The House of Impossible Beauties

by Joseph Cassara

  “That won’t be happening,” Angel said, turning her face back to the mirror so she could put on the earrings with textures. The set that Daniel had selected. “Hector is dead,” she said.

  “Oh fuck,” Daniel said. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine,” Angel said. She turned to Daniel to give him a quick, forced smile. “I’m not here to be your friend. I’m here to be your mother, and I must say,” she said, “the coat does fit you well.”

  * * *

  Regret. He couldn’t help but think he had jumped the gun. Maybe he had left too fast. Maybe he should have done more for her, help her get through rehab programs. Maybe a court could’ve ordered her to Jacobi for that acupuncture thing they had. Maybe it did work for strangers to poke needles into the ear to alleviate withdrawals. Maybe he just wasn’t patient enough. Maybe he didn’t imagine what she had gone through. Maybe he could have done more.

  As he lay tossing and turning in this new bed down the hall from the other Xtravaganzas, he realized that he had become just like all the other men in his dear mother’s life, just like all the other fuckers who left her behind, whatever their reason. He thought about praying, but then he figured, fuck it. He didn’t want to talk to a god that had allowed smack to walk this wide world. To a god who designed humans to have blood, blood that pumped through veins, veins that circulated bodies, bodies that could thirst for smack. What kind of sick world is this, he thought, tossing again under the shadows of the moon’s light splatted against the ceiling.

  The next morning, he woke up and thought, I will go back to her. He wasn’t going to abandon his new friends, but he was going to go see her and promise her that he would help her get through this. That they could get through this together.

  When he got there, she must’ve just left a few hours before. All the furniture was still there, but some of her clothes were gone. Her luggage, gone. He waited all day, chain-smoking out her bedroom window, crying here and there. What have I done, he thought. He slept there overnight, and when she didn’t come back by noon the next day, he knew that she was gone and he had no idea where to go to find her.

  ANGEL

  This is the house. It is an apartment, but it is still a house. A walk-up, but still a house. This is our home, which is like a house, but with more oomph, more feeling.

  This is how a house becomes a home. This is how a house becomes a family. It had been Hector’s idea from the start to form a community of runaway Boricua queens. It’s not like she could steal credit from her man, oh no. Her fear was that they would become like some Peter Pan Never-Never Land reenactment. If her body couldn’t bear children, at least the thought of becoming a house mother could make her happy. And Hector would be the father. The dream was for them to have a group of chickadee children banding together in their home. Alphabet City would be their stomping grounds.

  Hector was wedded to the idea of Alvin Ailey and the dancers. Hector wanted to be just like them and Angel would nod her head yes-yes, but think no-no. She didn’t need to read a paper to know what was happening. People were dying. Not just any people. Their people. Even Ailey was gonna go—she wanted to tell him this, but she didn’t have the heart. There was no point in speaking it aloud.

  And then it happened. Hector died. Died, died, died, she said the word so many times that it no longer felt or sounded like a word that made any sense. It was beyond sense. Senseless. She refused to say that he passed on, because there she went with those damn phrases again. That would mean that he was passing from one form to another, and she didn’t know how to rationalize that. It’s not like that made her feel any better. The bottom line was that he wasn’t here, on this Earth, with her.

  Juanito wasn’t around then, but Venus was, and she cooked Angel breakfast-lunch-dinner for how many days? Angel couldn’t count a total, but she knew it was a lot.

  “We can’t stay here anymore,” Angel told Venus one night while they smoked cigarettes on the fire escape.

  “What,” Venus said, “do you mean? Where the fuck are we gonna go?”

  “No sé,” Angel said, “Sure, I got my dudas, but I know we can’t stay here anymore.”

  What she wanted to tell Venus, but couldn’t, was that whenever she walked around the empty Alphabet City apartment, she could feel Hector’s absence like a pain between her temples. His memory was a ghost that would keep haunting her ass. She knew they had to move.

  A friend of Dorian’s had a rent-controlled place in the Bronx and a yearning to be closer to the Garage in Manhattan, so they fudged the paperwork, switched off apartments, and dared the city’s offices to make heads of tails.

  Now there she was, two years later, sitting at the dining room table next to Juanito’s sewing machine, wondering about this new boy, Daniel. He seemed like a good kid. More macho than she would’ve expected, but hey, a new banjee boy could be an asset. She wanted to sit down and ask him how it was, exactly, that a year could pass so quickly. It only seemed that as she got older, time decided to dial it up a notch and move faster. She wanted to know what this Daniel’s thoughts were on the process.

  She twirled her fingers around a piece of red string and the spool started to spin slowly. Well, if Daniel were going to have the absolute cojones to wear Hector’s fur—the fur that she had bought him with her own hard-earned money—she should be able to say whatever she wanted. Like damn, if she wanted to mope, then mope she’d do.

  She walked over to the nevera and pulled out the cold bottle of white wine. Only one more glass left. She poured it into a coffee mug and leaned against the kitchen counter as the alcohol burned the back of her throat. This was her house now—a single sofa, three twin beds, nevera, parquet floors that were made for tacones to clack against, some walls, a roof.

  Before she turned the lights off to go to sleep, she unwrapped the frame that she had just bought at the Salvation Army. It was an old painting of flowers in a vase. She bought it for two dollars. It wasn’t nothing lavish. Actually, the more she stared at it, the more it seemed like somebody’s old paint-by-numbers thing. But what could she say? It caught her eye.

  She put the mug down and picked up the hammer. She nailed the frame in the sala, right above the sofa. When she finished, she looked up to marvel at the creation. Now the walls didn’t look so bare. Sure, the frame itself was kind of shitty: a wooden frame that was barely holding the thing up for dear life. But she looked at it and smiled, thinking about all the future breakfasts she would eat under it, trying to focus on the little glimpse of still life it offered, hoping more than anything that the wooden frame holding it together wouldn’t give up just yet.

  * * *

  Angel hated when Miguel got to pick the restaurant because he always picked the expensive ones that she couldn’t afford to pay for. He always insisted on paying, but she didn’t want none of his drug money. So this time, she absolutely wouldn’t take no for an answer when she suggested they go to the cheap Rican place on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea.

  “Well look at you,” Miguel said. He had started growing a goatee since she last saw him a week ago. She didn’t know anyone else who could grow facial hair so damn quickly, but then again, she realized that it wasn’t like she knew that many people who had beards. “My beautiful big sister over there.”

  He said this to her every week when they went out for lunch. At first, she ate it up, thinking it was his way of showering her ego, rewarding her for dolling up. But then she realized it was just his charming nature, and that it didn’t matter if she came wrapped in a black garbage bag—he would still say those same words in greeting.

  “Don’t you start buttering me up with compliments,” she said, laughing.

  “I ain’t smooth talking,” he said. “Red is so dashing on you. So daring. I admire your bravery.”

  “You’re so sarcastic,” she said. Like hell he wasn’t smooth talking. He could smooth talk his way to the moon and back.

  “I got the bill this time,” he s
aid. “Order whatever you’re feeling for.”

  They sat down and Angel said no, what did he mean this time? She had picked this place and therefore she would pay for it, and she didn’t want to hear anything more. She unwrapped her utensils and took the cheap, white napkin and opened it on her lap. When he opened his mouth to say something, she hushed him. She didn’t feel like talking about this again.

  “So, I’ve been talking with Mami,” Miguel said.

  Angel put her hand up. “Nope,” she said, marveling at how quick Miguel could be to get straight to the point on all the harsh topics. She’d make sure that this conversation went nowhere, fast. “I don’t wanna hear talk of that woman.”

  “Angel, come on. It’s been enough already.”

  “Nope.”

  Angel had no patience for it, that’s all. She knew that Miguel still lived under the same roof as their mother. Angel still didn’t talk to that woman, and wanted nothing to do with her. Na-da.

  “She wants to see you,” Miguel said.

  “Well then that’s a sorry case of the benditos,” Angel said, playing with the corner edge of the napkin in her lap. She avoided her brother’s eyes. “Porque I don’t wanna see or hear from her.”

  Before Miguel could chime in again, Angel got riled up in her seat, sat straight up, and said, “And why you always thinking about what Mami wants and not what Angel wants, huh? Why you always gotta take her side? You know what she used to do to me, what she used to say, you were there for it all—”

  “Damn, Angel,” Miguel said, “could you take it down a notch? People are staring.”

  “Let them stare,” Angel said in the harshest whisper she could muster.

  “You’re stubborn sometimes,” he said.

  “You know I got reasons to be,” she said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  The waitress came over with eyes so reluctant, it looked like someone had sent her to their table and she was afraid of being chewed out alive. Miguel ordered the bistec encebollado and Angel got the mofongo with a flan that she told Miguel they would split for dessert. It wasn’t up for discussion, they were gonna split the flan. And yes, let them leave it at that. Angel didn’t want to talk about the beatings, the santería hoodoo magic that Mami had inflicted on her just because she was growing up into the fine woman that she wanted to be. Those memories angered her even more because she never had the cojones to call out those rituals for what they were: porquería-bullshit, that’s what. It made Angel think she was seeing a version of herself that she didn’t want to face—a version of herself that made her out to be less strong than she thought she was.

  “She asked me, the other day,” Miguel said, “where you’re working. If you’re working, I should say.”

  “Like she gives a fuck,” Angel said.

  “Come on, Angel,” he said. “Don’t be so brutal. That’s the thing. She does give a fuck.”

  “Well what’d you tell her?”

  “I didn’t know what to say,” he said. “If I tell her, you know she’s gonna show up to that Pathmark. You just know she’s that persistent.”

  Persistent. That was a generous word for what Miguel was describing. Angel didn’t think it was wrong though.

  “Don’t tell her,” Angel said.

  Miguel sighed and threw his head back so he could stare up at the ceiling. “Why’re you two putting me in this situation?” he said.

  “Is she asking you where you’re working, huh?” Angel said.

  “Oh, we’re going to go there again? You wanna talk about the weed?”

  Yes, Angel thought, maybe. Was it not proof that he was being a hypocrite? No, maybe she was being harsh. Their conversations about weed never went far, she knew the routine. She would beg him to stop dealing, she would tell him to think about what would happen if he got caught, but then he would call her a hypocrite for selling ass to make ends meet and wasn’t that worse? It was completely different, she always said. But he couldn’t see it.

  “Fine,” Miguel said, “let’s not talk about our poor mother who wants to see you.”

  The waitress came with their plates and asked if there was anything else she could get them. Miguel said they needed a bottle of ketchup, and when she brought them the red plastic tube of ketchup, he handed it to Angel so she could put some on her mofongo, just like she always used to do when she was a kid.

  “So I’m seeing a new girl,” Miguel said and Angel was relieved that there was a new topic for them to discuss. Something easier. Something tame, unloaded.

  “Wondrous,” Angel said, careful to make her tone sound excited, but not too excited for fear of sounding fake-genuine. “What does she look like? She’s not tacky, right? Let me see a foto already.”

  Miguel leaned in his seat to take out his wallet from his back pocket. As he unfolded the black leather tri-fold, some folded-up hundreds slid onto the table along with some random fotos. As he rushed to gather them back together, Angel caught a glimpse of a picture of the two of them from years ago. It was under some other fotos of people she didn’t recognize—must’ve been friends from school. Angel used her pinky finger to dig through the pile of fallen fotos until she could find the one she was looking for.

  “Espera,” Angel said. “Let me see that one.”

  Miguel handed it over and Angel put her spoon down to give the foto her full attention. “I didn’t know you had this foto. Look at Papi—you’re a spitting image, holy shit. I never realized until I see you both side by side,” she said. “We look so young.”

  Angel held up the foto to the side of Miguel’s face. “We’re still young,” Miguel said and shot a sad smile. “You’re not even twenty-two yet.”

  “How old are we here?” she said. “Like seven?”

  In the foto, they’re standing in front of a fire hydrant with their father. One man, two boys, all smiling. Angel looked so happy then, so carefree. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t want to be that girl—the one who cries in a Chelsea diner during lunch hour. “I look so pretty there,” she said instead. “What happened?”

  “Oh, come on, Angel,” Miguel said. “You’re still pretty.”

  She smiled but she didn’t know if he meant it or if he was just trying to be kind. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t need for him to comfort her with lies.

  “This is Yvette,” he said, handing over a tiny foto. It must’ve been Yvette’s high school shot. She looked like a pale girl who was obsessed with eyeliner. Probably Rican, but maybe Cubana. Angel stared at the foto, trying to think of what to say to her brother. Yvette certainly had the bold eyeliner thing going on, but she couldn’t say that to Miguel.

  “She’s cute,” Angel said. “Is she goth? No tea, no shade. Just curiosity.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat, Angel,” he said.

  “Ho, do I look like a cat to you?” she said. “I am a full-grown human woman.”

  “Alright, alright,” he said. “She’s not goth. She’s just going through an eyeliner phase. I kinda dig it though. She gives me eyes from across the room and I get mad chills.”

  It was no matter to Angel that Miguel’s new love was tackier than a chandelier in a cheap Russian tearoom. And damn—she knew she had to be less judgmental, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sometimes the sass just popped into her mind and there was nothing she could do to hold it back. “She’s definitely cute,” Angel said.

  “Cute?” Miguel said. He snatched the foto back out of Angel’s hand. “You don’t ever call anybody just cute.”

  Damn, he knew her well enough. “She’s,” Angel had to think about how to answer, “looking like she is growing into the fine, beautiful mujer that god meant her to become.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Miguel said, “you are such a sarcastic ass.”

  “Okay fine, Jesus!” Angel said. “You are a pill, sometimes. I can’t even tell you a white lie without it getting past you.”

  Miguel nodded yeah.

  “She’s kinda tacky, Miguel,” she said.
“I’m sorry it sounds so brutal. Pero mira, I can deal as long as I know you like her. Maybe I can just—show her how to put on eyeliner so that it brings out her eyes instead of holding them back.”

  Miguel sighed and rolled his eyes. “Don’t even.” He chuckled. “Sometimes you’re so predictable.”

  “What’s that even supposed to mean?”

  “I believe you gays would probably call you a queen, right?”

  “Oh yes, absolutely, and don’t you forget it.” She snapped her fingers left, right, and center.

  “What about you?” he said “You got somebody new yet?”

  The words hit her cold. She looked down at her plate and shifted around a small mound of mofongo onto the other side of the plate.

  “I’m not ready,” she said.

  He apologized and swirled the ice in his soda with the twisty straw.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s whatever.”

  “One day you’ll be ready,” he said, but even the way the last words trailed off made it sound like a question. No, she thought, she never ever would be ready.

  “Here you go,” the waitress sang, setting the plate of flan on the table between them. “Enjoy it!” Angel stared at the flan, which was already cut, straight down the middle.

  * * *

  Pathmark was the only place where she dressed like a boy. That’s why she decided to work at the location on East 125th and not one closer to home in the Bronx—she didn’t want anyone she knew to see her outside of women’s clothes. She wouldn’t be able to bear the humiliation.

  The job was easy enough. Stocking shelves, telling people where to find the beans, the spices, the pasta. Sometimes the manager put her on cash register and she got to see what people were feeding themselves these days. She even got a little discount on her own groceries, which was a real benefit.

  But don’t even get her started on the uniform they all had to wear over their outfits. She didn’t even know how to describe it, if she had to. Coverall? Apron? Whatever it was, it made her look like a butcher. She liked to hold meat in her hand, but that didn’t mean she needed to go around passing like some butcher. She had never before worn anything that felt like a sack, and this felt like a sack. It was bad enough that she had to keep her hair tied back in a ponytail and take out her earrings. She felt naked without her jewelry, for fuck’s sake.