Her eyes snapped open in the middle of the night and she spoke softly into his ear. “Fully,” she whispered, “marry me now. Let’s go home and tell my parents. I can’t bear to be apart ever again.”
He felt the tugging down below, pulling him inevitably toward her. He was drowning in her gaze as he looked at her. This was not how he had planned it, all these years. Her telling him. This indiscretion in a borrowed storage room. But his yearning—for once—outweighed his misguided reason. All he wanted now was to be with her. To vanquish her lust and desire. To feast upon her pure and sumptuous body. To pour his being into her and feel it all melt away. The frustrations of a lifetime. The fear and loathing. The self-hate. To let it all go and watch her absorb it, neutralize it, conquer it and him.
“Yes,” he whispered, “You’ll be my wife. I’ll be your husband. And we’ll make love like this for the rest of our lives.”
She kissed him delicately. “I love you so much, Fully. Never let me go now.”
“Never,” he said.
They rested, dreaming of how it would be. Being married. Sharing a home and a bed and a future.
“But we’ll still do this on our own,” Fulgencio reaffirmed. “I don’t want your father’s help.”
“Fine,” she smiled, stroking his hair. “All I need is you.”
“It’ll be tough,” he warned. “I mean . . . I can afford more than this cot with what I’ve saved up, but not too much more until we graduate.”
“This cot did just fine,” she giggled. “Well, almost.”
They slept soundly, wrapped in the fabric of the defeated cot.
Early the next morning, they woke and straightened the place up, laughing at the aftermath. They drove her banana-yellow Thunderbird convertible to La Frontera. Home for the holidays. Alive with excitement. Eager to make their announcement.
She dropped him off at Bobby Balmori’s house and blew him a kiss as she drove away, “See ya tonight at my house!” she called out.
He waved at her, his smile broad as the Stetson hat on his head. He shook his head. God, how he loved her. He loved her so much it didn’t matter anymore that he had betrayed his convictions. What did it mean anyway, they would soon be man and wife. He’d labor their way through college if he had to work three jobs, day and night. And then, someday, they’d come back to La Frontera, and he’d buy Mr. Mendelssohn’s store fair and square. He’d pay for every penny of merchandise and then some. He’d take good care of her always.
That night, he wore a black suit with a red tie. His hair slicked back, he borrowed Mr. Balmori’s ’54 Imperial for the drive to the Mendelssohn’s home. He stopped to pick up a bouquet of roses at Curiel’s Flower Shop.
“Buena suerte, m’ijo,” Mr. Curiel crackled from behind the cash register as Fulgencio retrieved a splendid bouquet from the refrigerator in the cramped one-room shop.
“Tonight’s the big night, Señor Curiel,” Fulgencio beamed, pulling a tiny black velvet box from his pocket and shaking it.
“A diamond?” Mr. Curiel ventured.
“Sí señor,” Fulgencio exhaled. He had spent half his savings that afternoon, buying the ring.
As he walked away from Mr. Balmori’s gleaming black sedan and up to the Mendelssohn’s front door, Fulgencio felt just as he had that first night he picked Carolina up for the homecoming dance. He passed the white picket fence, and his shiny black shoes reflected the moon, clicking on the walkway to the house, echoing in the still Christmas Eve chill. Frosty dew on the soft grass lay beneath his feet as he circled the house toward the back door to the kitchen. He thought he’d surprise her, roses behind his back, diamond in his coat pocket, a smile emblazoned on his face. He crouched over a bush, peering in through the kitchen window, searching for a glimpse of her.
Suddenly, the magic crashed to the ground with the dozen roses he would leave undelivered on the lawn. His jaw clenched in that jarring rage that so possessed him since the days of his childhood when he was roused from dreams by the alarming blasts of brass, the thundering train, the cryptic letters, the chanted words he could never quite understand or even repeat out loud. Nacaz tzitzica . . . tecocoliztli . . . chochopica. The taste of blood filled his mouth as he bit his tongue in disgust. She was dancing with another man again, an affluent-looking, Anglo stranger about their age. There in the dining room. He could see her. Her shoes off, her heels kicking high, laughing and clapping in a fitted red dress, diamonds hanging from her ears ten times bigger than any stone he could afford on his meager salary as a short order cook. Had her parents brought in a family friend to finally marry her off to their own kind? Had they tired of his mystifying and maddening ways? He prowled around the corner of the house back onto the front lawn, rubbing his eyes violently, wishing it would all go away, be a cruel trick played on him by his overactive and jealous imagination. But no, there she was doing it still, her pupils glittering with glee as they gazed into her tall dance partner’s sky-blue eyes, her bare arms thrown around the man’s broad shoulders. The very naked arms that had cradled him the night before. The arms he had melted into. Her bosom now bouncing in unfettered merriment, the breasts he had buried his soul in, born his heart onto, the altar he had sacrificed his morals upon now grazed against another man’s chest in the very home where he’d been about to propose on one knee! She had promised to not stoke his jealous rage again. How could she break that oath again, and so soon?
He had opened up, abandoned his defenses, dared to let her see him for who and what he truly was in his most raw and vulnerable state, and she had betrayed him yet again. He had worried so much about whether something was wrong with his own way of thinking, but if what if the real problem was hers? He could forgive and forget once, but not twice. Not now. Not after what had transpired between them. He yearned with every fiber of his being to barge into the living room, tear her smug gringo dance partner limb from limb, and—like a bucking bronco—shatter and disintegrate the furnishings and fine crystal and porcelain knickknacks that adorned the room draped in doilies and lace. A gringo. This is what she wanted? Maybe this was what she deserved, not a pobre, pinche indio like him, still wet from crossing the river, still tracking mud on his shoes all over her family’s fancy carpets. He was about to force the front door open, but—through a herculean effort—he managed to hold back, out of respect for Mr. Mendelssohn and his wife, although who knew anymore if they even deserved it. Certainly not if this new suitor was their doing, a sign that they’d chosen an easier path for their daughter after all. He shut his eyes tightly, letting the ancient words wash over him, like the surf on the beach near El Dos de Copas, drowning everything out, strangely comforting him in their now familiar rhythm, even though he had no clue what they meant. Cahua. Cel. Cahua. Cel. A bridge was swept away, the gate to his soul, the threshold to his heart rendered impassable as a mighty river amidst a violent flood. The metallic ring of the car door clanging shut before he drove away would haunt him, echoing for years to come. Scattered rose petals on the lawn. A black velvet box never handed over, left to gather dust in a desk drawer in his drugstore. And the questions left unanswered, unasked.