by Laura Ruby
“I have to get to San Francisco,” squawks Tippi Hedren.
Marty rolls his eyes. “And teach your bird some new lines.”
The house is middle-sized and crowded all around with overgrown bushes and red and yellow flowers. I ring the doorbell. I’m nervous, the way I’ve never been around other girls, the way I always am around her. The door opens and a small woman with shiny hair like Lucinda’s is smiling at me. “You must be Ed,” she says.
It takes me a minute to say, “Mrs. Dulko?” ’cause this woman is too young and too amazing to be anyone’s mom.
“Yes, yes, that’s me. Come in.”
I follow her into the house and down the hallway. “We’re glad that you could make it,” she says. “David has made so much food that there’s no way we could eat it all ourselves.” She pronounces the name David as Da-veed.
I don’t know how she could say that there aren’t enough people to eat the food, because when we walk into the family room, it looks like a party to me. There are at least a dozen people drinking wine and laughing or bobbing their heads to the salsa music that’s coming from the stereo in the entertainment center along the wall. One wall opens into the kitchen, and I decide that Da-veed must be the guy stirring stuff on the stove and muttering to himself. The oldish guy in the easy chair has to be Lucinda’s father. Couldn’t say who the others were. There are two dogs using the people like obstacle courses and one white cat with a bald spot on its back sitting on top of the TV set. And where the hell is Lucinda?
“Everyone, this is Lucy’s friend Eddy,” says Mrs. Dulko. Before they can acknowledge me, there’s a tap on my shoulder.
“Hey, Eddy.”
I turn around. Lucinda’s hair is tied back and she’s got a pink flower stuck behind one ear, which could have looked dumb but instead looks mad hot, like a pinup from the fifties. I think she’s wearing makeup, too, because her lips are glossy and her frosty eyes seem enormous. And then there’s the sleeveless black dress that dips in the front. My brain screams, Tits! but that’s too small and too ugly a word. These are firm and full, a nose-sized channel between.
No wonder she keeps them under wraps. It’s all I can do not to bury my face in them.
I must have been standing there speechless for a while, because someone says, “Cleans up nice, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah,” I say, and when I do, my voice cracks, which makes everyone laugh.
“You should wear a dress more often, little Lucy,” a woman with red, red lipstick says. “That one looks like he’s been hit with a baseball bat.”
“I’ll remember that, Aunt Carmen,” says Lucinda, two pink spots scorching her cheeks. She shakes it off and introduces me around. Her brothers—David, who waves from his spot in the kitchen, and Roberto, both older. Her dad, Andrew. Her uncles and aunts. A smattering of cousins. The dogs, Puck, some kind of terrier, and Mrs. Havisham, a Lab. The cat, Mogget, who winds himself around my legs but hisses when I try to pet him. I’m offered a drink and get raspberry iced tea with mint leaves crushed in the bottom of the glass. People squish on the couch to make room so that me and Lucinda can sit. Mogget perches on my lap, tense as a rabbit. I think maybe he’s an attack bunny, so I don’t make any sudden moves. I’m asked about my parents, about school, and about my hobbies and whether or not I’m a tennis player too.
“He’s pretty good,” Lucinda answers for me.
“Not as good as you, though, eh?” says Aunt Carmen.
“Nobody is,” I say.
Aunt Carmen points at me. “Smart boy. Did you tell him what happened yesterday?”
“What happened yesterday?” I say.
“Oh, it’s no big thing,” says Lucinda.
“Is too,” her mother says. “You beat that nasty girl with the horse face.”
Lucinda laughs. “She doesn’t have a horse face.”
“She has a horse face,” Mrs. Dulko insists.
“Who are we talking about here?” I say.
“Remember Penelope?” Lucinda says. “The girl who thinks she’s all that? The one who kept psyching me out?”
I’m smiling already. “Let me guess. You poured your milk on her head like I told you to.”
“Nope. She came into the locker room and gave me coupons to some tanning salon so that I, quote, didn’t look like a sunspot on the court, unquote. I thanked her and told her that the extra weight looked really good on her.”
“Brutal,” I say.
“Serves her right,” Mrs. Dulko says.
“What was the score?” I say.
“7–6, 7–6. Two tiebreaks,” says a random uncle. “Amazing.”
“Not so amazing,” Lucinda says. “It was only a practice meet.”
“Yeah, but now she knows and you know that you can beat her,” I say.
“Exactly!” says Mrs. Dulko. “That’s what I keep telling her. Listen to your friend, Lucy.”
“Cute friend,” says Aunt Carmen of the red, red lips, and I can feel my face get hot. “Oh, look at him blush, Lucy. He’s modest. Él es tímido.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lucinda says. “Real modest.”
“Él es mucho más lindo que el último,” Aunt Carmen adds, still looking at me. I took three years of Spanish, but she says it too fast. Takes me about two days to figure out that she said, “He’s much cuter than the last one.”
The last one. Who the hell was the last one?
“Sí,” Lucinda murmurs, agreeing with Aunt Carmen. She takes my hand and she squeezes it.
I want to know if she speaks any more Spanish.
And I want to lean over and lick her shoulder.
Da-veed comes out of the kitchen with a tray of food, little fried, chopped meat pockets—empanadas, he says—but who cares? They’re incredible. Even though I’m going with the polite guest thing, I eat about fourteen of them and drink three more glasses of the minty tea. That only gets me more compliments from Aunt Carmen and the random uncles, who apparently approve of serious chowing down. I’m starting to worry about Lucinda’s father, who has his eyes closed and is bobbing his head to the music but hasn’t said anything to me yet. I’m wondering if he’s one of those crazy, overprotective, Don Corleone, Tony Soprano types who won’t allow his daughter to see any guy alone, which is why we have to have the whole family chaperone. I’m wondering if he’ll put a hit out on me. The next time David brings in another round of empanadas, I offer Lucinda’s dad the plate, hoping to start up a conversation so he’ll know I’m a friendly guy who isn’t going to molest his baby girl.
Even if that’s the long-term plan.
“These are great, sir,” I say. I figure the “sir” shows I’m making an effort.
Lucinda’s dad takes the plate and says, “Thank you,” and stares at the stereo as if the salsa band is going to pop out of it. Then he closes his eyes again.
Okay.
So maybe the dad’s not a big deal in this family. Maybe it’s the women, who follow Lucinda with their eyes, who glance back and forth between the two of us, whispering. Are they marrying us off already? Or are they conspiring to have me run out of town?
I feel that heaviness, that weight you do when someone’s really staring, and I look up. Roberto, Lucinda’s oldest brother, is smiling at me. Maybe he’s the scary one. Maybe he’s the guy who’s supposed to beat up all his sister’s prospective boyfriends. He looks like he could do it. He’s tall and torqued, with big, showy biceps. I’m six-one and weigh one-seventy, but this guy could probably bench-press me. He gestures me over. I have to slowly extricate myself from Mogget the balding bunny attack cat, who glares at me to let me know how seriously I’ve damaged our tenuous relationship.
“Don’t worry about my father,” Roberto says when I’m standing next to him. “He’s kind of in his own world.”
“I thought it was me.”
“Nah,” Roberto says. “When music’s on, he likes to focus. Same thing at movies or when the TV’s on. He’ll talk at dinner. If he feels like it.”
/> “Good to know.”
“And you don’t have to worry about David or me, either.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
“We’re not going to threaten to kill you if you hurt my sister or anything. David’s more interested in making the perfect sauce. And I don’t need to threaten people.”
“Also good to know.”
“Because my sister could kill you herself. She doesn’t need my help.”
I say, “Okay.”
“If you’re scared of anyone,” he says, “it should be Lucinda. She’s like my dad. Quiet but fierce. She’s not easy to please.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“No,” he says, laughing. “You won’t.”
Dinner is some sort of amazing pork loin with fried plantains, beans, and rice I eat in massive and embarrassing quantities. All around me, the Spanish is flying and it’s too hard to keep up. But I’m smart enough to compliment the chef, who claps me on the back so hard I nearly go flying face-first into my plate.
“¡Gracias, hombre!” he says, which I get.
And Lucinda’s dad does talk, in English, asking me more about what I’d like to do.
“Make movies.”
“Movies?” the random uncles say together. They laugh.
Lucinda’s thigh presses hard against mine. “Eddy already makes movies. Short films. They’re on the internet.”
I had no idea she’d even seen Riot Grrl 16. “I have a production company. We do one show a week.” I see the blank faces all around the table and make a mental note to do an episode about Riot Grrl meeting her boyfriend’s crazy family.
“I hear there’s money in commercials. Maybe you should direct commercials,” says one uncle.
“That’s a possibility,” I say.
Lucinda’s dad says, “We rented a good movie the other day. Called Pan’s Labyrinth. Complex interweaving of two separate tales, one historical, one fantastical. It was directed by a man named Guillermo…Guillermo something.”
“Del Toro,” I say. “That film got a lot of attention.”
“Yes, right,” Lucinda’s dad says. “You know it?”
“Yeah. I thought it was really good. I saw in an interview that he took both storylines equally seriously so that you never felt that the fantasy was a fairy tale.”
“Huh,” says Lucinda’s father. “Has he made any other movies?”
We keep talking. I relax for the first time that night. Lucinda seems to relax too. I feel her thigh pressing against mine under the table. I press back. She presses harder, and we have a leg war while trying to remain perfectly stationary above the waist. I like it that she’s so strong. Fierce, her brother said. How could that be a problem?
After dinner there’s more iced tea and coffee and brandy and an obscene amount of custard called flan. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move again when Mrs. Dulko claps and says, “Let’s dance.”
Before I know what’s happening, someone has turned up the music. Mr. and Mrs. Dulko get up from the table and twirl their way back into the family room. The rest of us follow to watch. Mrs. Dulko is tiny and light on her feet. Mr. Dulko is a lot taller and doughier, but he moves nearly as fast, spinning his wife till you’d think she would puke (but she doesn’t). The dogs cavort around them, barking.
Lucinda whispers in my ear, “That’s where they met. My mom’s a Latin dance instructor. My dad was her student, if you can believe that. He’s pretty good for a chemist, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
Aunt Carmen grips my arm. “Come on, cute boy,” she says. “Danza conmigo.”
I must have looked terrified at the prospect of danzaing with Aunt Carmen because Lucinda says, “I don’t think he can handle you, Aunt Carmen. I’m more his speed.” She looks at me. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”
Aunt Carmen laughs. “Don’t be too gentle. Él está muy bueno.”
I wonder what kind of hormones Aunt Carmen’s on.
Lucinda drags me to the center of the room as everyone else pushes the furniture against the walls and starts to dance. Lucinda holds out her hands. I worry about my breath and then figure Lucinda’s will be just as bad. I pull her close, but she pushes me away.
“I need more room to move,” she says. She puts her arms over her head, backs up a step, shoots one leg between mine, and then drags it back. She does it again with the other leg. She takes my hands and puts them on her hips, closes her eyes. I watch her dance, hips swaying, lashes brushing her cheeks, lips parted, white teeth peeking through them. My head feels like a giant empanada. I don’t understand how someone who can leap up and smack an overhead like it’s a bomb can roll her hips like some kind of stripper. Especially with her family doing the same thing all around us.
God, this is weird.
I wish I had a camera.
I wonder if someone’s filming us.
I wonder if I’m in a reality show right now.
Despite what Roberto said, my eyes dart around as I wonder if her father or one of her other relatives will try to cream me for touching Lucinda, for holding Lucinda when she’s moving the way she’s moving. It seems like something you should do in private.
Her eyes fly open, freeze me. “Carmen’s right. Usted es tímido,” she whispers.
“What was that, Lucy?” Aunt Carmen says.
“Nothing,” says Lucinda.
Carmen watches us, smirking. “No funny stuff. Your family’s all around you.”
“How could I forget?” Lucinda says.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She yanks me past her mother and father.
Her mother stops dancing. “Where are you going?”
“We’re going for a drive.”
“But we only just started!”
“I’m tired of dancing. I want some air.”
“Air,” says Carmen. “Sure that’s what she wants.”
Her mom laughs, spinning away. “Okay. Don’t be too late.”
“Fine.”
“Eleven.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Well, you’ve been forgetting lately.”
“I won’t forget.”
We walk through the screened-in porch, where Lucinda stops to grab her bag, and out the door to the backyard. She keeps walking and I follow. All the way around the house to her car.
“Get in,” she says. I do. After we’ve driven for a minute, she exhales loudly. “I hope that wasn’t too bad. They’re a little much.”
“No,” I say. “I liked them a lot.”
“Yeah, well, they make me crazy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m never alone, for one. There’s always someone yammering at me about something. I love them, but sometimes I just want my own space.”
I have so much space that sometimes I don’t know what to do with it all. If I didn’t have Tippi Hedren, I might lose my mind.
She says, “I’m done with this.”
“With what?”
“High school. Childhood. This.” She thumps the steering wheel with the flat of her hand. “Done being so young that everyone’s up your nose about this or about that. When you coming home, Lucy, don’t be late, Lucy. Dance, Lucy, eat, Lucy, sleep, Lucy. You know what I mean?”
Her family seemed so nice. “I guess.”
At the tennis courts she stops the car. It’s dark and deserted, the kind of place where movie couples get attacked by murderers with hooks for hands. I’m confused. “You want to play now?”
“Sí,” she says. She twists a tiny fist in the front of my shirt and reels me in, kisses me. I can’t breathe, I’m so happy. I curl my arms around her and slide her onto my lap. The pink flower falls from her hair to the seat. She kisses me again like she’s sucking the juice from a peach so I turn my face so I can give her more. And more. And more.
She pulls away. She has my face cupped in her hands, a vise grip. “I just want to start my life, do you understand?”
I’m
not sure what’s going on or what she’s talking about, but it’s okay that she feels what she does because she looks so amazing when she’s feeling it, her eyes flashing in the dark, pupils wide and bright, pulling in all available light, like she’s draining the stars of their energy and using it all to electrify me. If I were filming this scene, I would start there, in the sky. She throws her head back and I bury my nose in her chest the way I’ve wanted to all night.
I’m saying something against her skin, but even I don’t know what it is. All I know is that she can twist her fist in my shirt, she can push me away and reel me back, she can hit me with her racket and with her serve, she can make me dance in her own personal puppet show.
Rory would say she has me by the cojones.
That’s okay.
The Player
“Are you really wearing that?”
Gina looks down at herself. “What do you mean? This is the kind of stuff I wear all the time.”
“But usually not all at once.” She’s wearing a black lace corset with a jean jacket over it, acid-green miniskirt, pink fishnets, and boots as big as boats on her feet. She’s just dyed her hair red but left the bangs black. She’s got on so much makeup that a drag queen would tell her to tone it down. We’re supposed to be going to the MTV offices. I’m excited, Rory’s excited. Joe’s sulking in the backseat and Gina looks like something out of a Tim Burton production: Corpse Bride II: The Curse of Raggedy Ann. A Nightmare Before the Business Meeting.
“I wanted to look good,” she says.
“I think she looks good,” Rory says.
Gina puts her hands on her hips. “Can I get in the car now, sir?”
“Whatever,” I say.
She gets in and I pull out of the driveway. She starts screwing with the radio.
“Can you leave my music alone, please?”
“I am not listening to this,” she says.
“I am.” It’s a song list Lucinda made for me. It’s got salsa and some bossa nova tunes on it, including “Girl from Ipanema,” which Lucinda likes to sing to me while she does all sorts of amazing things with her—
“Where’d you get this crap from?” Gina says. She’s peering at my iPod, which I’ve got hooked up to the stereo.