Happy That It's Not True (4 page)

Alex said nothing.  Adriana came out of her bedroom looking exhausted, failing again to get enough sleep, her head pounding.  She was dressed and ready for work, rubbing lotion on her hands.

              “There’s the dumb ass,” Luciano said.

              A numb and hopeless Adriana ignored the remark—Alex devastated.  He searched for the wor
d
psychopat
h
, but was redirected to the wor
d
psychopath
y
.

              “Alex, you haven’t heard from your father—wasn’t he coming today?” Adriana asked.

              “He’s not coming,” Luciano jumped in.

              Alex closed his eyes and lowered his head into his hands.  “No, I haven’t heard from Dad.”             

“He doesn’t care about you,” Luciano said.

Luciano carefully examined Alex’s face to see if the comment had stung.  He smirked when he thought he saw a pang of discouragement. 

              “Luciano!” Adriana blurted out. 

Luciano grinned as if inhaling a sweet aroma.  “Asshole.”

Alex had never heard that word used to describe a woman, perhaps men, but not delicate flowers, not the gender of compassion and most definitely not his mother.  He was paralyzed with disbelief and disgust.  For a brief moment he thought about what household object would be most effective in beating such an enormous man unconscious, but then a realization came to him.  He was witnessing the final days of a marriage—surely it couldn’t get much worse than this.  In a few days it would be over.  All that was needed was to remain calm—for a few days.  

Adriana picked up her keys off the dresser and made her way to the door, her concern falling visibly upon Alex. 

“I didn’t have time to make anything.  Make yourself something for dinner.  Good nigh
t
mi amo
r
.”

“Goodnight Mom.”

Adriana stepped outside, locked the door, and stood a moment holding the second floor railing.  She found pleasure in holding on to things, mostly physical things, since there were no angels to move the spirit—nothing to show her tenderness or empathy.  As she walked down the stairs, she saw Cara coming up. 

“Hey Cara.”

“You’re running late?”

Cara had hoped to avoid Adriana, arriving home every day from work just after she would leave for the hospital.  Their relationship was one more thing Adriana couldn’t bear to think about.  For Cara, avoiding her mother was something she could do to control at least one facet of her life.  Luciano—there was nothing that could be done about him.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Adriana said.

Cara looked down, glanced at Adriana’s face and then looked away to the parking lot to catch a glimpse of two kittens running underneath the cars.  Adriana, with an opportunity to verbalize what she had been thinking about for days, decided that she could afford to be late to work. 

“You need to be in school.  You’re wasting your life working at the mall and doing nothing but drawing when you’re at home.  It’s nice to have a hobby, Baby, but it won’t get you anywhere.  Look at Diego; he was smart enough to know that all his talent meant nothing—that he needed to pursue a real career.  It makes me so mad—makes me want to throw away your drawing book, so you don’t throw away your life.”

A hobby.  How could Adriana take art and give it a name like that?  The wor
d
hobb
y
wounded her.  That she would do anything to destroy her work—that made her a brute. 

Adriana studied Cara’s face to see if her words had any effect on her or whether she had even been listening and felt a muddle of relief and regret in chastening her daughter. 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Diego is back in Miami—he’s teaching,” Adriana said. 

“No way!” Cara’s face lit up.  Adriana had almost forgotten what Cara’s smile looked like.

              “Cara—”

              Cara noticed her mother wearing an opposite emotion, and relinquished her smile.

            
 
“Yes mom?”

              “I’m sorry about this situation we’re in.”

              Cara knew that she was referring to Luciano.  Adriana parted her lips as if she had more to say, but shifted her eyes in search of words that never came.  Cara also wanted to say something, but was overwhelmed by her mother’s fragile state.  Adriana ran her fingers through Cara’s hair and settled for practical words.

              “Help Alex figure out what to do about dinner—gotta run.”

              “Bye mom, have a good night at work.”

              “Bye Cara.”

              “Mom—”

              “Yeah.”

              “I love you.  It’s not your fault that I’m so moody.  I’m the problem, not you.  Okay?”

              Adriana embraced Cara.  “I love you too, Niñita.  Bye.”

              As Cara neared the apartment, she could hear the vibrations and muffled din of SportsCenter.  She rolled her eyes to the heavens and unlocked the door, swinging it open to release the full blaring of the television.

              “Hey,” Luciano said.

              “Hey,” Cara reluctantly whispered.

              As Cara walked past the couch, Luciano touched her on the shoulder, causing her to scowl.  She turned her head away, but could not contain her shudder.  Luciano didn’t notice.  Cara peeked into Alex’s room.

              “Hey fat-head,” Cara said tenderly. 

              “Hey.”  Alex gave a forlorn glance.

              “I’m gonna take a shower and then we’ll do something about dinner,” Cara said.

              “I’m not hungry.”

              “Maybe you’ll be hungry later.”  She leaned her head against the doorframe and added, “I sound like mom, don’t I...”

              Luciano lowered the TV volume to listen to their conversation and waited a moment to project his deep voice.

              “You know what your problem is—the two of you—you wanna be gringos!”

              Cara slouched, her jaw dropping in the disappointment that Luciano was speaking to them.

              “You don’t want to speak Spanish?  You think you’re all that?  I’ll tell you what you really are—son unos wannabees!”

              Cara and Alex both gave each other despondent looks that communicated a dark solidarity.  Cara was the first to break the gaze and quietly walked to her room, digging up a change of clothes. 

              Once in the shower, Cara’s jitters were soothed by hot water.  She took deep breaths and turned her head slowly from side to side.  The heat quieted her mind and dissolved the tension in her body.  For a moment she forgot about her unhappy existence and the pain that her stepfather caused their family.  She felt cool air entering the steamy room, but could see nothing through the opaque green shower curtain.  Anxious thoughts flooded her mind—was she imagining the draft of air? —Had she remembered to lock the door?  Of course I locked the door—there’s no way I didn’t lock the door.  She became frozen, cradling a bottle of body wash. 

              Luciano’s big fiendish voice—which almost seemed to have eyes—emerged from behind the shower curtain.  “I’m still trying to decide if you’re Latina or gringa.  There’s only one way to know for sure.”   Cara’s heart was pounding, her eyes darting across the curtain for signs of an advance.  She wanted to scream out to Alex, but waited.  There was silence. 

              The door slammed and Cara slowly moved the curtain aside.  He was gone.  She leaned against the tile wall and began to cry, her hands cupped against her mouth, hoping not to be heard above the sound of water shrieking through the showerhead.  She stayed in the shower a long time, until she felt lightheaded and feverish.  Perhaps she had been in the hot water too long.  She looked at her shriveled fingertips and knew the answer.  Perhaps she had lived in that apartment too long.  She decided that she needed to move out before something worse happened.

Chapter Four

            
 
In a tiny efficiency apartment, not far away, Octavio put away his laptop, video camera, tripod and cables.  He thought that trying something new might excite him out of his chronic fatigue.  It worked for a little while.  With a DV camcorder and an old computer with a firewire port, he recorded a video of himself and uploaded it to a video sharing site and then embedded it onto his blog. 

              The activity had left Octavio exhausted, forcing him to lean against the walls just to make it to a small kitchen inside the twenty-six foot residence.  The kitchen counter was cluttered with energy bars and protein drink mixes—coffee always brewing.  The cabinets were covered with post-it notes—Octavio having a hard time remembering appointments or much of anything—noting very important things like visiting his children.  One note troubled him.  He tilted his head, looking at it as if it represented a tragedy.  Unable to read his own handwriting, he became anxious.  Was it something he needed to do?  Somewhere he was supposed to go?  The fall off the cliff had begun.  The endorphin high was over, and now he was breathing in an inky melancholy.

              “My God, my God—help me God.  Please help me God.”  Octavio, his eyes red and watery, slid his hands over the notes, careful not to remove them from the pressed wood panels.  He poured himself another cup of coffee and turned around to look at his mostly empty apartment—a small mattress, couch, chair, bags and cardboard boxes.  Without the energy, he would never begin to unpack the boxes which held most of his possessions.  Besides, he always seemed to be moving.  As he sipped coffee, one box labeled photos motivated him to trudge back across the room.

              He tore off the packing tape and the box opened like flower petals to reveal a stack of frames and loose pictures.  A soldier standing in a poppy field, his back to the photographer.  In the distance, mountains and a large plume of smoke the soldier seems to be gazing at.  Octavio couldn’t remember who the man in the photograph was or if he himself had taken the picture.  Maybe the picture was of him.

              Octavio lifted the photograph to uncover a smiling Fernandez family at a baseball game, squinting in the sun.  Octavio became immersed in the scene and overtaken with pain.

              “My God—please help me—I don’t feel good.”

              He heard a knock at the door and walked toward it, hyper-vigilant, his heart pounding.   When he opened it, he saw Adriana’s luminous eyes, her lips smiling sweetly. 

              “Hey,” Octavio said with unmistakable pleasure.

              “Hey Tavi—just thought I’d drop by—see how you’re doing.”

              “Come in—sorry ’bout the mess.”

              “I can’t stay, Tavi—how are you?  How’s work?”

              “They made me assistant manager at the gift shop.  Some of the employees are stealing money out of the register on my watch.  It’s making me look bad.  I had an absolute meltdown yesterday.  I’m off today—not feeling so good.  But now that you’re here, I feel a little better—”

              “Tavi—” Adriana laughed.

              “Hey—I’m still a guy—what do you expect?”

              Adriana was stricken with the impulse to cry.  When she saw the post-it notes, it made her want to cry more.  Octavio wanted to hold her but was unsure.  Adriana wanted to be held, but couldn’t bring herself to ask. 

              “Tavi—baby—I failed you.  I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger for you.  Everything I ever said was wrong.  Every decision I ever made was wrong.  Alex and Cara are worse off now.  And so am I—Tavi—I have some serious problems now.  Now I’m the one that needs help.  I just can’t imagine someone giving up on me—the way I gave up on you.  Maybe I deserve everything that’s happened.”

              “Are you okay—can I help you with anything?” Octavio said, the desire to reach out and hold her overwhelming.

              “I’ll be okay—you worry about yourself—you get better.  This is gonna sound stupid, but I just came by to tell you that I’ve always loved you.  I’ll always love you and I’m sorry about everything.  No matter what happens in this world—I think only the best of you.  I pray for you Tavi—please get better.  I’ve gotta run.  Take care.”

              After Adriana left, Octavio took a pill so he could sleep.  Night time would be too long to wait.  Sleep would numb pain.  Anything would be better than being awake in a world where nothing excited him—nothing spoke to his heart.  There were no vices—no pleasures—nothing to stir him out of loss.  There was only Adriana—her wonderful eyes and a love that was the goal of his life.

...

              Cara stood towards the front of the store in khakis and a tunic top, her feet and lower back aching from the thin carpeting over concrete.  Compared to the holiday season, the days weren’t as long.  Conversations between employees and patrons sometimes made the hours enjoyable; however, she still felt that it robbed the soul a little every day.