The Genealogies: Chapter Nine, conclusion

 

iv.

 

{The room is dark.  The shades are drawn tightly.  Overhead a ceiling fan turns, left on more out of habit than due to any actual heat.  The room is blanketed by silence, despite the turning fan, except for the rustling of bodies on the bed.  Ah, yes, the bed.  Through the faint slivers of light piercing the chinks in the shades one can see Carlos, the sheets dropped down to his waist.  And, if one turns one’s head, one can also see that he’s not alone in bed.  He called in sick to work, thus giving some lucky substitute a day’s labor, and told Mamá he had to be at work, and was thus unable to attend to her at the doctor’s.  In fact, he’s not at home:  it’s the apartment of the woman who lays supine next to him.  She’s rather attractive:  one can discern long, black, curly hair spread out against the white pillows, and a sort of coffee-colored skin.  Her breasts are exposed, and while not huge, they fit Carlos’ needs.  Her breathing is light and shallow, indicating that she is barely asleep, slowly rousing herself out of lethargy.  Carlos, however, is gone, breathing deeply, snoring lightly, and in his sleep he reaches over and unconsciously caresses a breast, cupping it in his hand, holding it tenderly.  She stirs at his touch, slowly opening her eyes, her own hand gliding over Carlos’, holding it over her breast.  She, too, called in sick to work.  She, too, is a teacher, but not at Carlos’ school.  That wouldn’t do, and it would be noticed, in addition.  She moans quietly, a low, self-satisfied moan, parting her lips just enough to let it escape into the room, circulated around by the ceiling fan.  She turns her head, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Carlos.  She heaves in a deep breath, nestling back into him.  The contact of her body languidly awakens him.  He opens his eyes, catches her looking at him, and smiles.}

 

Carlos:  Mmm… good morning Vanessa.

Vanessa:  Good morning yourself.  Although I think we said our good mornings a couple of hours ago.

Carlos:  Yeah, you’re right, we did.  A pretty good way to say good morning.

 

{She laughs at this.  Her laugh—not to drag out and beat a dead metaphor—is musical.  Carefree, perhaps.  Her entire body shakes with her laughter, jiggling against Carlos.  She grabs a firmer hold of his hand and drags his arm over her chest, cradling her.  He leans in and kisses her shoulder blade.}

 

Carlos:  Have I told you how much I love waking up next to you?

Vanessa:  I think you’ve mentioned it once or twice.  Not that we’ve done it too often.

Carlos:  Well, kinda hard to do when there’s work and I have Allie.

Vanessa:  I know baby.  I’m just teasing.

Carlos:  I also love your teasing.

Vanessa:  You’ve mentioned that as well.

 

{At this point it would be best to understand something about Carlos.  One may recall that, as a younger man, Carlos was quite smashing with women.  He had a coy shyness that was more affectation than effect, and that proved alluring to girls of various ages.  Almost all of Lexie’s little girlfriends had crushes on Carlos, in a way they never did on Marcelo—probably because Marcelo was so much closer to their ages, a peer, almost, and thus stripped of mystery, unlike the adult Carlos.  Then Brigit came along.  And slowly, bit by bit, Carlos lost his sense of ease with women, until, when Brigit left him, his coy shyness was very much real, and very much debilitating.  He had no idea what to do with a woman, how to approach her, what to say.  Years of marriage had regressed him to a pre-adolescent social state, so much so that he became tongue-tied around women, broke out in sweat, almost fainted.  He would try to talk to women after the divorce, and prove woefully inept, so much so that his friends made it a point to not pursue women when he was around.

 

{Vanessa enters the picture at a district conference for newly-minted teachers.  The Los Angeles Unified School District, like school districts in urban areas around the country, had a crisis in its dearth of teachers.  Desperation proved Carlos’ salvation after being laid off and not being able to find another job in information technology.  Cousin Anna, also a teacher, made introductions, introductions led to meetings, meetings led to formal interviews, and suddenly Carlos was a math teacher with an emergency credential in a not very ivy-covered school.  But he didn’t care:  it was different, something far removed from his old life.  At that point, the only thing he wanted to hold onto from his time with Brigit was Allison Flor.  So, then, why not?  A new career seemed the perfect path for him to take…}

 

Vanessa:  Hey, you got quiet.

Carlos:  Just thinking.

Vanessa:  About what?

Carlos:  About the first time we met.

Vanessa:  Oh, you were such a mess.  You seemed so lost.

Carlos:  I was.  Completely.  I’d never been in a school like Roosevelt, never dealt with kids like that.  Trying to get them interested, teaching half the class in Spanish to try and keep their interest.  I was just drowning.

Vanessa:  And, of course, bitches like me with real teaching credentials—even masters!—looking down their noses at you.

Carlos:  Yeah…  I thought I’d made a grave mistake.

Vanessa:  “A grave mistake.”  You talk like a teacher.  You’re a natural.

Carlos:  And there you were, at this symposium where the district was trying desperately not to lose half of us—and you looked so… fetching.

Vanessa:  “Fetching”.  Again, so professorial.  Not “hot,” or “fine,” or “delicious.”  But “fetching.”  From the first time I saw you I could tell you were the kind of guy who would use a word like fetching.

Carlos:  You fetched me easily enough.

Vanessa:  Oh, bad pun, awful pun.

Carlos:  But true.  I hadn’t managed to talk to another woman in over a year.  And with you, everything just came out, pouring, like I couldn’t stop it.  I knew you would just let me keep talking, until I exhausted myself.

Vanessa:  I just let you rediscover who you used to be, that’s all.

 

{Carlos brushes Vanessa’s hair away from her neck and buries his face against her skin, kissing it up and down its length.  Vanessa lets out another one of those moans that gets lost in the whir of ceiling fan.}

 

Vanessa:  I just wish…

Carlos:  That this was my bed?

Vanessa:  I sometimes feel… like I’m your other life.  You know?  Like you have your outside, upfront, real life, with your job and your family and your friends, and then there’s me, just off to the side.

Carlos:  I’m sorry.  You’re not off to the side of anything.

Vanessa:  Then…

 

{Carlos heaves a huge sigh.  It, too, gets muffled by the circulating fan, engulfed by the room’s darkness.}

 

Carlos:  It’s not so easy.  You know that.

Vanessa:  I’ve met your friends.  Would it be so much to meet your family?

Carlos:  Maybe one member of my family.

Vanessa:  I know… I know she still expects you two to get back together.  I know she hates her mom’s man. 

Carlos:  And I’m afraid she’ll hate you, and then…

Vanessa:  You’ll have to choose?

Carlos:  Not much of a choice, is it?

Vanessa:  We can’t keep sneaking around, baby.  We’re adults.  And I think she’d want you to be happy.

 

{She drags his fingers over her lips, kissing them, sucking each one by one into her mouth.  He lets his hand wander over the curves of her body, tracing its topography.  He’s still relearning the feel of a woman, her soft suppleness, the smoothness of flesh and fragrance of skin.  He still can’t believe how fortunate he was to be rescued, at just the lowest moment, when everything was at its nadir.  He revels in the feel of her backed up against his body, her ass large and warm against his cock.  He feels more like his old self, his pre-Brigit self, but not the self that flitted from woman to woman; rather, he feels like the self that was completely assured in its own sense.  He projects ahead, thinking of the day.  Hours and hours still before he has to be home.  Allison Flor is at home with her mother; the dogs can wait a little bit longer for food and walks.  Yes, he has the whole day; he gets few days like this; he would have more days like this if he brought Vanessa out of the shadows.}

 

Carlos:  Ok.  I don’t know how I’ll do it, but ok.

 

{Vanessa turns around smiling.  She kisses him on the lips, deeply, her tongue tasting his mouth, flicking along his face.  She kicks the covers off so that she can enfold his body with hers.  She has all day with him.}

 

v.

Lexie:  So, do you want to go home?

Eufemia:  No.  Not yet.  Let’s go have lunch.  You have the day off, don’t you?

Lexie:  Yeah, Ma, I do.  Where do you want to go?

Eufemia:  Oh, wherever.  You know I’m not picky.  You’re the one who knows all the good restaurants, you and Marcelo.  The two of you eat out too much, spending all your money on restaurants.  No wonder you’re always short on cash.  You’ll never be able to save up and buy houses and start families with all that you spend.

Lexie:  I can’t speak for Marc, but me cooking would bring a Haz-Mat team out to my apartment.  And I’m pretty sure Marc and Jessie aren’t into kids.  Marc loves kids, just as long as they aren’t his.

Eufemia:  Qué es eso, hazmat?

Lexie:  It’s the people they send out to handle anything poisonous.

Eufemia:  Ay, I tried teaching you to cook.  You’ll never find a man if you can’t cook for him.

Lexie:  I’m not looking for a man right now, Ma.  And I’m not looking to buy a house, or invest in mutual funds, or buy sensible shoes.  I’m just enjoying my life.

Eufemia:  Don’t enjoy it too much.  You’ll spend all your time enjoying it and not do anything with it.

Lexie:  Sure, Ma.  Whatever you say.

Eufemia:  There’s never any getting through to you.  Or Carlito.  Marcelo sometimes listens to me—but even he’s been acting strangely lately. 

Lexie:  He’s not acting strange.  He’s just being Marcelo.

Eufemia:  You children aggravate me just to aggravate me, I think.  I changed my mind.  I know what I want for lunch.  I want some lechón asado.

Lexie:  Ma!  You heard what the doctor said!  You’re on a diet now.

Eufemia:  Ay!  What?  A little plate of puerco is going to kill me dead in the restaurant?  I’m old, Lexie.  You may not think so, but I am.  And I’ll go on the diet, because I want to see you married, and I want to see Flor grown up, and I want to see my children happy.  But today, today, I want some roast pork, and platanitos fritos, and maybe a croqueta or two.  And I want a big pitcher of sangría.  I want to pretend that I’m not old, just for this afternoon.  Can you help me do that?

Lexie:  Sure.  We can go down to Havana Mania, if you let me buy the flan. 

Eufemia:  That’s my Lexie.