America's Dream (7 page)
She lies in bed for a long time; she might have even fallen asleep, she’s not sure. The room is stifling. The television is on in the living room, the house smells like fried chicken. She rises in the dark, stumbles to the door, switches on the light. The sudden brightness makes her eyes water, and she has to rub away the swelling, the gritty texture of salty tears on skin. She brushes her hair, blows her nose, tugs her wrinkled clothes around her body, smoothing the skirt at the hips, stretching the top so that it doesn’t pull across her breasts. She turns out the light before opening the door.
Correa is lying on the couch, watching television. He looks up when she comes out, evaluates her as if she were new in town. Then he turns his attention back to whatever he’s watching. She goes to the kitchen, and Ester comes out of her room, eyes clouded with liquor and some unmentionable pain that, try as she might, doesn’t go away.
“There’s rice and beans. I’ll fry you up a drumstick if you like.” “That’s all right. This is fine.” América serves herself white
rice, tops it with a ladleful of kidney beans.
“At least let me heat it for you.” Ester tries to take the plate from América’s hand.
“It’s all right. 1’11 eat it like this.” “It’s going to make you sick.” “I’m fine, Mami. Leave me alone.”
Ester backs up, lets América go by, waits until she sits at the table.
“Do you want something to drink?” “Is there any coffee?”
“I’ll make some.” She goes back to the kitchen, and América hears her puttering around.
She chews slowly and deliberately, as if each morsel contains some precious nutrient that must be savored, rolled around the tongue several times before swallowing or it will not have its
curative effects. She stares straight ahead, her back to the kitchen. To her left, across the room, Correa is stretched out on the couch he bought, his couch, he reminds them if they ask him to move. She looks at the glass-fronted cupboard on the opposite wall, at the vajilla Correa gave her for her twenty-fifth birthday, fifty-two pieces of matching cups and saucers, plates and bowls, a covered soup urn. She only uses it on special occasions, because it’s too delicate for every day.
Ester sets the steaming cup of black coffee in front of her. She brings another cup, creamed and sweetened, to Correa, who sits up, takes it, his eyes on the television, sips from it, not once ac- knowledging the hand that made and served it. Ester returns to the kitchen and comes back with a can of beer in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She sits across from América, blocking her view of the beautiful vajilla in the cupboard, and lights a cigarette, eyes on her daughter. América avoids looking at her. Of the fifty-two-piece vajilla, only a cup and saucer have broken. It happened one Three Kings’ Day when Correa hired a group of musicians to serenade her. She foolishly took out her best to serve them coffee and sweet rice with coconut. The man who played the cuatro accidentally dropped both cup and saucer filled with fresh coffee on the tile floor. ’There were many apologies. She saved the pieces with the intention of putting them together with Krazy Glue, but the pieces never fit.
“Did Rosalinda eat anything?” she asks Ester.
“No, she didn’t want to eat.” Ester looks at her resentfully. She sips her beer, sets it down on the table, drags on her cigarette, sets it down on the ashtray, sips her coffee. “Do you want me to fry you up a leg?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You shouldn’t eat cold food like that. It’ll give you gas.”
América gets up, scraping the chair against the tiles. She takes her plate to the sink, washes it, and sets it to dry on the rack. It looks like Correa will be spending the night. She dries her hands on the dishcloth hanging from the refrigerator handle, returns to the table to finish her coffee, her eyes on the incomplete vajilla, a gift from Correa.
Later, she lies in bed face up in the dark, dressed in a cotton nightgown she made herself. It’s pale blue, with thin ribbons around the neckline and on the cap sleeves. It makes her feel like a princess. Its hem is a ruffle of lace, with tiny bows at intervals. It took a lot of work to tie those tiny bows, to then stitch them in one by one along the frilled hem.
The fan is on, but the door is closed, so it’s hot air that flutters her clothes hanging against the walls like ghosts.
When Correa opens the door, a square of light crosses from one end of the room to the other, broken in the middle when he steps in and gently, quietly, closes the door behind him. She hears him take his clothes off, fold them in the dark, drop them on the chair next to the dresser. He’s a cat. Doesn’t need light to see. She tenses when his weight dips the edge of the bed, creaking the bedsprings. He lies quietly next to her, as if not to wake her. She waits until his hand finds hers, squeezes it. Her breath quickens, but she tries to control it, to not let him hear. He drags her hand across the sheet, up his right hip, onto the soft warm hair on his pubis. He leaves her hand there, crawls his own hand up to her breasts.
She rubs her fingers in the down, grabs his penis, massages it hard and upright. Correa moans, turns over, rolls up her princess nightgown until it’s around her neck, but doesn’t pull it off. He separates her legs with his, kisses her breasts, licks her nipples like a kitten lapping milk, then dives inside her. The first plunge always hurts, always feels as if he were tearing her insides. But she settles into the rhythm of his thrusting, rocking movements, and soon the bed is rattling. He kisses her mouth. His mustache tickles her lips, his lips press on hers, his tongue insinuates itself between her teeth. And she returns his kiss.
He kisses her neck, runs his fingers through her hair, squeezes her breasts against his chest. He kisses her cheeks, her forehead, rocks on her from side to side as if he were a ship and she a tur- bulent sea. Her eyes open to the darkness in the windowless room, and she lets herself go, catches his rhythm with her hips, bucks upward to bring him closer. She rubs his broad shoulders in tight circles, kisses his neck, his jaw, his temple,
presses her legs together, squeezes his balls with her thighs. In the moment when her insides seem to catch on fire, she loves him, believes he loves her, receives the promises he mumbles into her ear as, with a forceful jab, he thrusts himself even deeper, then tenses and collapses, lies on top of her, his breath fanning her hair, tickling her ears.
ami, you have to get up.’ América shakes Ester gently. “Hhmm? What?” Ester moans, flails her hands as if she
were dancing. She opens her eyes slowly, startles when she sees América leaning over her. “What happened?”
“You have to go to work, Mami,” América whispers, and Ester lifts her head, pushes herself up on her elbows.
“It’s not Tuesday, is it?”
“No, it’s Wednesday. I have to stay home today, so you have to go.”
Ester collapses on the bed again and rolls over. “All right.” Within seconds she’s fast asleep.
“Mami, you have to get up now. Come on.” She jiggles Ester, who swats her with open palms as she would a bothersome fly. “I’m not going to stop until you get up.”
Ester rolls over and gradually pushes herself to a sitting posi- tion with América’s help. “¿Ay! Every bone in my body hurts.” She fumbles in the dark for the light switch. “You should have told me last night. I would have gone to bed earlier.” América draws open the curtains. Dim light creeps into the room. “It’s still dark out!” Ester complains.
“It’s cloudy, it will clear up before you get there.” América looks around the room. “Where is your uniform?”
Ester points to a dresser under the window. She shuffles to the bathroom, the familiar hacking cough of her mornings punctuat- ing every step.
Ester’s room is crammed with relics. One wall is papered with family photographs. She calls this her wall of memories. The rest of the room is lined with shelves laden with figurines. In a corner, an ancient table holds the altar to Saint Lazarus, her patron saint, a votive candle at his feet, its phantasmal light flickering yellow red yellow.
The drawers are full of clothes Ester hasn’t worn in years. Blouses and skirts that have gone out of style. Cotton brassieres that no longer fit. Dresses with the ruffles and flounces of a wo- man not afraid to flirt. In the bottom drawer, the green nylon uniform is folded on top of the dress Ester wore as the maid of honor at her sister’s wedding a month before she ran away from home. América pulls the uniform out, presses at the wrinkles with her palms, and lays it at the foot of the bed, then goes to make breakfast.
“Just coffee,” Ester says in between coughs as she goes by, “too early to eat.”
América pours Ester a cup of coffee with heated milk and sugar. With the first sip, Ester’s cough dissipates, and after the third or fourth gulp, it’s almost completely gone. “My medicine,” Ester calls her first cup of coffee. She moans and groans with every step, sighs loud enough for América to hear, takes her time undoing her curlers, combing out her hair, painting in her eye- brows and a black line around her eyes. In the kitchen América registers the muted protests but pretends she doesn’t hear them. She puts her slices of bread in the toaster and leans against the counter sipping her black coffee, her thoughts racing ahead to the hour when Rosalinda wakes up. She’s not sure what she will say to her. At least, she’ll remind her she has to go to school.
Ester emerges from her room a different woman. Hair combed and sprayed, face made up, one could even call her beautiful, life’s creases an adornment that highlight deep-set eyes, a fleshy mouth, a high brow. The uniform fits tight across
her hips and buttocks, the apron tied around a waist smaller than América’s. “You look great,” América says.
Ester smiles, twirls in front of her. “Not bad for an old lady.” “Forty-five is not old, Mami.”
“I was old when I was born,” she responds.
América can’t help herself. “If you’d take better care of your- self—”
“Stop with the sermon. I’m going.”
She leaves the house but stops on the sidewalk in front to light a cigarette, her cough returning briefly after the first puff. She punches her chest to loosen the phlegm, spits into the gut-ter, and walks on, trailed by a curl of smoke.
Correa shambles out of the bedroom scratching his head. While he’s taking a shower and shaving, América cooks up eggs and toast, fresh coffee. As she’s serving, he comes up behind her, wraps his arms around her waist, kisses her hair.
“Deja eso,” she mumbles, ducking out of his grasp.
He grabs her arm, pulls her, kisses her wetly on the lips. “You missed me, didn’t you?” he whispers into her face. She turns away, steps out of his embrace.
“Your breakfast is getting cold.” She carries the plate to the table, where she has already set up a mat, fork, knife, spoon. He watches her walk, smiles to himself, follows her. She brings him coffee, toast with butter. When she’s close again, he grabs the waistband of her jeans.
“Stop that!” She tries to loosen his grip.
“Sit with me,” he says, pulling her down on his lap. “You can’t eat with me sitting here.”
“On the chair, then. Don’t run away like you always do.”
He lets her go, keeps his hand in her waistband until she sits next to him. She pulls the chair back so that she can’t see his face, just the back of his neck, the fraying collar of his shirt, the dark crevice between his skull and ear. I hate you, she drills into his brain. He has big hands, wide and solid. He pushes the scrambled eggs onto the fork with a piece of toast, turns his head to look at her.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asks.
She tsks, shifts her gaze to the window. He burps delicately and goes on eating. The wall clock above the door tick tocks in between silence. América picks a loose thread from the fly of her jeans. Correa chews, and his ears move back and forth as if he were doing it on purpose. A rooster sings outside somewhere. The cup clinks against the saucer when he sets it down. A car drives by, spewing acrid fumes. Correa sneezes. “¿Salúd!” she says without thinking, claps her hands on her thighs, starts to get up. “I have things to do.”
He turns and looks at her as if deciding whether to let her go, picks up the empty cup, hands it to her. “Bring me more coffee.” She takes it, walks slowly, in case he changes his mind, her eyes focused on the coffeemaker in the kitchen, a gift from Correa last Christmas. Her hands trembling, she pours hot coffee, and a few drops fall on the tender space between her thumb and index fin- ger. It burns, drips toward her wrist, but she barely feels it.
He goes home to change into his uniform. He has missed a week and a half at work. She wonders how he gets away with it, taking off whenever he feels like it, coming back as if nothing.
She opens all the windows and doors. Rosalinda’s is still closed, and the couple of times América stands in front of it, she hears no sound. She tries the knob. It’s locked. She sways around the living room humming a bolero, dusting everything in sight, spraying glass cleaner and furniture polish, wiping down each surface with long, even strokes. She puts the chairs on top of the table, rolls up the area rug in the living room and drags it out to the porch. She sweeps the room, mops it down, polishes it. Ros- alinda’s door is locked; no movement comes from the room. No sound.
She lifts figurines from the shelves next to the television, washes and dries each one, replaces them in new configurations. The shepherd playing the flute to a dancing lady now faces a gaggle of geese, the dancing lady flirts with a mother duck leading her ducklings. She takes down the curtains in the living room, kitchen, and from the sliding door that leads to the back-yard. She sets them to wash in the machine, then deals with her
room, leaving the door open so she can see when Rosalinda crosses to the bathroom.
She strips the bed, puts on fresh sheets, moves all her cosmetics from the windowsill, dusts and polishes the wood, wipes down each can, bottle, and jar with a cloth dipped in rubbing alcohol, places each with its companion products; hair spray with gel and mousse, cold cream with witch hazel and liquid face soap, tweezers with nail files, orange sticks, and emery boards. Ros- alinda’s door squeaks. América is sitting on the edge of her bed relacing a sneaker so the ends will he even when her daughter walks by to the bathroom without looking at her.
