Soledad: A Novel

by Angie Cruz

Some people resolve things in their sleep. Ay Soledad, in our lifetimes we have so much to survive.

When old people speak no matter how simple they say things it sounds like the truth.

Shit man, who tell you I dye my hair? I only did it once ’cause fucking Isabel made me do it. Did she tell you that shit?

Your girl wears more makeup these days and I’s thinking you better marry her soon or she gonna find another. That’s all I’m saying. Women won’t wear more makeup if they ain’t looking around.

Women don’t like to talk too much especially before doing it. So it won’t be too quiet I put on un bolerito, you know to set up the mood, ’cause I know she was there for some fucking, there’s no nice way of putting it, she wanted some fucking and I knew after we were done she would tell me her story. They always do.

That’s the problem with you guys, you have no patience. Don’t you get it? The food, her washing the dishes, the bolerito, it’s all foreplay. Women need foreplay.

I tickle her so I can hear her voice. You tickle her, you got a naked woman on your bed and you tickle her? You a fucking pendejo.

What’s up with you? You can’t get it up or something? Be tickling women instead of doing them. You crazy. Sometimes I just want company, that’s all.

It must be the blind man thing. Women have crazy ideas about blind men. Of course it’s because I can’t see them. They think I can’t tell if they’re ugly or not. But they’re wrong there. I see them all right. I can see them good.

she was a beautiful one. The shit is that she didn’t know it. She probably had a sister who got all the attention and she felt like she was nothing special. That happens to women, you know.

Gorda wonders if Manolo ever hurt Soledad like he did Olivia. She thinks about the way Soledad left home as if she was running away. She left without any warning. Gorda thinks how the girls are growing up and leaving them so fast.

Mami, are you going crazy? I ain’t no child, Flaca said, throwing the doll back at her mother. I don’t play with dolls no more, she said, and walked away, not looking into Gorda’s eyes.

Gorda looks at the new white-and-gold-patterned tiles filling the room and thinks how they almost look like real marble. She remembers a younger Olivia, dreaming about the day she would have a house with real marble tiles that cement to the floor and don’t peel off like stickers. For now these will have to do.

Flaca hates the way her mother has the whole world calling her Flaca. Flaca. People calling her Flaca so long she’s forgotten her real name.

Fugly white bitches walking around here like they own the block ’cause homeboys treat them like they beauty queens just ’cause they blanquitas.

When I sleep, I have long epic dreams that last days. I have this one recurring dream where this faceless child climbs out of me from right in between my legs. She’s all grown, speaking in full sentences, with perfect hand-eye coordination.

Mami, flying is not so hard. You just need to find the space for your wings. So I go to the fire escape and open my arms and I try and lift myself into the sky and before I can fly away Victor grabs me and takes me inside. I promise this child that came through me that when I have the chance I will try again.

Corazón, say yes to me and make me a happy man. I’ll take you anywhere you want. She couldn’t resist the way he said corazón, the way he wasn’t afraid to hold her hand over his heart, like he already possessed her.

He didn’t let her speak in public. He said she didn’t know about certain things like ordering her own food. That there are things he’d like to do for her. He told Olivia how to wear her hair, the color to paint her nails, the way to swing her hips.

Mujer, remember you’re not here on vacation. No te dejes enamorar. She warned her that these men aren’t looking for love but a short escape.

After Manolo was gone for one month Olivia hadn’t gotten her period.

Women like you are dangerous, he said. You seem small and harmless but I know your kind.

She hoped the baby was his. Perhaps if she began to believe that Manolo was the only man who ever entered her, he would believe it as well.

when I’m going through the vegetables I feel as if I’m being watched and laughed at, that a woman my age still hasn’t figured it out. I can almost hear the other women in the store thinking to themselves, How is she ever getting married, she still doesn’t know how to pick fruit.

You’re that girl who got hit with the water balloon the other day. How embarrassing. As if I want to relive that moment. No, I’m not.

I’m Soledad. And you’re right, my mother is not feeling so well. So you’re the Soledad I’ve heard about who never visits.

Last week Pito started rapping to her, as if she would ever go out with him. He started filling Flaca up with all sorts of nice words and although Flaca liked it a lot, she thought, he’s nothing compared to Richie.

Flaca wants Richie to see her with Pito. Maybe that way he will wake up and make a move.

She reaches out to look at Pito’s neck piece. He’s wearing a black string with the Puerto Rican flag and a gold cross dangling on it. My mother gave me the cross, my father the flag. It’s their way to keep my mind where it belongs, he says and his gold tooth sparkles when he smiles.

Sweetie, you should know better than to sit so close to trouble, Richie says, caressing Flaca’s cheek softly.

After living at home for almost three weeks, surrounded by my family who seem to only think about their needs and what’s happening in their own lives, I’ve come to realize how little they really know about me.

I find it inspiring. When was the last time you saw a Latina artist in a gallery? I never thought about it like that.

We, my dear, will end up like Frida Kahlo, paralyzed in some bed in perpetual pain waiting for our deaths to sell our paintings for a million dollars, while some young rich jerk will wear torn jeans, drip paints on the canvas as if he was some kid in preschool and make a fortune by the age of thirty because critics will say he had the courage to regress.

I hide my breasts. Caramel thinks that’s crazy. How do you ever expect to find a man that way? I’m not looking for a man.

Caramel thinks the straightest arrow will bend with a drink in the head and with a little inspiration.

Living there, among her things, makes me feel so responsible. What if I had never left? Maybe I could’ve done something to help her.

What if your mother stays like this? You’ll have to take care of her, you know. She can’t stay at your grandmother’s forever. Why me? What has she done for me? She gave you life. That’s enough.

Caramel always speaks in assertions. And the fact that she got her name because her mother was eating a wad of caramel when her water broke, and all throughout the pushing and screaming she had caramel stuck on her teeth, the taste of it on her tongue, makes Caramel feel she has a right to be stubborn about her ideas and to be resistant to change.

I’ll go now, Caramel says. God forbid they see two spics in here, they might just start hiding their pocketbooks.

She decides to glue the broken pieces back together to reverse the curse that may come with glass breaking.

Gorda remembers perfectly the morning Raful left her. She woke up with a kiss planted on her forehead. He never kissed her good-bye before he went to work.

I turn off the kitchen sink faucet, which she purposely forgot to close. No dejalo, the sound reminds me of the ocean, she says. The city is trying to save water, Abuela.

I’d rather be alone forever before I let a man like Victor juggle me around like a piece of meat.

I tell you, Victor is going to get himself some trouble, I tell you he will. Every day it’s another woman. Ay papá, one day he’s gonna find himself with a woman pissed off enough que le va a corta el ripio.

You just tell him that if he ever wants to see me again he best keep my picture. Who he think he is? He never hung with no Smurf. I’m going to . . . I dangle the phone by the cord, letting Isabel threaten, complain, get angry.

There should be a rule. Women should tell women when men are betraying them. I dream for that kind of sisterhood. But in the real world women believe what they want to believe.

You know why Victor treats Isabel that way? It’s because she puts up with his mierda, she says, taking two plátanos from the refrigerator. If I was her I would take his plátano and . . .

These days my grandmother’s house has a blanket of quietness lying over it that doesn’t seem right. I imagine my grandmother feeling lonely.

But now people walk in as if they’re afraid the walls will collapse if they breathe too deeply. Even I feel like whispering. It’s because everyone knows my mother is asleep and they respect her sleep as if she was a baby.

I can’t imagine having children. I can’t even imagine having a relationship.