went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of Cuban coffee, and that better pull her out of this, the coffee, or—the main thing was to be wary and scream to Amélia and call 911 the moment she heard anything, not after she went to the door and listened more closely. She went into their tiny living room and sat down in one of the armchairs, but even holding the cup made her tired. So she got up to put it on the little makeshift coffee table and, being on her feet, turned on the TV, digiting the sound down very low, so as not to wake up Amélia. A Spanish channel was on, and she found herself watching a talk show. The host was a comedian who went by the name Hernán Loboloco. He preferred to be called Loboloco, not Hernán, because Loboloco meant Crazywolf and he was a comedian. His specialty was asking his guests serious questions in the voices of other people, famous people, such as asking a champion skateboarder about half-pipe stunts in the angry, hortatory voice of Cesar Chavez warning the Americans about encroachments. He was very good at it—he could also make extremely funny animal sounds, which he was likely to do at any moment—and Magdalena usually enjoyed Loboloco on the rare occasions she watched TV. But being so depressed and wary, she wasn’t in shape to find anything funny, and the canned laughter irritated her enormously, even at low volume. Why would a comedian as good as Loboloco feel like he needed canned laughter? It didn’t help the show, it made it sound cheesy and—
Her heart nearly jumped out of her rib cage. The lock on the door was turning and the door burst open! Magdalena jumped to her feet. Her new iPhone was back in the bedroom—no time!—no 911!—no Nestor! She wheeled about—and it was Amélia… with a big thirty-two-ounce Nalgene bottle of water she was tilting back and gulping down. Her skin was glowing with sweat. She was wearing black Lycra tights that came down to just below the knees and a black racer-back halter top with some crisscross cutouts. She wore no makeup and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Add it all together and it said spinning, the new fad. Everybody in the class—and rare was the Xersoul older than thirty-five—sat astride a stationary bicycle, one amid rank after rank after rank of them, and took orders from a teacher, male or female, who bellowed out commands and denunciations like a sadistic drill sergeant until everybody was pedaling away to the very limits of her lung capacity and leg strength and endurance. Three out of every four of these volunteer masochists were women so eager—to the point of desperation—to get in shape, they would subject themselves to… even this. Well… Magdalena would subject herself to this torture, too, except that classes cost thirty-five dollars a pop, and she had barely that much to keep herself fed—never mind fit—for a week, and even at that rate what little money she had left in the bank would run out in a month… and what was she going to do then?
Between gulps from the Nalgene container—she had progressed no farther than just inside the door—Amélia caught sight of Magdalena standing stock-still in front of the armchair on the balls of her feet, knees bent, as if she were about to leap or flee.
Amélia stopped gulping long enough to say, “Magdalena, what’s that look on your face?”
“Well, I… uhh… I guess I’m just surprised. I thought you were still sleeping. I heard you come in last night, and it seemed pretty late.”
Amélia took a few more gulps from the Nalgene bottle, whose volume must have been nearly as great as her head’s.
“Since when are you into spinning?” said Magdalena.
“How do you know I’ve been spinning?”
“It’s not hard… that outfit, the size of that water bottle, your face is red—I don’t mean red sick, I mean red workout, a really hard workout.”
“To be honest, this is the first time I ever tried it,” said Amélia.
“Well,” said Magdalena, “what do you think?”
“Oh, it’s great… I think… I mean, if you live through it! I never voluntarily worked that hard in my life! I mean, I… am… really wiped.”
Magdalena said, “Why don’t you sit down?”
“But I feel so—I have to take a shower.”
“Oh, come on, sit down for a minute.”
So Amélia sprawled in the easy chair and sighed and let her head tilt