descend into chaos.

  “Maria Elena, this is my last meal before my surgery, so don’t fix anything else for me.”

  “Raquel,” Grandmother said in her gravelly voice. “You are having the royal physicians attend to you?”

  I wanted to point out that there were no royal doctors here in the U.S., but it would do no good. “Of course.”

  She let a breath out rapidly. “I am very thankful for that.”

  I finished up my salad and pushed my chair out slowly.

  “Your leg hurting?” Maria Elena asked.

  I shook my head no. “I feel fine, but I have to wear the cast a few weeks more.” I stood up and limped to the door.

  “I can’t wait for you being skinny, Señorita.” Her voice tinkled in enthusiasm for me.

  Why hadn’t I seen what a nice person Maria Elena was before?

  I lay down in bed. It felt good to prop my foot up. Even though it wasn’t painful, my ankle did swell in the summer heat. That I couldn’t afford to properly air-condition the house made it worse.

  How would my life be after the surgery? Right now, I practically lived for Abel’s visits. And there was that nagging worry I’d find out that he was only my imagination at work. I’d miss his warm yet mocking smile.

  “Good afternoon,” Abel’s deep voice breezed into the room.

  I turned to see him standing by the bed. “It’s nice of you to visit.”

  “I see that melancholy look upon your face.” Today he wore a black top hat and tails.

  “What’s the occasion?” I asked.

  “I have dressed to call upon a most lovely lady.” He laid his hat down on my hope chest then sat down on the bed.

  I felt my lips turn up into a smile. He amused me with his mannerisms and his costumes.

  “I’m glad that I have brightened your spirits. You looked terribly glum when I arrived.” He removed his white gloves and laid them on the bed.

  “I’m having the surgery.”

  “Not to worry. I will be there with you when you wake up.” I could see the angst in his face even though he appeared to be trying to conceal it.

  “In the hospital?”

  “Absolutely, but do know that I perished in a hospital, and they are not my favorite of places.”

/>   Believing he’d be there relaxed me.

  “I did much suffering in that hospital in Europe.”

  “Yes, the mustard gas.” Even Hitler had been disgusted by the suffering he’d seen on World War I battlefields and had disallowed the use of mustard gas in World War II.

  His cheeks hollowed. “It was a terrible way to go.” He twisted the white gloves up into a small roll. “First there was the blindness, and then it was like breathing fire until I could take no more. Suddenly the pain was gone and I was no longer flesh.”

  “And what are you now?”

  He laid the gloves down on the bed and turned to face me head on. “I am only of a corporeal nature when I’m with you.”

  “Only with me?” I raised myself up against the headboard.

  He squeezed his eyelids together sheepishly. “And that’s only for a short while, but…”

  “But?” I wanted to kiss him badly.

  “I am hopeful, though. I am able to hold my shape longer and longer.”

  “Longer and longer?” I felt hope well up inside me.

  His eyebrows rose and his cheeks reddened.

  I felt giddy inside. Could he one day be part of my world?

  “You know, I deserve to live.”

  I looked at him inquisitively.

  “I was cut down in my prime, before I could live or love.”

  I held my hand out and his palms engulfed mine.

  “I am sorry, but I feel my form fading…”

  I reached out with my other hand to keep him from going, but he disintegrated right before me. First a mist; then nothing.

  It’s all right, I consoled myself. He said he’d be there when I woke up from surgery. That is, if he weren’t just a memory brought on by my psyche.

  “You’re fine. Everything went very well.”

  I opened my eyes to see a woman in a blue hat with ties dangling from it looking at me. She must be a surgical nurse.

  She said I was all right, but was I? I wiggled my toes just to make sure they were there. The room began to move. A few seconds later I realized my bed was being rolled across the floor.

  Soon I was delivered to the room where I had originated. I turned my head and saw that no one had been deposited in that bed while I was gone. IVs were stuck in my left arm. The faint odor of rubbing alcohol wafted by me.

  I felt a shiver in my shoulders that caused me to buckle. “Ooow,” I moaned.

  The same nurse pulled the sheets and blankets up snugly around my neck. “The anesthesia makes you feel cold.” She pulled a syringe out of a pocket in her smock. “I have something for the pain that I’ll give you now.” She injected something into the tubes that were strung up on a pole beside my bed.

  I tried to reply but my mouth felt like it was glued together. I moved my head, but instantly I felt a sting in my abdomen.

  “This painkiller will start to work right away.” Her tennis shoes squeaked as she marched past my bed. “I’ll be back later to check your incisions.” She disappeared out into the hallway.

  “I thought she’d never leave.”

  I didn’t see him yet, but his voice was soothing, like a mother singing a lullaby to a newborn. Immediately, I knew everything would be all right. He stepped up to the bed. He wore a tight-fitting gray jacket, longer than the styles of today. Around his neck was a thin black bow tie.

  “You are here,” I grunted.

  “Of course I’m here, just as I promised.” His deep brown eyes looked at me protectively.

  My hair must have looked like red seaweed. “I must be a sight.”

  “Not a sight, a vision, as if from heaven above.” He leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “You’re really here.” I felt my eyes well up with tears.

  “Naturally. Abel Rollins always lives up to his word.”

  “But I thought I had imagined you and that, after the surgery, I wouldn’t see you any more.”

  “Ye of little faith. I have never left you and I will never leave you. I have been in that house ever since you were born.”

  “You saw me grow up?” My throat was scratchy and dry.

  “I remember the day your mother brought you home from the hospital.” His lips stretched out into a wide toothy smile.

  “My mother…you knew my mother.” Even I hadn’t known my mother very well.

  “Your mother was a lovely lady. She was radiant when she carried you in the door. Even when you were that small, it was obvious you’d have a beautiful head of strawberry blonde hair.”

  I thought about my hair again. It probably looked like it had been combed with an eggbeater. I reached up hoping I could at least smooth it out.

  “Not to worry. You are beautiful.”

  The nurse came back into the room carrying something in her hand. “I just got off the phone with the doctor and he’s instructed me to give you something to help you sleep.” She walked toward my IV.

  Abel clasped my hand in his. “I feel myself…” I saw his form turn to haze. “I’ll be right here beside you. I won’t leave you.”

  “Don’t go,” I said out loud.

  “I’d like to stay with you, honey, but I’ve got other patients.” She injected the liquid into my tubes. “You’ll be asleep in a few minutes any way.”

  The next morning I awoke feeling content. I was on my way to skinniesville and I knew that Abel was close by, even if I couldn’t see him.

  “Where is that Tango dancer?” Owen ran to the foot of my bed and held up a bouquet of yellow carnations. “You look radiant.” He set the flowers down on my nightstand and kissed my cheek.

  “Thank you so much.” I was awake, but still groggy from the drugs.

  “Just you wait. That fat is going to melt off you like wax from a candle.”

  I tried to laugh but I could feel the stitches pulling. “I hope so.”

  He gave a few big nods of his head. “Yes, girl, you are, because I have entered us in the next big competition.” He angled his head back and opened his eyes wide.

  “When?” I certainly didn’t feel like dancing now.

  “Six months from today. By that time you’ll be all healed up and you’ll have lost a lot of those pounds.”

  “You have so much confidence in me,” I said weakly.

  He put his hands on his hips. “You’ll do it. The Raquel I know doesn’t run away from anything.” He raised his hands and began to imitate holding me in a Tango position. “I can just see how gorgeous you are going to look dancing the Tango. We’ll get you a bright red dress and every judge will be ready to give you an outstanding score.”

  “Owen, you are so patient with me. Why don’t you get a partner that’s more on your level? I’ve done nothing but drag you down. You’d have won dozens of competitions with a partner that danced as well as you.”

  He shot me a frown. “You are my partner. What fun would it be without you, Raquel?” His forehead wrinkled. “Of course, if I do meet Mr. Right and he doesn’t like me dancing, then maybe you’ll lose me as your partner.”

  I tried to stifle my giggle so it wouldn’t hurt. “If you meet Mr. Right, I’ll try to talk him into letting you be my dance partner.”

  A different nurse entered the room. “Sir, I’m afraid that visiting hours are over. We need to change the dressings on her incisions.”

  Owen bent over and kissed me on the forehead. “See ya later, pumpkin. I’ll be back to pick you up tomorrow and take you home.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that, Regina can…”

  “Nonsense.” His back straightened and his Adam’s apple stuck out. “I’m your official ride home from the hospital.”

  I watched Owen leave and knew that my life was finally on a positive path.

  Chapter Seven

  Even though my insides had been cut, sewn, stapled, and rerouted, I had no pain to speak of. The all-encompassing hunger was gone, as if it had been amputated. In between long naps, Maria Elena brought me liquids my system could tolerate
. I felt more hopeful about life than I could ever remember. No longer did I have a cloud hanging over my head that ruined every adventure that I decided to undertake. No longer would I be a victim of obesity. I’d just go on and live my life.

  During those first few weeks I spent most of my time in bed. Abel’s visits were always pleasant. He read me poetry from my grandfather’s library until I fell asleep. And he really seemed to enjoy the fact I was happy and hopeful.

  A few weeks later, my strength began to return, and I actually ate a little bit of solid food. Unlike before, now I really looked forward to eating small portions and lean meat. The thought of gobbling down sweets or fatty foods like barbecue or French fries made me nauseous. I felt like a new person.

  Finally, as I began to be able to feel my hips and thighs becoming slimmer, I pulled out a dress I’d purchased a few years ago. I held it up and looked in the mirror. A thrill ran through me, giving me goose bumps. It looked like it would fit. I chuckled to myself, thinking that given a little time, even this would be way too big.

  The garment was a dark burgundy with a scarlet neckline. I slid it over my shoulders and it lusciously glided over my derriere. As I lifted my arms to zip it, my stitches smarted.

  I looked in the mirror. I had a long way to go, but already my jaw line had more definition and my figure actually tapered into a waistline the dress hugged. I couldn’t wait for someone to see me. The fabric bounced against my one ankle and the cast as I made my way downstairs.

  Grandmother kept her eyes glued to the television while Maria Elena explained to her what was happening on the Spanish soap opera. Her favorite character, Marcio, still had his wife in the dark about his extra-curricular activities. As Maria Elena translated, Grandmother seemed to really enjoy it, her eyes trained on the screen. She nodded whenever Maria Elena remarked how guapo the actor was.

  “Taa-daa,” I exclaimed as I entered the room, modeling the dress by pulling out the skirts and doing the sharpest turns I could with my bad ankle.

  “It too beautiful.” Maria Elena stood up and clapped.

  “I do believe that my granddaughter takes after Victoria’s side of the family.”

  Was she saying that I resembled Queen Victoria? I didn’t want to argue about that right now as I enjoyed the dress I’d been able to fit into.