“Perfect pronunciation,” Mandy says, and we both take a glass each.
“You don’t speak Spanish?” I ask Izel.
“No. My mom is super Chicana, and so is her sister, so they gave their daughters the most Mexican names they could think of. I kind of rebelled when I was younger and rejected everything about our language and culture. I regret it now, but at the time, my own personal revolt against my parents was the most important thing.”
“When you were young?” I say pointedly. “Are you even old enough to drink?”
Mandy is so close to me on the couch, her laughter startles me. “Izel is older than you,” she says. “She just has a baby face,” Mandy says with a baby voice and pinches Izel’s cheek. Izel swats her hand away, annoyed. “Where’s Tlali?” Mandy asks her.
“She was just taking a shower. She had to stay overtime today and got home not that long ago.”
“Tlali?” I ask, thinking. “Izel and Tlali, those are Nahuatl names, right?”
Izel blinks at me. “Man, my mom, and Tlali’s mom would love you. I bet you speak like proper Spanish, huh?”
I don’t have a chance to answer before Mandy does. “Yeah. The real shit. This girl here comes from old Spanish money,” Mandy says and grins at me.
Geesh. I’m annoyed she continues to find it a novelty that my family has money. “To be clear,” I say. “My family has money, not me.”
We hear someone clamoring down the stairs excitedly. “Did I hear the door?”
A woman joins us in the living room and pulls Mandy into a hug. She is tall and slender, with beautiful tanned skin much darker than Izel’s, so it’s hard to believe they are related. Her hair is wet, but I can see the thick mass of curls that hit just below her shoulders. “Nice to meet you,” she says and kisses my cheek. “I’m Tlali.”
“Hi. Nice to meet you too.”
The four of us claim our wine glasses and relax into the evening. I’m surprised at how quickly I become comfortable with this small group of women, but it’s natural, like so many things have been in Kansas City.
“I can’t believe you two are related,” I say, looking between Tlali and Izel. “You don’t look anything alike.”
“Well,” Tlali explains, “our moms are half-sisters, and my dad is Afro-Mexican.”
“And my mom,” Mandy interjects, “is not related to their moms by blood, but they consider her a sister as well, so we are basically cousins.”
“So you have all been in Kansas City for several generations?”
They all nod.
“Wow,” I say. “I didn’t know there were so many Latinx here.”
“Oh yeah,” Tlali says. “There’s even a small town several hours away that is a meat-packing town, and it is a minority-majority town.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“More than half of the population is Mexican or Mexican-American. Sometimes Izel and I take long weekend vacations just to go there. It’s like being in Mexico. Amazing food and all that.”
“I’d like to go there sometime,” I say, feeling homesick for real now.
“You planning on moving here or something?” Mandy asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know what my plan is now. It kind of took a detour.”
Mandy smiles with understanding, and I love her intuitiveness more than ever because she changes the subject.
“So, I met this guy,” Mandy says as she tosses her hair over one shoulder as she did when she was flirting with my furniture delivery guy.
Tlali and Izel both lean in with interest. “Do tell,” says Izel.
“And thank the stars, I hope this means you’re over that other pendejo,” adds Tlali.
Mandy rolls her eyes and ignores those comments about whoever her ex was. “His name is Chris. I actually met him at Valentina’s.”
The two cousins glance over at me. “He was my furniture delivery guy,” I explain.
“Oh, my god, there were three of them, and they were all so hot. I almost want to have furniture delivered and send it back so they can come back again to pick it up,” Mandy says.
Tlali raises her glass to Mandy in cheers of approval, and they clink glasses. “How’d you pick?” Tlali asks.
“It was so hard, guys. Seriously. It was like I was a kid at a candy store.”
“She was drooling like one too,” I say, and Izel snorts with her laughter.
Mandy rolls her eyes again. “In the end, Chris had the thickest arms.”
“And you do love you some thick arms,” Izel says.
“That I do. Anyway, there he is in the living room, and Valentina and I are watching him put together her sofa. And he is sweating and looking hot as hell; I couldn’t help it. I ask him for his name, and I invite him to my art show. Then I give him my number.”
“And he calls?” I ask.
“No,” Mandy says. “Well, not fast enough. So I call the furniture company, I got the name from the truck when they left, and I give them your address. I tell them I was impressed with the delivery service—which isn’t a lie—and that I’d like to thank them personally. They give me their numbers, and I call Chris.”
“Stalker much?” Tlali asks.
“Shut up. I call him up, and he sounds glad I called.”
“What do you say to him?” I ask, thoroughly impressed by her cojones.
“I tell him he took too long to call, and his window was closing. He claims he lost the flyer and was glad I called—not sure I buy it, but I give him the benefit of the doubt. He asks me out for drinks, and I take him to the studio for a nightcap.”
“So, how was it?” Izel asks.
“Amazing,” Mandy says. “I’m surprised I’m walking today.”
I almost spit my wine out but manage to keep it in. It goes down the wrong pipe, and I start coughing. Is this what women talk about? What girlfriends talk about? I mean, it’s no worse than the locker room talk at the gym, but I’ve never heard bluntness like this from women before.
Izel sighs and stares off into space. “I need to get some. It’s been too long,” she says.
“Amen, sister,” Tlali joins in, and they clink glasses.
“How long?” Mandy asks them.
“Three months,” Tlali says.
“Two weeks,” says Izel.
“Two weeks is too long for you?” I ask.
Izel nods and sips her wine. “Yeah. Isn’t it for you?”
I shake my head. “No. I’d say months would be long, but not just a few weeks.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mandy says. “I’m with Izel on this one. Can’t go that long. Why? How long has it been for you?”
I feel the heat creeping up my neck, and I stare into my glass like it’s the most exciting thing in the world, so it’s hard to look back at Mandy’s face, but I do.
Mandy narrows her eyes. “You little slut,” she says in a playful tone. “You did it, didn’t you? You listened to me?”
I look up at the cousins, hoping they’ll help, but they blink at each other.
“We’re lost,” Tlali says.
“I told Valentina to have a sex-athon, and I think she did.”
“Fine,” I say. If this is what it’s like to have girlfriends, then I should go all in. “Yes. I picked up a guy at a bar yesterday, and we spent all morning together until he had to go at noon today. That’s all the details you’re getting.”
“No,” Mandy whines. “We need details. Who’s the guy? Is he hot? You can’t leave us hanging like this.”
Izel jumps into my rescue. “Come on, Mandy. Leave her alone. She’s clearly not a cochina like you. Not everyone shares as much as we do.”
I try to communicate a telepathic ‘thank you’ to Izel, and she tips her chin at me. If there is a chance Mandy knows Rory, I can’t give out any further details.
“You said there were three hot delivery guys?” Tlali asks.
“Yeah,” Mandy says.
“And you have all three cell numbers?” Izel asks
with interest.
I can almost see the moment when the matching floating light bulbs over the cousin's heads light up.
“I do!” Mandy rummages through her purse, producing a yellow Post-It note. She crosses off something, presumably Chris’s name and number, and hands the piece of paper to Tlali.
“I’m going to go put this on the fridge door before we spill wine on it,” Tlali says.
“So,” Izel turns to me. “Let’s get to know you. What do you do? What brings you to Kansas City?”
Mandy smiles at me, and I remember her words from the car. I only have to tell them as much as I want to.
“Well, I was training as an MMA fighter—”
“Whoa, like an actual fighter? Like a UFC fighter?” Tlali asks, now back in the living room with us.
“Yeah. Well, I wasn’t in the UFC yet,” I say.
“You will be one day,” Mandy reassures me.
I smile at her. I don’t know if it’s the wine that has relaxed me or how welcome Izel and Tlali have made me feel, but I find myself confiding in them openly. “I’m here for treatment. I met Mandy at the hospital.”
Tlali and Izel eye each other in a gesture I am starting to understand is some sort of telepathy or brujeria between them.
“I have cervical cancer, and I’m on Dr. Ramirez’s clinical trial. I’ll be in K.C. until treatment is over.”
Izel changes seats so she can be next to me on the sofa. She wraps her arm around my shoulder into a half hug. “Dr. Ramirez is amazing,” she says. “You’ll be fine.”
“And we got you. Whatever you need,” Tlali adds with a smile of her own.
My eyes sting with tears; I am so moved by this small tribe of women who don’t know me from Eve but offer a safety net for when I fall. If this is what having girlfriends is like, I never want to go back. “Can we talk about something else? Treatment starts tomorrow, and today I just want to feel normal,” I say as I wipe my eyes.
I don’t share all my fears with them. The prospect of going under the knife for the first surgical procedure of my life is terrifying, and I’ll have to follow that up with radiation. I need my mind off it all and am so thankful these girls are here to help with that.
“Of course, amiga,” Tlali says. “What you wanna talk about?”
“Um, what do you guys do at the hospital?”
“We all have double lives,” Izel says with a grin.
“What?” I ask, confused.
Izel points her chin toward Mandy. “You know how she’s a research assistant-slash front desk clerk at the hospital by day and a painter by night?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Well, I’m a surgical technologist by day, and I write by night,” Izel says.
“And I’m a medical interpreter by day, and I translate novels by night,” Tlali says.
Mandy jumps in. “We have a master plan that we will all one day make a living from our arts and leave our day jobs. We cheer each other on to stay motivated.”
“That’s amazing,” I say. “What kind of books do you write and translate?”
“I write horror,” says Izel. “Pretty gruesome stuff,” she says with a delighted grin on her face.
Tlali rolls her eyes. “And I translate proper literature. Or want to, anyway.”
“So you do speak Spanish? Or are you translating another language?”
“Yeah, Spanish.”
“Your double lives—it’s like Superman and Clark Kent—”
“Exactly,” Mandy says. “Did you know Superman is from Kansas?”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t.”
We laugh and get to know each other better the rest of the night. The cousins don’t ask me more about myself unless I offer tidbits, and I realize they are trying to respect my privacy.
If I make it out of this, I hope we can all stay friends. I surprise myself because, more and more, my plans post-treatment seem to shift to Kansas City and away from home.
Chapter 7
“I have to ask you one last time, Valentina. Are you sure? We can still stop.” Dr. Ramirez looks at me with creased brows. I understand she’s just doing her due diligence, asking about fertility again. We have the same conversation we did on our first appointment, and I don’t budge.
“There are more ways than one to become a mom,” I say to settle the matter once and for all. “I’m not saying I won’t ever change my mind about being a mom, but if I do, I’m pretty damn sure I don’t want to cook my own, if you know what I mean.”
The corner of her mouth slants into a weak smile, and she sighs. “You’ve thought this out.”
“I have. I’m young, I know that, but I also have always known what I want.”
“Okay. You’ve convinced me.” Dr. Ramirez presses the nurse call button next to my bed.
A short, slim blonde walks in. She smiles broadly and moves with jerky movements like she’s had too much caffeine. “Hi, Miss Almonte. I’m Sara,” she says and gives me her hand to shake.
“Just Valentina, please, or Vale if you’d like.”
She smiles at me and goes over to a laptop resting on a cart in the corner of my room. “I see we have surgery and radiation scheduled today.”
“First round of treatment,” Dr. Ramirez says. “I have to go to my next patient. Can you take care of transport, Sara?”
“Sure,” the nurse says.
“For future procedures, we’ll have an orderly transport you, but for this first one, I’d like to go with you. Dr. Ramirez briefed me about you, and I’d like you to have a friendly face around.”
“Thank you,” I say. She brings a wheelchair into the room, I sit, and she wheels me out of the room.
“So, I hear you are a fighter?”
“Yeah. I was.” I say it in the past tense for the first time.
“You box or something?”
“Mixed martial arts, but yeah, boxing is one of my strengths.”
“Wow. Must be amazing to be a professional athlete.”
I smile, remembering everything I left behind. She keeps talking.
“Are you nervous?”
“A little. Mostly I’m eager to put this behind me,” I say. One way or the other, I add mentally.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be rough, but Dr. Ramirez and I, we got your back.” She squeezes my shoulder, and the solitude I carry starts to chip away at the edges.
We get out of the elevator, and she tells me we are almost there. “When you’re going under anesthesia, in that freaky alien setting, and they are asking you to count down from ten, it helps to think of your happy place or a person who means a lot to you. Think about that to help with the nerves.”
“Okay. Thanks for the tip.”
Nurse Sara hands me over to a technician, and I’m transferred to a bed and then wheeled into the operating room. She was right; this place is freaky and alien. I smile, thinking how this is such a perfect workplace for Izel, the horror writer. She must get excellent creative fodder from everything she sees here.
When I begin the countdown, nurse Sara’s words run through my head, and I think of my happy place. I’m in the locker room, getting ready for a fight. My hair is pinned back in braids. I encase my hands with the knuckle wraps and position my mouthguard between my teeth. I stretch my neck from side to side and bounce in place like I’m jumping rope.
I’m walking out of the locker room through a sea of people calling my name—only one is distinguishable, with those unruly red waves bright in the audience. The cage calls to me like a siren’s song; my opponent is waiting for me. I step into the cage, and my world goes black.
The next thing I know, I’m striking the current flyweight titleholder. She stumbles back, recovers, and kicks me in the jaw with a force that sends me flying and landing on my ass. She wastes no time in clamoring over to me, and her fists rain down on my face. I go into a defense position, with my fists covering my face for only a second. I bring my legs around her torso and my arms around her
neck, placing her in a triangle choke. My grip is so tight around her, her punches weaken.
When her exhaustion weakens her struggle, I swing my body with full momentum, rolling us both over. I land on top, taking the dominant position. The crowd cheers, but somehow, one voice calling to me rises above the deafening cheers.
“Valentina? Valentina? Honey, wake up,” says the voice.
I open my eyes, and my brain is in a haze. It takes me a while to remember where I am and why. My face is wet and cold, and I bring up a hand to wipe it dry. I was crying.
“Sorry,” Sara says. “I normally wouldn’t try to wake you, but I think you were having a nightmare.”
“No,” I say. “It was a good dream.” My voice is husky, and my throat hurts as I say this.
“Oh. I’m sorry, then. Is your mouth dry?”
Rolling my tongue across the roof of my mouth, it gets stuck with the dryness. I clasp my throat and nod. She places a cup full of ice chips on a tray over my bed, and I suck on those.
Sara looks at the monitors I’m hooked up to and makes some notes on my chart on the laptop. “Dinner should be here in about an hour.” She points to a bin sitting next to me on the bed. “In case you need it. Nausea hits at different times for different people, but be prepared for it tonight to be on the safe side.”
“Thanks,” I say.
When I’m alone, I pull the blankets to one side and lift my hospital gown. I can’t see the incisions because they are covered in bandages. I flex my abdomen gently, testing for pain, but whatever they gave me is strong enough it never comes.
It’s a strange thing, going from the perfect body to one that is cut up and radiated. I don’t feel any different, and I start to hope I can get back to the cage when this is all said and done.
When dinner comes, I lift the lid to find the most disgusting-looking bowl of soup. The stereotype of hospital food being gross is no joke. Despite not enjoying the dinner one bit, nausea from radiation doesn’t kick in tonight. I sleep through the night, and I wonder if I could be so lucky as to avoid the horrors of side effects.
I am so wrong.
In the morning, I devour pancakes that aren’t quite as bad as the chicken noodle soup, but they almost instantly come back up.
Contusion Page 7