Acapulco Nights (8 page)

He paced the room. “When we were having dinner last night, you never said anything to me about another man. Nothing.”

“I know, and I should have.”

“
Ay Dios
, you should have,” he muttered. “You were
mine
,
querida
. When did you decide to give your heart away to someone else?”

“I know it doesn’t make much sense to you. I had to leave. I had to go home. I left because my father died.” The memory of my father’s death now fresh in my mind. “My mother was a wreck, she could barely function. I couldn’t bury my father and leave her there all alone.”

“But why didn’t you call or answer my letters?” he persisted. “Why didn’t you tell me how to get in touch with you? Why you were gone? I would have understood. I would have come for you.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” I whispered, hiding my face in my hands. I couldn’t handle the wave of emotions. Things I had wanted to forget bubbled to the surface.

“I wouldn’t have? Who are you to decide what I might have done? You never gave me the chance!”

I looked up at him from my spot on the bed. “Your mother was so unhappy with me. It never would have worked. Can’t you see that?”

“And when did you decide this? Before or after you met your new fiancé?” He returned to his pacing.

“Oh, Joaquin, that’s not fair.”

“Not fair? What would be fair, Suzie? You pledging yourself to me for eternity in front of a judge and then leaving me, taking off as if I didn’t exist? How do you think I felt, Suzie? How do you think I
still
feel?” He stopped, and stood in front of me, arms crossed.

“I don’t know, Joaquin. I have no idea how you feel.”

“So, exactly why are you here? What do you want from me?”

“What we had, Joaquin, what we had all those years ago—those days are long past. You know that, I know that.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. But I need a divorce. That’s why I’m here.”

For a long moment neither one of us spoke.

“It didn’t seem to me that everything is in the past.” He nodded his head toward the bed. “Can you honestly tell me you feel nothing for me now? Nothing but fond memories? Is that all?” He leaned against the bureau behind him, his muscular body masked under the suit jacket.

I let go of a ragged sigh. “That was a mistake. I just missed James is all. I lost my head for a minute. We have to forget it ever happened.”

“
We
have to forget? Oh, no,
you
have to forget, Suzie, or you will drive yourself mad, won’t you? Wondering if it’s me you love or this James.”

“I love James.”

“Yes, so you told me. You may have forgotten, but I remember it.”

“That’s not fair Joaquin. Those days are long behind us.”

“If they are so long behind us, then why did you kiss me like that? Why did you let me touch you?”

I pulled my robe a little bit tighter around my thighs, feeling naked under his penetrating gaze.

Joaquin smirked at me then, as if I’d made a joke and only he knew the punch line.

I grabbed some clothes out of my suitcase and pushed past him into the bathroom. “I have to meet Janice for lunch. She’ll be wondering where I am. You can let yourself out.” I trembled at the words, uncertain if he would be gone once I finished dressing. Part of me wished he would, but another part of me hoped he would still be waiting for me.

Five minutes later, I unlocked the bathroom door. Joaquin had vanished. I grabbed my purse from the night table and headed toward the door. When I reached it, my heart raced. To calm my nerves, I peered through the peephole. Not a soul in sight.

Joaquin had really gone, but the meetings were not over. I had only touched on the divorce. I would still have to convince him to go through with it. A battle I wasn’t ready to wage just yet.

“My mother will love you,” Joaquin tried to convince me a couple of months after we started dating.

“Are you sure? I’m an American. I thought she didn’t like Americans.” My nerves were edge as I sat next to him on the Metro, zooming through Mexico City. I was meeting his whole family that weekend. All of them. Three sisters, one brother, and his mother.

“I said she didn’t like American food.”

“The ‘influence of America on Mexican cuisine,’ I think was how you put it.”

“That doesn’t mean she dislikes American people.”

“But it’s one strike against me. My country brought pizza and fried chicken to Mexico. She’ll never forgive me.”

“It will be fine, Suzie. If she loves me, she’ll love you.”

“It doesn’t always work that way, Joaquin.”

“It will be fine. Trust me.” He locked his fingers with mine.

“But remember what she told you when you wanted to study art?”

He set his mouth in a firm line and pulled my hand into his lap. “
Querida
—”

“She said you could find your own way to pay for it. That it would be a waste of her money. And she loved you then, didn’t she?” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “What if she thinks I’m a waste of your time, too?”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing, okay?” He curled his arm across my shoulders, pulling me closer.

It would be a trial by fire: if I were serious about Joaquin, then I needed to meet her. Success, and we were destined to be together. Failure, and, well, I didn’t want to think about failure.

We sat silently on the Metro for awhile. I watched the clutter of neighborhoods and people and cars fly by the window. Mexico City was a living, breathing being filled with activity, color, and noise. Taking it all in only added to my nerves.

As we got closer to Xochimilco, downright terror took over.

“What if she makes fun of my Spanish?”

“What?”

“Well, she doesn’t speak English, and I’m not that fluent. What if she can’t understand me?”

“I’ll translate.”

“But I want to be able to talk to her myself.”

“She’ll understand.”

“How can she get to know me if you’re translating everything?”

“Suzie, this isn’t a test. You’re meeting my family. You can’t fail at this. Okay?”

“But it
is
a test. I could screw it up.”

“You won’t.”

Joaquin squeezed my hand, and for a moment I forgot my worries and thought only of his beautiful body and his engaging smile. To know those things were only for me sent a shiver down my back. I could make it through this. I would make his mother love me. Just wait.

*

Joaquin lived at one end of the valley that cradled Mexico City, in the section known as Xochimilco. Made up of a twisted skein of canals, this section of the city was what remained of the main agricultural area of the Aztecs.
Trajineras
, special flat-bottomed boats, carried families, young couples, and friends on a slow journey down the canals providing food, drink, and souvenirs. Floating mariachi bands were the entertainment.

When we stepped off the train platform, the stairs led us right into the heart of everything. Smiling tourists, dancers dressed in traditional costume, and young children surrounded us.

A young woman approached bearing a basketful of long-stemmed roses, and Joaquin signaled to her. He gave her a few pesos and, smiling, took a rose from her basket and handed it to me.

This small gesture, this bit of velvet-red petals tightly closed together, touched me. Warmth unfurled inside me. It made me think:
this is first love, this is what it feels like
.

As I held the flower close to my chest, Joaquin led me through the maze of narrow streets to a broad, busy road. Clutching my hand tightly in his, he pulled me across when the traffic cleared. We only had a few moments before the cars closed in around us, and my heart pounded from the sudden movement, or maybe just from his hand being in mine.

He led me up a dirt path that skirted a steep embankment. All worries about meeting his family had since left my mind. I thought only of the flower, his hand, our feet. We scrambled together up that dusty slope and found ourselves on a large, flat piece of land. Adobe walls and makeshift fences lined the dirt roads. Rooftops and the wisps of trees peeked out from behind them.

“We’re almost there,” he said.

Nervous tension returned to trouble my stomach. I squeezed his hand.

“Do I look all right?” I touched my hair.

Joaquin stopped in his tracks, dropped my hand, and grabbed me by the shoulders, “You look
bonita, mi amor
.” The warmth in his voice and the sparkle in his eye made my doubts dissipate. “
Mi mamá
—my mother?  She will adore you.”

A few more blocks, and we were there.

The modest house was hidden behind an adobe wall with a wrought-iron gate. I saw his brown car parked in the small courtyard; it was the only car the family owned, so most of the time we had to travel around the city by Metro.

As he reached for the latch on the gate, I held my breath. A teenage boy peered out the window at us and then broke out in a smile. That had to be Joaquin’s brother, Carlos.

The front door flew open, and a gaggle of young girls poured into the courtyard, squealing in Spanish. All of them had eyes on me as we came through the gate. I leaned in a bit closer to Joaquin.

The girls crowded around us like a swarm of bees, and the smallest one, who was ten or eleven, grabbed my hand, looked up at me, and smiled.

“
Qué bonita
!” Another sister commented, as if I were a pretty painting to be admired.

The oldest girl touched the fabric of my skirt, fascinated with it.

Spanish flew all around me, the girls chattering a mile a minute. Carlos hung back. He stood tall like his brother, but his eyes were a deep brown.

A lovely woman in her late forties appeared in the doorway of the house. It had to be Paloma, Joaquin’s mother. Although she was a bit overweight, clearly in her youth she had been a beauty. She’d twisted her hair into an elegant knot. Her hazel eyes, so similar to Joaquin’s, sparkled with life, and her fine features were smooth and youthful.

“
Bienvenidos a nuestra casa
,” she said succinctly. I knew Joaquin told her to speak slowly, so I could understand her.

“
Gracias
.” I held out my hand for a welcoming shake. Paloma, however, stepped forward, taking me into her arms and kissing each cheek.

I stiffened at the close touch of this stranger. This is not quite how we did things in my mid-western, uptight, suburban town. Paloma, too, seemed uncomfortable with the embrace, but she didn't let go.

When she pulled away, she had a grim look on her face. It made me pause for a moment.

She didn't like me.

Paloma took my bag from my limp hand and headed back into the house.

“Let me show you where you will be staying,” she said in slow Spanish.

I looked at Joaquin, “I’m staying here at your house?” I wasn’t sure I understood her.

He nodded. “Did you think I would let you stay in a hotel after you met my family?” A teasing note crept to his voice, as if I were being naïve for thinking his family would let me stay anywhere else but here.

Was that rude? To visit someone and not stay the night?

The sisters gathered around me like a gaggle of geese, each one wanting to take my hand and lead me inside. I followed them, trying to find out their names.

Joaquin had mentioned Carlos many times. They were both boys and only a few years apart, so perhaps he felt closer to Carlos. The girls generally were grouped together with the phrase ‘my sisters,’ as if they were all one entity. I had imagined three identical girls with Joaquin’s hazel eyes, all with the dark brown, almost black, hair that most everyone had in this country.

But there couldn’t be three sisters more different. Ana, the ten-year-old, had a reed-like figure with long beautiful fingers and waist-length hair twisted into two neat braids. Lupe, on the cusp of thirteen, had a short, square build and chin-length choppy hair. Claudia, the oldest sister, was also short, but had a thinner figure like Ana and wore heavy make-up and tightly curled hair.

I liked them all immediately, even though I couldn’t catch more than one or two words of what they were saying. Their enthusiasm for a complete stranger coming to their home surprised and touched me. I felt instantly comfortable with these three girls, which more than made up for the cold reception from Joaquin's mother.

Ana took me up the narrow stairs to the bedrooms. “
Venga
, Soo-see.”

The small house didn’t suit so many people. Carlos and Joaquin shared a small room that rivaled the size of a walk-in closet in America. The girls had a larger room, but, because of my visit, Ana and Lupe would be sharing a bed.

My bag waited on the bed that would be mine, when Joaquin’s mother leaned into the doorway.

“
Tienes hambre
?”

Nervousness had driven hunger out of me hours ago, but I nodded at the woman and her grim face. Her features hard as carved stone. I didn’t want to appear ungracious and give her any more reason to dislike me.

*

Early evening arrived. The late afternoon meal had not gone well. The sisters talked over one another so much, I had a hard time following the conversation. I found myself tuning out what was going on around me due to a headache from concentrating on the buzz of voices. Instead, I studied my food and got a good look at the kitchen.

Paloma served beans and corn tortillas for lunch, with a sweet lemon tea. The beans came from a huge pot on the small stove behind the table. We each received a bowl with a soupy portion of beans, a large spoon, and a pile of heated corn tortillas.

The tortillas sat in the middle of the table under a damp towel to keep warm.  Once we all sat down, a food free-for-all took place. Everyone at the table snatched tortillas from their heated spot under the towel and ripped them into small pieces. They used the small pieces to scoop beans from the bowl to their mouths. No utensil needed.

I couldn’t figure out how they did it.

I tried to mimic their methods, but my piece of tortilla folded under the weight of the beans, and I only ended up with a soggy piece of the flat bread in my hand. Lupe, sympathetic to my problems, handed me a soup spoon. That made it easier to scoop the right amount of beans onto a large piece of tortilla, which I could then get into my mouth without too much of a mess. Ah, the poor American.

Paloma, sitting across the table, kept a close watch on me. Either she was judging me for my table manners or observing me with the keen interest any mother would have of her son’s girlfriend.

After losing track of the thread of conversation yet again, I took a sip of my lemon tea and stared out the window at the bougainvillea that grew across the fence, its fuchsia blooms rippling gently on the breeze.

Paloma, apparently thinking my Spanish was so rudimentary I couldn’t follow the simplest of phrases, asked Joaquin seated next to me, “
Ella puede entendernos
?”

Could I understand them?

My faced flushed at the insult. The cacophony of voices in the kitchen had made it hard to follow every sentence.

I answered in Spanish before Joaquin could defend me, “Yes, I can understand you. It’s just difficult with so many people talking.”

I wanted to explain why I may not have answered every question posed to me, but I think Paloma took it as an insult, as if I believed her family to be loud and rude.

Paloma’s eyes snapped, but she remained quiet. She nodded and smiled, with the coldest, most unfeeling smile.

This meet-the-family thing was not going well.

For the rest of the meal, I did my best to respond to questions with very short answers.

Ana, the youngest and boldest of the three, asked me point-blank in Spanish, “So, you must be very rich, then?”

That question took me by surprise.  What gave her the idea that I had a lot of money?  I came here with a beat-up duffle bag and wearing clothes from Target.

“Uh,” I hesitated, not knowing how to set her straight without making her feel ignorant.

But Joaquin spoke up for me, “Not every American is rich,
mensa
.” He tugged affectionately on one of her long braids.

Ana blushed at her brother’s teasing.

Claudia, fifteen and more mature, continued the line of questioning with a bit more finesse, “But I am sure you live in a bigger house and have your own car.”

I thought of my parents sitting in the living room in our suburban home outside Chicago, the shelves filled with expensive knick-knacks, the large television off in the corner. My car, although a used one, was much nicer than the old brown sedan that played the role of family car at the Hernandez home.