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Authors: Margo Candela

BOOK: Underneath It All
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54
Papá
I
dump my plate into the garbage can set in the corner of the yard and grab a cold beer out of the humongous cooler. I need alcohol to get my nerve up. With my dad, things can go either surprisingly well or not. I always bank on not, so it makes being around him without my mother all the more awkward.
“Hey,
Papá
. Whatchya doing? Cooking steak?” Around my father, I become a huge, insecure dork.
“Yup,” my father grunts. He’s standing in front of the grill, jabbing a deadly looking two-pronged fork into cuts of beef. Since I moved away from my family, I’ve had beef only a handful of times. I can honestly say I had steak for dinner, maybe not very good steak, but steak nonetheless, most nights for the first eighteen years of my life.
“The yard is looking good.” I rock back and forth from my heels to my toes, clutching the beer bottle behind my back, sort of hiding it from my father.
“Yup.” A proud grunt and a nod. Can’t ask for more than that.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your, um, OK. Have you seen
Mamá?
” I’ve done my duty as a daughter.
“
Cocina
.”
“Bye,
Papá!
”
55
Mamá, Yolie, Tía Carmen
I
fight my way into the kitchen—relatives seemed to have invited relatives—and find my mother sitting at the table with
Tía
Carmen and Yolie. Not good. I try to backtrack, but I’m caught.
“Jacquelyn, sit down. Did you ask your father about the grass?”
My mother knows that my father is a hard man to talk to. I don’t think they’ve ever had a real conversation about anything except bills, their kids, their kid’s kids and the state of the lawn.
“Yeah, he said it was great. OK. I think I’ll go pee now.”
“
Siéntese,
Jacqueline. We were just talking about you,” Yolie enlightens me.
“I bet. I really have to pee. Don’t want to get a UTI.” They look at me blankly. “Bladder infection.”
“You get those often?”
Tía
Carmen asks.
God, she really can’t stand me. I can’t imagine how she’ll feel about me if Lina goes through with her elopement and fingers me as the one who encouraged her to do it.
“Only during Fleet Week.” They look at me blankly. “I’m kidding.”
I pull out a chair and sit gingerly on its edge, ready to make a quick exit when things go the way I know they’ll be going.
“Your
tía
was telling us that she thinks Lina is very serious about Roberto.”
My mother looks for drama where she can find it. She tries to re-create her telenovellas in real life, always suspecting someone is involved in a sordid love triangle or owes money to drug dealers. In my mom’s mind, the idea that Roberto is cheating on Lina with me while selling kilos of cocaine between root canals isn’t that far-fetched. Bless her heart, but the woman needs a life.
“Uh-huh.” I nod. Someone must have seen us go into my room, and now my aunt wants to know if I corrupted her daughter. Too late! “Where
is
Lina?”
“She and Roberto had to leave. Has Lina said anything to you about Roberto, Jacqs?” Yolie asks.
“Like what, Yolie?” I can’t help but sneer at her. She sounds just like our
Tía
Carmen. She’s even starting to look like her.
“
Tía
Carmen thinks she’s been acting funny.”
Yolie takes a sip of her drink from a gummy plastic tumbler. My mother has tons of them. I’ve always hated them and refuse to drink out of them. You can never really get the smell of the last drink out no matter how hot and soapy the water. In my place, nothing is plastic.
“Lina is a funny person,” I say to the air over Yolie’s head.
“My daughter is a good girl,”
Tía
Carmen states.
“Meaning what? That I’m not? If you want to know what’s so
funny
about Lina, ask her yourself.” They just stare at me, silent and damning. Even my own mother.
Without another word, I get up and walk away.
56
Noel
I
f I was still in my teens or hadn’t been married, I would be in huge trouble. Now I’ll just get some dirty looks, but they can’t punish me since I’m officially an adult.
I sit on the couch with the kids and watch
Jurassic Park.
I thought I could make it for a few more days, but I know I’ll be leaving as soon as possible. I’m tempted to pull out my cell phone and loudly make arrangements, but I don’t. It would hurt my mom’s feelings. After a few minutes, I notice that Noel is slumped in my dad’s armchair.
“Hey, you passed out, Noel?” I nudge his foot with mine.
“Nope, not yet. Just riding out the storm.” Noel is a big fan of the Doors. Everything he says has a forced lyrical bent to it. Especially when he’s had a beer or three.
“Where’s Giselle?” I ask. All Noel’s girlfriends have had glamorous, romantic names. There was Roxanne in junior high; Karina, Dominique and Maxine during high school and some more after I left for school, and now it’s Giselle.
I like Giselle well enough, but I wish she’d stop picking out the same chunky knit sweater for my brother to give me for Christmas. I haven’t worn sweaters like that since I lost all my baby fat. Unfortunately, all the pictures my parents have on display are of me resplendent in a chunky sweater that I thought camouflaged my weight.
“She had to work. She’ll be by later. Maybe.” He takes a drink of his beer. “Hey! You want to go out for lunch tomorrow? Your favorite place. My treat.”
“Are you sure it won’t break the bank?” I’ve been waiting for him to ask. My brother knows I have a soft spot for Tommy’s messy, and utterly delicious hamburgers, something I can’t get in San Francisco.
“I think I can handle it.” He digs into his pocket. “I got you that pass for the gym. Where I work. It’s good for the whole week, but I know you won’t be able to stand it here that long.”
“Thanks. I’ll go tomorrow. The more time I spend away from our family, the longer I can stand being around them.”
“Tell me about it. Just come find me when you’re ready for lunch,” he says again happily.
“OK.” Noel is drunk, but, as with everything bad Noel does, he’s nice enough about it so that I or anyone else can’t hold it against him. “Thanks for the pass.”
Noel leans back with his eyes half-closed. I watch him carefully. It’s not that I find him pathetic. He’s too honest with himself and up-front with all his fuckups for anyone to feel sorry for him. But it’s still hard not to root for him and hope that something, someday works out for him.
I remember vividly when I realized what a flawed and great person my brother was. He was in his second semester at Cal State LA and he was my hero. He had scrimped and saved and dug himself into debt so he could live near campus like a regular student. This devastated my mother, and my father said he wouldn’t last a month. I was still in high school and the only kid left at home. My brother knew how hard it was for me to be at the center of the vortex of my parents’ relationship and took pity on me. Every chance he got—when he wasn’t goofing off, working or going to the odd class—he’d drive up from school in a friend’s car, pick me up and take me back with him and we’d spend time touring the campus, hanging out and doing what college kids do: staying up late and eating junk food.
Toward the end of his second semester, I was walking home from school, taking my time because I didn’t want to get there, when I noticed my brother’s current girlfriend crying her eyes out in a car. She lived a few blocks over and was going to the local beauty school, so we saw her a lot. She would drop by during the week to say hi to my parents and me.
I hid behind a tree and tried to get a better look. What I saw was my brother Noel, looking pale and tense, gripping the steering wheel while she cried and cried. I knew immediately that she was pregnant. I went home and threw up.
Two weeks later, my brother came home. He dropped out of school and got some dumb-ass job at Circuit City. He wouldn’t tell my parents why and they never thought to ask me. He would come in and out of the house and not say a word to anyone. At night, I’d hear him pleading on the phone with her. He’d cry; she’d cry.
Then, one morning, he was gone before any of us woke up. His boss called looking for him, and when he showed up later that afternoon, he wouldn’t tell anyone where he’d been. His girlfriend broke up with him shortly after whatever happened that day.
Noel had quit school, gotten a job and was prepared to do what was right and, even though he had, things still didn’t work out for him. It made my decision to leave home for college all the easier. Why do the right thing? Chances are they won’t work out anyway.
Noel starts to snore softly. The kids giggle. I get up and pick my way around the small bodies of my cousins and nieces and nephews, all transfixed by the television, and shut myself in my room.
No one comes looking for me.
57
Mamá and Papá
M
y mother makes a full breakfast in the morning, every freaking morning. When my brother has to be at work early, she wakes him up, irons his clothes (khaki Dockers and a red polo) and, while he’s in the shower, cooks him breakfast. Creamy oatmeal made with whole milk, omelets with chorizo, pancakes. No hour is too early, no request too obnoxious.
She used to do the same thing for my dad before he “retired” from the company he and my other two brothers own together. Now that he is not working and doesn’t get up at the crack of dawn, she has to do this routine twice: once for him and once for Noel, a couple hours apart. Incredibly this is the one thing she never complains about.
Noel has left for work and my father is already barricaded behind his morning paper.
“Good morning, Daddy!” I say brightly.
My mother gives me a warning look from the stove. My father grunts, turns the page and waits for the food to miraculously appear on a plate in front of him.
“Noel said you were going to his gym. You can borrow your father’s car,” my mother offers generously from her post at the stove.
“No.” He doesn’t lower the paper or acknowledge the fact that my mother has set his breakfast on the table: fried ham steak, eggs and more eggs. He’s going to get ass cancer, and I’m not going to feel that bad about it. For my mom, yeah, since I know she’ll have to deal with it, but for him, nope. He kind of deserves it, if you ask me. “
Yo lo necesito
.”
“It’s OK,
Mamá
. I’ll
rent
a car.” I can feel my upper lip curl. My dad works my last nerve almost as bad as Yolie does. But at least Yolie pretends to make conversation before she goes for the jugular. My dad doesn’t waste any time.
“I—” My mother looks as if she’s prepared to take one of her rare stands against my father.
“Really,
Mamá
. Trust me. It’s OK.” I smile at her and at my dad. I’ll rent a big-ass car that uses lots of gas. Something foreign. Maybe a pink car, if I can find one in this town.
“I don’t see why you should spend the money.” My mother passes a stick of margarine.
“I’ll expense it. No big deal. And, after I get back, we can go shopping. Just you and me,
Mamá
.” I tilt my head and smile beatifically at my father. He digs into his ham steak and doesn’t say another word.
Ass cancer, for sure.
58
Letti
A
fter breakfast I take a cab to the closest Avis and rent a convertible. A red convertible, just to make sure my father and Yolie won’t miss it. I was considering checking into a hotel later today, but now that I’ve been annoyed by them, I think I’ll stay and flounce around the house and give them both heartburn.
Since it’s too early to go to the gym—I can’t possibly exercise for three hours—I drive by my old high school and the yogurt shop where I last worked before leaving for college. I swing by my high school boyfriend’s house and have to speed away when his mother steps out to water her plants.
I drive by my high school best friend’s house and get out. I haven’t called to say I’m coming, and we haven’t spoken for years, but this type of transgression isn’t considered rude to most Latinos. What would be rude is if I didn’t stop by at all.
I knock on the door and take a step back. Her mom, Keeka, comes to the door and peers out.
“Hello?” She sounds suspicious. I wonder if I look as if I’m selling bogus insurance policies or something.
“Hi! It’s me. Jacquelyn. Letti’s friend? From high school?”
“Oh, Jacquelyn! Come in! Letti will be so surprised. Let me go get her. She’s in back with the baby.”
“She’s here?” I had assumed Letti would be at her own place, or even at work, not still living with her mom. And definitely not at her parents’ with a kid.
“Sit down. Sit.” Keeka moves a pile of fresh laundry off an armchair and physically takes me by the shoulders and lowers me onto it. “Letti! Letti! Guess who’s here!”
From the kitchen, I hear some shuffling. Letti stops short and her mouth drops open. I get up, skip over and hug her tight.
“Oh, Jesus H. Christ. Jacqs! I must look a mess.” And she does. My formerly trim friend has gained some weight, has let her hair get too long and shapeless, and is wearing saggy sweat pants and a tank top, with no boob support.
“Well, I assume it’s because you just had a baby. I’ll cut you some slack.” I hug her tighter. “When did this happen?”
“Oh, about three years ago.”
“Wow. Boy or girl?” I ask, hoping that Letti is so excited to see me that she doesn’t notice I just agreed with her that she looks like crap.
“Girl. Her name is Brianna.”
“Let me see her.” Letti takes my arm and leads me back into her girlhood bedroom. She has the same nightstand and dresser, but has upgraded to a double bed, and wedged in the corner is a crib, complete with a sleeping toddler.
“She’s asleep. She has a cold. Kept me up all night,” Letti says as she takes a swipe at her hair and tucks it into an oversized clip.
“I can’t believe you had a baby and didn’t tell me!” I whisper. “This is so weird.”
“Tell me about it.” Letti sits on her bed. Her mom hovers in the kitchen. Letti kicks the door shut with her foot. “Christ. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“What’s going on?” I sit down next to her. I don’t want to hear it. I’ve heard this story too often. I grew up hearing this story. So did Letti. I can’t believe she didn’t learn anything from it.
“Brianna’s father is such a fuck. You wouldn’t believe it. He won’t pay child support. I had to move out of our apartment. He has a new girlfriend ...” Letti rattles off her not-so-unique list of relationship complaints and, with each one, it feels as if another stone is settling on my shoulders. She seems resigned to her lot, though, and not looking for pity. “Same old shit.”
“That sucks, Letti. Really.” I feel like crying. I feel like getting on a plane and never, ever coming back. Ever.
“Whatever. So, tell me about you! I heard you got married. You bitch, why didn’t you invite me?”
“Please, I eloped. I was temporarily insane. It’s over and has been over for a while. Now I’m married to my vibrator.”
Letti throws back her head and laughs and then springs up to see if she’s woken up her kid. She pats Brianna on the back, makes soothing sounds and then settles down on the bed again.
“Man, same old Jacqs. Man ... Remember we were going to be ZZ Top girls?”
“Don’t remind me.” We were obsessed with the women in the ZZ Top videos with their candy-colored pumps and ankle socks, short-short skirts and tank tops. They seemed to have the life of unbridled sexuality and a decidedly tacky but appealing fashion sense.
We look at each other and smile. Somewhere, buried underneath, I can still see the old Letti. I can’t help but think that I look so much better than her. Her mother taps on the door.
“Yeah?” Letti calls out and rolls her eyes.
“Letti, you have to get to work. You can’t be late.”
“OK, Ma. Don’t worry about it.” Letti gets up and pulls out a waitress uniform from her closet.
I turn away and thumb through some magazine while she gets dressed, trying to stay out of my sight. When she’s done, she leans over into the crib and kisses her sleeping daughter. I follow her out into the living room.
“Do you need a ride?” I offer before I realize how snobby this sounds. Just because she has a kid, no man and lives with her parents doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a car.
“Nah. The fucker kept the apartment, but I kept the car.”
“Good for you, girl. Good for you.”

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