Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking by Raquel V. Reyes

Author:Raquel V. Reyes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Nineteen

Jorge arrived at four that afternoon with a rolling suitcase makeup studio.

“Didn’t you say you had a costume party tonight?” I asked my clean-faced friend.

“Sí, pero I have time. I’ll do my makeup after yours. Let’s go, chica. You’re a vampire. No?” Jorge opened his trunk of tricks.

While Manny and Robert kicked a neon-checkered fútbol in the backyard, Jorge made my golden-brown skin look sallow and gray. He did lowlights and highlights on my cheekbones and used a liquid liner to give me winged eyes.

“Okay. Go brush your teeth,” Jorge said.

“¿Qué? Do I have bad breath?” I put my hand over my mouth and tried the smell test.

“Vete.” He shooed me away.

When I came back, he was arranging a tube of dental glue and what looked like pointy acrylic nails on a tea towel.

“Are those fangs? And you are going to glue them to my teeth? Are they safe?”

Jorge rolled his eyes and told me to chill. He dried my canines and tried a few sizes. Once he had the right ones, he glued them on. After they dried, he applied a matte-purple, almost-black lipstick. He then held up a mirror for me to see his creature feature masterpiece.

“Wow. Jorge, this is so good. Like, increíble de verdad,” I said.

Robert and Manny came in from outside.

“Babe, you look amazing.”

“Scary!” Manny said. I gave him the Speak in Spanish look. “Espooky!”

I laughed and corrected him. “Aterrador. Muy aterrador.”

While the boys changed into their top-secret costumes, I made mamey batidos for all of us. Between whirls of the blender, I asked Jorge about Nelson.

“Mira, there were always rumors about him. But I never saw anything with my own eyes. Y también, he was only at Chancletas a few weeks before I left. Everybody says he’s tough pero nice. I mean, like, if you are not doing your job to his five-star standards, claro, you are going to get fired. Pero, like, he gave people chances to improve. You know?”

I took a slurp of the shake. Thanks to not being able to close my mouth entirely because of the fangs, half of it fell out of my mouth. I found a wide silicone straw so I could finish my fruity dinner.

“So you never heard anything about whips and leather?” I asked. I mean, it wasn’t like that stuff was illegal, but it was, you know, kind of weird.

“Chica, leather es una subcultura gay. No es un big deal.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like biker,” Jorge explained. “It’s an aesthetic, you know. Like what you like. Like what you are attracted to. Like I bet you like David Chocarro y William Levy.” He named two telenovela stars. “Y tambien Wilmer Valderrama y maybe un joven Benjamin Bratt como en Miss Congeniality. Am I right?”

“How did you know?” It was true. Bratt from the Sandra Bullock movies was cute.

“Because your husband has the same classic look. You like that macho-guapo look. It is what it is,” Jorge said.

“Okay, so what aesthetic do you like?” I asked with sincere curiosity.

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