by Lewis Shiner
It was a sentimental patriotic ballad, not one of Cole’s favorites. «Claro que sí,» Cole said. «We would love to play that for you.»
Somebody found Ortiz a chair while they tuned up. Alex sang lead on “Mexico,” and after that they played “Guadalajara” and, inevitably, “Cielito lindo.” Everybody in the room sang along at the top of their lungs, making so much noise that the pans hanging on the kitchen walls vibrated along.
Ortiz said something in Álvaro’s ear. Álvaro held up his hand, as if refusing money. He probably was. Ortiz smiled and waved as he walked away, again leaving a wide wake.
Later, Cole walked out to say goodnight to Alex’s parents. Susan leaned against the front of the house, holding a wine glass, looking like she needed the support. As Cole watched the Montoyas turn the corner, Álvaro put a hand on his shoulder. «Care for a little mota?»
«Not for me,» Cole said. «You go ahead.»
«Not drinking either?»
«Not for a while now. I liked it too much.»
«Smart man,» Álvaro said.
Though the crowd had thinned, the party was far from over. They had Death on the run, but not yet vanquished.
«You made a very good impression on El Cicatriz,» Álvaro said.
«You’re talking about Ortiz?»
«Claro. It’s all the fashion these days to have nicknames, usually some kind of scary shit. The Scorpion. The Mad Dog.»
«What do they call you?»
«El Mariachi Loco.»
«Not so scary.»
Álvaro laughed. «I’m not a scary guy.»
Which was not entirely true. Álvaro wasn’t in the same gym-hardened shape as Ortiz, but his wall eye and dissipated air made him look like somebody to not get on the wrong side of.
«How come El Cicatriz? I didn’t see any scars.»
«He says they’re all on the inside. When he was fifteen, the federales killed his older brother in the street. Mistaken identity. His mother died from grief.»
«Can you do that? Die from grief?» Cole didn’t mean to be cynical. The question just popped out.
«You can if you stop eating, which is what she did. Anyway, he joined the federales himself as soon as he was old enough, and within a year everyone who had anything to do with the death of his brother was dead too.»
Cole thought about Ortiz’s eyes.
«Listen,» Álvaro said, «I’ve never seen a gringo with the kind of feeling for this music that you have.»
«Thanks. Coming from you, that’s quite a compliment.»
«The guys I work for, they all love this shit. You and Félix, if you put a group together, I personally guarantee you could make some real money.»
The idea terrified him and ever-so-slightly tempted him. «The group would just play music, and nothing else?»
«Nada más. Private parties, lots of benefits. The drugs I guess you wouldn’t care about, but maybe the women?»
Álvaro followed Cole’s glance to Susan, who looked at Cole and licked the rim of the wineglass. Álvaro laughed. «Or maybe you’re covered in that department too. You think about it, you let me know if you’re interested.» He gave Cole a card that listed him as a Vice-President of Sales. «It was a real pleasure to see you again. You’ve grown into a really first-class musician.»
Cole was touched. «Thank you. I really loved playing with you. You have to go?»
«I’ve got a long drive tonight. And I think the amateurs have taken over.»
Cole focused his ears and heard a drunken howling from the stage. «Ah. Así es.»
Álvaro hugged him and said, «I think you have an appointment of your own to keep.» He nodded to Susan, lifted his hand, and said, «Que Dios te bendiga,» as he walked away.
Cole took the empty glass from Susan’s hand and put it on a nearby table. When he turned back she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth like a warm serpent. “Take me home and put me to bed,” she said in English.
“Shouldn’t we say goodnight to Alex?”
“No.”
They started downhill to Avenida Juárez, arms around each other’s waists. “Does it bother you that I’m a little drunk?” Susan said.
In fact it bothered him more than he wanted to admit. “How drunk are you? Do you just want to go to sleep?”
“No,” she said, and stopped in the street to kiss him again. “Do you?”
“I’ve been waiting twenty-five years. I don’t want to wait any longer. What if you change your mind?”
“Don’t say that,” she said with unexpected heat. “What you fear in others is what you fear in yourself.”
“I loved you from the first time I saw you,” Cole said, in an attempt to get things back on track. The words set his libido on fire again. “I’ll love you till the day I die.”
She stopped again, put her hands on his face. “Really?” Her eyes shone as she ricocheted from one emotion to the next.
“Really,” he said.
“I want you so much. Make love to me, here in the street, right now.”
She seemed serious. “I want you in my bed,” he improvised. “I want to go to sleep in your arms after.”
“Okay,” she said. “Hurry.”
They were out of breath by the time they got to his apartment. They each took a turn in the bathroom and shared Cole’s toothbrush. The domesticity dampened their momentum. “I should take some aspirin,” Susan said. “Can I have some bottled water?”
He brought the water to her in the bathroom and she swallowed three aspirin and drained the glass. She set it on the edge of the sink and looked in the mirror and yawned.
“Susan,” Cole said. “This is…”
She turned around, reaching behind her with both hands to hold on to the sink. “It’s what?”
“It’s not…”
“Not what?”
She stared at him and he saw that she felt the magic slipping away too, the footmen turning into mice, the cakes and pastries to fairy dust, and behind her anger and disappointment he saw her longing and her need. He lifted her by her damp armpits and set her on tiptoe in front of him and kissed her, his fingers digging into her shoulder blades, and her arms went around his neck and he felt her fingernails on his back and in his scalp. The bathroom was too cramped for him to pick her up, so he backed her toward the bedroom, both of them bumping into doorframes and finally falling onto the bed.
They struggled out of their clothes, then Cole was fumbling with a condom and then, incredibly, he was inside her. Making love to Susan Montoya.
When it was over he lay on top of her and she stroked his back. “Was it all right?” she said. “Am I the oldest woman you’ve ever had?”
“It was wonderful,” he said.
“And? Am I the oldest?”
“In terms of years older than me, no.”
“But absolute age?”
“I suppose so. Do you really think that matters to me?”
“How many?”
“How many what?”
“Others. How many other women have there been?”
“Not as many as you might think. If you want an exact count I will have to work it up for you. Not right now.”
That seemed to satisfy her. Cole held the condom in place and rolled away from her, knotted it and wrapped it in a tissue and threw it away. He put his head on her shoulder and cradled one breast with his hand and started to drift off.
“Can I smoke?” she said. She was as wide awake as he was exhausted.
“I guess.” He made himself get up to open the window next to her side of the bed. The temperature was in the mid-60s and the light breeze made him shiver.
“Is there an ashtray?” She had found the cigarettes in her purse and the flare of the match showed her smeared mascara and matted hair, the lines around her mouth. They were the signs of intimacy and vulnerability and it touched Cole’s heart and made him want her again.
He found a plastic ashtray in the kitc
hen cupboard and brought it back to bed. He curled himself around her warmth, one hand stroking her stomach, the little finger trailing into her pubic hair.
“Is the smoking going to be a problem?” she said.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “I guess I can live with it.”
“I’m going to quit, but it has to be on my own terms, in my own time.”
“Okay,” Cole said. He let his hand move lower. After a minute he said, “I don’t want you to go back to the States.”
“Be careful what you wish for.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother’s got leukemia. She’s been after me to move in with her while I’m getting myself together, take care of her.”
“I’m sorry about your mother. But if you were to move in with her… that would be fantastic.”
“You say that now.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.” He moved his fingers lower still.
“Cole. Am I really supposed to keep calling you by your last name?”
“You can just call me ‘mi amor.’ ‘Mi vida.’ ‘Mi querido.’”
She began to move under his hand. She took a big drag off her cigarette and stubbed it out.
“Ay,” she said. “Colito.”
*
The phone woke Cole at ten in the morning. Susan was nestled against his back, one arm draped over his chest. He squirmed free and grabbed the receiver. «¿Hola?»
“Is my sister there?”
«Buen día, Alejo. She’s right here.»
Susan grabbed Cole’s pillow, put it over her face, and rolled away. “I’ll call him later,” she said.
«She’ll call you later,» Cole said.
“We’re going to have brunch in an hour if you guys want to make it.” He sounded like he hoped they wouldn’t.
«Doesn’t look very likely. I’ll see what I can do.»
After a long pause, Alex said, “Listen, Cole, you think you know Susan, but you don’t, not really.”
Cole gave up and switched to English too. “Aren’t you supposed to be warning her about me and telling me what you’ll do if I hurt your sister?”
“It’s not you hurting her that I’m worried about.”
“I’m a big boy,” Cole said.
“Just watch yourself, okay? Please.”
Though offended on Susan’s behalf, Cole was also touched. “All right.”
“Check in with me later.”
«Órale,» Cole said, and hung up.
“What did he want?”
“We’re invited for breakfast in an hour.”
“No way.”
“And he said to watch out that you don’t hurt me.”
“Prick,” Susan said. “Are you sure you want to be part of this family?”
She took a long time brushing her hair and fixing her face with what makeup she had in her purse, then put on her pants from the night before with one of Cole’s T-shirts. He took her to El Mercado, where she got coffee and a pastry with thick sugar frosting. After that she made him go into an upscale men’s clothing store and try on a suit.
«I can’t afford this,» he said.
«I looked in your closet. You don’t have anything to wear to the funeral tomorrow.»
«Nobody is going to care.»
«I care, if you’re going with me. Besides, I’m paying for it.»
«How can you afford it?»
«Peter’s rich, remember?»
The suit was elegant black summer-weight wool with a fine chalk stripe. The tailor had to take in the trousers. «Ready tonight,» the salesman promised. «Eight o’clock.» Susan also bought him a white shirt and a silk tie and a pair of tasseled loafers.
“I’ve never been a kept man before,” Cole said. They had drifted into English again as they walked toward the Jardín de la Unión, Cole carrying the new clothes in a slick paper bag.
“I don’t give a damn about money. Never have. It’s a problem, it makes people around me nervous. If I have it, I spend it, if I don’t, I don’t care.”
“Now you sound like a hippie.”
“Not me. I never felt like any of that had anything to do with me. All you hippies and flower children, it was like you were the generation after me. I was oldies-but-goodies and A-line dresses and V8 cars.”
“And football players?”
“That goes with the big cars, the status-seeking. I thought if I went with the most popular boys then everybody would like me. Instead they were jealous.”
“If you remember, I never bought into your whole sorority-girl act. That was never you.”
She suddenly hugged him with desperate intensity. “To think you were right there in front of me all those years. You tried to tell me and I wouldn’t listen.”
“Is this where I get to say ‘I told you so?’”
“Don’t you dare!”
Their harsh and angular English consonants embarrassed Cole. As they moved on, the stores they passed were all open to the street, selling silver jewelry, T-shirts, souvenirs. Susan stopped to look through a rack of earrings.
“I wanted to be useful as well as decorative,” she said. “Daddy fought me at every turn. The boys were supposed to go into the family business and get rich, and I was supposed to get married. The only reason he let me go to college was to meet a husband.”
“Really?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, it just doesn’t sound like the man I know.”
“Oh, I know you have this idealized image of him. Believe me, it was different for me. Some of it was just the culture he grew up in, but you can’t explain that to a little kid. The day Alex was born, he lost interest in me. Not completely, he was very protective. But I didn’t want to be protected. I wanted to be somebody. Did you know I worked on Roe versus Wade?”
“No.”
“I knew Sarah Weddington when she was at ut and we kept in touch. You know ‘Jane Roe’ was a pseudonym, right? Her real name was Norma McCorvey and she was from Dallas. Wade was Henry Wade, the Dallas da. I was spending a lot of time in Dallas to get away from Jesse, and Sarah let me do some of the scut work on the appeal—interviews, drafting some of the briefs. It was pretty exciting, as you can imagine, women arguing before the Supreme Court on a feminist issue. I thought maybe I saw a future for myself doing that kind of work.”
“What happened?”
“Between Daddy and Jesse, they put their feet down. Typical, right? I had to give up my future as a feminist firebrand because my daddy disapproved. I wasn’t strong enough to fight both of them. And so I ended up the shattered wreck that you see before you now.”
“At least you’ve got somebody to blame. I managed to squander my talent without any help.”
“I heard you last night, remember? Seemed like a lot of talent to me.”
“Thanks. But I’m also over forty and whatever songwriting ability I might have had dried up years ago.”
“So you’re going to spend the rest of your life hiding out in Mexico?”
Cole pretended to think it over. “Sure. Why not?”
“It’s going to be a long wait, if you don’t even hurry it along with booze or dope.”
Nothing like talking about his career, Cole thought, to depress him beyond words. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and get hit by a bus.”
“I need to shower and change and see my mother. You want to come?”
“Yes,” Cole said.
He stretched out on the bed in her hotel room and didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he jerked awake and saw her standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror, her hair wrapped in a towel, the air thick with perfume and cigarette smoke as she put on her makeup. He’d never been with a woman who did the whole trip, foundation and blush to eye shadow and mascara. Hair dryer, curling iron, hairspray. Going through that much work every day just to go out into the world seemed crippling.
“You know,” he said, “you don’t have to do all that for my sake.”
When she was finally dressed, they walked to her mother’s apartment hand-in-hand. Kids ran past, laughing, and younger lovers watched them with covert smiles. If science could synthesize the chemicals we’re emitting, Cole thought, it would be Woodstock every day.
Susan’s mother felt it too. She was propped up in a hospital bed in her living room, too wobbly to make it up and down the stairs any longer. Her skull showing through the skin of her face, a turban over her chemo-depilated scalp. Her raptor’s gaze flicked between Cole and Susan as Susan went to her and kissed her forehead.
«Mama, do you remember—»
«El Guapo,» she said in a phlegmy voice.
«Hello, Iliana,» Cole said. «It’s a pleasure to see you again.»
«I doubt that. I look like La Catrina.» La Catrina was the iconic female skeleton from the Day of the Dead.
«Only even more beautiful,» Cole said, and she laughed.
«I see Susana finally changed her mind about you. When did that happen?»
«Last night,» Cole said, and Susan blushed.
«Is it that obvious?» Susan said.
«I’m jealous. He’s grown up very nicely.»
«Well, you may be seeing more of him. I’ve decided to take you up on your offer and live with you for a while. We can see how it works out.»
«Oh, m’ija,» Iliana said, and reached for Susan with both arms. Susan held her gently, then used a tissue to dab at Iliana’s overflowing eyes.
She hadn’t told Cole about her decision, hadn’t brought it up after the first time. He looked down to make sure his feet were still in contact with the floor. Only the faintest of clouds shadowed his joy, the nagging reminder that getting what he’d asked for had not worked out that well so far.
«So El Guapo will be living here too?» She sounded like she had some concerns of her own.
Before Cole could say that he had his own apartment, Susan said, «Yes. El Guapo too.»
*
Alex had not expected Cole and Susan to show up for brunch, yet he was disappointed just the same. He felt like Cole had traded him in for Susan and taken off.
The wake had played perfectly into the feelings of seclusion he’d been having, of loneliness, of time tearing things apart. At the same time, it had reawakened his sense of being a Montoya, of what that meant. And now Cole and Susan had to go and put the entire, delicate equilibrium of the family at risk.