How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Author:Angie Cruz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

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OK, OK, fine, I will tell you about the interview. The lady was very nice. She was younger than me; not a lot, but with babies still. You know how the Americans are. They wait forever to have a baby and then have to fight like the devil to make it.

But OK, OK, she has a nice house, the lady. There were some plants that gave the house a little bit of life. And a painting, muy moderna, took all the attention in the room. I don’t know if it was a blue frog or a blue elephant, maybe a cloud, maybe it was everything.

She needed me to work four nights every week. Sometimes five or six nights.

I travel a lot, she said.

¡Qué tristeza! Her children spend so much time with people they don’t know.

Spanish only, she said.

Sí, claro, no hay problema, I said. She talked very fast and not like you or me: different. Like she had no air to breathe. When I am nervous I don’t understand what the people are saying.

But I know I don’t want to sleep in someone’s house. How am I going to take care of La Vieja Caridad? And Ángela’s children? What will Lulú do in the mornings if I sleep in this lady’s house?

Yes, Lulú. I told you, she needs me. Last night she came to my apartment with the bottle of wine.

What am I going to do about Adonis? she asked and passed me a glass.

Apparently things are even worse with Adonis than we had imagined. He knew he was going to be laid off last year. Last year! And he didn’t plan for it. He took that fancy cruise with the children anyway. His poor wife, Patricia, didn’t have any idea of their problems. When he lost his job, he pretended to go to work for months.

Lulú is in a real crisis. You’re not going to believe this. Or maybe you will because Lulú can be a little dramática. She took off her faja and threw it out of the window. This from a woman that puts on the faja from the moment she gets out of the bed. Always a size too small. She can’t even bend to pick up something from the floor. Breasts high up on her chest, like missiles.

So imagine, poor Lulú at the window, wearing only her bata. When did she start wearing batas outside the house? I could see everything under there. I had never seen her stomach before, her tetas pointing to the floor.

I’ll get it for you, I said, and rushed to the window to make sure the faja was down there. But it was gone. Disappeared. Who would take a faja from the street? Only in Washington Heights.

I could see the gray roots in her hair, half an inch of canas in the border of her forehead. I had no sense of how gray she was.

Lulú looks ten years older, maybe twenty years, with the fall of Adonis. For sure she hasn’t eaten all week because she’s emptied of life.

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