Mañana Means Heaven

Chapter 12.

69 12 At the hotel, she couldn’t shake him from her mind. While Jack scribbled in his notebook, she sat on the bed and folded her legs beneath her. She could hear, on the other side of the door, two men walking up the hallway. Their words were stifled by the walls and by the way they spoke, their deep and resonant voices, a part of her worried: Was it possible he had followed her? When they passed she could hear them laughing—loud, hearty laughs—and when their door slammed shut and she was satisfied that it was not him, her mind returned again to Beto. But this time it was not the cabrón, poco hombre version that she was thinking of. Instead, it was the young Beto, the charming carita who once had eyes for her.The Beto who smelled of aftershave and La Habana pomade. Alberto, as he first introduced himself. • She stood outside of Rosenberg’s Curios on Whittier Boulevard, dolled up in a newly hemmed dress that her mother had helped her stitch from an old set of drapes. There was a baby shower later that day, and she and her cousin Margarina had stopped by to pick up a gift.Margarina,in a hurry as she always was, had Bea wait outside while she rushed in to grab something, anything, just so they wouldn’t show up empty-handed. Just then a crew of solteros came strutting up the block in a typical breeze of invincibility. They blew down the street in a whirlwind of high-fives and jabs, grinning from ear to ear, hair sculpted up like onyx bugles, trumpeting virility. Meanwhile, young Beatrice stood there like a virgin in waiting. Her shapely pale arms exposed, and thin puckered lips the succulent crimson of plums. Her sleek black hair was pulled back, and tight curls hung down above her forehead. Had Jesus known she was gallivanting around Boyle Heights looking as fresh as she did, he would’ve chained her to the front porch, or else taken her with him to Selma for an early start on the algodón. 70 Knowing what a sirena her daughter was, Jessie made Margarina promise she’d have Bea home by dinnertime. To which Margarina gained her tia’s confidence by crossing her heart and kissing her fingers up to Diosito. As the guys approached,they gawked at Bea,slowing their walk and winking ridiculously, all of them profusely opening and shutting their eyes at her, as if they were pushing against the headwinds of an invisible dust storm. And when she turned her back to them and stepped into the curios shop after Margarina, only one of them, Alberto, had the nerve to chase after her. He was handsome, and he strode right up to her, there among the short aisles of bubble gum and nylon pantyhose. Before she had a chance to hurry Margarina up, this young caballero with a chiseled face and deep painful eyes was standing at her side, winking. She couldn’t help but laugh, and he mistook this for an invitation, so he asked her out on a date. Margarina could hear them, and she looked at her prima, and nodded her head, yes, go on, and so Bea said yes. The whole time certain that her father was spying on her, watching from behind some parked car, ready to pounce on her as soon as she exited the curios shop. It wasn’t long after that they married and had little Al. Of course, Beto was proud of his son, and he let everyone know it. In fact, when it came down to it, little Al was the reason Beto enlisted in the military in the first place. Or at least, so he claimed. The day he was to ship out, he held the boy in his arms and snapped off several photos, saying, “One day Junior can look at these and be proud of his old man.” But when he returned from duty he wasn’t the same. Nothing was. His thirst for booze was insatiable. There was a look in his eyes that she could only attribute to a good brainwashing. By the time she was pregnant with Patsy she thought it would be a miracle if he could stay sober long enough to welcome her into the world. This is how bad it had gotten. Still, she knew things could always be worse. ...