Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (30 page)

“I cry every day in three months,” she said. “Is horrible see your mother die a little bit, a little bit.” She lived with her paternal aunt, who had an important job at the Fisher Scientific offices in New Jersey. “She say me three month enough tears. I must get job. And soon I have get marry.”

“Who are you going to marry?”

“I don't know.”

I imagined her aunt to be the evil stepmother in fairy tales, and soon Regina's predicament was added to the stories I embellished for my family's benefit. Mami and Tata were ready to adopt her.

“Poor thing,” Mami said, “motherless and alone in this city.”

“And that woman,” Tata added “
no tiene corazón
.”

Mami nodded that Regina's aunt did sound heartless. “
Pobrecita
,” she repeated, as she shook her head for poor Regina.

Because Regina's English wasn't very good, and because Ilsa was nervous on the phone, I was in charge of answering the calls to our office. Most of the time people called to request a file, or to warn us that they had a large mailing and we should allow extra time for pickups. One day, just as Ilsa left for her break, the phone rang. It was Sidney, who was always so pleasant to me. His office was twenty feet from ours, and he usually just walked over to ask for whatever he needed.

I turned around to make sure he was at his desk, and he waved. “How can I help you?” I waved back.

“Go out with me Friday night.” He smiled.

“On a date?” I turned away because I didn't want him to see my excitement.

“Yes. Dinner, a movie, whatever you like.”

“Dinner sounds good,” I said into the phone, softly, because Regina had noticed what was going on and looked from me to Sidney with amusement. “Thank you,” I hung up, then felt stupid for thanking him. I was afraid to look toward his desk, in case he could see me blush.

“He's very nice,” Regina volunteered.

“How do I ask my mother?” I wondered aloud, and Regina laughed.

Mami wanted to know who Sidney was, what he did, where we were going, how long we'd be gone. “Bring him home so we can meet him.”

“I'm just going out to dinner with him Mami. I'm not going to marry him.”

“It shows respect,” she said. She was right, but I couldn't imagine Sidney in our apartment filled with people and furnishings. What would he think if Tata happened to be drunk when he came by? Or if Mami wore a housecoat and rollers in her hair, as she often did when we were home? Or if Don Carlos were there, in his suit and dark glasses, sitting silently at the kitchen table, a bemused smile on his lips? Or if Don Julio, his face battered like a boxer's that had taken too many hits to the head, lounged with the kids in front of
The Lawrence Welk Show?
What if my sisters and brothers giggled about the way Sidney looked? He was short, wore thick rectangular glasses that slid down his nose and left deep red grooves along his nostrils. He spoke in a soft, whiny voice that sounded as if he were complaining, even when he wasn't. His hands stuck from the sleeves of his suit small and childlike, and never rested anywhere for more than a few seconds. I found them graceful, but Mami would surely imagine them deftly undoing my bra.

Ilsa was shocked that I was going out with Sidney.

“He asked you?” she asked, incredulous.

“Of course,” I answered, annoyed she thought I had asked him.

She looked toward his desk, a somber expression on her face. “Interesting,” she mused.

“Is there anything I should know about him?”

“No, dear,” Ilsa said, “it's just . . . I'm surprised, that's all. He's a good boy. You have a good time.”

The day before the date, Regina accompanied me to Gimbel's. I liked to shop alone, but I was worried about making a good impression and needed help in choosing something appropriate. Regina was the perfect person to restrain my impulses for theatrical, colorful, or dramatic clothing. When I came home with a new navy blue suit, low-heeled shoes, a demure handbag, Mami couldn't hide her smile.

“What's wrong with it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “It's okay.” She turned away to stifle a giggle.

“It's an old lady outfit,” was Tata's opinion.

“I got it in the junior section,” I explained, but as I looked at it, the suit seemed more Regina's style. “It's elegant,” I added, repeating Regina's words. “It looks better on.” I couldn't persuade anyone.

As I dressed the next morning, I told myself that it was better for me to seem conservative and old-ladyish than like a hot
tamale
right out of
West Side Story.
When I walked into the office, people stared, and some commented on how cute I looked, which made me feel better.

Sidney wasn't in his office all morning, and I worried that he'd changed his mind and wouldn't show up. During lunch, Regina pulled a small pouch from her handbag.

“Wear these,” she said. Inside the pouch was a string of pearls. “They were my mother's,” she explained. “They will be nice for your special night.”

The pearls hung heavy in my hands, languid like a tropical
afternoon. I coveted them. My desire embarrassed me. “Regina, I can't wear these.” I handed them back reluctantly. “What if I lose them?”

“You will take good care, I know,” she said. “Please accept to wear them.”

I hugged the pearls around my neck and she fixed the clasp. When she sat back to admire them, Regina gently straightened the collar of my blouse. She smiled sweetly, her eyes misted. “You remind me of my mother,” she said. I had to swallow hard to keep from crying.

Sidney walked into the office five minutes before five. “I'm sorry. There was a lot of traffic from New Jersey in the tunnel.”

I assured him it was all right, relieved that he'd shown up.

“Go,” Ilsa said, “put on some lipstick. We'll finish here.” I ran to the rest room and fixed my face and hair, straigthened the pearls around my neck. They shimmered pale against my cinnamon skin.

“I thought we'd eat near where I'm parked,” Sidney suggested, as we walked down the street in a direction I'd never taken. The air was moist, and a cold wind blew from the Hudson, cut through my cloth coat until I shivered. We walked down a cobblestone street, around huge delivery trucks backed up to loading docks.

“Are we going far?” I asked after a few blocks.

“Just around the corner,” Sidney said.

The restaurant was in a basement. An awning flapped over the door with a name written in such dark characters that it couldn't be made out. Inside, two brick walls were lined with booths, each lit with a single flickering candle inside a red glass. The cloths and napkins on the tables glowed a fluorescent white, floated in the darkness, each with its red circle of light. It reminded me of my grandmother's altar in Puerto Rico, the mystery of the rosary she recited every evening.

We were the only patrons. The bartender looked up when we walked in, nodded us to a booth. In the dim room, Sidney's features
softened. His eyes, enormous behind his glasses, were kind, and there was a sadness in them that made me want to be nice to him.

A waitress appeared from the back pushing bobby pins into a frothy beehive. “I'll take your drink order,” she informed us.

I'd never had an alcoholic beverage anywhere but with my family, at Christmas, when Mami made several bottles of
coquito
with fresh coconut milk and Puerto Rican rum. When I asked for a Coke, both Sidney and the waitress were disappointed. He ordered a whiskey sour.

“Don't you drink alcohol?” he asked.

“Only at home,” I answered, and he laughed. It took me a while to understand why. “I didn't mean it that way. I mean . . .”

“I know what you mean, don't worry about it.”

We chatted for a few minutes about life at Fisher Scientific, where he worked as a microscope salesman. He liked the work, because he visited clients in several states, instead of being stuck in the office all day. He'd recently moved out of his widowed mother's house into his own apartment.

“It's not much,” he confided. “I hate living alone, but I liked it less when I lived with my mother.”

We ordered dinner from the specials board, discussed movies we'd seen, places we'd like to visit, books we'd read. We talked about our coworkers, and he told me something I didn't know. Ilsa, my supervisor, was Hungarian and had survived Nazi concentration camps.

“She doesn't like to talk about that part of her life,” Sidney confided.

“I don't blame her.” It explained a lot. Her accent, for starters. The faraway look that came over her, as if she heard voices.

“Look at her left arm sometime,” Sidney suggested. “She has numbers tattooed right here.” He touched me near the inside of my elbow.

He was easy to talk to, a generous listener. We sat at our table long after we'd eaten, sipping coffee, talking about dance and
music. He played the violin, and I admitted I knew nothing about classical music except what I'd heard at Performing Arts assemblies.

“MOTE-zart,” he corrected my attempt to name composers. I dug a piece of paper from my handbag, wrote down more names. “How do you pronounce them?” I asked. “BATE-hoven.” I repeated after him. “Rack-MANNY-nov. Pooch-EE-nee.”

It was drizzling when we left the restaurant.

“How about a walk? I have an umbrella in the car.”

At first, he held the umbrella so that I was protected and he wasn't. When I pointed out that he was getting wet, he drew closer, took my hand, kissed my cheek. I quivered with pleasure, with the romance of a stroll down a cobblestoned street in the rain with a sweet man who played the violin.

“If my mother knew I was out with a
shiksa,
she'd kill me,” Sidney blurted out.

“A what?” I stopped so suddenly that he walked a few steps before he realized I wasn't with him.

“A
shiksa.
A girl who's not Jewish.”

I didn't know if he was insulting me or if I should feel flattered that he'd gone against his mother's wishes to be with me. I understood why Ilsa was surprised that Sidney had asked me out. He wasn't supposed to. “Is it against your religion?”

“Sort of,” he said, but I heard “Yes.”

“Then you'd better not bring me home to meet her.” He gaped at me as if the thought scared him. “It's a joke,” I reassured him, and he smiled, unconvinced. “It's getting late,” I decided.

We ran to where he'd parked, as if to get away from whatever had come between us. The rain picked up the minute we entered the quiet, protective hull of his car. I directed him to Brooklyn. Squinting against the glare of other cars, Sidney paid close attention to the street signs, the turns he'd have to take on his way out. I tried to make conversation, but he stopped me. “Just a second, I have to concentrate. At the pizzeria,” he continued talking to himself, “I go right, then left. Got it.” He turned to me. “This is your street,” he grinned, “which one is your building?”

Our Venetian blinds were drawn, but, through a slit, Mami peered out of our third-floor window at the street below. I waited for Sidney to get out of the car, come around, open the door, hold the umbrella so that I wouldn't get wet. We went up the stairs—slowly, because I heard running, things shoved, doors slam. At the top landing, I fumbled for a key I didn't have, since there was always someone home, then pretended I'd forgotten it and knocked. Mami opened the door. She wore a maternity top and slacks, had combed her hair into playful curls, had dabbed her lips with color. I wondered if she had been dressed like this for hours, or if the running around I'd heard was due to the family getting ready for Sidney. My sisters and brothers sat on the couch and chairs, stiff as starch, their faces scrubbed, hair slicked. A flowered bed sheet divided the kitchen and living area from the front room, where I could hear Tata shushing Charlie. The kitchen smelled of freshly brewed coffee.

I introduced Sidney to Mami, then to each kid. The younger ones giggled shyly and hid behind the older ones.

“Would he like some coffee and cake?” Mami asked. On the table was a supermarket coffee cake still in its box.

“No,” I answered, “he has to go.” Sidney looked from me to her, expecting me to translate the exchange. “I told her you have a long drive to New Jersey.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” He seemed startled to be reminded of his home state. I led him to the door.

“See you Monday,” I promised, letting him out. Nine pairs of eyes followed our every move. It was a relief when Sidney waved goodbye from the threshold, made his way down the stairs. Tata shuffled out from the other room, Charlie in her arms. “Is he gone?” she cackled. I closed the door and turned to face my family, who expressed their opinion.

“He's so short!”

“He has a big nose.”

“His coat smelled bad.”

“His glasses are so thick.”

“That's how come he took Negi out. He's blind and couldn't see her.”

I made a feeble attempt to defend Sidney, “He's a sweet man,” but it was useless. I gave up and added to their mirth by revealing that his hobby was the violin. They thought that was really funny.

Mami looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “At least he behaved like a gentleman and brought you home early. It's not even ten o'clock,” she noted.

“Maybe Negi couldn't stand to be with him anymore,” Delsa snorted.

“Where did you get those pearls?” Tata asked, suddenly serious.