Tarnished Beauty (9 page)

When she finally went inside to eat her dinner, it was barely warm.

J
AMILET SLEPT UNTIL NOON
the next day, and woke with a pounding in her head. She looked around and remembered where she was. She also recalled, with nauseating effect, the two additional beers she'd drunk after she finished her dinner, and vowed that this would be the first and last hangover of her life. In her village, she'd seen plenty of what happened to people who turned to liquor for comfort. They were men mostly, and they wandered the streets like ghosts searching out a new corner to haunt and from which to beg for change. They often met death on the side of the road or in somebody's field, their bodies bloated and forgotten for days or weeks until they were found, usually by horrified children playing beyond the watch of adults.

For women it was worse somehow, although the alcohol hit them more subtly in the early stages, flushing their cheeks a flattering crimson and giving them the courage to speak and move with that alluring lack of inhibition that made men notice them. These were the same women who burned candles until late at night. If you passed by their houses, you'd see shadows moving in the windows, and hear the low, sensuous laughter of betrayal and forbidden things enjoyed to an extreme. In the morning the men's wives would show up pounding at their doors and would leave weeping into their aprons. This might go on for years, until one day the woman would emerge with red-rimmed flabby eyes, wondering where everybody had gone, and why the nights were now so dark and the days even darker. No, there would be no more beer for Jamilet.

Over the next few weeks, she busied herself with housework. She began by throwing out, with her aunt's approval, all the junk that had been accumulating, untouched, for years. She dedicated one full week to the laundry alone, and most mornings when Carmen left for work, Jamilet could be found outside, hanging freshly washed clothes and sheets out on the line to dry. She also started cooking in the evenings, preparing recipes that the Millers had enjoyed. Carmen was pleased with the home-cooked meals she returned to every night, and began to arrive earlier so she could converse with her niece about the daily drama and frustrations of her life while the meal was in its final stages of preparation.

Jamilet also enjoyed these times, and found comfort and amusement in her aunt's forward opinions about everything, which confirmed that the north hadn't changed her that much after all. In fact, there were moments when Jamilet felt as though they were sitting around the kitchen table in Mexico, with Lorena quietly sewing, and Gabriela grumbling about Carmen's lack of concern for her modesty or her health. Jamilet had always laughed along and sided with her aunt, but now she felt more sympathy for her grandmother's view of things, and hoped that with a clean house to live in and good food to eat, Carmen would be motivated to live a healthier life.

One evening, after guzzling her third beer, Carmen caught her niece's critical eye. “Don't look at me like that,” she snapped. “Who do you think you are, the Virgin Mary?”

Jamilet sighed and tossed the empty cans in the trash without bothering to answer. She knew that there wasn't an answer she could come up with that would get Carmen to listen. During the few weeks she'd been there, she'd exhausted them all. She reminded her aunt of the broken lonely women from back home, and of the early undignified deaths that befell almost all drinkers. When that didn't work, she turned to the fact that too much beer resulted in enormous bellies on men and women alike, and that their noses became big and red. At this Carmen laughed in midswallow, and nearly choked on her beer. “You must think I'm pretty goddamned stupid to believe that,” she said. “Louis drinks three times what I drink, and he's skinny as a bird.” She cackled once more, took another swallow, and then grew thoughtful. “There is a part of him that gets big and red though…” She leveled her eyes at Jamilet, almost bursting with laughter. “But it sure as hell ain't on his face.”

Other times Carmen remained with a scowl on her face and drank her beer in exaggerated loud slurps, but Jamilet knew her aunt's foul mood would lighten as soon as Louis arrived. He came over almost every night, about an hour or so after Carmen got home. Before then she was certain to change into something that accentuated her cavernous cleavage even if in the process she had to reveal the appalling state of her midsection. But Louis thought everything about Carmen was endearing, and if he could make her laugh it was all the better, as he liked nothing more than to watch her breasts jiggle. He looked for any excuse to declare, “I like my women big and sassy,” often with his mouth full of Jamilet's homemade dinner, and his hand slipping under the table to caress Carmen's generous thigh.

 

Late one evening, Jamilet was awakened by a strange wailing, quite different from the sloppy lovemaking sounds she'd grown accustomed to on the nights Louis stayed over. This was the eerie low-pitched moan of death making its claim and preparing for victory. Cold with fear, Jamilet got out of bed to check on her aunt. Her bedroom door was ajar, so Jamilet peeked in to find her sprawled naked on the bed, her breasts smeared across her body like too much whipped cream on an enormous sundae. She was whimpering and calling out for Louis, who was nowhere to be found, although the pillow on his side of the bed betrayed the fresh imprint of his head.

“Tía, what's the matter?” Jamilet asked, overcome by the sight of so much naked flesh.

Carmen made no attempt to cover herself as Jamilet entered the room. “He's a fucking bastard.” She attempted to raise her head a few inches before dropping back down to the pillow. “The bitch threatens him with the police and he's gotta run off to them…” She suddenly turned and swiped the phone off the nightstand, sending it to the floor, where it landed with a series of discordant jingles.

“You mean Louis?”

“‘You mean Louis?'” Carmen mimed with disgust. “Of course, who else?”

“Is he in trouble with the police?”

Carmen's thinking about this question seemed to prompt some modesty, and she reached for the sheet and pulled it over her midsection. “He's in trouble with his wife, that's who. Who does she think she is calling here at this time of night? And how the hell did she get my number? That's what I'd like to know.”

Jamilet was speechless. In spite of his obsession with beer and his even greater obsession with Carmen's full figure, she thought Louis was a basically kind and decent person. She appreciated how he thanked her for dinner every night and how he made it a point to comment on how things had improved since she'd arrived. “It's starting to feel like a home around here,” he'd say while planting a kiss on Carmen's cheek. “And we can thank your niece for that.”

“Louis has a wife?” Jamilet finally asked.

“And three snot-nosed kids,” Carmen replied, now turning on her side. “And I don't want to hear any lectures from you, got it?”

“I'm not going to lecture you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It's just that…”

“Here it comes…” Carmen grabbed the pillow closest to her and wrapped it around her head and ears.

“I thought you said that you couldn't stand people who lie,” Jamilet said, loudly enough to penetrate her aunt's pillow barrier.

Carmen turned so that only half her face was visible as she directed one squinty eye at her niece. “Yeah, so?”

“How can you stand Louis if he lies to his wife and kids? Every day he's here with you, he's lying to them, isn't he?”

Carmen turned on her back again, and managed to prop her head up a few inches so that her chin rested on her chest. She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, contemplating this bizarre dilemma, this affront to her philosophy of life. Then her cheeks puffed up as her eyes fixed on Jamilet like a warrior. “He doesn't lie to me though, does he?”

Before Jamilet could answer, Carmen pointed a fast finger at her. “No he doesn't, so shut up about it.” She collapsed on the bed and began moaning anew.

Jamilet pulled down the sheet to cover her aunt's feet, writhing in sync with her agony. “I'm sorry you feel bad, Tía. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

Carmen's feet became still, and she answered with a whimper, “Warm milk with vanilla and sugar, the way you made it for me the other night.”

Jamilet was back in minutes with a steaming mug and placed it next to her aunt, where the phone had been. Carmen took several tentative sips, and appeared somehow fortified.

“I don't want to hear his name mentioned in this house again, do you understand me?”

“I understand, Tía.”

Jamilet waited a few minutes longer, and when it seemed that her aunt was calmer and on the verge of sleep, she started to tiptoe out of the room. But then Carmen stopped her with an unexpected question. “Do you think he's making love to her, Jami? Do you think that while I'm here suffering, that skinny bastard is making love to his bitch wife?”

“No, I'm sure he's not,” Jamilet replied.

“Why not? How can you be so sure?”

Not thinking, Jamilet replied, “Because it's late and he's probably tired.”

Carmen brought her fist down to the bed in a fury. “Damnit, you're supposed to say it's because he loves me, and not her. You're supposed to say that he's with her only out of obligation, but that his heart belongs to me.”

“He loves you, of course he does,” Jamilet replied hurriedly. “What I mean is that it's just too bad he's married.”

“Yeah,” Carmen sighed. “It's too bad.”

 

Carmen didn't go to work for the remainder of the week. She directed Jamilet to call the gas company and tell them that she'd come down with the stomach flu and couldn't come to the phone because she was on the toilet with constant diarrhea. “They won't ask too many questions if you tell them that,” she said.

During the day she stayed in her room, sleeping or reading one of her many books with the pictures on the cover of half-dressed men and women embracing. But these only seemed to fuel her misery. Sometimes Jamilet would walk in to find her weeping, and the book she'd been reading spread-eagled like a wounded bird, on the opposite side of the room.

In the evenings, Carmen preferred to sit sprawled on the couch watching TV and drinking beer after beer until she doubled over on her side and fell asleep. Twice, Jamilet was unable to wake her and had to leave her there for the entire night.

Toward the end of the week, there was a light knock on the door and Jamilet opened it to find Louis, with a lopsided grin and a nervous foot tap-tapping on the threshold. Jamilet hurriedly stepped outside and closed the door so Carmen wouldn't notice he was there. She'd almost finished her first six-pack and was beginning to fade.

“She's very upset,” Jamilet whispered. “You better leave.”

Louise glanced up from his feet. “She usually is,” he said, looking like a penitent child. “But she gets over it.”

“You mean this has happened before?”

Louis raised his eyebrows and placed a wise hand on Jamilet's shoulder. “And it'll probably happen again.” With that he stepped past her, walked into the house, and plopped himself on the couch next to Carmen, a shy smile playing on his feathery lips. Carmen didn't blink as she helped herself to another beer, acting as if a fly had landed on the couch next to her and not the man she'd been pining over for three torturous days.

Undaunted, even amused, Louis began to beg for her forgiveness in a fit of poetic despondency, talking about the lack of meaning in his life without her, the emptiness in his heart, and so on.

Jamilet took a seat across from them, entranced by the scene. She'd been judging Louis very harshly during the past few days, and had convinced herself that he wasn't as kind and sensitive as she thought, but rather a liar and a trickster who couldn't be trusted to take out the trash. She was then surprised to find herself hoping that Carmen would give in to him, or at least respond in some way. But Carmen didn't even flinch, and proceeded to examine her fingernails one by one. Louis persisted, making more and more desperate declarations of his love for her, the joy he felt in her presence, his realization that no other woman could ever compare. His face reddened and his eyes watered, but still she refused to acknowledge him, or even to glance in his direction.

“You could at least answer him, Tía,” Jamilet said, no longer able to contain herself.

“You shut up,” Carmen answered, her eyes twisting in their sockets.

Louis jumped in. “She sees how cruel you're being.”

Carmen took a giant breath, and writhed with the overwhelming desire not only to answer but to bellow at him with all of her might. Louis licked his lips and waited. But when it was clear that she'd somehow found the strength to resist him, he sighed as despondent a sigh as he could muster, and said with convincing resignation, “I can see that this time you really mean it. My heart will be breaking for the rest of my life, but a man knows when he's wasting his time.”

He exhaled as though giving up his last breath and pushed himself up from the couch. He shuffled to the door and Carmen blinked once. He reached for the doorknob and her mouth twitched. He opened the door and her lips, which had been pressed tight, loosened and she began to speak words that were unexpectedly soft. “Why don't you leave her if I'm all that?”