It's Not Shakespeare (12 page)

“Yeah, that’s Mommy. We all left the house and she decided she had to make our baby years into art.”

In the last bedroom to the right of the hallway was a girl’s room. The walls were painted pink, with cream-colored trim, and there was a canopy bed in the center, with a plump teenaged girl in a miniskirt sitting in the middle, painting her toenails a glittering purple.

“Hey, Lily,” Rafael said, grinning at the girl and leaning against the doorframe. Lily looked up and grinned at him.

“Why you here? Somebody make gay a thing?”

“Naw, heifer—but they still allow me to have ‘friends’. You want to meet my friend James?”

Lily looked at James with bland amicability. She had a round face, but a pretty one, with the same limpid sloe eyes as her brother, and a wealth of blue-black hair tumbling down her back. “He’s cute for an old guy. Is that his dog?”

Marlowe bounded in and sat on her carpet, wagging his tail. She patted her bed, and Marlowe tried valiantly to scrabble up. She helped him, and for a moment, they regarded each other over an expanse of purple and pink flowered coverlet, before she reached out and scratched Marlowe at the base of his tail. Marlowe adored her immediately, and James resigned himself to leaving his dog in here with her, no matter what the day held.

“He’s a love sponge,” she observed while scratching Marlowe’s stomach. “Is he the reason you came by?”

“He’s a dog-slut, Lily—no need to be nice. We knows what he is. And I came by because you my stubborn-ass little sister, and now you got Mommy all pissed off and bothered. Why you gotta try to kill Mommy with your stubbornness? She made me promise her all sorts of shit when she died, and I was sort of hoping to put that off for a while.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Is this about the Quinceañera?” she asked, shaking her head. “Why do I got to have one? No one else did.”

“You’re her youngest. She just wants to throw you a party!”

Lily glared at him (but kept scratching Marlowe’s shameless white tummy). “Yeah, and that way when I graduate, Mari, Mayra, and Gracie, they can all bitch at me because I got the keensay and suddenly that makes my life all 100 percent better!”

It was Rafael’s turn to roll his eyes. “They love you, heifer. Who you think is footing the bill for this party? ’S not me! All my cash goes to your college.”

Lily snorted. “You are
such
a liar. I hear them talk you know, ’bout how I’m your favorite. I don’t care ’bout that—but don’t give me no bullshit ’bout how you not paying for this. I don’t
need
it, Rafi! I just want to do my work, keep my head down. I don’t want to have no dance or dress or get married to God. Gonna have a hard enough time finding a
real
man—why I need to get married to God?”

Rafael scrubbed his face with his hands, and James listened to their interaction with interest. “Heifer, it’s not my fault you were born last! Now Mommy wants you to have a party with a dress and your girlfriends and sisters all dressed up and pretty men in tuxedos. You get to dance, and all sorts of people coming by to tell you you’re all grown up, and you’ll get gifts and shit. It will be pretty and you will be beautiful and Mommy will be happy. You’ve got months and months and months to play—can’t you even set a date?”

Lily actually looked up at him, and to James’s surprise, there were tears in her eyes. She launched into a rapid-fire spate of Spanish, that apparently not even Rafael could follow, and finished up by wiping away angry tears.

Rafael grunted, looked at James helplessly, and sighed. “Jimmy, uhm—this is gonna take a while. You want to maybe go out back? Don’t worry—everyone sort of wanders in and out, okay? Maybe find Noni. She’ll be in the shade, probably with her cards. Don’t let her freak you out, okay?”

James was about to call for his dog when he saw that Lily was scratching Marlowe behind the ears now, and Marlowe was giving her something comforting that she seemed to really need, so he just nodded and turned to leave. He felt a sudden real urge to do something simple for Rafael: a kiss on the cheek, a squeeze on the shoulder, something. It was simple stuff—adolescent stuff, even if James had no idea what a “Quinceañera” was (besides the word that “keensay” was short for)—but it seemed to mean a lot to Rafael’s sister, and to Rafael.

He settled for a discreet brush of his hand on Rafael’s as he passed by and was rewarded by Rafael’s understanding wink. Good. He was being a good boyfriend for an old white guy—he could deal with that.

He found his way outside by means of the kitchen, and he smiled awkwardly at Mrs. Ochoa as he walked out. She rolled her eyes and gestured briskly with her chef’s knife, and James was just as glad to get out of her way. When he got to the backyard, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people on the patio.

He didn’t
think
there were that many cars parked on the street when he and Rafael had pulled up, but apparently lots of people rode together, because that murmur he’d heard through the (overwhelmingly) loud music was actually a low roar. He took one look at the mass of people standing, talking, laughing under two massive oak trees on that nice, just-for-patios brown-red pavement, and thought seriously about turning around and bolting. Sophie lived four houses down—maybe she’d take him home.

A boy looked up—or a young man who looked a lot like Rafael only taller, rangier, and, well, goofier, with
really
thick black eyebrows—and took notice of him.

“Hey! You Jimmy?”

James nodded and moved over to the young man’s group. “Hi,” he said awkwardly, and the young man smiled.

“I’m Chewie, Rafi’s brother. Hey, everybody. This is Jimmy—he’s Rafael’s friend.”

There was not even the slightest inflection around the word “friend,” but there were a few lifted eyebrows, a few definitive nods of the head, and some crooked smiles. These people were not under
any
illusions about who James was to Rafael—but they offered their hands and smiled and shook, and James was allowed to hover on the fringe of the group and listen to a confusing mix of Spanish and English that mostly seemed to center around who was dating whom.

If it weren’t for the extra language, it would have been a lot like a party at James’s sister’s place, actually.

Still, the charm wore off after a few minutes. It ended pretty much when Chewie called the pretty girl in the pink sundress, standing under his arm, “Teresa” when apparently her name was “Kim,” and James had a lot of trouble keeping a straight face after Rafael’s candid stories. He wandered off, keeping his smirk to himself, and found a place in the shade-darkened corner of the yard. The borders of the yard were planted thickly with flowers so bright they looked painted, and there was a tiny alcove, surrounded by pansies and tea roses. In the center of the alcove was a glass-topped table made of wrought iron, and matching wrought-iron patio chairs which had big, fluffy green-striped cushions on the seats. Ensconced regally on one of those cushions was a tiny, wrinkled woman with stooped shoulders, grizzled gray hair in a bun, bright red lipstick, and skin the color of tea.

She looked up at James and smiled widely, then patted the cushion of the empty seat next to her.

“Come. Sit down. I’ll read your cards.”

Ah. This must be Noni.

“Hi,” he stammered. “I’m James, a friend of—”

“The ‘friend’ bullshit is for Rafael’s father,” she said. She spoke slowly, and James wondered if she was holding back on her accent, or maybe her wish to speak Spanish. That didn’t stop her words from being plain and clear, though—as well as a pleasant surprise.

“He didn’t want to make trouble,” James said apologetically. It was a little cool in this corner of the courtyard—he was relieved to see that someone had thought to bring the old woman a shawl, and she kept the soft white fabric clenched about her shoulders with one hand while they spoke.

“He’s a nice boy. His taste in men? Not so nice. How about you? Are you a nice boy?”

James smiled uncomfortably. “My mother likes to think so,” he said hopefully, and was rewarded by a happy cackle.

“¡
Bien!
Good. Good to hear. Where
is
Rafi? It’s not like him to leave his ‘friends’ wandering around his family. He worries. Maybe they will blow up!”

That brought out a chuckle. “He was, uhm, talking to Liliana about her… uhm… I have no idea what it is,” he finished apologetically. “But she didn’t want one, and her mother wanted her to have one, and I guess Rafael was playing peacemaker.”

Rafael’s Noni nodded wisely. “A Quinceañera—yes. It is a birthday party.”

“A
birthday
party?” Wow—that had all seemed a little extreme for a birthday party.

“It is more. The girls, they get consecrated to the Church. There is a ceremony, and a priest and a reception. Many girls spend more moneys on their Quincea than they do on their weddings.” Noni eyed the girl under Chewie’s arm with disdain. “Of course, many of
those
girls have babies in their bellies at their weddings.” She curled her lip some more at Teresa/Kim and then shook her head as though getting rid of a bad thought.

“Why doesn’t Liliana want one?” he asked, thinking about the pink walls and the flouncy canopy and the stuffed animals in the bed—wouldn’t a girl in a room like that want to be princess for a day?

Rafael’s Noni gave a gusty sigh. “Poor
gordita
—
always fat. She’s beautiful, but still fat. She don’t want to wear a dress and have everyone look at her with the fat. Rafael will make it right. He only see the beautiful, you know?”

James nodded and tried to swallow against a suddenly tight throat. Sophie, Marlowe, James himself—yeah, Rafael saw only the beautiful. “Yeah. He’s a good guy.”

“
Si.
So why you a friend and not a roommate?”

James blushed. “We, uhm, we just met, like, less than a month ago.”

Noni shrugged. “
Si
, but what is a month? You like him? You can live with him.”

James blushed even more. “Of course I like him,” he said gruffly. “We just… I mean, I just… we’re fine!” Oh God. He was starting to appreciate the rest of the family’s see-no-gay-guy/hear-no-gay-guy/know-no-gay-guy approach to the whole thing. At least that didn’t bring him to uncharted depths in a relationship that, quite frankly, he didn’t want to look in the mouth. He was having too much fun to question them now!

Noni wasn’t buying it. “You no fine,” she said, her accent thickening as she spoke. “Here. I read your cards.”

Her bag was white patent leather to match her white polyester suit with the pink ruffled shirt underneath and the shiny white shoes on her feet. She reached into it and pulled out a much-abused Rider-Waite tarot deck—James recognized the pictures from an illustrated copy of
The Decameron.
Before James could say, “I, uhm, don’t know….” the woman had whipped those cards out in her wrinkled, bony fingers and was shuffling them with the savvy of a Vegas blackjack dealer.

“Here,” she commanded. “Tap the deck.” James did, unsure of what he was doing. It didn’t seem to matter. The woman cut the cards and then spread them in front of James neatly, saying, “Now choose ten, one at a time, and give them to me.”

James did, watching curiously as she took the cards and arranged them in a specific figure that he didn’t recognize, and then looked at them, clucking to herself and making noises.

“You want to be a fool,” she said then, decisively, and James gaped.

“I most certainly do not!” There was a hand then, on his shoulder, and he looked up. Rafael was there, grimacing.

“No, Jimmy—you don’t argue with Noni and the cards, you feel me? The cards are very real.”

James looked glumly at the cards spread out before her. Even in the cards, apparently, he was destined to be a fool.

“See,” Noni said authoritatively. “This is you here. You are the five of cups—you think you have spilled all your life here—you think you have nothing but regret. Is not true—you have two cups left of life, and joy, and love—but all you see is what has spilled. Is a very bad place.”

James looked at the picture, stung by the image of a woman weeping into her hands, the spilled cups of life at her feet. He disliked the thought that he was that pathetic. It was embarrassing—and undeniably true.

“Uhm….” Marlowe came up to him then and licked his hand, as if to say,
It is okay, human! I love fools who carry my fat, lazy ass when I am afraid more exertion may kill meeeeee!
James scratched his head and listened to the rest of his life get spelled out in pictures.

“And here—this is one crossing you? This is a good thing. This is the knight of cups—and he’s bringing you more life.” The old woman’s eyes cut slyly at Rafael, and James blushed. So did Rafael. “He is a good man, this knight of cups—he doesn’t let people down.”

The warm hand on James’s shoulder tightened, and James wanted more than anything to squeeze it, but he didn’t.

“See?” Rafael said, not teasing at all. “The cards are real.”

Noni nodded, as though he had said something wise, and then went on to spell out James’s life in careful symbols, all of them held by the cards.

“Your destiny, it is to be with someone—a true partnership. Cups again.” She looked at him shrewdly. “You don’t look like the type, but looks are deceiving. But here? You see this? In your past—the tower. Something that changed you. Something that will destroy all your good if you are not careful. The tower scares you. And here? The recent past? This is the four of swords—you retreated, you licked your wounds, you tried to figure what you’d done wrong. Your future influence—this is the sun. This is a good card. This means that God smiles on you—who wouldn’t want that one, yes? And here—you? You are the lovers. You have a choice here—you can go with your heart, or you can turn away from that—you can go with ambition.”

The woman frowned. “This is a silly card!” she told him, almost accusingly. “Why would you be turning away? You have no staves in this reading!” She glared at James, who quailed. “You are thinking of turning away for nothing. Your own fears. Your own tower. Don’t be a silly boy, Jimmy. Everything else is good. This card here—this needs to change.”