Reservoir Bitches: Stories

by Dahlia de la Cerda

I read the instructions one last time, turned on the TV, logged on to Netflix, and found a good movie for an abortion: Mean Girls. I opened the box of misoprostol, took out four pills, put a drop of water on each one, and placed them under my tongue.

My boyfriend is amazing. The only thing he never gave me was the thing I wanted most: the head of the bastard who killed my best friend.

There was screaming as forensics took the young woman’s body and we were driven to the Ministerio Público. They released us the next day because we proved we had acted in self-defense. We were acquitted. But what worries me is God. It’s one thing for the people’s court to forgive you and another to escape divine retribution. We held nine days of prayer for her and had everyone over at our humble home to recite the rosary to the Virgen Morenita. We also gave the girls their first-communion dresses for free and asked Saint Jude to put in a good word for us with Our Heavenly Father. Mijito, do you think He’ll forgive us?

But even though my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother were all pioneers who broke the glass ceiling so women could hold the offices where real decisions are made, amigui, I’m not really into public service or politics, myself. I don’t want to wield power, I want to marry it. Know what I mean? Zero Angela Merkel, all Michelle Obama.

Like Anne Boleyn, who some historians suggest was attractive despite being ugly.

wild. I, on the other hand, have always been what others expected of me. Friendly, not easy. Dignified, not proud. Sweet, not saccharine. Cheery, but never frivolous. I laugh, but never too hard—and I always cover my mouth. I observe, but discreetly. I converse, but sparingly. Yes, I know it’s a poem! I based my personality on a poem.

I spent middle school and junior high in classes for etiquette, foreign languages, application of cosmetics, and ballroom dance. Super cool. By the time I started high school, I was already a sophisticated young woman with style. I wore elegant, austere suits by Julio and Oscar de la Renta, unforgiving three-inch heels, and nude cosmetics. My grades were always 9.5, never 10. Not because I couldn’t score that extra half a point, but because I didn’t want to embarrass the boys. I am, or was, the sort of woman people say doesn’t exist. Blond, slim, sexually available without being slutty. A lady on the streets and a freak in the sheets. Under my clothes, I wear Calvin Klein. La Perla? Super trashy, amigui. Ew.

I searched every nook and cranny, researched every style I could find. Michelle Obama wears inexpensive dresses and relaxes her hair to fit in with the political scene. I liked her look, but where can you find inexpensive dresses in Mexico that aren’t horrendous? Sears? Mais non. The wife of France’s president, Brigitte Macron. She was his teacher; she’s like twenty years older than him and brilliant. So not me, though. Melania, the former Bunny: nope. Eleanor Roosevelt: too granny, no. Evita Perón: seriously, amigui? Clinton: too ambitious, no. “Babe! Babe,” my friend snapped me out of my reverie. “This is silly. What you need is to create a character. Why do people love Tyrion Lannister and Walter White? Remember that book on screenwriting we were assigned in our master’s program? Read the first chapter, the answers are all there,” she said. The advantages of having a nerd as your BFF.

My old lady is mother and father to me, and I’m proud to be the daughter of a badass woman like her.

You probably think this story sounds like something out of La Rosa de Guadalupe cause nothing like this happens where you live, with your green spaces and well-paved streets, but this shit happens every day, whether you moneybags believe it or not.

In these parts, it’s the folks who rattle the cage that get ahead. Not far ahead, but it beats nothing. You clock that the gangster one block over who robs banks has a nice truck or that your neighbor the thief has a flatscreen TV or that the guy turned sicario started wearing designer shoes. Then you compare them with the doñas who work from sunup to sundown in the factory or cleaning rich folks’ shit-crusted toilets in their bougie houses or selling donuts and never catch a break. You compare what a burglar makes with what you do busting ass and, real talk, mijo, you get the itch to rattle the cage, grab the bitch by the scruff, roll the dice.

I put my life in the devil’s hands cause God doesn’t come through on this kinda thing.

Oh, did I forget to mention that? Her name’s Julieta. She turned ten recently. My family looks after her. Every month I deposit money in their account for expenses and special treats, and I’ve also bought them an SUV and a house in a nice neighborhood. If I get killed—they say there are two things you can count on around here: prison and death—my mom is set for life, and so is my Julieta. I’ve gone barefoot, lived on scraps, and worn secondhand clothes—I don’t want my little girl to go through that. The pay here’s good, and you get used to killing. I’ve got no qualms about my job, and that’s the whole truth. It’s noble work. If God does exist, then I hope Malverde puts in a good word for me. I’d rather die in battle than live with my bare feet on the ground. I’d rather take up my AK than go back to thrifting clothes.

The funniest part was that when they killed me—did they kill me?—I wasn’t even out partying.

I started puking up all my organs—stomach, intestines, kidneys, liver, pancreas, I shit you not. I watched the whole thing with these eyes no worm will ever eat. I watched my damn intestines come out my mouth. They still tasted like tacos al pastor.

I’d say he was struck dumb, but he looked pretty dumb to begin with.

I said goodbye to my body, wiped the dust off my dress, and took their hands. We walked together through the dark November sky, and suddenly the night was made of sequins.

To send my late husband deep underground I had to attend Mass at the most popular Protestant church in town and explain to the Prince of Darkness why the religion was so successful but avoiding words that could exorcize him. I told him that it preached success, prosperity, forgiveness of all sins, and personal improvement. He got very sad and said times were tough for the soldiers of evil.

Every two hours and twenty-five minutes, a woman in Mexico is strangled, raped, dismembered, burned alive, mutilated, beaten to a pulp, and left with bruises and broken bones. A woman’s body, another woman. Some woman, a nameless woman. A lifeless body was found. But none of them was yours.

I felt like the worst person in the world, because if I had known how dangerous it is to be a woman in this fucked-up country, there’s no way in hell I would have let you leave that party alone. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.

Another pink cross.

Then they sent me to a shrink. Their skin is way thin. I should’ve told them about how you stole your grandfather’s ashes and mixed them into the beer of the chick who stole Señor Vikingo. The internet said it was like a turbo evil spell because the dead person’s soul gets inside the victim’s body and drives them insane. But that shit was all bark and no bite—nothing happened to the bitch, not even a case of diarrhea.

femicides have an extremely high rate of impunity in Mexico. Only, like, 5 percent of cases ever lead to a conviction.

“Maybe that’s your mission. To gather the bones of dead women, to piece them together and tell their stories, and then to let them run free.”

Even if only part of your ashes are under my bed—your greedy mother wouldn’t give them all to me—the way I see it, your bones have been gathered. I hope someday I get to hear you howling in the night.