Caramelo

  —Oh, my God, Viva, you look just like Cher!

  The Vogue saleswomen have to wear prissy name tags that say “Miss” in front of their first names, even if they’re a hundred years old! Miss Sharon, Miss Marcy, Miss Rose.

  Viva asks me, —And when you’re on your period, do you get real cacosa?

  —Shit, yes!

  —Ha! That’s a good one. Me too.

  Miss Rose hovering about, knocking on the dressing room door too sharply, and asking a hundred times, —Everything all right, honey?

  —Gawd! Can’t we have a little privacy here? Viva says, squeezing her chichis into a serve-’em-on-a-platter corset gown.

  The Vogue is Viva’s choice. Mine, the Woolworth’s across from the Alamo because of the lunch counter that loops in and out like a snake. I like sitting next to the toothless viejitos enjoying their grilled tuna triangles and slurping chicken noodle soup. I could sit at that counter for hours, ordering Cokes and fries, a caramel sundae, a banana split. Or wander the aisles filling a collapsible basket with glitter nail polish, little jars of fruit-flavored lip gloss, neon felt-tip pens, take the escalator to the basement to check out the parakeets and canaries, poke around Hardware looking for cool stuff, or dig through the bargain bins for marked-down treasures.

  Viva says who would ever want to shop at the Woolworth’s when there’s the Kress? She has a way of finding jewels even there. Like maybe picking up thick fluorescent yarn for our hair over in Knitting. Or a little girl’s purse I wouldn’t ever notice in a thousand years. Or the funkiest old ladies’ sandals that turn sexy when she wears them.

  But it’s over at the Vogue that Viva’s happiest. I can’t see the point in spending so much time in a store that sells nothing for less than five dollars. —But who cares, says Viva. —Right? Who cares.

  We try on every formal dress in the store till I complain I’m hungry. No use. Viva pauses in Jewelry and tries on a pair of gold hoop earrings almost bigger than her head.

  —Gold hoops look good on us, Viva says. She means Mexicans, and who am I to argue with the fashion expert. We do look good. —Never sleep with your gold hoops, though, Viva adds. —Last time I did that I woke up and they weren’t hoops anymore, but something shaped like peanuts. I’m going to write a list of twenty things you should never do, nunca, or you’ll be sorry, and on the top of that list will be: Never, never, never sleep with your gold hoop earrings. I’m telling you.

  Number two. Never date anyone prettier than yourself, Viva says, trying on a rhinestone tiara. —Believe me, I know.

  She still has to pester saleswomen to help her get her hands on a felt fedora, fishnet pantyhose, pearl hair snoods, strapless bras. I’m slumped on a bench over by the elevator when she finally reappears, sighing loudly and snapping, —Number three. Never shop for more than an hour in platform shoes. My feet feel like zombies, and this place bores me to tears. Let’s cut out.

  —I was hoping we could stop at the Woolworth’s for a chili dog, I say. —But it’s late. My ma will be pissed.

  —Quit already. We’ll tell her … we were at my house bathing my mother.

  Viva is braying over the genius of the story we’re going to tell, exaggerating worse than ever, yakking a mile a minute when we push open the heavy glass doors of the Vogue and step out onto the busy foot traffic of Houston Street.

  And then the rest, I don’t remember exactly. Some big clown in a dark suit behind us barking something, a dark shadow out of the corner of my eye, and Viva’s yowl when one grabs her by the shoulder and the little one hustles me by the elbow, escorting us real quick back inside the Vogue while a bunch of shoppers stare at us, and Viva starts cussing, and me mad as hell saying, —Take your hands off her! It happens so fast I really don’t know what’s happening at first. Like being shaken awake from a nightmare, only the nightmare is on the wrong side.

  The two guys in suits say we’ve stolen something. I mean, how do you like that? ’Cause we’re teenagers, ’cause we’re brown, ’cause we’re not rich enough, right? Pisses me off. I’m thinking this as they shove us downstairs to the basement and trot us down to their offices, where there are mirrors and cameras and everything. Who the hell do they think they are? We haven’t done a damn thing. Jesus Christ, lay off already, will you!

  Viva is looking really scared, pathetic even, making me feel sick. I would say something to her if they’d leave us alone, but they don’t let us out of their sight, not for a minute.

  —Take everything out of your bags and pockets.

  Viva plucks things out of her purse like she’s got all the time in the world. Not me; I dump my army backpack right on the cop’s desk so that all my books and papers spill out. I’m so mad I can hardly look anybody in the eye. Then I empty my pockets. I wish I had something really badass to toss on the desk, like a knife or something, but all I’ve got is two wads of dirty Kleenex, and my bus pass, which I flick down with as much hate as I can gather, like Billy Jack in that movie.

  I wonder if they’ll force us to undress, and the thought of having to undress in front of these old farts makes me pissed.

  But I don’t finish the thought because of what Viva tugs out of one of her pockets. A pair of gold lamé gloves, the kind that go up to your armpits, the price tag still spinning from a cotton string.

  Swear to God, that’s when I get really scared. Then Viva does something that’s pure genius.

  She starts crying.

  I’ve never seen Viva cry, ever. Seeing her cry scares the hell out of me at first. I’m thinking maybe we should call a lawyer. There must be somebody we could call, only I can’t think of anybody’s name except Ralph Nader, and what good is that?

  Viva begs with real tears for the store cops not to call our parents. That she’s already on probation with her dad, who is Mexican Methodist and the worst, and if he finds out about this, she won’t get to go to her own prom. And how she had to work after school to buy her dress, and how she only needed the gloves because she was short on cash, and she couldn’t ask her dad because he didn’t want her to work anyway, and go ahead, call. Her mom’s dead, died from leukemia last winter, a slow, horrible death. And I don’t know where she gets the nerve to make up such a bunch of baloney, but she does it, all the while sniffling and hiccuping like if every word is true. Damn, she’s so good, she almost has me crying.

  I don’t know how, but they let us go, toss us out of there like trash bags, and we don’t ask questions.

  —And don’t come back here.

  —Don’t worry, we won’t.

  We bust out of the double doors of the Vogue on the Navarro Street side. I mean bust out, like the Devil’s on our ass. The fresh air makes me realize how hot my face is. I feel dizzy and notice this weird smell to my skin, like chlorine. I’m so relieved, I just want to break into a run, but Viva is hanging on my arm and dawdling.

  —Oh, my God, Lala. You better not tell anyone. Swear to God. You promise? Promise you won’t say nothing to nobody. You gotta promise.

  —I promise, I say.

  One minute she’s scared, and the next minute I look and she’s laughing with her head thrown back like a horse.

  —What? I ask. —What is it? Tell me already, will you?

  —Number four, never …, Viva begins but stops there. She’s laughing so much she can’t even talk.

  —What? You better tell me, girl!

  She pulls out of her blouse a cheap memo pad she lifted from the detective’s desk.

  —Shit, Viva, honest to God, you scare me.

  Viva just laughs. She laughs so hard, she makes me laugh. Then I have her laughing too. We have to hold on to the building. We laugh till we’re doubled over, our stomachs hurting. When we think it’s finally winding down, the laughing rolls back in all over again even stronger. Viva’s braying has me snorting like a pig. Till the knees give out. Till Viva has to genuflect right then and there on the sidewalk, on busy Navarro Street, I’m not kidding, and hold it in, pivoting on one foot. She’
s laughing so hard she can hardly talk.

  Then Viva rises to her feet like an actress about to deliver her lines. For a fraction of a moment, like the eye of a camera, I catch a Viva I’ve never seen before, a sadness she’s carried around inside her all this time, years and years and years, since she was a little kid, its silver shimmering, every bad thing that ever happened to her I see in her face, but only for a slippery second, and then it’s gone. —Number four, Viva says, dead serious. —Never. Ever get arrested when … when you’ve really gotta piss.

  And then it’s me dropping down to the sidewalk, and Viva tottering beside me, laughing and laughing, the thin bone of an ankle wedged in our you-know-what holding back a flood, our bodies shaking, and the citizens of San Antonio walking by and thinking—What the hell?—and probably thinking we’re crazy, and maybe we are. But who cares, right? I mean, who the hell cares?

  68.

  My Cross

  When the Grandmother becomes sick, her kids forget she’s their mother, and how can you blame them, since she always forgot they were her kids. There’s no talking to Aunty Light-Skin. Anytime Father phones her, there’s a lot of shouting going on. —Sister, be reasonable, he begs, but the last time he called she snapped back, —God is just, and hung up. The uncles in Chicago also refuse to come, still angry about the money the Grandmother had lavished on her firstborn.

  —It’s disgraceful, Father says shaking his head. —I can’t believe this is my family.

  Father has to convince Mother that the Grandmother had been kind to us by paying for the down payment on our house here in Texas, and that there’s an inheritance for all her children to think about. I guess that’s how he does it, because Mother finally accepts our Grandmother back into our home even though the Grandmother’s face is half frozen into a silly grin and no language left to her. She drools. One eye is tilted, looking far off and glazed, like if she’s already watching Death coming for her.

  Like Jesus hauling his own instrument of torture, Mother feels she’s carrying the burden of her death. She takes to calling the Grandmother by a nickname, and why not, she thinks. She’d never called her by a name. A name is something one confers on a human. Mother doesn’t consider our grandmother human. This must’ve been awkward when she was just married. She didn’t dare call her “Mother.” Madre. Mamá. She wouldn’t have said this. How? She couldn’t call her Señora Reyes. —I’m not her servant! She did not call her. Ever.

  She said “your mother,” or “your grandmother,” or “your wife” when our Little Grandfather was still alive. But to her face she says nothing. She calls the way an animal calls, by eyesight, by recognition. She couldn’t call her when she was in another room. She had to look for her, make eye contact, say, —The phone, it’s for you. Or, —Your son wants to know if you will make mole for him. Or, —We’re missing one yellow sock and a washcloth.

  And now that the mother of her husband has suffered a stroke, she finally dares to address her the way she feels fit. She calls her “tú,” the familiar “you.” Not “usted,” which is like bowing. “Tú.” —Hey, you, she says in Spanish. —What do you mean by leaving me such a pig mess to pick up after? Pig mess, cochinada, that’s what she says! When Mother is especially disgusted, she calls her “my cross,” “mi cruz.”

  —Well, my cross, what work did you invent for me today? All this when Father isn’t home.

  The Grandmother is a lot of lata. Mother had been told the Grandmother would be going soon, but the body takes its time dying. It starts rotting from the inside out, like a tree filled with worms. A horrible smell like a dead rat stuck in the wall. —What? Are you still alive? Jeez! Mother says every morning when she has to check on the Grandmother.

  What a business it is to die. You think it’ll be like in the movies, but it’s not like that at all. There’s the horror of the body giving up, just giving up, and the nuisance of that collapse, gradual and steady. I’d promised Mother I’d help as much as I could, but the truth is I don’t have the courage to look when I’m supposed to look. It’s Mother who does all the filthy work, the heavy work, the lifting and changing and swabbing and feeding, as if somehow life has given them each other as a punishment of sorts.

  One day, Mother scoops up the Grandmother from her bed. She’s as light as an armload of bare branches, all wintered and crazy. She’s no trouble at all to carry upstairs and then over to the window. The wide sky. Too many eaves and gutters, and that damn pecan tree. Mother carries the Grandmother over to the landing at the top of the stairs instead and pauses. I was carrying her downstairs after giving her a bath …

  If the Grandmother’s face had said nothing, maybe this story would be another story. But at that moment, the Grandmother’s left eye decides to speak, and it lets go a little water. Sadness? Dust? Who can say? It’s enough to bring Mother back her humanity. She carries the Grandmother back to her room and tucks her in bed under the pictures of la Virgen de Guadalupe and Raquel Welch.

  69.

  Zorro Strikes Again

  —Sweetie pie, Viva says, kissing the air next to my cheek and hobbling over on denim platforms. Her hippie scent of patchouli mixing with the smell of fried food, overpowering the entire cafeteria. Her skirt rolled up so many times, she has to shimmy into the seat across from me. Viva mouths a loud hi to a huddle of seniors across the room, leans forward and drapes herself halfway across the lunch table to tell me whatever it is she has to tell me.

  Then she delivers her bomb. —Lala, you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell a soul what I’m going to tell you. A soul. Promise, okay? You’re gonna flip.

  Viva swallows a big gulp of air, and then adds, —Guess!

  And then when I shrug and surrender, —No, I really can’t guess. Honest. I can’t. Cripes. Come on, are you going to tell me or what?

  —You’ll never guess what Zorro said to me. Never in a million years. Oh, it’s too good, it’s killer. Promise you won’t say nothing.

  —Okay already, I promise.

  She scrunches her shoulders up and announces, with her little eyebrows rising like hats tossed in the air, —We’re engaged!

  Honest to God, it’s like she hits me upside my head with a sock filled with rocks. —But what about San Francisco? I thought you said we were going to San Francisco.

  —We can still go to San Francisco. You, me, and Zorro. Are you going to finish those french fries?

  —What about freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose? I mean, what happened to our plans?

  —Shit, don’t freak on me. I said I’m engaged, I didn’t say I was dying. We’re still going. We can still become a famous songwriting team. Writers have lives, you know.

  I can’t believe it’s Viva talking. The thought of Mister Darko coming with us anywhere, even to the Woolworth’s, just about makes me want to cry.

  —I don’t feel too good, I say.

  —Hey! Don’t be mad. Come on, I thought you’d be happy for me.

  —Will you just grow up? Don’t you realize Darko’s an old man? He’s a creep. He’s ancient. He’s thirty years old, he’s got crease marks on his face like origami. And, by the way, in case you’re forgetting, you’re old enough to get him in jail.

  —Now you sound like an old person yourself. I’m mature for my age. Zorro says so. I’m what they call precocious. I’ve always been mature for my age. And anyway why are we even talking like this? It’s not like we’re getting married soon, we’re engaged, get it? Engaged. Like we can wait till I graduate, till I’m eighteen, and then I don’t have to get anybody’s permission.

  —But you said we were going to San Francisco as soon as we both finished school, and I won’t finish for three more years even.

  —La, don’t you get whiny on me. Sad is one thing, whiny I can’t stand.

  The future Mrs. Zoran Darko dumps the contents of her purse on the table and starts to reapply her makeup. She dips a pinky into a lip gloss jar and comes out with a nasty heap of sparkling grease the colo
r of mashed raspberries and glitter, which she dabs carefully on her lips, all the while watching herself in a compact mirror, until her mouth looks like a jelly donut. Then she wipes her pinky on the bottom of the cafeteria table, chattering and chirping like the little parakeets we see in the basement of the Woolworth’s.

  —You break my heart, Viva says, working on her purple eye shadow. —You should see yourself. You look like those big teddy bears they give away at the carnivals. Listen, sweets, it’s simple. You’re the author of the telenovela of your life. You want a comedy or a tragedy? If the episode’s a tearjerker, you can hang yourself or hang in there. Choose. I believe in destiny as much as you do, but sometimes you’ve gotta help your destiny along. Hey, mamas, it’s not the end of the world. You’re still my best friend, right? Right? Come on, Lala, you gotta say yes. I need you as my maid of honor. I’m already designing the coolest dresses we’re going to wear.

  Viva’s mouth opening and closing, her plucked eyebrows rising and falling. On and on like this forever. Same as always. She talking, me saying nothing. On and on and on.

  70.

  Becoming Invisible

  When she was a child and her father remarried. That was the first time. And then again when she was lost among Aunty Fina’s tribe, lost to everyone but Uncle Pio’s unwelcome attention. Before Narciso noticed her and rescued her from that madhouse.

  The Grandmother only became visible when her body changed and garnered the trophy of men’s attentions. But then she had lost their attentions as her body shifted and slouched into disrepair after the birth of each child. And then when she no longer was vain and cared about taking care of herself, she began to disappear. Men no longer looked at her, society no longer gave her much importance after her role of mothering was over.