It was Grandmother Maria who took me to a diner and told me over a bottle of Coca-Cola and a pastrami sandwich that Grant had died of a heart attack. I knew she was lying. Grant’s silence, the emptiness in his eyes, made sense to me now. You and Grandmother Maria like to believe the nuns keep me innocent, but the Catholic girls at my school know all about suicide. Last year, a girl hung herself in her dorm room. She was a sophomore, so I didn’t know her, but rumor had it she wasn’t fully dead when they found her and she died later in the hospital.
On the couch in the living room, I peel my calves off the prickly upholstery, and tuck my feet underneath me. I cross my eyes so the geometric shapes on the canvas double and swim into each other. More boxes. More angles. How does one get to be a perfectly formed configuration of shapes? You are. A woman beautiful in her skin, utterly sure of herself. I know where all of your angles start and stop.
Or at least, I thought I did.
There is a slap to my knee, and I jump as Alfonso breaks into my reveries. He drops next to me stinking of spicy cologne, a tumbler in one hand. “What are you looking at?” He tilts his head, staring at the painting with mock concentration.
“Nothing.” One side of his blue gabardine pants presses into my foot, and I move to get up, but he puts a hand on my bare leg.
“Where are you going? Your mom will be out any minute. She asked me to keep you company.”
Alfonso is charming, black hair swept up Elvis-style, perpetually tan skin and brown eyes that do, actually, twinkle. He always looks as if he is just about to compliment you. I’m not sure why I don’t like him: he’s nice enough, just annoyingly glossy and confident. A stage guy, an entertainer. Maybe it’s because Grandmother Maria told me one night—when she was in a mood—that he married you for your money, which I suppose is true since he bought himself a shiny, yellow Cadillac with white leather seats and hasn’t booked a juggling gig in the two years since.
Looking at him now, I think I hate him just because he took Grant’s place.
“Cat got your tongue?” Alfonso shakes the last of his drink into his mouth, crunching ice between his teeth. He drinks the same stinky, dark stuff Grant used to, only he is never sloppy or sad.
I scoot to the other side of the couch. “That’s a stupid question. How can a cat get my tongue?”
He knocks the glass against my bare knee, cold and wet. “It’s a saying from the English navy ships. They had whips called the cat-o’-nine-tails. Used to whip the sailors to keep them in line. Hurt so much the poor boys couldn’t speak. Cat got your tongue, they’d say.”
“Fine, whatever,” I grumble. Alfonso has an answer for everything.
Just then you appear, twirling in front of us and landing with one hand on your hip, the other bent at the wrist above your head, your profile angled in a dramatic pose. “What do you think?” you say, holding perfectly still.
Green silk dips over your chest, hugs you to your knees and flares out at the bottom like petals opening at your feet. Your dark brows are penciled high into your forehead and your lips are a lustrous red. You look stunning. “Oh no!” you cry, tipping dramatically to one side, pretending your hand is stuck to your hip. “Who put the glue in my nail polish?” You dance around the room, yanking yourself along with a tortured expression. It is hard to stay mad when you make a joke out of everything. I smile.
“Help me! Peel it off.” You bump my knees with yours. “Just rip it quick like a bandage. I won’t scream, I promise.”
I reach for your hand, pretending to pull as you release it from your hip and go tumbling onto the couch with a screech. “That was a close call.” You laugh, wrapping me in your arms and kissing my cheek before standing to shake the wrinkles from your dress.
Alfonso smiles up at you. “You are a rare one.”
You beam back at him, looking as if he holds something precious you’d do anything to get your hands on. I want you to look at me that way.
“Ready, darling?” You reach for Alfonso, and he stands, wrapping an arm around your cinched waist and kissing you in a way that disgusts me. I slouch down into the couch and cross my arms tightly over my chest.
You push him away laughing. “You’re smudging my lipstick.”
Alfonso drops his empty drink on the coffee table, missing the coaster, and jingles his keys in the air with an eye roll in my direction. “I’ll be in the car.” He walks out leaving the front door open.
You give me a hurried look. “Promise you won’t sit here sulking, please? It’s still light out. Why not pop next door and see what Sandy is up to? Maybe her mom will let her come over and watch Maverick with you?” You lean into the mirror hanging by the door and nestle a black hat onto your head, little points capping your forehead like an acorn. “You know how your abuela likes to go to bed early, so don’t wake her if you stay up. There’s food in the kitchen. I ordered you steak and pecan pie from The Apple Pan, your favorite. Love you.”
You step out, hooking your purse over one arm. I jump up and trail after you down the path. Alfonso is already behind the steering wheel of his butter-colored Cadillac. If only it would melt in the sun. He leans an elbow out the window. “Hurry up, doll. I don’t want to insult the legendary John Wayne before I meet the fella.”
“I’m coming.” You round the car and pull open the passenger door.
Switching tactics from earlier, I plead, “Can’t I go with you? Uncle Duke wouldn’t mind. Please, he adores me.”
You smile at me over the top of the car, your fat, pin curls lacquered around your face. “He does adore you, but it’s too late for you to be out, and besides you’d be bored silly. There won’t be any other children there.”
“I’m twelve. That’s hardly a child.”
“Well, it’s hardly a woman yet, either.” You pat the roof with your white-gloved hand. “Don’t worry, you’ll have all my womanly problems soon enough. Now, go on next door and see if Sandy wants to play.”
You’re always trying to get me to play with Sandy, telling me I need friends my own age, hoping I’ll need you less.
Blowing a kiss, you climb in beside Alfonso, and I watch your handsome portraits recede out of the driveway.
I follow the car into the street, standing on the scorching pavement as the silver tailpipe glints and disappears around the corner. I could run away, I think, picturing a tiny figure of myself disappearing into the glimmering haze up ahead.
Just then Sandy Plummer bursts from her front door, jump roping over to me with wide, nimble leaps. “Want to race?” she pants, her Mary Janes clicking on the pavement, her face already a vivid red.
“My jump rope broke,” I lie.