The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters Read online

  Rita nods and says, “José died.”

  “Oh, my God!” Bette’s almond-shaped eyes fill. Rita knows her oldest sister detests their uncle, but she rarely passes on an opportunity for a good cry. Right after losing the baby, weeping was all she did for days on end.

  “Come off it.” Rita cracks apart the frozen tortillas with a butter knife. “You never even bothered to see him in the hospital.”

  “I’m thinking of Nilda.” Bette’s voice breaks. “Poor Nilda, all alone.”

  “Nilda’s fine,” Rita says. “Stay for supper and see for yourself.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to be somewhere. Where’s Sophie?”

  Rita shrugs. “Who knows?” Since her accident last spring —she weirdly fell down a hill at the park, fracturing her wrist —and the eye operation that summer, fifteen-year-old Sophie spends most of her time with her friends, Aracely and Rosa. Except for meals, she’s rarely home. “Where’s Luis?” Rita asks.

  “Working graveyard.” Bette pulls open the refrigerator door.

  “So why can’t you stay to eat?”

  “Mind your own business.” She slams the door shut.

  “Guess who I saw today?” Rita says.

  “Who?”

  “Shirley. Remember Shirley?”

  “Shirley!” Bette’s cheeks dimple. “How is she?”

  “She looks great. She’s married now, has a kid and another one on the way. She gave me her number, said you should call,” Rita says, but Bette’s not listening.

  “Cool,” she says with a glance at the wall clock. “Hey, since Sophie’s not here, could you do me a favor?”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “If Luis calls, will you tell him I’m taking a nap?”

  “You mean lie?”

  “Not lie, just tell him I’m taking a nap.”

  “Do I look like Sophie, or even as stupid as Cary? This is me, Rita, and I do not lie, not for you, not for anyone. Tell your own lie. You’re the expert, after all.”

  Bette pauses, an uncertain look on her face. “I don’t like to overdo it.”

  So they both have doubts. But Rita loses this thought in a dizzying rush of precognition. This scene: the kitchen, the ticking clock, the frosty tortillas in her hands, her face reflected sideways in the butter knife, this conversation with Bette —all of it has happened before. She can almost predict what is coming next. Almost.

  Loretta enters the kitchen, glances at Bette, and says, “What are you doing here?”

  “Jesus, I’m still a member of this family.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Loretta reaches for the canister of rice.

  “I traded shifts with this girl.”

  “Staying to eat?”

  “No, I can’t. I’ve got to be somewhere.”

  Rita can’t resist. “She just dropped by to find someone to lie to Luis when he calls here looking for her.”

  “I’ll do it.” Loretta pulls a pot from a cupboard.

  Rita gawks at her sister, and Bette narrows her eyes. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch. I don’t mind lying. It’s nothing to me.” Loretta pours water into the pot. “I’ll just say they picked you to replace the pope, and you had to fly out to Vatican City for the induction, or whatever. I’ll tell him anything you want.”

  “Just tell him I’m taking a nap. That’s all. Don’t embellish, don’t complicate.”

  “I think I can handle that,” Loretta says.

  A car honks from the alley. “I’ve got to go,” says Bette, her face shiny and eyes bright. “Thanks, Loretta.”

  “You forgot to say, ‘I owe you one.’ ”

  “One what?” Bette asks.

  “A lie.”

  “Of course,” Bette says. “Anytime you want.” She pulls open the door and rushes out.

  Rita races to the kitchen window and lifts the curtain. Some dude with slicked-back hair and wraparound shades sits in the driver’s seat of a red Triumph that’s pulled into their drive. He leans to kiss Bette when she slides into the seat beside him. “Who’s that?” Rita asks.

  “Some criminal, a drug dealer,” Loretta says, “and a fence, I think.”

  “A fence?”

  “Someone who sells stolen property.”

  “How’d she meet him?”

  “How else?” Loretta asks. “He’s a friend of Luis, like everyone else in the world.”

  Bette jokes that her husband is the Chicano Will Rogers; he never met a guy he didn’t like, or who didn’t like him. And no one has become a closer friend to him these past few years than Cary. Watching the car pull away, Rita almost feels sorrier for her brother than for Luis. “But why?” she asks.

  “Because he’s stupid and dangerous, so he’s just right for Bette —after stupid, but boring, Luis.” Loretta’s the anti–Will Rogers, Rita thinks. Except for their brother, Cary, Loretta’s never met a guy she likes. She continues, “At least, the Criminal doesn’t drink himself into a coma every night.”

  Loretta’s stirring rice into the boiling water when the phone blurts a half-ring. She strides across the kitchen, lifts the receiver. “Hello . . . yes, but she’s taking a nap right now. . . . Okay, sure, I’ll tell her.” She hangs up and returns to the stove, stirring the bubbling pot once more before covering it tightly with the lid.

  At supper, Nilda’s still preoccupied with Patty Hearst, the editorial she’d read in the paper. “Bah, there’s no compassion anymore, no forgiveness for that girl.”

  Rita’s father has little to say on the subject. But Loretta weighs in. “You’d expect forgiveness,” she tells Nilda, “after suffering all that time.”

  Nilda nods. “And being brainwashed —how could she know what was going on?”

  “I’d forgive her,” Rita says, without knowing why, and she takes her aunt’s hand.

  But her aunt blushes and pulls away. “Déjame sola. I’m trying to eat.”

  “What about the funeral?” her father asks.

  “We’ll have it over at Saint Viviana’s. I don’t like that priest at Sacred Heart. Last Sunday, he criticized women for dyeing their hair, said they could be putting that money in the collection plate.” She strokes her own Miss Clairol Medium-Ash tresses.

  “Besides, Saint Viviana’s is pretty rinky-dink,” Sophie says with a wink. “It won’t be that obvious that we’re like the only mourners.”

  “Cállate la boca.” Nilda turns to Cary. “You’re going to be a pallbearer.”

  “Me, Luis, and Dad, but you need more than three.”

  “I heard you can hire altar boys,” Nilda says.

  Rita flexes her bicep. “I’m strong. I could do it.”

  Loretta peers at her over the top of her glasses. “Nothing you’d like more than burying José,” she says in a low voice so only Rita can hear.

  “Absolutely not. Girls can’t be pallbearers.” Nilda purses her lips and shakes her head. “At least, it was quick in the end.”

  “What happened anyway?” Rita asks.

  “I went to check on him after you left. He was sleeping, just like a baby. Then he moved real quick, like in surprise, and that was that.” Nilda scrapes back her chair and stands. “Oígame, Sophie. I want you to take forty dollars from my purse to buy a nice black or navy blue dress and get that hair cut, you hear me?”

  “I bet it was like falling,” Rita speaks her thought aloud, “like falling in a dream.”

  Nilda dips her head, crosses herself. “I hope so.”

  SUBJECT: FERMINA/CAPTIVITY

  WPA: 6-28-38 —DC: HMS

  June 27, 1938

  Words: 531

  BARTERED AT THE RIO GRANDE

  The captives traveled with the Navajo to the Rio Grande. Many strangers gathered there. They spoke strange languages, their speech sounding to Fermina like dogs barking. These people had buffalo hides, blankets, sheep, sacks of meal, and many more women and children —begrimed, weary, and roped to one another, as Fermina and the others t
aken from her village had been bound just before reaching the riverbank.

  The Navajos loaded their horses with sacks of cornmeal, hides, and dried meat, leaving their captives with a yellow-haired man. This man herded the Hopi women and children onto a wagon, which they rode for several miles. When they reached a settlement, he led the captives into a mud barn that he sealed with a metal latch. Darkness fell, and the captives pushed on the door until the latch pried out. They slipped out of the barn, racing for the cottonwoods near the river. Then they separated. Some continued eastward. Others headed for the mountains. Fermina and her mother hurried toward the wagon road that brought them from the river. They hiked all night. Before daybreak, Fermina’s mother stoned a jackrabbit, which she skinned and roasted. The meat was stringy and tough, but they devoured every scrap and sucked on the bones.

  The next day, horses appeared on the wagon road. Fermina and her mother hid in the brush, but a rider spotted them. One seized Fermina, trussed her with his lariat, and loaded her onto his horse, while the other struck down her mother with the butt of his shotgun. Blood pooled on the sand beneath her. The riders quarreled before remounting their horses. They rode off with Fermina, who stared —stunned and silent —after her mother until she disappeared from sight.

  The men took Fermina to another settlement and locked her again in a darkened adobe barn. After a long time, the door swung open and an old woman scuttled inside. She spoke to Fermina in Tewa, her mother’s language. The woman told Fermina her name was Pacencia and explained this was Chato Hidalgo’s farm. She said Fermina should stop weeping, that she should save her strength. She handed Fermina flatbread, and while the girl ate, the woman said Hidalgo was a lazy man, who liked to sleep all day and gamble at night. He was not a good man, she said, but if the girl worked hard, he would feed her.

  Over the next months, Fermina stayed by Pacencia’s side, learning her tasks. She helped the old woman bake bread in the horno, gather brown eggs from under the hens, sweep the floors, and wash clothes by boiling them in a tub over an open fire. She traveled with her weekly to draw barrels of river water.

  One day, men in dark blue shirts rode out to collect Hidalgo. When he returned, he landed a hard slap on Fermina’s cheek. Then he took a jug from the cellar into the cuartito and slammed the door shut. Too stunned to cry out, Fermina fingered the stinging skin. Pacencia spat on the floor and warned Fermina to keep her distance from Hidalgo: even a lazy man can be dangerous enough to destroy a life.

  9

  THE MINI-MART AND THE TEMPLE —SOPHIA: 1981

  After hunching over the sales tables at the kids’ clothing store where you work, you stretch and massage your forearm, the dull ache a reminder of the spill at the park four years ago, the cracked ulna that should have knitted by now, and those girls. Where are they now? Married, you bet, pregnant with toddlers. Aracely sees Elizabeth at church, says she’s gotten fat since her husband split, leaving her with twins, and her hair’s falling out. As you finish refolding the neon green and pink short sets in sizes 4 to 6X, you wonder if she’ll turn up here to shop for her toddlers. What would you say to her? We have some darling knit caps, Elizabeth. True, they’re for children, but they stretch. And by the way, did I mention my boyfriend? . . . You picture Harold, his back, his buttocks, and his phallus, thick as a tree root, but warm and pulsing. . . . Your stomach tightens with desire before you can push the image away to get through the afternoon.

  The store has sold only one of the pink sets —no doubt to a customer blinder than you. Somehow, the Wee Folks buyers have overlooked the fact that the psychedelic era ended, but even if it were in full swing, not that many people can stand the sharp headaches caused by staring too long at these aggressive colors —headaches like the one hammering behind your eyeballs as you lumber up front to find Lourdes, propped in a seat behind the counter.

  You reach for the inventory binder. “Well, we only sold one set.”

  Lourdes groans, shifting creakily in the folding chair. God forbid you should sit during your eight-hour stint. Once you leaned your rump against the counter, and she nearly exploded with rage. But Lourdes is pregnant, and what’s more, she’s the store manager. She could string a hammock in the stockroom for napping if she wanted. “You guys aren’t ‘suggestive selling,’ like I showed you.”

  “I’m always telling customers their kids have the perfect complexion for these daring colors, but they take it like an insult.” You push your glasses up. They still feel new —delicate wire frames and smoke-tinted lenses that hide your odd eye, less spastic since the operation, but still not quite right.

  “Then I guess Fatima’s not pushing stuff like she should,” Lourdes says.

  “Give her a break. She barely speaks English.” Poor Fatima just arrived from Iran, which she calls Persia, and she’s just figuring out that dimes, though smaller, are worth more than pennies and nickels.

  “I’m not sure she’s going to work out,” Lourdes says.

  “It’s just that she doesn’t speak English that well, not that she’s a blockhead —”

  “Hey, that reminds me. Is your boyfriend still looking for a job?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Wee Folks needs a truck driver.”

  “What happened to Boots?” You’re fond of the aging black man who, along with racks of hideous clothing, delivers cornball jokes at the back door —Knock-knock. Who’s there? Lettuce. Lettuce, who? Let us in, and you’ll find out.

  “His wife caught him screwing around on the overnights. She’s making him retire.”

  “No way. He’s a grandfather. He’s never come on to me.”

  Lourdes just gives you a look. “Anyway, they’re looking for someone to replace him, and I thought maybe Harold would be interested. The pay’s not bad, and drivers get all kinds of benefits we don’t get here on the floor. I’ve got an application somewhere.” She opens a drawer and paws through the sticker guns, price tags, charge slips, and pens.

  You hesitate. “Um, is there a test for this job?”

  “Huh?” Lourdes slams the drawer and yanks another wide. “Here it is.”

  “Like, do the applicants have to pass a written test?”

  Lourdes furrows her brow. “I doubt it. He can drive, can’t he?”

  “Sure, he drives all over the place.” You fold the application into your purse, and your ever-rumbling gut goes silent, like somebody finally pulled the plug on a faulty air-conditioning unit. “Thanks, Lourdes,” you say with such feeling that it sounds phony as hell. “You want me to receive that shipment of pajamas in back?”

  “Oh, leave it alone, or we won’t have anything to do tomorrow. Help me decide on a theme for the nursery.” Lourdes pulls wallpaper swatches from another drawer. “I’m thinking ‘Noah’s Ark,’ but Hector likes the ‘Cow Jumped over the Moon’ stuff.”

  You glance at the patterns. A couple that needs a theme for a baby’s room is about as far removed from you and your jobless boyfriend as Prince Charles and Lady Diana are in planning their royal wedding in July. Even so, as Lourdes arranges the samples on the counter, a pinprick of envy jabs you.

  Marriage, or even moving in together, is unfathomable on what you earn. Harold desperately needs a job, but who would ever hire such a gangling dope? About the only thing he can do is drive. That’s why this opportunity feels like such a blessing —gracias, Virgencita —you imagine the application glowing in your purse, imbued with heavenly light. If Lourdes had let you work in the back room, you’d have cut a jig between the shipping cartons and shot a private prayer to the Blessed Mother, who surely arranged this. Instead, you say, “I don’t know, but this giraffe/giraffe, elephant/elephant, monkey/monkey thing feels redundant to me. And cows jumping over moons might not be the most soothing thing for a little kid.” You hold the swath away to focus on the sharp black hooves, the swollen pink-tinged udders. “I mean, I’d wonder, like, where do they land?”

  “Harold,” you say as you climb into the cab of his turquoise truck
after work, “do you know what time it is?” You like to give him the benefit of the doubt because he doesn’t do too well with visual stimuli like clock faces. His glasses are even thicker than yours. (Your children will likely need seeing-eye dogs from birth.)

  “Uh-h-h, after six?”

  “Do you remember what time my shift ends?”

  “Five-thirty, right?”

  “Why didn’t you come for me on time?” You smile to let him know you’re not angry, just curious.

  “Oh, I’m late. You’re not mad, are you?”

  “No-o-o,” you say, determined not to spoil the evening.

  “Let’s get take-out burritos over at Taco King.” His voice rises in anticipation of the treat.

  You hate to disappoint him, but you won’t have money for take-out food until payday. “Why don’t we eat at my house instead? This is Loretta’s last weekend home before she heads back to vet school. I bet she’ll fix something pretty good.”

  “Do you think she’ll make burritos?”

  Loretta would no more serve burritos for Sunday dinner than she’d boil up hot dogs on Thanksgiving. “She might.”

  In fact, Loretta has roasted a Boston butt, with pearl onions, quartered red potatoes, thick chunks of carrot and celery stewed in bubbling broth. As soon as you step in the back door, aromatic gusts from the oven caress your face like a lover’s touch. You’d like nothing more than to pull the roasting pan from the oven and ladle a bit of browned potato and caramelized onion into your saliva-flooded mouth. Instead, you lead Harold toward the front room to tell him about the job. That’s how excited you are about it.

  But Harold isn’t so thrilled. “Driving a truck?”

  “That’s what truck drivers do, honey.”

  “I don’t know, Soph.”

  “The pay is good, and you get benefits. Have you ever had benefits before?”

  “No, but —”

  “You can’t turn your back on benefits. And, what’s wrong with driving a truck?”

  “Nothing, but you know my mom —”