Emily Goldberg Learns to Salsa (3 page)

“Like
Sophie's Choice.
But with clothes,” as she would put it.

“Right. Disco gear, scuba gear, spelunking gear, drag-race gear,” I teased. “On the list.
Every
possible contingency. In fact, you two should get started—that way I can just follow your lead.”

 

Surprisingly, I am not the only person out on the beach this early. I pass a scattering of sunbathers stretched across lounge chairs, working on their tans as though it were a paying job: shoulders squared and greased. Max and I usually brown, even without meaning to; one long bike ride and our cheeks are flushed bronze. Until now, that's as close as we've come to our inner Ramírezes.

I don't blame my mom, necessarily, for cutting us off from her former life. Which is not the same as saying that I understand why she made the choice she did. But I respect it, I guess. I don't imagine that her family had very much money. I don't think her sisters went to college. I don't know if they encouraged her to pursue a career. So maybe she thought a separation was the only way out? The only way to get ahead?

I'm only guessing here. Reaching. These are assumptions. Point being, my mom's decision was just that—her own.

I don't resent her choice. But it puts me in a curious position right now, feeling like an interloper among my own family. Affected by a death but not feeling entitled to my emotions.

I step past the early birds and make my way to the water's edge, dipping my toe in tentatively. It's warm enough to bathe in. I make my way slowly down the shoreline, taking in the expanse of hotels, bars, and restaurants. It's clear we are in serious tourist territory here, but two blocks out it's strip-mall city. My mother says the locals still like Isla Verde, even though it's not totally their own anymore.

She told us this at the airport, just as we boarded the plane. As if she'd been here recently—as if she knew.

There is a breeze playing off the surface of the ocean that brushes my hair off my face. The air feels light here by the water, not humid and cloying like it is on the beaches in New York. It's deceptive, I know. The breeze brings the temperature down by five degrees or so. It makes you forget how hot the sun is down here, so close to the equator. It's a false sense of security, the atmosphere along the shoreline. In weather like this, you could easily forget about sunscreen. But then you'd burn in an instant. Before you even realized what was happening.

 

Dinner is at our aunt Rosa's, my mother's next-oldest sister. It goes Amalia, Eva, Rosa, Gloria. My mother, Gloria, is the youngest. I just learned this the other day, after the wake, after seeing my mother and her sisters all lined up in a row. Watching them together, it is nearly impossible to discern the birth order. My mother's face is smoothest, but beyond that it's anyone's guess. Eva has two sons, Carlos and Juan, both of whom are gargantuan, muscled, and near silent. Rosa's son, José, waved to me grudgingly at the funeral but only when prompted by his mother, who waved at
my
mother only slightly less grudgingly. And unlike the myriad of female cousins that I've just discovered, these boys are nowhere to be found at dinner.

When we arrive, it's chaos, a mass of bodies weaving in and out of each other, some carrying plastic cups and paper plates, some balancing wriggling babies on ample hips. The women are at work multitasking—barking into the telephone, wiping grimy young faces, tossing trash into large plastic bags. Lucy is among them, I note without surprise, wiping down countertops efficiently. The men—vastly outnumbered—are for the most part gathered around an ancient television tuned to a Spanish variety show. On-screen, redheads in halter tops chirp brightly and gesticulate with lacquered fingernails.

Max just shakes his head. I'm sure he's dying for a smoke, but there's nowhere for him to disappear to. He knows my mother would freak out—and now is really not the time to test her.

“How long do you think we're staying?” he asks. He has a copy of
Ulysses
in his jacket pocket, but he wouldn't dare break it out in plain sight. Ten bucks says he cracks before the end of the night—crouches in a bathroom or under a table to knock off a chapter or two. Funny that he hides his reading as furtively as he does his smoking.

Or maybe that's sort of sad, considering. Other kids do drugs; my brother hides his classics habit.

“Are you hungry?” my dad asks. “There's a ton of food.” He shrugs his shoulder in the general direction of the kitchen.

I tiptoe toward the madhouse of meal preparation. A wave of thick, dense air ripe with cooking smells hits me dead on. Every square inch of the room is covered with people, not one of whom I recognize.

I recoil as my big toe is smashed into the floor. An involuntary “ow” escapes me.

“Perdón, lo siento—”
My assaulter stops short. Her brown eyes flash.

“Lucy,” I realize.

“Emily.” She does not look pleased to see me. “Excuse me.” She steps around me awkwardly, raising her arms so as not to hit me with the platter of fried bananas that she is carrying.

“Emily.”

Another platter—much heavier than it looks—is placed in my arms. Lucy's mother, Rosa, levels me with a gaze.
“Diga a los muchachos que necesitan comer ahora.”

She could be speaking Martian for all I understand. The edges of the platter dig into the flesh of my inner forearms.

This time I know exactly what she's saying. But I'm choking somehow on my tongue, tripping on the words. I can't think of what to say or how. What
is
my problem?

“Emily.”

I look up. This time it's my mother. I'm expecting her to be at least semi-amused by my ineptitude, but instead her face is blank, her eyes hollow and tired. “Emily, take the
plátanos
to the living room. Where Lucy went.”

To Rosa she says, “She doesn't speak Spanish.”

Mute, I backtrack carefully out into the melee, leading hip first over to the chipped Formica table where Lucy has laid her platter. I set mine down beside it. Lucy has her back to me, but she turns when she hears me.

“Thanks,” she says automatically. “My mom asked you to?” It's an observation, not a question. I nod. Like there's no other way I'd be pitching in. I guess I'm not as . . .
domestic
as she is.

Max shuffles over to investigate. “Bananas?” He leans into the steaming towers of grease-slicked fruit and sniffs.

“Plátanos,”
Lucy corrects him.

He spears one with a plastic fork, shoves it into his mouth, chews thoughtfully for a moment or two. “Bananas,” he decides after he's swallowed. “Not very ripe.” He puts down his fork and wanders off.

Lucy stares after him for a beat, then back down to the table. Pointedly she picks up his fork and drops it in the nearest garbage can.

I shrug. “He's fourteen,” I say, as though he couldn't possibly know better.

“
You're
not,” she counters.

And she's gone.

It occurs to me that Lucy doesn't much like me. It's an uncommon situation for me to be in. Avoiding conflict is sort of my thing. I'd rather gnaw my own arm off at the elbow than challenge Lucy on her words or call Noah out for being late to pick me up on a Saturday night.

Pathetic but true. What can I say? I hate tension. And the tension here is thick as Elmer's glue.

I survey the scene once more: Max has abandoned me, no doubt curled up clandestinely with James Joyce. My father is settled precariously on the edge of an overstuffed couch, concentrating aggressively on the variety show. The big-haired women have been replaced by a dog on a unicycle accompanied by a mariachi player. My only recourse, I decide, is a bathroom break.

When I emerge from the powder room, I find my mother huddled against the wall with Rosa and Eva. Eva's eyes are red-rimmed, and she's sniffling. My mother supports her with one arm around Eva's waist. Rosa pats Eva's shoulder. Rosa and my mother seem uncomfortable with each other. Then again,
uncomfortable
seems to be the norm here.

“
Mira
, it's the
nuyorican
!” Rosa laughs. It's clearly an attempt to cheer Eva up. She reaches out, and for one horrifying moment I actually think she's going to pinch my ass, but instead she merely grabs my cheek—the one on my face—between her thumb and forefinger and squeezes. It's all I can do not to cry out. My abject terror must be obvious because she cackles even more wildly, her whole body shaking with the exertion.
“Te enseñaremos el español, mamita,”
she says. “We'll teach you Spanish yet.”

“She took it in school,” my mother says, expressionless.

“I did,” I say lamely. “I got an A.”

We leave before I'm desperate enough to try a fried plantain or a piece of chorizo. We wrest Max from the tiny basement bedroom he has discovered—Joyce has been highlighted many passages over—and cab it back to the hotel. My father wants a good night's sleep so he can be fresh for travel tomorrow morning. Our flight is at 1 p.m., but he'll be up by eight, packing.

Later, much later, as I lie in bed waiting for sleep, I realize something that hadn't registered even as I stood before it. Amid the scents and sounds of Eva's kitchen: the vision of my mother holding a cigarette. She's back to smoking.

Max would be impressed.

 

The next morning I find myself up again at near sunrise, blackout curtains be damned. I shimmy into a pair of track pants, a tank top, and flip-flops, tuck a trashy paperback under my elbow, and wander with a buck or two down to the coffee bar just off the lobby. I'm curled up on a stiff leather couch, two chapters in and halfway through a diesel-fueled
café con leche
, when I notice a shadow across the pages.

“Must be good.”

My father nudges me and settles himself next to me on the couch. He's referring to my book, can see that the spine is cracked open down the middle. “Didn't you just start that yesterday?”

I check my watch: 10:03 a.m. How have I lost track of time? How has my father, who regards travel as a competitive sport, let me? Nothing gives him greater pleasure than shearing twelve minutes off an ETA.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “It'll take me, like, three seconds to pack. I promise.” This is not strictly true, but I can always forgo the blow dryer, just this once.

“Don't worry,” he says. “There's no need to rush.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my father?” I quip, poking at his ribs.

When he doesn't smile, I go quiet. Something's up.

“What's the deal?”

He sighs and runs his fingers across the top of his balding head, registering a tiny look of surprise at how little hair he actually has left. “It's your mother.”

I look at him questioningly.

“I'm sure you're aware that she isn't doing that well.”

“Her mother died,” I point out. “What exactly would ‘doing well' mean?”

“This is
your mother
we're talking about,” he reminds me. “She of the mighty Palm Pilot and the bottomless cup of coffee. Energy and control.”

I nod, thinking about her semi-catatonic state over the past few days. He makes a good point. I remember that she was smoking—practically chain-smoking—yesterday. For the first time in as long as I can remember.

“This whole thing has hit her pretty hard,” he says. I'm about to jump in and reiterate that I still don't find her reaction all that strange—death of a parent, etc.—but he takes a breath and plunges on. “She hasn't said much to me—hasn't said much of anything—but I think that after all these years of not having any communication with her mother, or any of her family, this is even more unsettling than it would normally be to someone in her position.”

It's a fair enough theory.

“I'm sure it was a head trip for her to see her sisters after so long,” I offer.