By the time Beatriz left, she almost had Ana convinced that she was doing her job, going with Montalvo on this not-a-date date. Sort of. No, Ana still felt uneasy when she called Diego’s cell phone to leave a message about the evening.
“Hi, mi’jo! It’s your mother. I have a meeting tonight after work. It’s a last-minute thing. There’s some papa in the freezer you can heat up for dinner. Call me at your break and I’ll talk you through it.”
As soon as Ana hung up the phone she changed her mind.
No, no, no. This is not a good idea, she told herself. But I want to go. Ana nearly jumped from her chair when her cell phone rang. It was Beatriz.
“Just go!” her friend bellowed. She knew Ana totalmente.
“Ay, tú! Déjame! Look, I got to go. Mi’jo is calling,” Ana said, glad to get away from Beatriz pushing her to the deep end of the pool.
“Hi mi’jo. I forgot. You have band practice tonight, don’t you?”
“No. We’re eating dinner with ’Apá tonight.”
“You are? Oh.” Qué coraje! Ana was out of excuses.
“’Amá? I’m going to be late for class.”
“Okay, mi’jo. I’ll see you later. Tell your sister.”
Ana hung up the phone and turned her attention to the papers on her desk, counting the minutes until it was time to see Montalvo.
When Ana got to the Esperanza Center, the small lobby was packed. A banner welcoming the crowd to the Xicana Rites & Rituals Film Festival hung overhead, with a long line beneath it, threading through the lobby and out the door. Ana searched the line for Montalvo. When she didn’t see him, she was directed to the place near the stairs where others were waiting for their friends, dates, or companions. Ana cut through to the corner where she would be out of the way. This crowd was different from those at most of the events she and Montalvo had attended. Less gold, silver, and old money; more hemp, inked arms, and message T-shirts:
“Straight but not narrow.”
“My other car is a broom.”
“Sí, se puede!”
Ana thought the T-shirt a young woman in front of her was wearing had a typo, until a buxom woman found her and gave her a kiss on the mouth. Then the T-shirt made sense:
“Vagitarian.”
When the women stopped kissing, they looked at Ana, who was watching them, admiring them, really; touched by their honesty. She smiled meekly, and the women clasped hands and began talking to each other with their foreheads touching.
Esteban would never go for this, Ana thought.
When the rope was finally pulled back to let the ticket holders climb the stairs to the space where the films would be shown, the crowd thinned, leaving Ana and a few others still waiting. Maybe Montalvo isn’t going to show up. Maybe he got caught up in his work and didn’t want to stop. Maybe he found something better to do. Maybe he changed his mind. Ana had gone through all the maybes in her head when she heard a gasp among some of the women. She saw hands fly up to mouths and whispers into the nearest comadre’s ears.
When she turned to see what got their attention, there was Montalvo. He was wearing a crisp, white guayabera over jet-black jeans like he wore the first day she saw him. Because he was so tall and striking, he cut through the crowd como un sail. Women and men looked him up and down as he passed. Those who dared to make eye contact, he nodded at graciously. One woman mouthed the word wow to her friend as she fanned herself with her program.
“I would totally do him,” a man behind Ana said.
“Me, too,” said the woman wearing the “Vagitarian” T-shirt.
“No way!” her girlfriend gasped, grabbing a handful of her girlfriend’s nalgas.
“I bet she would!” the man said. “Mr. Yummy has something so totally going on under that ’buelito shirt.”
The buxom girlfriend was stricken. “I’d only do it once. And I’d let you watch,” the Vagitarian said bien naughty.
“No, no, no—you kitties go braid each other’s fur, or whatever it is you all do. He’s coming over here for me!” the man said. When Montalvo stopped in front of Ana, las hociconas fell silent, their mouths shaped into airless ahs.
“Ana! Dispénseme, I am late!” Montalvo leaned down to greet Ana with a kiss on the cheek. Now the Vagitarian was watching Ana.
“Why, hello,” the man said, cutting between Ana and Montalvo. “You’re that artist I keep reading about in the paper, aren’t you? Carlos Montalvo, yes?” The man was standing close to Montalvo, his chin drawn to his chest, his hand fondling the opening of his shirt, trying to get—cómo se dice?—a read on Montalvo. Would he be tempted or angry?
“Yes, I am,” Montalvo said without hesitation. “And you would be?”
When Montalvo was not rattled or intrigued, the man did not have a backup plan.
“Who, me?” the man stammered. “Oh, I’m nobody! I just came because I heard there was free food!” As soon as the words fell from his mouth, the man felt stupid.
“Well then, con permiso.” Montalvo took Ana by the elbow and led her over to get their passes.
“What’s wrong with you?” the Vagitarian laughed.
“Oh, shut up!” the man said, dripping with envidia as Montalvo and Ana climbed the stairs and out of sight.
“I’m so glad you came,” Montalvo said. “When I get tickets to things like this, they always give me two, and I hate to waste.”
“Thanks for inviting me. I’ve never been here before. I’ve heard of this place, but this is my first time.”
The director of the center rushed over to introduce herself to Montalvo as soon as he reached the top of the stairs. Those who hadn’t seen him on the main floor began to chatter about him wildly. The woman who was the featured filmmaker of the night came up to him, and before Ana knew it, she had whisked him off to the bar. Ana didn’t know if she should follow him, find a seat, or stand against the wall. She decided the easiest thing to do was to go and freshen up. She looked around for the restroom and slipped in. She wouldn’t feel lost in there.
A woman who had already had too much to drink stopped to talk to Ana as she washed her hands.
“Girl, your man is divine!”
“What? Oh, no. We’re just friends,” Ana quickly explained.
“Jus’ friends? Oh, hell. I wish I had a friend like that!”
The woman made Ana uneasy. “He’s a visiting artist at the university, where I work. I’m just here keeping him company,” she said primly. “We’re just—”
“Oh, yeah. I think I heard about him,” the woman said, as she swayed from side to side, trying to put on lipstick. “Let me tell you something. Whenever he goes back to heaven, I would follow him! You hear me? You should jump on that angel and fly!” The woman left the restroom with lipstick on her teeth. She knew she shouldn’t be, but Ana was pleased. She liked how Montalvo’s hand grazed her back as they climbed the stairs, how he leaned in with his whole body to listen to her. She liked the company of his—how they say—arresting male energy. He could be with anyone he wanted, and he chose to be with her. She was flattered, even if nothing would come of it. Would something come of all this? she wondered. Ay, no—Ana pushed the idea out of her mind.
When Ana came out of the women’s room, Montalvo was waiting with a plastic cup of white wine.
“Perdón, all these people! I’m all yours now.”
The director had roped off some VIP seats near the front, but Montalvo asked Ana if she would mind sitting in the back.
“That way,” he whispered, “if the films are bad we can leave without anyone noticing.” He smiled elegantly at the filmmaker, who was walking across the room to take her seat.
“Isn’t she your friend?”
“I know her,” he said, still smiling. “But her work is, how the students say: it blows.”
The first few films were shorts. The low-budget films had what the people around Ana called “earnest performances and wonky camera angles meant to look arty.” The main feature film was about a woman and her daug
hter. The daughter was going off to college and the mother wondered if she’d prepared her well enough for life ahead. When the mother told the daughter she wanted to buy her a—cómo se dice?—un vibrator, las mujeres in the audience clapped and clapped. Qué curioso, Ana thought. She had some kinks it would be good to work out. Pero, when the mother and her daughter went to estor to buy it, she saw it was not the same cosa she was thinking of. Could she do that with Carmen? N’ombre! Nunca! Maybe? She wanted to find out what happened with this woman and her daughter when Montalvo leaned over to her and hissed.
“Híjole! Can you believe this?”
Ana only partially heard him. Montalvo leaned in again.
“Listo?”
“Ready for what?” Ana whispered.
“To leave.”
“You want to leave?”
Ana remembered having this conversation with Esteban. She was surprised she was having it with Montalvo. She thought he was different.
“Tengo hambre,” he said, rubbing his dark hand over the bright white of his shirt.
“There’s a barbecue place across the street, and some other places down the street,” Ana whispered. “Pick one and I’ll find you later.”
When Montalvo didn’t move, she turned to him. “I want to watch the rest.”
Montalvo stood up, then sat down again.
“How will you know where to find me?”
“I only saw three places. It won’t be hard.”
Montalvo stood and left, wondering why Ana would want to watch the rest of the ridiculous movie. In the back of her mind, Ana wondered if letting Montalvo go was a good idea. It’s what she did with Esteban when she took him to something where he got bored or overwhelmed. Had she insulted Montalvo? Esteban was always relieved when Ana let him off the hook, and she hoped Montalvo felt the same way.
When the film was finished. Ana stayed for the talk with the filmmaker and two of the actors flown in for the festival. Ana didn’t ask any questions—oh, no—but she listened to the women, who talked about sex and pleasure, the mother-daughter story, and how no one had heard a story like that before, especially one with a Latina mother and daughter. When it ended, Ana walked up to the filmmaker and told her how much she liked the film and how much it moved her.
“Why, thank you—thank you so much,” the filmmaker said. “And what about you, Mr. Hard-ass Critic?” The filmmaker was looking past Ana at the person standing behind her.
“Ay! Qué hermoso! Bien hecho, mujer!”
Ana was surprised to hear the words come from Montalvo. When she turned to look at him, the filmmaker took the chance to reach past her and pull Montalvo close to her.
“No, really. Dime la verdad—you liked it?” the filmmaker asked in a low voice.
“Of course!” Montalvo said.
“Let’s see what you say after I buy you another drink! Then I can hear what you really think!” The woman looked at Ana. “I bet your friend has to go to work bright and early in the morning, and if I remember correctly, you like to sleep in late.” The woman ran her fingertips along the buttons of Montalvo’s shirt. He took her hand and patted it in a grandfatherly way.
“But I must get up first thing in the morning, también. I am teaching here.”
“Oh, yes,” the woman said. “I heard. The teaching gig. You better be careful, mi amor. You climb into the velvet coffin and you might not be able to climb out.”
Montalvo chuckled as he released the woman’s hand. “Ay, mujer. It’s been a long day, and I must prepare for class tomorrow,” he said. “Let us have lunch tomorrow, and I’ll tell you all you want to know.”
“Ay no, mi amor. I fly back to Califas tomorrow! It’s tonight or nothing!” the filmmaker said. She wanted Montalvo to know this was his last chance.
“Lástima! Pues, then this is goodbye!”
The filmmaker’s face dimmed a little. “Well, we can talk by e-mail, no?”
“Por supuesto!” he said.
Montalvo and the filmmaker exchanged kisses on the cheek before he turned to Ana.
“Listo, ahora?”
“Sure,” Ana said. As they were walking Ana started thinking. “Hey, you don’t have a computer.”
Montalvo looked at her and beamed. “Ándale, before she remembers that.”
After several stops along the way, they finally made their way outside the building and walked to the parking lot.
“I hope you didn’t think—you didn’t have to come back. I would have found you,” Ana said, when they reached her car.
“I never left. I was going to, but it did not seem polite to leave you here alone, since I invited you.”
“You didn’t eat?”
“No. I was not hungry. More like restless. I get very restless and have to move. I was in the back.”
“So you saw the whole thing?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “It was better than I thought it was going to be.”
“Ah-ha!” Ana said with satisfaction. “So a little patience paid off, eh?”
“Perhaps, but her work is usually—how do you say it?—mixed. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Most of the time, very, very bad.”
“Hijo! You are Mr. Hard-ass Critic.” Ana laughed. “What did she mean when she said not to climb into the velvet coffin?”
“Oh!” Montalvo scoffed. “She was talking about how it is not good for an artist to join the academy. They stop doing real work and become only someone who can teach.”
“But teaching is important,” Ana said, remembering her mission.
“Of course it is! But there is always a danger of getting too safe, getting too comfortable. There is something to be said for keeping the edge, and that only happens when an artist is hungry.”
“Isn’t that starving-artist image overromanticized?” Ana said. “There’s nothing wrong with having a roof over your head, a studio, health insurance, travel money, and students to inspire you.”
“Yes, yes, all of that is true,” Montalvo said. “Stability is attractive, but we fight it, too. Teaching is honorable, but once an artist stops doing their work, the work they were meant to do, it is death.”
“So, do you think your friend got lucky, or did she really do the work?”
“She is good at getting people to do her work. She’s really very lazy.”
“Lazy?”
“The story was lazy. Lazy and unbelievable.”
“Unbelievable? What was unbelievable?” Ana pressed.
“What woman would buy her child a sex toy? That was preposterous!”
“She bought it for her adult daughter, not her child,” Ana said.
“Would you do that for your daughter?”
“No, probably not. I don’t think so. I don’t know. Maybe I will when she gets older,” Ana said boldly. “I like the idea of a mother teaching her daughter about sexuality in a way that allows her to find pleasure independent of another person.”
Who said that? Did I really say that? Ana wondered.
Montalvo felt as if a sword had been drawn and he took a defensive stance.
“Well, if the daughter would have found a real man, instead of that tonto boyfriend she had …” Montalvo waved his hand dismissively. “It was ridiculous! It was not realistic to me.”
“Not to you,” Ana said. “But I think it said something to the women in there. It said something to me. And it wasn’t all about the sex toy. That was one small part. It was about trying to teach your child to be her own person, the girl to be her own woman.”
“I agree!” Montalvo exclaimed. He was slightly annoyed that Ana wouldn’t let this go, but excited that she would not back down. “But why did the man have to be so, so … always in these women’s films, the man is so … he was hardly in it!”
“Because it was not his story!” Ana roared.
Before the two of them knew it, they were debating the film. The story, how it looked, the performances, the script—all of it, taking playful but strong swipes at each other’s opinions
. Montalvo was dazzled. Challenged, but dazzled. He began to wonder if Ana was this demanding and aggressive … elsewhere. And Ana—she took pleasure in meeting each of his serves with a forceful response. No matter what direction he came from, she was able to return. That was exciting enough, but having someone who could do that, who wanted to do that with her—she was thrilled.
“Oye, if we are going to keep talking about this, at least let us do it over tacos. You have made me weak! Vamos!”
“Oh—I can’t,” Ana said, remembering who she was. “I would love to, but tomorrow is a school day, remember? I have to go to work.”
“Lástima,” Montalvo said. This time, he said it sadly, as if he did not want the evening to end. Ana’s feet were sore from standing for so long. She leaned against the car. Oh! If only Montalvo would lean against her …
“This was fun,” Montalvo said. “I would like it if we can do this again. After the holiday, yes?” Montalvo leaned on the car next to her, leaving a wide gap between them.
“Of course, maybe during the spring break.”
“I will be traveling,” he sighed. Then he tried to hold back a yawn, raising his wrist to his mouth. “Híjole! This day is almost over!” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s almost midnight!”
“No! Verdad?” Ana said. She looked around the parking lot. They were the only ones in it, their cars parked on either end.
“Buenas noches, Ana. It was a wonderful evening. I think the end of the semester will be busy, but we should have lunch before the break.”
“Yes, yes,” Ana said, a little frantically. She had turned off her cell phone for the film and forgot all about it. Had her children called? What would they be thinking?
“Of course, but it was nice to see you outside of school,” Montalvo said. “Even if your taste in movies is crazy!”
“Ay, qué malo!” Ana laughed. “Do you know how to get home from here? I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was this late, and my kids must be wondering where I am.”
“Sí. Vaya. Hasta pronto.”
Montalvo trotted over to his car as Ana waited for her phone to turn on. He drove up next to her and waved before driving off into the night. Ana was relieved when there were no messages on her phone, and even more relieved when she returned home and found her kids were fast asleep.
Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz Page 19