Rust (14 page)

“Rico, did something happen?” she asked, and he saw fear reflected in her eyes and even the set of her jaw, and for good reason, probably. He had only shown up at her job three times, and for each one bad news had driven him there: his father’s death, a broken leg for Maribel, and an allergic reaction for Ana that had her in the emergency room for one whole afternoon and night.

“Everybody’s okay,” he said, “But I need to talk to you for a minute. Outside.”

Now she looked perplexed and, Rico thought, a bit annoyed. But she turned and called, “Be right back” to Sonia, who nodded and then added a little wave to Rico, which he returned. They stepped into the parking lot.

“What is it, Rico?”

Now Rico felt embarrassed, as if it were a stupid thing, a bad idea to come here, and he’d just figured that out. But since he was here, and since he knew why he came, he plowed forward.

“I have two questions,” he said. “Why did you let me fuck you last night? That’s one question. The other is, Why haven’t you let me touch you for four years?”

Rosalita drew in a breath and then let it out.

“Rico, is this the right time for this?”

“I’ve been living on your time schedule for years, Rosalita. Now you can live on mine for a few minutes.”

She reached up to her hat and took it off, as if wearing a paper kitchen beret was just too much at a moment like this. “But I’m at work,” she said.

“Then go in there and tell them you’re taking the day off. Tell them something came up.”

She appeared to think that over for a few seconds, but then said, “Should I tell you the truth?”

“
Sí, Rosalita. La verdad, por favor
.”

“I got tired of my life, tired of our life, and tired of you. I wanted to get away, and I knew I couldn’t. It wasn’t anything bad you did, Rico. You’re a good husband, a good father. And you’re my friend.” Here she reached partway toward his hand. “But none of that was enough. And I . . .”

She hesitated, and Rico had a feeling bad news was coming.

“. . . and I met somebody at the same time, another man, and I had to make a decision about whether to leave you or go behind your back, or just let things go on as they were. It was a very hard time for me, Rico.”

Now Rico held his breath. He felt as if his skin was being ripped off in strips exposing whatever is underneath to the heat of the desert sun. He felt hot. He waited.

“In the end I decided to leave everything as it was. But it wasn’t the same after that. I couldn’t pretend that it was.” She shifted her kitchen hat, which she had balled up like a Kleenex, from one hand to the other. “I wasn’t ready for that.”

“So you lost both ways,” Rico said, and even though there was an edge of anger in his voice, the words themselves had kindness in them.

“And so did you,” Rosalita responded. She did not add, “I’m sorry.”

Not that Rico was waiting for those exact words in that particular moment. He may have driven to the school for the express purpose of forcing them out of her, but now he had heard too much, not only what Rosalita said, but all the agony behind it, all the waves of sorrow, all the questioning she had done in private, maybe to spare him, maybe not. Standing there, with his perfect hindsight, he suddenly remembered the way her eyes had been so clouded over during that time, the way she used to stare at the television as if she were seeing through the picture tube to some other world, the way she took to holding one of the throw pillows on the couch in front of her heart with her arms crossed over it. He remembered watching her as she did the dishes, washing the plates over and over, making the same circle on them with the sponge as if she had totally forgotten where she was. He had studied her from the kitchen door, wondering if she would ever snap out of it, whatever it was.

“You could have told me, Rosalita,” he said.

“No, Rico. I couldn’t.” She moved slightly so she stood in his shadow. “I can barely tell you now.”

“And all this leaves us where?” he finally said.

“Nowhere special,” she answered. If he had been more like Fernando, he might have smacked her a good one in that moment. He might have hit her hard enough to knock her down, and then climbed into his truck and tore off without a backward glance. He might not have shown up at home for a week, if he had been more like Fernando. It wasn’t that Rico didn’t know or understand the feelings that make a man act that way. He did. But he didn’t respect them.

“This is a lot to hear,” he finally said.

“Now you know,” she responded, and she reached forward and touched him on the hand. “I hope it’s better for you, knowing.” Looking down into her eyes, Rico felt somewhat steadied by her gaze. He could see the concern she had for him. He could also see her fear and dread, and something in that simple truth paralyzed him for a moment.

And then they were interrupted by Sonia, calling from the kitchen door. “Rosalita, are you coming in? I’m sorry, but we’re behind in here and . . .” She stopped talking when they both turned in her direction. She stepped back inside the kitchen, disappearing into the shadows.

Rosalita returned her eyes to Rico.

“Go ahead,” he said, with a nod in the direction of the kitchen door.

“Okay,” she replied, and then she turned away. Before she entered the kitchen door, she spun around and stared at him as if he were a vision or a mirage in the middle of the parking lot. Then she went inside.

Rico climbed into his truck. He turned the key in the ignition and felt comforted by the smooth sound of the engine coming to life. When he arrived at the edge of the parking lot, he had no idea which way to turn on Indian School Road, though he’d driven up and down that street a million times in his life. Finally, he made a right, and after a series of unplanned rights and lefts, he ended up in the parking lot of the Frontier restaurant—right across from the university—a local eatery that sat a hundred people at a time and usually had the food ready for pickup within a minute of when you ordered it. Often it was ready before you even got settled into a booth in the back. Today Rico ordered a sticky bun and a coffee, which he carried to the farthest dining room, and sat down under a painting of Elvis Presley that was at least eight feet high and six feet wide.

The Frontier was crowded, as usual. Study groups with books spread far and wide occupied several of the big tables, and there were mothers with babies and young lovers and old men with stained shirts all around him. Busboys pushed overloaded carts through the narrow aisles, clearing off the tables with the precision of robots, and the speaker above his head produced a static-riddled version of “My Green Tambourine.” The racket pleased him. It pushed any possibility of thought out of his mind, but it couldn’t control the black mood which pressed in from the edges, just like the black background of the painting above his head was closing in on Elvis. On the opposite wall a life-size portrait of John Wayne, all cowboyed up with both pistols drawn, appeared ready to blow Rico’s head off. Rico, who felt as if he’d already been in one shootout today, barely picked at his sticky bun. When he left forty-five minutes later, more than half of it sat uneaten in a sea of coagulated butter.

He drove west to Fourth Street and turned south. He had actually forgotten about Margaret, and it wasn’t until he arrived at the garage almost ten minutes late and saw her standing out in front that he remembered it was time for her second lesson. “Shit,” he said as he pulled into his parking spot. Then he said “Shit” again. He put the truck in park and got out.

“Yo, Margaret,” he said as he came toward her.

“Yo, Rico,” she replied with a smile, but then the smile disappeared and she took a half step toward him, and added, “What’s wrong, Rico? What’s happened?”

This stopped him, an almost imperceptible pause in his forward motion. How could a woman he barely knew read him like an open book? He had spent his whole life perfecting his poker face. He had learned to control every muscle, including the vestigial ones that sometimes urged him to show his fangs and growl. But she seemed to look past it all into his heart, which, while not breaking, was at least seriously stunned. And then the completely unacceptable happened. He felt his throat tighten and his eyes fill up, and there he was, having to reach up to brush tears off his cheek while pretending to adjust his sunglasses.

“
Nada,
Margaret,” he said. “Sorry I’m late.”

He stepped around her to work the key into the lock. Behind the security bars was a small window, and he could see himself reflected in it. Perhaps it was the wavy quality of the old glass, which hadn’t been changed since his father had bought the shop, but he looked shell-shocked in the reflection, like a man who’s already been knocked out, but hasn’t fallen down yet. It made him mad to see that reflection, and the dark mood grew even darker, right before his own eyes. He could also see Margaret, a slim presence at the periphery. She had that heavy bag hanging from her shoulder, and in that split second, it crossed Rico’s mind that maybe she carried the weight of the world in it, that she was some kind of angel sent to help him. He dismissed that thought quickly, though. What kind of a man looked for an angel to rescue him?

He pushed the door open, stepped in, and flipped on the lights.

Margaret followed him inside. He was intensely aware of her behind him, as if the energy around her, that yellow glow she seemed to have, was pressing up against his mood. “Want me to set up?” she asked.

“
Sí, claro,
” he said.

She went into the work bay and hung her bag on the hook. Then she hit the lever for the hydraulic lift, stopped it at precisely the right moment like a pro, and began to pull the TIG welding apparatus, with its foot pedal amp control and its argon hoses, away from the wall to a convenient place under the car. Rico, across the garage at the bathroom door, lifted his coveralls off the hook and stepped into them, zipping them up just as she turned to him, ready to go.

“You learn fast,” he said.

“I’ve got a good teacher,” she replied, and then she added, “
el rey
.”

Women have a way of smiling a half-smile, one that seems to be connected somehow to the outside edge of their eyes, which they use when they know they have something on you, Rico thought. This smile makes their eyes gleam more as their lips curve upward in the slightest way, and it creates an intense charge in the atmosphere between the woman and the man she’s smiling at. It could almost, but not quite, be called flirtation.

“I read about you in a book at the library,” she continued. “I had no idea you were famous. If I’d known, I would never have hustled you to teach me to weld. I would’ve been way too intimidated.”

Suddenly Rico felt dizzy, and he leaned against the workbench for balance. Everything was speeded up, swirling around him like he was some cartoon character, maybe Wile E. Coyote, who had just been lassoed by a cowboy in a passing pickup truck and was spinning mightily along the side of the road. His wife had just announced that, for her, their last four years had been a complete write-off. She had said that they were “nowhere special” in their lives together now. But here was another woman, a woman he had mistaken for both the Virgin of Guadalupe and a rescuing angel, who was giving him that half-smile and a compliment, too. And just a few moments ago, she had taken one look at him and known something was terribly wrong and asked him what it was; and Rico appreciated that because for four years everything had been wrong with him, and his own wife had failed to bring it up.

“Yeah, I’m
‘el rey’
to the low riders and
‘el nada’
everywhere else,” he said, because he had to say something, and that was the first thing he could think of. There was a certain buoyancy to the words too, as if leaning against the workbench permitted him to launch them with more lightheartedness than he could realistically muster in the moment otherwise.

Margaret threw back her head and laughed. It took five years off her face when she did. “Hey, I’m going to embroider that on a nametag for your jumpsuit there,” she said. “Really.”

“This is not a jumpsuit, Margaret. Jumpsuits are for
maricones
. These are work coveralls,” he replied in a stern voice, which made her laugh again. And the ring of that laugh echoing around the work bay wedged its way into his mood, lightening it up, mainly, Rico figured, because he was where he was, making jokes with Margaret, and not in the past—or the future either, for that matter.

“Ready to rock and roll?” he asked; she nodded, and he stepped up next to her, commencing the job on the axle that they had begun just yesterday. Today it would be done, and then they could move on to the body work, which was probably more in line with what she needed to learn for her art projects. Having her next to him, staring upward into the underbelly of the Chevy as he worked the cutting torch, sparks flying everywhere, he felt as if they were making some crazy offering to a fire god from long ago, maybe in some ceremony at the rim of the volcanoes on the West Mesa, in hopes of holding off the eruption.

They finished just before noon, and, like yesterday, she collapsed into his rolling desk chair while he landed in one of the folding chairs. He was delighted and amused by this little display of oblivion and selfishness on her part, how she automatically assumed she was the one in need of the most immediate relief and comfort. In fact, she did look rather overwhelmed, as if she had a bad headache or had been staring into the sun for three hours of intense driving.

“I am
so
out of my league,” she said. “I hope I’m not driving you crazy.”

Suddenly Rico remembered his first few lessons with his own father, how the whole language of welding was like Chinese to him and he had no idea what to reach for when his father asked him to hand him something. He had just dropped out of high school and was only fifteen when he went to work full-time in the garage, though fifteen then seemed older than it did now.

“It takes time,” he said. “Let it come in its own time.”

“Hey, I’m a New Yorker. I’m in a rush,” she said.