Dominicana

by Angie Cruz

When Juan sits, his chest folds toward his round stomach, and his jaw, the corner of his lips, his cheeks, his eyes all droop: a sad clown. Juan stares at my knees, which come together tight tight as if I hold a secret there for him to discover.

Teresa’s thirteen going on twenty, born kicking before the sun had risen.

I know then that one day the earth will rip open underneath my feet and Juan will take me away. Tears rise. I don’t know how or when, but a ravenous world waits outside for me.

Just thinking about boys getting their way with Teresa and having folks say how she’s fast and hot and loose makes Mamá clench her fists and pull out her hair. So much so, she has a bald spot at the nape of her neck dedicated to Teresa’s escapades.

The first time she snuck out, Mamá screamed so loud the clouds dumped so much rain our land flooded.

Mamá has lived long enough to learn a man doesn’t know what he thinks until a woman makes him think it.

Tell him how much you enjoy to cook. Be specific. Don’t just say food, say pescado con coco, so he knows you’re the kind of woman who’s not afraid to debone a fish or grate coconut. What kind of woman is afraid to grate coconut? I ask, but Mamá keeps talking.

Oh, who cares what’s true. Look, what is the truth? Letters are a lasso, words on a page that we fling out, hoping, hoping. What about what I want? What do you want, Ana? I don’t know.

I hug my mother, press my head against her sweaty back and taste the ocean on her skin. You would think we’re close.

The waft of fried fish and plátano makes me hungry. Ants march over a fallen peach. Songs from radios, playing inside of living rooms and kitchens, compete for my attention. Across from us some men have set up cardboard over stacked crates to play a domino game. Women line the wash in their front yard. Two boys play catch.

Snow mutes the city. The cars inch along the highway. The bridge spectacularly long. The river iced. The trees bare. Everything is gray.

Look at me. You need to hold the thread between the two fingertips. Go on, try it. Take the needle to the thread. Not the other way around. That’s the secret. Always yield to the needle because it’s inflexible. It’s the secret with people too. If a person seems inflexible, yield, then slip in sideways and get what you want.

Send money. Send money. Send money. In between the lines: We miss you. We miss you. We miss you. Nothing is the same without you here.

Hurry, or I’ll change my mind. Then Juan holds up a finger. You can only buy one dress. Nothing more. You hear me? Juan has a way to suck the air out of a tire.

Don’t forget about us. No lights are too bright to forget where you come from. Remember. Remember.

Juan kneels on one knee to kiss my belly. His forced jolly tone scares me, but I try to keep the lightness in the air. He almost looks as handsome as Ricky Ricardo in his suit. Ay, Juan, you act as if you’re never coming back. I’ll take care of everything. I surprise myself and hug him for the Ana Loves Juan show.

The smell of pancakes, hot dogs, and sweet syrup is tempting, but the man behind the counter looks at me as if he doesn’t want me there. So much of the city belongs to other people. Not wanting trouble, I leave.

A purple-haired woman carrying a parrot on her shoulder. She tosses a candy wrapper on the floor. Then I throw it in the trash for her.

I just want to go back home, I say, and really mean it. I’ll always choose you, he says, I swear, I will. Like all men who don’t want to see a woman cry, César lies. But hearing it does bring me comfort.

Poor husband. First husband thinks younger brother stole his money, which was really taken by wife after so-called friend stole it. Now husband is betrayed by older trusted brother. So when wife asks husband if he’s had time to visit in-laws, husband inhales and says, Ana, please, I’m doing the best I can, I understand.

So when César comes home after work I decide to set my own price. Were you really serious about me selling food to your friends? Hello to you too. He sits on a chair at the table, ready for me to serve him dinner. Because he isn’t taking me seriously, I sit on the place mat, facing him, one foot on each of his thighs. I grab him by the collar with my two hands and make him look me in the eyes.

Just remember, always act as if you know where you’re going so no one will mess with you. Chin up and no eye contact. He places a map on the table. The city’s an island. Rivers on both sides. It’s a grid. Avenues go up and down, streets east to west. Remember, country girl, if you get lost, just follow the sun.

Ah, my brothers eat with their eyes and not their stomach. You start slow by making us lunch. Then you get a cart. Then a store. Then a bunch of stores. Small steps lead to big steps.

I giggle with embarrassment. See ju later, alligator, he says. What? It’s what Americans say.

And to think that just a few months ago, above the San Juan Theater, inside the Audubon Ballroom, a man had died. The building, a large altar. That’s how the world is, everything’s forgotten.

Sister Lucía frequently takes the class outside when the weather’s nice. To learn a language is to learn a culture, she says, and learning culture requires interaction.

When the laughing settles she tells the class that although they may feel silly playing like children and maybe even embarrassed, the lesson to be learned is that one must try to say things even if one isn’t sure. One learns through one’s mistakes.

Standing at the streetlight on Broadway I imagine a car hitting him at the very moment he crosses Avenida Independencia. Then his plane diving into the sea. Then Juan disappearing in a hot-air balloon into the sky.

When Mamá gets angry there’s always a tempest. Everyone thinks it’s typical unpredictable Dominican weather, but without fail, every time Mamá realizes she can’t cover the sun with one finger she screams so loud in frustration the sky collapses.

Nothing is impossible, he says, even when his eyes are filled with tension. Such an unusual man. How he laughs in the most devilish way when someone trips but is just as quickly moved to tears by a song or kind gesture. I resist being taken by his smell of sweet spices and cigarettes, which slips into everything in the apartment.

We can handle it … pretty please, César? He looks concerned, but I make the Lucy face, pouty lips and big eyes.

My brothers would’ve been the first in line. How much they may never see; how lucky I am to be in such a place.

When César’s ninety, I’ll be eighty-five, and we’ll be living in Los Guayacanes together, spending our mornings drinking hot chocolate and eating toasted bread, watching the sunrise, rocking back and forth on our chairs and talking about the animals that misbehave. We will remember all the people we outlived. By then, Juan will be dead.

We have to do it all because Yohnny can’t. We have to make the best of life for him. And you, what will yours sound like? Ana will live a long life. Raise a successful daughter. She’ll be happy.

I cook as if my cooking will breathe life into Yohnny again. I cook for him and him only—grating the onions so that he won’t taste them in the filling, pulling out the cloves of garlic so he won’t complain about bad breath. Even César notices how my food has become more inspired. What’s your secret ingredient? he asks.

As a soon-to-be-mother, even I know God’s happier when his children keep a good distance, and are not always hanging over him like spoiled children, always asking him for things.

Ay, Yohnny, he wrote me a letter. Maybe he’s waiting for another opportunity to come back, standing on some line, waiting to leap into a body before a baby is born. Maybe he’ll leap inside of me.

Why did Marisela even agree to come? Maybe she had no choice. I try to find some semblance of the woman with whom I spent so many afternoons. Marisela doesn’t dare look at me. It makes me happy to think she suffers. She makes it seem like she can manage her man, but perhaps we’re both fucked.

Juan is my monster and my angel. In this messed-up world, he tries his best. And I owe it to him to try my best.

How do the neighbor with children and the old lady Rose manage when the elevator is out of order? It’s unnatural to live up so high.

To fill my days I write in my small notebook. Writing becomes like talking. I write down my dreams. In them, Juanita sits at my kitchen table, her belly as large as mine. We press our bellies together, becoming a two-headed pregnant beast. It’s a comforting dream.

Men can only perform like men, Mamá always says, when women are doing everything. We’re invisible little workers so they can puff out their chests.

You heard about Betty, right? She’s gone off with a man who was struck by lightning, pale as milk. We plan and God laughs, Ana.

Leave wreckage by the roadside. Burn all decayed tissue. Tightrope from which we emerge. —DAWN LUNDY MARTIN, GOOD STOCK STRANGE BLOOD Yes, yes! Let’s emerge!