Heartbreak for Dinner: It's Kind of a Long Story

by Rondon, Annah

  I was wearing stilettos that day and, of course, a heel got caught on my pant fold as I attempted to take the first step downstairs. The rest unfolded pretty quickly although it’s more fun to imagine it in dramatic slow motion.

  I didn’t care about my bleeding face or the throbbing pain in my left shin that immediately had me limping across the living room to where my mom stood with her mouth wide open. The crucial and immediate matter was that I hadn’t broken the china.

  I took three Advil and hauled ass back to work with my busted face and limp, arriving only five minutes late to the office.

  That afternoon before it was time to go home, my boss called me in and inquired why I’d been late from lunch. I pointed at my face and explained the situation, horrified at his lack of sympathy. As I spoke and retold my lunch time horror story he simply nodded in silence, unfazed by my tribulations and possible need of a face transplant. When I was done, he complained I’d been late once “two months ago” and suspended me for a week without pay.

  I went home that night determined to ice my wounds and drown in vodka, when Olivia called me a little after 10 p.m.

  And 45 minutes later . . .

  We hit up a bar in South Beach where we had a few cosmos. Olivia seemed upset about something and finally confessed she had been seeing this guy who told her he was a club owner but instead ended up being a bartender.

  “What’s wrong with bartenders?” I pointed at my cosmo. “Free drinks!”

  She rolled her eyes and patted my hand like a grandma would her favorite grandson, “Nothing’s wrong with bartenders, Annie,” she lied. “It’s just the principle. Why would he lie about something like that?”

  “Because he could tell you don’t like broke guys and wanted to impress you?”

  “That’s not true,” she said indignantly and sipped her drink greedily while I stared at her in silence.

  “Alright. There’s nothing wrong with a little money,” she admitted. “I’m a broke ass. I don’t need another broke ass. Two broke asses don’t work well together.”

  “Bartenders make good money, Olivia,” I sighed. “Forget about all that and let’s have fun,” I insisted, pulling her toward the jukebox.

  But she didn’t forget.

  Two shots down after her third cosmo and she decided it was time for a confrontation. I tried my best to persuade her otherwise, but she dragged me down to Automatic Slims and marched straight to the bar when she spotted him. She kept repeating that he was a scumbag to everyone at the bar, her left eye all squinty as she slurred her hatred for Bar Boy at the top of her lungs. With a martini in hand, she waved her arms frantically and repeatedly roared the phrase, “I Foogled you, you liar!” After wading through a pool of confusion, I realized she meant she’d Googled him, discovering he was no club owner and instead a provider of delicious alcoholic beverages. Two minutes worth of her tantrum was all I could withstand, so I grasped her by the shirt and pulled her away as she spewed the same thing over and over.

  Once her theatrics were over, I convinced her to go to a nightclub down the street called Cameo for some major stress release in the form of booty shaking. Olivia was determined to forget about Bar Boy, so she kept buying shot after shot for us. After a while, I couldn’t feel my feet or my face, but I kept on dancing anyway.

  Sometime around 1:00 a.m., my friend Penelope joined us, taking it upon herself to give Olivia shots of vodka, which were actually chilled water. I vaguely recall walking around the huge nightclub and bumping into a tall guy. He grabbed my hand and asked me my name. I think it took me a full minute before I responded, “Annah?”

  “Annah,” he said almost to himself. “I’m Paolo. What happened to your face?”

  “I was in a bar brawl last night.”

  He laughed at this. “So you’re a fighter, eh?”

  “Yes,” I said matter-of-factly. “I fight walls.”

  Paolo immediately gave me a strange look but grabbed my hand anyway and led me to a table, where he drank vodka and I sipped water as I tried sobering up to no avail. One hour later, I was on my way to attempt my very first (and last) one night stand with Paolo, wine connoisseur and really cute Brazilian with honest gray eyes. I don’t remember much except Penelope taking Paolo’s wallet and telling him she’d give it back after he returned me to her the following morning. The rest is a little fuzzy but I’m assured I didn’t say or do anything stupid. On the way to his place, I dozed off in his car (a BMW, ironically) and woke up to a partially dressed Paolo sleeping beside me the next morning.

  On a positive note, Paolo lived in a beautiful apartment fit for a man, no rumpled underwear on the floor or dirty dishes anywhere, thank-you-very-much. On a negative one, I didn’t remember much of my walk on the wild side. The multiple Trojan wrappers told me we’d been responsible adults, but the rest is a bit of a mystery to this very day. I quietly grabbed my shoes after dressing and tip-toed out the door, leaving a sleeping Paolo along with my shame behind forever. Olivia and Penelope picked me up a half hour later as I sat on a sidewalk bench, looking like a beat up prostitute in my dress and deformed face as their car pulled up.

  “I’ll give you two dollars for your services,” Olivia yelled from the car.

  “Does that include brunch?” I laughed and grabbed my purse.

  “Yes it does,” she whistled, “and a couple of mimosas too if you behave, hooker.”

  Update: People sometimes request proof of my face on the night I lost my dignity along with some of my innocence. It seems these are the only pictures that remain undeleted from that awful night and this makes me very happy. I zoomed in as much as possible but you can’t really see my wounds that well, which of course is a testament to the power of great foundation.

  Good job, Estee Lauder. Good job.

  Love at First Fight

  We’d just entered La Kapital in its massive entirety and I caught myself wondering if they had Taco Bell in Spain, the hopes of inhaling a burrito somewhere around six in the morning clearly alive in the depths of my tired brain. Olivia was furiously asking a bouncer something in Spanish as I looked around and dejectedly surveyed the space. From what I could tell, asking the concierge of an expensive hotel for nightlife suggestions in Madrid was like asking a Russian to make you a margarita on Cinco de Mayo.

  “Come,” Olivia grabbed my hand and led me toward the elevators. A few people were already gathered there waiting impatiently, three girls to my left laughing wildly about some pour soul I assumed wasn’t around.

  “Holy-shit-look-at-this-kid-in-front-of-us,” Olivia gushed. “He is sexy with a capital S.”

  I looked up to find James Dean three feet from me to my right and almost fainted. No doubt he was good looking in a rugged sort of way, his body up against the wall and a brooding expression darkening his features as he stood there facing up with his hands in his pockets. Something about the way he waited, so indifferent to his surroundings it almost erred on boredom, made me feel like we’d known each other from another life. “Sure,” I shrugged my bare shoulders and gave Olivia a half smile. “He is sexy. But maybe a little too much, which clearly means he’s an asshole.”

  “Totally,” my friend agreed and started pressing the elevator button again impatiently.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him fix his stare on me as he stood up straight, a look of amused outrage on his face. “You know,” he said to me in an unmistakable Southern accent as he bore holes through my soul with his blue eyes. “I’ve been called a lot of things to my face but never an asshole by a complete stranger.”

  I cringed as Olivia immediately tripped over her apologies, explaining we thought he was Spanish and couldn’t understand us. “We’ll buy you a drink upstairs,” she continued and introduced herself, kissing him on the cheek twice in the customary manner of Europe. James Dean turned to me and moved forward for a kiss but I extended my hand. “Annah,” I offered while doing my best to feign apathy.

  “I’m Jonah,” he gripped my hand
firmly. “It’s good to meet you.”

  I pulled my hand away slowly and involuntarily rolled my eyes. “It can’t possibly be any good considering the circumstances, can it?”

  He cocked his head and smirked, but before he could respond the elevator doors opened and he gestured me inside.

  There Will Be Blood

  In spite of my best efforts to sometimes blend in, we Cubans are infamous for doing exactly the opposite in the most unabashed of manners.

  Regular people:

  Cuban people:

  Sometimes it’s embarrassing to have to explain why prostitution is five dollars or communism still reigns supreme in my mother land. Other times, I have to warn my American friends of the entire pig we’ve fried and will place on the dinner table with an apple in its mouth, hoping they don’t faint from disgust. Mostly though, being from Cuba is like finding a 20-dollar bill inside the pocket of jeans you haven’t worn in three months right before lunch. Also, being really good in the kitchen/dance floor/bedroom never hurt anyone.

  One obscure fact that’s often overlooked most about Cubans is our ability to come up with incoherent sayings, which instantly become hit phrases among our people and spread like wildfire. The following are my favorites with their literal translation and actual meaning:

  Saying: Cuando el mal es de cagar, no valen guayabas verdes.

  Translation: When you have to take a shit, green guavas won’t save you.

  Meaning: If something bad is meant to happen, nothing can stop it.

  Saying: Me importa tres pepinos.

  Translation: I care three cucumbers.

  Meaning: I don’t care at all.

  Saying: Me sacaron el higado.

  Translation: They took my liver out.

  Meaning: They worked me like a slave.

  Saying: Te la comiste!

  Translation: You ate it!

  Meaning: You did a kick-ass job, buddy.

  Saying: Eramos poco y pario la abuela.

  Translation: We were few and then the grandmother gave birth.

  Meaning: There were a lot of people there, then more people showed up.

  Saying: Tremendo arroz con mango!

  Translation: Tremendous rice with mango!

  Meaning: It’s a very complicated situation!

  Saying: Camina con los codos.

  Translation: He/she walks with the elbows.

  Meaning: He/she is a cheap ass.

  My favorite Cuban saying has always been, un clavo saca a otro. The literal translation to this phrase is, one nail takes out the other, but really means in order to forget about someone you love, you must find someone new to love (or at least screw). In an effort to release the memory of a nail I’d recently encountered in Spain out of my system, I set my sights on a new shiny one called Adam. As you might deduce, it isn’t the easiest of ventures to take something out that’s been drilled so deep within you it hurts, but I tried until I bled. Literally.

  Adam and I met through a friend at a holiday party I didn’t want to attend in the first place. Not one to mope, I’d already decided to spend my holidays bundled up on the couch with my decrepit one-eyed dog, Paco. Seeing my parents had gone off to Cuba for the holidays, I had come to terms with my Christmas consisting of a sea of microwaveable pizza and replays of Love Actually, when my friend Vera called to invite me to this shindig. “There’ll be cute guys there, Annie,” she insisted after my initial decline, “and those vanilla cream puffs you love so much.”

  Damn. I did like those cream puffs.

  Three hours later, there I was in a gold dress with my party hat on. No dead pigs or hookers in sight, seeing as these people were from Ecuador. Vera was huddled in a corner with a dark stranger I’d never seen, so I was fresh out of people to talk to, when I made my way over to the buffet and bee-lined my ass to those cream puffs. Ten minutes later, Vera had introduced me to Adam and I was thrilled to have left my couch and pajamas behind as I took in his tall frame and broad shoulders for the very first time.

  There’s something to be said about the effects of alcohol on conversations that might’ve otherwise never begun. Maybe that’s why it’s called the social lubricant. Or maybe we’re just not as social as car and toothpaste commercials would have us believe. The point is, my usual awkwardness laced with liquor had me hitting it off with Adam sooner than you could say Cheers! at an Irish pub. With brown eyes that I’m certain brought many a girl to her knees and charm for days, I found this nail to be precisely what I needed.

  Not yet jaded by years of romantic disappointments and a firm believer in love conquering all (fuck you, Ivanhoe*), I somehow thought Adam could permanently remove the memory of Jonah and Madrid from my being. We went on three dates after meeting, the third being a New Year’s bash we attended at the very same home in which we first met. That night, I was determined to give Adam a New Year’s he’d remember (of course by that I mean I’d kiss him passionately at midnight, you pervert). As you can deduce, I really wanted to like this guy, and it is a well-known fact that when a girl really likes someone, the cookie jar remains shut longer than usual.**

  *Ivanhoe (or Ivanwhore, as I prefer to call it) is a historical novel written by Sir Walter Scott published in the 1820s. In short, the main character falls in love with two women, Lady Rowena and Lady Rebecca, and spends the remainder of the book trying to choose who he wants to be with, while also engaging in sword battles with other men and shit. The main message that I remember my professor trying to convey about this book is whether true love does, indeed, conquer all. I recall being confused because if you truly love someone you shouldn’t be in love with someone else, right? Oh, to be young and innocent. You should read it one of these days if you’re into that sort of stuff, then come back and tell me your thoughts on the conquers of love and men falling in love with multiple women at once. Assholes.

  **My apologies to those guys that slept with a girl on the first date and labeled her a slut. She wasn’t a slut. She just didn’t like you enough to wait. Also, she really wanted to get laid. It happens.

  In true Cuban fashion, Adam and I got to the party late at a little past 10:00 p.m. We headed straight to the bar for some of that social lubrication I mentioned earlier and succeeded in being more than tipsy before 2006 arrived. I felt the sudden urge to “break the seal” right before everyone gathered around the television to watch the ball drop and headed to the bathroom, relieving myself for the required minute of liquid dehydration it entails. Upon wiping, it became evident my monthly companion had dropped by earlier than expected, sending me on a wild goose chase for a tampon. I spotted Vera by the bar and pleaded for her rescue.

  “I don’t wear tampons, babe,” she shrugged while distractedly making a martini. “I could give you a pad. It’s the thin types with the wings.”

  “That won’t work,” I sighed.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not wearing any underwear,” I confessed, “and you kind of need those to attach the wings of a pad to.”

  She gave me a You’re-a-prostitute-for-not-wearing-underwear-so-you’re-shit-outta-luck look and walked over to the TV with her martini, leaving me in a state of frantic desperation to fend for myself. I looked around for a familiar face but only saw Adam in the crowd talking to a fake-breasted redhead dripping in a sequined atrocity. In my current state of agony, I returned to the bathroom and neatly built myself a temporary solution made of folded toilet paper. After placing a third of a toilet roll between my lady bits, I rushed back to the festivities, only to find the countdown over and 2006 already in full swing.

  I halfway expected to find my date embraced by Sequins in a lip lock somewhere, but instead caught sight of him looking indifferent on the couch with a full glass of cider in hand. It was at that moment I felt he deserved a little more than midnight kisses and made my way to his lips for a furious preview of what was coming much later.

  After what I’d declare the most successful of New Year’s parties ever, a few
of us went to Vera’s house for more alcohol and reruns of the ball drop. Vera’s parents didn’t mind the debauchery as long as we kept quiet and no one had sex on their furniture. I can’t say for certain when we all fell asleep, but at nine the next morning I woke up next to Vera with a vague recollection of the previous night’s shenanigans. I noticed I was wearing underwear and a long t-shirt as Vera’s tiny dog whimpered miserably at my feet.

  Sidenote: This is an accurate portrait of Vera’s dog, Teeko (RIP).

  I ventured out of the room to the most obvious place a person will go when they are suffering from insomnia and starvation. Once in the kitchen, I was surprised to find the most delightful of spreads on the counter all for my taking.

  Teeko and I were in the process of eating our third cupcake when Adam walked into the kitchen with a sleepy smile on his face. “What exactly is happening here?” he petted the dog and grabbed my waist, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

  “It’s cupcake and mimosa time,” I said. “Obviously.”

  “It’s like nine thirty in the morning, Annah.”

  “Yes. But it’s New Year’s Day and as such,” I kindly pointed out. “Everyone gets a free drink-all-day-without-going-to-jail card.”

  He stood there momentarily with a perplexed look in his eyes, then asked me to make him a drink. “If anyone comes out, I’ll say it belongs to you.”