America's Dream (10 page)

weight of Ester’s concern. My life is not really mine, she tells herself. Correa rules every action I take, whether he’s around or not. Is that any way to live?

She can’t answer the question. It is the only life she’s known. The first fourteen years of her life centered around Ester and her demands as a mother. The second half of her life has been shad- owed by Correa. Is that any way to live, she. asks herself again but is afraid to answer. The question hangs in the fragrant air of her mother’s garden, punctuated by the flashing red sky, the thumps of bombs finding their target, the yielding earth quaking beneath her feet.

“I’m taking you out tonight,” Correa announces the next evening. “Why?”

“I can’t take my woman out if I want to?” He smiles as if he were teasing, which América knows he’s not.

“I have to work tomorrow.”

“I know, but I want to go out, and I want you with me. Come on, don’t make me beg.” He catches a stray curl from her hair and twirls it around his finger. “Go get pretty for me.”

This is the Correa she loves. The man with the soft touch, who speaks softly, who finds beauty in a curl along her neck. When he’s like this, she’s again the fourteen-year-old girl willing to be seduced.

She’s already showered and changed out of her uniform, has eaten dinner, has argued with Rosalinda to come out of her room to eat something and lost. She was looking forward to a quiet evening to make up for the past couple of nights.

“I don’t want to stay out late,” she tells Correa as she goes into her room to change. In the kitchen, Ester bangs a lid hard on a pot.

She chooses a dress she’s worn only a few times. It’s green, with a contrasting print scarf that pins to the back of the collar and comes around to a low-cut V in front, where she ties it into a bow held with a brooch. She pins up and sprays her hair, applies makeup, and dabs on White Shoulders cologne. The

preparations put her in a good mood. She enjoys making herself pretty, selecting and putting on the few nice pieces of jewelry she owns. The cloud of perfume in which she walks feels real, like a tulle cloak. When she comes out, Correa is sitting stiffly on the edge of the couch so as not to wrinkle his freshly pressed pants and shirt. He stands up, whistles his appreciation, wraps his arm around her waist, kisses her cheek. América smiles shyly, avoiding Ester’s sullen looks from the kitchen.

Correa knocks on Rosalinda’s door.

“Rosalinda, come out and look at your mother.” His voice bounces against the concrete walls, so that Rosalinda would have to be dead not to hear it.

“Leave her alone,” América says, afraid that, given Rosalinda’s shifting moods, the evening will end in another argument. Now that she has made the effort to forget her problems for a night, she wants to forget them, not face them on the way out. But Rosalinda’s door opens, and she actually walks into the room and eyes her mother admiringly, as if the past few days had never happened. “You look nice,” she offers, and backs into her room again, so that América believes that she and Correa planned this moment to soften her up for something else. The thought dampens the joy she was beginning to feel.

“All right, baby,” Correa whispers into América’s ear, “let’s go.”

He steers her with a light touch on her lower back, opens the gate, lets her go ahead, places himself, gentlemanlike, on the curb side of the sidewalk. Once on the street, she brushes her suspicions of Correa’s motives aside and lets herself savor the soft evening air, her pretty clothes, the sense of going some-where other than work or home.

It’s Saturday night. Down the street, couples stroll hand in hand toward the beach, which is two blocks away. From squat cinderblock buildings, passionate ministers and their congrega- tions broadcast salvation through tinny loudspeakers. On the street, nonbelievers gamble with their souls and head towards El Malecón, where drinking, dancing, and sex on the beach are commonplace.

As América and Correa join the groups heading toward the

beach, they greet neighbors and acquaintances. She’s proud of what a handsome couple they make. Many of the women greeting her so amicably would gladly exchange places with her. And she knows that many of the men escorting their wives and girlfriends would pursue her if she weren’t already taken. She smiles her guarded smiles, lets Correa hold her tighter around the waist when they reach the main road.

Almost every bar on the beach is playing loud music. At Bana- nas, the tourists accompany their hamburgers and french fries with frosty piña coladas. A group of teenagers grunt and growl at a video arcade in back of the restaurant, while their parents eye the locals parading up and down the boardwalk. Across the street, at the Fisherman’s Cooperative, the music is traditional Puerto Rican salsa. The narrow dance floor being full, the dancers have taken to the street, where they perform intricate arm com- binations without missing a step or losing the rhythm. América’s feet itch to dance. She presses closer to Correa.

“It’s too crowded here,” he says and pulls her along toward El Quenepo. He likes to check out the action before committing, so they walk up the road, stopping here and there for a few minutes, looking to see who’s around and what kind of music is playing. Even though she knows better, it seems as if the whole town is out on the narrow road, eating, drinking, dancing. The tourists seem delighted with all the activity, as if Saturday night in Esper- anza were a show put on exclusively for their enjoyment. They watch the dancers twirl and come together in complicated routines that appear rehearsed, and clap appreciatively at the more flam- boyant couples. A tourist wearing baggy pants and a sleeveless shirt videotapes Maribel Martinez being led by her husband, Carlos. She’s quite pregnant, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. She’s light on her feet, and graceful as a palm frond. When they dance close, she wraps her arms around Carlos’s neck, and he

places his hands on the sides of her belly and rubs tenderly.

Around the corner from the dive shop, musicians are setting

up instruments at PeeWee’s Pub. In the meanwhile, huge speakers vibrate with merengues.

“We’ll go there when the live music starts,” Correa tells América and guides her across the street, to La Copa de Oro, where another stereo plays a different merengue full blast. The place is small, crowded with tables spilling into an open-air dance floor. At a corner table, a group of people wave them over, and Correa leads América in that direction. On either side of them people smile and say hello, until América feels like a visiting dignitary.

“Buenas noches, compadre,” one of the men greets Correa, with a handshake and a pat on the shoulder. The other men rise and shake his hand, nod at América, who shakes hands with the women at the table. Chairs are found for them, and Correa and América sit side by side, his arm over the back of her chair. The music is so loud that conversation is impossible, so América and the women compliment one another’s clothes and jewelry with gestures and glances. As soon as the waitress takes their orders, everyone at the table pairs up and joins the dancers.

It is a merengue about a man whose wife went to New York and now that she’s hack, she won’t do his laundry, won’t cook his meals, and won’t have sex with him unless he speaks to her in English. “Ay, pero ay no spik,” the singer tells his wife, who responds, “Geev eet tú mí, beyhee.”

Correa is a good dancer, loose-limbed and creative. He holds her firmly enough so she knows who’s leading, but not so tight that she has no room to turn. He looks at her while they dance, which she finds incredibly romantic, as if they were the only two people in the place. A half smile on his lips, he guides her between other couples, from one end of the dance floor to the other, his hips marking the rhythm against hers, separating only slightly as he folds her in and out of his arms in complex turns. The heat of his body against hers is exciting, and her eyes glisten with happiness and desire. She feels eyes on them, the envious glances of women whose partners are neither as good-looking nor as agile as Correa, the

veiled admiration of men who glance at her sinuous hips forming a figure-eight against his. She returns her gaze to his eyes, shad- owed in the dim light.

“Who were you looking at?” he whispers in her ear, and even though the music is deafening, she hears him.

“No one,” she replies, tensing in spite of herself.

She feels the distance between them grow, even though he hasn’t let go of her, even though they dance as if the exchange hadn’t taken place.

Correa has slapped her in public if he thinks she’s flirting, so she narrows her gaze to him, to the Brut-scented space he occu- pies. It is a small space, even though he’s a big man.

They stay at La Copa de Oro for a few numbers, then walk across the street, to the live band at PeeWee’s Pub. He orders rum and Cokes for himself, plain iced Cokes for her, because he doesn’t like her to drink liquor.

The place is so crowded that it’s difficult to dance, so they listen to the band for a while, then return to the boardwalk. His step is heavier than it was at the beginning of the evening, when his head was unclouded by rum. But the sea air seems to restore him. He jokes with passersby, greets his friends’ women with exagger- ated courtesy and respect, as if to demonstrate how a woman should be treated. América hangs back as he glad-hands everyone like a politician on election day. She’s a gray and sober shadow at his side. The joy and freedom she felt at the start of the evening has dimmed with his scrutiny of everyone she talks to, looks at, or comments upon. She avoids eye contact with men, even those she knows well, like Feto and Tomás, who are also out on the boardwalk.

“I’m tired,” she tells him in a quiet moment. “Let’s go home.” “It’s not even midnight yet,” he says, looking at his watch. He pulls her closer, kisses her hair. “What’s the matter, aren’t you

having fun?”

She pulls away from him. “I have to work tomorrow.” “Don’t worry,” he says, “I won’t keep you up all night.” He

slaps her rear smartly.

As they turn a corner to check out the action at Eddy’s, they meet Odilio Pagán on his way out. Correa pulls América closer, a move not lost on Pagán, who veils his dislike of Correa behind a cordial greeting.

“How is Rosalinda doing?” he asks, looking at América. “Everyone’s fine,” answers Correa before América opens her

mouth.

“Good,” responds Pagán with a terse smile.

They part in opposite directions, wishing one another a good evening, but as soon as Pagán turns the corner, Correa makes América face him.

“I don’t want him coming around the house when I’m not there,” he warns.

“It’s not like he comes around all the time,” she responds, sul- lenly, forgetting for an instant that Correa doesn’t like her to talk back. She feels the slap before she sees his hand, has barely enough time to realize she’s let down her guard before another slap crosses her face from the opposite direction.

“Don’t you talk back to me,” he snarls. “You listen. I don’t want that maricón coming around the house anymore.”

She nods silently, holding her face in her hands as if to create a barrier between it and his fingers.

“Are you all right?” he asks, pulling her hands away, kissing them, kissing the red and painful cheeks. “You know I love you, don’t you?” he mutters, holding her close. “Don’t you?” he insists. She doesn’t respond. He draws her to the shadows beyond Eddy’s, where the couples coming in and out of the bar can’t see them. “I wanted this to he a nice night for you, América. I didn’t want to fight.” He sounds truly contrite, even though he hasn’t asked her to forgive him. She feels herself softening. “Sometimes,” he says, “I forget myself. But that’s because I love you so much.” It’s the same as always, not quite an apology, but an excuse. “And I know you love me, don’t you, baby?” he asks, but she doesn’t respond. “Don’t you?” he insists, and she has to nod, because she’s afraid of what he will do if she doesn’t. He kisses her on the lips, rubs himself against her, guides her hands to the bulge between his legs. “See what you

do to me?” he asks, and she nods. “Come on,” he whispers hoarsely, “let’s go home.”

She lets him guide her, his arm tight around her waist. Every so often he stops her in the dark shadows of a breadfruit or mango tree to kiss and fondle her. And she lets him, and tries to remem- ber when her responses to his caresses were not defensive but a demonstration of the love she knows she once felt.

The next day, when América returns from work, Rosalinda is secluded in her room. América wonders what she does in there for hours at a time. Certainly not homework. Rosalinda has never been that dedicated a student.

Ester has gone to spend the night with Don Irving. Without the constant drone of the television, the only sounds are the hens clucking in the backyard and the steady hum of the refrigerator.

Rosalinda’s door opens. América looks up from the hem she’s been stitching.

“Mami, I’d like to talk to you.” Rosalinda stands before her mother, hands clasped behind her back, as childlike and vulner- able as América would like to believe she is. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” she says softly, so that América’s heart fills. “Okéi.” she sets down her sewing basket, is about to push up

and embrace her daughter.

“I want to live in Fajardo with Tía Estrella and Prima Fefa.”

That again, América thinks, but she bites her lips so that she won’t say it. She settles back on the couch. “Why?” she asks and immediately knows it’s the wrong question because her daugh- ter’s face hardens.

“It’s not that I don’t love you,” Rosalinda concedes, as if she’s rehearsed it. “It’s just that, I don’t feel right in school. Everyone’s calling me names and stuff—”

“Everyone who?”

Rosalinda winces. “Kids…in school.” She hedges, looking down.

“Just ignore them,” América says. She resumes her hemming, tries to brush from her mind an image of herself at fourteen, pregnant, hiding behind a tree until two schoolmates went past.

“I knew you’d say that,” Rosalinda whines, and América looks up. “I can’t ignore them, Mami. They write me nasty notes, and they turn their hacks on me when I try to talk to them.”