I wasn’t with her, and did not behave my best under the circumstances. She had been thinking for a long time about returning; from the day I met her, she had dreamed of going back because she couldn’t stand being so far from away from her daughter, the thought of not seeing her grow, not being by her side to protect her in case of need. What happened that night pushed her to take action. And it was my fault. What happened that night. But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Rose. Cori didn’t deserve it. Nobody deserves things like that, least of all her. You’ll see. It’s not as if Cori had an explosive sex life. I imagine a lot of factors could have influenced what happened: the rape at such a young age, the lack of confidence in her body, a life dedicated to work, all of this combined to make her a rather demure girl, not a lot of parties, drank very little, no sex. Greg, my husband, liked her; he, who watched over even my female friends, was always glad to see Cori because she knew how to talk to him. She asked him about his time as a policeman, talked to him about politics, Vietnam, and Korea. Like I said, Cori was bright and well informed. One day, I decided to introduce her to Sleepy Joe, my brother-in-law, Greg’s younger brother. She was single and so was he, although you never could tell with him, his civil status has always been uncertain and fluid. But at that time he wasn’t seeing anyone on a steady basis, at least not publicly. So I had the brilliant idea to introduce them and I began to devise a plan to bring them together. Greg had no opinion either way; it was all the same to him, although he did warn me that these things don’t usually work. “He’s a peach,” I told Cori about Sleepy Joe, and told Joe the same thing about Cori. And I wasn’t lying, at least about Joe I wasn’t lying, damn, if that boy wasn’t fine, a tasty papi by any measure. A white boy, but yummy, looked like Viggo Mortensen, one of those who arrived from the poor side of Europe, a country named Slovakia, where his parents were from, although he had been born in Colorado, just like my Greg. That’s the picture I painted for Cori when I proposed the blind date, but she didn’t know who Viggo Mortensen was, had never seen one of his films or heard of Slovakia. We would go to the movies at four, Greg and me, her and Joe.
I had my reasons for setting up Joe with someone, and they were pretty important reasons. Maybe later on, I’ll explain. For now, Mr. Rose, be content in knowing this: it’s not easy to have a brother-in-law like that, especially if your husband is thirty years older than you. Cori was very hesitant about the whole thing; first she’d say yes, then no, then this, then that, making one excuse after another, but I’d spur her on and slowly she began to get excited about the whole thing. Because she was always so disheveled, I took her to the beauty parlor to get highlights and a cut. The hairdresser was a Portuguese woman who brandished her scissors asking, “Scaladinho? Scaladinho?”
And we responded, “Yes, yes, scaladinho.”
So the hairdresser dug in her scissors in with gusto and the locks of Cori’s hair fell to the floor. “Scaladinho?”
“Yes, go, woman, don’t be afraid, scaladinho! Don’t be afraid to give that hair some life. Make it rise!” But after all of this, the cut did not come out as well as expected. This haircut was awful, no style. Her head looked like freshly sucked-on mango seed, the tufts of fiber standing on end, and my poor Cori looked uglier than before. But there wasn’t anything we could do then, aside from laugh about the catastrophe. I told my friend that to make up for it I’d buy her some black pants with a tight stylish cut and very sexy high-heeled sandals, because she was one of those girls who buys her getups in the Salvation Army, and if I left it to her she might show up in a coffee-colored suit, with white nurse’s shoes, and a black purse. She didn’t know a thing about updating her wardrobe, not my Cori, nor about the latest fashion trends, because every fucking dollar she made, she’d send directly to Adelita in Chalatenango.
We chose a Friday for the big date, and that afternoon we left work together for my house and made her undergo a session of “extreme makeover.” Eye shadow on the lids, eyeliner, mascara, rice powder, perfume, lip gloss, the works. I pulled out whatever I had in my kit in the drawer and threw it all on, and to top it off, I lent her a pair of earrings and tried to rearrange as well as I could that nightmare on her head.
“So?” I asked, when I finally let her look at the mirror.
“Unrecognizable” was all she said.
And what was the result of our little conspiracy? Let’s just say Greg was right. Sleepy Joe didn’t make it to the movie theater. He called to get out of it with whatever excuse and to say he’d catch up with us at the restaurant. He made it alright, but he might as well not have, the jerk went off and started talking to Greg in Slovak, because that’s how they were, with everyone else, they spoke English, but between them always Slovak. And rude Greg, instead of calling him out for it, instead of making things easier, began to play along with his little brother, and the two of them got lost in their own private exchange, completely forgetting us. We got even by loading ourselves up with gin on the rocks. Corina made me laugh that night. Because of her awful pronunciation in English, the waiter could not understand her when she asked for a gin, which came out the way she said it as “tzin.”
“Please, one tzin.”
And the waiter: “What?”
“Please, one tzin.”
“What?”
Until Cori got pissed off and ordered in a defeated tone: “One tzin and tonic without tonic.”
I will never get over her absence. I have not turned to any of my friends during this jam I’m in right now, fucked and locked up in this hole, but Corina, I’d have called right away, and I know she’d have done anything to get me out of here even if it meant kicking down these walls. I comfort myself with memories of her, going over the days of our friendship, so playful, so joyful, so true, regretting what happened that night, which was partly my fault. You have to understand, anybody else may not have been affected as much, but Cori was heartbroken. Her soul was shattered, as they say, and bruises appeared over all her body. That Friday in the restaurant, Sleepy Joe and Greg threw back their beers. No interactions with us at all. Think of the Tower of Babel but as a table, the Table of Babel, with the two of them on one end chatting in their hellish language, and the two of us facing them, going at it in Spanish and having a good time at our end, above all because we were using our language, which always makes things easier. Until it grows late and the time comes for everyone to go home, and my rude-ass brother-in-law, who all this time hasn’t even turned to look at Cori or spoken a single word to her, throws his arms over her shoulders and takes her away. They left the restaurant together, Sleepy Joe half shoved her into a car and took her. I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye, or to ask her what she thought about the unexpected turn the blind date had taken at the end. Like I said, she’d had a few drinks, but nothing outrageous. She was a little buzzed, but walking fine, although granted, with that good bit of tzin still in her. Greg and I walked back to the apartment, which was a few blocks away, and that weekend we didn’t hear from Cori and Sleepy Joe again.