Tarnished Beauty

by Cecilia Samartin

  “Next time, don’t ask,” she said brightly before disappearing into her room.

  While Jamilet was putting away the beer Carmen had left in the living room, she heard a knock at the door. She opened it to find a middle-aged man with skin as dark as strong coffee, and a shabby gray mustache that curled over his lips. He dropped his own bag of beer on the same spot Carmen had used moments earlier, looking even more amazed than she had.

  “Excuse me,” he said, taking a tentative step forward. “Am I in the right house?” He repeated his question in a louder voice so that Carmen would hear him in her bedroom. “Am I in the right house, woman?” He was on the verge of laughter now and Carmen responded with, “Yes you are, old man,” and a cackle of her own that busted him up with pure pleasure. “I guess I am,” he said, turning to Jamilet with a jolly crinkled smile. Unlike Carmen, he took his own bag straight to the kitchen while Jamilet trailed after him.

  “You do all this?” he asked, looking all around as he popped open his first beer.

  Jamilet noticed that Louis was able to drink beer even faster than her aunt. “I did it all today,” she replied.

  She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down three times before he set the can down on the counter and swallowed a belch. “That’s amazing…what’s your name?”

  “Jamilet.”

  He nodded, his eyes slightly glazed. “You’re the cousin, right?”

  “The niece.”

  He snapped his fingers and pointed at her face. “That’s right, the niece. Carmen told me you were coming.”

  “I don’t think she expected me so soon,” Jamilet said, hoping he’d tell her she was all wrong about that, and that her aunt had been looking forward to her arrival ever since she’d learned of her sister’s death, and that she’d been worried sick about her only niece.

  Louis ran his finger along the rim of his empty beer can, seemingly preoccupied with whether or not to have another one so soon. “Let me tell you about your aunt,” he said with the gleam of admiration in his eyes. “She never expects nothing and she never plans for it if she does. If she knew a year ahead of time you were coming, it would’ve been the same to her.”

  Jamilet took his empty can and tossed it in the trash, hoping he’d taken good care to notice where it was.

  “You must be real tired,” he said, leaning on the counter as he took note of the dark circles under her eyes and the pale lips.

  “Tired” didn’t begin to describe it. She was now drifting and managing to move and breathe by drawing on what strength she could garner from the filaments of anxiety that sparked her into action just when she was ready to collapse. “I didn’t sleep too good last night,” she said.

  “You probably didn’t eat too good either,” he said with a knowing wink.

  Jamilet shrugged. Her mouth was past watering. It was positively dry, and the aching in her stomach had started to throb in her ears since the afternoon, and hadn’t been relieved except for a few minutes when she gobbled down the stale crackers she found in the kitchen drawer next to an unopened package of rat poison.

  “She’s a good woman, your aunt, but she’s no hostess,” he continued. “She’s got no sense for it.”

  At that moment Carmen made her entrance wearing a red dress cut so low that her cleavage must have measured at least a foot in length, yet there was plenty that still wasn’t showing. Her black hair was teased big and high and she wore hoop earrings that could’ve strangled a cow.

  Carmen smiled from ear to ear, delighted to see Louis’s eyes bugging out at her cleavage and the slit in her skirt, cut way up to reveal a mighty thigh. Standing next to her, Jamilet thought that he looked small and bent, like a stick somebody had snatched out of the fire before it turned to ash. She imagined that if her aunt were to embrace him, he’d disintegrate in her great arms and ruin her dress.

  But Louis was gushing and smiling, and sucking on the scraggly ends of his mustache as if they’d been dipped in honey. “You’re a whole lotta beautiful woman,” he declared.

  Carmen giggled and shoved his shoulder. He bounced away and sprung back at her. “A whole lotta sexy woman,” he added while sweeping his hand along the voluptuous contour of her buttock before placing it on her shoulder, and assuming a more sensible expression. “Your niece is very hungry,” he said, nodding at Jamilet. “She spent all day cleaning for you and I think we should get her some dinner before we go out.”

  Carmen’s face went suddenly pale and loose about the jowls, apparently disappointed that the compliments had ended so soon.

  “That’s okay,” Jamilet said. “I can eat something here.”

  “Eat what?” Louis said. “There’s no food in this house, never has been. Isn’t that true, Carmencita?”

  Carmen was pouting and examining a loose thread on her sleeve. “I like to eat out mostly.”

  “Yes, well, your niece needs to eat too…my little flower…,” he said, cajoling her with the confidence of one who’d met with frequent success using such tactics. “How about if I stay over tonight?”

  This cheered Carmen up enough to prompt her toward the refrigerator for her first beer of the evening. She offered another to Louis, who accepted by holding his hand up in the air like an outfielder. She turned to her niece, and Jamilet surprised herself by doing the same. In a few seconds beers were flying across the kitchen like frigid bombs. Jamilet caught hers like a pro, and flicked open the tab with an easy snap of her forefinger as it burped in a friendly sort of way. She’d never been curious about the taste of beer, but was certain that anything would be better than the stale soda crackers and tepid tap water she’d been consuming all day.

  She took a cautious sip and felt the cool fizz dance over her tongue and throughout her mouth, bitter and toasty, like burnt bread. Her gums began to tingle with the next sip and she bit down on the bubbles escaping down her throat. After a few more swallows, her cheeks and ears were glowing and a pleasant numbing sensation had spread over her lips and part of her face. The hunger she’d felt earlier was almost gone, and she was swaying on her feet, listening to the talk between her aunt and Louis, and trying to discern its meaning. For a moment she thought they might be speaking another language—a language that wasn’t Spanish or English, because she couldn’t understand one word they said. She concentrated instead on the hairs of Louis’s mustache, which fluttered like palm fronds in the wind when he talked. Moistened with beer, she imagined it was both windy and raining and that at any moment it would blow a gale. She swallowed her private giggles along with another swig of beer.

  Next thing she knew, Carmen was guiding her by the shoulders to the door. “Okay, let’s get something in your stomach, lightweight. You act like this is your first beer.”

  Jamilet felt as if her feet were loose at the ankles, and she was afraid they might fall off if she walked too fast. “It is my first beer,” she said, taking another sip, most of which dribbled down her chin.

  Carmen and Louis were laughing as they helped her into his old Pinto. She sat in the backseat sipping away and feeling happier than she had in months—light and free and not worried about how hungry she was, or about finding a job, or even about the mark. All worries had disappeared in this effervescent moment, and she felt wonderfully warm as the golden liquid flowed through her veins.

  The engine started with a cough, and she looked out the window, across the street, and saw Eddie sitting on the porch with Pearly. She’d been looking out for him all day, and now there he was watching her drink a beer in the back of this old man’s car while his hand rested on Pearly’s perfect thigh. Pearly hadn’t noticed that his attention was diverted, and was talking all the while, fluttering her long-nailed fingers in the air as though conducting an orchestra of admirers.

  They drove to Tina’s Tacos a few blocks away, leaving Jamilet in the car, and returned a few minutes later with a white paper bag stained with grease. It was piping hot, and its contents smelled so delicious Jamilet was certain that even
her teeth were watering.

  Back at the house, Carmen handed Jamilet the key. “Let yourself in and leave it under the mat.”

  It was difficult to find the handle and open the car door, and when she went to get out, she almost dropped her precious bag of food in the gutter.

  “You need any help?” Louis asked.

  Tía Carmen waved an impatient hand at him. “She only has to get to the door, for God’s sake.”

  “Yeah, but she’s drunk as a skunk.”

  “She’s fine.”

  They waited until Jamilet made it to the front steps and then drove off as she was opening the door. She was preparing to slip the key under the mat as instructed when she looked up and saw them still on the porch. Eddie was kissing Pearly’s neck like a vampire, and his hand was straight up her shirt, as though pumping the blood from her heart for his meal. Forgetting her hunger, Jamilet hid in the shadows and watched as they twisted and contorted themselves like snakes, slipping their hands between the spaces of their clothes, moving their lips as though eating from each other’s mouths. She watched until her knees grew weak and she could no longer stand the growling in her stomach.

  When she finally went inside to eat her dinner, it was barely warm.

  5

  JAMILET SLEPT UNTIL NOON the next day, and woke with a pounding in her head. She looked around and remembered where she was. She also recalled, with nauseating effect, the two additional beers she’d drunk after she finished her dinner, and vowed that this would be the first and last hangover of her life. In her village, she’d seen plenty of what happened to people who turned to liquor for comfort. They were men mostly, and they wandered the streets like ghosts searching out a new corner to haunt and from which to beg for change. They often met death on the side of the road or in somebody’s field, their bodies bloated and forgotten for days or weeks until they were found, usually by horrified children playing beyond the watch of adults.

  For women it was worse somehow, although the alcohol hit them more subtly in the early stages, flushing their cheeks a flattering crimson and giving them the courage to speak and move with that alluring lack of inhibition that made men notice them. These were the same women who burned candles until late at night. If you passed by their houses, you’d see shadows moving in the windows, and hear the low, sensuous laughter of betrayal and forbidden things enjoyed to an extreme. In the morning the men’s wives would show up pounding at their doors and would leave weeping into their aprons. This might go on for years, until one day the woman would emerge with red-rimmed flabby eyes, wondering where everybody had gone, and why the nights were now so dark and the days even darker. No, there would be no more beer for Jamilet.

  Over the next few weeks, she busied herself with housework. She began by throwing out, with her aunt’s approval, all the junk that had been accumulating, untouched, for years. She dedicated one full week to the laundry alone, and most mornings when Carmen left for work, Jamilet could be found outside, hanging freshly washed clothes and sheets out on the line to dry. She also started cooking in the evenings, preparing recipes that the Millers had enjoyed. Carmen was pleased with the home-cooked meals she returned to every night, and began to arrive earlier so she could converse with her niece about the daily drama and frustrations of her life while the meal was in its final stages of preparation.

  Jamilet also enjoyed these times, and found comfort and amusement in her aunt’s forward opinions about everything, which confirmed that the north hadn’t changed her that much after all. In fact, there were moments when Jamilet felt as though they were sitting around the kitchen table in Mexico, with Lorena quietly sewing, and Gabriela grumbling about Carmen’s lack of concern for her modesty or her health. Jamilet had always laughed along and sided with her aunt, but now she felt more sympathy for her grandmother’s view of things, and hoped that with a clean house to live in and good food to eat, Carmen would be motivated to live a healthier life.

  One evening, after guzzling her third beer, Carmen caught her niece’s critical eye. “Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “Who do you think you are, the Virgin Mary?”

  Jamilet sighed and tossed the empty cans in the trash without bothering to answer. She knew that there wasn’t an answer she could come up with that would get Carmen to listen. During the few weeks she’d been there, she’d exhausted them all. She reminded her aunt of the broken lonely women from back home, and of the early undignified deaths that befell almost all drinkers. When that didn’t work, she turned to the fact that too much beer resulted in enormous bellies on men and women alike, and that their noses became big and red. At this Carmen laughed in midswallow, and nearly choked on her beer. “You must think I’m pretty goddamned stupid to believe that,” she said. “Louis drinks three times what I drink, and he’s skinny as a bird.” She cackled once more, took another swallow, and then grew thoughtful. “There is a part of him that gets big and red though…” She leveled her eyes at Jamilet, almost bursting with laughter. “But it sure as hell ain’t on his face.”

  Other times Carmen remained with a scowl on her face and drank her beer in exaggerated loud slurps, but Jamilet knew her aunt’s foul mood would lighten as soon as Louis arrived. He came over almost every night, about an hour or so after Carmen got home. Before then she was certain to change into something that accentuated her cavernous cleavage even if in the process she had to reveal the appalling state of her midsection. But Louis thought everything about Carmen was endearing, and if he could make her laugh it was all the better, as he liked nothing more than to watch her breasts jiggle. He looked for any excuse to declare, “I like my women big and sassy,” often with his mouth full of Jamilet’s homemade dinner, and his hand slipping under the table to caress Carmen’s generous thigh.

  Late one evening, Jamilet was awakened by a strange wailing, quite different from the sloppy lovemaking sounds she’d grown accustomed to on the nights Louis stayed over. This was the eerie low-pitched moan of death making its claim and preparing for victory. Cold with fear, Jamilet got out of bed to check on her aunt. Her bedroom door was ajar, so Jamilet peeked in to find her sprawled naked on the bed, her breasts smeared across her body like too much whipped cream on an enormous sundae. She was whimpering and calling out for Louis, who was nowhere to be found, although the pillow on his side of the bed betrayed the fresh imprint of his head.

  “Tía, what’s the matter?” Jamilet asked, overcome by the sight of so much naked flesh.

  Carmen made no attempt to cover herself as Jamilet entered the room. “He’s a fucking bastard.” She attempted to raise her head a few inches before dropping back down to the pillow. “The bitch threatens him with the police and he’s gotta run off to them…” She suddenly turned and swiped the phone off the nightstand, sending it to the floor, where it landed with a series of discordant jingles.

  “You mean Louis?”

  “‘You mean Louis?’” Carmen mimed with disgust. “Of course, who else?”

  “Is he in trouble with the police?”

  Carmen’s thinking about this question seemed to prompt some modesty, and she reached for the sheet and pulled it over her midsection. “He’s in trouble with his wife, that’s who. Who does she think she is calling here at this time of night? And how the hell did she get my number? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Jamilet was speechless. In spite of his obsession with beer and his even greater obsession with Carmen’s full figure, she thought Louis was a basically kind and decent person. She appreciated how he thanked her for dinner every night and how he made it a point to comment on how things had improved since she’d arrived. “It’s starting to feel like a home around here,” he’d say while planting a kiss on Carmen’s cheek. “And we can thank your niece for that.”

  “Louis has a wife?” Jamilet finally asked.

  “And three snot-nosed kids,” Carmen replied, now turning on her side. “And I don’t want to hear any lectures from you, got it?”

  “I’m n
ot going to lecture you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s just that…”

  “Here it comes…” Carmen grabbed the pillow closest to her and wrapped it around her head and ears.

  “I thought you said that you couldn’t stand people who lie,” Jamilet said, loudly enough to penetrate her aunt’s pillow barrier.

  Carmen turned so that only half her face was visible as she directed one squinty eye at her niece. “Yeah, so?”

  “How can you stand Louis if he lies to his wife and kids? Every day he’s here with you, he’s lying to them, isn’t he?”

  Carmen turned on her back again, and managed to prop her head up a few inches so that her chin rested on her chest. She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, contemplating this bizarre dilemma, this affront to her philosophy of life. Then her cheeks puffed up as her eyes fixed on Jamilet like a warrior. “He doesn’t lie to me though, does he?”

  Before Jamilet could answer, Carmen pointed a fast finger at her. “No he doesn’t, so shut up about it.” She collapsed on the bed and began moaning anew.

  Jamilet pulled down the sheet to cover her aunt’s feet, writhing in sync with her agony. “I’m sorry you feel bad, Tía. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

  Carmen’s feet became still, and she answered with a whimper, “Warm milk with vanilla and sugar, the way you made it for me the other night.”

  Jamilet was back in minutes with a steaming mug and placed it next to her aunt, where the phone had been. Carmen took several tentative sips, and appeared somehow fortified.

  “I don’t want to hear his name mentioned in this house again, do you understand me?”

  “I understand, Tía.”

  Jamilet waited a few minutes longer, and when it seemed that her aunt was calmer and on the verge of sleep, she started to tiptoe out of the room. But then Carmen stopped her with an unexpected question. “Do you think he’s making love to her, Jami? Do you think that while I’m here suffering, that skinny bastard is making love to his bitch wife?”