Then it became my turn to grow quiet.
“What’s the matter, Ricky?”
“Here you are blaming yourself for what happened tonight—which is totally stupid, by the way, and I don’t want to hear anymore about it—but look at what I did. I knew Miriam had something going on, and instead of reaching out to her and trying to find a way to make her feel better, I made it worse.”
“OK, now you’re the one who needs to stop.”
“Really. For God’s sake, I’m a social worker, how could I have missed it? Miriam’s depressed, and I kept plying her with apple martinis. You’re a doctor. You know that makes it worse.”
“Let’s be honest. She started drinking way before we got to the club.”
“Damn, that little thing can really hold it, too,” I said with a hint of admiration.
“You just didn’t want her to spoil Gladys’s night. She did that all by herself.”
“But getting her drunk wasn’t the answer. I could’ve found a better way. Like talking to her. Asking questions. Just listening.” We drove a few yards in silence and then I came clean. “I didn’t want to hear it, Lis. I’m not in that place anymore, and I didn’t want to go back, not even to help an old friend. Probably because I was afraid that if I did, I’d get stuck there.”
“You having problems with Eduardo?”
“That’s just it. I’m not. We have our spats like any mar … like any other couple.” Lisa’s smile told me that she caught my switch and that she appreciated it. “Even when I want to wring the man’s neck—y te lo juro, that’s every other day—I have no doubt that he loves me and that I love him. He fully accepts me for who I am, and I trust him implicitly. But it took me a long, hard time to get to a place where I could even imagine feeling like that about anyone.…”
“I remember.”
“…’Uardo and I even broke up for almost a year because of my shit.…”
“Really?”
“We each had our own places, but we were practically living together, you know how that is. So he said, ‘Ricky, it doesn’t make any sense for us to be paying rent and utilities on two apartments, so why don’t we just move in together?’ And I’m like…”
“… Just like a man to ask for an emotional commitment but make it sound like a practical decision.”
Her response evoked mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, I felt heartened that Lisa recalled how I used to be without sounding at all invested in that person I no longer was. On the other, I felt deeply embarrassed to have a witness—no matter how sympathetic—that such a person ever existed in the first place. Lisa listened with such a selfless compassion, however, “heartened” won out and I continued sharing.
“Exactly. I’m thinking, Eduardo, if you want to take our relationship to another level and move in together, then say, Ricky, I love you, I see us having a future together, I want to wake up to you every day, blah, blah, blah, let’s move in together. Don’t fuckin’ tell me how much money I can save, how much closer your apartment is to my job and all that shit.”
“But you didn’t say that.”
“No. I said, ‘Well, Eduardo, I’ve done the living-together thing, and it just doesn’t work for me so I’m not going to do it anymore. The way I see it, people move in together to break up or get married…”
“OK,” Lisa agreed.
“‘… One or the other is inevitable. I don’t want us to move in together and start taking each other for granted. If I’m going to give up my apartment, it’s because we’re getting married.’ That’s what I told him.”
“And you were bluffing.”
“Totally.”
We laughed and then Lisa’s eyes widened. “He didn’t?”
“He sure did.”
“No.”
“The sonofabitch said, ‘So when do you want to get married?’”
“Get out. So what’d you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.” I paused as I remembered the pain on Eduardo’s face when I responded to his proposal in silence, and he knew it had nothing to do with the fact that he had no ring or didn’t get down on one knee. “He said to me, ‘If you don’t want to marry me, then I don’t know what we’re doing here.’ He packed whatever things he had at my place, and then he walked out. I didn’t see him for almost a year.”
“So how’d you get back together?”
“I called him.”
“You called him?”
“I called him and told him that I made a mistake and that if he’d still have me, I’d be honored to be his wife. And if you tell Miriam and Gladys, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. As a matter of fact, you know what, Ricky?”
“What?”
“I’m off next weekend.”
It took a moment for that statement to register with me as the confession she intended. “You mean you lied about being on call to avoid going to Gladys’s wedding?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re actually free next Saturday.”
“I know. I’m terrible.”
“Actually, I was thinking that if you’re not on call, you’re free to come over to my place for dinner.” Lisa grinned at the realization that I had lied about my plans on Saturday, too. We drove for a while in silence until I found the courage to ask what I had been wanting to all night.
“So, Lisa, what’s up with Celina these days? Do you know? Are you in touch?”
“Oh, yeah,” she replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “Celina’s back in New York, too,” Lisa said. “She’s doing her residency at Columbia Presbyterian.”
“Lisa?”
“What?”
“Give me Celina’s number. I’ll call to invite her over to my place for dinner next Saturday, too.”
Then Lisa gave that snorty laugh of hers, and I lost it like I always do.
MY FAVORITE MISTAKE. Copyright © 2005 by Mary Castillo
HEARTS ARE WILD. Copyright © 2005 by Caridad Piñeiro
REVENGE OF THE FASHION GODDESS. Copyright © 2005 by Berta Platas
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE. Copyright © 2005 by Sofia Quintero
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ISBN 0-312-33504-0
EAN 978-0312-33504-5
eISBN: 9781466887039
First eBook Edition: October 2014
Friday Night Chicas Page 25