The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters Read online

  Bette brought a box of twenty-gallon-sized plastic bags to contain the clothes for Goodwill. I hesitated before shoving my pile into a bag. “You’re sure her daughter doesn’t want any of the clothes?”

  Sophia pulled out a T-shirt with a cartoon image of pigs copulating on the front —Macon bacon! “Hard call, but I’m thinking, probably not.”

  “She said to throw it all out, but if there’s anything nice, we can save it for her.” Bette lugged an armload of dresses to the bed to sort through.

  Sophie folded the pig T-shirt and reached for the Goodwill bag.

  Bette glanced up. “Throw that out. I hate to think of some poor person having to wear that grosero.”

  “Hey, it’s practically new,” argued Sophie.

  “Trash pile.” I pointed to the heap of cracked and dusty shoes I’d started.

  “Ooh, the formals!” Bette held up a long gown that reminded me of lemon chiffon pie: several layers of tulle and a satin bodice the color of a sunburst. I tried to picture the hatchet-faced Pam in it —maybe with her few tufts of rust-colored hair tucked into one of those turban things . . . but where would she have worn it? According to my sisters, the fanciest place she ever went was the track at Santa Anita.

  “Feel the fabric, though.” Bette handed me the dress.

  The skirt rasped my fingertips like low-grade sandpaper. “Ugh.”

  Bette disrobed another hanger. “Here’s something nice, though, this black dress.”

  “How’d she ever fit in that?” asked Sophie. “It’s like a size six.”

  “Hey, that’s mine.” I grabbed it from Bette. “I hung it to get the wrinkles out before I wear it to that las posadas thing.”

  Sophie widened her eyes in mock horror. “You’re going to that?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Sophie shook her head. “No fucking way. But it’s nice that you’re going, and that dress is perfect for it.”

  Bette handed me the hanger. “Definitely the las posadas look.”

  By noon, we’d finished with the closet, the entire bedroom for that matter, and we separated to tackle the smaller rooms —kitchenette, bathroom, hall closet. The plan was to meet again in the living room and lay siege to the cluttersome items with which Pam had filled every flat surface, including walls.

  In the bathroom, I removed the cutesy acrylics of a little boy and girl seated on their respective toilets reading newspapers. I threw Pam’s collection of joke books —Lawyer Jokes, Polish Jokes, Dentist Jokes —into recycling bins. Then, since I was there anyway, I scrubbed out the bathtub and sink. Scouring the toilet, I thought of Pam, who’d begun dying there. Apart from multiple indicators of poor taste, what kind of woman was she really? That she drank too much, everyone knew —everyone except my father, whose secret to never being fazed had much to do with not being observant. He had been shocked to find tiny bottles, airline-sized, stashed in hiding places throughout the house after she died. (“Dozens of them,” he had told us, shaking his head. “But she was going to A.A.”) What was it like for her that she had to numb herself with booze and cram her home with tasteless junk? How sad that her children cared little for her things, wanted no reminders of their mother’s life, while we Gabaldóns scrapped over every trace —photos, recipe cards, even hair clips —that our mother had left.

  “Poor Pam,” I said, scrubbing under the seat with the toilet brush.

  “What’d you say?” called Sophie from the hall.

  “Goddamn, I said, goddamn this is a lot of work.”

  “No shit.”

  Later, as we were tying up the bags we’d stuffed —eight in all —a sudden pounding on the door jolted me. It was the same officious rapping that signaled police raids on television. I scanned the living room for Bette’s stash box, thinking I should dive for it before the door was kicked in by narcotics agents.

  But Sophie said, “Rita’s here.” She unlatched the door and held it wide.

  “How come it was locked, huh?” Rita stepped over the threshold. “Are you trying to keep me out or something?” She laughed, fooling no one —that ha-ha-ha worked about as well as a smiley face on a T-shirt that reads: I Am Intensely Paranoid. Rita made rounds with the abrazos, though mine was a brief, mechanical thing.

  “Where’s Rafe?” I envied my brother-in-law’s calming effect on Rita.

  “He took Danni to the hotel for a nap.”

  “Well, you missed all the fun.” Bette pointed at the overstuffed trash bags in the living room. She stretched, yanked out her ponytail, and mussed her hair.

  Rita’s eyes bulged with suspicion. “You didn’t throw out anything important?”

  “So we weren’t supposed to throw out the important stuff?” Sophie scratched her head. “Gee, I must have misunderstood.”

  “You didn’t come across any of Mom’s things and take them for yourselves without giving the rest of us a chance, did you?”

  Sophie ignored her. “What’s for lunch?”

  “When’s naptime, is more like it?” Bette yawned.

  “I’m hungry, too. I’ll pick something up. What do you-all want?” I asked.

  “You-all,” repeated Rita. “You-all? Since when do you say ‘you-all’?”

  I sighed. “Okay, then, what do youse guys feel like eating?”

  “Ding-ding-ding!” Sophie said. “Break it up! Back to your corners!”

  “Come on, Loretta.” Bette grabbed her keys. “Let’s get take-out Chinese. I know a place nearby.”

  “Y’all come back now, heah?” Rita called after us.

  “You’re letting her get to you again,” Bette told me after we’d placed our order and slipped into a booth to sip mugs of beer. The tabletop and leatherette benches were bright red, the color that symbolizes happiness in China, but this shade reminded me of the flaming lakes that blaze when I shut my eyelids against the sun. A salty smell, the powerful aroma of chicken broth, emanated from the steamy kitchen.

  “She’s insinuating I’m some kind of fraud. By her logic, I’m not a Southerner, so if I use a Southernism, I’m a phony.”

  “Don’t let her bother you.”

  “What’s her problem, anyway?”

  “Think about it,” Bette said. “She can’t let herself get angry, can’t curse, so she’s decided to piss you off instead, so maybe you’ll blow up for her, and she can enjoy the spectacle from the sidelines. And, remember, she’s still the same skittish kid who’d run from the TV when the organ music got too intense, way before the monsters showed up.” Bette sipped her beer. “Except these days, she’s not running. She’s trying to act tough so no one knows how angry and scared she really is.”

  “Why is she in my face? I don’t notice her treating you or Sophie like this.”

  “Well, you scare her more than we do.”

  Back at the condominium, we found Rita rooting through the bags of clothes, presumably searching for heirlooms we had been callous enough to chuck out. “Take it all, if you want,” Bette told her. “You’ll save us from having to wait for Goodwill.”

  “That’s what I told her,” said Sophie.

  “I just want to know what you guys are tossing.”

  “Where does Dad keep the corkscrew?” I pulled open a drawer filled with a jumble of matchbooks, can openers, screwdrivers, pliers, pens, and loose keys.

  Rita stood, legs apart and hands on her hips like a superhero. All she needed was a cape flapping behind her. “You’re not drinking this early. You’re as bad as Pam. All of you are.”

  Bette rolled her eyes, yanked wide another drawer and handed me the corkscrew.

  In truth, I probably drank less than Rita, who enjoyed a beer now and again with Rafe. In Georgia, with Chris, I never drank. I never needed to. I uncorked the wine and poured it into three juice glasses. “I think Dad’s got some soda and there’s water,” I told Rita, pointing at the sink.

  By the time I had refilled my glass once, I felt mellow enough to turn to her and say, “Want to go to las posadas wi
th me?”

  “What is las posadas?” she asked. “Do you even know?”

  “Sure, it’s candles and singing, right? It’s when they reenact Mary and Joseph looking for shelter just before Jesus is born, isn’t it? Danni might like it.” I pictured my niece’s face aglow, her eyes shining by candlelight.

  “When is it?”

  “Tonight, at Aracely’s house. Cary’ll pick us up, if you want to go.”

  “Maybe.” She speared a hunk of chicken.

  “What I’m wondering is,” Sophie said, “do they serve hard liquor at las posadas or just wine and beer?”

  “Oh, hard liquor, I hope,” I said.

  “Forget it. If I want to see a bunch of borrachas, I can stay right here.”

  “Cary said it’s supposed to be a family reunion, and that’s the only reason I said I’d go. But now that I’m going, no one wants to come.”

  “Nothing to do with you,” Sophie said. “Aracely, her family, even Cary (though he’s our brother) singing and candles —that’s some mighty boring shit.”

  “Why can’t we make it like a family reunion?”

  “You don’t know because you don’t live here and have to deal with Dad all the time and put up with your useless brother and his selfish wife,” Bette told me, pointing her chopsticks for emphasis, “but we don’t want to be reunited that much.”

  I stood to pour myself another glass of wine, but instead I said, “I guess I better call Chris.” I headed for my father’s room to use his bedside phone. As I shut the door, I could hear my sisters laughing and talking without me.

  A few rings and Chris answered. “Hey, it’s me.” I smiled into the mouthpiece, as though she could see me. “The surgery went well. I’m just having lunch with my sisters now. It’s really great getting together again.”

  In the aftermath of my father’s surgery, the nursing staff enforced visiting regulations more strictly. Only two of us were allowed at a time in the intensive care unit. Bette and I took our turn first. We stepped into our father’s room to find him chatting up a blond nurse with a Slavic accent.

  “Hey, here’s my daughters. Come on, girls, meet Magda.” A gauze patch was applied to one side of his neck, and he looked pale, but otherwise he seemed the same as ever. “This here is Bette,” he said, “and that one’s my other daughter —”

  “Loretta,” I reminded him. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “What nice girls!”

  “How’s he doing?” asked Bette.

  “Great,” Magda said.

  “Magda talks Estonian,” my father told us. “Now, that’s one language I don’t speak.” He turned to Magda. “You know I’m a linguist.”

  Bette rolled her eyes. “Sure, Dad.”

  In the way some retirees give themselves over to golf or travel, our father had applied himself more rigorously to his lying when the pension kicked in. The bigger the whopper, the more of a kick he got. He said he was a parachutist on D-Day, a court reporter at Nuremberg, and a spy in Russia. Most of his imaginary exploits supposedly occurred during World War II.

  “I speak six or seven languages.”

  “Is that right?” Magda said.

  “During the war, I was a cryptographer, a code breaker. I had to learn French, German, Austrian, Dutch.” He lifted his hairy, spotted fingers to count off the languages. “And I already spoke Spanish and English, not to mention American.”

  “American is English, Dad,” Bette told him. She turned to give Magda a sympathetic smile, as if to say thanks for humoring the old coot.

  “Parlez-vous français?” asked Dad.

  “Un peu,” Magda replied, startling him.

  “I used to ride in the rodeo, too,” he said, changing the subject.

  Bette sank into the one visitor’s chair and sighed. “Not the rodeo story again.”

  “When was that?” I hadn’t heard this one before.

  “When I was first married, your mother and I were at the rodeo, and I went down to where they were riding the bulls.”

  “What rodeo?” I asked.

  “The rodeo.” He flicked his hand to show this didn’t matter. “So I climbed the slats of a pen and got on this bull.”

  Bette took an emery board from her purse. “Emphasis on the bull.”

  “Yeah, I got on the bull. They opened the gate and whoosh! What a ride, man!”

  “Wow, Mr. Gabaldón, that’s incredible.”

  “Emphasis on the incredible.” Bette worked the file over her nails.

  “Good story, Dad.” Though his tales never seemed to be grounded in any kind of shared reality or to ever have a point to them, I was glad to hear a new one.

  “And my wife,” he continued —quickly to show he wasn’t done weaving this one —“was up in the stands, and she said, ‘Hey, who is that guy riding the bull?’ ”

  “How could you hear her from the bullring?” asked Bette.

  “She couldn’t recognize me because of the hat. One of the cowboys clapped this hat on me. So she goes, ‘Who is that guy?’ She didn’t know her own husband!”

  Bette stashed the emery board in her bag. “We get the picture, Dad.”

  “Wow,” repeated Magda. “Well, I’ll let you visit with your daughters, Mr. Gabaldón.” She replaced the chart in its holder and backed out of the room.

  My father sank back into the bed. He fumbled at his mouth, and his dentures clattered on the swing-arm tray over his bed. His cheeks collapsed into his gums, making the stubble stand out on his chin like silvery quills. “What time is it?” he whistled.

  “A little before four,” I said.

  “It’s Saturday, Dad.” Bette stood to look out the window. “Oprah’s not on.”

  I showered and dressed before Cary was due to collect me for las posadas. After visiting our father, Rita and Rafe had picked up Elena and Aitch to take them to the carousel at Griffith Park. Bette and Sophie stayed behind at the condo, finishing with cleanup. When I stepped out of my father’s bedroom ready to go, Sophie let out a wolf whistle and sang “There she is, Miss Las Posadas” to the tune of the Miss America theme.

  “Knock it off, will you?” I smoothed my lipstick in the weird horse-harness-frame mirror near the entryway. “If you had any decency, you’d come with me.”

  “If you had any sense, you’d blow it off.” Bette stood in the kitchenette, loading the dishwasher.

  “I said I would go.” I plucked a loose thread from the hem. “So I have to go, unlike some people who think nothing of disappointing their only brother.”

  “Qué brother, ni brother. He’s a grown man, and I am way past letting a man tell me what to do.” Sophie crossed her arms over her chest and chanted, “Hell no, I won’t go. Hell no —”

  “Stop,” Bette begged. “I have a headache.”

  The phone rang, and Sophie lifted the receiver. “It’s Cary. He’s phoning from the security gate downstairs.”

  I pulled my blazer from the closet.

  “Have fun.” Bette waved a soapy spatula at me. “Don’t be too late, because tomorrow the real work begins.”

  “What?”

  “It’s our chance to tackle the storage area downstairs before Dad gets back.” She blew a stray lock of hair from her face.

  “You’re out of your mind.” I opened the front door, headed for the stairs, taking slow, deliberate steps, so they could catch up. I kept this up long after I realized they weren’t coming.

  At this particular las posadas, they served margaritas and beer, but no wine. I debated these choices momentarily before settling on margaritas, thinking they had to be stronger than beer. “Uno, I mean, una margarita, por favor,” I told Aracely’s mother, Pilar, a petite woman, who looked young enough to be her sister. And, in fact, I learned she’d given birth at the age of fifteen to Aracely.

  “Una margarita, yes.” Pilar took my jacket and gave it to her new husband, a dolorous middle-aged man with thick, curly black hair. “I speak English. Him, no.” She glanced at her esposo
. “Only Spanish. I try to teach, but he no learn nothing.”

  The sad man smiled with modesty, as though he had been praised. Cary and Aracely disappeared through the hallway.

  “Come in.” Pilar clutched my elbow and steered me toward a spacious room that had an oversized Christmas tree in one corner and a dining table laden with food at the center. This room fed into a wood-paneled den, in which a large group of people stood about laughing and chatting in Spanish.

  My brother and his wife reappeared, Cary holding beers while Aracely balanced an overfull margarita glass for me. “Here, drink this,” she said, as though administering medication.

  “What a nice place you have.” I glanced at the unadorned white walls —no paintings, no bookshelves, no books —and tapped a toe on the polished wood floor, surprised by the hollow sound this produced.

  “Come.” Pilar urged me into the room filled with people.

  The men had gelled and styled hair, leather jackets, tailored trousers, and crisp cotton shirts. The women were sleek and discreetly made-up, wearing black shifts with pearls or tight designer jeans and silk blouses. Many —men and women —smoked slender cigars. Cary had mentioned that Aracely’s stepfather, before marrying and becoming a legal resident, had landed an engineering job downtown through the help of his friends, also expatriate professionals. Clearly, these sophisticated Mexican nationals were those friends. Listening to their confident voices and merry laughter made me feel like the alien —an awkward, solitary outsider with no legitimate business on the premises. I swallowed the remainder of my drink. Beer would have been stronger.

  Pilar took my glass and called, “Ramón.” Her husband reappeared and whisked the glass away. Then she parted a cluster of people, heading for a sofa on which three boxer dogs sat, wearing identical red knit sweaters with black-and-white-checked sleeves.