Tomorrow They Will Kiss (12 page)

A
fter everything I’ve done for her
since she arrived in Union City, she’s still holding on to that shit that happened with Mario back in Palmagria all those
years ago. I see how she still looks at Mario, like he’s the devil. I told her back in Palmagria, and if I have to, I’ll tell
her again: Por Dios, Graciela, Mario was drunk!

I did what I could, and if that’s not good enough for her, then to hell with her. I never told Caridad, but I went to Graciela’s
house right after I put Mario on the train to Pilón. I put my own reputation at risk by going to her house and she wouldn’t
even let me in the door. I could see her mother standing behind her, in the back of the house, toward the kitchen. Graciela
just stood there, looking at me without blinking. She didn’t seem one bit sorry for what she’d done to Ernesto. Instead she
looked like she was angry at me. What a bitch.

“Graciela, you can’t blame a drunk man for saying something stupid,” I said. “That’s what drunk men do, everyone knows that.”

She remained silent. Not that I expected her to forget the whole thing at that very moment. But I thought we could at least
talk.

“Let me in,” I said. I was getting uncomfortable standing there. Someone might see me. She must have noticed, I could see
something in her eye begin to give. Then her mother came up, almost running, and before Graciela had a chance to say anything
to me, la vieja slammed the door in my face. In my face!

I stood on the sidewalk con la boca abierta, with my mouth hanging open. After that day I didn’t see Graciela very much. There
was really no reason for me to go to that part of town. It was then that rumors started about Graciela saying Mario had ruined
her life. Not that it was that much of a life to begin with, but she certainly didn’t make things any better putting los cuernos
on Ernesto de la Cruz, and with Pepe Medina Ynclán, of all people. She never said yes or no to the rumors, so naturally everyone
in Palmagria to this day still believes that they were true. How could we ever trust her again if we didn’t know what really
happened? Caridad and me, we couldn’t just come right out and ask her. That wasn’t our way.

Now, in New Jersey, she acts like nothing happened. Like crossing from one country to another has baptized her new again.
As if I can’t remember who she really is and what she did. As if I couldn’t see right through her.

In the van Leticia protected her, I could tell. I have eyes, I have ears. She let us say whatever we wanted to Raquel or Berta.
But whenever we tried to get anything out of Graciela, suddenly she’d screech, “Niiiiñas,” and change the subject.

All Leticia cared about was money. She knew that if we pushed Graciela too far she wouldn’t ride the van to work anymore.
That Leticia had dollar signs in her eyes. She raised our fees again, and for what, I wondered—the sheer pleasure of riding
in that smelly yellow van like prisoners being taken to court? The least she could do, if she was going to charge more, was
make sure Chano cleaned the inside every once in a while—I was sick of the smell—and fix the radio and get the upholstery
repaired. We’d been sitting on exposed springs far too long. I’d torn several of my skirts. And do you think Leticia offered
to replace them, or even an apology for the pig smell? No.

“Be careful with the springs” was all she said, as if I was a careless idiot, as if I had torn my skirts on purpose. As if
I liked wearing mended clothes.

Before Graciela arrived, things were different. We were used to doing things in a particular way. For example, we took turns
sitting in the front seat. And then one day, when it was her turn, Graciela decided to offer it to Berta.

“You take it, Berta,” she said.

Caridad looked at me with that look I knew only too well. The look that says, “Imagínate!”

I just shrugged and got in back, as always. Contrary to what people have said about me, I’m not always in the mood for a fight.
Some days I just look the other way, and that’s what I chose to do that day.

“Ay, gracias, cariño,” Berta said, and plopped her fat ass in the front seat. The following week it happened again. And once
again Berta accepted. So what could the rest of us do? Raquel was the next to offer Berta the front seat when it was her turn.

I bit my tongue for as long as I could. I even had the decency to take Graciela aside and have a few words with her. During
our break, not in front of the others. I’m no savage.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” I said. And she knew exactly what I was talking about.

“I don’t like to ride in the front,” she said. “The way Leticia drives, I get nauseous.”

“Well, then, why didn’t you offer it to all of us?”

“Because Berta is the oldest,” Graciela said, as if this was the most logical of answers.

“Well, you’re just complicating everything.”

“I think you’re being childish,” Graciela said.

“De veras, Graciela?” I asked. “Because I think it’s you who is being childish. Everything functioned fine until you came.”

“On my day I do what I want with my seat, you do whatever you want with yours. I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t
want to do,” Graciela said, and she left me standing there speechless. Speechless! Because, por Dios, it wasn’t that simple.
I wasn’t doing it for myself, but for Caridad. Caridad loved the front seat and always looked forward to her turn. But Graciela
had left us no choice. What were we going to do, be the only ones?

So I gave up my turn. The next day Caridad finally gave in. She offered Berta the front seat. But she wasn’t happy about it.
For a couple of days afterward she didn’t speak a word to anyone. She sat in back quietly while the rest of us discussed the
telenovela. For almost a week Caridad didn’t say a word.

Now Berta crawls into the front seat every day, both on the way to work and on the way home. She rides up there in the front
like she’s the Queen of the Parade, always rubbing her legs and complaining. I thought it would only be that one time, maybe
twice, but it was forever. The front seat, thanks to Graciela, now belonged to Berta, and the rest of us rode in the back
like cattle. So you can imagine how we felt when Leticia raised the fee. Not only were we stuck in the back with torn upholstery
and no radio, but we paid more for the privilege.

I didn’t feel so bad for myself as I did for Caridad. Por Dios, if anyone had a right to get whatever she wanted in this country,
it was Caridad. After all she had to endure. She escaped from Cuba in a boat in the middle of the night. In my eyes that woman
was and always will be a hero.

“It was just awful,” she told me. “We drove through the night with our headlights turned off. And now I wonder if that was
smart at all, but no one seemed to really know what they were doing. I can understand that we didn’t want to attract attention,
but what attracts more attention than a dark car on a dark road? But you know me, I didn’t say anything. All I could do was
follow Salud and hang on to my little Celeste. Imagínate, we sneaked out of our country like thieves in the night.”

Every time Caridad tells me that story I just want to weep, or hit somebody.

*

I
REMEMBER NOT LONG AFTER
Caridad escaped, I saw a woman in the neighborhood wearing a blouse that looked just like one of Caridad’s favorites. It
was orange with little pink flowers, and I remembered the first day Caridad had worn it, to Cuca Soto’s bridal shower, and
how happy and pretty she’d looked that day. So I followed the woman, keeping a safe distance, my eyes on the flowered pattern
as it moved through the crowded streets of Palmagria.

After Caridad left, I had watched her house be ransacked, looted. The officials had not properly sealed it, and strangers
came in and took whatever they wanted. I knew that whoever the woman was, she had to be one of them, a looter, a thief. That
she’d gone into Caridad’s closet and taken that blouse before the house was boarded up. As I followed the woman, the distance
between us became less and less, until I could practically smell her perfume. I could even see the indentation the strap of
her brassiere made across her back.

It was Graciela.

I hadn’t seen her since Ernesto sent her back to her parents’ house like damaged goods. I followed her a little while longer,
my blood boiling. And then I stopped and let her go on, because what I really wanted to do was reach out and rip that blouse
right off of her. And I just couldn’t do that. Dios mío, what would people say if they saw us rolling around on the sidewalk
like a couple of one- eyed cats? Sometimes with Graciela you just had to let her go.

“You know what it felt like after you left?” I said to Caridad one day, after we were reunited in exile. “Like you had committed
suicide.”

“It felt the same to me,” Caridad said. “Except I was still alive.”

I remember the morning she left clearly. She had left the jar with the mentholated cigarettes on the front porch of my house.
When I saw it, I knew she was gone. One of the best things about the United States is that we now smoke Kool cigarettes. We
don’t have to mentholate our own cigarettes anymore.

*

Y
ES, I THINK
if anybody has a right to sit wherever she wants in that van, or anywhere else in this country, it’s Caridad. But she was
stuck in the back with the rest of us just because of Graciela.

“Cari,” I said one day. “You know what I was thinking about? I was thinking about that beautiful blouse of yours, the orange
one with the little pink flowers. Whatever happened to that blouse? I loved that blouse.”

Caridad got a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she was searching her mind for every blouse she’d ever owned. Graciela remained
quiet and turned her face to the window, as if she wasn’t even remotely interested in anything I had to say.

“Which blouse?”

“You know, the one you wore to Cuca Soto’s bridal shower? Orange with pink flowers, little flowers, and pearl buttons up the
front.”

Graciela continued looking out the window. I could see her face reflected in the glass.

“Was it like the one Esmeralda wore the day she went to visit the man she thought might be her father?” Leticia asked. Always
with the telenovelas. I mean, I like them and I watch them, but with Leticia it’s a sickness.

“No, por Dios, this was much nicer. You remember, Graciela, don’t you? It had little pearl buttons down the front?” I met
Graciela’s eyes in the glass. She couldn’t avoid me.

Graciela turned and looked right at me. I could tell she was hating every moment. She was so close I could feel the fire in
her eyes.

“Oh, yes, that old blouse,” Caridad said. “What made you think of that?”

“I always liked it, and I wondered what ever happened to it,” I said, keeping a watchful eye on Graciela. I had her cornered
and I knew it.

“Oh, I think I left it behind with all my other things. I told you, we didn’t even bring a change of underwear to this country.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, turning almost completely to face Graciela.

Graciela took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“You gave me that blouse,” she said.

Caridad turned to look at her.

“I did?”

“Yes,” Graciela said, “after Celeste was born.”

“Imagínate. I think I did. You remember, Imperio, how I always used to give my old clothes to Graciela?”

Graciela was looking out the window again. She couldn’t deny that we gave her our old things. She couldn’t deny that even
after she was married, we were better off than she was. But the most annoying part of it was that Graciela wouldn’t always
accept our kindness. Most of the time she’d look at perfectly good items and reject them, as if our sense of style just wasn’t
good enough for her. I’ll bet she jumped at the chance to own that blouse.

“So whatever became of it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Graciela said. But I could tell she was lying. I was sure of it.

A silence came over the van—that silence everyone hated because it threatened to reveal our deepest thoughts. I knew no one
hated that silence more than Leticia, because it exposed all the sins of that van, the nauseating smell of pork, the rattling
motor, the lack of music from the nonexistent radio, the sharp, coiled seat springs that seemed always ready to cause damage.

“Niiiiñas, do you think Esmeralda’s ever going to find that old man?” Leticia asked, determined to change the subject. “How
long is that deathbed going to hold him?”

“He won’t last the week,” Caridad said.

She was talking about a show called
Solo Vive el Corazón
(The Heart Lives Alone). Every once in a while a telenovela played that no one was crazy about—but we watched it anyway.
And no matter how awful the story, Leticia was always fanatical about it. Personally I couldn’t care less if Esmeralda ever
found her father, even if I did watch it every night. Caridad was of the opinion that the father was going to die before Esmeralda
found him, but I knew the opposite was true.

“Por Dios,” I said. “In these things the girl always finds her father before he dies.”

“Always,” Caridad said.

The Heart Lives Alone
had another thing that I absolutely hated: Esmeralda was blond. She was as blond and blue- eyed as the dolls we worked on.
It was filmed in Argentina, where I hear blondes are quite common. But I wondered if this was a new trend, where the blonde
was the heroine. And it eventually proved to be true, the slow but sure Americanization of the telenovelas.

Graciela and I rode the rest of the way in complete silence; neither of us wanted to talk about Esmeralda. It was certainly
not one of our favorite telenovelas. Then I remembered something else about the blouse. The reason I turned back. The reason
I didn’t stop Graciela that day in Palmagria. The reason I had trouble recognizing her from behind. It was a different Graciela—not
the old Graciela with the high- heeled look- at- me attitude. Her hair was pulled tight into a thick braid, like a country
girl’s; her back, usually so straight and tall, was slightly hunched. She held her shoulders close to her body. Even her silhouette
seemed different, narrower, defeated. As I watched her walk away, I thought, She did this to herself, she doesn’t deserve
my sympathy. I continued watching until she turned the corner and both Graciela and the blouse disappeared from sight. That
was the last time I ever saw her in Palmagria.