Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz

by Belinda Acosta

  “Disculpe.”

  It was Carlos Montalvo, standing in the doorway staring at her. “I … the door was unlocked and I heard a sound …”

  Ana’s heart began to jump.

  “May I help you?” she asked as blandly as she could.

  “This paper … the dean asked me to, but I …”

  Montalvo fumbled through the folder he had in his hand, peeling through the papers, turning around as if what he were looking for was behind him. He turned back to Ana sheepishly. “Discúlpeme, por favor. I must have left it behind.”

  When Ana saw she was in the supply closet with Montalvo blocking the door, a shot of anxiety ran through her.

  “Excuse me,” she said, as she plowed by him back into the main office.

  “I did not mean to intrude—”

  Ana was not like the people Montalvo was used to. The bigger he got, the more they worked to cover their true thoughts. The more famous he got, the more their smiles hid their real emotions. But Ana’s pain was what he would call delicate, plain, and raw; or, as her kids would say, for real. He thought about leaving Ana to her private tears, but it didn’t seem right to ignore someone who was honestly wounded.

  “Por favor, perhaps—maybe you will let me take you for coffee?” Montalvo stammered.

  “Coffee?” Ana snapped. “I don’t have time for coffee.” Ana wasn’t trying to be rude. But she distrusted Montalvo’s invitation as an injured animal might mistake a helping hand for danger. And Montalvo was dangerous, as far as she was concerned. Amazingly handsome, alone in a new city; the university had met his every need—except for one. Ana had heard the chisme about women on campus, their hearts bloated with hope by a visiting dignitary, only to be dropped like a used rag, left behind without so much as a “it was nice while it lasted,” once a visiting dignitary had finished his stay and moved on to the next campus, where he would be greeted with the same parties and aplausos, and then begin to prowl for his next companion. Ana wanted no part of it.

  “I have two teenage children,” Ana said, and just like that her cell phone rang.

  “’Amá?”

  Ana was relieved to hear her son’s voice. Diego gave his mother the rundown of his and Carmen’s after-school plans. Ana hoped he would keep talking long enough for Montalvo to get bored and go away.

  “’Amá, are you okay?” Diego asked, when he heard his mother sniffling.

  “I’m fine, mi’jo,” Ana said. “It’s just the allergies. I have some last-minute work to finish. I’ll be home soon.” When she hung up, Montalvo was still there.

  “That was my son. I have a son and a daughter. I have a family. They are waiting for me at home. I come here to work. So, no, I don’t have time for coffee now, or anytime, anywhere.”

  “I did not think … I think, I thought …” Montalvo sighed. “I did not see a ring. I should go.”

  “Yes,” Ana said. “Do you mind?” She was now at the office door, pulling it open and standing there like she would not take no for an answer.

  “Of course. Buenas noches.” When he went through the door, Ana closed it, latched it, and pulled on it to make sure it was locked. She returned to her office for her things, and as she stuffed her briefcase, her anxiety began to grow. She didn’t mean to be cold to Montalvo. She remembered what Beatriz said about her dean and the university president wanting to keep him on campus. Would he complain about her to the dean, or would he hold what just happened over her head, using it to get more than he needed or deserved? Her stomach began to churn, and she almost started crying again, but then she remembered she’d left Beatriz on hold. Of course, when she returned to the phone, Beatriz had hung up. Ana thought about calling her back but decided she didn’t want her to know what happened. Ana went through her briefcase for the mortgage papers she and Esteban were supposed to have gone over, shoved them back into the case, and angrily zipped it closed. Then she grabbed her purse and headed for her car.

  The campus was nearly empty now. The cart where Cynthia bought Ana’s lunch was closed up for the night. The woman who ran the paleta stand across the street had pushed her cart to El Mercado, down the block, where she would sell her fruit cups, paletas, and neon-colored mounds of ice to tourists. Ana kept glancing over her shoulder, half-expecting to see the dean and Montalvo following her—Montalvo wagging his finger and the dean glaring at her. She tried to put what happened out of her mind and to look forward to a quiet night at home, but then she remembered that that was a pleasure of the past. Who knew what kind of mood Carmen would be in when she got home? And since Diego had band practice, the house would feel much more hollow than usual. Ana wished she could get on the highway and drive until she was in the country, far out of town, until she reached the Gulf of Mexico, and she would drive right in. Sitting in her car, Ana tried to calm down. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, was it? she asked herself. She sat in her car a long time and began feeling silly, then finally started the car to go home, determined not to let what had happened make her crazy. But as she drove off she could not shake the idea that what had happened was going to come back to haunt her.

  SIX

  The kitchen was the alma of the Ruiz house. In fact, Ana and Esteban bought their house because of the kitchen, even though it was in worse than bad shape when they first saw it. Her brother Marcos (el mero mero consejero in these things) had said they were crazy for wanting to redo the kitchen themselves. Afterward, though, between Ana’s very particular design and color choices (tropical green walls with a cocoa-brown trim), and Esteban’s easy way of learning most anything he needed to know to do a repair, the kitchen became the most loved part of the house. And to think it started from a hole in the ground. (Really! They have pictures.) Well, even Marcos was impressed when they finished.

  Since Esteban left, the Ruiz kitchen was where Ana and Carmen circled one another como growly cats and where Diego—trying to fill up the hole made by Esteban being gone—acted like a puppy, eager to bring alegría y cariño back into the room.

  Because Diego and Carmen had grown up in the house, they had gotten used to it having a familiar feel to it. The Ruiz kitchen was where the day began and ended for them. But it was more than that. It was where birthday cakes were baked and tamales were made assembly-line style by the family at Christmas. At the kitchen table was where buttons were sewn on (the light was good at the east-facing windows), where bangs were trimmed, hair braided, bills paid, multiplication tables learned, boo-boos made better, and pictures colored and then displayed on the refrigerator. So it was not a good thing for Carmen that Esteban left them from the kitchen. Late one night, when both he and Ana thought their kids were asleep, Esteban took the duffel bag he’d packed and stored in the closet, threw it over his shoulder, and made his way through the dark house to the kitchen, the place where their nest opened to the outside world.

  It was not just that her ’apá was leaving them that shocked her but how plainly it was happening, with no emotion (claro que, she didn’t know the half of the story, but try telling that to a fourteen-year-old girl who thinks her world is coming to an end). What really made Carmen angry, though, was how she thought her mother was without feeling, while Esteban was silent and brave (she was, as they say, her daddy’s girl). Pero, oh no! She didn’t know the storm that was blowing inside Ana and Esteban; that storm that only two people who have loved each other can know without words or music, como in the movies, to tell you how they feel. Porque love that is losing its life, like flowers gone dry, is still beautiful, no? It still holds the memory of what once was, entiendes? Well, Carmen didn’t either.

  “Do what you have to do,” Carmen had heard Ana say to Esteban. When he leaned in to kiss her (Carmen didn’t notice he was aiming for her cheek, not her lips), Ana pulled back, something Carmen found so ugly and heartless, she wanted to scream. Pero, she would come to understand, years later, when she would be the cause of someone’s broken heart.

  Even with Bianca in the kitchen now—filling up the
space with her excited talk about her bolsas, her ideas for Carmen’s quinceañera, and whatever else came into her head—the kitchen felt as if it belonged to some other family. Ana and her children were bumping into things and each other, as if someone had rearranged the furniture. No one could explain this strangeness to them or tell them if it would pass. But to Carmen, any mal aire that filled the once-comforting Ruiz kitchen was all Ana’s fault.

  Diego was reading the instructions on a box of spaghetti and holding a can of black beans when Bianca noticed him.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Nothing, Bianca.”

  “Don’t you all have whole wheat pasta?”

  “Don’t you have your own house?”

  “Ay, don’t be mean. I’m here to start planning Carmen’s quinceañera.”

  Carmen frowned. “I thought you were going to help me with my algebra.”

  “We’ll get to it. Come on, Dieguito. Don’t make whatever mess you’re thinking of making. Let’s order pizza!”

  “That sounds good,” Carmen chimed in.

  “Oh, yeah? How about we pay for it with the change you were supposed to give me at lunch, eh, Carmen?”

  “D’oh!” Carmen said. “I forgot I had bio lab today, so I didn’t see you.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Diego was so hungry he would have eaten the beans straight from the can if he didn’t think Bianca would have something annoying to say about it.

  “C’mon—you guys make a salad and I’ll get the pizza. I have my dad’s credit card.”

  “No, I’ll make dinner,” Diego said. He felt it was his responsibility. If his father were home, he would have fired up the grill by now, grilled some sausages, diced some onion, heated up some tortillas, y ya! Not a green thing on the plate, but his kids would be fed. But Esteban hadn’t gotten around to showing his son the way around a grill. Diego looked out the window and saw it lurking in the far corner of the backyard. He wanted to go fire it up, but the thought of doing it without his father made his stomach grind harder and tighter. He saw a bag of corn chips on the counter and began to wolf them down.

  “I’m serious, B. I need help with this stuff,” Carmen said, pushing her math book across the table toward her cousin.

  “Don’t worry. Once you get it, you got it. Let me show you something.” Bianca pulled out a sketchbook of drawings she had done for Carmen’s quinceañera dress. “I did more, but these are the ones I like the best,” she said, nervously looking at Carmen to see what she thought.

  “These are nice,” Carmen said. “But they’re kind of low cut. My chichis would fall out of that one.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t have any, then,” Diego said.

  “Shut up!” Bianca snapped. “You don’t like these? We have time. I was just drawing what came to me. I have lots more ideas.”

  Diego was relieved when Ana came home with take-out food from the grocery store deli. He and Bianca helped Ana empty the bags. Carmen moved away from them and sat in the bay window looking out to the backyard, studying the sketches. It was her favorite spot in the kitchen because it overlooked the pond her father had built on her sixth birthday, filling it with glittery goldfish to mark the occasion.

  “C’mon, Carmen!” Diego ordered his sister. Carmen closed the sketchbook and laid it on the wide windowsill. She pulled her knees up to her chest and watched the fish swirl in the pond beneath her.

  “B, can you help me with my algebra or not?”

  “Can’t we eat first? I’m starving!”

  Bianca was family and of course was always welcome, but Ana couldn’t help but notice that this was the third time Bianca had eaten dinner with them in a week.

  “Bianca, does your dad know you’re here?”

  “He’s at work.”

  “But does he know you’re here?”

  Bianca shrugged. Ana’s patience was going thin.

  “Bianca, call your dad. Carmen, clear the table. Diego, get the silverware and napkins.”

  When Carmen didn’t move, Diego shot her an angry look. Carmen ignored him and stayed where she was, watching the fish. Diego slammed the forks on the table and moved toward his sister. Ana put her hand out to stop him.

  “’Amá!” he said under his breath.

  “Don’t start, mi’jo. I’ll take care of this.”

  “But ’Amá—”

  Bianca interrupted them.

  “Tía, my dad wants to talk to you.”

  Ana gritted her teeth and picked up the phone Bianca held out to her.

  “Bueno?”

  “Ana! Cómo estás?”

  “I’m fine,” Ana said, wanting to make the call short. “You know, Bianca is welcome here anytime, but I wanted you to know she was here. I’ll send her home right after we eat. Bueno pues …”

  “Thank you, pero wait, wait, wait …” Qué coraje, Ana thought. She hated what would come next. “Tell me, how are things, ’manita?”

  “I told you. Fine, Marcos. I have to go—our dinner is getting cold.”

  “Ay, you can nuke it,” he said. “You know what I mean. When are you and Esteban, you know, going to patch things up?”

  “I don’t know, but thanks for asking,” Ana said sweetly so the kids would not know she was having one of those talks with her brother.

  “Your husband walks around the job site like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. He feels bad, Ana. Real bad.”

  “Is that so?” Ana was desperate to tell her brother that it was Esteban, not her, who cancelled their meeting earlier in the evening.

  “You know, I hate seeing my men like that. When they’ve got home problems on their minds, that’s when accidents happen.” Híjole, Ana didn’t know what was worse, hearing what her brother said to her or watching Diego shovel half the potato salad from the take-out box into his mouth.

  “Marcos, I have hungry kids to feed. Can we talk later?” But Ana didn’t really want to talk. She didn’t want to listen to another lecture about marriage from her older brother. It’s not like he was an expert. His first wife died early in their marriage, the second one left him because he was a workaholic, and the third—Bianca’s mother, a woman much younger than Marcos—well, he still held out hope that she would return to her former self and they would go back to their life as it was. Everyone knew better, but in this Marcos was as starry-eyed as his daughter. That was the only reason Ana could think that he pushed so hard for her and Esteban to get back together. Sometimes, it seemed, he wanted it more than anyone.

  As soon as Ana got off the phone with Marcos, Diego announced it was time for his band practice. Ana groaned.

  “Gimme the keys. I can drive myself,” Diego said.

  “I know you can drive yourself, but we haven’t worked out the insurance yet. It’s one of the things I need to talk to your father about,” Ana said, as she put out the dinner rolls. “I’m sorry, mi’jo. I know you’ve been waiting a long time.”

  “I can take him,” Bianca said. “It’s just a mile or so, right? I’ll take him then come back to help Carmen with her math.”

  Ana was thankful. It had been a long day, and the thing with Montalvo was still gnawing at her.

  “Sure, go. Be careful. Call me and I’ll pick you up later, okay, Diego?”

  When the two of them left, Ana made a plate for her and for Carmen and set them on the table.

  “Carmen, comamos!” she called. The girl was still sitting in the bay window and Ana could see that she didn’t want to move. Trying to have a regular family dinner was one of the ways Ana thought she could keep some order in the house. But Ana could tell Carmen was going to fight her all the way. When Carmen finally rose from the window and went to the table, Ana was relieved until—would you believe it?—Carmen picked up her plate and turned to leave the room.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going to my room.”

  “Siéntate, Carmen.”

  “I have homework.”


  “Sit down and eat your dinner.”

  Carmen set her plate noisily on the table and turned to leave the room again.

  “Okay, then—I’m not hungry.”

  Ana knew she had to stand her ground.

  “Carmen. Sit down. Now.” Carmen slowly slid into a chair as far away from her mother as possible and crossed her arms. (Ay, muchacha!)

  “Have you thought about what I asked you about this morning? The quinceañera fair on Sunday? Remember I showed you the ad?” Carmen shrugged. Ana took a deep breath. “It would mean a lot to me if we could go.”

  Carmen began pulling apart a dinner roll and spreading pats of butter onto the pieces, arranging them on the plate in front of her. Ana sat back in her chair.

  “Is it really so terrible to sit here with me and have a meal like a regular family?”

  “We’re not a regular family anymore, and it’s just you and me,” Carmen said, todo sassy.

  “Whoever comes to the table, that should be enough, whether it’s two or twenty. Entiendes?”

  “Something is killing my fish.”

  “What?”

  “The fish. There used to be ten, now there’s only four,” Carmen said.

  “Are you sure?” Ana crossed to the window to look out to the pond. “Oh, mi’ja!”

  Ana still had a picture she carried in her wallet of Esteban and the children the day he put in the pond. Esteban was on his knees. Diego’s knotty elbows and knees popped out from a pair of coveralls cut off at the knees. Diego was leaning into his father, proudly holding a spade and with one leg on top of a bucket while Carmen stood before them covered in dirt, the glow of her smile shining through the grime as she held up to the camera the first bag of goldfish to be put into the pond. It was a family project, but because it was Carmen’s birthday, she had told everyone it was her pond. Ana knew that sitting next to the pond, either at the window or outside, was a favorite pastime Carmen shared with her father.