by Gonzalo Barr
“I love you for what you’ve done,” the doctor’s wife said.
“I’ve done nothing. You haven’t let me.”
“But you didn’t need to come here. I know what it would mean to you, to your reputation, if word got back.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk so loud.”
“OK, so we won’t talk about that either,” she said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re right. What’s left to talk about? I’ve made up my mind.”
She stood and walked a few steps, away from the car and the music.
The doctor looked at the bay. Below him, a small boat with two men stopped near the rocks. One man held a net and the other shined a lantern over the dark water. The lantern illuminated the men’s faces, chests, and arms, and spread dabs of yellow on the surface of the bay.
“Do you have a light?” It was one of the girls. She smelled of flowers and sweat. The doctor dug into his pant pocket and found a box of matches from the hotel restaurant. When he gave it to her, his fingers grazed the palm of her hand. It felt callused and rough.
“Thank you, sir,” the girl said in English. She tossed the matches to the thin man, who looked at the doctor and shook the box over his head.
“Guess what I have,” the doctor’s wife said, walking toward him, holding a bottle.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t either. The boy said it was rum, but I think it’s just moonshine with food coloring. Three dollars. Can you believe it?”
“That’s not worth three pesos.”
“What’s three dollars to us?”
“A lot. To them.”
“Then I did something good for someone. What gives you the right to have a monopoly on good works? Here, you first.”
His wife removed the wad of paper that served as a cork and held the bottle in front of his face.
“If you won’t, I will,” she said. He watched her drink from the bottle. When she finished, she stuck out her tongue. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”
He took the bottle and drank, forcing himself to swallow.
“Do you want one of those girls?” his wife said. “They’re not ugly. A little skinny maybe.”
“Why are you talking to me like that?”
“Just thinking, that’s all.”
“You’re being cruel.”
“Drink some more.” She drank quickly. “It’s hard for a man to live without a woman,” she said. “A woman can live alone, but a man always needs a woman.”
“I’ve tried to be a good husband.”
“I have few complaints.”
“I’ve done everything you’ve asked,” he said.
“No, we did mostly what you wanted.”
“For the love of Christ, tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
“Promise me that you’ll have children. Promise me that you’ll find yourself a young wife, someone smart and pretty, who can paint watercolors or play the piano and host charming dinner parties that you can invite your colleagues to, someone who can bear you smart and pretty children with perfect table manners. Promise me.”
“I don’t want to think about that.”
“I never gave you children.”
“We didn’t want any, remember?”
“You didn’t want them. Your research. That’s what you said.”
“And you agreed.”
“And I’m sorry I did that. I’m more sorry than you can ever know. And now it’s too late.” She raised the bottle to her mouth but did not drink. “Promise me. Just say it. What’s so difficult about that? Señorita?” his wife stood and called in the direction of the two girls, who were helping the beefy man to the car. “Señorita,” she called again.
The thin man ran to her.
“How much for the girls?” she asked him.
“I don’t want any girl,” the doctor said, taking her arm.
“I am sorry, but I do not understand,” the thin man said. “They are occupied, as you can see.”
“Excuse us,” the doctor told the thin man. “There is some mistake.”
“How much?” she said.
“They are very good tour guides,” the thin man said. “We are here every night. Tomorrow.” He smiled before returning to the car. The girls and the beefy man waited inside.
“We’ll find another girl,” she said. “They seem to be everywhere.”
The car started and drove off, taking the music with it.
It was quiet, except for the water. The moon was higher in the sky, smaller. Then the streetlights came on and lit the city and the fort.
“Now they ruined it. It was so lovely before,” she said.
“You must be tired.”
His wife swung the bottle into the air and waited to hear it smash on the rocks.
The doctor walked to the curb to wave down a cab. When one stopped, he went back to help his wife.
“You didn’t promise,” she said.
“How can I promise you something like that?”
“Say it. That’s all I’m asking. Just say the words.”
“If that’s what you want.”
She nodded.
“I promise,” he said, offering his arm to her.
“I’m OK,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
A Natural History of Love
1. GIRL LOSES BOY
Less than twenty-four hours after Rolly broke up with me, my best friend, Gloria, calls to tell me that she saw him and Lizette Caballero at Cocowalk leaving the movies, holding hands and kissing all the way down the escalator to the parking garage.
“Like I care,” I tell her.
Rolly and I were just friends. We talked on the phone every night. He took me to the movies twice, and we skipped school once. Several times, we made out in his car, but I never let it go further than that, not much anyway. And though we came close, we never actually did it. We dated for twenty days, twenty-one hours, and forty-seven minutes, if you start counting from the moment he first said hello to me in the school library.
“Are you sure it was Rolly?” I ask Gloria, feeling stupid as I say the words.
“Of course, Silvia. They walked right past me. Rolly and Lizette.”
I hang up. I don’t want to hear it. If Gloria calls back, I’ll tell her the call was dropped. Happens all the time. Cell phone service sucks. And, anyway, I need to think.
Then I get this pain deep in my chest, tears well up in my eyes, my mother walks into my room, and my cell phone chirps, all at once.
“What happened?” Gloria says when she calls back.
I don’t want to talk to anyone right now, but at least the phone protects me from having to talk to my mother. If she sees me crying, she’ll give me advice. She can’t help it. Giving advice is like a disease with her.
I start to answer Gloria, but I can’t speak. More tears. I toss the phone on the bed.
“Hello? Hello?” I can hear Gloria’s voice, even after I cover my face with the bed sheet.
My mother sits on the bed next to me, puts her arm across my shoulders, and pulls me close to her. Just what I need. I bring the bed sheet up to my ears. Maybe she’ll get the message and go away. She kisses the back of my head, takes the phone, and tells Gloria that I can’t talk right now. “OK, honey?” my mother tells her. The phone goes clunk when she puts it on the night table.
My mother says, “I know how you feel.”
I think, No way she knows how I feel. My parents met in high school and married in college. She’s forty-one. I’m not even seventeen, and already I’ve failed twice.
“Tomorrow you’ll forget all about him,” my mother says.
I think. Who told you this has anything to do with a guy?
My mother says, “There are other fish in the ocean.” She adds, “No hay mal que por bien no venga.”1
I think, This is supposed to make me feel better?
She wants to kiss my face, but I’m holding the bed
sheet tightly, so she kisses the back of my head again. She stands. I hear my bedroom door close. I exhale.
2. THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND
I listen for a few minutes to make sure my mother’s gone. There’s a chance that she’ll come back and officially tuck me in for the night.2
My cell phone chirps again and again. I’ve known Gloria to call twenty times, back to back. She lets the phone ring until it goes to voice mail, hangs up, and calls again. Over and over. I want to turn off the phone, but what if Rolly calls?
In my bathroom, I wet a small towel with warm water and wash my face. The blueberry acne mask falls off my face in dried chunks. It reminds me of something I saw on TV earlier tonight—a house going down the side of a cliff in an LA mudslide. The whole house came down in one piece as the ground collapsed below it.
Thirteen missed calls, the phone screen says. Every time it starts to chirp, I can’t help looking at the screen to make sure it’s not Rolly.
When I’m done washing my face, I return to my bedroom. Eighteen missed calls, the phone screen says. I think, Listening to music would clear my mind. The Sonic Skulls are good, so’s Ten Monkeys on My Back, but what I want right now is something to relax me, make me forget about Rolly, Gloria, my mother, everything.
I pick the Tin Hearts, put the volume on low, mute the phone, and turn off the lights. If Rolly calls, I’ll still be able to read the screen. By the third track of the Tin Hearts, I’m feeling better. The chest pain is gone. I try to forget that it’s Saturday night, not even 10:00, and that I’m home lying in bed, like a dork, trying to think of nothing.
I don’t think about Gloria at the mall watching a movie with Teri O’Donnell and Francesca Gutierrez, probably that new one we were talking about seeing together. Earlier this week, Gloria invited me to go with them, but I told them that I planned to go with my boyfriend, and my insides trembled a little after I’d said the word “boyfriend.” That was three days ago, Wednesday.
Rolly was not my boyfriend. Not officially. We just ended up together. It felt comfortable to hang out with him, like wearing cotton pajama pants and an old tee shirt to bed. I felt like Rolly and I were supposed to be together. My mother says that she was fated to many my dad. OK, where can I get some of this fate?
3. THE BREAKUP
Yesterday, after school, I asked Rolly if we were still on for last night. He nodded. He can be very serious sometimes, moody even, so I didn’t think anything of it. The plan was he’d pick me up at 7:30 and we’d drive around, think of something to do. I was going to suggest the movie. That way I could tell Gloria that I’d seen it and tease her with the ending. But at 7:35, after I’d finished spraying the last of my mother’s Chanel, he called me to breakup.
I couldn’t believe he was serious. Only a few days before. Rolly had held my hand between classes. We’d even parked on the causeway and kissed.
Several times last night, I thought about calling him back. Mr. Núñez, our AP Economics teacher, says that the law of supply and demand determines the price of goods and services. “You got too much, you pay less. You got too little, you pay more. Is scientific.” So I didn’t call Rolly. I decided to make myself scarce. That alone should make him want me back.
4. HOW TO NOT THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT
This morning, I woke early and surprised my mother by going with her to do errands. As a reward, she bought me a linen blouse and a pair of prewashed jeans with holes torn at the knees from a little store off Bird Avenue. Nothing is free in life, so I had to put up with hearing her complain about paying so much for a pair of jeans that she would have consigned to the trash can. My mother likes to use words like “consign.”
All day, I was sure Rolly would call me to apologize and make it up to me. Everything took on the sheen of expectation. An immense goodness enveloped the world. At home, I worked on tearing the holes on the jeans some more. I sat on the chaise longue in my father’s study, my cell phone next to me, tearing at the holes with my fingers until I got them the right size.
After a quiet dinner with my parents, I went to my room and watched TV.
That’s when Gloria called me to say that she’d seen Rolly and Lizette Caballero.
But I forgot. I’m trying not to think about him. I tell myself not to think about Rolly. Do not think about him at all. I cover my head with the pillow and hum and listen to the way my voice sounds when it has nowhere to go.
Don’t think about anything, I think.
I look for something else to play. The problem with music is that there’s a limit to the number of times you can listen to “Throbbin Like an Aneurysm,” even if it’s the coolest song you’ve ever heard.
I play some Ninja Babies from the only CD they ever made before they broke up.
There’s a happy phrase—they broke up—like Rolly and me.
5. THE ONLY THING GUYS THINK ABOUT
I turn off the lights, close my eyes, and try to concentrate on the lyrics. Instead, I replay everything Rolly said when he called me yesterday. It wasn’t a long conversation. Two minutes, two seconds, by the timer on my phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey. What are you doing?” Rolly said, enunciating every syllable. Rolly’s a stickler for good language. He always says “well” when other people say “good.” He never says “anxious” when he means “eager.” He thinks people who use “home” and “house” interchangeably have tufts of dryer lint instead of brains.
“I’m ready,” I said. “You coming over?”
“That’s part of why I’m calling. I’m not going to be able to pick you up.”
I paused.
“OK,” I said. “You wanna meet somewhere?”
He paused.
“Not exactly,” he said. “I can’t really go out tonight. I can’t see you.”
I think I hear someone giggling.
“Who’s there?”
“No one,” Rolly said earnestly, but I don’t think about it until much later, long after we’ve hung up and I’m replaying the conversation in my head.
“What’s the problem?” I said. “We made plans.”
“I just prefer if we don’t go out tonight.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling the beginnings of anger stir inside me. So what am I supposed to do now? I thought.
And maybe Rolly interpreted my one-word answer—“Oh”—as a sign of disinterest, because his voice changed. I don’t mean that it broke in the crackly way characteristic of pubescent boys. I mean that he went from sounding unsure, almost embarrassed, about canceling our plans at the last minute, to speaking with something like gravitas.
“I really don’t want to see you this weekend,” he said.
I let a second or two follow that one. It wasn’t deliberate on my part. My father says that silence in a conversation can be more eloquent than words. But in this case, I didn’t know what to say. Then I remembered finals were two weeks away. And that Rolly, due to some less than stellar marks on recent quizzes, needed a near perfect score to keep his average. Of course he couldn’t go out with me, I thought. He was panicking about finals. He had to study. How selfish of me to think only about myself.
“If it’s something I can help you with—” I said.
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” he said louder. “OK?”
Two letters that are not an abbreviation for anything and can mean so many different things, depending on the tone of your voice. I’d never heard him talk like that before. The dumping experience was a new one for both of us, whether you looked at it from his perspective, as the party doing the dumping, or mine, as the party being dumped.
“Are you, like, breaking up with me?” I said.
“Yes. I am breaking up with you,” he said, pronouncing each word as if English were a foreign language.
A more experienced person would have thrown a light-voiced “OK” right back at him. Or maybe a single cutting “Fine.” She would have hung up and called another boyfriend or girlfrien
d and gone out anyway. The entire evening, she would have enjoyed herself and not discharged a single synapse in her brain for Rolly. A more sophisticated person would have dropped the phone into her tiny, elegant purse. She would have looked in the mirror, refreshed her lipstick, and gone out by herself. I imagined her wearing a little black dress and heels, adjusting the front of her dress over cleavage that I do not have, pulling down the skirt over hips that I do not have either. If only I looked more like that, I thought, I’d grab my little purse, walk out to my car, and leave.
“But why?” I asked Rolly, hitting myself in the thigh for sounding so whiny. Now it was his turn to pause for a second or two.
“It’s because you don’t put out,” he said. “OK? You tease me, but you don’t deliver.”
I’m thinking that I should really be mad at this point. I should tell him to go—
“It’s all about sex with you,” I said, trying my best to sound indignant.
“Yeah,” he said, as calm as the surface of a man-made lake.
I knew he’d hung up because the screen on my cell phone lit the side of my face.
6. THE PROBLEM WITH SUNDAYS
I turn on the light. It takes a couple of seconds before I can read the digital clock on my night table. Almost 1:00 A.M. Gloria, Teri, and Francesca are probably home by now. I start to call Gloria when my thumb punches Rolly’s number instead.
My heart races. You cannot break up with me, I think, if I do not want to break up with you.
The phone rings four times. His voice mail comes on. Hey, you know the drill.
I press Redial. Four rings. Voice mail. Hey, you know—
I hang up and press Redial. This time it goes straight to voice mail.
So Rolly’s turned off his phone. I keep calling. Every time I hear his voice, I press Redial. I almost leave a message once, but the words never migrate to my lips from wherever it is words are born.
Sunday is my least favorite day because there’s all this free time to think. I wake at 9:00 and stay in bed another half hour. Mrs. Eden, my AP English teacher, gave me a five-page paper to turn in on the last day of class. She assigned essay topics to the top five students in the class for extra credit. The first four topics were “courage,” “honesty,” “fairness,” and “loyalty.” Really drab stuff. Then came my turn. “And Silvia,” Mrs. Eden said, “gets to write about love,” which she pronounced dragging the word out, stretching the vowel, ending on a soft vee, which caused the boys in the class to whoop and howl. Some of the guys made smooching sounds, craning their necks, kissing the air.