After your brother died, she came over to the apartment a couple of times. She and your mother shared a common place, La Vega, where Miss Lora was born and where your mother had recuperated after the Guerra Civil. One full year living just behind the Casa Amarilla had made a vegana out of your mother. I still hear the Río Camú in my dreams, your mother said. Miss Lora nodded. I saw Juan Bosch once on our street when I was very young. They sat and talked about it to death. Every now and then she stopped you in the parking lot. How are you doing? How is your mother? And you never knew what to say. Your tongue was always swollen, raw, from being blown to atoms in your sleep.
Today you come back from a run to find her on the stoop, talking to la doña. Your mother calls you. Say hello to la profesora.
I’m sweaty, you protest.
Your mother flares. Who in carajo do you think you’re talking to? Say hello, coño, to la profesora.
Hello, profesora.
Hello, student.
She laughs and turns back to your mother’s conversation.
You don’t know why you’re so furious all of a sudden.
I could curl you, you say to her, flexing your arm.
And Miss Lora looks at you with a ridiculous grin. What in the world are you talking about? I’m the one who could pick you up.
She puts her hands on your waist and pretends to make the effort.
Your mother laughs thinly. But you can feel her watching the both of you.
When your mother confronted your brother about Mrs. del Orbe, he didn’t deny it. What do you want, Ma? Se metío por mis ojos.
Por mis ojos my ass, she’d said. Tu te metiste por su culo.
That’s true, your brother admitted cheerily. Y por su boca.
And then your mother punched him, helpless with shame and fury, which only made him laugh.
It is the first time any girl ever wanted you. And so you sit with it. Let it roll around in the channels of your mind. This is nuts, you say to yourself. And later, absently, to Paloma. She doesn’t hear you. You don’t know what to do with the knowledge. You ain’t your brother, who would have run right over and put a rabo in Miss Lora. Even though you know, you’re scared you’re wrong. You’re scared she’d laugh at you.
So you try to keep your mind off her and the memory of her bikinis. You figure the bombs will fall before you get the chance to do shit. When they don’t fall, you bring her up to Paloma in a last-ditch effort, tell her la profesora has been after you. It feels very convincing, that lie.
That old fucking hag? That’s disgusting.
You’re telling me, you say in forlorn tones.
That would be like fucking a stick, she says.
It would be, you confirm.
You better not fuck her, Paloma warns you after a pause.
What are you talking about?
I’m just telling you. Don’t fuck her. You know I’ll find out. You’re a terrible liar.
Don’t be a crazy person, you say, glaring. I’m not fucking anyone. Clearly.
That night, you are allowed to touch Paloma’s clit with the tip of your tongue, but that’s it. She holds your head back with the force of her whole life, and eventually you give up, demoralized.
It tasted, you write your boy in Panama, like beer.
You add an extra run to your workout, hoping it will cool your granos, but it doesn’t work. You have a couple of dreams where you are about to touch Miss Lora, but then the bomb blows N.Y.C. to kingdom come, and you watch the shock wave roll up, and then you wake, your tongue clamped firmly between your teeth.
And then you are coming back from Chicken Holiday with a four-piece meal, a drumstick in your mouth, and there she is, walking out of Pathmark, wrestling a pair of plastic bags. You consider bolting, but your brother’s law holds you in place. Never run. A law that he ultimately abrogated, but which you right now cannot. You ask meekly, You want help with that, Miss Lora?
She shakes her head. It’s my exercise for the day. You walk back together in silence, and then she says, When are you going to come by to show me that movie?
What movie?
The one you said is the real one. The nuclear-war movie.
Maybe if you were someone else you would have the discipline to duck the whole thing, but you are your father’s son and your brother’s brother. Two nights later, you are home and the silence in there is terrible and it seems like the same commercial for fixing tears in your car upholstery is on over and over again. You shower, shave, dress, pick up the tape.
I’ll be back.
Your mom is looking at your dress shoes. Where are you going?
Out.
It’s ten o’clock, she says, but you’re already out the door.
You knock on the door once, twice, and then she opens up. She is wearing sweats and a Howard T-shirt, and she tenses her forehead. Her eyes look like they belong on a giant’s face.
You don’t bother with the small talk. You just push up and kiss. She reaches around and shuts the door behind you.
Do you have a condom? (You are a worrier like that.)
Nope, she says, and you try to keep control, but you come in her anyway.
I’m really sorry, you say.
It’s okay, she whispers, her hands on your back, keeping you from pulling out. Stay.
Her apartment is about the neatest place you’ve ever seen and, for its lack of Caribbean craziness, could be inhabited by a white person. On her walls she has a lot of pictures of her travels and her siblings, and they all seem incredibly happy and square. So you’re the rebel? you ask her, and she laughs. Something like that.
There are also pictures of some guys. A few you recognize from when you were younger, and about them you say nothing.
She is very quiet, very reserved while she fixes you a cheeseburger. Actually, I hate my family, she says, squashing the patty down with a spatula until the grease starts popping.
You wonder if she feels like you do. Like it might be love. You put on Threads for her. Get ready for some real shit, you say.
Get ready for me to hide, she responds, but you two only last an hour before she reaches over and takes off your glasses and kisses you.
I can’t, you say.
And just before she pops your rabo in her mouth, she says, Really?
You try to think of Paloma, so exhausted that every morning she falls asleep on the ride to school. Paloma, who still found the energy to help you study for your S.A.T.’s. Paloma, who didn’t give you any ass because she was terrified that if she got pregnant she wouldn’t abort it out of love for you and then her life would be over. You’re trying to think of her, but what you’re doing is holding Miss Lora’s tresses like reins and urging her head to keep its wonderful rhythm.
You really do have an excellent body, you say after you blow your load.
Why, thank you. She motions with her head. You want to go into the bedroom?
Even more photos. None of them will survive the nuclear blast, you are sure. Nor will this bedroom, whose window faces toward New York City. You tell her that. Well, we’ll just have to make do, she says. She gets naked like a pro, and once you start she closes her eyes and rolls her head around like it’s on a broken hinge. She clasps your shoulders with a nailed grip, and you know that afterward your back is going to look like it’s been whipped.