When Leilah had finished up and swept up all the hairs around the chair, Venus saw someone who looked like herself in the mirror, but not quite. Without the big hair on top of her head, she looked younger. She looked like the boy that used to stare at her in the mirror when she was eight, nine, ten. It was that same face. She was older now, but that face still had the same quality. She started to cry.
“Now see,” Leilah said as she swept what remained of the hair into a dust pan. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“I love it,” Venus lied. “I cry all the time. Even when I love something.”
She didn’t feel like explaining it all to Leilah, who had been so kind to take her in without an appointment. It was just the two of them now. Venus wanted to rush her ass out of there before Leilah’s next appointment came in. She didn’t want anyone to see her having a moment.
“Look, girl,” Leilah said as Venus spread her fingers out and rubbed the peach fuzz on top of her head with the palms of her hands. “You know you’ve been my homegirl for some time now. I got you. You grow that hair back out a little, then you come back to me when it’s grown and I’ll see if we can get a good weave for you.”
“But I do love it,” Venus said, still in tears. She took out her wad of money and handed over three bills that would cover the cut and tip. She asked Leilah for some tissues so she could blow the boogies in her nose and wipe away the tears that were still flowing hard.
As she headed out that door to walk those ten blocks back home, she wished that she could take a time machine into the past. Maybe she wouldn’t call Charles. Maybe she wouldn’t even have met Charles in the first place. Maybe she wouldn’t have gone to Wildwood, or walked in balls, or ran away from Serenity, or left New Jersey. Maybe she would’ve kept her hair. If only she could have the power to change things, she thought. But then again, she knew it was a waste of energy to dream about a power that she could never have.
ANGEL
Oooh, aaah, baby. Angel was dancing herself in circles in the middle of the sala, feeling the beat within her heart, that beat in her heart, that beat, as Lisa Lisa sang her anthem on the radio—and nena, every time that tune came on, her heart did double-beats and triple-booms and she wanted to shout out, Yes I can, Yes I can feel that beat in my heart.
She had the apartment all to herself and she was trying to plan out her outfit for the weekend. She made a bangin’ grilled cheese for lunch that day and danced around in her underwear like no one was watching. She glided her way between her open closet and the sofa in the sala, dangling hangers from her pinky fingers, laying pieces together so she could plan an outfit that dazzled. She took a deep breath, lit a cigarette, and opened up her bedroom window so she could blow the smoke into the wind.
She leaned against the window frame so that she could face her closet. She was eyeing a hot pink one-piece jumpsuit with a drop back that lay on the hanger all the way to the right. She dragged on the cigarette and held it in for a sec before exhaling. She just needed to find the right accessory to pair it with. Something like a costume necklace that would draw the eye to her neckline, or maybe a simple bracelet to make her wrist pop. Or maybe she was just in need of a good clutch.
She pressed the tip of the cigarette against one of the bricks that held the window frame together and the flame went out. She flicked the butt as far as she could. How many times had she replayed this fantasy in her head? Oh, countless, yes, it would be almost foolish to even try to put a number on it. Each time, the daydream ended with her in front of a camera flash, next to a handsome papi chulo with a microphone asking her how she felt. Divine, she’d say to this dream-man. Absolutamente divina. Then, for whatever reason, they were holding champagne flutes and she screamed into the dream-camera: Don’t you just love when the bubbles tickle the back of your throat!
The building buzzer went off and Angel screamed her coño carajos and jumped so fast that she almost fell down on the floor next to her tacones. She pressed the button to speak and said into the intercom: “Yes, darling. Speak to me.”
When she pressed the listen button, all she heard was air and a little bit of static. She pressed the speak button again: “I said, speak to me, tell me your name, slay me with your words.” Her wit just tickled her. Again, she pressed for listen and got nothing but air.
She shrugged and raised the volume on the radio and screamed a hot daaaamn into the air when Rochelle took it over with a version of “Love Me Tonight.” She couldn’t not dance to this song. That would be physically impossible. It felt like the tune set itself in her body. A pulse of electricidad. She rolled her neck and then jiggled her shoulders back and forth. She shimmied hard and shaked her culo. She picked up her jumpsuit and glided over to the full-length mirror in the hallway so she could dance in front of it.
The buzzer went off again. She pushed her hair behind her ears and walked over to the intercom again. She pressed the button with the tip of her red nail and spoke: “Yes? Make thyself known to the queen of this castle?”
Nada. Like speaking to a damn wall.
“Speak to me, child,” she screamed. “If you’re looking for Toya, she’s 5A, not 4A, darling. And if you’re in need of Marcus, well Lord help you, nena, because you need prayers. He’s 3A, not 4A, but think about that rock before you melt it and prick your pretty little arms.”
Just when she lifted her finger from the listen button, it buzzed a-damn-gain. She huffed and pressed to speak one last time: “Listen you damn crackhead, stop buzzing in on my peace. Go buzz someone else to death if you don’t got anything better to do. I’m trying to put together an outfit that would make even the good Lord Jesus wanna let down his hair and have a damn kiki and you are getting in my way.”
* * *
The thing about pink was that it could be such a disarming color. There were so many different intensities. If a girl didn’t align all the shades correctly in one outfit, she’d run the risk of looking like she didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Angel had three different shades of lipstick and she was trying to find one that could match best with the hotness of the jumpsuit. She twisted each tube out and looked back and forth between it and the dress.
After her lips were all done up right, she decided it would be best to live a little in the outfit to see if it was comfortable enough. One of the biggest ways an outfit could fail was if someone put it on and then the fabric, the accessories, the makeup held the true self back from showing. That would be bad. So she walked over to the sink to wash the dishes when she saw Venus standing in the hallway.
Angel hadn’t seen or heard Venus enter. She let out a blood-curdling scream, as if she had seen a cockroach the size of Alaska. Then Venus screamed, either out of shock or just to join the chorus.
“Ay, nena, when did you get here?” Angel said, catching her breath. “Scared me so bad, I’m not gonna sleep for a week—pero qué pasó with that head of yours? Where’s your hair?”
Venus did a deep inhale and raised her chin high, all dignified. “I was going for something radical,” Venus said. “I love it, just so you know. It’s a new me.”
Angel didn’t quite believe that, but she tried to make sure her lips weren’t pressed or her eyebrows didn’t raise. She didn’t want Venus to sense any shade.
“And where,” Venus said, “are you going dressed to the nines like that?”
Angel turned the sink water off. “Can’t your mother want to dress nice for the day?”
“You’re not working today,” Venus said.
“I said, can’t a woman dress nice for the day?”
“To do dishes?”
Now Venus was the one giving sass. Wasn’t that a shit? Angel put the plate that she had been rinsing into the drying rack and Venus started to cry.
“Well, damn,” Angel said. “I didn’t think it was that bad—”
“No, don’t say nothin’, mama,” Venus said. She brought her hands up to her face to cover her eyes, just like she did whenever she cried in front of Angel.
Angel wondered why Venus had to cover herself whenever she cried in front of other people. Hadn’t they known each other for long enough that she wouldn’t need to cover up in front of her?
“You look fly as hell and I—” Venus said, wiping at her eyes. “I just simply love my new haircut.”
She started bawling again and Angel looked at her, like, Oh, really now. She crossed her arms. “Why are you crying over something that you say you love?” Angel said. “You think I’m some kind of purebred tonta that don’t got eyes to see? You think I don’t know your heart is hurting?”
Venus made a move down the hallway for her room. “No,” Angel said to her, firm but con calma. “Get over here and talk to me. You’ve been keeping all kinds of mysteries from me and now you’re gonna have to speak to me.”
“He doesn’t wanna see me again,” Venus said.
“Mr. Cats Man?” Angel said.
Venus nodded and walked all dazed to the sofa. She collapsed on top of the pillows. Angel scurried over to her and sat next to her, giving some side-hug comfort. Angel tried to think of some words to help the poor nenita. She tried with a light broma first, to evaluate the severity of the hurt: “Ay, you shouldn’t give any light of day to a man who enjoyed Cats. I mean, what an atrocity of the imagination—”
“He has a wife,” Venus sobbed. “He has a daughter.”
“¡Qué hijo de puta!” Angel said. A daughter! The piece of shit. It was worse than she thought. “I swear, why in the world would you even mess with a situation like that?”
“I didn’t know,” Venus said. “How was I supposed to know?”
“You went back to his house?” Angel said. She placed her index finger on Venus’s cheek and turned Venus’s face to her own. “Look at me,” she said. “You telling me that you went to his house when you know what I say about that?”
Venus couldn’t even look into her eyes, but what Angel saw made her heart want to break into sharp little pieces. Venus was her girl and here she was a crying shame. Venus looked so damn young when she cried. If Angel could be like an esponja and absorb all the pain in her house, she would do it faster than half a heartbeat. But she knew pain wasn’t like a liquid spill that could be cleaned up so easy.
“I’m taking your silence,” Angel said, “as a yes ma’am, you did, in fact, go to his house.”
Venus nodded.
“Did the pendejo rape you?” Angel said. “Do we need to go over there and kick his bruto ass together?”
“No,” Venus said. “He didn’t fuck with me like that. He was nice.”
“Nice?” Angel said. The word sounded like acid rain hitting summer cement with a sizzle. “Nice? They are never nice. We don’t work for the nice ones.”
“But he was nice,” Venus said.
“Ay, Dios mío, again with the nice,” Angel said.
“We were supposed to have a strawberry picnic,” Venus said. She started sobbing again.
“A strawberry picnic?” Angel was all shock and awe. “Ay, why not add some blackberries and blueberries and some mothafuckin’ sorbet and champagne to that, nena? What kind of damn movie-world do you think we live in?”
Angel stood up to get her girl some tissues. What was she gonna do with her, this wildflower child of the streets? If love wasn’t gonna kill that one, heartbreak could place a close second.
“Mira,” Angel said, now across the room near the closet. “I got an old wig we could use if you want some hair realness.”
Venus nodded.
“I’m not mad,” Angel said. “You know that, verdad?”
“I know,” Venus said. “I know.”
“I’m just—” Angel said, “astonished with you, girl. You think this world is all glitter and cotton candy and love?”
She reached onto the high shelf of the closet and grabbed the wig with all five fingers, like she was mushing a mound of plátanos for a mofongo with nothing but the fingers on her hands.
“You’re saying,” Venus said, “I’m stupid for believing that I can go out there and try to find love? At least I go out there and try to search for something that’s real. You’re just throwing your shit at me because you can’t face the fact that Hector ain’t coming back from the dead.”
Angel stood in the corner of the room with the wig in her hand and the urge to throw it at Venus. She inhaled. “Here you go,” Angel said. She let the wig fall into Venus’s lap. “If you want to take it, here it is, take it from me.”
“Angie,” Venus said, so damn soft that Angel almost didn’t hear it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“I know you didn’t,” Angel said. “It just came out with all the feelings. I know how it is, nena.”
* * *
Venus walked out of the bathroom, balancing the wig on her head like Lucille Ball balancing a headdress. Angel didn’t dare say a word. Pobrecita. That peluca was way too big on that little body of hers.
“Ay, nena,” Angel said, biting her lip as if that could send some kind of telepathic power to the top of Venus’s head to keep that wig from falling. “You look beautiful, like hermosa total. I swear.”
“Now don’t lie to me, mama,” Venus said. She walked to the mirror slowly so she could keep it all on balance. Those curls were like Marie Antoinette–level shit. Angel watched as Venus looked at her reflection. Venus screamed a loud string of sounds that sounded so incomprehensible, Angel couldn’t tell if there were words somewhere in there.
“Don’t scream, nena. You’re rockin’ that look like Iris Chacón,” Angel said. “Just own it. Make like it’s all an extension of you.”
“Iris Chacón?” Venus gasped. “Why don’t you just kill me now? I don’t got the ass or the bust to even pretend at that.”
“Mira, que preciosa eres,” Angel said. “Like you’re going to break out into a rendition of ‘El Cumbanchero’ on the Letterman show.”
Venus sobbed.
“Ay, Venus,” Angel said. She walked over to place a gentle wrist on her daughter’s shoulder. “If you’re gonna cry, at least let it all out. There’s no point in choking it all in.”
“I don’t wanna look like Iris Chacón,” Venus said. She sobbed again. “I just wanna look like Venus Xtravaganza.”
Venus choked back another sob. Her face was going beet.
“Well, who else you planning on looking like?” Angel said. “There’s only one of you in this whole world, for better or worse.” She hugged Venus and could feel her girl shaking. She told her to sit down on the sofa while she got her a glass of water.
“Mira,” Angel said. “Nobody told you to chop off your pelo like that. Be a big girl and take life by the balls, you hear me? We’ll get through this if you just take a little chill pill.”
Venus stood up, one leg at a time. Angel held her hand through it all. “Fine, but just for the record,” Venus said, “I hate this wig. It is too big for a human head.”
“You don’t gotta wear it,” Angel said. “Nobody is forcing you.” She watched Venus put the wig back on and the curls engulfed her face. It was a pulpo trying to latch onto her brain with all eight of its curled tentacles. Venus stared at herself in the mirror again and whimpered.
“But I can’t not wear something,” Venus said. “I look ugly with no hair.”
“Ay, nena, you—”
The buzzer rang. Venus was close to the intercom so she pressed the button to listen. Angel watched her as she had trouble moving the synthetic pelos out of the way so she could put her ear up to the speaker. Like before, there was nobody on the other end.
“Maybe it’s broke,” Venus said, but Angel couldn’t see her face behind all the hair.
“It’s not broke. I swear on the santos, y the gatos, y todos los patos,” Angel said, “these crackheads are something else today. They’ve been buzzing my head off ever since noontime came around.”
The buzzer lit up again so Angel stuck her head out the window to see if she could get a look at who it was. From where her head was at, she c
ouldn’t get a good angle at the building’s vestibule.
Just then, the apartment door swung open. It was Daniel, huffing and puffing like he was gonna blow the house down.
“What’s got you in a knot?” Venus said. She stepped away from the door and stared at Daniel through the wall of wig hair.
Angel gave Venus a look to hush. “Where’s little Juanito?” she asked.
“He’s fine, pero—” Daniel was catching his breath. Poor nene must’ve run up the four flights of stairs faster than Wile E. Coyote on a dynamite mission.
The buzzer went off again, pero this time, it was only for a blip. Daniel shot a look up at Venus. “What’s with the ginormous wig?” Daniel said.
“This doesn’t look like a time to talk about wigs, Dani,” Angel said, waving hands in the air. She grabbed Daniel’s earlobe to drag him to the sofa. “What’s with all the huff and puff? You sound like you just ran the Olympics.”
“It’s your mom,” Daniel said. He wasn’t looking at no one in particular, so Angel didn’t know whose mom was in question.
“Who?” Venus said.
“Damn yo, Venus,” Daniel said. “I can’t take you seriously with that wig on—”
“Dani, calla already with the damn peluca,” Angel said. “Her head’s shaved. Now whose mother is where, you said?”
“Yours.” Daniel made eyes straight at Angel. “She’s here and she’s looking busted as all hell. Juanito’s downstairs holding her back. She’s practically foaming from the mouth like fuckin’ Cujo.”
“Juanito is holding her back?” Venus said. “But he can’t hold back a fly.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” Daniel said. “Sometimes he’s got this inner He-Man strength that comes out to play whenever he senses trouble.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Angel said. “I’m trying to follow all your words.” She fanned out all ten fingers and pushed out her hands all fierce in front of her body. It was a look that said, Stop in the Name of Love, Before You Break My Heart. “My mother is here? You sure you got the right mother in mind?”
“She said she was your mother.” Daniel shrugged. “I guess I never met her so I don’t really know. All I had to go on was her word.”
The House of Impossible Beauties Page 29
