I had lived in Coral Gables all my life and never really considered living in Miami Beach, but Ariel was determined to make his home there. He specifically wanted one of the houses on North Bay Road. When he was a boy he delivered the Miami Herald, and his route had taken him there every morning at dawn. He used to promise himself that someday he would own one of those houses. I actually cried when he told me about his boyhood dream, and I immediately agreed to live there. Our only regret was that Ariel’s mother hadn’t lived long enough to see her boy make good in such a spectacular fashion.
Marti was playing on a little rug next to the table, occasionally sipping juice from his plastic cup, happy and oblivious to the scene around him. He shared his father’s ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else; just then he was concentrating on a wooden puzzle while Jacinta cleared away the morning’s dishes.
Ariel wasn’t pressing me to talk, but I could sense him closely watching me as I looked out over the water. He had learned the hard way that there was no use hurrying me to discuss things I didn’t want to talk about. However, I knew him well enough to know that unless I was careful he could maneuver me into where he wanted me to be. He had the ability to manipulate me in such a subtle way that I was unaware he had done it until it was too late. I had to be careful in this instance, as I knew what he wanted.
“I know I have to tell them what I’m going to do,” I finally said. “I know.”
My firm’s policy was that a leave of absence could last up to a year, but it wasn’t fair for me to keep withholding my plans from them. I was the only lawyer there who specialized in immigration, and I knew that some of my work had been farmed out to other firms. So far my partners had been supportive of me, but I knew it was only a matter of time before their attitude changed. Business was business, and personal goodwill was only going to take me so far.
Weber, Miranda, Blanco and Silverman, P.A., was the only place I had ever worked as a lawyer. They had hired me as a summer associate after my first year at Duke, then picked me up for a second summer a year later. After I graduated they offered me a job contingent on my passing the bar. I became their business immigration lawyer by default, really. During my second summer the firm got a commercial litigation case that involved a major immigration factor—not central to the case, but important enough that it needed to be thoroughly researched. The attorney to whom I had been assigned was given that aspect of the case, and I was told to work on it. That had been my first day on the job that summer, and I really wanted to prove my worth. So I threw myself completely into the task.
When I was through with my research I gave my boss a report that could have been submitted to the Supreme Court. Immigration law was interesting to me, which was a good thing—once I came on full time, all those kinds of cases were assigned to me. I must have done a good job, because I was made partner five years after graduation, the first woman at my firm to have done so.
Most of my Duke classmates had gone on to work for big firms in New York, but I returned to Miami. I had been away for seven years, including my undergrad period at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and I felt like I was losing touch with my inner Cuban. There had been only a few Cuban students at Penn, and none at Duke Law, so my infusions of Cubaninity came via care packages of Cuban food that my tata sent me, and from the boxes of supplies I carried with me after vacations home. I had an off-campus apartment where I threw parties and served Cuban food, but I think I always knew I wouldn’t be able to stay away forever.
My parties were great. Food, music, and rum drinks—mojitos, Cuba libres, mango daiquiries. I was a professional Cuban in those years, with a framed poster of José Martí in the living room and a floor-to-ceiling Cuban flag next to my bed. I had Cuban books scattered everywhere, and usually a Gloria Estefan CD was playing in the background. I worked out in the gym wearing a T-shirt that said, “All this, and Cuban too.”
The men I dated in school were always American—not by design, but because they were the ones I came into contact with in class or through my sorority. My only serious entanglement was with Luther Simmonds, during my second year at Duke.
I used to think he was my soul mate. He told me he felt the same.
In the winter of our last year at Duke we started talking about marriage, discussing the different places we might live and practice law. But later something happened that I still don’t understand. The bond between us drifted away in a weird haze of expedience. After we graduated, Luther took a job at a major civil-law firm in New York when they made him a big money offer he felt he couldn’t refuse. Not wanting to live in New York just then, I went back to my firm in Miami. Our phone bills were outrageous. At first, we talked about how we were going to work things out, then a day passed without us talking. A week later, it was two. We were both so busy that it was almost six months before we actually managed to see each other again.
I hadn’t considered dating Ariel because of Luther, but soon he asked me out to dinner and I accepted. And that was that. I still thought about Luther. Part of my heart would always be his, especially in the early morning before dawn broke—that was always our best time together.
But some things weren’t meant to be.
I worked hard all my life. In school I took the hardest courses, and gave them my all. My parents had lost everything after the revolution in Cuba, where they owned and operated a nationwide chain of pharmacies. They told their kids again and again: The one thing they can’t take away from you is your education.
But I found out the truth later, that their advice was really directed at my brothers instead of me. The rules for sons and daughters in Latino families are very different. Unfortunately, the twenty-first century has yet to arrive for us.
I knew early on that I wanted to be a lawyer; order and precision appealed to me. My family was appalled when I told them my decision, figuring I would turn into a frump or a bitter career woman, and never get married as a result. I was bound to be an old spinster, a dried-up prune, unfulfilled and alone; most importantly, I would never produce grandchildren. They told me that no woman in my family had ever done a man’s job. Hell, the truth was that no woman in my family had ever graduated from college before, much less earned an advanced degree. For upper-class Cuban Miami, college was a waiting room where girls from good families spent a couple of years before they walked down the aisle.
My female cousins had all majored in the course of how to marry well. I had to admit, they were overachievers and made the dean’s list. Cuban girls of my class might graduate from college and even take jobs, but never anything serious that might cause them to look old and tired. It was understood that they would drop everything and raise the kids once their boyfriends were established enough to marry and buy a home. It wasn’t as restrictive as the fifties, but we really hadn’t left Havana too far back.
There was almost a sense of collective pity directed at Cuban women who were successful; the assumption was that success always came at the expense of a good personal life. And a personal life always, always, meant a husband and children—the only true road to happiness and fulfillment. The only reason for a woman to work was economic necessity, the thinking went. Beside the fact that I loved them, I think one of the reasons I was so close to Vivian and Anabel was because they, too, had rebelled against the fate that had been set out for them by the accident of their birth.
And now I had to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I had worked so damned hard to get where I was. At thirty-five, I was a partner in a successful firm with several national offices; however, I was also a wife and a mother, with a small child at home and a husband making noises about having another one soon.
Going back to work meant long days and major stress, but it was all mine: my satisfaction from making a major difference in my clients’ lives, my office, my own world. I liked the people I worked with; they were my friends. I liked meeting with clients, the intellectual work of analyzi
ng their cases and plotting a strategy. I relished the euphoria when I did good work on a case; I got off on the feeling of doing well. I loved the fact that I had a reputation as a thorough, sharp attorney.
It had been ten months since I took my leave of absence. I loved all the time with Ariel and Marti, but the truth was that I also missed the office. About ten times during the day I glanced at my watch and wondered what I would be doing if I were at my desk instead of at home.
My job paid very well, but, honestly, we didn’t need my income, not with Ariel working and the investments we made after the Matos case, a fact that Ariel kept repeating to me, so often that it had almost become his mantra. I almost wished that wasn’t true, since it would have made my decision easier.
Don’t get me wrong—I knew that many women would have traded places with me in a heartbeat. I kept in mind all the women raising children on their own, with no money or, even worse, having to deal with some alcoholic battering scumbag for a spouse. I wanted to take a deep breath and count my blessings, but my personality just wouldn’t allow it. I had to obsess over this dilemma until I reached a resolution.
It was like a voice was repeating over and over: Give in, leave the job, have more kids. But what would that mean? That I never took my professional life seriously in the first place? All the time, effort, and money invested in me by the firm would go to nothing—and I knew what that would mean for the next young Latina lawyer. For better or worse, I represented an image in the legal community. And people were watching.
I loved Marti more than anything in the world. I treasured being able to watch his daily changes, going swimming with him, teaching him manners, and helping him make his way in the world. And as for Ariel, it was a nice change for us both to be home at the same time in the evening. I must have spent more time with him in the last ten months than in the previous eight years of our marriage.
In this, my family was no help. There was no use going to them for advice, because I knew in advance what they thought. A woman’s place is at home, with her husband and children. Mamá was already making noises about Marti needing a little brother or sister. This is the same woman who had been violently opposed to my relationship with Ariel in the beginning. He was from the wrong side of the tracks or, as was the case in Miami, from the other side of the causeway. The more they came to know him, though, the more they began to warm to him.
And, let’s face it, the Matos award didn’t hurt. Cubans are nothing if not practical, with a healthy respect for money and success, and the better Ariel did, the more attractive he became.
When I was still at the firm, Mamá told me that I was courting disaster with Ariel, that although he was a fine person he was still a man who wanted his wife available to him at all hours. If I wasn’t there waiting for him when he got home, then he would eventually find another woman who would be. Guaranteed, she said. It’s just a matter of time.
Thanks, Mamá.
Just before I took my leave, Mamá started telling me how tired I looked, how worn out, that I was losing my looks. Pretty soon Ariel was going to lose interest and take up with a younger, fresher, sweeter woman. I was playing with fire, trying to have a life of my own. So no, I wasn’t going to my mother for advice.
Vivian and Anabel, God bless them, told me that my family was full of shit, that they were trying to guilt-trip me into giving up everything I had worked so hard to achieve. Sure you can have it all, they told me. You can be a good wife and mother and still be a successful and fulfilled working woman.
The only party involved who had yet to voice a firm opinion was Ariel himself, but it was crystal clear what he thought. He was proud of me and my accomplishments, but he felt that I had proved what I had set out to prove. Now it was time to devote myself to my family. He just wanted me to arrive at the same conclusion on my own, without feeling pressured. I had to keep in mind that he loved me, and that he trusted me to do what’s right for our family.
Still, in spite of his reassurances, I could not help but suspect that he had ulterior motives. He knew I was more independent when I was working, with responsibilities and interests that excluded him. He claimed he was happy that I did well and was successful on my own, but, as a Cuban man, he felt that having a working wife diminished him in the eyes of his contemporaries. Also, if he was working, and making money, and I was not, I would be financially and emotionally dependent on him, something I felt he wanted and needed. I told myself not to be mean-spirited, that Ariel was a good man who wanted the best for me, but these suspicions crept up from time to time.
And there he was, still sitting there and waiting for me to say something. He shook his head, a wry expression on his face.
“I can see you don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Just so long as you’re giving the matter thought.”
“Gracias,” I replied. “And thanks for being understanding. Believe me, I’m thinking about it. I really am.”
Ariel stood up, stretched, reached for his jacket and tie.
“I’d better get going or I’ll get stuck in traffic.” In Miami, leaving five minutes too late could make a huge difference in how long it took to reach a destination. He leaned over to kiss me, then bent to kiss Marti on the head. Marti barely noticed; he was still engrossed in his puzzle.
I watched Ariel walk away, then turned my attention back to the water. I watched a dark shadow in the waves, thinking it might be a manatee, when the phone rang. I reached for the e
xtension on the side table, annoyed by the interruption.
“Hello?” I said.
“Daisy?”
It was a man’s voice. A voice I knew. I almost dropped the phone. Only one person has ever called me “Daisy,” the English translation of Margarita.
“Luther?”
[5]
A Cuban waiting for an American. Now that was a switch. I sat glancing at my watch at a table in the courtyard of Nemo’s, one of my favorite restaurants on South Beach.
It had been nine years since I last saw Luther Simmonds, but somehow speaking with him on the phone that morning and agreeing to meet for lunch a few hours later seemed perfectly normal. Maybe I should have heard alarm bells ringing, but I didn’t. Mostly I was thinking about how I was going to look to him. I had given birth to a child since I last saw him, after all, and although I worked out religiously at the gym I knew my figure wasn’t the same as before. Ay, vanity. Thy name is Margarita.
Luther and I had agreed to meet at one, and now it was a quarter past. I remembered that Luther used to exemplify the annoying American proclivity for punctuality. I was starting to wonder if something had gone wrong, and I could have kicked myself for not giving him my cell phone number.
After a quick look around to make sure Luther wasn’t nearby, I opened up my purse and took out my little silver pocket mirror. I studied my reflection, trying to imagine what Luther would see when he finally arrived.
At thirty-five, I considered myself neither old nor young, although I knew I looked a few years younger than my age. Maybe it was in the genes. I always thought Latino women held out better against the ravages of time because of our olive-colored skin. As a teenager I’d railed against my oily complexion, but now I blessed it because I was virtually wrinkle free. I used to swear under my breath when my mother refused to allow me to bake in the hot tropical sun with my friends, but now I was glad she had kept me inside. And, yes, prepared to admit she was right about something.
Luther was going to meet a woman with shoulder-length dark brown hair, wavier now than in Durham because of South Florida humidity. It was a few shades darker than in years past, but that wouldn’t surprise Luther—I’d been experimenting with hair color since before my Duke days, and I used to change shades as often as I could without my hair actually falling out. My eyes were the same, light blue bordering on gray. Now I knew more about makeup, and how to accent my best features, so I concentrated on bringing out that gray tone.
I always dressed fairly conserv
atively, and still did—although now, of course, I wore better outfits. And the higher quality the clothes the better the fit, so hopefully Luther wouldn’t notice that my hips had widened a bit. Dressing for this lunch, I’d pulled out, inspected, and tried on nearly everything in my closet. At one point it looked as though Hurricane Andrew had hit my bedroom; it took almost an entire hour to hang everything up again. I finally settled on a fine-cotton khaki shirtwaist dress by Yves St. Laurent that fit me perfectly even though it was a couple of years old. I matched it with black open-toed snakeskin sandals and a Chanel bag. I thought I passed inspection, but just to be sure I chose a seat with the sun at my back. I might have looked good for my age, but there was no point pushing the envelope and exposing myself to the cruel midday light.
I replaced my mirror in my purse. Why so much preparation, why so much worry about what he’s going to think?
And more to the point, why was I meeting my old flame? I hadn’t told Ariel that I was having lunch with Luther. Ariel trusted me—and with good reason, because I’d never given him reason to do otherwise. But I knew he wouldn’t be at all pleased if I had informed him of my lunch plans.
Which meant I was keeping a secret from my husband.
My conversation with Luther had been very brief. After the how-are-yous he told me that he was in Miami working a case and that he’d like to get together, if that were possible. He said he’d called my firm and learned that I was on an extended leave of absence. Since I knew the firm wouldn’t give out my home phone number, and we were unlisted, Luther had called up Duke Law School to find out how to reach me. Knowing all the trouble he went to secretly pleased me.
one hot summer Page 4
