Hungry Woman in Paris

by Josefina López

  “Is that what happened to you?” I said.

  “Bitch!” she spat out. Wow, I wasn’t even dead yet and I was getting my wish.

  My mother quickly jumped in between us, took my sister’s check, and added it to my money. I walked away to go comfort Tía Lucia, who was crying in the corner. On my way to her I overheard Tía Bonifacia, with her arms crossed, telling one of my cousins how Luna died.

  “She drank six Cokes. She was a diabetic; she knew what she was doing. It was a suicide; call it what it was. There’s no shame in the truth,” Tía Bonifacia preached.

  The corpulent cousin shook her head and noted, “Suicide is a sin, qué no?”

  All right, call me a metiche, but I just couldn’t stand back and say nothing. “The truth? You don’t know what the truth is!” I yelled at Tía Bonifacia.

  “Oh, no, please don’t say that movie line ‘You can’t handle the truth’—por favor, we are at a wake,” my stupid cousin said. She was so annoying; that was the most original line she had ever said in her life.

  In the midst of our soon-to-be argument, I watched my mother hand Tía Lucia the envelope full of money. Tía Lucia handed my mother another envelope. My mother quickly put it away, folding it and hiding it between her breasts. My mother used to hide a gun between her breasts whenever she and my father would drive back to Mexico. It was a little security measure in case they were stopped by bandits on the empty desert roads at night. Occasionally she lost money in there and would swear that it was like the Bermuda Triangle, but most of the time it was the safest place in the world.

  “I do know what the truth is. I was there when she died.” Tía Bonifacia raised her voice, not wanting to be outdone. The mourners stopped talking and turned to us.

  I defended Luna: “It could have been an accident.”

  “No! She drank six Cokes. That’s like fifty-four spoonfuls of sugar. We did the math; that’s no accident. It was suicide!” Tía Bonifacia said it so loud to prove her point, but her insistence made everyone uncomfortable. If someone is dead, that’s one thing, but knowing how they died, that’s another. And then knowing that they did it on purpose, well that’s just TMI, as a shallow acquaintance once said after I shared with her that my toenail looked like the Grand Canyon. “Too much information—I’m eating,” she said and looked back down at the Vogue she was reading.

  Tía Lucia cried out like she had spilled a basket full of flour that the wind had quickly swept away. I wanted to slap Tía Bonifacia. What gave this 250-pound gorilla the right to hurt people with her gossip?

  “You’re right,” I spat at her, “if it’s the truth, there’s no shame in it. Maybe Luna did want to die rather than live a life as miserable as yours. Maybe for her that was not good enough because she didn’t want to end up a bitter old chismosa like you!”

  My cousin looked up at me and couldn’t believe I was challenging the Goliath of Gossip. Man, I was a dead duck, but I didn’t care. The dirt this woman was going to dig up on me, and the comments that she could throw out like daggers, but so what. Truth be told, I was doing the best I could with my life, even if no one else thought so.

  “Now I understand why your fiancé dumped you,” she said, being sure to make eye contact with her audience. “I thought it was because you were a puta.” The aahs and gasps from our audience issued as planned to the ever-popular “puta” comment. What a desperate attempt, how typical to always resort to “whore” for a strike at a woman’s Achilles’ heel. “Pero now I know it’s because of that mouth of yours. Who’d want to be stuck with you forever?” The crowd around us “Ooohed” and “Aaahed” as though they were watching the first round of a De La Hoya vs. Tyson fight. Clearly I was out of her league and her gossip weight class, but I couldn’t let her get away with her comments.

  I immediately wanted to defend myself, but if I did, I would be validating her comments and I would lose. I took three deep breaths. That’s what Buddhist monks do, I’ve been told, and I let her comments pass like water being flushed down a toilet at a Tijuana bar. Then I went for the throat, metaphorically speaking. I should have bit her ear, but instead I nonchalantly said, “Then I must congratulate your husband for being a saint and staying with you… Oh, wait, he’s cheated on you with your neighbor, your cousin, and even your own sister.” Someone gasped. Yes, I had scored a point. “I guess being stuck with you forever is his punishment, qué no?” I said this with a smile the size of the dam blocking all my rage. I heard small murmurs of agreement from the crowd. I was about to talk about her bastard grandchildren, pothead son, welfare scam, and all the other crap that Jerry Springer and Spanish talk-show knockoffs feed off, but thank God my Tía Lucia stepped in before I went for a knockout.

  “Por favor, stop this! Please respect Luna’s memory and stop this!”

  I lowered my guard and made for the door. My mother and all my siblings hurried after me. I headed to the parking lot, trying to make a fast escape.

  “Go apologize to your Tía Bonifacia and your Tía Lucia for that escándalo you just made!” my mother demanded.

  “No. Tell her to apologize to me first,” I yelled back, marching toward my Prius. My father also walked up to talk to me.

  “I knew you weren’t going to go through with it. You’re not a woman men marry.” I stopped for a second, hooked by his mean comment. Then I decided to let it go and kept on walking.

  “If you leave like this, you’re not going to be welcome at the funeral,” my mother warned me. I hesitated and stopped to consider the consequences. I wanted to attend Luna’s funeral, but how could she have committed suicide? Why hadn’t she called me to let me know things were so bad? Why hadn’t she come to me for help?

  “Think about what you are doing,” my sister Rosie said. “Armando is a good guy. He really loves you.” Rosie was my favorite sister, she always came from a good place, but I was in so much pain even her beautiful words annoyed the hell out of me. How come everyone else knew everything I needed to do right with my life except for me? How come everyone knew what was good for me except for me? How come I was supposed to listen to all this crap just because it came from my family?

  I jumped in my car and locked the door immediately. If I’d been a little girl, my mother would have yanked me out of the car and taken me back inside to apologize, but I was too big for her to do that anymore. Her last hope was guilt.

  “How can I go back in there and face your tías and our relatives after what you have done?” she asked with one of those faces painted on tortured saints you see in the million and one churches in Mexico.

  “Tell Tía Lucia I’m sorry,” I blurted and drove off.

  For a few weeks after that I stayed in bed. “Why didn’t I stop her?” and “Why didn’t I go with her?” were the two questions that kept repeating in my head. I stayed in bed until my loneliness scared me and La Calaca Flaca sat next to me. She looked like a skeleton lady in a Posada drawing. She would keep me company and remind me why life was shitty and unfair.

  “If life is not an adventure, it’s not worth living,” she would whisper to me. I don’t know if I created her or if she created me to keep her company, but I was used to her. She was like Luna, a loyal friend who promised never to leave me, until I finally joined her and died one day. La Calaca Flaca had shown up in my life on many occasions when life had dealt me a blow too painful to overcome. I always thanked her for her company and shared my stories of hardship with her. I purposely kept busy to avoid seeing her around me, but when she did show up to remind me I wasn’t alone, I actually felt a tiny bit better.

  “Why don’t you join Luna?” she asked, as if recommending a solution. I cried in her arms and she hugged me.

  “Just go to the bathroom and grab the sleeping pills. I’ll start the bath for you,” she suggested, like the loving and comforting mother I did not have.

  I got up and went to the bathroom. I saw my face and couldn’t believe how bloated it was from sleeping so much. I stared at myself in the m
irror and wondered why anyone would think I was beautiful. At least the texture of my light skin was still resilient. I reached into the medicine cabinet for face cream and my hand hit the bottle of sleeping pills. It fell and cracked, sleeping pills rolling into the sink, and I picked them up to examine them. I turned around and heard the bath running. Did I turn it on? I asked myself. I stared at the water and knew it was nice and hot, and how wonderful it would be to sleep in bathwater. La Calaca Flaca moved her bony index finger in her direction.

  The phone rang, startling me back to my reality. La Calaca Flaca disappeared and I rushed to get the phone, but I stopped in front of it and let it ring until the answering machine picked up. I was certain it was my relentless mother with her desperate attempts to guilt me into changing my mind.

  When I finally worked up the courage to start my day and get some underwear, I saw my wedding dress in the closet. I’d designed it to look like a passionate flamenco dress even though it was in ivory. It was so beautiful it made me want to get married. I put it on to see how it would look. What a shame, all the money I’d spent and I wouldn’t get to wear it. I tried it on but it would not zip up, not even halfway. Maybe they’d made it the wrong size, I thought, and checked the tag. Before my eyes, I was back to being a size 12. In less than a month I’d gone from a size 6 to a size 12. Women’s bodies are amazing: you can be skin and bones one day, another you’re eighty pounds heavier and someone is living inside you rent-free, and then six months later you’re back to the same body with a tiny pouch that will never leave you. Maybe they should make men pouch-size so they stay in there and remain faithful forever. Reminds me of that joke: “Men spend nine months inside a woman trying to get out and the rest of their lives trying to get back in.” God, I was so heartbroken I couldn’t even laugh at a stupid joke. What do you do with a never-worn wedding dress? Do you donate it to Goodwill? Do you put out an ad and try to sell it on eBay? Do you keep it around for the next guy?

  The phone rang again and, finally picking up, I told my mother, once and for all, “No. I’m not getting married. Please stop calling me about that. If Armando is so wonderful, you marry him!” I hung up and went back to bed. I grabbed a bar of chocolate next to my bed and ate it. I’m convinced God created chocolate to make up for not striking down the Catholic Church when they were burning innocent women accused of being witches and destroying the “sacred feminine.” Chocolate makes being a woman bearable—at least temporarily.

  The phone rang again; I couldn’t believe my mother would not give up. I let the answering machine pick up again and heard my Modern Latina editor leave a nasty message. Perhaps I deserved it. Until now I had never missed a deadline, and now that I had, she was stuck writing the article herself at the last minute. I knew she would never hire me again and that if she could help it, she would make sure none of the other Latina publications would either. I was too depressed to care even about my writing career.

  “I hate my president,” I muttered to myself, risking imprisonment and another mark on my FBI file. Everyone has an FBI file; didn’t you know? Whenever I saw his lying-through-my-teeth face I squirmed as if I had a yeast infection. Never mind that he lied, never mind the truth, he was still going to be reelected. He might not be my ideal candidate, but I was sure he was an inspiration to a lot of mediocre people out there. Why shouldn’t they aspire to be president too? I guess he really embodied the American dream. Anyone can be president. Anyone whose family has money, oil, and connections can be president. I saw a sign at a war protest that said, “Somewhere in Texas, in a small village, an idiot is missing,” and here he was on TV. In less than two weeks he was going to take the oath of president again and there was nothing I could do. I could go throw eggs like a lot of my fellow activists did at the last inauguration, as he tried to walk to the U.S. Capitol. I have pretty good aim. But I’d probably be beaten to a pulp by the time I got done throwing eggs for all the Latina mothers who’d lost their sons in Iraq. I changed the channel and surfed. Yes, TV relaxes you; it does something to your brain that renders you a happy idiot. Some days that’s the best you can hope for when another happy idiot is running the country. I got hooked on the Food Network and was enthralled by two chefs competing to see who could make the most delicious meal with rhubarb. I’d thought it was just for dessert. Who knew? A commercial break set me running for more distraction. I came across the Travel Channel and saw a sweepstakes advertised. The winners would get a romantic getaway to Paris.

  “Paris! Oh, my God! I have the tickets to Paris, our honeymoon package!” I yelled out. Armando and I had bought the tickets four months ago because it was hard to pass up the deal. Paris in January is cheap! I ran upstairs to my file cabinet and found the Los Angeles to Paris tickets and the itinerary. Four months ago, when we’d bought the tickets, we had purposely timed it so that we’d depart a day before the inauguration, in case he won, but I had forgotten about it. One week at a fancy hotel in the honeymoon suite… Sweet.

  CHAPTER 2

  A Chicana in Paris

  They’re dreadful. They’re so rude. They’re just as bad as New Yorkers.”

  “Is that before 9/11 or after?” I asked the lady next to me on the plane, who’d just revealed that she was a U.S. diplomat. She thought about it a few seconds and said, “Before.”

  The flight attendant approached us, speaking French. I didn’t understand her, so she spoke to me in English and asked what kind of document I needed to clear customs.

  “My French is dreadful,” the diplomat confessed once the flight attendant had left. “Whenever I have to deal with French farmers I have to take a translator with me because I got tired of them correcting me and telling me to ‘Please make an effort’ in their bad English.”

  “You deal with farmers?” I asked.

  “Yes, I handle many things, including the national ‘foie gras fight.’”

  “Foie gras?” I mispronounced it and had to ask what it was.

  “It’s made out of an enlarged goose liver.”

  “Oh, I think I had some at a Hollywood party,” I said, trying to cover up for my ignorance.

  “Well, you know how inhumane it is to overfeed the geese. They practically feed them to death, until the liver is so huge they walk lopsided. The U.S. is considering not buying French foie gras to protest the inhumane treatment of animals. Of course, the farmers argue that the geese love it.” We both nodded and I sympathized with her struggle.

  “Yeah, my French is awful too,” I said, showing her my little phrase book. I had tried learning French so many times that I was ashamed to admit it was practically a lost cause. Back when I was a chubby teenager, I saw a show in which my favorite sitcom characters went to Paris for the summer. After that I became a Francophile and swore I would go backpacking through France as soon as I turned eighteen. My first French teacher, God bless him, was more intent on teaching us Chicano studies, back when Chicano studies hadn’t yet made its way to the junior high schools. He was a Frenchman married to a Mexican woman and he wanted to empower all his poor, mostly undocumented students with self-love and pride in our culture. He taught us a lot of beautiful and valuable things, but he didn’t teach us French. Then he got sick and we got lots of substitute teachers, who just babysat.

  My second French teacher was a fun-loving man from Martinique, gorgeous and dark. Any woman could learn French from him. Things were going great and I was even writing comedy skits in French for extra credit, until his car accident. His mouth had to be wired shut for the rest of the semester. A permanent substitute teacher came in and was so strict I wanted to not learn French just to spite him. He was so mean he killed the joie de vivre of our classroom.

  The third time, I attempted to learn French from a private French teacher when I was in grad school. I wanted to do an exchange program at La Sorbonne and it was mandatory that I speak French. She was fabulous, an older, sophisticated woman who loved teaching. She swore she could teach anyone to speak French beautifully by the end o
f her intensive course. I mentioned to her how relieved I was to be taking her course because I’d almost given up trying to learn it. She laughed when I mentioned all the tragedies my past French teachers had encountered and told me not to worry. The second week into our studies I received a message on my answering machine telling me she couldn’t teach me that week because her mother was in the emergency room. The third week she canceled because her mother had passed away and she was too depressed to go on. After that she mostly sent substitutes. I took it as a sign and figured I wasn’t meant to learn the language.

  “Unless your French is perfect, you can’t really say you speak French,” my seatmate advised me now. Sometimes it’s better to ask in French if they speak English and if they do, speak only in English. If you attempt to speak it and it’s horrible, they will stop you because they don’t want you to ‘ruin’ their language,” she advised.

  “Thanks, I’ll try not to speak it if I don’t have to,” I vowed.

  Rosemary met me outside of customs. She almost didn’t recognize me with the extra weight. She had managed to stay so thin since college. How did she do it? Rosemary hugged me and gave me a kiss on both cheeks, French-style. Her breath stank like an ashtray left to rot in the sun. She helped me with my bags and told the taxi driver where to take us. I was so impressed by Rosemary’s ability to speak French and sound and act like a native. She’d even taken up smoking to fit right in. Don’t get me started on smoking and smokers—I’ll save that one for another time when you like me much better.

  Rosemary and I met in college, way back when I didn’t know any better and called myself “Hispanic.” Rosemary asked me, “Whose panic are you?” I didn’t understand her question. So she proceeded to give me the whole lecture as to how the classification of “Hispanic” had been conjured up by the census and how it didn’t pay tribute to our indigenous heritage. After several hours I got it and marched on over to MEChA, the Chicano activist association founded in the sixties to empower Chicanos. I participated in a lot of protests; it was really exciting. Standing for a cause is a real adrenaline rush. I was even willing to go on a hunger strike with Rosemary to fight to get a Chicano studies center at the university. Of course, I had to back down at the last minute when I got real with myself. I loved eating too much to give it up, even for a good cause. I really admired César Chávez and Gandhi, but my form of activism would have to be the written word, not the empty stomach. My parents had brought my family to the United States because of the fear of empty stomachs.