Naked in LA (5 page)

“He’ll be a year old in...fifteen months” time.”

“Esme's pregnant?” I said.

The lift doors opened.

“Sure,” he said.

The only one of us who wasn’t blushing was the bellboy. At least Angel had the grace to look just a little uncomfortable with his confession. Or perhaps he was just disappointed that I didn’t think to congratulate him.

Chapter 7

We stopped on the corner of our block. I wouldn’t let him go any closer. I didn’t want anyone seeing me in a limousine. I changed out of the new clothes in the back seat, and slipped back into my waitress uniform. I left the Cardin suit and the shoes in the Burdine's bag.

“Don’t forget the clothes,” Angel said to me.

“What am I going to do with those?”

“I don’t know. Wear them?”

“On the bus to work?”

“Next time.”

“You haven’t asked me if there’s going to be a next time,” I said.

“Sure there is,” he said. He handed me an envelope. “This is for your father from me.”

I held the envelope in my hands and stared at it. I wasn’t a whore until I took the money. I peeked inside.
Dios mio
, if I was selling myself at least I was getting an exorbitant price.

I slipped the money into my purse.

“Thanks. This is going to help out a lot,” I said, trying to make out it was a loan.

“Sure, baby.” He looked over at the house, the trash spilled in the yard by the neighbour’s dog, the dead lawn.

“We have to get you a new place.”

“That’s not my place,” I said. “My place is the back of that place. And I don’t need a new one,
we
don’t need a new one. It suits us just fine.”

“My father-in-law owns a real estate company. I can get something in a better part of town, won’t cost you anything.”

“No, I don’t want you to.”

“You’d rather live in that dump?”

“Yes.”

I put my hand on the door and made to get out.

“Let me at least get you a better job.”

“Enough, Angel. We revisited old times for an afternoon, that doesn’t mean you can start running my whole life.”

“Can you type?”

“Do I look like I can type?”

“I can get you a job in a typing pool at one of our offices. You don’t have to type.”

“Are you not listening to me?”

“You’ll get twice what you’re getting now.”

I got out of the limousine. “Thanks for the crab.”

He grabbed my arm, pulled me back towards him and kissed me on the mouth. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said.

Papi was dozing in front of the news. He heard me come in and opened his eyes. “Is that you, cariña?”

“Hi, Papi,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

“You’re wearing lipstick,” he said.

Mierda
, I’d forgotten to take it off. Of course he would notice, there might be a lot wrong with his heart, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes. “Can’t a girl wear lipstick once in a while?”

“Is there a boy you like?”

“Of course not.”

“Why “of course not?” At your age, there should be a boy, you should be out dancing every night not stuck in here taking care of me.”

“Don’t talk like that, Papi. You took care of me all those years.”

I went to the kitchen - bathroom - whatever it was, and looked in the pantry for something to cook for his dinner. Perhaps I should have brought home the stone crabs. I remembered the money in my purse. Tomorrow I would make him one of his favourite dishes, like Maria used to make back home, like
garbanzo
or
caldo Gallego
. I’d tell him I won the money on the lottery.

But first I’d pay those hospital bills.

One afternoon with Angel and I’d earned more than I made in a whole month at the diner. I hoped he thought it was worth it.

It was three o’clock in the morning, I lay there listening to the click of the fan, slick with sweat. I finally threw back the sheet and sat up. It was impossible to sleep.

I got out of bed, moving softly so as not to wake Papi. I slipped outside onto the concrete patio. There was a canvas director’s chair left behind by some previous tenant and I sat down, put my face in my hands and started to cry. All the shame and fear and grief poured out.

I didn’t want to live like this anymore.

This wasn’t the way it was meant to be. I never thought about it when we were in Havana; I thought the nice house, the servants, the chauffeur-driven Bel Air, all of it would last forever. But I’d learned very quickly that nothing is forever, life can change in an instant. Now I was twenty-one years old, working in a diner and living in a single room with a sick father. By now I was supposed to be married to Angel Macheda and living in a big house in Marianao.

But had I ever thought past the wedding reception and opening the presents? That wasn’t a life, it wasn’t even a bit of one. My future had never extended further than my moment of triumph in the cathedral in San Cristobal, the white dress, the tear in Papi’s eye as he gave me away.

I didn’t even get that--it was part of Esmeralda Salvatore’s memories now. And look at the future she had earned! Six months gone with Angel’s baby while he’s screwing a new mistress in one of her father’s hotels.

Whatever my future was supposed to be, it wasn’t this.

There were a few times I caught myself thinking,
What if Papi...
I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the thought, ashamed that it had ever occurred to me. And yet this was no life, not for him or for me.

I couldn’t stop crying. I’d held on to so much for so many years, ever since I sat in the waiting room of the hospital that night we arrived from Havana with only the clothes I had on my back. I had held myself together for month after month, year after year, thinking:
I’ll cry tomorrow.

Well tomorrow had arrived. I couldn’t do this anymore. I was coming undone.

I started to whisper a prayer, very softly so as not to wake him.

I had prayed before, decorously in the cathedral in Havana, in public view, lighting candles and slipping coins into the tin box. This was different. This time I grovelled before God, my face was wet with snot and tears, and my prayer was just the same words repeated over and over.

“Please help me get out of this. Show me a better life than this.”

Chapter 8 

“What are you doing home this time of the day?” Papi asked.

It was lunchtime, I’d only left for work a couple of hours ago. “Papi, I have some good news.”

He forced a smile. He was not having a good day, he was coughing a lot and there were dark rings under his eyes.

“I quit my job at the diner. I’ve got work somewhere else, somewhere better.”

“A new job?”

“In an office. I’m a secretary now. I don’t have to wait tables anymore.”

“That’s wonderful,
cariña
. Where is this?”

“Not far, just in Dade County. It’s a construction company, and it pays a lot more money.” Angel was actually putting me on his payroll at four hundred dollars a week, crazy money for a secretary.

But he’d probably break even for a mistress.

Papi was smiling but I could see the look in his eyes, he was calculating. “How did you get this job? You can’t type.”

“I ran into Consuela Caballero. She was a friend of mine from Havana. Do you remember her? Anyway, her father, he works in construction now, he said he’d hire me, it’s on the job training.”

I could tell by the way he looked at me that he didn’t believe a word of it. He was debating with himself whether to call me on the lie, or whether maybe, in this situation, it was better not to know.

I held my breath--and
gracias a Dios
--he let it slide.

“I remember Consuela,” he said, “her father was in the army, wasn’t he? I didn’t know he made it out of Cuba. Why don’t you ask them over?”

“Oh, Papi, how are we going to do that?”

“Is it this place you’re ashamed of, or is it me?”

“Papi, don’t say that.”

“Anyway, it’s good you don’t have to work at the diner anymore.”

“We’re going to have a special dinner tonight to celebrate. I’m making chickpea soup and
peccadillo
with white rice. Now let’s get you out of this bed and into the sunshine, your colour doesn’t look too good.”

It took me a while to get him out of the bed and into his wheelchair. He got out of breath now after even the smallest exertion, and he had to keep stopping to rest or he’d have another coughing fit. Soon, I’d need help to take care of him, I wouldn’t be able to leave him alone to go to work. What was I going to do?

I decided I would spend part of my new lavish wage on someone who would sit with him during the day. I wouldn’t let him go into a nursing home.