The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters Read online

  She laughs. “Too easy. Man, I could do that in the dark.”

  “Okay,” I say on a whim. “Let’s turn off the light.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yeah, let’s see if you really can make me look like you in the dark.”

  “Not completely dark, though. I got these candles. It might be kind of nice, different anyway.” Shirley paws through a drawer and pulls out a few long tapers. She lights these, dribbles wax to stick them upright on the counter. I flick off the light.

  Usually, Shirley’s bathroom is pretty awful-looking: greenish paint flaking off the walls, mold-peppered shower curtain, and chipped toilet seat. Now the flames flickering in the mirror shift and twist our shadows on the walls, making me feel like I’m in a magical otherworld, instead of a grubby, too small bathroom.

  Shirley shakes a bottle of foundation cream. “Just the face or the works?”

  I settle on the toilet lid. “The whole works.”

  While we’re waiting for the foundation to dry, she takes a rat-tail comb and starts teasing out my hair. “Guess you saw him out there.”

  I nod. “Who was he?”

  She goes, “Cathy’s father, my ex–old man.”

  “That was Cathy’s father?” The way Cathy has described her father —smart, handsome, generous, and kind —I pictured John F. Kennedy, Elvis, and Jesús Cristo all rolled into one, not some corny guy in pointed shoes.

  “Hush, I don’t want Cathy to hear.” She brushes my cheeks with a fine powder, which tickles my nose.

  “Your grandmother sure doesn’t like him,” I say.

  “Because he doesn’t pay us no support like he’s supposed to. Sure, he gives Cathy tons of junk, but he won’t pay support because we don’t let him see her.”

  “Why don’t you let him see her?”

  “Because the cat won’t pay support.”

  “You could let him see her once and then see if he pays.”

  “Oh, he’d like that, wouldn’t he?” She rattles a can of Aqua Net, before hissing a cloud of it over my head. The smell of it coats my tongue with a sharp metallic taste.

  After my hair is styled, Shirley brings out the nail polish. She lifts one of my hands, splaying the fingers. “You’re peeling your skin again, aren’t you?”

  “Not that much.” I have the habit of ripping my cuticles and shredding the top layers of skin from my fingers to the palms. This gives my hands a raw, marbled look, kind of like boiled ham, but it’s no big deal. Some kids bite their nails; others stutter. I just happen to peel off my skin.

  “I’m going to tell your dad to put those medicated gloves on you again.” Shirley worries that I’ll get an infection. When she gangs up with my father, they make me wear greasy Minnie Mouse gloves, which stink of menthol.

  “Come on, Shirley. I swear I’ll stop. I’ve just been nervous with Fermina dying and Nilda around, making me all jumpy.”

  “Man, what is her problem? When I took over empanadas last night, she acted like I’d come to rob the place.” Shirley pushes back my cuticles. “Very uncool.”

  “She’s okay, really,” I say, thinking of my uncle The Nasty Thing and how hard it must be to put up with him, enough to turn anyone into a maniac about filth. “She just gets overexcited with dirt in the house.”

  “But that house is spotless! I keep it cleaner than I do my own place!”

  “It’s just Nilda. The filth’s mostly in her head,” I say, and then I pause before asking, “Say, Shirley, what do you know about Fermina?”

  “Well, she was old, no? Over a hundred, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “but who was she? Like, where did she come from?” Maybe if I figure out who Fermina was, then I’ll find out about that gift thing Loretta brought up.

  Shirley shrugs. “Some kind of Indian, I think. She didn’t talk too much about herself, but Fermina was cool people.”

  Sudden pounding on the bathroom door makes us both jump. “Mommy! Mommy!” Cathy cries on the other side. “Mommy, Rita said a bad word.”

  Shirley yanks open the door, and Cathy tumbles into her arms, bawling and blowing snot bubbles from her blunt little nose.

  “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “Rita said a bad word to me!” Cathy blubbers. “She said the S-word.”

  “The S-word?”

  “Shit!” Cathy buries her cowlike face in Shirley’s sweatshirt, wailing like someone’s whipped her with a tire iron. “She said I’m full of shit!” Over her shoulder, I spy Rita in the hallway, a pinched look on her face.

  I unclasp the pin and pull the sheet off. “I better take her home.”

  Shirley’s on her knees, rocking Cathy in her arms, trying to calm her down. She nods at me. “Come over later,” she says, “so I can finish.”

  “I’ll try.” I step around her. “Sorry, Cathy, and Rita is, too.”

  “I am not,” Rita calls from the hall. “I’m not one bit —”

  I stopper her mouth with one hand and scoop her up with my other arm. She’s tall for her age, but skinny and light. As I’m lugging her out the bungalow, and she’s trying to bite my hand, I don’t forget to thank Señora Trejo for having us over and I wish her buenas tardes.

  When we’re outside where no one can see, I dump Rita on the grass and push her down when she struggles to stand up. “You stupid,” I say. “I can’t take you anywhere.” I sock her arm, which sends her into hysterics. What kills me about Rita is how she acts all big and bad, but when it comes right down to it, she’s the biggest gallina in the family, next to Cary. I don’t understand why a person who’s scared of getting hurt is always talking such garbage that you have no choice but to beat the crap out of her. I throw a few last chingazos, real mild ones because she’s such a freaking crybaby.

  When she catches her breath, she says, “I’m going to tell on you.”

  “Yeah, you go ahead, Rita, and I’ll really let you have it,” I tell her as I head for the house. I open the screen door and close it behind me in a calm way, though I’m worried that Nilda might overreact. My aunt doesn’t have kids of her own, so these scuffles freak her out, as if we’re going at each other with chain saws.

  Nilda’s sitting at the table sorting beans for supper. Ping, ping, ping —she’s dropping the good beans into the pot and plucking out dirt plugs, half-beans and rusty-looking bits. I put my arm around her shoulders and say, “You make the best beans, Tía.” I plant a sweet kiss on her cheek. “No one gets them as tender and tasty as you do.”

  She smiles and glances up at me. “My God, what happened to your face? And your head? You look like a streetwalker!”

  I pat my hair. “I was just playing beauty shop. That’s all.”

  Outside, Rita is working up to a full-bodied squall for when she parades in.

  “¿Qué pasa?” Nilda squints through the screen. “Is that Rita?”

  She already sounds excited, so I say, “Yeah, she fell from the avocado tree again.”

  “Cómo molesta. She knows she’s not supposed to be up there.”

  “I know,” I say, making my voice rise from the senselessness of it. “I told her to come down, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “¡Dios mío!” Nilda rises for the door as Rita slams in, sobbing so much she’s hiccoughing. Part of me wants to applaud; she’s giving such a great performance. Nilda gathers the kid in her arms, saying, “Did you sprain anything when you fell?”

  “I didn’t fall. Bette beat me up!”

  Nilda shoots me a look. I raise my eyebrows and shake my head. Nilda fingers Rita’s head like it’s a melon she might buy. “Where did you hurt yourself?”

  Rita sucks in a huge breath and says, “I didn’t hurt myself. Bette hurt me!”

  “I did not.”

  Nilda glances from Rita to me, as though trying to decide which one to believe. She’s likely leaning toward old Rita, since I am not exactly famous for telling the truth. Rita, on the other hand, is nearly a menace with honesty. But everyone knows ther
e’s always a first lie, and a lie to avoid getting in trouble is the usual first lie.

  Then Rita blurts, “You big old bitch!”

  “¡Jabón!” shrieks Nilda. “Run, get me the Palmolive!”

  I sprint for the green bar on the edge of the tub. It’s nice and soft, frothy even, from sitting in a puddle of water. I hand it to Nilda without even wiping off the runny parts. Rita’s yowling makes my ears buzz like I’m sitting too close to the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

  Sophie wakes and starts screaming, too, so I slip into the bedroom to get her, and there’s Loretta, right on her bed nearby, reading a book and holding a pillow over her ears. She can’t be bothered to comfort Sophie, even though she’s just a few steps away. I calm the kid down, and Sophie gives me a strange look as she takes in the effects of my beauty treatment. She touches my cheek. “Pobrecita.”

  Loretta lets out a snort of laughter.

  “You mean bonita.” I’m always trying to teach Sophie the right Spanish words for things. “Bonita means pretty. Pobrecita means poor thing.”

  Sophie’s brown eyes are sharp and alert, though her cheeks are flushed, damp with sleep. “I know,” she says, patting my hand. “Pobrecita.”

  Of course, Loretta finds this hilarious, and I guess it is kind of amusing, so I laugh, too. I’d hate to give the kid a complex. Then I turn to Loretta and ask what she’s reading. I don’t like her taking my Valley of the Dolls without asking.

  She mumbles, “Dog dizzies.”

  “Dog Dizzies?”

  “Dog Diseases. It’s a book about dogs and why they get sick. I got it from the library, if you have to know every detail.”

  I flash on what she told me earlier. She can’t possibly believe that business about healing animals. No way. “Hey, you want to go to the store with me? We could take Sophie in the stroller.” It’d be a shame to waste this makeup job and hairdo on just the family. But I wouldn’t want to stroll down Alvarado by myself like this —even pushing a baby stroller. “I got some money. We could get an Eskimo Pie, split it three ways.”

  Loretta glances up, a suspicious look on her face.

  “Maybe we could go over to Desiree’s.” Someone should see me like this, even if it’s just my ex–best friend from way back in the fourth grade.

  “Fermina’s Rosary is tonight,” she says.

  “I know that, dummy. We’d be back in time. What do you say? Want to go?”

  “Not really,” Loretta says, turning back to Dog Diseases.

  After dinner, Nilda steps into our room, all serious, to perch on my bed and talk with us. “Now, it’s up to you girls,” she says, “whether you want to go to Fermina’s Rosary or if you want to stay here with Mrs. Huerta and the little kids, and you want to remember her as she was.”

  “Remember her as she was.” Loretta sometimes repeats words or phrases she likes to herself.

  “You want to stay then?”

  “No, I want to go,” Loretta says.

  “How come Shirley’s not watching the kids?” I ask.

  “Pues, your daddy asked her, and she said the little girl is sick.”

  “Calfie?” asks Loretta, mispronouncing the name on purpose to emphasize the poor kid’s resemblance to a small cow.

  “Yeah, she’s got trouble with her stomach.”

  “Stomachs,” says Loretta, who can be pure mean.

  “I’m going to the Rosary,” I say, ignoring her. To be honest, I don’t enjoy seeing dead people in caskets, and I’m not wild about kneeling around the various hard parts of the church floor and praying at all the Stations of the Cross, though I can’t remember if this is just a Lent thing or how we pray for the dead. But how would it look if Loretta goes and I stay home? It might seem like I don’t care about Fermina that much or like Loretta’s more mature than me.

  “Bueno, if you want to go, you girls better clean up. You better comb out that, that rat’s nest, Bette, and put in some braids,” Nilda says. “Scrape that junk off your face, too.” She stands, smoothing her skirt. “Afterward, we’re going to Stella’s, so you want to look decent over there. She’s got that nice boy, that Norberto. Remember him?”

  Loretta and I curl our upper lips. We remember Norberto all right. He’s the kid who likes to strip the blouses off our Barbie dolls to touch what he calls their “titty bones.” Last I’d heard, he’d had an operation for the growth in his nose, which caused him to whistle when he breathed. “I thought he was in the hospital.”

  “He’s well now,” says Nilda as she rises from the bed. “Hurry up and get ready.”

  “What are you wearing?” I ask. Of all my aunts, Nilda has the best clothes, though she doesn’t make too much money working as a nurse’s aide for an old doctor, and The Nasty Thing is mainly a bum.

  “I’m wearing that black linen dress with the turban hat and my oxblood pumps and clutch. You think that’s okay, for luto?”

  I picture it all and nod my head, though I’ve some doubts about the oxblood pumps and clutch with black linen. But if anyone can carry these colors off, it’s Nilda. Jackie Kennedy has nothing on my aunt, when it comes to style.

  “Now, come on, you two better get ready. The Rosary’s at seven,” she says before stepping out of our room.

  I stand before the closet, trying to decide what to wear, and Loretta puts a marker in her book. She strips off her shorts and shirt, pulls a navy shift over her head, kicks off her tennis shoes, and steps into black loafers. She doesn’t even change her socks! The whole process takes a minute. Then she flops back on the bed and reopens Dog Diseases.

  “You’re going to go like that?” I ask.

  She turns a page. “Yeah.”

  “But you didn’t even look in the mirror.”

  She shrugs.

  “You should at least brush your hair.”

  “Hmm,” she murmurs.

  “You look weird. Your glasses are crooked, your legs are too skinny, those socks don’t match that dress, and your knees are grimy.”

  She doesn’t even bother to answer, much less jump up and make herself more presentable. What’s the point of being a big sister to someone like this? She never listens, never takes my advice. I might as well nag at a brick. The worst thing is, once we get to the Rosary, it will be “la Loretta” this and “la Loretta” that and “qué bonita” and “qué linda” all over the place. It’s enough to make me puke. All of the aunts and uncles will be practically standing in line to pinch her cheeks. “Peaches and cream,” they’ll tell her, or “que rosita.” While I’m so freckled and brown, I might as well be coated with invisible paint.

  Though I hate to, I duck in the bathroom to undo Shirley’s beautiful work. I have to really scrub, too, because it never occurs to my father to buy stuff like cold cream. I can’t wait to turn fifteen, so I can work and fill the medicine chest with Noxema, Clearasil, Aqua Net, Dippity-Do, and some deodorant other than Right Guard, and Kotex, for when the time comes, and Nair, or at least some decent razors.

  I brush out my hair, making it as dull as a dead cat’s fur. I hope people at the Rosary will think mourning has taken a toll on its luster. As I’m pinning it into a bun, I hear Nilda’s voice buzzing through the wall. She’s in my father’s room. I barely make out what she’s saying, but I hear my name. I crack the door open without a sound.

  “What were you thinking, hombre?” Nilda says.

  “I didn’t tell her nothing,” my father says.

  “Por Dios, cállate la boca,” Nilda warns him. “Do you want everyone to hear?”

  “Déjame solo.”

  “This is not a good time. Leave it alone. That’s all I am saying.”

  “Ay, Nilda.” My father sighs in such a way that I know he will do as she says. His doorknob jiggles, and I ease the bathroom door shut.

  I claim the front seat for the ride to the church. I usually sit up front and try to keep my eyes off street signs and billboards to avoid car sickness. Reading these even from up front can make me lose my dinn
er in a flash. Plus, my father drives at such a crawl that every stop, every start, every turn, feels like the swell of a wave in the middle of a lazy sea. I swear the man relies on the earth’s rotation for momentum. And, naturally, he’s puffing on a stinky Camel.

  I say, “Hey, Dad, can’t we roll down a window?”

  “Nope, can’t do it.”

  “The smoke’s making me sick. It’s like a gas chamber in here.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  When we finally get to the church, the lot is full, but my father circles and circles like a vulture, until a pickup truck pulls out of a choice space in front, and Dad swoops in. He stubs out his cigarette, turns off the engine, and says, “Okay, get out.”

  As soon as we step into the church, I about gag on the incense clouds boiling up from the thurible. Loretta claims to like the stuff. She’s sniffing at it with such pleasure that I want to punch her arm. The hot, stuffy church fills with the same faces that I saw for my mother’s Rosary and funeral over a year ago.

  This group is mainly a herd of oldsters who speak a lilting no-pause Spanish that jams paragraphs together to sound like a single, superlong word. The women are overly perfumed. They wear hazardous costume jewelry that jabs you when they hug, and they are always hugging. The men are devoted to cheap, shiny suits and ugly ties. Needless to say, there are zero cute guys among them. Stella’s son, Norberto, with his vast nostrils and connecting eyebrows, is the only young one in the group.

  As we make for a front pew, the priest is setting up. He’s new to the rectory, just came over from Spain. He rides a motorcycle and owns a leather jacket. People freak out and scream “Hippie!” when an ordinary male lets his hair get shaggy, but a priest can get away with braids like Sitting Bull. This guy’s sun-streaked locks touch the collar of his cassock, and when he forgets something from the vestry, he shakes his head, cracking a long-dimpled grin. Yep, it’s pretty sad when the hottest guy at church is the priest.

  Sadder still is Fermina’s coffin in front of the communion altar, the powder blue lid propped open. I catch a glimpse of the cream-colored satin lining, the stiff lacy trim, and that’s all. I don’t want to see more.