Tomorrow They Will Kiss (31 page)

Caridad started to cry, her hands cupped over her face.

“No puedo más, no puedo más,” Caridad said between sobs. I can’t go on.

“See what you’ve done, you greedy pig?” Imperio shouted.

“She’s taking advantage,” Leticia shouted. “I’ve put up with it, but it’s been months. What am I supposed to do? I still have
two years of payments on this piece of shit van. And her with her lotions and her new furniture. Do I have new furniture?
Look at my hands, do I have fancy creams?”

Leticia held her hands out for inspection. They were red, chapped, and shaking with rage.

Caridad continued sobbing to the point I thought she was going to choke. Imperio was looking at Leticia like she was going
to drag her by the hair. They were like the washerwomen back in Palmagria, fighting in the street. People who walked by slowed
down to watch the spectacle of a group of Cuban women screaming at each other in public.

I stayed in the van with Raquel, looking through the windshield, like watching television. Imperio kept swinging at Leticia,
trying to get at her. Leticia kept moving away just in time. It was like a cockfight. Just as Imperio was about to make contact,
Raquel jumped out of the van and stood between the two of them.

“Chá!” Raquel said, and it was a powerful “chá” that forced everybody to listen. “Let’s try to solve this like friends.”

Leticia got back into the van and sat there, her red hands tight on the steering wheel as if to calm herself down.

“They don’t know,” Leticia said so softly I barely heard her, “what I have to put up with at home when I come up short. They
don’t know how Chano gets.”

Caridad and Imperio remained on the sidewalk. Caridad buried her face in Imperio’s shoulder. She couldn’t stop crying. It
was like a nervous breakdown. Imperio sort of put her hand on Caridad’s head, but you could tell it wasn’t easy for her. She
knew Leticia was right. She knew that if she’d been in her situation she’d have done the same, and sooner.

Finally Leticia waved at Imperio and Caridad through the windshield without looking at them and said, “Get in.”

Neither one of them made a move. Then Raquel gently pushed them toward the door.

“Get in,” Raquel said. “We’re going to be late.”

And they got in, quietly. Caridad stopped as if deciding where to sit, and of course she sat in the front seat. We rode in
silence toward the factory. Until Raquel spoke because she just couldn’t help herself.

“In Cuba nobody fights over money anymore,” she said. “In Cuba nobody has any.” And Caridad took in a deep sob.

The very next day Caridad paid up in dollar bills so wrinkled that they looked like she’d slept with them tight in her fist
the whole night. And then it was all forgotten, for the moment.

You would think that women with those enormous problems wouldn’t be so concerned with me. But they watch me like a telenovela.

There is one thing I have in common with all those long- suffering telenovela women that continue to capture my imagination:
I never give up hope, and I am always willing to take a chance. For a while I felt as blind as Rosalinda or as crippled as
Inés in
Let No Man Put Asunder.
But I never gave up. Maybe I’ll get somewhere as a fashion designer someday, and maybe I won’t. I know I’m going to continue
taking classes. I’m getting better. I got countless compliments on my wedding dress, which I designed all by myself. And who
knows what’s in my future? Maybe great success, maybe more mistakes. As the priest said in
A Long Walk to Love,
“The book of life is already written, all we do is turn the pages.” I have to agree with him.

And my English is getting better all the time. I still can’t read Barry’s books, but sometimes I’ll sit down and skip from
page to page and I can understand the sentences, if not the story. Those stories are complicated! But I know someday I will.
For now I’m happy that I can speak to people and understand what they say to me. My accent is very thick, so I have to concentrate
hard to make myself understood. But it’s an effort I’m only too happy to make. No one else in the van can say more than “thank
you” and “bye- bye.” It’s their loss. English is such a beautiful language. They refuse to learn. It’s almost as if learning
English means that they are never going back home. As if they’ve given up. I don’t know if I want to go back. Maybe for a
visit, but I like it here.

I no longer feel as alone as I did back in Palmagria. All those poetry recitals, just me, alone, on a bare stage. The long,
lonely walk to my wedding to Ernesto, the afternoons doing nails for the girls, feeling like an outsider in my own living
room, the solitary years I spent locked up in my parents’ house. I am no longer alone.

Barry was with me every step of the way as I prepared for our wedding. He took me to the beauty salon and read a newspaper
while I had my hair and my nails done. What a luxury! I gave my hand to the girl and let her take care of me the way I used
to take care of others. I told her I wanted perfect half- moons, but she said no one wears them like that anymore. Times have
changed. She painted my nails an almost translucent pink. I have hands like a nun’s.

When I was ready, we practically ran back to the apartment like a couple of kids. My heart was pounding with joy. While I
slipped into my wedding dress, Ernestico, Manolito, and Barry sang “Las Mañanitas” to me. I was a little nervous, but the
more they sang, the happier I got, until I thought I would explode. It was so different from that other wedding day. Here
in Union City I have a family that supports me. I have a good feeling about this marriage, I really do.

Barry drove very slowly. I sat in the passenger seat, the boys rode in back. When the first police car passed us, sirens blaring,
I jumped. Barry kept one hand on the wheel and with the other he took mine. We stayed like that as more police cars and ambulances
passed us.

Above us the sky was full of smoke, but I kept my sights on a little piece of blue sky in the distance. New Jersey could burn
to the ground. I didn’t care. Palmagria could wash into the sea. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to the park.
This was my wedding day; no amount of racial tension was going to ruin it.

As we drove, I counted my blessings. Who could have predicted that next week I would start my new job as supervisor? That
I would, in fact, be in charge of the assembly line that attaches little heads to little plastic torsos. That I would be on
the other side of the plastic curtain. And of course, I’ll be making much more money. Yes, at last, I’ll be able to afford
that color television set the boys have always wanted! No more blurry, interrupted programs, no more pleading on my knees
for the picture to stop rolling, or climbing to the roof in all sorts of weather to fix the antenna. And now that I’ve learned
to drive, maybe I’ll even buy my own car. Why not? Anything’s possible.

The park was green, wide, and filled with friends. But Imperio and Caridad seemed so little and lost in all that green. Caridad,
all alone without Salud, looked like she was about to fall over. And Imperio seemed tense, like she’d rather be anywhere else.
So I asked them to stand next to me. They seemed a little stunned, which I enjoyed.

But none of that mattered anymore. At the party, Barry looked at me with so much love that his eyes were like fountains. I
was in his arms and he twirled me around and around. Everywhere I looked I saw smiles and laughter. The hall was full of people
wishing me a happy future. There was music and beyond the music there were sirens and helicopters, fire and smoke. But none
of that mattered either. Rosalinda may as well have been there too. Her bandages gone, her eyes clear and bright with love
for her Armando, and burning with the expectation of tomorrow, and that kiss.

I believe that angels step into my life to help me get to the next level, and here they are, (roughly) in order of appearance:

Roger Jones.

Donald Rawley.

Susan Harris, Alan Carter, Howard Baker.

Cathy Wagner and Roger Gould, Katerina Monemvasitis and Chloe Wyma.

Shannon O’Connor.

Carrie Owens, Paul Langlotz, Jef Cameron, Noel Alumit, Howard Junker, Leslie Schwartz, and Tod Goldberg.

Mr. Mark Davis.

Mathy Wasserman Simon and Owen Simon (thanks for all the lunches).

This novel would not have come into existence without the generous support and validation of my recklessly optimistic agent,
B. J. Robbins.

I am also deeply grateful to the good people at PEN USA for their enthusiasm and support, and to the “Pennies” they brought
into my life: Natali Petricic Escobedo, Mae Respicio, Taylur Nguyen, Melissa Roxas, and Candace Harper, whose encouragement
and/ or critical response helped shape the book.

I am gladly indebted to my amazing mentor, Anne Louise Bardach, and her sweet husband, Robert Lesser, who provided me with
home and heart when I desperately needed both.

Very special thanks to Nancy Hardin for her sharp eyes and passionate response to my work.

Grateful acknowledgment is extended to the smart and supportive folks at Skylight Books in Los Feliz.

My everlasting gratitude to Little, Brown and Company, and particular thanks to Michael Mezzo, who found the needle in the
haystack.

And to Barbara Farmer, enthusiastically yours!

EDUARDO SANTIAGO
was born in Manzanillo, Cuba, and grew up in Los Angeles and Miami. He holds a BFA in Film and Television from California
Institute of the Arts and was a 2004 PEN Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow. His work has appeared in
Zyzzyva, The Caribbean Writer,
and
Slow Trains.
He has also written for the
Los Angeles Times, Square Peg
magazine, and
IFP
magazine. He’s worked on several television programs for CBS, Warner Brothers, and Telemundo networks. He has taught creative
writing at various Los Angeles high schools and works part- time at Skylight Books in Los Feliz. He currently lives with his
dog, Lyon, in Angelino Heights, a Los Angeles neighborhood known for its stunning Victorian and Craftsman homes. Mr. Santiago
is currently at work on his next novel. He can be reached at [email protected].

Tomorrow They Will Kiss

a novel

Eduardo Santiago

When did you leave Cuba and what images of your childhood influenced your description of Palmagria?

I spent the first ten years of my life in Manzanillo, a town where everybody talked with the dead. And I mean
with!
They had ongoing conversations. Their lives were guided by the dead. Eighty percent of the population was clairvoyant. Manzanillo
is described in a tourist guide as “a sleepy fishing port about 65km west of Bayamo that feels a long way from anywhere, but
worth a visit.”

I based Palmagria on Manzanillo. I changed the name because I didn’t want the fifty thousand Manzanilleros living in the U.S.
to come after me, insisting that I got it all wrong. I know my people well enough to know that they would. Also, since the
Revolution, Manzanillo has taken on a greater significance because Fidel Castro’s so-called lover, the revolutionary heroine
Celia Sánchez, was born there, and I didn’t want Graciela to have to carry that burden. Besides, at the time that the novel
takes place, Manzanillo hadn’t become a historical landmark. Celia’s statue hadn’t been erected yet.

The relationship between Cuban exiles and those they left behind is complicated by politics and trade policy, as the United
States holds firm on the embargo of goods from the U.S. and its trading partners. Do you still have family in Cuba and, if
so, on what basis can you relate to them?

I was born too late to see Cuba in its heyday, when the stores were stocked. All my memories are of deprivation, depleted
shelves and counters, long lines of people with empty bags that they’re hoping to fill with anything, whatever’s there. Shortly
after the Revolution, even if you had tons of cash, you couldn’t walk into a store and say, “Today I want chicken,” or, “The
kids need new socks, I think I’ll pick up some socks.” No, you took what was available if you were one of the first in line.
Many went home with nothing.

This image is so seared into my consciousness that to this day, even though I’ve been to Cuba and seen the abundant dollar
stores, I can’t walk into a supermarket without that image being superimposed. I’ve had many arguments in places like Ralph’s,
or Vons, or Safeway, because my partners tend to be Americans who sail through stores piling on as many items as a shopping
cart will hold. “No,” I say, “that’s too much. There’s a limit, and if there isn’t, there should be.” I look at the pyramids
of apples and oranges, the endless rows of canned goods, and there is another picture overlaid, of cobwebs and dust—and of
the storekeeper, sitting there in the store, under flickering fluorescent light tubes, waiting for something to arrive.

Who’s to blame, the communists or the embargo? If the point of the embargo was to starve the Cubans into an uprising, why
do Cuban exiles send them millions of dollars a year in personal remittances? “Where is the humanity in that statement?” my
mother, a frantic remittance-sender, asks me. It’s a haunting dilemma, the idea of starving a country into surrender, but
such is war. What are the options? Invasion? Devastation? Bloodshed? Of course, not all Cubans who live and work in the U.S.
are like me. Most of them want, get, and enjoy everything America has to offer. They live well, eat well, wear thick gold
chains around their necks and wrists, and soothe their conscience with monthly remittances. I envy them. They seem so free.

What made you choose Graciela, Imperio, and Caridad as the novel’s narrators? By giving them alternating chapters were you
bestowing validity or deconstructing their points of view?

At some point in my teens I became aware of the backstabbing relationships among the Cuban women in my mother’s life. They
kept shifting allegiances. Later I realized that had they remained in Cuba, a lot of those friendships would not have lasted;
they would have moved on to other Cuban women with whom they had more in common. But here they were trapped. The circle was
small, the pickings slim, and they had only each other in spite of their differences. This dilemma, which I found both comic
and dramatic, was the very first grain of inspiration.