Soledad: A Novel

by Angie Cruz

She looks exhausted, as if the life was beaten out of her. She’s not bruised up the way Manolo would leave her after one of his fits, it’s more like her spirit has taken a beating.

I mean I’ll do anything to get myself out of this neighborhood ’cause no matter where I go it’s as if Mami could watch me from the back of her head.

Tía, you said it yourself how ungrateful Soledad is.

Mami don’t shut up about her. She’s like, Flaca why can’t you be more like her. As if I want to be like her boring-ass. Flaca, why can’t you do better in school? Why can’t you dress more like una señorita? You can learn a lot from Soledad you know. Agh! Why can’t she learn something from me?

Caty started yelling, You hit some girl, Flaca. A freaking white girl. When I took a peek and looked, I was like, That ain’t no hippy white girl chick, that’s Soledad.

I should’ve known Soledad was around, ’cause the street smelled kind of stank.

Mami bugging, talking about me having to get a job. Especially since Papi have left us, she super paranoid about money. She says I ain’t no niña no more, that I gots to start acting like a señorita and shit.

I know she don’t want to hear it, but maybe it’s those tight puta shoes she wear with the three-inch heels that make her feet feel so big.

I’ll leave you just like Soledad left Tía, I tell Mami that and sometimes it shuts her up, and other times it just make her chase me with a belt. A belt she’s never used but that belt is as long as my leg Tía.

She tells me to get a job, do something with myself, but then she flips when I’m not home. If I can’t see you from the window you’ve gone too far, she says. How she expects me to get a job if I can’t go nowhere?

Tía you know how Mami and Soledad always been real close. You always said that daughters never like their mothers as much as their aunts when they’re growing up. Life would be too easy if they did.

My mother always has one ailment or another. But she always tried to hide it, especially around Gorda and my grandmother. They don’t tolerate sickness. To them it equates weakness.

Gorda thinks she can solve everything, my mother would say. No she doesn’t. I would defend Gorda every time. Why do you always take her side, Soledad? I’m your mother. Don’t you forget that.

My mother likes to remind me that she’s my mother as if she herself isn’t sure who I belong to.

I almost died having you, she says, I came to this country to give you a better life, she says. What...

No matter where you place a saint it’s always in the right place. That’s what Gorda says. They carry that strength in them.

My father, Manolo, has been scratched out with a black marker on all the photographs around the room. I can still see him through the marker.

Ah shit, Soledad, you got fat, girl. Like a reflex I suck in my stomach, trying to prove her wrong. With Flaca I always regress to thirteen.

One day all of this will be mine. Flaca pointed to everything in the room marking what was hers. And what about me? I asked. You have to ask Tía if she has anything for you.

I never asked my mother for anything. And when Flaca and her are together I always feel like the unwelcomed visitor. Even as a child I felt that way.

You see, Olivia, everything I do affects my child. I cry, she cries.

Soledad put her tiny hands on Gorda’s exposed belly and said, It’s like Jell-O. Tía, jiggle jiggle jiggle. Gorda couldn’t help but laugh when Soledad put her mouth on Gorda’s belly as if gobbling her all up.

She begged Flaca to drink, oftentimes resorting to pumping her breasts, which were in constant pain from all the milk stored in them, and was surprised that Flaca drank from a bottle without a problem. Gorda felt so disconnected from her, she tried to meditate on that short moment when her and Flaca were still attached.

She wondered if Flaca’s refusal was a sign to what their relationship held in store.

Then one day Gorda came home from work and found Olivia falling asleep on the bedroom chair holding Flaca with one arm. Flaca was sucking Olivia’s milkless breast like a pacifier.

I should’ve known, Gorda said. The way you carry mi Flaca around the house, neglecting Soledad. You never gave your baby la teta but you give it to mine. How dare you, Olivia?

Gorda could never forgive Olivia for taking Flaca away from her. Olivia kissed and held Flaca like a new beginning. Flaca had shared her first secret with Olivia.

There are times my body feels hard and stiff like an old fruit rind. And when that happens, when I can’t move my body at all, everyone’s voice gets loud and vibrates in my head as if I was standing next to the speaker at El Volcán Disco.

When I’m touched I want to scream, but my lips can’t move, not even to breathe. They release themselves like air out of a balloon, I feel as if I might lose them completely.

My mother’s hands feel like sandpaper, her touch stays on my skin like a mosquito bite. I want to scratch, tear her away, but the messages to the tips of my fingers don’t relay.

I just have to wait, force myself into sleep, concentrate on not feeling any...

Tía Olivia, remember when I was little and you let me play doctor on you?

He said there’s no point in playing music just for himself. Now Tía, don’t you think Richie’s trying to tell me something with that? Do you think he think of me when he plays the sax?

So you know what I do next, Tía, I cross my legs and lean over to him and say in my best soap opera voice, ’cause I know guys like girls that make them open up, that allow them to express their feelings; Are you close to your father?

That was my cue Tía. I felt like I was writing our soap opera right there. I asked him, Will you teach me? The congas? Anything, I said. Tía I had him right in my hands because guys love teaching shit. It makes them feel smart.

Once he was up close I couldn’t sound cool no more. I could smell his manly cologne and his little body hairs were kissing mine.

When are you coming out from this Tía? It’s no fun talking and you just breathing.

I brought you something. I lay the rosary on my mother’s bed as a peace offering.

I never doubted my mother cared about me. I just wish our relationship could be more dramatic and I can tell her that I missed her while I was away just like the novelas, when the daughter comes home wearing thick mascara and drops to her knees hugging her mother’s legs begging for forgiveness, and the mascara gets all over her face from all the crying.

But being away from home has been more like a vacation.

It’s nice to have a place to get laid, where friends can visit and crash. Where I can come home at the wee hours of the night without fretting about a curfew or someone waiting up for me. I don’t even mind that much that my bedroom is about the size of my full-size futon.

Mami, I have something to tell you which I should’ve told you a long time ago. It’s about Papi. She stiffens up, closing her eyes, turning her body completely away from me.

So what you got to tell Tía Olivia. Can’t I know too? We have no secrets. Right, Tía?

I should leave the room but if I do Flaca wins. Again she’ll have my mother all to herself.

I try and remember what my painting teacher told me in class. That when someone is critiquing me, it’s not always about me or my art work, it’s more often than not the issues the critic has with his- or herself. What they desire? What they envy?

I imagine myself in front of a blank canvas and a full palette. I imagine myself painting a portrait of me and my mother, without Flaca.

Fine, ’cause they probably won’t even let you in ’cause you’re so stupid. Soledad, you don’t have to be coming back and doing me no favors. Right, Tía? Soledad can just keep her uppity ass downtown.

I know Flaca is instigating rumors about me, making everyone hate me, even my mother.

Is that all you care about, being beautiful? You should start thinking about something else besides showing off your flat-chested, skinny-ass self on the block as if these guys around here mean anything.

I’m not flat-chested. Right, Tía? And keep my mother out of it. Can’t you see her? You act as if my mother is taking a nap.