Most of all, what Palma Piedras wondered that night was, would those anonymous parents have loved her for the girl she was, had they come back when she was eight? Sixteen? At forty-plus it was too late for a mommy and daddy, but could she ever set her heart straight?
6
I miss you, baby. Most of his texts were like that, short and sweet and possibly sincere. She didn’t know what to make of them. Palma would have preferred that her lil cous’ pick up the phone and make an old fashion call, although obviously, he already had his cell in his hand when texting. Why was he calling her baby? She didn’t text back. The current object of his affections figured he was sending texts out like e-blasts to every female who gave him her digits. One day he sent a picture of himself. A kind of man-on-the-street pose. No message. He was fine, no lie, but Palma already knew that. What conceit. She saved it to her phone. Another day she got an animation of two kids on a park bench. The boy slid over and kissed the girl on the cheek. Hearts appeared like bubbles. That did it.
Palma called. Why did you send me this? She pretended to be irritated. What? He said. It’s cute. It’s to let you know I’m thinking of you. Palma considered the thought. Maybe time had stopped when he was in the joint and he thought he was still twenty-two, the age when he got arrested. It’s fucking childish, Palma said. She used the F-word for emphasis.
Another thing he did to let her know he was thinking of her was send cold, hard cash. Not literally. It came in a cashier’s check. Apparently the forty grand he mentioned that first time they met again had come through. The Post-it attached read, Your share. Palma deposited the eight grand into her account. Pepito called and asked, Did you get my gift? She understood. Yeah, she said, it fit beautifully. (Thanks to the Patriot Act you never knew who might be listening in on your cell phone.) What did I do to deserve it? She asked. Whoa, he said. Whoa yourself.
Ain’t that what family is for? He replied.
How would I know? She asked. What should I do with it?
Why don’t you use it to take an art class? He suggested.
No time, she lied.
Buy yourself that Chanel suit you always wanted, he said. (He remembered. When she was in high school she tried to sew one from a pattern on Abuela’s Singer. Sewing, as it turned out, was not her thing, and the discarded fabric in Abuela’s hands made expensive seat covers). Depending on how thrifty she’d be (and taking any page out of the Abuela Book of Ultimate Frugality—from buying day-old bread to getting the kids’ socks and underwear at the flea market), he’d set her up for six months. We’ll see, Pepito, she mumbled.
I don’t go by Pepito, anymore, He-Who-Reinvented-Himself reminded his older cous’. That was a child’s name. He was grown. I go by Joe now, he said. In prison they called me Chi-Town José to distinguish me from all the other Josés. But you can call me Pepito, Prima, he said. She imagined the smile of white, even teeth, made whiter against a reddish dark hue. He had a smooth face. Palma began to trace it with her mind’s eye. The square jaw and even hairline. Tell me you love me, she heard herself say. It wasn’t something she had ever told anyone herself, maybe not even him as kids. Maybe she had. Was there a pause? A nano-second hesitation?
I love you, Pepito said, with a voice that nearly sounded as if he had left his body. A macho had to be the loneliest creature on earth. He never let anyone in. Women mistook the aloofness as the result of a man being wounded. Pobrecito, they said. And like the snake the old lady cared for, which once it was healed . . . people were surprised when they got hurt by such a man. Pepito’s upbringing was no better or worse than anyone else’s, but the macho could not let people get close because he perceived himself at war with the world.
Go to hell, she said. They hung up. Palma was at war, too. Possibly MIA. Saving Private Piedras. She went to the stereo and put on an old CD. Whitney belted I’ll be your baby tonight.
7
Ursula had been gone a month. She took Romeo with her as Palma’s going away present. (Once the dog had a name it felt too personal.) The cat had no trouble with its owner’s noncommittal issues and hardly ever came around anymore. Palma discovered the neighbors were feeding it. She was left on her own in the desert. If you had a job or a relationship, a place made some sense. If you had a sick mother or a kid in school to look after. Things that nailed people down. She stopped answering Ursula’s “miss you” texts.
Pepito’s texts, however, were heating up, even after, or maybe because, she had initially ignored them. He had gotten a part-time job working the floor in a men’s suit store and furrier managed by an “old friend.” The second Palma read the text she imagined her tall, dark cousin in a three-piece suit. Something Wall Street. Distance made the libido grow fonder and she masturbated that evening in a hot bath. There were things you might imagine a thirteen-year-old girl doing, a young coed doing, young being the operative term. Most people didn’t fantasize about a forty-two-year-old woman in a small bathtub fondling herself while thinking about her cousin. The truth was all over the world, women, single and married, pleasured themselves in the shadows, made ashamed of the desire they felt. They used casual encounters—the brother-in-law, cousin, pool boy, delivery boy, student, postman, UPS guy, accountant (just kidding), divorce attorney, taxi driver, school bus driver—to propel their sabotaged imaginations. Ladies now also had a ton of anonymous disembodied sources added by the Internet.
Men used porn sites, too, of course and still resorted to old-school Playboy issues kept behind their toilets, and maybe any woman on the street. Middle-aged guys were notoriously horny, and despite having erectile dysfunction, baldness, paunches, gastritis, colitis, no money except that which they could steal from obligations to family, bad taste in humor, boring stories to go with the lack of character, and being void of any personal sense of dress style, they managed to get some woman’s attention. And society thought it okay. Men were men, the universal adage went.
Then, one ordinary evening Pepito busted all her notions about unrequited female desires across the globe and throughout the generations wide open, like a lit firecracker inside a cantaloupe.
Pow.
Her cous’ called and asked, Do you remember that picture you sent when I was locked up where you had on white slacks and sandals?
Yes, she said, although she didn’t.
Your hair was kind of blowing in the wind and you were standing in front of a statue. (Palma remembered. She was in Medellín. Her ex took the picture. Her head all over the place. Colombia. Rodrigo. The unprecedented sense of alienation she felt in his mother’s home and in a foreign country. The letters to and from Pepito.) You looked so good, prima, Pepito said. I can’t tell you how many times I got off with that picture.
What? She asked. Nothing, man, he said. You looked great. You were thick.
She was. A healthy woman in her prime. (That was before the hysterectomy. When he first saw her again in Chicago, Pepito said, You look frail. You need to put on some weight, girl.) She imagined him rubbing himself. That ain’t me no more, Palma said. (Who was she then, between scars you saw and couldn’t see?) Your hair was blowing in the wind, he repeated, and some strands fell across your face. He gave a moan. Ay, flaquita, you have no idea . . .
Palma Piedras did have an idea. Tell me, she said.
First, we have a nice dinner together. We order whatever we want. Then we go up to our room. In the elevator I am kissing you, all over, just loving you up. I have ordered champagne and a platter of goodies—chocolate,