Cy parked his red Taurus in the Radisson’s rear parking lot and paused to listen to an interview on the radio. “I’m not ashamed to say that I prefer U.S. products over Mexican ones,” said Tiara Navarro, who was introduced as a housewife who loved to shop at Wal-Mart. “They’re better made,” she finished. What was Mexico coming to?
Certainly it was not the way he remembered it from the early years he’d spent here. Had he changed—or had Mexico? Where was that boy who had met and fallen in love with the beautiful Mexican girl? So much was different now.
Cy checked into the hotel, then waited until Frederico, the clerk he was used to doing business with, came on duty. “My calls—”
“I know, Mr. Tyler. They are to be forwarded to the usual number.”
Eleven years earlier, Cy had had a private line installed in the home he shared with Graciella. It was just after Juana was born.
He drove away from Matamoros on the highway that ran parallel to the rolling hills. Graciella and their children resided about thirty miles south in a growing suburban area. As he drove, he admired the beauty of the countryside. With his window open, the unique smell of Mexico emanated from primitive family-run cafés, which were nothing more than exterior kitchens with crude tables. The aroma of dried jalapeño peppers, so different from anything Michigan had to offer, filled the air. It brought him back to old times. Good times.
Cy thought back to the first time he and Graciella got together. Always he remembered first the yellow ribbon fixed to her jet black hair. He’d been a skinny kid of nineteen working for General Motors, and Graciella had been just fifteen. They’d had so much fun together. She was shy but he had brought her out. They enjoyed going to the bullfights, eating tacos, and then making love. Cy was not a virgin, but he’d never experienced such warmth and passion as he’d found in the arms of Graciella.
When he returned several summers later on company business, Cy told Graciella that he loved a woman back home and they would soon marry.
For the next several years, he tried not to contact Graciella when he traveled to Mexico on business, but after they both began working for Champion, he would see her at the plant. They continued to be drawn to each other, and eventually Cy was unable to resist the temptation. And then Graciella became pregnant with Juana.
Back home, Thyme had finished her Ph.D. dissertation over three years since. She’d put off having children, and Cy had come to the conclusion that she never wanted them. That was more than eleven years ago. Juana was turning twelve soon, and their son, Gregor, was almost eight.
He had no idea where the years had gone. Maybe each year the affair continued with Graciella, he lost one with Thyme.
Cy knew he should have ended their relationship before Graciella became pregnant again—either that or told Thyme the truth. But he couldn’t leave Thyme. He loved her. Not even the birth of his son almost eight years ago had diminished his love for Thyme. How could he reconcile the love and passion he felt for both women? He had married the most beautiful woman in the world—Thyme—a woman who captured his soul, quenched his thirst, and made beautiful love to him. Yet there was still something missing, something he seemed to find with Graciella. But soon, he knew, one of the relationships had to end. And in his heart he knew it would be Graciella he had to leave—in spite of their children, whom he loved deeply.
In recent months, Cy had been preparing for this break with Graciella. In fact, with the promotion he was counting on, he would no longer have to come down to Mexico on business. He would make a renewed commitment to Thyme and never be unfaithful again.
Cy knew that with Champion essentially shutting down its trim operation in the United States, his job would shrink. He had to get out of Trim, and Cy was counting on being promoted to Plastics, covering all of North America. After twenty-five years he was still devoted to Champion, even though Sydney insisted that it was time for Cy to think bigger and leave Champion. Sydney had continually offered him a partnership in her Champion dealerships. His annual salary, she said, would triple what he made now at Champion.
He thought back to their conversation just the other day, when she told him about the upcoming merger. Champion planned on replacing its St. Louis dealerships with several superstores. The plan was the closest any of Detroit’s Big Four had come to regaining control of the sale of their automobiles from a network of long-established dealerships. According to Sydney, she was sitting in the catbird’s seat. In order for the Big Four to accomplish this, they had to settle with the current dealerships—like Sydney’s. He could almost hear her meow at the amount of money she figured Champion would offer to purchase her dealerships. She was certain it would be so high she couldn’t afford not to sell.
The plan had to be approved by the city’s twenty-two Champion and Atlantic-Pacific dealers. Sydney and R.C. Richardson’s combined dealer ownership in the metro area amounted to twelve. Their compliance was critical. The superstores and a network of auto care service centers would be owned by a newly created company that Champion would control. Several of the big dealers, like Richardson and Sydney, would then retain an equity interest in the company.
Cy hadn’t mentioned any of this to Thyme, of course, upon Sydney’s insistence. Anyway, Cy wasn’t ready for that big a change yet. First things first. Now he had to focus on cleaning up his life with Graciella.
When he arrived at his modest home in Reynosa, Graciella was waiting for him, having taken the day off work. She looked beautiful. No, irresistible. Her full face was tanned a deep brown. Her voluptuous figure was as ripe as the sap that turns to nectar in the velvet of the peach. Hundreds of twinkling dark curls caressed her brows, cheekbones, lips, and neck. He allowed himself one embrace, mindful that before the visit was ended he would break her heart.
“I’ve missed you, Cy. I’m so glad you’re here. The children can’t wait to see you.”
“Graciella, we need to talk.”
“Nonsense. Stop being so serious all the time.” She touched the lines around his eyes and smiled. “It’s making you old.”
Cy withdrew her hands from his face and held them in his. “But I am serious, Graciella. This is something not to take lightly.”
She pulled away. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow, Cy? After all, we’ve got days and days.”
And nights too. Cy couldn’t stop envisioning them together in bed: Graciella’s huge, chestnut-brown nipples. Sweet sweat dripping off their nude bodies as they moved together, satisfying their own needs first, then each other, and finally cresting their pleasures together as one. He was afraid to lose the pleasure of such an intense lover.
Just then, Juana and Gregor came tumbling into the room. Seeing his children always brought tears to his eyes. Juana resembled both her parents, whereas Gregor was all Graciella in face and body, but borrowed his father’s china blue eyes. Cy made a silent promise to himself to treat them right and always be there for them, even if he wasn’t their mother’s lover any longer.
Dinner was a feast. Tamales, filled with fruit, chicken, pork, and beef, were warming on the stove.
Graciella placed a heaping helping of Cy’s favorite dish before him: shredded pork tamales seasoned with slivers of jalapeño peppers and studded with raisins. He thought his belly would burst. It was the closest he came to feeling like a kid again. But that didn’t prevent him from taking one last tamale before leaving the table.
Later, in the living room, Gregor had fallen asleep on his lap. Throughout the evening, Juana seemed quiet, almost hostile toward Cy. But he didn’t want to press her. She was entering puberty and Cy knew she was sensitive. But when Juana took her brother’s hand to take him to bed, Cy couldn’t miss the disdain in her overly polite voice as she said, “Good night, Father. Sleep well.”
Graciella had been in the bedroom, laying out Cy’s clothes for work the next day, and hadn’t heard the exchange.
“Come, Cy,” she called out. “It’s time for bed.”
Reluctantly, Cy entered
Graciella’s bedroom. The lights were dimmed, and fresh flowers scented the air. She wore a short orange nightgown and sat poised on the side of the bed, her skin glowing like the sunset.
He moved toward her, his clothes suddenly feeling hot on his back. Stopping a few feet in front of the bed, he met her eyes as he spoke. “I can’t do this anymore, Graciella.”
Suddenly he could hear Thyme’s voice saying “Call me tonight” as he’d driven away from the house last night. He felt awful that he had only left a message on their answering machine before leaving the hotel. And for the first time he could remember, Cy felt a numbness in his penis.
“But why? I don’t ask you for much. Is the love we feel for each other so wrong that we cannot share it?”
Cy turned away. “No more, Graciella.”
“I don’t believe you. You care for me. And it’s not just because of the children.”
He could feel himself weakening. She spoke the truth. “It’s late. We both have to go to work in the morning.” Cy, trying to hang on to his resolve, started to leave the room.
“Where are you going?”
“To sleep on the couch.”
“Nonsense, Cy. You can sleep here with me.” Her voice was tempting, alluring. “I won’t touch you.”
If he gave in, he knew a worse hell awaited him.
“Please stay with me tonight,” she pleaded.
“No, Graciella,” he said firmly. He retired to the couch in the living room. Later, as he lay in his shorts and covered with a thin sheet on the sofa, he could hear her weeping softly throughout the night.
* * *
The following day Cy had a meeting at the Champion plant in Matamoros. He and Graciella rose at dawn and drove to the facility, which was just fifteen minutes away. Graciella had barely spoken to him. Her shift started at 6:00 A.M. Over the twenty years they’d known each other, Cy had helped Graciella move from sewing operator to supervisor.
Just outside the plant, they passed through a small town, built by Champion to stop the exodus of their unskilled employees. The employees in Mexico could, and often did, periodically quit their sewing jobs at Champion because they knew they could come back next week and get rehired. They could quit again the following week and come back a month later. In America, if you quit, there was no coming back.
Unskilled Mexican workers were notorious for obtaining training from the American-run factories and fleeing across the border to America for a job that paid more than four times as much.
Partly because of the irregularity in the workforce, the quality of product from the Matamoros facility had deteriorated during the past three months. The trim parts were being rejected by the assembly plants, and it was Cy’s job, as division manager of Trim, to intervene. At this point, Champion could not afford to have any slowing in Mexican production. For the life of him he couldn’t understand how the Mexican supervisors, including Graciella, allowed the workers to turn out so much garbage.
Graciella was supervisor of the Paladin sewing unit, which was one that Cy was investigating. The Paladin was a new sport utility truck that was due to debut in September. The assembly plant was having a fit because the front back seat cushions didn’t fit.
Cy was sitting at an empty sewing machine. Sitting just in front of him was an attractive young woman who kept turning around to smile at him. Seventy percent of the workforce were women between the ages of fifteen and twenty, and many of them were looking for mates.
“Ms. Perez?” he called out to Graciella. “Could you come here for a moment?”
Graciella rolled her eyes at the woman as she came toward him. “Yes, Mr. Tyler?”
“You’re aware of the problems the assembly plants are having with the front back seats?”
“Of course. But my operators are doing their best with what they have to work with. They work hard every day—”
He stopped her. “I’m not suggesting that they aren’t working hard. After speaking with the mechanics, I’ve realized there’s a problem with some designs and the machines.”
“Why don’t you get the situation corrected?” Her voice was hard. “You expect us to do excellent work with inferior equipment?”
Around him several workers giggled.
Graciella had never spoken to him like this before. And, to be honest, Cy was turned on by her attitude.
“New machines aren’t necessary. The gauges are the problem.”
Graciella hissed. “You know that’s not the truth. Champion is just trying to get off cheap. These jobs should be sent all the way back to the drawing board.”
Graciella had a point. The machines in the Mexican plants weren’t as new as the ones in the American plants. Still, the machines were built to last fifty years, and had a lot of life left in them. “Call a mechanic over here, Ms. Perez, and I’ll prove my point.”
It turned out that the main problem was with the gauges. The tack sew seams were supposed to be one-quarter of an inch and the finish seams were set up to be five-sixteenths of an inch. Even the mechanics mixed up the metal plates once in a while when they installed them—which is how the sewing operator ended up using finish gauges on tacking machines.
Having discovered the problem, Cy made a call to Plant Engineering to get the gauges color-coded to distinguish one from the other.
Cy also learned that with only three mechanics to service eighty people, oftentimes the workers had a long wait to have their machines repaired. Sometimes, one mechanic told Cy, the workers would try to repair the machines themselves. Also, with the high temperatures in Mexico, the machines were always breaking down. It was a common problem that needed to be addressed.
Once the mechanics carried out Cy’s instructions, he returned to Graciella’s station and asked her to bring everyone under her supervision back to the unit. With everyone standing around him, he removed his jacket and sat down at the machine. He sewed the entire seat cushion from start to finish. When it was completed, he compared the cushion he’d sewed to those they’d done the day before. He took the whole group and the cushions over to the build area. The builder first tried to put on the cushion that Graciella’s team had made. It didn’t fit correctly. Then the builder placed Cy’s cushion on the mock seat, and it fit almost perfectly. With a minor engineering change, the problem would be solved.
Cy left early that day so that he was home to greet his children when they returned from school. But still Juana hung back. Nothing he did made her warm to him. She was old enough to understand that her mother and father’s relationship was a sin. And her mother’s sin seemed to be irreversible.
“Anybody want pizza?” Cy asked that night.
Gregor plopped his chubby body on Cy’s lap. “Me, Father. I want Domino’s like the TV says. Can you buy that for me?”
Cy realized that his son was now proficient in English as well as Spanish. Cy cringed inwardly when he thought about the day he’d have to explain his other life to his son. Would his children ever forgive him? How could he explain to his son that he lived in another country with another woman?
“Gregor,” he said, slipping him off his lap carefully, “let’s ask Juana.”
But Juana ignored them.
“I’ve got a thought, Gregor,” Cy said, trying to deflect Juana’s chill. “Would you like to go to the bullfights this weekend? Your mother and I used to attend them all the time.”
“Cy,” Graciella said, smiling nostalgically, “that was so long ago.”
“Let’s do it.”
There were cheers from Gregor and Graciella, but not from Juana.
After dinner when the children had gone to bed, Graciella and Cy were in the living room sitting in a stiff silence. Graciella interrupted Cy’s reading to tell him that when he had taken Gregor out for pizza, Juana had asked her a cutting question. Juana had said, “How do you know how well his wife is living? You only know what he tells you. You don’t even know his address. All you have is a pager number to contact him by. It’s like he is sp
itting in your face.”
Graciella had slapped her. But it was obvious to Cy that their daughter’s question had lingered.
Early Saturday morning, the six-hour drive to Tijuana for the bullfight was fun, though Juana was silent all the way. Gregor made up for it with his high spirits. Caesar Castanéda was fighting. His rare appearance in the Plaza Mexico was being hailed as “¡Buena suerte!”
Cy purchased the best seats, at $35.25 American, and they were well worth it. The action they witnessed at the ring was incomparable. Every second was filled with colorful matadors and the huffing and snorting of the black bulls. Even the noticeable smell of bull manure didn’t dampen the excitement.
Glancing at Graciella, Cy felt like he had been transported twelve years back in time when he and Graciella had attended their last bullfight. The action in the ring had prompted more action later, a night of beautiful sex. His instincts told him that Juana had been conceived on that memorable evening.
They returned to the Villa Vera Hotel, and Juana and Gregor collapsed into sleep in their own room. Cy and Graciella had gotten a suite, with adjoining rooms. Now, as they prepared for bed, Cy felt himself weakening. The memories were too strong between them, and he found himself powerless to resist Graciella.
In the semidarkness, Graciella’s brown body gleamed as if she were wet, coming out of the sea. She moved slowly toward him and he felt her sweet breath encircle his neck, like a necklace of honied berries. He could feel her breath against his face, his chest, his stomach, his hips. Graciella stroked his throbbing member so gently, so lovingly, Cy thought he would scream in exultation. When she lowered her head and closed her hot mouth over his sex, he clutched the sheets and pushed his hips forward. Carnal pleasure rippled through his body from the balls of his feet to the top of his head as she began feathering kisses along the length of him with the tip of her tongue. Soon he felt the bed dip slightly beneath his buttocks as she straddled him.
Blue Collar Blues Page 13