Tomorrow They Will Kiss (29 page)

At first I didn’t want to go. It felt as if I was betraying the entire community. But I’m not one to piss on the parade of
others, so I clenched my teeth, took four aspirins, and got dressed.

Of all the days in the year, Graciela had to pick July 15, a day when the blacks of Newark had decided to set the city on
fire. Leticia picked us up in the van, except it was her husband, Chano, behind the wheel. And the van was fresh that day
because Chano didn’t do deliveries on Saturdays, and I guess he took the trouble to clean it out. The last thing I needed
was to arrive smelling like raw pork. Leticia sat in the passenger seat, where Berta used to sit. And once again it was very
quiet. It was the first time that we’d had men in there. Mario, uncomfortable in a suit and smelling too strongly of cologne,
sat next to me. Caridad came alone. Salud, as usual, stayed home with Celeste.

Leticia wanted to talk about the new telenovela they were advertising, the one that will follow Rosalinda. It was to be called
Amor Perdido.
Love Lost. It would be the first telenovela shown in color. A todo color! Of course none of us had a color television, so
we’d have to settle for watching it in black-and-white. But every time Leticia started to talk, her husband, Chano, interrupted
her.

“Shut up about those stupid telenovelas,” is what he actually said!

And Leticia just kept quiet. She just backed down. Leticia, who was always in charge. Por Dios, what kind of a marriage is
that? I wondered if he beat her. If Mario ever dared to talk to me like that I’d smack him with a frying pan so hard he’d
never say another word again without drooling. Suddenly it was clear to me that Chano had forced Leticia to smuggle the jewelry
out of Cuba in her chocha. In her chocha! That definitely explained why she never wanted to talk about it. But I didn’t say
anything. We just traveled in silence. I missed our chatter. It would have been nice to be able to talk to the girls about
Rosalinda, the way we always did in the van. But having those two men in there made everything different. All they wanted
to talk about was what was going on in Newark. I wanted to tell Leticia’s husband that we had a right to talk about anything
we wanted, but I chose not to because the last thing I needed was Mario getting all worked up. He’d already had a couple of
drinks before we left and had been ranting about the treatment of los negros in this country.

So we had to sit there quietly while the men tried to solve all the problems of the world. At least our husbands were Cubanos,
for better or for worse. We didn’t go running off with an American like Graciela. We didn’t sell ourselves to the foreigners.
As Caridad said, “We still have a sense of decency.”

*

I
T WAS THE STRANGEST WEDDING!
Por Dios, who gets married in a city park? On a Saturday? During a riot? Shouldn’t a wedding take place on a Sunday, in a
church? But we all showed up with our presents. Caridad and I were shocked that she wanted us to be her matrons of honor,
but how could we refuse? For better or worse, we’d known her all our lives, and that first wedding of hers was such a disaster.
I looked around, almost expecting to see Arroz Blanco standing there waiting to give her blessings. If only she were here,
I thought, for this union certainly could use a good luck charm, even a tarnished, toothless, demented one like Arroz.

“Of course,” Caridad said, smiling through clenched teeth, “she only asked us because her comadre Berta is dead.”

“This is such a mistake,” I replied.

“What’s one more stripe to a tiger?” Caridad said, looking up at the smoky skies.

So we went along. Por Dios, Graciela didn’t even tell us ahead of time. Probably with good reason. If we’d had time to think
about it, we probably would have refused, made up some sort of excuse. But Graciela, in spite of all her endless blunders,
was not stupid. Just seconds before the ceremony, she ran to us and, in that breathless way she has, said, “I can’t do this
alone. I’m so far away from home. I need you two to stand with me.”

We knew exactly what she meant. Por Dios, we all felt like orphans in this country. We pretended it wasn’t a problem, but
deep down inside, everyone felt adrift. So we let her take us by the hand and we gladly gave her away.

Gladly.

Graciela was wearing something made of white gauze. A wedding dress, sort of. She designed it herself, and it showed. Mario
said she looked like a mummy from a horror movie. The wedding took place at sunset, and there were lots of people from work.
Cloretta was there, big and black, in a floral gown and a big, wide hat. She was at a wedding while her entire neighborhood
was going up in flames. In flames! She was all smiles and good wishes. I kept an eye on her, though, and I noticed that every
time a siren sounded, she stiffened.

Some of Barry’s family members were there. He has two older brothers, and one of them looked a little afeminado, if you know
what I mean. A tall, skinny man with long hair just like Barry’s, he was looking at that strange wedding dress of Graciela’s
as if he wanted to be the one wearing it. But no one seemed to take notice except Caridad and me.

The only person missing was Raquel, who had taken a bus to Miami the week before to join her husband, who was waiting for
her there.

“What did I tell you?” I said to Caridad when Raquel told us she was leaving. That was all she told us, and I was surprised
that she didn’t just disappear. She could have, for as much as we ever saw of her except in the van and at work.

Caridad just looked at me with that look I know so well.

“It’s just as we suspected,” she said. “Raquel must be Alpha Sixty- six. How else do you explain a man getting out of jail
and making it to Miami? He was rescued or paid for. I have no doubt of that.”

Raquel had packed up her blue dresses, her little girls, and their headless dolls, and off they all went to live in Miami.

Leticia drove her to the bus depot, and we all went to say our tearful good- byes and to wish her luck. It’s what we always
do. We show up for our own, no matter how misguided their decisions.

As Raquel climbed the steps to the bus, Caridad put a hand on her shoulder.

“Óyeme,” she said with the best intentions. Listen. “If things turn out different than you expect, come back. Remember, prison
changes a man. You haven’t seen him in a long time. You don’t know who he is anymore.”

“Chá,” Raquel said, with a twist of her orange lips. And without a look back, she got on that bus.

“Leave her, Caridad,” Graciela said. “The promise to La Virgen worked for her. She’s going to be all right.”

Graciela, always so naive about the simplest things. This had nothing to do with the Virgin or the saints. It was politics,
plain and simple. But there she stood, crying and waving as the bus pulled away with a big fart of black smoke.

I had the feeling Raquel would be back. From the sounds of it, her husband was trouble. Real trouble. I didn’t know him or
anything about him, but I had a strong feeling that something was wrong. I mean, for a man to be rescued out of jail, he must
be in with someone. And who that someone was I would rather not know. In my heart I wished her my very best.

At least Raquel didn’t have to be at that wedding. She may have been headed for heartache, but at least she dodged that bullet.
And Leticia already had two new women lined up to fill her seats. One of them was named Flor and the other Orquídea. They
seemed nice enough—Cubans, of course. But they were not assembly line, like us, they were part of the janitorial staff, and
they smelled like it, believe me. But as long as they paid on time, I didn’t think Leticia cared. We might need to have a
little talk with her.

*

T
HE SMOKE FROM THE RIOTS
in Newark darkened what little sun there was. The brown clouds seemed to struggle with the blue and the effect was that of
an enormous bruise. But Graciela didn’t notice. Graciela, nervous and excited, stood between Imperio and me and pledged eternal
love to a man she hardly knew—and will probably never know very well.

Although her English
had
improved.

She didn’t even have a Catholic priest there. No priest would have been caught dead at such a spectacle. The ceremony was
performed by a stuttering friend of Mr. O’Reilly’s from the shipping department. He looked sort of Jewish to me. He had long
hair, like Mr. O’Reilly’s but brown, and big, round eyes. He read from a wrinkled sheet of paper, but he could hardly be heard
because of the patrol car and ambulance sirens blasting on their way to and from Newark.

Graciela’s boys were very well behaved. Ernestico seemed a little dazed, probably wondering what life would be like now that
there was another man in his family. I wondered how his father felt about the whole thing. Poor Ernesto, our teacher of so
long ago. Just like I’d said ten years before, that marriage never should have taken place. And I didn’t want to be a cynic,
but I had serious doubts about this one too.

Manolito read a poem he wrote himself. It was like being back in Palmagria and watching Graciela. He seemed to have all of
his father’s best qualities. He read the poem with a clear and serene voice, not in Graciela’s dramatic way. Those words seemed
to have come directly from his heart.

And Mr. O’Reilly, well, El Americano wore his long blond hair loose and flowing. I thought he’d have the decency to at least
get a haircut. But no, his hair was as long as Graciela’s. Y de contra, a tear rolled down his cheek during the ceremony.
Dios Santo, a grown man who cried . . . in public . . . I predicted a problem.

I
would never begrudge
anyone their happiness. Just the same, I tried to skip the reception. And all that business with los negros in Newark had
me nervous, very nervous. All those sirens and helicopters! Celeste didn’t like loud noises, any commotion could set her off.
And even though she was home with her father, I had no idea what I would find when I returned.

I just wanted to go home and lock the door. But Graciela wouldn’t hear of it. “Por favor, Cari, you have to stay until we
cut the cake,” she said.

Imagínate. She had changed out of her wedding dress and into something even more inappropriate. This dress was made of blue
denim with white ruffles around the low- cut neck and more ruffles at the hem. She looked like I don’t know what. But you
would think she was wearing silk the way she strutted around in white high heels, as high as you can imagine.

The party took place in a rented hall off Bergenline Avenue. I asked if this was the same place where Castro used to hold
his fund- raisers back in the fifties, but no one knew what I was talking about. Personally I wouldn’t have been at all surprised
that Graciela would pick that particular establishment for her wedding reception. Graciela has a tendency not to think things
through.

There was a very loud American band playing the most horrendous music. You should have seen Graciela on that dance floor,
shaking in directions I didn’t know the human body could go. She was the life of her own party, that one. I knew it would
just be a matter of time before she jumped up onto that stage and grabbed the microphone away from the singer, if you could
call him that. The music was too loud, if you want to call it music. I called it noise, and the worst sort of noise. It was
all electric guitars and a big drum set. The sounds seemed to be aimed directly at the most sensitive part of my brain.

I sat at the table as long as I could. Leticia and Imperio kept me company, but we could hardly hear each other. We just sat
there, our purses on our laps, while Mario and Chano continued the tiresome conversation they had started in the van. We watched
Graciela on the dance floor making all sorts of indecent moves. She swayed her hips like a rocking chair and shook her shoulders
so that her breasts went this way and that. It was embarrassing. Leticia, Imperio, and I didn’t know where to look. And Graciela
just wouldn’t stop dancing. Typical, when you think of the spectacle she used make at school assemblies back in Palmagria.
She hadn’t changed one bit, that one. Not one bit.

She danced with Barry, of course. That crazy band actually knew a slow song, and I have to admit Barry and Graciela looked
good together. Who knows? Maybe they
were
in love. They were alone in the middle of the dance floor, and it was like they were lost in a dream. “Wake up,” I wanted
to shout, but I decided to stay out of it. I knew it would be useless. Graciela was off and running. What else could I do
but wish her luck? And then the music picked up again and she danced with both of his brothers. First the normal one and then
with the other. With the other, she danced twice.

I watched Graciela go up to the band and I thought, Here we go, she’s going to sing. But she just whispered something to the
singer and he smiled big and nodded, and then he said something to the band and what do you know, they started to play something
that sounded a lot like “Guantanamera.” Imagínate! But of course they know that song, I said to myself. The Americans own
Guantánamo.

Then, happy as if she was listening to the Cuban national anthem, Graciela started going from table to table, pulling people
to their feet. Cloretta didn’t need much encouragement; no sooner had Graciela asked her than she was shaking her big body
like the world was coming to an end. Imagínate, Cloretta was going home to smoke and ashes, but there she was, dancing the
night away. I had never seen Graciela laugh so much, she could hardly stand from laughing. Is that what happiness looks like?
I wondered. Like insanity?

The band played “Guantanamera,” the singer machacando José Martí’s legendary lyrics, for what seemed like forever to me. Over
and over the same little tune, over and over again the same few lines of the poem, for of course the Americano didn’t know
all of them, just
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera,
over and over again. But Graciela didn’t seem to mind, Graciela was delighted.