Show Me Chapter 25

As Victoria came downstairs, still on her own version of cloud nine after her date with Gustavo, the rest of the family turned to face her and started bombarding her with questions.

"How did it go, mija?"

"I hope he was a gentleman."

"Did you have fun?"

Using a spoon to bang against a saucepan, Imelda said, "Una pregunta a la vez!* Let Vicita catch her breath first!" Pausing briefly, Imelda signaled for Victoria to go ahead and spill the beans about her date.

"Well, we went to that new restaurant in the Arts District and then went to see a friend of his perform in a concert at the Rivera Plaza. Then he walked me home. We're going to meet up again sometime this week."

Rosita and the twins hid sneaky grins, knowing that the date had gone very well and had ended in a kiss. Victoria had been ill for the last few years of her life, so unlike Elena, she had never been interested in dating and boys. But that never meant that Victoria wasn't a faithful older sister or a protective one. When Elena first introduced Franco to the family, both Victoria and Imelda sat him down to discuss the ban.

"Do not break mí nieta's heart," Imelda said sternly. "Entiendes?"

Gulping nervously, Franco nodded. He loved Elena and would never do anything to make her unhappy. "I would rather die than break her heart," he squeaked. "I love her. But I still don't understand the ban, Seño-I mean, Mamá Imelda."

"Mamá's papá was un musico," Victoria explained. "He decided that music was more important than family and left when Mamá tenía tres años. Abuelita started up the business later that same year. Since then, there has been no music."

Blinking back tears at the sudden pain of the memory, Imelda tried to smile and said, "I'm so happy you had a good time, mija."

Victoria nodded and then whispered, "There was something else as well, Abuelita, but I can't tell you in front of the family."

Immediately alarmed, Imelda said, "No tienes relaciones sexuales con él, ¿verdad?"**

Feeling embarrassed, Victoria responded, "No, Abuelita, I'm not. But it's not that. It has to do with the Rodriguez case. I noticed something while I was out yesterday with Gustavo and I think you need to know."

After the breakfast dishes were cleared away, Imelda and Héctor, who had been called in from the workshop, sat down in the living room, anxious to what Victoria had to say.

"Mija, what's going on?" Héctor asked. "This is the first time we've heard about the Rodriguez case in a while and I thought that we were going to let the living members of the family deal with it for now."

"It has to do with Araceli Torres," Victoria said, as Imelda grimaced. "I saw an old poster for one of her movies while I was at the concert. Apparently, she and de la Cruz had starred in multiple films together when she was a child. She suddenly stopped acting in 1935 and rumors swirled that she was dating a musician that her parents didn't like."

"de la Cruz." Imelda growled angrily. "Típica para él, no?*** He goes ahead and takes advantage of an innocent girl and leaves her."

"No, Abuelita, it wasn't de la Cruz!" Victoria said. "It was Rodriguez! Apparently, they had been seeing each other but the studio and her parents didn't like it and wanted her to start dating de la Cruz to boost her career. So, de la Cruz and Torres started seeing each other in 1938, shortly after her 17th birthday. They even got engaged at one point!"

Now it was Héctor's turn to grimace. Esa pobre chica. "Has there been any luck finding any surviving relatives of Torres?" he asked.

"According to Miguel, there isn't anything on her at all," Imelda said. "All the records were destroyed during an earthquake in the '50s. We've only pieces to go with and the only thing we know is that Rodriguez vanished shortly before de la Cruz died."

The next day was a flurry of activity; Coco and Victoria headed for the library to do some more research while Imelda and Héctor decided to go to the Arts District to ask around about Torres. Julio, Rosita and the twins stayed behind to run the workshop, wanting to keep things somewhat normal.

"It's been a while since we've been to the Arts District, mí amor. Not since, well, you know." Héctor said as the couple made their way to Ceci's apartment. Imelda winced, clearly still feeling bad.

Ever since the couple's argument about Imelda reestablishing contact with her mamá, no one had seen or even heard from Josefina, who had been staying with friends in the Silent District, not too far from where the Rivera shop was. Imelda was annoyed with the situation but knew that it was unfair to deny Coco the chance to get to know Josefina properly. This was a subtle but huge change to how Imelda would normally react to circumstances she disliked.

Sling-shooting his arm to knock on the second floor windowpane, Héctor watched as Ceci and Frida made their way to the window.

"Héctor what's going on? Is it an emergency?" Ceci asked. "Something to do with Rodriguez?"

Nodding his head frantically, Héctor replied, "Can we come in? We'll tell you everything—Victoria found something out!"

Ten minutes later, Imelda and Héctor Rivera were sitting on the couch, cups of hibiscus tea in their hands as they explained everything to Ceci and Frida. The two women were not too surprised. With all the drama going on at the Rivera house, Ceci, Frida and the other artists in the Arts District had done some investigating of their own. And everything seemed to add up.

"We asked around and found out some more information, Héctor," Frida said, "Torres made a lot of movies in the 30s and 40s, so we asked several directors about what they remember from filming those movies. We even watched a few of those movies ourselves for clues."

"One of the directors said that Rodriguez and Torres were deeply in love, to the point of wanting to elope, but the studios objected." Ceci said as she put out some publicity photos to show everyone. "As de la Cruz's bandmate, that 'love triangle' between the three of them was in the news."

Imelda picked up one of the photos and put it back down again. "What about her parents? Were you able to find out anything about who her parents were?"

Frida took a deep breath, knowing that the next bit of information would shake the two Riveras to the core.

"We looked up her family in the Records at the Department of Family Connections." Ceci said as she handed Imelda a copy of the family tree.

"There wasn't much on her papá," Frida said as she described the family tree. "But according to the DFC, he was a stagehand at Paramount in Los Estados Unidos. Her mamá was un mamá típica del scenario**** and got Araceli into acting when she was 6 years old."

Imelda nodded, somewhat impatiently, hoping they would get to the point. "But what about the possibility of her having a child? Is it possible to find Araceli's child or Araceli herself in the Land of the Dead or the Living?"

"She does," Ceci answered. "We were able to find that out too but it was muy dificil. Araceli Torres died giving birth to her only child, a daughter, in January 1943, several months after de la Cruz died."

"Can we write to the living relatives at least?" Héctor asked. "Tell Miguel her name at least or whether or not there are any living descendants?"

Frida shook her head. "There's nothing on the daughter's name or anything. It's like de la Cruz wanted to deny her existence and hide her away. Everything was redacted."

Walking home was a silent affair as Héctor and Imelda slowly took in the information that they had been told. Somewhere out there was a woman who had no idea of her true heritage and was either alive, dead or worse, Forgotten.

"I just hope that she wasn't forgotten," Imelda said, squeezing Héctor's hand. "Pobre, pobre, niña. No one deserves that. But it does explain why the Rodgriuez family is so reluctant to press charges on de la Cruz's estate. They were afraid of what would happen if that romance became public and that it would brand Araceli or Jorge Rodriguez as…." Héctor winced but understood the implication.

"I have an idea, mí amor, but you're not going to like it," Héctor said cautiously. "Don't panic."

Raising a non-existent eyebrow Imelda said, "Ay, why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this?"

"I need to talk to Ernesto, mí amor."

"QUE?!"

Translations

*one question at a time!

**you're not having sexual relations with him are you?

***Typical of him, right?

****a typical stage mom