one hot summer (17 page)

As I sprinted out of Luther’s apartment toward the elevator, I realized that we had exchanged barely more than a dozen words during the course of the afternoon; for some reason, it hadn’t seemed necessary. I waited for the elevator to come, and waited, pressing on the call button again and again as though that was going to make it come faster.

To avoid cracking the plastic button, and to keep myself from going crazy until the elevator came, I took my cell phone out of my purse and checked my voice mail. I was alarmed to see that I’d had four calls, but I relaxed when I played them back. There was one each from Vivian and Anabel, both asking me to call ASAP. I knew what they wanted—they were bursting to talk about the adoption. There was one from Maria at the office, telling me I had to return at once because a new batch of documents had come in that afternoon which required my immediate attention. I knew nothing was that urgent, and that Maria just wanted to send out some more bills. I hoped the call didn’t mean that my secretary was insecure about our position in the firm. I knew I was going to have to perform some serious handholding. The final message was from my mother, asking me to call her back, saying she urgently needed to talk. I didn’t worry about Mamá using the word “urgent,” because if it had really been an emergency I would have had ten calls from her, not to mention from all the relatives she had panicked when she wasn’t able to get hold of me right away.

In other words, there was nothing I needed to deal with immediately. In my circle of family, friends, and colleagues, everything was an emergency and all matters required immediate attention. I was so used to such messages that I was able to filter out the true emergencies from routine calls. No one ever said to call back when I had a chance anymore.

I had to laugh as I deleted Mamá’s message. As usual, she had prefaced it by saying that she wasn’t sure if I would get it because she “didn’t know how to use the machine.” I’ve had a cell phone for years, and I’ve gotten every single message that anyone has ever left me. True, Mamá had reason to doubt the reliability of our messaging system—but that was because sometimes I didn’t consider it an emergency to call back to gossip about how my tia Norma’s dermatologist had botched her latest round of Botox injections.

The elevator arrived just as I switched off the messages, and I hopped on board and pressed the button for the ground floor. I don’t know what explanation or excuse for my presence I would have offered had I run into someone I knew just then. Now that I was leading a double life. I realized I was going to have to be prepared for such eventualities. It didn’t matter how big it seemed to an outsider; for me, Miami could be claustrophobically small.

I walked to the visitor’s parking area as quickly as I could without drawing attention to myself, got in, started up the car, and drove away. As I headed for the Beach, I concluded that I couldn’t go home in this physical and emotional state. I needed to regroup.

A few blocks after exiting the MacArthur Causeway, I stopped off at my regular gas station at Alton Road and Fifteenth Street. I pulled over to the full-service pump and asked the attendant, who recognized me and raced over to help, to fill up the car. The Escalade’s tank is so huge it takes forever to fill, so I knew I would have ample time to use the rest room and pull myself together.

I’d used that service station at least a hundred times, but I’d never been inside the ladies’ room. From my initial inspection of the place, I hadn’t missed much. My bladder felt like it was exploding, though, and I didn’t have the luxury of shopping around for better facilities. The bathroom was awkwardly laid out but blessedly ill-lit, so I didn’t have to confront myself too closely in the mirror when I was done peeing. I didn’t know what I was searching for in the mirror, maybe some kind of instant transformation from wife and mother to adulteress. The days of Hester Prynne were long gone, I reminded myself, and there was no scarlet letter to be sewn on.

The face that stared back at me was the same face I’d worn that morning. Only my eyes darting for clues gave away any sign that something had changed within me. I hoped I would be able to hide my inner agitation, and not show it at home. Standing there in front of the chipped and broken mirror, in a bathroom overrun with cardboard cutout pine trees that were old and smelly, I asked myself what had really changed about me.

In high school, people said that everyone was able to tell when a girl was no longer a virgin. I wondered, superstitiously, if that kind of thing applied to adulteresses. I looked straight into my eyes and told myself to stop thinking idiotic, paranoid thoughts. I was going to drive myself crazy. I was Catholic, but I wasn’t about to flog myself for what I’d done, or shave my head, or wear sackcloth and ashes. I had to snap out of this and get on with my life—and, in the process, figure out what my life was. This smelly bathroom wasn’t the place to do it.

Now I had to fix myself up as best I could. I splashed some water on my face, then wet one of the brown paper towels that were stacked on top of the toilet. I ran it over my neck, arms, and legs, cringing as the rough paper scraped against my skin. I threw that one away and wet another. I unzipped my dress and wiped my breasts, my belly, between my legs. I cupped some water from the faucet in my hand and rinsed out my mouth, spitting into the sink. Just before I left, I opened my purse and took out the bottle of Chanel No. 5, which I sprayed all over myself and my clothes. It served to mask the putrid pine-cleanser smell that permeated the place, so the next woman to use the bathroom would be spared the Christmas-in-July effect that was slightly nauseating me. There was nothing else I could do with the materials at hand, so I went back outside to retrieve my car.

My timing was perfect; the attendant was screwing on the gas cap. I waited as he cleaned the back window, then I signed the credit card receipt, tipped my usual five dollars, and was on my way.

It was close to six, but the sun was still bright and blinding, forcing me to squint as I drove north on Alton Road. I had to be careful because at that time of day the street was full of pedestrians, bikers, Rollerbladers, skateboarders, dog walkers, and kids on scooters. No one ever paid attention to traffic signs or signals on South Beach, and the last thing I needed was to hit someone. The worst, most dangerous corner was at the intersection of Alton and Lincoln Roads. The new multiplex movie theater built there had sparked a renaissance in the western leg of Lincoln Road, the eight-block South Beach walking mall, and hordes of people flocked the place, particularly on the weekends. For some reason, visitors to South Beach invariably leave their law-abiding ways on the causeway, and jump right into the lawless fray.

That day, I made it through the danger zone without incident. Soon I turned from Alton onto North Bay Road. To my profound relief, I saw that Ariel’s car wasn’t parked in his slot in the garage. I needed some time before I could be around him—or anyone, for that matter.

I quickly parked the Escalade next to Ariel’s empty space, then hurried into the house. Instead of calling out that I was home, which I always did, I rushed straight up to the bedroom, stripped off my clothes, and ran a hot bath with a capful of gardenia oil. While I waited for the bath to fill up, I threw my underwear into the dirty clothes hamper, and my dress and jacket into the shopping bag reserved for clothes bound for the dry cleaner. There was one more preparation I needed to make. Wrapped in a white terry-cloth bathrobe, I went to the den and found a split of champagne chilling in the refrigerator, along with a flute glass.

Walking back to the bathroom, I heard peals of laughter coming from Marti’s room; from the sound of it, they were playing hide-and-seek, his favorite. I was tempted to stick my head in and announce my presence, but I decided that I needed to cleanse myself before touching my son. I resolved not to take a long time doing it, because I felt a strong need to be with him. In the bathroom, I opened the champagne and poured myself a glass. I had a flashback to Luther’s apartment, and the Veuve Clicquot he had poured for us but which we had pretty much left untouched. I drank one glass and quickly poured another. This glass I placed carefully on the side of the bathtub.

The moment of truth had come. I couldn’t avoid it any longer.

Our bathroom walls were all mirrored, and the overhead lights were so bright and focused they could have served an operating room. I could see myself from all angles. One more sip of champagne, and off came the bathrobe.

I looked over every centimeter of my body, as closely as a homicide detective searching a corpse for clues. I found no marks, which was surprising. Luther and I had made love with so much fervor that at times it had verged on roughness. Taking apart my body with a ruthlessness that sort of surprised me, turning this way and that in the mirrors, I decided that my extreme modesty earlier in the day hadn’t really been necessary. In spite of my age, and havin
g had a baby, I honestly didn’t think this was a body that I needed to hide under sheets. I looked over my skin, saw no telltale marks, and moved on to my face. I looked at myself the way a stranger would.

I rolled my shoulder-length hair into a French twist and secured it with a tortoiseshell comb. My normally light blue eyes seemed a few shades darker, even under the bright light of the bathroom.

Strange. Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything outward about myself that had changed. What was inside me was a different story.

Soon I would have to go face the outside world. I wasn’t getting any answers from the mirrors, and I knew that whatever I was looking for couldn’t be seen. I was going to have to look inside myself, figuring out what I was feeling.
What next,
I thought.
Self-help book, yoga, and vegetarianism?
The very idea was enough to make me shudder.

I finished off the last of the champagne and stepped into the tub.
At least I could cleanse my body,
I thought, as I lowered myself into the steaming, heavily perfumed water. I watched my skin turn from its normal olive tone to a rose color. I immediately felt my muscles relaxing.

I was a Cuban in water, in my element. But water could destroy as well as give life, I reminded myself. What felt the best could also be the most dangerous.

The telephone ringing woke me up. I groped for it in the dark, groggy, one eye open to look at the clock’s lighted dial on my bedside table. Four in the morning. I felt the taste of bile in my mouth. No one ever called with good news at four in the morning.

“Margarita!” I heard Vivian’s voice loud in my ear when I picked up. “She’s here, Margarita! They just called me!”

I heard Ariel stir next to me and grumble. The only news he wanted at that time of the night was a call notifying him that Fidel Castro had died.

“What the hell’s going on?” Ariel mumbled.

“Wait a sec,” I said to Vivian as I put the call on hold. I quietly threw off the covers and went into the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake up all the way, so I left the lights off. I picked up the extension from the wall and asked, “Vivian, are you all right?”

“Margarita, come on and wake up!” Vivian said, sounding excited and frustrated with me. “I’m talking about the baby, your namesake!”

“The baby…the baby arrived?” I asked, having trouble focusing. “At four in the morning?”

Vivian paused for a second. “Look, I don’t know the exact time she got here, but I just got a call from Father Tomas telling me I could pick her up now at the parish office.”

“Well, what are you going to do?” I asked, part of me dreading the answer I knew I was going to hear. I really didn’t want to get involved in this situation, but Vivian was my closest friend, and the fact that she was calling at the ungodly hour of four in the morning meant she really needed my help. I couldn’t desert her now.

“Margarita, would you—” Vivian stopped, tentative. “I mean,
could
you—”

“I’ll be right over,” I sighed. “Just give me a couple of minutes to get dressed.”

I hung up the phone, said a few choice curse words in Spanish, and went to the sink to wash my face and brush my teeth. I decided to dispense with a shower because I’d soaked for a half hour in the bathtub yesterday afternoon, and hadn’t done anything since to get sweaty or dirty. I headed for the closet to pick out some clothes—blue jeans, a white cotton tailored shirt, and espadrilles. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and didn’t bother with makeup. It was the middle of the night, for God’s sake. Vivian and the little Honduran girl couldn’t expect a beauty queen to show up.

Before leaving, I went back into the bedroom to speak with Ariel. “I have to go meet Vivian,” I whispered into his ear. “It’s an emergency.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Is she sick?”

“No, nothing like that,” I told him. “Her baby arrived.”

“Her what?” Ariel asked, beginning to wake up. “I didn’t even know that Vivian was pregnant.”

I hadn’t told Ariel yet about Vivian adopting the child, since I thought it was up to her to set a timetable for making the announcement. She had just told Anabel and me at lunch the day before and, as far as I knew, she hadn’t even informed her own family yet. And, knowing Vivian’s folks, the
mierda
was going to hit the fan when they found out.

I needn’t have worried about Ariel losing sleep, because he was back in slumberland by the time I reached the bedroom door. Even though there was little chance I would wake anyone, I still tiptoed through the house as I headed for the garage. I yawned loudly as I unlocked the car and got in. No wonder I was so tired, I thought, this was the second night in a row that I failed to get a decent night’s sleep. I pressed the button for the automatic gate opener and fiddled with the radio dials as I waited for the iron doors to swing out and allow me to head out onto North Bay Road.

I drove toward the mainland, thinking about this strange situation Vivian had allowed herself to get into. I didn’t know much about adoption laws, but it seemed strange that a young child would miraculously appear in Miami without the adoptive parent having more notice. I thought that adoptive parents would travel to the child’s homeland and travel out of the country with the child. Vivian had said that all the paperwork was completed. I didn’t know about family law, but I worked in immigration law—and I knew that visas to the United States were extremely hard to get for Central Americans and, for Hondurans, next to impossible. Maybe it was a special case because the Catholic Church was involved. I tried to calm my fears and hope that Vivian had some idea of what she was getting into.

I had never dealt with a situation in which an American was adopting a child who was simultaneously applying for a visa to enter the country. But then, I thought, the child would become an American citizen as soon as Vivian became her mother. I didn’t know the details, and I was a business immigration attorney—my specialty was helping clients with their immigration status in civil matters. I never dealt with children, and this entire situation was out of the scope of my expertise. I tried to force myself to stop worrying.

But I couldn’t because Vivian’s behavior was so out of character, and because I worried about the strain she was about to put herself under.

Stop it,
I told myself.
You can’t run Vivian’s life.
The way things had been going lately, I could barely run my own.

At that early hour in the morning, there was almost no traffic on the road, so I made good time from the Beach to Coconut Grove. I called Vivian from my cell phone when I was about a minute away from her house. I needn’t have worried about her being ready.

“I’m standing outside, waiting for you,” she told me.

“I’ll be right there,” I told her, refraining from pointing out that standing outside alone in the Grove in the middle of the night wasn’t the most intelligent thing she could be doing.

Vivian’s street was typical of her part of the Grove: The houses were set back from the street, the roads were winding with heavy foliage and limited visibility. In other words, it was perfect for muggings and break-ins, and there were many of each. Vivian’s house was in the southern part of the Grove, at the end of a tiny cul-de-sac off El Prado Boulevard. It was minutes from downtown, but it felt so secluded and out of the way that Vivian claimed she felt like she lived in a small town.

True to her word, as soon as I pulled into Vivian’s driveway, she emerged from the shadows and jogged over to my car. She had a pink diaper bag slung over her shoulder, and carried a gigantic black and white stuffed panda bear.

“Thank God you’re here!” Vivian exclaimed as she threw open the passenger door. “I’m a nervous wreck.”

I looked over at her and, although I didn’t say anything, I had to agree. For the first time, Vivian looked every one of her thirty-five years. She wore blue jeans, a T-shirt, her hair pulled back and fastened with a barrette, and no makeup. I couldn’t remember Vivian ever looking so unkempt and disheveled. I couldn’t help but wonder if motherhood had already done that to her. Usually it took a while before the stress and strain of caring for a child affected a woman, but I supposed the nervousness and anticipation of the adoption could have had the same effect.

Thinking about Vivian’s appearance, I shook off the unsettling notion that I might have also changed a lot since Marti was born. I remembered the afternoon with Luther the day before, hours of sweet delight that felt as though they had elapsed years ago. What had consumed me hours before had slipped into the past. This was Vivian’s moment, after all, and not mine.

I forced myself to concentrate on the moment. “So, what happens now?” I asked as I made a U-turn in her driveway before heading out onto Douglas Road. “Where are we going?”

“Father Tomas called and told me I could pick her up at the rectory,” Vivian said. She was so agitated that her words came out in harsh, clipped bursts. “You know where St. Aloysius is, right, Margarita?”

“Uh, yes, I know where it is,” I said, holding back my sarcasm. Vivian had enough to deal with.

I felt her fumbling around in the dark, then the crackle of paper followed by a lighter flicking on. “I know, I know, I gave cigarettes up years ago,” Vivian explained defensively, inhaling deeply. “But right now I need something to calm me down.”

The sweet smell of a Marlboro wafted over me, and I felt an intense craving. Vivian read my mind, and lit one and handed it over.

“Here,” she said. “You need one, too.”

Did I ever. We drove in silence, each lost in our own thoughts; within minutes we had crossed U.S. 1 and reached the church parking lot. I slowly pulled round to the back, to Father Tomas’s rectory residence, and parked directly in front of the door. All the lights were turned on inside the house, and I saw the shapes of people moving around. I felt Vivian tense up next to me as she took the final puffs off her cigarette.

“Do you need me to go inside with you?” I asked her.

Her eyes fixed straight ahead, Vivian didn’t answer. She clutched the diaper bag like someone holding on to a life preserver in high seas. I felt for her, but it was also close to dawn. I fantasized about going home for an hour or two of sleep before starting the day.

“Vivian, they know we’re here.” I saw a woman part the curtains and wave at us. “Really,
chica,
It’s time.”

“I know.” She nodded, but still didn’t move.

Vivian’s cigarette had burned down to the filter and gave off a sour chemical smell. I took it from her fingers and crushed it in the ashtray, next to mine. Then I put my hand on hers.

“Do you want to change your mind?” I asked quietly. “Do you not want to go through with the adoption?”

I thought it would be helpful to remind Vivian that she could still back out. I could have handled the situation with more tact, but it occurred to me that Vivian had rushed into this.

My words must have had an effect on her. She frowned, shook her head, and flung open the car door. With the diaper bag in hand, Vivian stepped out into the quiet, muggy morning.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

She left the panda bear in the car to keep me company.

I listened to the radio for nearly an hour. Dawn had started to break when I saw the rectory door open and Vivian emerge, awkwardly carrying a bundle. I saw that she needed help, so I got out of the car and stepped out to meet my friend.

Vivian moved slowly to the passenger-side door. I opened it and helped her in, placing the diaper bag at her feet. Vivian had arranged a pink blanket around the child, making it impossible to see her face. I made sure they were both comfortable, pulled the seat belt around them, and closed the door. I wished she’d placed the child in Marti’s car seat, but at least it was a short drive in light traffic. I came around to my side, got in, and started the motor.

“She’s sleeping,” Vivian whispered, as though explaining something very important as I put the car in gear. “I don’t want to wake her up.”

I thought it was a little strange that Vivian didn’t want to show me the child, but I kept it to myself. Vivian was as nervous and unsure of herself as I’d ever seen her, and I wanted to give her space during this incredible life-changing moment.

So much for space. Vivian’s voice sounded too strange to me. I stopped the car just before pulling out onto the street, and turned to look at her.

Vivian had an odd expression, almost as though she was in shock. She was staring straight ahead, not looking at me. She had claimed to want this child more than anything, and now she acted as though she had received shattering news. It was starting to frighten me.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded.

Vivian didn’t reply.

I felt a rush of cold fear. Looking around the parking lot, I spotted a secluded corner, away from sight of the rectory, and drove the car there. I stopped, turned off the motor, and turned again to look at Vivian. Something was wrong. Vivian wasn’t acting like a woman overjoyed to be reunited with her newly adopted child.

“Vivian, let me look at her,” I said. “Now.”

Vivian didn’t reply, and still stared ahead. I opened up the car door and stepped outside. I began to sweat instantly as I moved around to her side and threw the door open. I reached over my inert friend and unbuckled her seat belt. I turned Vivian around, so she was facing out, and gently unfolded the blanket that was covering the child’s face.

It was light enough for me to see clearly. And what I saw threw me into shock as well.

No wonder Vivian had reacted that way. The child sleeping in her arms was not the one in the photograph that Vivian had showed Anabel and me. This girl was very dark-skinned, almost black. She had beautiful, delicate features and very curly jet-black hair cut close to the scalp.

“This is Margarita Anabel?” I asked.

Somehow this explained why the circumstances of the adoption had been so weird. This was why Vivian had been summoned in the middle of the night. Somehow, at some point, another child had been sent.

The sound of my voice jolted Vivian back to reality. She looked down at the innocent child sleeping in her arms, then back up at me.

“Yes,” she said, her voice loud. “This is my daughter, Margarita Anabel.”

She leaned down and kissed the little girl’s forehead.

My fears went away. There was no question that Vivian was already feeling protective, and I instinctively knew that Vivian would never mention or admit the fact that they had switched children on her.

I buckled them back in, closed the door, and went around to my side of the car. We reached her house in minutes, and I helped her inside.

“Should I stay?” I asked her.

“No,” Vivian said, her voice a little shaky. “We should…I think the two of us should be alone for a while. I’ll give you a call.”

I put my hand lightly on Vivian’s daughter.

“She’s beautiful, you know,” I said.

“I know she is,” Vivian said, turning to go inside. I knew she was too proud to let me see her cry.

I headed toward U.S. 1 and went north, joining the morning commuters on the road. Unlike those who were heading for work or school, I had a very different destination in mind: my bed.