Life, Later (11/?)
11.
Bras. Honestly, I understand their necessity, I do! But still I think those wacky feminists in the 70’s had the right idea. Let’s burn them! Fire, pretty. Bras on fire, prettier. Silvia’s wearing a bra today and I’m inconsolable. I mope around the precinct, cursing the fact that I never really took up smoking in my misspent youth, like any normal teenager would’ve. Maybe I could swipe Curtis’ beloved Zippo when he’s not looking. As I’m about to come up with a devious plan to distract him enough to somehow get my hands into one of the back pockets of his jeans, Povedilla comes strolling perplexed from the entrance with a huge flower arrangement. Yes! Finally my first romantic gesture for the day could get me to get Silvia alone somewhere where she could properly thank me for the flower delivery and I could thank her for thanking me by liberating that bra and sending it off to bra heaven with a proper incineration. Fire! My eyes gleam and I turn to Silvia to watch her reaction at my little gift. Before Povedilla can reach her desk, Sara swoops in like a little vulture snatching the flowers from a flustered Jose Louis, and is now dancing around the precinct with MY flowers in her arms, twittering about how cute the gesture, how sweet the smell. Before I can get back my bearings she’s on the other side of the bull pen, having shown MY flowers to every unwilling colleague or handcuffed criminal lingering in front of a desk to be processed. The command from my brain to move reaches my feet and I scurry after the bothersome flower-snatcher. I snag her by the back of her pants and drag the protesting troublemaker into the bathroom.
‘Tita!’ She throws her arms around me and gives me two bessos and before I can launch into speech she floods me with words.
‘Look! Look! Look! Flowers. Flowers. Pretty’ Why use sentences when repeated single words are enough, huh, niece? I get you.
‘Erm…’
‘Ramon! Ramon sent them to me. Oh, he’s so cute and gallant. And hot!’ She fans herself, I gag.
‘Can you believe?! He sent me flowers, I’m sure it’s to thank me for teaching him how to kiss properly the other night. Oh, tita, he was such a mess before I got my hands on him and showed him the way. You wouldn’t believe how he would kiss before. Like he was eating, with his entire mouth and the tongue always there, wriggling, wetting my entire chin. I sat with a towel by my side for the first couple of hours until he got the gist of it. Now he’s only drooling occasionally when kissing. And that morning-breath in the evening. Like, hello!!! What are breath-mints for, dude, you know? I suggested he carry a travel toothbrush and toothpaste on him just in case I feel like kissing when we’re out and he was so grateful for all my tips, he was virtually eating them up. So sweet to get to them early on in the game when you can still train them and mold them, you know, do you civic duty, so to speak. I swear the girls who will come after me will so thank me for teaching him and he…’
I’m sure my glazed over eyes would speak volumes to anybody else as to how utterly fascinated I am by this, and I can feel my stomach contracting periodically and I escape into my own mind till the barrage of information stops of its own accord because I know no force of nature and definitely not little ol’ me could be able to stop her now. And I marvel at it, scrunching my brows. Oh my god, it truly runs in the family. The thought slams into me. No, not the facial hair, as Lola said… although Mama Concha did start plucking wiry solitary black facial hairs every day in the morning in front of the bathroom mirror ever since I was a tiny child. I concentrate on my niece’s face, at the same time that one of my hands raises to my own chin, feeling for treacherous hairs, I zero in on her chin and lean down to see how downy Sara’s downy hair on her face really is.
‘…and I had to swear chicks really don’t like to be bathed in their spit while being kissed. Actually I insisted they don’t like to be bathed in anything of theirs, period. Do you think he understood what I was hinting at, tita? He is still young and looked confused when I said it, but maybe later on I can show him…’
It’s true. It runs in the family. Some faulty gene somewhere, passed down through the generations, and now we suffer from the affliction. Babbling. I sigh and know I have to stop her somehow before my brain oozes out of my ears… or worse, I start babbling back. I shudder at the thought, we’d be here for 5 days if we both get lost in babbling back and forth. Short, single words - I must stick to short, single words and let actions speak for myself. I extend my hand and snatch the flowers out of her hands.
‘Mine.’ I growl.
She looks shocked for a moment, then grabs them back and is laughing.
‘Oh, tita. They are beautiful, aren’t they? I know one day, when you find the one, or one of the ones, like Ramon is for me, you’ll get flowers delivered to you as well. Why, I bet if you really wanted to you could have anyone, you just have to go out more. We should plan a weekend outing to some of the hot clubs in the city and there…’
Noooooooooo! I need a sock to stuff in her mouth. And now I’m grumpy I don’t walk around with socks stuffed in my pockets for exactly this kind of situations. No lighter and no spare sock. Just great! I’ll try again and if that doesn’t work I’ll just shove her into an empty shower, turn on the water and run. I know that will work!
‘MINE!’ And I’m holding the flowers once again.
Her eyes turn to slits, her stance changes and she looks like a tiny linebacker ready to charge.
I take back a step and succumb to… my own babbling.
‘Mine. I. Look, look at the card. Says ‘Pepa’ there. I… we… Silvia…’
She charges and almost succeeds, but I sidestep her deftly and jump onto the bench, holding the flowers up high in the air. I dance away from the grabby hands and shout at her to put a stop to this silly game.
‘Sara Miranda Castro! Stop and listen, NOW!’
She cocks her head, showing her willingness to listen, but doesn’t change her aggressive stance.
‘I can show you the card. I ordered these flowers for Silvia. I’m sorry that you thought they were for you, I’m sure Ramon will think to thank you somehow for the valuable kissing lessons you’ve given him, but these flowers are not it. Sorry.’ I draw in a breath to continue, in case she still doesn’t buy it.
‘Silvia? Why would you order flowers delivered for Silvia? It’s not her birthday.’ She says reasonably.
‘Well… you see… I… and her… and then, after the car backseat incident I thought I’d cheer her up and had the flowers delivered, but then you high-jacked them and…’
‘Read the card. Something is fishy here, Pepa.’ She looks calculating at me. Damn little curious, paranoid cop!
‘You see, it’s rather personal. Don’t you believe me, I’m your aunt, your own flesh and blood! How can you doubt my honesty?!’
‘Read the card or hand over the flowers - slowly.’ She says while pointing her GUN at me.
‘What?’ I sputter. That’s it! I draw my own Magnum, pointing it between her squinting, slitted eyes.
‘You’re threatening me with a gun? ME??? You little flower-high-jacking, gun-at-your-aunt-pointing, truth-doubting, self-centered, babbling-to-drive-me-bonkers little brat?’ I’m seething, no way in hell will she get my flowers, not even over my dead body. They’re Silvia’s and she and only she will pry them from my dead fingers!
The door opens and both our heads whip to the side, guns still pointing accurately for a killing shot.
Silvia. I feel my face shifting into a smile. She smiles back and then takes in the whole picture in front of her eyes.
‘Put them down! Now! What is going on here? Are you two insane? Don’t answer, I know you both are!’ I feel like a chastised child and have the urge to hide the gun behind my back like a child caught with a forbidden cookie in my hand, but I can’t do that, must guard Silvia’s flowers!
‘Sara, Pepa, NOW, dammit!’
‘She first!’ I say petulantly. She looks at me flabbergasted and that little vein is starting to throb on her forehead and I know we are both in trouble.
‘NOW!!!’ Uh oh, the pelirroja sure can be vocal when she needs to. I wonder if she’s as vocal in other given situations. I smirk and almost get lost in one those fantasies that I’m hoping to make reality soon. And then she growls. Which is sexy in itself but scary too. And I know that to live another day and have the chance to make real my fantasies involving Silvia, I must yield now. I look at my niece and see we’re on the same page now. We both slowly lower our guns and put them back in their holsters.
‘Now would someone please tell me what is going on between you two nutcases!’ She spits out aggravated.
‘She stole my flowers.’ I point accusingly at the child.
‘And she stole them back from me!’
‘That’s because you stole them in the first place!’
‘But they’re mine.’
‘Are not!’
‘Are too!’
‘ARE NOT!’
‘ARE SO TOO!’
‘SHUT THE FUCK UP! IMBECILS! And give me the fucking flowers!’ I hand them over, my hand shaking, half-afraid she would bite it off. She grabs them and finds the little envelope and tears it open. And reads it. And a blush races across her face and she lowers her eyes, smelling the arrangement, only to raise them shyly to mine and sofly say ‘Oh, Pepa. They are beautiful.’ And she glides towards me and leans in for a kiss. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, princesa.’ And I hug her to me for a long moment. Which would’ve lasted longer, had a creature not gasped repeatedly right next to us. I turn towards the intrusion and see our niece making a fairly accurate impression of a fish on land, mouth gaping open, eyes bulging. And sadly soon finding her voice.
‘You… her… and you… but you and her…’ She draws in more breath, always a bad sign.
‘Yes, we. We know we are, but still, we are also.’ Silvia explains to her. She’s one of the few who knows to make sense of our babbling and give the needed answers to still un-uttered questions. Both she and Lola had to master this rare art in dealing with the Miranda family.
‘And, mine.’ She indicated the flowers.
‘Yours, from her.’ Sara finally gets it. Whew! Took her long enough.
‘Bye, flower-snatcher. We’re busy.’ I have to make her just go away.
‘Pepa!’ Silvia half-heartedly scolds me.
‘What? You want her gone as much as I want, pelirroja. We could be making out at this very moment!’ I wink at her.
Sara huffs out the door. I’ll buy her some ice-cream later or a set of new fluffy towels for her next kissing lesson with Ramon.
‘I wanted to talk to you about something, princesa. It’s about your bras and a fire.’
Bras. Honestly, I understand their necessity, I do! But still I think those wacky feminists in the 70’s had the right idea. Let’s burn them! Fire, pretty. Bras on fire, prettier. Silvia’s wearing a bra today and I’m inconsolable. I mope around the precinct, cursing the fact that I never really took up smoking in my misspent youth, like any normal teenager would’ve. Maybe I could swipe Curtis’ beloved Zippo when he’s not looking. As I’m about to come up with a devious plan to distract him enough to somehow get my hands into one of the back pockets of his jeans, Povedilla comes strolling perplexed from the entrance with a huge flower arrangement. Yes! Finally my first romantic gesture for the day could get me to get Silvia alone somewhere where she could properly thank me for the flower delivery and I could thank her for thanking me by liberating that bra and sending it off to bra heaven with a proper incineration. Fire! My eyes gleam and I turn to Silvia to watch her reaction at my little gift. Before Povedilla can reach her desk, Sara swoops in like a little vulture snatching the flowers from a flustered Jose Louis, and is now dancing around the precinct with MY flowers in her arms, twittering about how cute the gesture, how sweet the smell. Before I can get back my bearings she’s on the other side of the bull pen, having shown MY flowers to every unwilling colleague or handcuffed criminal lingering in front of a desk to be processed. The command from my brain to move reaches my feet and I scurry after the bothersome flower-snatcher. I snag her by the back of her pants and drag the protesting troublemaker into the bathroom.
‘Tita!’ She throws her arms around me and gives me two bessos and before I can launch into speech she floods me with words.
‘Look! Look! Look! Flowers. Flowers. Pretty’ Why use sentences when repeated single words are enough, huh, niece? I get you.
‘Erm…’
‘Ramon! Ramon sent them to me. Oh, he’s so cute and gallant. And hot!’ She fans herself, I gag.
‘Can you believe?! He sent me flowers, I’m sure it’s to thank me for teaching him how to kiss properly the other night. Oh, tita, he was such a mess before I got my hands on him and showed him the way. You wouldn’t believe how he would kiss before. Like he was eating, with his entire mouth and the tongue always there, wriggling, wetting my entire chin. I sat with a towel by my side for the first couple of hours until he got the gist of it. Now he’s only drooling occasionally when kissing. And that morning-breath in the evening. Like, hello!!! What are breath-mints for, dude, you know? I suggested he carry a travel toothbrush and toothpaste on him just in case I feel like kissing when we’re out and he was so grateful for all my tips, he was virtually eating them up. So sweet to get to them early on in the game when you can still train them and mold them, you know, do you civic duty, so to speak. I swear the girls who will come after me will so thank me for teaching him and he…’
I’m sure my glazed over eyes would speak volumes to anybody else as to how utterly fascinated I am by this, and I can feel my stomach contracting periodically and I escape into my own mind till the barrage of information stops of its own accord because I know no force of nature and definitely not little ol’ me could be able to stop her now. And I marvel at it, scrunching my brows. Oh my god, it truly runs in the family. The thought slams into me. No, not the facial hair, as Lola said… although Mama Concha did start plucking wiry solitary black facial hairs every day in the morning in front of the bathroom mirror ever since I was a tiny child. I concentrate on my niece’s face, at the same time that one of my hands raises to my own chin, feeling for treacherous hairs, I zero in on her chin and lean down to see how downy Sara’s downy hair on her face really is.
‘…and I had to swear chicks really don’t like to be bathed in their spit while being kissed. Actually I insisted they don’t like to be bathed in anything of theirs, period. Do you think he understood what I was hinting at, tita? He is still young and looked confused when I said it, but maybe later on I can show him…’
It’s true. It runs in the family. Some faulty gene somewhere, passed down through the generations, and now we suffer from the affliction. Babbling. I sigh and know I have to stop her somehow before my brain oozes out of my ears… or worse, I start babbling back. I shudder at the thought, we’d be here for 5 days if we both get lost in babbling back and forth. Short, single words - I must stick to short, single words and let actions speak for myself. I extend my hand and snatch the flowers out of her hands.
‘Mine.’ I growl.
She looks shocked for a moment, then grabs them back and is laughing.
‘Oh, tita. They are beautiful, aren’t they? I know one day, when you find the one, or one of the ones, like Ramon is for me, you’ll get flowers delivered to you as well. Why, I bet if you really wanted to you could have anyone, you just have to go out more. We should plan a weekend outing to some of the hot clubs in the city and there…’
Noooooooooo! I need a sock to stuff in her mouth. And now I’m grumpy I don’t walk around with socks stuffed in my pockets for exactly this kind of situations. No lighter and no spare sock. Just great! I’ll try again and if that doesn’t work I’ll just shove her into an empty shower, turn on the water and run. I know that will work!
‘MINE!’ And I’m holding the flowers once again.
Her eyes turn to slits, her stance changes and she looks like a tiny linebacker ready to charge.
I take back a step and succumb to… my own babbling.
‘Mine. I. Look, look at the card. Says ‘Pepa’ there. I… we… Silvia…’
She charges and almost succeeds, but I sidestep her deftly and jump onto the bench, holding the flowers up high in the air. I dance away from the grabby hands and shout at her to put a stop to this silly game.
‘Sara Miranda Castro! Stop and listen, NOW!’
She cocks her head, showing her willingness to listen, but doesn’t change her aggressive stance.
‘I can show you the card. I ordered these flowers for Silvia. I’m sorry that you thought they were for you, I’m sure Ramon will think to thank you somehow for the valuable kissing lessons you’ve given him, but these flowers are not it. Sorry.’ I draw in a breath to continue, in case she still doesn’t buy it.
‘Silvia? Why would you order flowers delivered for Silvia? It’s not her birthday.’ She says reasonably.
‘Well… you see… I… and her… and then, after the car backseat incident I thought I’d cheer her up and had the flowers delivered, but then you high-jacked them and…’
‘Read the card. Something is fishy here, Pepa.’ She looks calculating at me. Damn little curious, paranoid cop!
‘You see, it’s rather personal. Don’t you believe me, I’m your aunt, your own flesh and blood! How can you doubt my honesty?!’
‘Read the card or hand over the flowers - slowly.’ She says while pointing her GUN at me.
‘What?’ I sputter. That’s it! I draw my own Magnum, pointing it between her squinting, slitted eyes.
‘You’re threatening me with a gun? ME??? You little flower-high-jacking, gun-at-your-aunt-pointing, truth-doubting, self-centered, babbling-to-drive-me-bonkers little brat?’ I’m seething, no way in hell will she get my flowers, not even over my dead body. They’re Silvia’s and she and only she will pry them from my dead fingers!
The door opens and both our heads whip to the side, guns still pointing accurately for a killing shot.
Silvia. I feel my face shifting into a smile. She smiles back and then takes in the whole picture in front of her eyes.
‘Put them down! Now! What is going on here? Are you two insane? Don’t answer, I know you both are!’ I feel like a chastised child and have the urge to hide the gun behind my back like a child caught with a forbidden cookie in my hand, but I can’t do that, must guard Silvia’s flowers!
‘Sara, Pepa, NOW, dammit!’
‘She first!’ I say petulantly. She looks at me flabbergasted and that little vein is starting to throb on her forehead and I know we are both in trouble.
‘NOW!!!’ Uh oh, the pelirroja sure can be vocal when she needs to. I wonder if she’s as vocal in other given situations. I smirk and almost get lost in one those fantasies that I’m hoping to make reality soon. And then she growls. Which is sexy in itself but scary too. And I know that to live another day and have the chance to make real my fantasies involving Silvia, I must yield now. I look at my niece and see we’re on the same page now. We both slowly lower our guns and put them back in their holsters.
‘Now would someone please tell me what is going on between you two nutcases!’ She spits out aggravated.
‘She stole my flowers.’ I point accusingly at the child.
‘And she stole them back from me!’
‘That’s because you stole them in the first place!’
‘But they’re mine.’
‘Are not!’
‘Are too!’
‘ARE NOT!’
‘ARE SO TOO!’
‘SHUT THE FUCK UP! IMBECILS! And give me the fucking flowers!’ I hand them over, my hand shaking, half-afraid she would bite it off. She grabs them and finds the little envelope and tears it open. And reads it. And a blush races across her face and she lowers her eyes, smelling the arrangement, only to raise them shyly to mine and sofly say ‘Oh, Pepa. They are beautiful.’ And she glides towards me and leans in for a kiss. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, princesa.’ And I hug her to me for a long moment. Which would’ve lasted longer, had a creature not gasped repeatedly right next to us. I turn towards the intrusion and see our niece making a fairly accurate impression of a fish on land, mouth gaping open, eyes bulging. And sadly soon finding her voice.
‘You… her… and you… but you and her…’ She draws in more breath, always a bad sign.
‘Yes, we. We know we are, but still, we are also.’ Silvia explains to her. She’s one of the few who knows to make sense of our babbling and give the needed answers to still un-uttered questions. Both she and Lola had to master this rare art in dealing with the Miranda family.
‘And, mine.’ She indicated the flowers.
‘Yours, from her.’ Sara finally gets it. Whew! Took her long enough.
‘Bye, flower-snatcher. We’re busy.’ I have to make her just go away.
‘Pepa!’ Silvia half-heartedly scolds me.
‘What? You want her gone as much as I want, pelirroja. We could be making out at this very moment!’ I wink at her.
Sara huffs out the door. I’ll buy her some ice-cream later or a set of new fluffy towels for her next kissing lesson with Ramon.
‘I wanted to talk to you about something, princesa. It’s about your bras and a fire.’