the shift.”
He moved toward her. He must hold her in his arms. He puts his arms around her, and she put her arms around him ::::::but shit, she’s got her arms around my back. She always puts them around my neck.:::::: He tries to kiss her, but she averts her head and whispers, “Not out here, Nestor—some of them are outside—”
—presumably the crowd at the party. Yes, it’s true. Some of them have spilled out of the lawn in the back and onto the driveway. But what difference did it make?
He released his sweetheart and looked squarely at his watch.
“Shit, Manena! I’m gonna be late for my goddamned shift—and my car’s parked four blocks from here!”
“Oh—I’m sorry, Nestor,” said Magdalena. “I messed up—look, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I drive you over to where your car is? That’ll save you some time.”
As soon as he got in the passenger seat, he poured out his woes in a torrent. For no reason, no reason at all, his whole family—hell, all of Hialeah!—was trying to turn him into a traitor!—a pariah! He let it all out.
As she drove, Magdalena gestured toward the rows of casitas that rolled by on either side. “Oh, Nestor,” she sighed without looking at him. “I’ve told you this before. Hialeah is not America. It’s not even Miami. It’s a—well, the word isn’t ghetto, but Hialeah’s… Hialeah’s a little box, and we grow up here thinking it’s a normal part of the world. But it isn’t! You’re in a little box here! And everybody’s poking into your life and poking into everything you try to do and they can’t wait to gossip about it and spread stories, hoping you’ll fail. They love it when you fail. As long as you live in Hialeah and think in the Hialeah way… as long as you assume that the only way you can get out of some wretched casita is to marry your way out—what kind of life is that? You’re just letting them condition you so your eyes can’t even see any life outside of a Hialeah casita. I know who’s in your house right now. There’s so many people in there who are related to you, part of you, attached to you—they’re like one of those parasite plants that has all the tendrils that wrap around the trunk and then wrap around the branches, and when there’s no more room on the branches, they go after the buds and leaves and twigs, and now the tree lives on in a completely parasitical condition—”
::::::parasitical condition?::::::
“—or it dies. Listen to me, Nestor. I’m very, very fond of you—”
::::::“fond”?::::::
“—and you’ve got to get out of this trap now. I was talking to a doctor from Argentina yesterday, and he says—”
::::::This is the moment!:::::: They were within a block of his car. He glanced at his watch again. Time was growing short. :::::::Now!:::::::
Nestor leaned across the armrest and placed his hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes close up and in a way so wet, you’d have to be pretty dim not to see heavy weather coming.
“¡Dios mío, Manena!… oh, my God,” said Nestor, “we’re thinking the same thing at the same time. I shouldn’t be surprised—but it’s incredible!”
Magdalena suddenly pulled her head back.
“Sweetheart,” Nestor went on, “we’re two people with the same—I don’t mean just the same feelings but the same—well, we’re two people who understand things the same way. You know what I mean?”
Nothing in her expression indicated she did.
“I’ve been thinking all day about this. You know how we’re always saying, ‘It’s just not the right time’? You know how we say that? Well, I swear, Manena, I know this is! This is the right time! This moment!… Manena… let’s get married—now—right now! Let’s just say goodbye to all this!”—he twirled his forefinger in the air, as if to take in Hialeah, Miami, Miami-Dade County—“all of it. Why wait any longer for the right time? Let’s just do it—now! We’ll both be gone from… all this! Manena! I’m leaving with you—right now. How about it? I couldn’t love you any more than I do—right now. You and I both know what the right time is… right now!”
For a moment Magdalena just looked at him… blankly. Nestor could not read a thing in that expression of hers. Finally she said, “It’s not that simple, Nestor.”
“Not that simple?” He gave Magdalena the softest, most loving smile possible. “It couldn’t be any simpler, Manena. We love each other!”
Magdalena turned her