The Book of Want: A Novel

1. Other Gods

1 OTHER GODS When Conchita was old enough to chew solid foods, her mother, Belén, put before her eldest daughter a cracked, blue plate holding two steaming tamales de puerco in a glistening onion-and-cilantro sauce. Her mother’s cooking spoiled Conchita forever, of course. After leaving Mexico for good and settling—alone at first—in Los Angeles as a young woman of sixteen, Conchita could never find pork tamales that matched her mother’s. Even when she tried to replicate the recipe, something was not quite right. But she stuck with tradition. Mornings would not be worth the trouble without tamales de puerco even if imperfectly made by her own hands. Gracias a Dios that at least Conchita could make wonderful, dark coffee—just like her mother brewed—to have with her less-than-perfect tamales. The trick was to grind a teaspoonful of sesame seeds along with the coffee beans before putting the mixture into her battered (but trustworthy) blue enamel percolator, the same one her mother had given her before she left for the United States. Now, at the age of sixty-two, Conchita missed only two things. The perfect pork tamal was one. The other was the company of a young, handsome man. Her relatives back in Ocotlán were ashamed to admit to their neighbors that Conchita never married but, rather, had a series of novios throughout the years. They were even more embarrassed to admit that, at her age, Conchita still desired men. But why should they care? If the actor (and senior citizen) Michael Douglas could be a father with a young wife (is his wife Latina or not?), why shouldn’t Conchita just think about sex? And look at Tony Randall. ¡Ay Dios mío! He fathered a baby when most men his age were playing with their grandchildren. And then he died of old age! At least, these were Conchita’s arguments whenever her youngest sister, Julieta, scrunched up her nose in disgust when Conchita detailed precisely what she missed most about men. Conchita found Julieta’s criticism extremely unfair since she had been married 2 for almost twenty-five years and theoretically could enjoy Manuel anytime she wanted. On the other hand, Conchita had refused every offer of matrimony— and there were many—and preferred instead to experience a full variety of men without the baggage and complexities of marriage. This rule of life made sense to her. It worked, didn’t it? Granted, Conchita made one compromise last year when it came to long-term relationships. That’s when she purchased a whippet at the swap meet. At first, Conchita looked for a Chihuahua but, in the end, she wanted something a little larger. The man who sold all kinds of animals at the meet said that a whippet was sort of like a large Chihuahua but with a more pleasant disposition. He even showed Conchita a well-thumbed dog book that described whippets in this way. A whippet it would be! She named him Sarkis, after an Armenian lover from long ago, a man who would have made a wonderful husband (if a woman were in the market for one), but he eventually realized that he liked men more than women. A few weeks into their dating life (twenty-five years ago during the summer of 1981 to be precise), the dashing and elegant Sarkis Avakyan announced that he was moving to Santa Barbara because he had met a wonderful person named . . . Leonard. Conchita was a bit shocked but not at all devastated; her happiness did not hang on the presence of one man. Thus, their parting was filled with love, a few tears, but no anger. Certainly, if anyone could understand the circuitous ways of the heart, it was Conchita. So, of course she would name the sleek, handsome canine after this fine man. Conchita made a mental note to drop Sarkis an e-mail about it since they were still friends and tried to keep up with each other even though he lived almost one hundred miles away. But now, when it came to her dating life, with each passing year, men’s interest in Conchita had dwindled. Though still possessing a voluptuous figure, creamy-brown skin, and large, inviting eyes, few men under the age of fifty even acknowledged her presence. And Conchita had no desire for men her own age because they looked ready for the trash heap. It was galling. If...