That’s what she called him whenever she was feeling tender or wronged. Mister. Later she’d want to put that on his gravestone but no one would let her, not even me.
Stupid.
AMOR DE PENDEJO
He and Ana in SAT class, he and Ana in the parking lot afterward, he and Ana at the McDonald’s, he and Ana become friends. Each day Oscar expected her to be adios, each day she was still there. They got into the habit of talking on the phone a couple times a week, about nothing really, spinning words out of their everyday; the first time she called
She never talked about what they were; she only said, Man, I’m glad I got to know you.
And he said, I’m glad I’m me knowing you.
One night while he was listening to New Order and trying to chug through
You might want to clean up a little. She touched his face gently. Shave those pussy hairs.
It was Ana. Standing in his foyer, wearing a full-length leather, her triguena skin blood-charged from the cold, her face gorgeous with eyeliner, mascara, foundation, lipstick, and blush.
Hey, was all he managed to say. He could hear his sister upstairs, listening.
What you doing? Ana asked.
Like nothing.
Like let’s go to a movie, then.
Like OK, he said.
Upstairs his sister was jumping up and down on his bed, low-screaming, It’s a date, it’s a date, and then she jumped on his back and nearly toppled them clean through the bedroom window.
So is this some kind of date? he said as he slipped into her car.
She smiled wanly. You could call it that.
Ana drove a Cressida, and instead of taking them to the local theater she headed down to the Amboy Multiplex.
I love this place, she said as she was wrangling for a parking space. My father used to take us here when it was still a drive-in. Did you ever come here back then?
He shook his head. Though I heard they steal plenty of cars here now.
Nobody’s stealing
It was so hard to believe what was happening that Oscar really couldn’t take it seriously. The whole time the movie—
On the ride home Ana complained about having a headache and they didn’t speak for a long time. He tried to turn on the radio but she said, No, my head’s really killing me. He joked, Would you like some crack? No, Oscar. So he sat back and watched the Hess Building and the rest of Woodbridge slide past through a snarl of overpasses. He was suddenly aware of how tired he was; the nervousness that had raged through him the entire night had exhausted his ass. The longer they went without speaking the more morose he became. It’s just a movie, he told himself It’s not like it’s a date.
Ana seemed unaccountably sad and she chewed her bottom lip, a real bembe, until most of her lipstick was on her teeth. He was going to make a comment about it but decided not to.
You reading anything good?
Nope, she said. You?
I’m reading
She nodded. I
They reached the Elizabeth exit, which is what New Jersey is
Then she looked over at him, tipped back her head, and laughed.
When he returned to the house his sister said, Well?
Well what?
Did you
Jesus, Lola, he said, blushing.
Don’t lie to me.
I do not move so precipitously. He paused and then sighed. In other words, I didn’t even get her scarf off.
Sounds a little suspicious. I know you Dominican men. She held up her hands and flexed the fingers in playful menace. Son pulpos.
The next day he woke up feeling like he’d been unshackled from his fat, like he’d been washed clean of his misery, and for a long time he couldn’t remember why he felt this way, and then he said her name.
OSCAR IN LOVE
And so now every week they headed out to either a movie or the mall. They talked. He learned that her ex- boyfriend, Manny, used to smack the shit out of her, which was a problem, she confessed, because she liked it when guys were a little rough with her in bed; he learned that her father had died in a car accident when she was a young girl in Macoris, and that her new stepfather didn’t care two shits about her but that it didn’t matter because once she got into Penn State she didn’t ever intend to come back home. In turn he showed her some of his writings and told her about the time he’d gotten struck by a car and put in the hospital and about how his tio used to smack the shit out of him in the old days; he even told her about the crush he had on Maritza Chacon and she screamed,