Give It To Me. Ana Castillo
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Название: Give It To Me

Автор: Ana Castillo

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Короткие любовные романы

Серия:

isbn: 9781558618510

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СКАЧАТЬ me guess. Back in 1922 you started this little “thing of ours?” Like any native Chicagoan she knew her Godfather Trilogy and The Sopranos, but it went over don Ed’s head—a close-cropped-hair head. Don Ed (and this was not the only discovery she was to make that evening) was not white, as it happened. At least not by half. He was, as her abuela would have called mulatto, in the States was known as mixed race and soon in the world, just like everybody else. His skin and eyes were lighter than hers and lips fuller and nose wider. Her fated lover didn’t get her kidding. She pulled on the string of cultured pearls she wore that evening (erroneously chosen, since don Ed was hoping for a Toltec queen, not Princess Grace). For his part, he had not worn a sport coat (with his jeans) for dinner, but instead had on an off-the-charts size guayabera in tribute to his first expedition to New Mexico, which after a hundred years of statehood was still thought by some (like don Ed apparently) as belonging to old Mexico. While Palma got the lowdown of don Ed’s knighting by the author of The Four Agreements, his most favorite book in the world, Palma threw back three appletinis. Shooting herself in the head would have been another way to obliterate her consciousness. (There was no explaining to herself later how she managed to leave the restaurant unless don Ed had carried her out in his pocket.) The next thing she knew they were at the Sheraton.

      In his room with a king-size bed, the flickering lights of Albuquerque below served to flummox her further, while a drunken Palma fluttered around like Breakfast at Tinkerbell’s, trying to take off her itty dress and bitty shoes with finesse. She had thrown out any notion of herself as a seductress, and by then, aspired only that don Ed not roll over her in his sleep. Once she was naked and he in his natural wildlife state lying flat on the bed, she began her arduous climb, something for which she had not trained.

      NASA had directed her to blow in his ear while yanking the moon where she found no life and which, as it turned out, was much smaller than it appeared from orbit. Playing back later what she did recall and skipping the pre-broadcast, she’d gone straight to the landing of Apollo 11. While Palma was certain she would return a national hero, the universe went black right about then.

      12

      When Randall came over with his new boy toy, Palma gave them her version of Gulliver’s Travels. Vladimir said, Oh, I should fix you up with my brother.

      Vladimir was the prettiest chicanito she had ever seen. His hostess couldn’t place her finger on why she thought that, but Palma did believe in the eye of the beholder being a truism, plus the way he brought his cigarette up to his Sal Mineo mouth and half-closed eyes, the smoke creating a halo around his tragically curly head, was the stuff of gay legends for generations to come. Vladimir from the Lower Valley barrio.

      Your brother? Randall said, pouring the Shiraz he brought. She hated red wine. Everyone knew that. He did it so as not to have to share. Pour me a glass, she said, and then left it there. What’s wrong with his brother? Palma asked.

      Nothing, Randall said, pursing his mouth.

      My brother is younger than me, Vladimir said. Hector is the brain in the family. He practically runs the Apple Store, he added. He’s a poet. (See, right there, she thought, was reason to call out Vladimir, sitting on her white couch, in Randall’s best shirt, holding the Nambe wineglass with a pinky out like he was on a reality housewives reunion show. A poet couldn’t run an electric pencil sharpener much less a store that sold the very definition of high tech.)

      He’s twelve! Randall said. He went to the kitchen and came back with the multivitamin bottle that don Ed gave Palma in lieu of a bouquet on their first and last date. It was from don Entrepreneur’s product line and all she had that Randall found to snack on. Palma looked at the boyfriend. He’s not twelve, he said. He’s going on thirty.

      Yeah, Randall said. In about five years.

      Listen, Mishu, darlin’, Palma said, renaming He-Who-Named-Himself. As Russian names went Palma liked Mishu better. I’ll meet your carnalito, she said, but first I’m on my way to Chicago. I have some unfinished business there.

      13

      It was September, but global warming brought heat to the Windy City as murderous as Albuquerque’s desert. Palma Piedras was waiting in front of Abuela’s grave at the Calvary Cemetery north of the city. A warm wind picked up, coming in from Lake Michigan, and she pushed down her size-two printed frock. It was just above the knee, this side of bad taste for a forty-plus-year-old. (Whatever side the open-toed, red-soled, patent-leather stilettos were on hardly mattered as long as Chi-Town Joe appreciated them.) She bought Abuela flowers from the Jewel’s market. When alive, Abuela would have scolded her for wasting money. There were blessings from her grandmother being dead. One was the silence.

      Mexican workers were mowing nearby and one brought over a holder he pulled up from another grave with a thick wire you could stick in the ground. Tenga, señorita, he said. (Señorita. Right.) Señorita Palma caught sight of Pepito, now Joe-the-suit salesman, coming toward her. In dress slacks he acquired a kind of Denzel Washington stride. He was wearing a cashmere, short-sleeved shirt. The Silverman Brothers Suits for Men Store, established 1943, had given the lil ex-con cous’ a makeover. As he grew near she saw he wore a better watch, a gold chain, and what looked like diamond-post earrings. He also cut his hair. He could have been walking out of an Esquire photo shoot. The Native American special issue. Good Lord, where were her vapors? Pepito was swinging a garment suit box in one hand, the way she might have carried a Whitman’s Sampler box. He kissed her right on the mouth, running a tongue oh-so-briefly over her lips. Palma let go of his neck and collected herself, knowing six landscapers’ eyes and a whole lot of dead were watching. I like them shoes, Pepito whispered.

      What’s that? Palma asked, smoothing out her dress crunched by the thug hug. It’s for you, he said. Don’t open it ’til Christmas. He laughed a low heh-heh and handed it to her. In silver, swirly letters the top read: Silverman Brothers. It was weighty. Is it a suit for me? Palma joked. Yeah, I got us matching double-breasted tuxes, he smiled.

      Pepito reached into his pocket and pulled something out. It was a lock of hair. His ponytail. The Silverman Brothers’ best salesman looked over his shades, and the landscapers pushing equipment in the heat, tongues dragging, lumbered away. The pair walked over to Abuela’s grave holding hands. She could hardly walk on the misogynous spikes as they sunk into the soft graveyard grass. (If she ever became a fashion designer Palma Piedras would start a stiletto line for men called Vendettas.) They scooted down, said an Our Father, and made a sign of the cross. Then Pepito reached into his back pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He started digging in the dirt until he made a hole deep enough to bury his chongo, which he’d let grow while in prison. It was for Abuela. She used to come visit me, her lil cous’ said. Dabbing the inside corner of one eye, he then readjusted his glasses. Down state? Palma asked. How’d that old woman get there?

      Abuela took the bus, Pepito said. The idea of their grandmother going that far from her neighborhood was as unlikely as Palma flying a plane. Abuela went to places besides church, sure. She headed downtown now and then. Sears on special occasions. The lawyer’s office that one time. When did she come see you? Palma asked, as they made their way out slowly toward the street where she left the rental. The old woman had never even visited any of Palma’s apartments in Chicago over the years. She’d never met Rodrigo. She wouldn’t have liked him, in any case, but the point was she didn’t bother. Bother? Yeah, bother was the right word.

      When they got to the economy car from Avis parked right outside the ironwork gates, she asked, Can I drop you back at work? He nodded, opened the back door, tossed the garment box in the backseat, and then got in the passenger side. Palma was about to go around when he caught her wrist and drew her to him. You’ve lost more weight, he said, arranging her on his lap and pulling the door closed. You don’t weigh nothing. Are СКАЧАТЬ