The Liars

by Jennifer Mathieu

  “Remember the time you were a kid and you sat like that?” he asks, motioning to me before sitting down on the recliner with the cat scratch marks back from that one year that Mami let us have a cat. “Only you fell off the couch and you couldn’t catch yourself, and you chipped your front tooth on the coffee table? God, was Mami pissed about that dentist bill.”

  I give him a dirty look and drag my arms out through the sleeves. “Happy now?”

  Joaquin takes a sip of beer. “Hey, you’re old enough to do whatever you want.”

  “What planet are you living on?”

  Joaquin ignores me and pulls a cassette tape out of his jeans pocket, flipping it over a few times.

  “Anything good?”

  “Someone at work gave it to me,” he answers before he slides it back into his pants pocket. “It looks like it could be good.”

  “I hope it doesn’t have any of that music-to-get-depressed-to on it.” I motion like I’m gagging.

  “Well, I hope it doesn’t have Madonna on it,” he tells me, then fake-chokes himself until he pretends to pass out, slumping deeper into the recliner. When he sits up, I laugh but I’m not sure what to say next.

  There have been times when I’ve felt like I would die for my big brother and do anything for him, and sometimes it feels like we’re just playing out the parts somebody wrote for the stupid brother-sister sitcom that we’re on, and we barely have anything real to say to each other at all. Lately it’s been more the second one.

  Outside, we hear the roar of an engine followed by another, like rockets taking off.

  “Drag racers,” I say. They might even be some of my classmates post-party. I picture Jimmy Paradise and Pretty Blond Girl sliding wildly down Esperanza Boulevard, Pretty Blond Girl’s hair whipping in the wind like party streamers.

  “Yeah,” Joaquin says, swallowing the last of his beer. “Hope they don’t wake Sleeping Beauty.” He nods over his shoulder toward Mami’s bedroom.

  “I’m sure she’s out,” I say, stretching. I’m not in the mood to dissect her, and I hope he’s not, either. He almost always is though.

  “So how was your babysitting job?” he asks, surprising me by changing the subject.

  “Fine,” I say, standing up and turning away from my brother to tidy up the already-tidy kitchen. Just in case Mami missed something. She won’t like waking up to anything misplaced. I grab Joaquin’s empty beer can to throw it away.

  “The Callahans paying you the same as last year?” Joaquin asks my back. “Or are they giving you a raise?”

  “Same,” I say, moistening a sponge and wiping down the counters and the refrigerator handle.

  “You don’t deserve a raise after all these years together? I thought they were supposed to be loaded.”

  I shrug and put the sponge away, turning my attention to straightening the magnets on the refrigerator. One in the shape of the Cuban flag. One in the shape of the Texas flag. One in the shape of a banana that has I’m Ah-PEEL-ing! printed on it. Joaquin gave it to Mami as a Christmas present one year when we were small.

  “Seems to me like you’d want to make more money,” Joaquin says. God, why is he harping on this? Three dollars an hour is pretty good even if the Callahans could definitely afford more.

  “Maybe,” I say. “But I’m lucky to have the job at all.”

  “You mean you’re lucky Mami lets you have it.”

  I finally turn to face Joaquin. He’s not looking at me. Instead, he’s taken out the cassette his coworker gave him and is turning it over and over in his hands.

  “If you’re worried that my babysitting job is going to cut into me being here to help Mami, stop, okay?” I say. “I proved you wrong on that tonight.”

  Joaquin takes a deep breath. “It’s not that, Elena.” He so rarely calls me by my name. It sort of makes my throat ache with sadness when he does.

  “Then what is it?” I demand.

  Joaquin stares out our front windows, silent. I notice Mami forgot to shut the curtains, so I walk over and pull the blue fabric tight, making sure the edge of the good curtain is lying over the edge of the curtain with the uncleanable stain.

  “Forget the babysitting and listen to me for a second,” he says to my back. When did we start having so many conversations where we can’t look at each other?

  “Yeah?” I ask, squeezing the curtains briefly in my hands until the veins pop out of my knuckles.

  “I’m not going to live here forever, you know,” he says. “I’m thinking about moving out at the end of the summer. Of leaving the island.”

  “Okay,” I say, still not turning around.

  “I mean, I’m done with high school. I’ve been saving up my money. And there’s really nothing for me here.” He pauses between each sentence, like he’s practiced this little speech. Knowing Joaquin, he probably has.

  Silence sits between us, but I finally manage to shoot him a look over my shoulder. I can feel my mouth turning into a frown.

  “There’s nothing for you here? Gee, thanks.”

  “Elena,” he starts again, only this time when he says my name it makes me feel like a little kid, like a dumb baby. “Elena, you know what I mean.”

  Facing him completely, I ask, “Where are you going to go? Why can’t you stay and take classes at MICC?” Please don’t cry, I tell myself.

  “I don’t want to spend money on community college classes when I’m not even sure what I want to do with my life,” he says. “I’m thinking I want to travel for a little while. Maybe head out to California.”

  “Oh, where he’s supposed to be?” I fire. I realize my hands are on my hips, but I don’t remember putting them there.

  “It’s not about that,” Joaquin says, lowering his voice. “It’s not about him.”

  “Yeah, right it’s not,” I shoot back with a roll of my eyes. Hasn’t it always been about him a little bit? At least for Joaquin? The mystery of our father has always been more important to him than to me. Why anyone would want to meet an asshole who abandoned his family is something I can’t understand.

  “Don’t be so loud!” he urges, standing up from the recliner. He glances at Mami’s door again.

  “She’s not going to wake up,” I tell him. “Stop worrying about it. If you can’t handle waking her up, I don’t know how you’re going to handle telling her you’re going to move out and leave us.” It’s a low blow and I know it. I don’t care.

  “Enough,” says Joaquin, holding up his hands. “Let’s just … look, it may not even happen. I may not be able to save enough money to leave anyway.”

  I pout for a moment, chewing on my bottom lip.

  “You probably will,” I say at last, my voice resigned. “Save enough, I mean.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I shouldn’t have even said anything. I don’t want to worry you. I mean, I just graduated last week. It’s a long summer.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, anxious to relieve him of guilt even while hoping he feels guilty as hell.

  “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed, okay?” he asks. “I’m working a double tomorrow.” He pauses and stares at me. “Are we okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a nod even though we both know we aren’t.

  “Hey,” my brother starts, making a move toward me. We’re not a hugging family. Mami doesn’t hug us much, so I guess we never learned. Now Joaquin sort of puts his arm around me, leans in, and squeezes me. He smells of Tex-Mex. His squeeze is surprisingly strong. “Look, it’s going to be okay. And you know what? If I leave, one day you can leave, too.”

  That’s easy for Joaquin to say. He’s the oldest. He’s the boy. He can leave and know I’m still here on Mariposa Island with Mami. If I leave, she’s left with no one.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say, just to finish this conversation.

  “Hope you have a good sleep,” he says, heading for the bathroom.

  “You, too,” I answer.

  I stand there until I hear the rush of the shower star
t, then I tiptoe down the hall to peek in on Mami. It reminds me of how I peeked in on the Callahan kids tonight to make sure they were safe in their beds. The door squeaks just a bit as I open it a crack and peer in. Mami’s a motionless lump. I wait until I glimpse her body rise and fall once, twice, and then I quietly shut the door and head back to my own room.

  CARIDAD DE LA GUARDIA

  Miramar, Havana

  Cuba

  1957

  She was fourteen years old and her life was perfect. It was easy to count all the ways.

  First, she was blessed with dark hair, full lips, a lovely figure, and sweet blue eyes the color of the water off Varadero Beach, where as a little girl she had walked hand in hand with her grandmother, who had doted on her as any abuela would, especially an abuela with only one grandchild to spoil and coddle and love.

  She lived in a lovely home in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Havana, whose name, Miramar, meant look at the sea, because when you lived in Miramar that’s what you could do, anytime you wished. Look at the sea stretching out in front of you like one enormous bolt of blue velvet. Look at it and imagine all the good things in your life falling into place like a row of perfectly placed dominos.

  At her all-girls academy run by the Ursulinas, Caridad was a favorite of the strict Catholic nuns, who would offer up rare smiles at her masterful recitations and perfectly executed papers. Her pencil bag was always neatly organized, full of pencils sharpened to a fine point and smooth rubber erasers her father would bring home from his office. Caridad loved the clean, queer smell of them. Her school uniform, ironed each morning by her maid, Juanita, was a soft pink that contrasted so nicely with her dark, wavy locks. Her shoes were never scuffed.

  After school she and her best friend, Graciela, would head over to Caridad’s house in Miramar and sit in the salita and drink pink lemonade that matched their school uniforms, and they would gossip about Ricardo, the boy down the street, whose dark eyes and swoony good looks reminded them of the singer Pedrito Rico. Ricardo’s parents and Caridad’s parents were good friends, and Caridad was sure that her mother and father were anxious to pair them off one day. How lucky for her to be matched with someone so handsome! During those sunny afternoons in the salita, Caridad and Graciela would dream of their upcoming quinces at the club and what they would wear and how they would dance and what songs the band would play, certain that when the night was over, they would be transformed into women at last.

  And after Graciela went home and Caridad had finished her homework, she would go into the kitchen where Juanita would be preparing dinner, filling the house with the rich, delicious smell of pork chops or papas rellenas, potatoes stuffed with ground beef and olives and onions. When Juanita chopped the onions, first she cried and then she laughed at her tears, and Caridad would laugh, too, and then she would beg Juanita to make rice pudding or dulce de leche with galletas for dessert, and Juanita always would. Caridad would linger in the kitchen after the meal was ready, watching Juanita clean up. Juanita always finished with a careful wipe-down of the kitchen windows, never leaving behind the slightest streak.

  And then her mother would come home from her shopping or her before-dinner drinks with her friends at the club, and her father would come home from his office, and Caridad would admire them both—how beautiful both of them were. How they could have been Hollywood stars in one of the American magazines she loved to flip through, even if she couldn’t understand the words. Striking and poised, both of them had that lovely combination of dark hair and blue eyes. During dinner they would remind Caridad of all the ways she was special and pretty and clever and charming, and when they slipped into the salita for after-dinner cigarettes and cocktails, Caridad went to take her bath.

  And in her bedroom in that lovely house near the sea, Juanita would pull back the comforter, revealing clean white sheets that were put on fresh each day, and after her bath—even though she was getting too old for it, really—Caridad would wrap herself in a fluffy pink towel and balance herself on the stool in front of her vanity and wait patiently for Juanita to work out the tangles in her long, dark hair before she perfumed it with a splash of agua de violetas cologne as she had every night for as long as the teenage girl could remember.

  And as she fell asleep it was as if she could hear the ocean roaring and singing outside. She couldn’t, of course, but if she opened her bedroom window, she could smell it, and she would be filled with good memories of walking along the water at night with her abuelita. She would remember how her abuela would tell her that when the moon came out was when the sharks would come to shore to feed, and as they walked, Caridad would grip her grandmother’s hand, filled with the delicious feeling of being scared and safe at the same time.

  And after the memories of her abuelita had faded and she had drifted off into a sweet, restful sleep, she would wake up and do it all again the next day.

  Yes, when Caridad de la Guardia was fourteen years old, her life had been perfect. At least this was how she remembered it.

  ELENA

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EVER SINCE I TURNED NINE AND MAMI DECIDED I WAS old enough to stay home by myself during the summer while she went to the doctor’s office where she works, she’s had a system for making sure I’m accounted for. Every hour or so, but not exactly every hour, she calls home, and I’d better be around to answer the kitchen phone.

  “What are you up to?” Mami always asks, not even bothering to say hello.

  “Just the chore list,” I always answer, even if I’m watching television. Even if I’m watching television and eating Doritos. Even if I’m watching television and eating Doritos and getting orange Dorito dust all over the couch, which I’ll have to clean up later.

  “Okay, good, but don’t forget about the baseboards,” she says. Or under the couch. Or behind the refrigerator.

  “I won’t, Mami.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to you soon.”

  And she will. Maybe in forty-five minutes. Maybe in two hours. It’s not exact because that would make her system too easy to get around, but she will call, and if I’m not here to answer the phone, it’s not okay. Not that I don’t like to tempt fate every once in a while. Not that I don’t sometimes hang up the phone after one of her calls and run down the street to the Stop-N-Go, just because it’s somewhere to go. Somewhere to get the Mariposa News free weekly paper or a wrapped peppermint from the complimentary dish Mr. O’Rourke likes to leave out. Somewhere to be. But then it’s back home, and if I bring the Mariposa News with me, I’d better hide it under my bed so Mami won’t wonder where it came from.

  I’ve only missed Mami’s call once, the summer I was twelve, and after that, I didn’t go to the Stop-N-Go for the rest of the summer or even dare to look in its direction when we drove by in the car.

  It isn’t so bad to be home all day if Michelle can come over and keep me company and manage to stay quiet during Mami’s check-ins and not crack me up by whipping off her T-shirt and dancing around in her bra or something while I try to answer questions about dusting and mopping. But Michelle started working at the beach this summer doing umbrella and chair rentals, so that means less time with her.

  And it isn’t so bad to be home all day if Joaquin’s around, but Joaquin has his job at El Mirador, and anyway, Joaquin has never had to do Mami’s check-ins, which is brutally unfair if you ask me. Once when I was younger and helping her with the dishes, I dared to ask why Joaquin could go out with his friends during the summer. Mami lifted a juice glass out of the sudsy water and smacked it with her bright pink sponge.

  “This is a good girl,” she said, slapping at the glass, flecks of steamy water hitting my face. I blinked. “And this,” she stepped back and let the glass fall to the ground where it shattered into dozens of see-through slivers, “is a bad girl.” I yelped and jumped back, but Mami didn’t flinch. Later, as I picked up the slippery shards of glass and dropped them carefully into a paper bag, I figured out what Mami meant, even if I
’d probably already known the answer all along. Boys who go outside scrape knees or wreck bikes or get cursed at by irritated neighbors and store employees. But worse things can happen to girls. Especially when there are boys around.

  “What are you up to?” Mami asks as I pick up the phone for the third time that morning. I look at the kitchen clock. Ten fifteen.

  “I just finished folding the laundry,” I tell her. “But remember, I have a babysitting job after lunch. I’ll be home by the time you get back though.”

  “Where is that mother going now?” Mami asks. In the background I can hear her stapling papers for Dr. Sanders. Cha-chunk.

  “I think she’s getting her hair done and maybe a late lunch or something with some of her girlfriends? She really didn’t say.”

  “So sad when a mother doesn’t want to spend time with her own children.” Cha-chunk.

  “I know, it really is. At least I can make the kids happy while I’m with them.” Mrs. Callahan is an amazing mother, so patient and kind with her kids. So patient and kind with me, too. But of course I don’t say that to Mami.

  “You need to get another picture of them,” she says. “I want to see how much they’ve grown.” Cha-chunk.

  “Okay, I will,” I say.

  “Be home when I’m home. Besitos.”

  I hang up. Mami hasn’t ever wanted to meet the Callahans. She’s weird around strangers, which for Mami is most everyone, so I guess it makes sense that she’s satisfied with the one picture I have of us, the Polaroid that Mrs. Callahan took of Matthew and Jennifer and me on the beach last summer. When Mami saw it, she glanced at Jennifer’s sweet tummy and muttered, “Gordita.”

  I take the stacks of clean clothes Mami and I washed at the Laundromat yesterday and distribute them to Mami’s room, then my room, and finally to Joaquin’s. His folded jeans go on the top shelf of his closet and his neatly rolled socks in the top drawer of his dresser. My brother’s room is all lines and right angles, all neatness and order, from the Joy Division poster tacked on the back of his door to the alphabetized records in a milk crate at the foot of his bed. The cassette he brought home from work the other day is on his nightstand, perfectly centered on top of a stack of science fiction novels. I pick it up and read the spine: xoxoAmy.