Chapter 10, The Old Havana
A week later Katey was fired from her job at the bar. She came home that night with a drink spilled down her front and a temper to kill a cat. Susie was out; she had met a very nice old lady who offered to teach her how to cook in exchange for watching her grandchildren while she went out to visit friends. Katey turned the shower on full blast and ordered room service, even though she knew that Susie would be back soon with dinner and she would make Katey eat half.
After her shower, she lay on the couch and waited for Susie to come home. Katey hadn't told her about the dancing. All she said was that she was doing interviews for the paper, or that she was at work. She hadn't told Susie that she had already written her piece for the paper. She would, however, tell her that she was fired. Susie would probably cluck her tongue in an I-told-you-so way and wouldn't say anything more about it.
That night Javier came to her door. She had been sleeping and pulled a blanket around herself when she went to open the door.
"I'm sorry." he said, staring her straight in the face.
"What about?" she asked, confused.
"That I never told you how much I love you. I told you, but I never said--"
"It's okay." she put her hand on his face and kissed him.
Glad that Susie was still out, she pulled him over to her bed, still kissing him. He pulled her hair out of the bun and let it tumble down her smooth, ivory colored shoulders. She tugged off his shirt and he lay down.
His fingers worked the zipper of her dress and zzzzz it slid down. She felt her bare skin against the smooth cotton of the bedcover and remembered the last time they had done this, with the surf crashing nearby and nothing but the thin sheet in the bungalow separating them from the soft, warm sand below.
"Katey I--"
"It's okay….it's okay." she smiled and he suddenly felt better about all the nervousness in his stomach; he wasn't very practiced about this sort of thing.
"But I don't--"
"Shhh. Te amo, Javier."
Katey woke with a start as she heard the door to the apartment slam. It was only a dream, and now Susie was home.
"Kate! You better be hungry, 'cause I brought desert too and I--Katey, what's wrong?" she turned on the light of the living room and saw Katey, with tears streaming down her face.
"What's wrong?" she asked. She sat down next to Katey and hugged her. Katey hugged back, hard. She cried into her shoulder until she felt silly and pulled back. She wiped wet, teary hair away from her face and sat back on the couch, her hands covering her face. She hated to cry in front of others.
"Um, do you want pie? I love pie. I made some. It's pumpkin. You know, 'cause of Halloween and all." said Susie, who wasn't very good at other peoples emotions. Katey wiped her face, which was all scuzzy and gross from crying.
"I got fired. They said I was an awful waitress."
"Yeah, I figured you would be." they smiled.
"And I'm dancing with Javier. We're in this contest. Maybe we can win some money."
"I know."
"You know?"
"Yeah. I saw you too. I put two and two together."
"When'd you see us?"
"Well, that bartender's pretty persuasive. And his accent is to die for. Now I get why you have such a thing for foreign guys," Katey laughed. "You're gonna win, you know. And I'm just glad Mom and Dad will get to watch you win." Katey, who had been fiddling with the fringe of the window trimming, looked up suddenly.
"What?"
"Well, they called while you were at work and said they're canceling the Thanksgiving party and coming here to spend it with us. Like old times."
"This is unbelievable." Katey got up and walked into the kitchen. She found the pie Susie had been talking about and opened it. She got a knife out of the drawer and cut herself a slice.
"Why were you crying?" Susie appeared in the door behind her. "Wow. Put the knife down before you tell me." Katey had turned around with the sharp knife still in her hand. She put the knife down on the granite countertop.
"Bad dream."
"About Javier?" she nodded.
She and Susie were eating pie at the dining room table when the doorbell rang.
"Go away Heckles!" Susie yelled.
"Susie!" Katey laughed and answered the door. It was Dave.
"Hello. I was wondering if I might accompany you fine young ladies to a late dinner." he bowed, smiling. Katey smiled.
"Uh, actually we were already eating, but we'd love for you to join us." Katey knew Susie would be pleased. He leaned close and whispered in her ear.
"I was hoping you'd say that. I forgot to make reservations somewhere." That was just like Dave. Katey smiled and let him in.
Susie was getting to like Dave more and more. And he liked her, she thought. And Katey didn't want him anymore, so….
"Hey Dave, we were thinking of going to La Rosa Negra tonight. Wanna come? I'm sure Katey can show us how to dance like real Cubans." he smiled and accepted. He waited patiently for them to get ready, and when Susie came out, he whistled. He spun her around and she laughed. Katey was glad that they liked each other so much, but Susie might be just a little too young for him. She was twenty, he was twenty-five. She was still in college, for heaven's sakes. When Katey came out wearing a red dress similar to the one she was wearing her first night at La Rosa Negra, Dave gave a long, low whistle. Makes up your mind, boy. She thought. It's either her or me. And I hope to God's graces that it's her.
In the car to the club, they were laughing and talking. They had all had a few drinks at the bar at the hotel, so the world was a little fuzzy to all three of them.
"Hey, you know what would be funny to do tonight? Pretend that the two of you got married. That would the biggest joke ever." Susie said.
"Yeah. Hey, driver!" Dave yelled. "Madison's Jewelers, please."
Twenty minutes later the three of them walked out of a jewelry store with shiny silver bands on their left ring fingers, courtesy of Dave. He hadn't wanted Susie to feel left out, so he bought her one, too. They were laughing and talking loudly when they stepped out onto the street a few blokes away from the club. Katey was looking down when a man on a moped clipped her. She let out a little squeak and the others looked at her.
"I broke a nail."
Javier was dancing with his friend Lola when his sister walked in.
"Can I get in a dance with my champion dancer little brother?" she smiled. He twirled her around the way a brother would. Smiling, but polite. When he asked her why she was out, she merely shrugged and kept smiling. Maria was never the type to give explanations. She married her husband Francisco when Javier was fifteen and she twenty-five. She had always been a little too old to really be his pal, but she was his sister in a way. When they were sitting at the bar eating pretzels she started to gab away about her little boy, Diego.
"And yesterday he came home with his report card and I was so proud. All A's! I think he's very much like his uncle Javier," she smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "Speaking of which, when are you going back to school?" Javier groaned. Whenever she visited she got onto this subject, and that made his mother get going.
"Javi, you have to stop this. You always said 'Ill go back when things settle down,' and then you said that it wasn't right because of the revolution, now you say it's because of Carlos leaving, but things are settled now. I don't mind watching Chabe and Rafael until you get home, they're no bother to me."
"I just don't want to, that's all. I can't. I have a job, one that pays well. I can't quit my job to go back to school. I worked hard to get here. You just don't understand, Ria."
"What's not to understand, huh? So you work less, is that so bad? You were so good in school Javi. Much better than me. Top of your class! You know how Papa used to brag about you, huh? It was all 'oh, my son's going to make something of himself someday. He's going to get out of Cuba and go to school in America and be the finest dancer the world has ever seen.'" she mimicked their father's deep, gruff voice. They both grew silent at his mention. Maria touched his hand.
"What about that American girl, huh? You said that you were going to go to America because you loved her so much. And then you didn't go. How did you regret that? You said that being with her made you want to be better. So be better, Javi. Be better." she looked at him with light green eyes, so much like their father, and he gave her a small smile. She was right. He had said that about Katey, and he did want to go back to school, at least to graduate high school.
"Why are you really here, Maria?" he asked. She sighed. She thought maybe he'd agree this time, but she knew her little brother had a stubborn streak a mile wide.
"Oh, I just wanted to catch up with you," she smiled wickedly. "Your pretty little blonde girl was by the house earlier. She waved to me, but I'm not sure she knew who I was. She is very beautiful." Maria smiled and trailed her finger around the rim of her glass, her mind somewhere else, as it usually was. Javier narrowed his eyes. He was confused by Katey's secret visit, but he also knew that something was wrong with Maria.
"It's Francisco, isn't it? What's wrong? Is he drinking, did he hurt you?" his protective side was always there, even for a sister that he knew could take care of herself. Maria sighed, caught again. She muttered something unintelligible under the music.
"What?"
"He's missing," she said. "He has been for a few days, and I'm worried. He's always been against Castro, and he never really kept his opinions private. And you know how things are now, I was worried maybe he went the same way as Papa. And I was wondering if you could maybe put the word out to look for him. I left Diego with Mama to come here. And now I need to go. So you tell me about that little American, huh? She was cute. And she really had you."
Javier, who was trying to process the news of his missing brother in law, asked what she meant.
"Oh, you know. You'd had girlfriends before, but this is the first one you really loved." she smiled and slipped into the crowd after giving him a kiss of the cheek. He called after her, but if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. That was Maria. He sighed and downed his drink.
Katey and Susie followed Dave into the club. He excused himself for the bathroom, leaving the girls alone next to the bar.
"I need to get a drink." Katey said, signaling the bartender.
"You need to get some Javier." Susie said, pointing to Javier, who was waving from a few feet away. "Go." she pushed Katey to him.
"Hi." she said. She was thinking about her dream in the worst way. Dave then appeared behind her.
"Hello," he held out his hand to Javier, who shook it gamely. It was plain to Katey that he didn't like him, though she couldn't figure out why.
"Do you mind if I dance with your date?" Javier asked.
"Well, you'll have to ask her." Dave wasn't used to sharing Katey with anybody, and he was still working out his feelings for her. Javier turned to Katey, who nodded.
"Should we give your boyfriend a show?" he asked, pulling her onto the dance floor.
"He's not my boyfriend." Katey objected. He smiled. Suddenly, the floor cleared for them. They looked around, confused, until they saw Susie watching with Dave.
"Hey, the king and queen have returned!" she yelled.
"Susie!" Katey yelled.
They danced that night like it was their very last night together. Which years before, it had been. Years later, Javier would ask Katey why she danced with him that night the way she hadn't when they had been practicing. She never could answer him perfectly. There wasn't even a real reason, she said. Everything came back to her. Maybe it was the music or the smoke or the drinks or the band on her finger. Or maybe it was his breath on her skin. Or the way it felt to have his large, brown hand on her small pale one.
She was different, he could tell. She wasn't as sulky or moody or, he thought, completely bitchy. Which she had been since they had seen each other. They were friends again, if nothing more.
Her hair fell out of the bobby pins and his smile, his old, boyish grin returned to his face. Maria, who was watching unnoticed from beside the stage, smirked and saw how stupid her little brother was. How could he not see how crazy about him this girl was?
The next day after practicing, they were sitting on the beach near the graveyard and Katey leaned back against the rocks. She gathered her hair under her skull as a pillow.
"I still think we should do the double turn."
"No, that's overdoing it. And I don't think I should throw you over my head, either. Too swing dance." he made a cut-it-out motion with his hands.
They got to talking, and soon they were talking about neighbors.
"The woman next to me always steals her husband's Playboy's and draws on them with markers." Katey smiled.
"Nah, mine's better. Mrs. Gerlani, the old lady two houses down watches Chabe and Rafael for me sometimes. She went traveling once. Maybe it was France? Anyway, she brought back Crocodile Pâté. I saw it once in her cupboard. The expiration date said 1927." They both laughed.
"Okay. No no no. Mine is the best. The man below me always says I'm making too much noise. Anyway, he always knocks on my ceiling with a broom. And sometimes he comes to my door and tells me I'm disturbing his ferrets or rabbits or dinner party or movement classes."
"Movement classes?"
"That's his way of saying he's not a part-time mime."
"Mime? I don't know the English word." Javier propped himself up on his elbows and raised an eyebrow at Katey. She made hand and face movements. He laughed.
"How's is Susie? She cooks now, yes?"
"Yep. My parents hate it. They don't like that I work, and they don't want her to work either. But she loves it. She was never the best at school. Asked too many questions. She was always the one that thought two plus two might equal four, but it could also equal four and one tenths or five or yellow."
Javier laughed.
"And you, Miss Miller. How are you?" Katey shrugged. "No, really."
"I'm good. Happy. I like Dave. I love my job."
"Yes. You write the truth, yes?" he looked at her and she nodded. "You are very lucky that you can do this. It's not always so here anymore. Not everyone is happy. But you? You don't seem happy. You seem broken."
She sat up.
"Broken" What do you mean, broken?" he looked at her, knowing that it might not have been the best English phrase.
"No, not like that. A missing piece. Not very whole."
"I am whole, Javier," he looked at her and shook his head. She hated that he always knew her so well.
"Fine. I'll show you."
Twenty minutes later they were walking up to the Oceana. That was the
most important thing she had learned at Radcliff. If you can tell someone, show them.
The two girls had now set up for the long haul. Katey's boss had phoned earlier that week and said that he liked her article so much that he wanted more, and she was to stay until he asked her back, and to think of it as a vacation. Susie had brought pictures galore, as she got easily homesick.
Javier looked around the hotel as though one might view a former school or home if they had not seen it in years. He remembered his days as a waiter too well, and it was strange to be back.
"Here." Katey opened the door to her and Susie's apartment and Javier followed her in.
"Very nice." he said. He stood in the vestibule and fingered the huge vase of flowers while Katey opened a huge scrapbook that Susie had been working on. They sat on the couch and she opened it between them.
"This was my eighteenth birthday."
"When?"
"Ah, October before I met you. And this is our old lake house. Me and Susie when we lived in Philadelphia. See the big building? That's the library at U Penn. My dad went there. He loved to show us around," she smiled and flipped through page after page, pointing out significant or amusing things. "Oh, this is when Susie cut her pinkie off. Don't worry, they sewed it on just fine. Cooking accident. Part of why Mom and dad don't like her chosen profession. She'll always have a scar there. And this--" she was stopped by Javier's hand pushing a page back to look at a picture she had passed.
"What……?" Javier looked at her in disbelief. How could she have not noticed the picture of her and Susie at their parents beach house in the spring.
"What? When…? When did you have a baby?" he jumped off the couch, spilling the scrapbook onto the floor and sending a shiver up Katey's spine. She braced herself.
"Why didn't you tell me that you're married? That you have a child?" he was yelling now.
"Because I wasn't and I don't." Katey flopped back against the sofa. He looked at her. He saw it in her eyes and he felt a burning spring to his.
"Mine?" he bent down to pick up the book. He looked at the picture and traced a finger along the line of her stomach. He sat on the floor, looking at it and Katey watched him. She saw a tear spring from his eye, fall, and spread out over the plastic protecting the photograph.
"You never told me. I would have come," his voice wobbled as if it were changing.
"I know. I couldn't let you do that."
"What? Why not?" Katey slid onto the floor. She had been dreading this.
"Because. You didn't want me to give up my dreams. Why should I let you give up yours because of me? It isn't fair."
"It isn't fair." It isn't. Javier thought. She's right. I wouldn't let her give up her dreams. But isn't this different? She kept this from me for years. She probably would never have told me. But…still. How could I have left my life?
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stood up.
"Come on." he said. She looked at him, confused. Shouldn't he still be yelling?
"What?" he held out his hand and picked hers up. He tugged her into the vestibule. "Come, come."
"Where are we going?"
"To practice. We need to get this thing down in two weeks."
And they tried, and they tried, but it still wasn't working.
As he was spinning her around the club, Katey just couldn't understand him. Why was he so suddenly fine? Hadn't she done some huge awful thing?
"You're off."
"Am not."
"You are too."
"You are."
"Am not."
"Stop being obstinate."
"I am not abstinate."
"Well, of course." she laughed.
"What's funny? I said nothing funny. All I said was that you're off." he frowned at her and adjusted his frame. She sighed. This was going nowhere fast. And they'd been at it for three hours already. She had to get home. Susie would have a royal fit is she wasn't home for dinner. Also the musicians for that night were starting to tune and one of them kept whistling at her. It was distracting. She suddenly stopped.
"I gotta get home for dinner." she said. She sat on a chair and pulled off her shoes. She had long since learned what shoes not to dance in. she pulled on her high, strappy ones and pulled a cardigan over her dress.
"'Night. When tomorrow? How about two? Because I have to do another article."
"Sure. I can walk you back to your hotel." he pulled a shirt on over his thin white tank top.
"No, I know the way."
She stepped through the beaded door out onto the street. He followed and caught her elbow as she turned around.
"I know you do. But it's dangerous. My brother-in-law is missing."
"Oh."
She let him walk her back, maybe out of pity. She wasn't really the type to let a guy do something like that for her anymore. It seemed to impinge on her newfound independence.
"So what did you do when you found out?" Javier asked her. They were walking back from the club on the beach when he suddenly spit it out.
"About what? The baby?" he nodded. "Well, I wanted to tell you…but by then you had already asked me not to write. So I didn't. After I lost it, I wrote and told you everything. And when I didn't get an answer back, I figured that you just didn't care."
"Was that what you thought or what they told you to think?" she raised a puzzled eyebrow.
"You had faith in me, Katey. I know you did, even if you tried to seem as though you didn't care when I stayed. You would have known I never knew about the baby. You would have trusted me. Someone told you not to keep trusting. You trusted."
She was quiet. They listened to the waves and felt the sand squish between their toes.
"You know, I'd never felt sand like this before I came here." he looked at her, a question in his eyes. "It's different from the sand at our beach house. That's the only beach I'd been to before I came here. I remember how much I loved it. It's so soft. Buttery."
They came to the arch with the hotel's name lit up. He hesitated before following her through it. When they got to her apartment, they could hear Susie banging pots and pans around in the kitchen even from behind the closed door. She whipped open the door when they knocked.
"Where have you been? Oh, hi Javier. Enter." she pulled both of them in and set another place at the table. The three of them were silent at dinner except to compliment Susie's food. Susie was always the talkative one, but she was being silent. Something about their silence and the way he would glance at her when she wasn't looking made her think that Katey had told him about the baby, but she couldn't be sure. So she kept her mouth shut. When dinner was through, Katey went to work on her article for a few minutes and Javier and Suzie washed dishes in the kitchen. Living in the hotel, they didn't really have to clean anything, but Susie was just used to it.
"So, are you sure you should really be here?" Susie asked.
"Why not? Should I leave?" he looked at her.
"No. Just…with your wife and all. Won't she want you home?"
"Oh, yes, my wife. No, she's at her mother's tonight. She has…a mental instability…so she needs to be away from me sometimes…" he lied. Why had he just said that his wife was crazy? Why couldn't he have just said that his wife wasn't home? He was the worst liar.
"Ah. I see. So, what's her name?" Susie asked.
"Ah, Lara."
"I see."
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said that funny."
"Nothing it's just….this wife. She's fictitious, no?"
"What? You know, maybe I should go. Tell Katey I'll meet her tomorrow same time same place."
As he left, Susie giggled, then burst out into full-out laughter. For all of her sister's accomplishments, she sure was dumb. How could she not see how crazy about her he was? They weren't getting along? Jeez. If they were in grade school he'd be pulling her pigtails and she'd be stealing his snack packs. They're bothdumb. Susie chuckled to herself.
The falling right back into place part might have been a mistake of words. They were fighting and bickering and they couldn't get along on anything. But they were getting along. Even Susie could see it.
Javier ate dinner with them most nights after work. He explained to Katey the lie about having a wife, and she just laughed. She had known when he was lying.