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| Stevens. I mean a lot of us tried it back in school. I mean practically the whole Young Women?s Achievement Cadre was fooling around with each other. Except for you. You were always so serious and so heavy about everything. I remember once Genia and Luisa inviting me over for some crazy time together and I suggested bringing you along and they said no, that if anyone would rat us out to the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, it would be you.? Leti chuckled at the memory. ?Either that, or that you would quote from the Communist Manifesto or some such shit while we were playing around.? Chela laughed. ?You know she did that last night?she quoted from the Communist Manifesto.? ?You?re lying to me! What did they do, special order her from a catalog for you?? ?She was making fun of it, Leti, in a way. Ay, god, Leti!? Chela saw with dismay that the packet of grapes already lay empty. ?I?m such a selfish pig! I?m so sorry!? ?It?s all right, Chela,? soothed the other woman. ?Some Danish people who had the cabin rented out during the week left all of this food from the dollar-only stores. I?ve been getting plenty of treats.? She grew quiet for a minute, her face growing heavy as she looked out over the sea. ?I?m not struggling like he is, you know. In that last letter he writes of having to go for charity to eat. There are Catholic nuns that give out old bread and old vegetables and that is what he does to fill his stomach. But he swears that he is on the way to making it, and to eventually having the family together once again.? Chela scooted closer to the other dark woman, gently laying her arm over her back and reaching up to tussle her hair. ?You have to have faith, Leti,? she said quietly, catching her friend?s gaze, ?if anyone can accomplish this, it will be Rogelio. He always was a determined young man, and I remember how he fell in love with that baby when it arrived. It?s the real thing that you two have ? it will not end without his doing everything possible to send for you.? ?Chela,? sighed Leti. ?Even if they let me go to him, they won?t let us take the child. Every single couple I know of who has gone through this has had to leave the children with the grandparents here, and hope that in their staying together as a couple, that in time the kids will be all right.? ?And you know, Leti,? whispered Chela, hugging her tightly, ?there will always be some of us here who knew those parents - who remain behind ? to make sure that those children know that their parents did not leave from a poverty of love for them.? She wiped a tear from her eye and hiccupped into a laugh. ?If you don?t mind your son having a puta [?whore?] and a pata [?dyke?] for a guardian angel I will be glad to take the job.? Leti smiled between sobs. ?Chelita, you make it sound like these two things are permanent conditions.? ?Well, I don?t know what to say, Leti,? Chela answered as she also let the tears run down her grinning face. ?In a way I am glad that I didn?t ever get one of those invitations to play around back in school, because this doesn?t feel like a youthful experiment to me.? She paused to throw a pebble out towards the water. ?I think I am finally in love,? she concluded quietly. ?So perhaps she will take you away,? offered Leti hopefully. ?Perhaps she can take you to the United States.? ?Leti,? murmured Chela, laying back down on the sand and closing her eyes. ?Even if that was something that she wanted, what would I do in the United States? If Rogelio who is a man and who studied engineering has to beg for food, what would I do to earn my keep? And you know, being a whore in Havana is honest work as far as it is not about selling my feelings, not about really selling myself. But I will not go to the United States to be her whore - to be kept by her ? even if she also loves me. I would go crazy if I depended on her that way.? ?Goddamn, Chela,? said Leti despondently, as she mirrored her friend?s position on the ground and stretched out on the sand. ?They really did make a ?New Socialist Woman? out of you! I love you, Chela, but they fucked with your rat brain so that you think the cage is pretty even after they?ve stopped putting cheese in for you. You need to get out of here if you can.? ?This is my country, negra,? whispered Chela. ?This is where life makes sense to me. And you know? I think she could be happy here. But enough of this.? She reached over tapping the other woman?s arm to get her attention, and smiled. ?I am tired of talking of the things that trouble us. I guess it would not be such a bad thing ? seeing that I know very well what your husband is like in bed?? She continued past the surprised gasp from her companion at hearing the old history between them invoked, and ignored the sharp thrust of an elbow against her ribs; ?and that you yourself turn out to have such cosmopolitan experiences in your past ? if I regale you with those details you begged for earlier?? ~~~~~~ So?I am her canoe, thought Barbara dizzily as she re-read the poem for what seemed the hundredth time since waking. She was still intoxicated with the scent of her new lover, which rose delicately from the sheets and off of her own skin, as she lay on the bed, running her fingers over the page. Geez. Well, crap! The Southie girls liked to travel on me well enough. Fuck. I was the scary amusement park ride. Come on, Susie! Have you been on the Barbara Murphy yet? You get off and then you get off, and if you look down you might faint or puke, so you?ve gotta just close your eyes and count the seconds til the ride?s over and you get to go back to your boyfriend. Oh, hell. The thrill?s good, so maybe you go around a second time with your seat belt off screaming ?Look Ma! No hands!? Oh fuck, Chela. Chela you love me, don?t you? It?s not a game for you. You love me. What are we gonna do? She reviewed the stillborn romances of her maturity, women of academe and medicine who were drawn to her creative intelligence yet repulsed by her idiosyncratic social skills, or - worse - were disappointed to learn of her ?socially impoverished? background. How many dates had taken an ominous turn when, over dinner, Barbara could not keep up with a prospective partner?s pedigree of preparatory schools, summer camps, and exotic travel experiences? How many women who were the daughters and grand-daughters of well-to-do physicians, university deans and industrialists had decided that it was a poor match to court the daughter of a crippled laborer whose most prominent family members were petty thieves? Yeah. Ride the Barbara Murphy and maybe give her an acknowledgement in your publications after she connected the dots of your argument for you and showed you what your clit was for, but she is way too immature and fucked up for a real relationship. Heh. Like I didn?t know what people were saying. It seemed she attracted women well enough, and many of them women that she became quickly infatuated with, but none of them shared her eagerness for having something beyond brief and superficial, if sensuous, affairs. |
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