by Lorraine Ray
"A rival, a peril, a pair," chimed the red-headed woman who liked to speak in aphorisms. She related this thought with a great deal of care and then braced a yellow bowl of raisins against her stomach.
Far off, away on the horizon, winter's gentle desert thunder chuckled in a low peal that built and blended before it reached them at the crowded little kitchen. The chuckling thunder made it seem as though nature itself was responding to the idea that danger and a rival would make two humans fall in love. Perhaps nature liked clean truth, or enjoyed the sham of man's tiny romances, that showed love to be a ghost and man to be easily manipulated.
"He starts Spanish; I start to want to laugh," said another elderly lady, rather apologetically, to everyone standing around the table.
"Si," concurred the lady beside her.
Jagged forks of silver lightning struck far in the distance. Thunder rumbled again. The smell of rain on creosote drifted across the city as a Christmas storm arrived in the southwest.
"His Spanish-it's got to be the worst ever!" someone exclaimed.
Everybody laughed.
"You shouldn't laugh at him," said a lady who stood over a rubber basin her hands to the wrists in a heap of white masa dough. "He's a poor boy. It isn't kind. Such a poor boy."
She tisked and turned over the masa dough. The crowd in the kitchen were manufacturing stogy tamales for sale to benefit the Reappearance of Anauk.
"He'll be happy with her. She's ugly, but kinda sweet."
A more abrupt woman with heavy eyebrows cut to the bone: "Let's speak plainly. She almost looks like a goat, and no Salvadoran would have her."
The whole kitchen laughed with obvious embarrassment at what had been said.
"Someone thought she was pretty," said a young lady at the table with a malicious laugh.
"They say it was a priest," whispered another.
"Oh, really? Tell us what you know about it, not that I'm surprised."
"It's not right to gossip about her, poor goat!"
"But they match cuz he kinda looks like a squid," added a little boy.
The whole kitchen exploded in laughter.
"Yes, oh yes, he does, he looks almost exactly like a white squid thing!" said the red-headed lady. "Forgive me, oh, but it's true."
"Or a dead fish!" said another.
