Night at the Fiestas: Stories

by Kirstin Valdez Quade

  “I’m not sure where we’ll end up,” said Monica.

  “Elliot got in a fight with his advisor,” Cordelia told Amanda, shaking her head with regret.

  “Where did you hear that?” asked Monica. “It wasn’t a real fight.”

  “It was,” said Cordelia. “That’s why it’s taking so long for him to get his Ph.D.”

  For the first time Amanda looked mildly interested. “Did he punch him?”

  “No,” Cordelia said with scorn.

  “It’s not true, Cordelia,” Monica said.

  “It is true,” Cordelia insisted. “You said. I heard you.”

  Monica was having trouble breathing. It wasn’t Elliot’s fault he’d had to switch topics and start all over, just because of some unfounded insinuations. No one ever said the words falsified data, but Elliot had insisted on starting all over, insisted it was the only way to clear his name. He’d made the decision on his own, swiftly, had refused to consider rethinking it. And now, a year later, his funding had run out, and he seemed further and further from completion. What if he never finished?

  What if they stayed out here—or if not here, in some equally godforsaken place—and this was her whole life? What if there was no tenure-track job on the horizon? No trim green quad, no book-lined living room? Monica thought of their bank balance, dangerously low, no infusions in sight, thought about how there was nothing left to cut from their budget, how she didn’t even know anymore if Elliot was brilliant. For all his flaws, Peter would never have found himself in Elliot’s position, chipping away stubbornly at some theory without guarantee of success. Peter was too savvy and self-interested. Monica glimpsed a future as barren as the salt flats, and as she did, the enormity of her disloyalty to Elliot made her catch her breath.

  “Well? Are you going to buy something or not?” Amanda asked. Her hand was on the milkmaid.

  “I’m sorry, no,” Monica said. Amanda was already packing the objects into her backpack.

  What choice had Monica had, really? A lifetime of impossible hours at menial jobs, single-motherhood, her looks straining and distorting—that was no choice, not for her.

  “Can you zip me?” Amanda waited, gazing over Monica’s head while Monica fumbled with her coat, then she swung her backpack over her shoulder. Her lips were blue. Monica shivered.

  Monica held the door open for the girl, and the wind yanked it back and forth in her hands. “Goodbye, Amanda.” If Monica’s voice was taut, the child didn’t seem to notice. She jumped down the steps and into the wind. A dust devil whirled across the lot.

  When Monica turned from the door, Cordelia had Beatrice on her lap, her skinny arms tight around the fat, smiling baby. She glared at Monica. Her brows were straight and thick, her father’s brows. “You lied. I don’t care what you do, but you shouldn’t lie in front of a baby.” Under those brows, Cordelia’s eyes blazed.

  “You don’t know the first thing about it, Cordelia.” Monica turned her back on her daughter, the blood hot in her face. From the window she watched as Amanda trudged across the dirt to the bathrooms. The child’s shoulders were straight; she didn’t seem defeated.

  In a rush Monica pushed open the door, stuck her head into the wind. “Wait!” Amanda stopped, then after the briefest pause, turned. “Wait a minute. You may be able to do something with this.” Monica was already sliding the straps off her shoulder.

  “No!” cried Cordelia. “What are you doing?”

  It was the right gesture, Monica saw now, to slough off everything that had come before, to give herself entirely to this life with Elliot. Monica imagined the dress tossed and wrinkled among Cordelia’s clothes, the straps knotted, the hem dragging on the floor, beads cascading every time it was touched. She imagined her daughter wearing the dress, reminding her. No, Monica couldn’t have borne it.

  “How much is it?” Amanda eyed her from the doorway. “I have to save my money.”

  Arm across her breasts, Monica hunched to cover herself and stepped out of the dress. She pulled on her sweater and jeans, hurrying, suddenly afraid Amanda might leave without it. “It’s a gift.”

  “You can’t give it to her!” Cordelia cried. “You said it could be mine!”

  Monica folded the dress into a square, the cold silk slipping against itself, handed it to Amanda.

  Amanda shoved it into her backpack.

  Cordelia’s eyes filled with angry tears. “I don’t really think it’s ugly.”

  “We’ll talk about this later, Cordelia.”

  This time Monica did not watch to see where Amanda went; she shut the door on the child with a profound sense of relief. Monica pulled Beatrice from Cordelia’s arms—too hard—and bounced the baby on her hip, covered the warm scalp with kisses. She did not look at Cordelia.

  Monica knew what she’d tell her daughter later: that Amanda didn’t have nice things, that it was important to be kind to people who didn’t have the same opportunities. And when Cordelia made a fuss, as she was sure to, then Monica would remind her sharply that the dress was hers, Monica’s, to do with as she liked.

  ELLIOT ARRIVED HOME that night after they’d all fallen asleep.

  “Jesus,” he said and rezipped his coat. “It’s colder in here than outside.”

  Monica swung herself into his arms. The night air clung to him, and she shivered.

  “You’ve been sitting in here like this? God, you’re tough.”

  Monica smiled, pleased, as he kissed her hair. “How was it?” She took Elliot’s jacket zipper in her fingers, pulled it down again and folded herself against his chest, breathing the cold, sour smell of wool and his week-old sweat, the dry scent of blowing dirt and sagebrush. “We missed you,” she said happily into his sweater. “We missed you so much.”

  For nearly an hour, they stood outside—Monica stood, Elliot crouched—by the heating panel. Monica, lips and nose numb, held the flashlight while Elliot fiddled with the heater with gloved fingers.

  “Did you find what you needed?”

  One by one the stubborn screws loosened under Elliot’s screwdriver. “I checked out a bunch of deposits that looked promising. Lots of gravel, lots of sediment, but in the end, nothing datable.”

  The relief she’d felt at his arrival drained, and now all the uneasiness of the day was upon her again. “You didn’t find anything you could use?”

  “Monica, honey, it’s very complicated.” He paused in his work, looked at her over his shoulder. “You have to find the right cross-cutting relationships, the right exposure. If it were easy, we’d already have this figured out.” He spoke with forbearance, but she could see the irritation in his face. Hadn’t he just wanted to come home to his snug family? And now here he was in the cold while his wife judged, harassed, blamed.

  Elliot turned back to the heating panel. “Shine it here.” The wind had died down, and the desert was oddly quiet. Out on the dark highway, the sign was motionless on its post.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She concentrated on holding the light steady. “It’s just been an awful day.”

  At bedtime, Cordelia had asked, “Can I sleep with you and Beatrice tonight?”

  “No,” Monica had said. “You have your own bed. And Elliot will be home.” She’d patted the mattress in the loft, and Cordelia, clumsy in her layers of sweaters and sweatpants, hauled herself up the ladder.

  Monica kissed her daughter goodnight over the edge of the loft, descended, then stepped back up the ladder and placed her hand on Cordelia’s back. “Listen. Tomorrow will be better, sweet pea.”

  Cordelia burrowed deeper into her sleeping bag, teeth chattering. “Okay,” she said, then fell asleep with her usual ease.

  Now Monica said, “I did something stupid today.” She told Elliot about Amanda’s visit. “And then after her sales pitch, I gave her my dress.” Elliot’s hands cast outsized shadows against the side of the trailer. He frowned into the panel. “My best dress. Out of the blue. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

&nb
sp; Elliot held the screwdriver in his teeth and peered. “Hold on.” He seemed to be counting wires. Elliot pinched a wire in his fingers and looked up at her, his face lit by the edge of the flashlight beam. “Your judgment was impaired, maybe. Onset of hypothermia. I’m amazed you didn’t start a fire in the sink.”

  “I shouldn’t have given it away. Or I should have given it to Cordelia. If anything, it belongs to Cordelia.”

  Elliot shrugged. “You felt bad for the kid. It’s a just dress. You don’t even wear dresses.”

  Once, when they were hiking, Monica had picked up a beautiful rock, worn smooth by some ancient creek and intricately marked, as if with a fine-nibbed pen. She’d handed it to Elliot, expecting him, the geologist, to see what made it beautiful. “Hm,” he’d said, glancing at it absently. “Limestone.” And with that both she and the rock were dismissed, while he returned to his thoughts about contact formations and pre-Cambrian flood plains. Monica’s feelings had been hurt, but she hadn’t shown it. His thoughts were simply on a grander scale than hers, concerned not just with the minutia of a single life, or even of their species; he was concerned with the life of the planet itself.

  Elliot was right. What, really, had Monica given away? An old dress. A relic of difficult times. So why, then, was she angry?

  “I should have given it to Cordelia,” Monica insisted, and she felt her voice rise. If she wasn’t careful, she might cry.

  “She won’t remember,” said Elliot. “Kids don’t.”

  Maybe Cordelia wouldn’t remember. It was possible. But despite being a child, Cordelia knew more about Monica’s first marriage than anyone else, knew how bad it had gotten and how long Monica had stayed. Cordelia never talked about those days or about what she’d seen, never discussed what it was like to hear her mother yelling and sobbing and smashing plates; a mother could almost fool herself into believing a child could forget these things.

  It occurred to Monica that now Cordelia herself was the only thing left from that old life. When she’d taken off the dress today, Monica hadn’t even felt cold, so filled was she with the dark exhilaration of punishing Cordelia. In giving away Cordelia’s lovely, meaningless inheritance, she’d made an adversary of her seven-year-old daughter, and now even that she held against her.

  The park was dark, the trailers asleep, except for Amanda’s, where the blue light of a TV glowed, shifting and desolate.

  “I should go over there. I should go explain to Amanda’s mother that I made a mistake. Right now. Before they go to bed.”

  “Monica.” Elliot laughed. “You can’t do that.”

  “Of course I can.” Of course she could. She’d knock at the door, wait while Amanda’s mother pulled herself to her feet, switched on a lamp, and made her way across the carpet. Monica would step into the warm trailer, introduce herself, explain, and Amanda’s mother would fetch the dress. The interaction would be awkward, perhaps, but nothing Monica couldn’t smooth over, and it wouldn’t matter because Monica had the chance to make things right. “I’m so glad to finally meet you,” Monica would say. “Amanda’s always welcome at our place. And you, too. We should have coffee.”

  “I’m going.” She pushed the flashlight at Elliot, but he wouldn’t take it. The beam danced across the dirt. “Here,” she said.

  “Come on, Monica. Think about it. You’re going to go over there and snatch back something you gave to a little kid? That mother of hers is going to drop dead of a coronary any minute, and you’re going to go fight with her about an old dress in the middle of the night?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything to Amanda,” Monica said, and as she said it she knew she wouldn’t go. “It doesn’t even fit her.”

  “It doesn’t fit Cordelia, honey.” He put a hand on her leg, patted her briefly. “You’re not thinking.”

  “What do you know?” Monica said with bitterness she hadn’t realized she felt. “You don’t even know Cordelia. You’re not her father. You’ve just met her.”

  Elliot’s hands stilled on the wire. He turned, face wide open and hurt. “That’s not fair, Monica. I care about her very much.”

  He wouldn’t be able to see her beyond the flashlight’s beam. Monica bit her lip, glad for the dark.

  “That’s not fair,” he repeated.

  Elliot returned his attention to the heater, and they stood in silence. Out on the highway a car passed. After a time he clipped a wire.

  “Fixed.” He dangled a twisted length of wire in his gloved fingers. His voice was stiff. “The lead to the thermostat had corroded. The heat should kick in now.”

  They’d make it up, she and Elliot, find each other under the covers as the chill ebbed around them. Outside, the wind would pick up again, and in Amanda’s trailer the television would flicker all night. In the morning, Cordelia would awaken early. She would look down from the loft at her family: her mother, her stepfather, and between them, arms flung wide, her little sister. Cordelia would forever feel on the outside, Monica saw, and Monica herself had put her there, because a person couldn’t live with that kind of reproach. It would only get harder between them, Monica saw that, too; Cordelia’s judgments would become more pointed, Monica would rankle ever more under her sharp eye. But Cordelia wouldn’t know any of this, not yet. Tomorrow, while her family slept below her in the gray dawn light, she would place her cheek back on the pillow and watch them, waiting for them to stir, and she wouldn’t even notice that she was finally warm.

  THE FIVE WOUNDS

  THIS YEAR AMADEO PADILLA IS JESUS. THE HERMANOS HAVE been practicing in the dirt yard behind the morada, which used to be a filling station. People are saying that Amadeo is the best Jesus they’ve had in years, maybe the best since Manuel Garcia.

  Here it is, just Holy Tuesday, and even those who would rather spend the evening at home watching their satellite TVs are lined up in the alley, leaning in, fingers curled around the chain-link, because they can see that Amadeo is bringing something special to the role.

  This is no silky-haired, rosy-cheeked, honey-eyed Jesus, no Jesus-of-the-children, Jesus-with-the-lambs. Amadeo is pockmarked and bad-toothed, hair shaved close to a scalp scarred from fights, roll of skin where skull meets thick neck. You name the sin, he’s done it: gluttony, sloth, fucked a second cousin on the dark bleachers at the high school.

  Amadeo builds the cross out of heavy rough oak instead of pine. He’s barefoot like the rest of the hermanos, who have rolled up the cuffs of their pants and now drag the arches of their feet over sharp rocks behind him. The Hermano Mayor—Amadeo’s grand-tío Tíve, who owns the electronics store, and who surprised them all when he chose his niece’s lazy son (because, he told Yolanda, Amadeo could use a lesson in sacrifice)—plays the pito, and the thin piping notes rise in a whine. A few hermanos swat their backs with disciplinas. Unlike the others, though, Amadeo does not groan, and he is shirtless, his tattooed back broad under the still-hot sun.

  Today, he woke with the idea of studding the cross with nails to give it extra weight, and this is what people watch: he holds the hammer with both hands high above his head, brings it down with a crack. The boards bounce; the sound strikes sharply off the outside wall of the morada.

  Amadeo has broken out in a sweat, and they all take note. Amadeo sweats, but not usually from work. He sweats when he eats, he sweats when he drinks too much. Thirty-three years old, the same as Our Lord, but Amadeo is not a man with ambition. Even his mother will tell you that. Yolanda still cooks for him, pushes one plate across the table at him and another at whatever man she’s got with her.

  And now here comes old Manuel Garcia, dragging his bad foot up the alley, his wounded hands curled at his sides.

  He must have heard about the show Amadeo is putting on, because when else does he exert himself, except to buy liquor at the Peerless? As he nears the morada, the people part to give him a spot against the chain-link, right there in the middle. Now, instead of watching Amadeo, they watch Manuel. He coughs wetly between strikes of the hamm
er.

  Manuel Garcia is old, but still a legend: in 1962 he begged the hermanos to use nails, and he hasn’t been able to open or close his hands since. It’s true the legend has soured a little, now that he hasn’t been able to work for forty-five years and has been kept alive by the combined generosity of the hermandad, the parish, and the state, and shows no sign of dying. Some people have stopped paying their tithes for this very reason. Some have even gone so far as to say that maybe the man was suicidal, and a death wish is not the same as devotion, even if they look alike.

  Regardless, only Manuel Garcia is qualified to judge this new Christ, and it appears that he has arrived at his verdict, because he coughs again, wet and low, dislodges something deep in his throat, and spits it through a space in the fence so it lands just inches from Amadeo and his cross.

  DRIVING HOME, AMADEO TRIES to regain the clarity he felt when pounding nails, but hand and foot and universe are no longer working together. When the gears scrape, he hits the steering wheel with his fist and swears and hits it again. This last week was the most important in Jesus’s life. This is the week everything happened. So Amadeo should be thinking of higher things when his daughter shows up eight months pregnant. Angel sits in front of the house on the bumper of the old truck, waiting for him. He hasn’t seen her in more than a year, but he’s heard the news from his mother, who heard it from Angel.

  White tank top, black bra, gold cross pointing the way to her breasts in case you happened to miss them. Belly as hard and round as an adobe horno. The buttons of her jeans are unsnapped to make way for its fullness, and also to indicate how it got that way in the first place. Her birthday is this week, falls on Good Friday. She’ll be fifteen.

  “Shit,” Amadeo says when he pulls in and yanks the parking brake. She must not have seen his expression, because she gets up, smiles, and waves with both hands. The rosary swings on his rearview mirror, and Amadeo watches as, beyond it, his daughter advances on him, stomach outthrust. She pauses, half turns, displays her belly.