Tomorrow They Will Kiss (23 page)

“That was awful, Imperio,” Caridad said. But I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

“I’m just so furious with her,” I said.

Graciela stayed in Berta’s room for a very long time while Caridad and I smoked a Kool in the waiting room. We never, ever
smoked a whole cigarette anymore, we always shared it. Caridad took a puff and I took a puff. It was less harmful that way.

“What is she doing in there with Berta all this time?” Caridad asked. “You can barely get a reaction out of her anymore.”

“She goes in and out,” I said, “but mostly out.”

When Graciela finally came out of Berta’s room, she was red- nosed and teary- eyed.

She can be very sentimental cuando le conviene—when it’s convenient for her, when it’s to her advantage, when she wants to
get attention, when she wants to make everyone think she’s a saint who walks the earth.

*

G
RACIELA REMAINED OBLIVIOUS
to the effect her selfish behavior was having on the rest of us. While Berta was still in the hospital she went off to an
antiwar demonstration with Mr. O’Reilly. One of those hippie events where people got so high on drugs and so worked up that
they had to call in the National Guard.

That night, for the first time ever, the telenovela was interrupted by a news program. One moment we were watching the real
Rosalinda struggling with her conscience, and the next we were watching a world gone mad. Ambulances were sent in to remove
the casualties, armored wagons and policemen with shields to remove the more violent protesters. Por Dios, they were burning
the American flag. The American flag! Never, not even during the worst days of the Revolution, did someone think of setting
the Cuban flag on fire. Most of them were young, long- haired, and completely out of their minds. They screamed and waved
peace signs as they were forced into paddy wagons; some vomited or tore at their own clothes. Others were carried on stretchers
screaming and scratching at their own arms.

I immediately phoned Caridad and, of course, she was watching.

“Imagínate, Imperio,” Caridad screeched into the telephone. “She’s in there with those people!”

Caridad came running down the back stairs and into my apartment. We watched together for a while, united by our horror. There
were hundreds of them, greasy and glassy- eyed. You couldn’t tell the men apart from the women. And then we saw her, or at
least we thought it was her. The camera moved away so quickly it was almost as if it hadn’t really happened. But it must’ve
been, because both Caridad and I let out a yelp. Caridad’s hand went straight to her neck and stayed there as if she was feeling
for her own pulse.

“What is Graciela doing in such a place?” I asked. “Making a spectacle of herself. One minute I’m watching the real Rosalinda,
and the next, it’s her! We should be supporting the war in Vietnam, not protesting it. Once the Americans get the communists
out of there maybe they can do something about Cuba.”

“Why is Graciela always on the wrong side of every fence?” Caridad asked sadly.

Por Dios, I had seen it coming. She looked so different now. Her hair was now down past her shoulders. Long hair is for girls,
not mature ladies like us. She kept getting thinner, and her hair kept getting longer. It offended me. I pointed it out to
Caridad, who told me to pay close attention to the skin around her eyes and her mouth.

“She’s starting to sag a little,” she said. And she was right. But Graciela didn’t seem to care. She’d practically stopped
wearing makeup. Gone were the long, extravagant eyebrows and eyeliner, the garish lipstick. Without the overdone cosmetics
she seemed at once more delicate and even more defiant. At first we couldn’t believe it, but she had also stopped wearing
a sostén.

“Por el amor de Dios Santísimo en las Alturas,” I said. “She bounces around the factory like it’s nothing. It’s indecent,
the mother of two boys behaving like that.”

“What did she do with her brassiere? Burn it?” Caridad asked me. “Did she throw it in with the flag?”

“She’s been in this country two years and thinks she’s an American,” I said.

Our concern was not just about how Graciela’s recklessness affected us, but also how it affected her boys. Her boys! She was
so busy with her crazy romance that she didn’t see what was happening in her own house. Every Monday morning she got into
the van and didn’t say a word. Not a word. We asked her, “How was your weekend?” and she always said, “Divino.”

Of course, divino! While visiting one day, Leticia found overwhelming evidence against her: a man’s razor in her bathroom,
and shaving cream, and Brut aftershave lotion. Mr. O’Reilly was spending his nights there. Leticia saw it.

“Niñas, I came out of that bathroom shaking,” Leticia said. “It was like discovering a penis in her medicine chest.”

“Maybe it’s for her legs,” Raquel said.

“Raquel, wake up and smell the aftershave lotion,” I said.

“But Mr. O’Reilly wears a beard,” she said. “I don’t know . . .”

But her wispy voice was no match for me. I jumped on her like a detective. “He shaves his throat, and his cheeks. Look at
him again.”

“She’s right,” Caridad said. “It’s a very handsome beard.”

“Chá,” Raquel said, and for the moment the subject was closed.

Dios Santo, Graciela was entertaining a lover on that sofa bed while the boys were sleeping right in the next room. The thought
was too horrible. Mr. O’Reilly’s bearded face between her legs, the moans, the groans, words of passion wildly mispronounced.
I was sure the boys could hear every little thing, the walls in this country are so thin. And yet Graciela continued her pantomime.
She continued to get into the van day after day, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Truth is, we didn’t know what to do
about it, but no one wanted her in that van anymore. From what I saw, it wouldn’t be a problem for long.

Clearly Mr. O’Reilly was shamelessly spending the nights at her apartment, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he was also teaching
her to drive! I was on my way to the hospital with Mario, to see Berta, who was not getting any better. A car passed us by,
and I thought the driver looked familiar. Well, at the next red light, there I was, face- to- face with Graciela of all people.
She was behind the wheel of Mr. O’Reilly’s car. He was in the passenger seat and her two boys were in the backseat jumping
around like they were on a carnival ride.

I’m sure my mouth was hanging wide open. Wide open!

Well, Graciela just looked at me, smiled, and waved as she drove by.

Mario said I went absolutely white. I was furious with Mario for smiling and waving like a fool, only to be humiliated when
the light turned green and she took off like a rocket. With the kids in the backseat making faces at me and showing me their
middle finger. Graciela did nothing to stop them. How could they know the proper way to behave when their own mother was running
around all over town like a disgrace? I couldn’t blame the boys.

Of course by the time we arrived at the hospital, Graciela was already there. I did not comment on her driving because I knew
she wanted me to. She kept jiggling the car keys. But I said absolutely nothing. Nothing!

Mr. O’Reilly said hello very seriously, which was exactly what he should have done. I was glad that he had come to see how
sick Berta had become. That way there would be no questions about why she hadn’t come to work and why she needed her disability
insurance payments.

Meanwhile Ernestico and Manolito were kicking the vending machine. Those two could wake anyone out of a coma. I hoped they
would wake Berta. Her time- outs were lasting longer and longer.

“Did I tell you both of her kids were in the backseat?” I said to Caridad later. “Ernestico is starting to imitate Mr. O’Reilly.
His hair is long, his clothes are sloppy. Of all the examples to bring home. An earring isn’t far behind. Por Dios, won’t
Graciela ever do anything right? I don’t know about you, but I’ve just about hit my limit.”

“Well, you know she’s going to buy a car,” Caridad said with a sigh. “Imagínate, taking food out of her children’s mouths.
Well, at least we won’t have to go through the trouble of asking Leticia to tell Graciela that she really shouldn’t ride with
us anymore. All we have to do now is be patient and she’ll be gone soon enough.”

“Those poor niños,” I said. “Manolito seems nice enough. I think he has his father’s sense and dignity. But in her hands,
and now with that gringo in the house, they will ruin him too. I just know it.”

“Should we call Ernesto?” Caridad asked. “I hear he sent her the divorce papers.”

“Ernesto has suffered enough,” I replied.

Caridad made a gesture as if she was swatting away a fly with the back of her hand, as if dismissing Graciela from thought.

I
magínate!
Graciela came for work one Friday wearing a big plaid hunting jacket and blue jeans and carrying a rolled- up sleeping bag
and a backpack that could hardly fit in the van. I was in the front seat, but I watched as Imperio and Raquel scrunched over
to make room. After Graciela had tossed the sleeping bag in the back, she sat down as if nothing was out of the ordinary,
as if Berta wasn’t wasting away in a hospital. We were halfway to work before she simply said, “My boyfriend is taking me
camping.”

“Cubans don’t go camping,” Imperio said, and in a very nonchalant voice Graciela replied:

“Cubans should mind their own business.”

She said it as cool as spring rain. Even with all that was going on, Graciela decided to flaunt her new boyfriend, as she
now called Mr. O’Reilly, in our faces.

I looked at Imperio, and Imperio looked at me, and then we just stared straight ahead. Is she taking the boys? I wondered.
I prayed she wasn’t leaving them alone in that apartment for the whole weekend! But I kept quiet, because I knew that if the
conversation went any further, Imperio was going to turn ugly and strangle the life out of her.

You’d think she would have learned her lesson. You’d think Graciela would remember how much she owed us. It was so sad to
watch her trying to reinvent herself in this country, but making no real effort to change. Maybe she could fool Mr. O’Reilly.
But we remembered. We remembered only too well Pepe and Ernesto and all the trouble she caused. We remembered her poor parents,
hiding in that house, afraid to show their faces. Ashamed. Disgraced. Imagínate! A woman with two growing boys carrying on
like she was a schoolgirl.

“How could she be so thoughtless?” Imperio asked me during our coffee break—those ten precious minutes they granted us when
we had to gulp down a cup of café while it was still scalding hot and run back—and heaven help us if we were just one minute
late getting back to the assembly line. Not that Mr. O’Reilly ever said anything to us, but we could just feel it. Who knew
what sort of ideas about us Graciela was putting in his mind.

Graciela, of course, was always the first one back from break. Always on time, always prompt. She no longer drank her coffee
with us. Instead she went off somewhere, “to read,” she said.

We followed her to find out just exactly where she was going “to read.”

“I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if we find her in a broom closet with Mr. O’Reilly,” Imperio said.

She was in the back of the factory, near the shipping dock. First we saw her legs sticking out from behind a low wall, nylon
stockings and the high- heeled shoes she now wore to work. The rest of us wore flat, comfortable shoes. But Graciela had started
to dress for the factory the way others dressed for an office job. At first just once a week or so, then more frequently.
Now every day, except to go “camping.” She looked nice, but I wondered how much she was spending on clothes and shoes. I never
asked, because even if others didn’t, I still had manners.

That afternoon we slowed down as we approached, almost tiptoeing past her.

“Pretend you’re looking for empty boxes,” Imperio whispered.

Graciela was hidden behind an open newspaper. Newspapers, that’s what she read. Why on earth would a woman like Graciela need
to read the
New York Times
?

“To impress her American boyfriend, of course,” Imperio said.

Graciela didn’t see us. We watched her for a moment. She held the folded paper right up to her face because she needed glasses
but was too vain to wear them. There she was, her fingers grimy from the ink. She probably couldn’t understand one word she
read. It was just an act. Some sort of attempt to look smarter than she actually was.

“With her it was always just a great big show,” Imperio said. “Like when she was little and used to recite those José Martí
poems during assemblies. It was cute at first, but as she got older, it wasn’t so cute anymore. It was just obscene. She’d
stand there, with an air of schoolgirl eagerness, her hands clasped behind her, looking innocent, but even then I knew she
was doing it just to show off her chest.”

I remembered all too well. All eyes, both male and female, wandered up and down her body as she recited that poem. I remembered
with a little bit of envy her narrow, circular waist, straight shoulders, long neck, slender legs firmly planted, her feet
arched. I often thought her recitals had little to do with the poetry.

So Graciela had not changed at all. None of the women in the factory read during breaks, and certainly none of us read the
New York Times.
But there she was, in her gray skirt, pale pink sweater, and high heels, looking like a secretary, poring over the newspaper,
her lips hardly moving. All the men who walked by either glanced at her or, worse, they stopped and asked her questions.

“What do you think of Stalin’s daughter defecting to America?” they asked. “She turned her back on the commies, that one.
How do you like that?”

Instead of answering, Graciela just looked up, still holding the paper in place, and shrugged her shoulders.

“I could answer that damn question,” Imperio whispered to me. “I can talk Russian politics and I don’t even read the paper.”