iv.
Ofelia stayed with Kenneth until nearly midnight. He lived farther from her apartment than Daniel did, and it was nearly twelve-thirty when she finally got home. Dominga was up, and Ofelia knew instantly that there was something wrong, something other than the fact that she was late, or that her mom knew what she had been doing with that beautiful young man for so long.
Dominga was sitting at the kitchen table, working on a crossword. When Ofelia came in the woman looked at her over the top of her reading glasses. "Do you always turn your phone off when you're out? What's the point in having it then?"
"Oh, I forgot to turn it on." Ofelia lied, and stood in front of the table, not moving.
"Leonard has been trying to reach you. And that other one, he stopped by here a few hours ago. I'm not going to be your answering service, or your secretary, you understand?"
"Other one, you mean Daniel?" Ofelia had heard Leonard's name, was pleased, but filed it away for later. She never missed anything someone said to her.
"Yes. Sorry if I forget the names. There are so many."
Ofelia felt the sting of that one, and blinked quickly; but she held her tongue. She wondered what happened with Daniel's seminar. He had come back early and she wasn't home. He probably tried to call her, too.
"I'm also not going to lie for you." Dominga said. She took her reading glasses off and stared at her daughter. "Not anymore. I told your boss you were out but I didn't know where or who with." Ofelia saw her mother's sharp gray eyes narrow, focus in on something. "You get into a fight with a vacuum cleaner or what?"
Ofelia touched her neck, where Kenneth had left a few reddish marks. Not hickies, just little stamps of his brief possession of her. "Stop it, Mama."
Dominga got up, folded her glasses, and walked off to her bedroom, closing the door abruptly behind her. Ofelia took her cell phone out, turned it on, and called Daniel. Her heart was pounding, but she refused to regret her night with Kenneth. He was beautiful and charming and she refused to regret it. Daniel answered, and apparently had looked at the caller ID beforehand.
"So, is he better than me in the sack?" He sounded cheerful. Like he wasn't trying to hurt her, but only make her laugh.
"What?"
"In bed."
"Que? No. What? What do you mean?"
"It's alright, sweets. Your voice is shaking. I don't want that. It's okay, really. Please believe me."
There was a long pause, and finally Ofelia said, "How do you know already? You can't know that fast."
"I spoke with Kenneth about ten minutes ago."
"He told you?"
"He tried not to, sweetie. But he's a lousy liar. Besides, I could see for myself last weekend, the way things were stacking up. And when your mother told me you were out..."
She didn't say anything. Her eyes were clouding up. "Ofelia, relax. Relax and listen to me."
Ofelia was silent. Daniel hadn't eased her mind at all. He was scaring her. Daniel could hear her breath trembling. He made sure to soften his voice the best he could before speaking again. "Sweetheart. What's the matter? Please, I'm okay with this. It's not that I have that - special interest your fiance has, it's just that I don't have delusions of grandeur. I adore you, but I know I can't keep you. I don't think anyone could keep you. I thought I could, at first, but I know now that I can't. You don't deserve to be kept. You can't be kept."
Ofelia was still not saying anything. Her chin was quivering as she listened because she knew that what he was saying was true, and she was terrified of losing him, of missing him. She sat there with Kenneth's smell all over her, and yet she had been thinking of Manuel on her way up the stairs to her apartment, and now she knew that if Daniel was beside her she could easily lose herself in him. She imagined him inside her even as he spoke to her in such distant terms. She was upset that she had never felt him come freely inside her. Tears balled up in her eyes.
Daniel waited for her to speak. "Ofelia, please say something. Please believe me? I swear, on the lives of all of my loved ones, I'm not angry with you. I'm not playing a game with you. Jesus, I would rather die than frighten you. Please say something."
"Don't use that name that way, please." Ofelia told him, her voice shaky. "Say 'sheeeez', like I do."
She could hear the tension unwind in Daniel's voice, like the sound of a tightly twisted rubber band being let go. "Okay, that's a deal, sweetheart. I won't say it anymore."
"Good." Ofelia said. She sniffled. "I do love you. But I know you won't believe me."
"You never told me that, Ofelia. We never said those words to each other, you know? But I do believe you."
"And I love Leonard. My Leonard. I miss him. And I love Kenneth, too. He's beautiful, like a dark angel."
Daniel took a few moments to speak. "You're something, Ofelia."
"And I love Manuel. He's my prince, my soldier, my savior."
"He has a very special sister."
"I'll see you at work, Senior. Te amo." Ofelia turned her phone back off.
Again, Ofelia slept alone. She hated it. She hated not feeling her brother's presence, the warmth of his body, his weight on the bed. She tossed and turned, and the blankets twisted up. She thought of getting in her car and driving to Jose's apartment, marching up to the door and demanding that he come home with her. He would have no choice but to come. Who the hell did he think he was anyway, leaving her like that, running off whenever he damn well pleased?
She looked at her clock and it was two in the morning. She had slept, but it was a shallow sleep, her tired eyes skimming over top of her dreams without seeing very far into them. She felt her heart beating, not with the anguish of love's absence, but with the gluttonous sensation of being stuffed too full with it. She couldn't contain it. A thousand hearts couldn't contain it. She needed to let it bleed out of her so she could breathe in peace.
Ofelia thought of Leonard, and she could still hear his voice as he told her to get out. No one had ever said that to her before. No one had the guts. She lay on her side and put his face together in her mind, piece by piece: the small, non-nondescript eyes, the pleasant, effeminate mouth. In her mind she undressed him, ran her hands all over his bare chest, his passive arms and hands. As she began to doze off, as the seams between sleep and consciousness began to blur and widen out, Ofelia was reaching for him and he was walking, just walking along with his back to her, his limbs moving mechanically. She tried to hold on to him but her hands kept slipping off. She fell down and was crawling behind him, unable to get up. Crowds of people surrounded them, walking in both directions. And Leonard was walking and walking, and the crowd of bodies swallowed him up. She tried to cry out but she could only whisper and sigh impotently. Ofelia's last waking thought was a promise to herself that she would call Leonard as soon as the morning came. But she didn't keep that promise.
When she woke again it was five-twenty in the morning. She turned onto her back and her right hand reached out, "Papi." But there was only that irritating, nagging absence. Suddenly, she sat bolt upright. He wasn't in bed, but he was home. She became angry with him. He had come home while she was asleep, but he didn't come to bed. The hall light was on.
Ofelia's jaws were clenched as she got out of bed and went down the hall, into the living room. She was wearing a long nightshirt with nothing on underneath. Her little hands were balled up, her fingernails digging into her palms. She threw on the lights in the living room and he was on the sofa, lying on his side with his hands between his knees. He was still dressed in his shorts and t-shirt. September was nearly gone and the mornings were getting cooler. She saw that he was cold.
"Manuel!" she whispered, not wanting to disturb Dominga. She shook him and he woke. He had only just fallen asleep. She glared down at him, "Come to bed!"
"Ss..okay...I like it here..."
"Come to bed."
"I tollll you..."
"Come to bed, Manuel!" Ofelia said a third time. He got up and she let him go ahead of her. She followed him into their bedroom and when she saw that he was about to lay down without undressing she hissed at him, "Not like that. Damn it!"
He was tired. He had probably been awake most of the night. He undressed down to his briefs and crawled onto his side of the bed where he resumed his fetal posture. Ofelia closed the door, allowing only a tiny wedge of light to come in from the hall. She padded over to their bathroom, switched on the light and left that door half-closed. There was plenty of light to see by, and despite the chill Ofelia took her nightshirt off and draped it at the foot of the bed. Her body was hot. She touched her brother's shoulder and whispered, "Lie on your back. Don't worry, I'm not going to rape you."
He did as he was told, and the bed creaked as Ofelia fetched the twisted blanket, painstakingly straightened it out, and pulled it up. She lay on her side and wrested the young man's briefs from him. Clothes had no place in bed, she decided, once and for all, and the decision was final. She pushed them down and used her foot to kick them off onto the floor. Then she put her leg up on top of Manuel's legs, her knee bent up. She pulled the blanket up to their shoulders, and nuzzled against her brother's cold body. She lay there and fidgeted for the longest time. She rubbed her foot up and down Manuel's legs, over his feet, trying to impart her heat to him. She rubbed her warm hand on his chest, his arm, stroked him, caressed his skin until she felt the stubborn chill begin to yield. It was a long while before she was finally still.
