by Jon Michaud
It was almost five and no one had come or gone from the house. She took a final look and started the engine. If she didn't get out of there, she was going to have a panic attack. She drove home. The next day, when she tried to reconstruct everything that had happened, she would find that she could not remember anything about the drive home, no landmarks passed, no tolls paid, no fool pulling a dumb move in front of her. It was a quarter to six when she turned onto Passaic Street. Someone on the block must have been having a party because there were a half-dozen cars parked on the street. As Clara pulled into her driveway, she understood that the house where the party was taking place was her own. Through the window, she saw Dominicans: Dominican men holding beer bottles, Dominican women in bright summer dresses. Reggaeton was playing loud enough to vibrate the aluminum siding. She wondered if any of the neighbors had called the police yet. Doubtful—it was still daylight and the party did not seem to be out of control (so far). Last Fourth of July, the Samuels across the street had waited until ten o'clock to call the police on their next-door neighbors, the Carlisles, who were hosting their annual Independence Day bash. A mild scuffle had broken out when LeShon Carlisle had refused, at first, to send his guests home. That was the last thing she needed today.
Clara went in the back door, her mouth still tasting like tin, preparing herself for the worst—for her dining room table to have been broken in half by someone dancing on it, for her kitchen walls to have been charred by someone trying to extinguish a grease fire with a glass of water. The actual state of things was not nearly so bad. It was just a party, the sort of food-drink-and-dancing gathering that accompanied every significant Dominican life event, from a birthday to a graduation to Mother's Day. Clara assumed that this was an impromptu welcome home for her sister. This is certainly what would have been going on at Yunis's apartment this afternoon if she had been able to return there from the airport. Clara's only wish was that her sister had asked her first.
“Clara!” said her cousin Manny, who was standing at the kitchen counter, slicing chunks of meat from a pernil in a tinfoil baking dish, his three-hundred-pound body shaking with the effort. Nearby a platter was dressed in a grease-soaked paper towel on which a single pastelito was marooned. Glasses everywhere. Bottles everywhere. Plates with bones and crumbs and grains of rice on them. The music thumping away.
“Hi, Manny.” She kissed him on his pillowy cheek.
“Yo, you should try some of this. It's slamming. Erlinda outdone herself.”
“That's OK, thanks. Where's Guillermo?”
“Downstairs.”
“I'm going to go check on him.” She nodded and went down to the basement. Guillermo was on the couch, a Hot Wheels car in his hand, Deysei at his side, with her arm around him. The robot that Thomas had bought Guillermo was on the floor close by. They were watching Tom and Jerry. It was the one in which Jerry goes to Manhattan, gets scared out of his wits, and comes running back to Tom.
“Mommy!” said Guillermo, getting off the couch and hugging her.
“Hi sweetheart.” She hugged him back. No matter what, there was always Guillermo in her life. “How's everything?”
“We're watching cartoons,” he said.
“I see that. Deysei's looking after you, huh?”
“Yes, Mommy. It's too loud upstairs.”
“I agree. It's too loud. How are you, Deysei?”
“Tired,” she said. She had a scowl.
“Have you had a chance to talk to your mother?”
“A little. Manny and Erlinda got here right after you left—like they were waiting around the corner or something. Then everyone started coming.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Not yet. I just want to get it over with now, but she ain't interested in me. Too busy having a good time with her friends.”
“All right. You guys did the right thing coming down here. Let me go upstairs and find your mother.”
Manny was no longer in the kitchen. A woman Clara had met once at Yunis's was reaching into the fridge for a beer.
“You want one?” she asked Clara.
Clara said no and went into the living room. Seven or eight people were in there, drinking and talking. It smelled like at least one of them had been smoking a joint. Someone called out her name, but since her sister was not in the room, she did not bother to respond. She looked into the dining room, where the table was intact and laden with food and her best china. Four or five people were in there getting seconds or thirds for themselves. Again, her sister was not among them. “This is off the hook!” someone exclaimed.
She finally found Yunis in the sun room, on the love seat, holding a bottle of Corona and a cigarette. A guy Clara didn't recognize was sitting next to her, trying to get cozy. Yunis was talking on the phone while laughing and fending off the guy's advances. A third person, a younger guy, maybe in his late teens, was sitting at her computer playing some kind of online video game. The guy who was trying to get friendly with her sister looked up and said, “Oye.”
This got Yunis's attention. She said something into her phone and snapped it shut. “Hey, Sis,” she said, nonchalantly.
“What the hell?” said Clara. “Huh, Yunis? What the hell? I leave you here to look after my child and you have a party!”
“I told you Manny and Erlinda were coming.”
“Yes, you did. Who are the rest of these people?”
“I'm Carlos,” said the guy on the couch next to Yunis.
Clara ignored him, kept her gaze on her sister.
“Word got around,” said Yunis. “I guess I got a lot of friends.”
“Jesus, Yunis. This is my house. If you're going to stay here you can't be doing this shit. No wonder Mami kicked you out. This isn't Washington Heights.”
“C'mon, Sis. Chill out. Have a drink. And whatever you do, don't bring Mami into this. How was your date?”
“It wasn't a fucking date!”
“Not so good, huh?” said Yunis sipping her beer, smiling.
Clara shook her head in exasperation. She wanted to slap her sister. From far away, there was the sound of shattering glass, as if a heavy crystal vase had been dropped on the floor.
“Oh, shit,” said Yunis.
Clara left the sunroom and walked through the dining room, turning off the stereo on her way to the stairs. At the top of the stairs, two young men in baseball caps and football jerseys were bent over, laughing uncontrollably. Right behind them, in the bathroom, a stepladder straddled the shards that remained of a light fixture.
“What happened?” asked Clara.
The two young men straightened up and tried to control their laughter, but the giggles escaped from their mouths. They were responsible for the joint she'd smelled downstairs, she was sure.
“Why is my light fixture broken?” she asked, hoping a more specific question would produce an answer.
“The bulb burned out,” said the first, who wore a Miami Dolphins jersey. This was all he could manage before breaking up again.
“We were trying to put in a new one,” said the second, who wore the silver and black of the Oakland Raiders. “But we didn't screw it in right.”
“I guess we screwed up!” said the first.
Clara looked at them for a long moment, at the completeness of their amusement. When was the last time she had laughed like that—high or not? She couldn't remember. “Out of my house!” she finally said.
This got them to stop laughing. “This is your house?” the second asked.
“Yes. My house. I pay the mortgage here. The party's over.” Just as she said this, the music came back on, even louder than before.
“Damn,” said the second. “I can't believe that. I thought this was Yunis's place. I thought she bought it with the inheritance money she got.” They walked down the stairs, leaving behind the mess on the bathroom floor.
Clara watched them go and thought it best to check the three upstairs bedrooms before following them. With some relief, she dis
covered that the master was empty and, apparently, untouched. The guest room—now Deysei's—was likewise unoccupied and undisturbed. But opening the door to Guillermo's Pixar-themed room, she heard voices. The room was darkened, with the curtains drawn. Under the Buzz Lightyear quilt there was a mound that could only be a body—or two. Clara turned on the lights and immediately saw two pairs of shoes on the floor, a pair of Nikes and pair of red strappy fuck-me heels.
“Come on out,” she said. “I know you're under there.” This was a game she played with Guillermo sometimes in the morning and she used the same tone now.
The quilt was thrown back, revealing an old friend of Yunis's from Inwood named Aurora and a guy Clara didn't know. The guy's bare, muscular brown arm, emerged like a rifle from under the quilt. Who the hell are all these people? she asked herself. Hadn't she come to New Jersey to escape them? Aurora was sitting up now, buttoning herself back into presentability, her unhooked bra strap hanging out the armhole of her sleeveless blouse. The guy was reaching under the covers, obviously pulling his pants back up. He was sucking his teeth and sighing as he did so. Guillermo's Lightning McQueen lamp had been knocked over during their tryst and lay on its side. Some of the books in the bedside stand had also been bumped to the floor.
“Christ, Aurora!” said Clara.
“In my son's bed?” “Sorry,” she said in the Dominican-inflected way—So-ree—getting out from under the quilt and stepping into her heels. She smoothed her blouse and her skirt.
“You too,” Clara said to guy.
“Out of the bed now.”
“In a minute. I've got a boner over here.”
“I don't care. Out!”
“I thought you said we wouldn't be disturbed,” the guy said to Aurora.
“Shut up and let's go,” she replied.
“Stupid fucking bitch.”
“Take it outside,” said Clara.
“Both of you.”
When they had gone, she stripped the bed—no condoms, no stains, thank goodness—and put the sheets in the hamper in the bathroom, taking care not to stand on the shattered glass. With the toilet brush, she swept the shards onto a week-old sports page Thomas had left draped over one of the towel rails. She carried the paper downstairs and wrapped it up in another sheet of newsprint before stuffing it into the garbage can, which was overflowing with chicken bones and plastic bottles. The party was not breaking up. There were people in every room, drinking and talking. The reggaeton had been replaced with merengue and a few people were dancing in the living room. It was like trying to kill a Hydra. She went into the sunroom looking for Yunis, but it was empty save for the teenager at the computer, blasting away at the alien spaceships.
“Where's my sister?” she asked him.
“I dunno,” he replied without looking up from the game.
“Some girl came in looking for her. I think they went downstairs.”
“Christ,” said Clara. She walked back through the dining room, past the dancing couples, this time unplugging the stereo midsong. “This party is over!” she yelled in the direction of the living room. Standing in the kitchen at the top of the basement stairs, Clara heard a scream from below, a wordless cry, as if the house itself were wailing. It was her sister's voice. By the time Clara got to the bottom of the stairs, she could hear her niece: “No, Mami. No!” Clara dashed past the washing machine and dryer and entered the den in time to see something she did not completely comprehend at first, but something she would never be able to forget. Deysei and Guillermo were still sitting on the couch. Guillermo was trying to get off the couch, as if a giant spider was approaching him. Deysei, unable to move like Guillermo, was holding up her hands to fend off her mother's foot, which, encased in its white wedge-heeled shoe, was descending toward her. “No Mami!” she called again. Clara was too far away to do anything. She saw Yunis's foot go into her daughter's midsection like a pizza maker's fist going into a ball of dough. Deysei screamed.
Yunis lifted her foot to stomp Deysei again, but by this time, Clara was moving. She raced across the room and jumped on her sister's back. They rolled to the floor, Clara's head colliding with the base of the couch.
Yunis was standing up. “I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill you. Fucking my boyfriend.”
“Stop it! Stop it!” shouted Clara, clutching at her sister.
“She's been fucking Raúl!”
“I know,” said Clara. She could hear Deysei crying now and, on top of it, Guillermo shrieking.
“You know and you didn't tell me?”
The ruckus had brought people down from the party, a half-dozen of them, coming into the room, Manny in front.
“Somebody call the police,” shouted Yunis. “They've got to arrest him. He's a goddamn rapist. I'll tell them where he lives.”
“Calm down,” said Clara.
“I'm not calming down. I ain't never going to calm down from this!”
Deysei was still on the couch, curled tightly, holding herself and moaning.
“We've got to get her to a hospital,” said Clara to Yunis.
“Yeah, so they can take that fucking thing out of her,” said Yunis.
THE HOSPITAL. AGAIN.
Hospitals were second only to airports in Clara's list of least-liked places. Just like airports, hospitals were venues for arrivals and departures, for beginnings and ends. A day that contained a visit to both could not be a good one.
The emergency room nurse sent them up to the triage section of the labor and delivery ward. There, Deysei was taken in as if she were going to give birth, the nurse asking lots of questions. Clara explained that her niece had been kicked in the stomach during a fight at a party. The nurse was unfazed, as if she heard this story every day. Very quickly, they had her undressed and into a smock, a fetal heartbeat monitor strapped to her stomach. The heartbeat was there, beep-beep-beeping away with comforting regularity. A doctor came in and performed an exam and then an ultrasound. The fetus was clearly visible on the screen, the spine like a row of little teeth, its still-forming limbs moving in that silent darkness.
“You are leaking amniotic fluid. Your bag of waters has been ruptured. There is no way for us to save this pregnancy,” the doctor said.
Deysei began to weep. She'd been holding it in the whole time—in the car, in the emergency room, and through the examination. Now she let her tears out. Seeing it, Clara began to cry, too.
“It's OK?” asked Guillermo. Clara had brought him along. Manny was supposed to be taking Yunis back to Inwood. Back to his place or somewhere else. She didn't care.
“No, Gilly, it's not OK.”
“Was the baby was hurt?” asked Guillermo.
“Yes,” said Clara.
And then Guillermo began to weep, too.
Thomas
The second interview—a daylong series of introductions, meetings, and Q&As—had gone smoothly. It had been hospitable, collegial, with no third-degree, no surprise quizzes to test his knowledge of Anglo-American cataloging rules or the Dublin Core. The company, Susquehanna Serials, was headquartered in a glass building off the Dulles toll road in northern Virginia. About midway through the afternoon, as a personnel officer was going through various benefits packages, Thomas realized that the job was his. They would not be putting themselves through all of this—the expense of getting him down here, the hours of meetings, the discussion of salary—if they had not already decided that they liked him. Unless he spat on someone or made an off-color joke before leaving, he could expect a call in the next week telling him that he'd been hired. The recognition filled him with happiness and relief. It was not the perfect job, but it was a job and that would do for now. He was going to be a salesman. That's not what the position was called, but that is what it was. He would be pitching Susquehanna's databases to corporations, universities, and libraries in the New York area and providing follow-up support for existing customers. A certain amount of his salary would be based on commission; there was also the possibility
of performance-related bonuses. The fact that he had worked with similar kinds of clients at BiblioFile—and the fact that one of Susquehanna's VPs was a former BiblioFile exec—seemed to please everyone. “We'll be in touch soon,” the human resources manager said as they parted. “Real soon.”
A cab took him to the nearest Metro stop, where he got on a train to Bethesda. The job would require regular trips back to the D.C. area, which was not a bad thing—he'd be able to see his mother more often than he did now. As he rode in the back of the cab, he tried not to get too far ahead of himself. Employment would be a good thing, definitely. It would erase one set of concerns, but there was still all kinds of other shit going on—with Melissa, with Deysei, with Clara's fertility problems.
He got out of the cab and, before going into the Metro, he called his wife.
“Hi? Thomas?”
“Yes. What's up?” He could hear something frying in the back-ground. The radio. Guillermo saying something. The evening routine under way.
“Hold on, baby, I'm talking to Daddy,” Clara said to Guillermo. And then to him: “So, are you done? How did it go?”
“Really well, actually. I don't want to jinx it, but—”
“Don't jinx it!” said Clara. “That's so great. When will they let you know?”
“Soon. Maybe next week.”
“It was a long wait, Thomas, but totally worth it. OK, I don't want to count our eggs—”
“You mean our chickens.”
“Yes. So, are you going to take your mom out to celebrate?”
“I think I might,” he said. His mother was going to pick him up from the Bethesda station.
“Do you know what train you're going to be taking home tomorrow?”