Friday Night Chicas

by Mary Castillo

  “I’d love to go.”

  * * *

  I admit it bothered me for a second when Miriam nixed the idea of meeting at Tom’s for dinner when we touched base by phone on Friday afternoon. I caught her before she had to run into a business meeting, so catching up had to wait until dinner in favor of planning Gladys’s special night.

  “Did you buy her gift yet?”

  “No,” I said, hoping my shame went undetected.

  “Great. Don’t. After dinner let’s take her to one of those sex shops so she can pick whatever she wants.”

  I loved that Miriam was still such a take-charge gal, especially when it got me off the hook. “And then let’s have dinner at Tom’s.”

  “That dive?” You’d think I recommended Burger King. “Ay, no, no, no…” Miriam insisted we take Gladys to Il Mulino for dinner and then to the ten o’clock show at Studs. I understood wanting to take Gladys to a nice place, especially one near the club. But I thought Tom’s would be perfect even if it doesn’t have a Tokyo location, a sommelier, or reservation list. “We have to take Gladys someplace special,” she said.

  Tom’s is special, I thought, but I bit my tongue. Instead I said, “Il Mulino’s it is.” Like I went there all the time even though I had never heard of it before Miriam recommended it.

  “Gladys does not pay a cent for anything.”

  “Of course.”

  “And whatever happens with us tonight, stays with us tonight.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m serious, Ricky. You can’t say a word to your husband. God forbid, we’re all having dinner together some night, and he slips. The less he knows, the better.”

  I envisioned all of us having dinner together at my house. Eduardo and I, Gladys and Pablo, Miriam and her husband, and even Lisa happy again with a fellow worthy of her, sitting around our dining room table, the white wine and Barnard stories flowing. We tease each other and shock our men with our college escapades, all of us falling in love with one another all over again. Yet through it all, Gladys, Lisa, Miriam, and I smile at each other knowing that we had saved the best memories for our private reminiscences.

  “You got it, Miriam,” I said. “Girls only.”

  For the first time in months, I left work early. I headed to Fifth Avenue and walked into a random boutique and quickly scoured the sales rack for a dress cheap enough to fit my budget, yet pricey enough to fool Miriam’s discerning eye. Then I remembered one of her tips. Choose black. It always looks expensive. Always have one little black dress. Only an hour later when I was under the dryer at my favorite hair salon in El Barrio, while the manicurist filed my nails, did I feel a pang of guilt. When was the last time I bought a new dress or did my hair for Eduardo? Then I remembered that he preferred it when I wore my hair in its natural curl and walked around in his A-Rod jersey. Which only made me feel more guilty. Even though I hoped that this reunion with Gladys, Lisa, and Miriam would lead to more girls’ nights out, I vowed that I would plan something extra special for Eduardo next weekend. Actually, the following weekend. Next weekend was Gladys’s wedding, and I knew after tonight, she would extend an invitation which Eduardo and I would accept, of course.

  * * *

  That night Eduardo pretended to be fine with my going until the last minute. Just as I stepped out of the shower and began to apply my makeup, he snuck up behind me and planted a wet kiss on my neck. I knew what he was up to and that it wouldn’t work. But we hadn’t had sex in over a week while I worked ten-hour days over that proposal, and now I was set to skip out the door and into the hands of muscle-bound men in G-strings. Bendito, how could I deny him (or myself).

  After convincing me that he had spent the past week curling weights with his tongue, he finally came out with it in that way men who are in denial about their jealousy usually do. ’Uardo propped himself up on an elbow and said, “I can’t believe you want to go to this thing. You haven’t seen any of these women in years. Now all of sudden you’re going clubbing with them.”

  Not wanting to squelch the fading waves of pleasure before their time with too much movement, I stayed put with my eyes closed. “We’re not going clubbing, honey.” I couldn’t resist. Hey, the more you love a man, the less willing you should be to let him take you for granted. “We’re going to a male strip joint. Stuuuuuds.” That earned me a gentle tug on my hair. “Ow!” I yelped, exaggerating the damage.

  “I didn’t marry you for your sense of humor.”

  I opened my eyes and rolled over to face him. Right past that nonchalant smirk, I saw the same uneasy smile that accompanied Eduardo on our first date eight years ago. Nestling under his chin I said, “When’s the last time you hung out with the guys?” I felt his neck stiffen and laughed. “It’s not a trick question, I promise.”

  “On Sunday I went over to Dave’s, and we watched the baseball game.”

  “And when’s the last time you saw Dave and the fellas before that?”

  “I dunno.”

  I drew away from him and sat up. “You guys drove out to Jersey to check out that SUV he read about in the paper, remember?”

  Eduardo snickered. “That wasn’t exactly a guys’ night out, Ricky. Dave just saw the ad, decided to check it out, and asked me to tag along for the hell of it.”

  “The last time I had a girlfriend call me and ask me to tag along on any errand just for the hell of it…” I couldn’t even remember. Not even if I counted my sister. I looked at Eduardo to see if he was following where I was headed. He stared at me with such a longing to understand, it frightened me that he just might. I leapt out of bed, walked over to the dresser, and spritzed my hair. “I mean, who would I call if you go do something stupid, and I have to put you out?”

  I watched Eduardo’s reflection as he folded his hands behind his head and leaned back against his pillows. “In other words, ‘Don’t worry, ’Uardo. I have no intention of running off with a stripper or doing anything crazy like that while running the streets with my homegirls tonight.’”

  * * *

  So we met at Il Mulino at seven. When I arrived, Gladys and Miriam were already seated and halfway through a carafe of red wine. During the entire drive to the restaurant, I worried that I would walk into the restaurant and not be able to recognize them. That Gladys and Miriam would have changed so much I would not be able to spot them in a roomful of pantsuits and updos. Yet there they sat almost like I remembered them with nothing but changes for the better.

  Gladys put on a few pounds and looked fabulous for it. She chopped her straight, dark hair into a sleek bob, and as always, her makeup was flawless. Gladys opted for a black V-neck blouse, a flared ankle-length skirt and boots with tiny heels.

  Miriam looked exactly the same except she dyed her hair a honey blond and shimmied her still petite yet curvaceous frame into a low-cut dress the color of a maraschino cherry. While I had no doubt that Miriam had her hair done at Oribe’s and that what she spent for her entire outfit would cover my mortgage, her new look shocked me. In fact, it seemed like Miriam and Gladys had exchanged looks over the years where Miriam turned up the volume on hers while Gladys toned down hers. I decided to take this as a good omen and hoped that they would see a similar, positive change in me.

  “Ricarda Durán!” Miriam called, and soon the three of us huddled in the middle of the restaurant in a screechy group hug. That, too, made me feel better as the uncomfortable vision of them greeting me with fingertip handshakes and air kisses also crossed my mind. Before we broke, we heard, “¡Diosas!” in that familiar voice. Lisa entered the restaurant and rushed over to join us.

  Of the four of us, Lisa was the one you didn’t want your boyfriend to meet. Not because she would ever betray you—she’s the one friend you knew would never do that—but because you were scared to death he would develop a not-so-secret crush on her. For a poor medical student who had just gotten off call, Lisa still radiated that natural beauty that makeup did more to cover than enhance. She had grown out her
auburn hair to shoulder length and cut it in bouncy layers. Her crème-colored pantsuit and taupe slingbacks added to her modelesque stature. I just knew that Lisa had spent her afternoon as I did mine—rushing around trying to pull her look together, and I loved her for it.

  Our circle was complete. We all took our seats, and Lisa and I ordered drinks and appetizers. Then Miriam fired off a question that came off more like an accusation.

  “Ricky, what’s this about you getting married?” she asked.

  Taken aback by her tone, I hesitated to answer. Lisa said, “She finally found a guy who’ll play footsie with her without complaining that she’s too competitive.” Gladys and Miriam laughed, and I flashed Lisa an appreciative smile.

  Miriam said, “Really though. What’s his name? What does he do?”

  “His name’s Eduardo and he’s a senior development officer at the Putnam Foundation. He heads up the division that makes grants to youth programs and senior centers.”

  “So you two met because he funded your agency,” Gladys guessed. “Oh, sounds like a scandal waiting to happen.”

  I feigned horror at the thought. “Actually, about eight years ago, I applied for a position as a program officer at Putnam even though I kinda suspected that I didn’t have enough experience…”

  Gladys gasped. “You slept with him to get the job!”

  “No, I never even met with him while I was interviewing!” I knew my getting married would send them reeling, but that was no reason to presume I had changed so much as to pimp myself for a job. “I did manage to get an interview and even aced it, or so I thought. But two weeks later, I get the thanks-but-fuck-you letter, you know, so I threw it out and moved on. The very next day, I get a call from Eduardo.” I pretended to pick up my telephone. “‘Hello, Ms. Durán, this is Eduardo Cordero. I’m calling to see if you received our letter.’ I recognize his name from the research I did to prepare for my interview and I thought, oh, wow, they were really impressed with me. They told the head of the division about me and passed on my résumé, he’s calling to offer me some other position. So I tell him that I did receive the letter and that I was so disappointed because I wanted very much to work for Putnam, and so on and so on. All of sudden, the man starts stuttering. ‘Well, uh, Ms. Durán, uh, I actually am happy you’re not qualified to work here. I just happened to notice you when you came for your interview, and I desperately wanted to ask you out, but that would’ve been inappropriate at the time and impossible if you had gotten the job, but since you won’t be coming to work for us. Not that that’s why you didn’t get the job! I mean, without a doubt, you’re completely underqualified, Ms. Durán. Quite frankly, I don’t even know why they brought you in for an interview…”

  Lisa erupted into that enthusiastic snort that always got me laughing, too. Gladys joined us while Miriam sneered and sipped at her wine. “What an awesome story,” Gladys said.

  I thought so, too. I loved telling that story. But this night was supposed to be about Gladys. “What about you, Gladys?”

  “Show ’em the rock,” Miriam said. Gladys obliged, thrusting her left hand in the middle of the table. We all leaned forward to admire the shimmering mushroom sitting on Gladys’s hand. I don’t know anything about diamonds except that the half karat on my own ring finger almost kept Eduardo and me from qualifying for the loan to buy our brownstone, and we tormented ourselves about possibly returning it when our mortgage broker called with the good news. Gladys’s diamond reigned over her hand like it had been born there and the other four fingers were hired to do its bidding. As we fawned over her engagement ring, I noticed that Miriam’s wedding band was no shy runner-up but a contemporary platinum number that looked just like a doll’s tiara with quite the sparkler at its peak.

  “Pablo says he started saving for it years ago. Claims that he put money in his savings even those months when we seemed to be through,” said Gladys as she contemplated her ring finger. Then she dropped her hand in her lap and rolled her eyes. “Probably just forgot to stop the deposits.”

  I nudged her in the arm to reprimand her. “There’s gotta be a story there,” I said. “After all these years you wind up marrying the proverbial guy next door.”

  “Especially after all the back-and-forth you did during college,” added Lisa.

  “So tell us about that moment when you realized that what you’d been looking for was right…”

  But Gladys waved her hand and said, “Oh, we just hooked up, you know. I finished business school, got a consulting gig with PaineWebber … It was time.” She shrugged and refilled her wineglass. “I want to finish having kids by thirty-five.”

  Then Miriam said, “¡Ay, nena, don’t rush! Don’t get me wrong. I adore my son. But when he’s not the only thing keeping me sane, he’s driving me crazy. Like father, like son.” She laughed and took another sip of wine.

  “You have a son?” Lisa said. “I know you have pictures. Show us, show us.” Miriam reached into her Kate Spade pocketbook for the matching wallet and showed us the photo of an adorable toddler with spiky black hair, golden skin, and Asiatic eyes. He looked nothing like Miriam. Yet something told me not to inquire about his father.

  But Miriam volunteered answers to more questions than I had. “It’s like his father spit and it grew limbs, and before you know it, it’s a boy, ha, ha, ha! I didn’t want to name the baby after my ex. In fact, I wanted to name him after Pablo, but Larry insisted we make him Junior. ‘Why name him after your brother?’ he says. ‘He doesn’t look like him. He doesn’t look like anyone in your family. He doesn’t even look like you and you’re his mother.’ And to think I never cheated on the sonofabitch when I had the chance.”

  Her remarks tugged at my loyalties. On the one hand, I wanted to grill Miriam about Larry like a detective so I could have enough information to track him down and kick his rotten ass. If any one of us was going to be that rare woman who had it all, it would be Miriam. She would devote as much attention to her husband and children as she did her career. Whoever this Larry was, he obviously was too much of a self-absorbed sonofabitch to not know what he had in her. On the other, I found myself wanting to defend … fidelity. God knows I didn’t want to come off like a preachy convert to the religion of marriage, especially when I didn’t know what exactly had occurred between Miriam and Sonof-abitch. If I asked, however, I risked putting a damper on our reunion. Sure, I burned with curiosity to know Miriam’s whole story, but I knew she would be all too eager to tell us and become the glum center of attention. And as much as I wanted to console her, I knew I couldn’t pretend to commiserate with an outlook I did not share.

  Thankfully, the waiter came by to take our orders and gave me an opportunity to think. By the time the waiter collected our menus and left for the kitchen, I had a proposal. I raised my water glass and said, “I say that tonight not only we bid farewell to Gladys’s singlehood in honor of her upcoming nuptials, we also celebrate Miriam’s liberation from Watsisface.”

  “Larry,” said Lisa.

  “Nah, I like Watsisface,” Miriam said, laughing and lifting her wineglass in the air. Lisa and Gladys joined us and we clinked. “To my re-bachelorette-ization!”

  “Cheers!” I yelled, proud of my proposal.

  Then Gladys turned to Lisa and said, “Where are you in all this?”

  It took a few seconds for Lisa to figure what she meant, but then she replied, “Oh, I’m single, too. Again. I mean, we were never married, but…” She gave Miriam a commiserating smile. “You know, a hard breakup.”

  “Are there any other kind?” said Miriam.

  “Anybody we know?” asked Gladys.

  Lisa reached for a sesame breadstick, and her hesitancy gave her away.

  Gladys gasped. “It is someone we know,” Gladys said. “Who?”

  Lisa kept her eye on the breadstick as she twiddled it like a cigar. “You guys remember Celina Ferrer?”

  “Who could forget her?” Miriam grumbled. “The bitch was perfect.”
I burst out laughing because I thought the very same thing. Bad enough Celina Ferrer was gorgeous and brilliant, she didn’t have the decency to be a stuck-up bitch so we could be righteous in our envy. Think Mary Ann’s sweet demeanor in Ginger’s smoking bod. But Celina’s boyfriend, Mark Osario, was no Gilligan.

  Gladys scraped her chair forward so hard, I thought she would prostrate herself across the breadbasket. “Oh my God, when’d you start going out with Mark Osario?” she asked.

  Celina dated Mark all throughout college. She chaired Alianza Latina Americana, the pan-Latino student orga-nization for Columbia undergrads, and even founded Boriqueñas at Barnard. Mark headed the Charles Drew Society, the group for premed students of color and eventually became captain of the crew team. Celina and Mark broke up for a semester during our junior year, and no one would touch either of them. As beautiful as each of them were, they were stunning together. Only a big dreamer with a strong heart and a healthy esteem would dare challenge fate on that reconciliation. I don’t blame Gladys for assuming Lisa won over Mark though, because if any woman on campus had a chance, it would be her.

  Gladys slapped Miriam’s hand. “Can you believe it? Lisa nabbed Mark Osario! Was he as good as he looked?”

  “He’d be the first,” Miriam said.

  “Like you wouldn’t have jumped him if you had the chance.” Gladys turned back to Lisa. “Remember that stupid little swim test they make you take in order to graduate? I went to the pool to take mine, and Mark and some of the other guys on the crew team were leaving, and oh my God!” She didn’t need to say more. Not a single Latina at Columbia (and I’d say a high percentage of all the women of other races, too) failed to pine for Mark Osario. Yours truly included, even though my attractions usually veered toward the guys that women overlooked for their flashier buddies. I even bragged about it. Most women favored Hutch; I liked Starsky. When they drooled at Bo, I stared at Luke. While everyone swooned over Johnny Depp on 21 Jump Street, I fantasized about having a ménage à trois with Dustin Nguyen and the older black man who played the captain (although that crush I kept to myself). I could never tell a soul that Ricarda Who-Needs-a-Man Durán was a secret member of the bandwagon known as the Mark Osario Fan Club. Not until our junior year did I admit to Lisa in one of our ’til-the-break-of-dawn conversations in our double that if I could have one night with Mark where no one had to know or get hurt, I’d do it. I remember that Lisa just smiled and nodded like she felt the same way, but instead of feeling jealous or threatened, I felt closer to her than ever. I didn’t mind sharing my secret or my crush with Lisa.