“That’s not it,” he whispered, a line running across his forehead. “I’m not sure exactly what’s going on. She doesn’t seem to want Rubén there alone.”
“He’s not,” she replied. “He’s got a couple of other mechanics and doesn’t need any more help, remember?” She was still bitter about the Sosas’ reluctance to give Lucho a job. Was it too much for them to give him something to do while he looked for work? Even if it was just to install rims or upholster car seats, any job and whatever income came from it was better than no work at all.
“Maybe something’s going on with the business?” he speculated. The business, Falcón Auto & Body Parts, was a shop that Rubén had bought after years of working as a mechanic and soon after he and Valeria had married, mostly with the money she inherited from her parents and the sale of her mother’s boutique in Lima. It was why she insisted on having her maiden name on the awning. The Sosas certainly had a particular lifestyle to maintain—the apartment, the cars, Michael’s private school tuition, Valeria’s frequent traveling. Ana had never heard them complain about their finances, nor had she ever come across an envelope with a red “PAST DUE” stamped on its face. But Valeria had begun to notice how quickly the juice boxes disappeared from the fridge. She even asked Ana to cover the costs of paper towels, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies. Ana had resorted to taking whatever she could fit in her handbag from the supply closet at work. Although it seemed petty to her, Valeria’s request was not entirely unreasonable. Ana’s family did make up most of the household. She wondered now if Valeria’s requests were simply a way to cut costs; if perhaps they were signs that the body shop wasn’t doing as well as the Sosas wanted others to think.
“I’m not going to ask,” Lucho continued. “She keeps her business affairs to herself. I just wouldn’t be surprised if she says she can’t watch the kids.”
“She won’t,” she assured him. “You watch Michael when they’re not here, and I practically took care of the whole place while she was gone. Besides, she wants us out of here.”
“Don’t start with that again,” he said. He turned toward Michael’s bedroom and emerged with a beaming Pedro perched on one arm. Victoria jumped on the couch, and he scooped her up after two awkward attempts that the children found amusing. They hugged him so tightly that his face disappeared behind their heads.
Pedro called out, “Ven, Mami, ven,” but like every night, Ana stayed where she was, taking in the sight, letting the bouts of laughter that erupted when Lucho made fart noises into their necks carry her back to her own father’s arms. It was always her father’s arrivals that were momentous, not his departures. Seconds after he first stepped inside their shack, after all those weeks away, he’d swoop her into his thin, tired arms and pepper her with kisses. Her fingers would run across his soft hair, his broken nose, his sunken eyes, the deep lines that swerved like rivers down his cheeks. She’d touch him as if he were not real, as if the toasty smell of his breath and the stickiness of his skin had been something she imagined. She was afraid he might crumble underneath her fingertips.
Lucho let out several exaggerated breaths. “Make sure she finishes her homework,” he said as he finally put the children down. He threw on his coat, then kissed Ana goodbye, tapping his forehead lightly against hers before walking out the door.
* * *
ANA HAD SET THE DINNER PLATES ON THE TABLE WHEN THE SOSAS arrived later that evening. Both opted to shower before they sat down. She waited patiently for them to finish their meals. Then, with Rubén present, she asked Valeria if she could please watch the children the next day and for a few hours the following Wednesday and Thursday.
“I just got back from Peru, Ana,” she said. “There’s a lot I need to do at the shop. I have to get our books in order for the accountant. I have to chase a few descarados that haven’t even paid for the work we did last month.”
“I told you I’d take care of that,” said Rubén. He smelled like lavender and wood at home, but the shop still flowed through his body, from his guttural voice straight to his blackened fingertips.
“That’s what happens when you do work for people like Mosca and Pescadito,” she said. “They don’t pay. Or maybe the problem is that you have friends like that in the first place.”
He ignored Valeria and asked Ana, “What time do you need her here?”
“Lucho picks up the car at six o’clock, so five-thirty,” she said, glancing from one to the other.
“Five-thirty!” exclaimed Valeria. “We close up at eight o’clock, Ana. I’d have to leave the shop three hours early. And we only have one car.”
“I thought yours was fixed,” said Ana. Before Valeria left on her trip, she mentioned that her car needed a few upgrades, which was why no one could use it while she was away.
Valeria dug her fork into what was left of her chicken and yellow rice. “We’re still waiting for a part from abroad,” she explained.
“I can drop you off,” said Rubén, “or one of the guys,” but Valeria kept shaking her head.
“It’s only for a couple of days,” pleaded Ana.
Valeria swallowed and was about to open her mouth to respond when Rubén interrupted. “Of course, Anita. With all you do around here, it’s the least we can do. She’ll be here.”
Valeria’s eyes bore into him, but Rubén stared right back. For all her pushback, it was impossible for her to say no when her husband, a man unaccustomed to the word, was there to answer for her. She dropped her fork with a clank, filled her empty glass with orange juice, then stood and opened the bottom cabinet below the counter. She pulled out a bottle of vodka and poured some into her glass before walking out.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” said Ana when Valeria had shut her bedroom door. “We both know she’s never liked me and I’m clearly in her way.” Valeria had never hidden her disdain for Ana. She had visited Peru twice when Ana and Lucho still lived there, and twice she’d been cool and distant. She never struck up a conversation with Ana unless another person was also a part of it. She never held baby Victoria on those visits, although she always commented on how surprising it was that the child was so pale given her mother’s complexion. Ana supposed that this was at the heart of her dislike—a bias because Ana was darker and from a province, without a last name of any significance and no parents; an utterly rootless woman. She couldn’t expect to plant her roots here, in Valeria’s territory.
“She does miss her privacy,” Rubén admitted. He was never one to hide the truth. His candor was what made Ana like him so much in the first place. “There’s a lot going on, and with you here, she can’t exactly go off on me like she’d like to. I should thank you for that.”
She scooted onto the chair beside him. Ordinarily, she would’ve continued to sit at the other end of the table to keep the appropriate amount of distance between them. After all, there was something inherently improper about two married people, who were not married to each other, being alone together. She had been particularly careful of how others might perceive their relationship. She never dared smoke a cigarette alone with him. There was always a third person, and at Lexar Tower, it was Lucho who accompanied them out on the balcony to smoke. She never accepted his offer to drive her to work in the mornings and even avoided dancing with him at parties.
The fact that he let her live in his home, rent-free, was enough to make their relationship more formal. He was, in many ways, another creditor. Had they been in Peru, he would’ve been obligated to help her, or at the very least help Lucho, and her by extension. But blood seemed to dilute itself outside of one’s homeland, and there were limits to how much family could help each other in a place where everyone was trying to make their own way.
After she moved in, she made a point of always showing her gratitude by making his home feel like a home. She filled it with the smells and sounds of nostalgia through her cooking, the music, even her constant tidying. In the process, she won over his appreciation and friendship. He
joked with Betty whenever she visited, and insisted on playing bingo with them, always gambling with his own money on their behalf. He joined the family for dinner on Sunday nights, the only night all five were together, even if he was standing. Still, she had avoided any situation that might be viewed as inappropriate.
But when Valeria left for Peru, Ana began to loosen her own rules of propriety. After the kids were asleep, she and Rubén often found themselves alone at night, and even though she had decided to give up the habit, she didn’t object to his smoking inside the apartment when it was too cold to linger on the balcony. Their conversations were superficial at first. The weather, the kids, what did Lucho want for his birthday. Then it turned to gossip. Did she hear about the neighbor who had his car jacked in Jersey, or the viejita down the block who died just a few weeks after her chihuahua? He never understood why Americans were so attached to their dogs.
Then, as if he could finally go beyond the onset of winter days and the plights of neighbors, he began to recount his youth, when he stocked shelves at a supermarket in Bay Ridge and realized he didn’t have the discipline to make it through college. He talked about his childhood in Peru, when he spent his summers in the north, counting the boats that lined the edge of the Pacific in Máncora. Sometimes, he disappeared into a memory, one he thought he’d long forgotten but recollected with specificity. Like the time his cousins pinned him to the ground and squeezed his testicles as they forced him to sing the Peruvian national anthem. The asphalt left a burn on his cheek that lasted for days. He almost laughed as he told the story. Often, the memories were of his mother, and of how she walked a different path home on Sundays after church to search the sewers for his sister, a sister whose picture still hung in his parents’ living room, but whom he could not remember.
The revelations chipped away at the wall Ana had erected between them, and although he had not confessed as much, she’d known, for some time, that nothing had been good between him and his wife. There was enough familiarity between them now that she didn’t feel wary about asking, “What exactly is going on?”
He squirmed in his seat. “It’s about my daughter,” he whispered. The daughter was the one he had with a Dominican woman who worked for him at the shop. Worse than a chola, she had heard Doña Filomena tell Lucho. Rubén had hired the woman to work the register, keep documents in order, pay bills, send invoices. He had asked Valeria for help at first. It was, after all, also her business. But Doña Filomena, in her years of observing the cunningness of men, suspected that Rubén knew his wife would refuse. Valeria wanted to work in an office, a place where she could wear heels and makeup, and look like a professional. What educated woman wanted to work in an auto body shop? Doña Filomena was certain that Rubén was just looking for someone to sleep with, and the easiest way to do that was to simply hire someone you were attracted to.
Back then, Ana didn’t give much thought to the troubles between Valeria and her husband, thousands of miles away in another country. But she felt slightly vindicated by the rumor that Rubén was having an affair with someone Valeria no doubt considered so far beneath her.
What was more shameful than the affair itself was the child it produced.
A look of dejection settled on Rubén’s face now as he spoke of the girl. Ana had caught glimpses of the same look in his other confessions, whenever he spoke of his mother’s pointless search for his dead sister and the way his cousins fondled him as a child.
He glanced over his shoulder, as if his wife might be listening. “I want to tell Michael. He needs to know he has a sister.”
Ana’s jaw dropped. “Are you insane, Rubén? Do you honestly think Valeria will let Michael have anything to do with that girl?”
“She’s my daughter and Michael’s sister. Everyone knows about her now, but I have to pretend like she doesn’t exist. I’m tired of it.”
“But now is not the time to tell Michael,” she whispered. “He’s a child. He won’t understand.”
“Better that he hear the truth from me than from his mother. You know Valeria. She’ll try to poison him before I even have a chance to explain.”
“She will if the girl’s mother is still in the picture.” She said this knowing that the other woman was, in fact, still in the picture. She couldn’t help but feel sympathy for Valeria. Here was her husband, a man she presumably loved, or at least once did, and he had a relationship—another family—with another woman. What could Valeria do but try to ignore it, pretend like she didn’t see it? The alternative seemed too cruel. To wonder where he was, what he was doing, every time he walked out the door or didn’t come home.
“It’s complicated,” he said.
“It always is,” she replied. “But she’s not poisoning Michael by telling him her version of the truth. You’ll tell him yours one day and then he can come to his own conclusion about all this.”
He rubbed his eyes with his palms. “I just want my children to know each other, that’s all.” He wiped his mouth with the trifold paper towel she’d placed beneath his cutlery, then tossed it on his plate. “I know I’ve made mistakes, Anita. I’m not perfect. She isn’t either. But my children shouldn’t suffer for what we’ve done to each other.”
She shut her eyes, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. “No, they shouldn’t,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “But they always seem to, don’t they?”
* * *
SLEEP EVADED HER THAT NIGHT. BETTY, RUBÉN—EVERYONE, IT SEEMED, had kept secrets, including her. She’d had her share of sleepless nights since moving to unit 4D, but none as restless as this one, the eve before she was to see Don Beto. She’d shut her eyes, eager for the darkness to melt away the weariness that weighed down her bones. Yet all she could see were her children clinging to their father, to each other, as if a deluge was about to overtake them and they were each other’s only salvation. She could never quite bring herself to cling to them. She always feared they’d slip between her fingertips.
6
SHE WAS IN A HAZE THE NEXT MORNING, HER HEAD POUNDING FROM the lack of sleep. She drank a large cup of coffee on her way to la factoría, determined to move through her day as mechanically as possible, and say as little as she needed to so as to avoid hinting that something might be off.
When she arrived, she headed straight to the stairs, avoiding the usual smokers that were huddled outside. As she began her climb up the steps, however, Carla called from behind.
“¡Comadrita¡” she shouted. “I have some news for you. Something good.” She cocked her head and gave Ana a disconcerting look. “You look awful,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Ana. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Would you mind if we talk later? I really just need to sit down.”
“Sure, let’s talk at lunch. It’s good news,” she assured her, though Ana couldn’t imagine anything good enough to take her out of the void she was falling into.
All she wanted was to numb her thoughts, avoid thinking about anything but the fabric between her fingers and the rumbling of the machine. The hours would pass—that was unavoidable—but if she could somehow prepare herself, go numb to what awaited her, she might be able to go through with it. She paid no mind to the conversations about this telenovela or that celebrity couple or the failing banks in Venezuela. She caught Betty glancing her way several times, but Betty knew her well enough to know not to ask questions. When one of the seamstresses noticed her reticence, however, Ana explained that she was simply tired. She’d fallen asleep at nearly four in the morning, and didn’t even hear Lucho when he slid into bed.
“No te vayas a enfermar,” the woman said. “None of us can afford to get sick.”
“I told you, I’m just tired,” Ana snapped back, and no one said anything to her the rest of the morning.
She sat at her usual table in the cafeteria during lunch, slumping over her leftovers. Her head still pounded. She was about to get up to make herself a third cup of coffee when Carla squeezed beside her on the edge of
the bench. “¡Comadrita!” she exclaimed as she carefully set a clear plastic container, filled to the brim with sopa de res, on the table. “I told you I wanted to talk, remember?”
She nodded, unable to suppress a yawn.
“I have good news,” said Carla, excitedly.
Betty stopped her fork midway to her mouth and said, “She wants you to move into one of our landlord’s buildings. I already told you, Sister. That Irishman. ¡Es un tacaño!”
“He’s not cheap,” said Carla, eyeing the other women at the table to gauge their reaction.
“Then why’d it take him two months to fix that sink?” Betty asked. “Is it even fixed? There was still a leak this morning—”
“Ya, Hermanita,” gritted Carla. By then, they had caught the attention of the rest of the women at the table. Carla cleared her throat as she composed herself. “The man’s busy,” she said, dropping her voice to just above a whisper. “That’s not the same as being cheap.”
And her landlord was busy because he had three other walk-ups in Brooklyn, and—here’s the good news, Ana—he has a couple of vacancies in a building not too far from la factoría. “The rent’s a little high,” Carla admitted, “but he’s fixing them up. The bedroom’s apparently the size of my living room. I can give you the information if you want to check it out.”
Ana hesitated. Her family would have to leave Lexar Tower at some point, but she hoped to stay there a little longer. At the very least, she wanted to stay through the winter. She wouldn’t have to worry about not having heat or hot water.
“Gracias, Comadrita,” she said, “but we’re going to wait a little longer. Lucho wants to put in a few more weeks working the car. I’m going to pick up some overtime here. It’ll make it easier to leave Valeria’s if we have more of a cushion.”
“Ya veo,” said Carla, then she leaned closer. “I know that’s why you were talking to esa huachafa.” Ana shot Betty a look, and when she turned away, Ana knew she’d told her sister about Nilda. “Oh, don’t blame that one,” she said. “We were all going to find out eventually. And we were saying yesterday what a waste of time it is, right Betty? You’d be much better off putting away coats at that restaurant. At least then you’d get paid under the table. And you’d be one step closer to learning how to run the place.”
The Affairs of the Falcóns Page 7
