LA BEBA

She lived two houses over and, like the de Leóns, was a newcomer to Mirador Norte. (Oscar’s moms had bought their house with double shifts at her two jobs. Ybón bought hers with double shifts too, but in a window in Amsterdam.) She was one of those golden mulatas that French-speaking Caribbeans call chabines, that my boys call chicas de oro; she had snarled, apocalyptic hair, copper eyes, and was one whiteskinned relative away from jaba.

At first Oscar thought she was only a visitor, this tiny; slightly paunchy babe who was always high-heeling it out to her Pathfinder. (She didn’t have the Nuevo Mundo wannabe American look of the majority of his neighbors.) The two times Oscar bumped into her — during breaks in his writing he would go for walks along the hot, bland cul-de-sacs, or sit at the local café — she smiled at him. And the third time they saw each other — here, folks, is where the miracles begin — she sat at his table and said: What are you reading? At first he didn’t know what was happening, and then he realized: Holy Shit! A female was talking to him. (It was an unprecedented change in fortune, as though his threadbare Skein of Destiny had accidentally gotten tangled with that of a doper, more fortunate brother.) Turned out Ybón knew his abuela, gave her rides whenever Carlos Moya was out making deliveries. You’re the boy in her pictures, she said with a sly smile. I was little, he said defensively. And besides, that was before the war changed me. She didn’t laugh. That’s probably what it is. Well, I have to go. On went the shades, up went the ass, out went the belleza. Oscar’s erection following her like a dowser’s wand.

Ybón had attended the UASD a long time ago but she was no college girl, she had lines around her eyes and seemed, to Oscar at least, mad open, mad worldly, had the sort of intense zipper-gravity that hot middle-aged women exude effortlessly. The next time he ran into her in front of her house (he had watched for her), she said, Good morning, Mr. de León, in English. How are you? I am well, he said. And you? She beamed. I am well, thank you. He didn’t know what to do with his hands so he laced them behind his back like a gloomy parson. And for a minute there was nothing and she was unlocking her gate and he said, desperately, It is very hot. Ay sí, she said. And I thought it was just my menopause. And then looking over her shoulder at him, curious perhaps at this strange character who was trying not to look at her at all, or recognizing how in crush he was with her and feeling charitable, she said, Come inside. I’ll give you a drink.

The casa near empty — his abuela’s crib was spare but this was on some next shit — Haven’t had the time to move in yet, she said offhandedly — and because there wasn’t any furniture besides a kitchen table, a chair, a bureau, a bed, and a TV, they had to sit on the bed. (Oscar peeped the astrology books under the bed and a collection of Paulo Coelho’s novels. She followed his gaze and said with a smile, Paulo Coelho saved my life.) She gave him a beer, had a double scotch, then for the next six hours regaled him with tales from her life. You could tell she hadn’t had anyone to talk to in a long time. Oscar reduced to nodding and trying to laugh when she laughed. The whole time he was sweating bullets. Wondering if this is when he should try something. It wasn’t until midway through their chat that it hit Oscar that the job Ybón talked so volubly about was prostitution. It was Holy Shit! the Sequel. Even though putas were one of Santo Domingo’s premier exports, Oscar had never been in a prostitute’s house in his entire life.

Staring out her bedroom window, he saw his abuela on her front lawn, looking for him. He wanted to raise the window and call to her but Ybón didn’t allow for any interruptions.

Ybón was an odd odd bird. She might have been talkative, the sort of easygoing woman a brother can relax around, but there was something slightly detached about her too; as though (Oscar’s words now) she were some marooned alien princess who existed partially in another dimension; the sort of woman who, cool as she was, slips out of your head a little too quickly, a quality she recognized and was thankful for, as though she relished the short bursts of attention she provoked from men, but not anything sustained. She didn’t seem to mind being the girl you called every couple of months at eleven at night, just to see what she was ‘up to’. As much relationship as she could handle. Reminds me of the morir-vivir plants we played with as kids, except in reverse.

Her Jedi mind-tricks did not, however, work on Oscar. When it came to girls, the brother had a mind like a yogi. He latched on and stayed latched. By the time he left her house that night and walked home through the Island’s million attack mosquitoes he was lost.

(Did it matter that Ybón started mixing Italian in with her Spanish after her fourth drink or that she almost fell flat on her face when she showed him out? Of course not!)

He was in love.

His mother and his abuela met him at the door; excuse the stereotype, but both had their hair in rolos and couldn’t believe his sinvergüencería. Do you know that woman’s a PUTA? Do you know she bought that house CULEANDO?

For a moment he was overwhelmed by their rage, and then he found his footing and shot back, Do you know her aunt was a JUDGE? Do you know her father worked for the PHONE COMPANY?

You want a woman, I’ll get you a good woman, his mother said, peering angrily out the window. But that puta’s only going to take your money.

I don’t need your help. And she ain’t a puta.

La Inca laid one of her Looks of Incredible Power on him. Hijo, obey your mother.

For a moment he almost did. Both women focusing all their energies on him, and then he tasted the beer on his lips and shook his head.

His do Rudolfo, who was watching the game on the TV, took that moment to call out, in his best Grandpa Simpson voice: Prostitutes ruined my life.

More miracles. The next morning Oscar woke up and despite the tremendous tidings in his heart, despite the fact that he wanted to run over to Ybón’s house and shackle himself to her bed, he didn’t. He knew he had to cogerlo con — take it easy, knew he had to rein in his lunatic heart or he would blow it. Whatever it was. Of course the nigger was entertaining mad fantasies inside his head. What do you expect? He was a not-so-fat fatboy who’d never kissed a girl, never even lain in bed with one, and now the world was waving a beautiful puta under his nose. Ybón, he was sure, was the Higher Power’s last-ditch attempt to put him back on the proper path of Dominican male-itude. If he blew this, well, it was back to playing Villains and Vigilantes for him. This is it, he told himself. His chance to win. He decided to play the oldest card in the deck. The wait. So for one whole day he moped around the house, tried to write but couldn’t, watched a comedy show where black Dominicans in grass skirts put white Dominicans in safari outfits into cannibal cookpots and everybody wondered aloud where their biscocho was. Scary. By noon he had driven Dolores, the thirty-eight-year-old heavily scarred ‘muchacha’ who cooked and cleaned for the family, up a wall.

The next day at one he pulled on a clean chacabana and strolled over to her house. (Well, he sort of trotted.) A red Jeep was parked outside, nose to nose with her Pathfinder. A Policía Nacional plate. He stood in front of her gate while the sun stomped down on him. Felt like a stooge. Of course she was married. Of course she had boyfriends. His optimism, that swollen red giant, collapsed down to an obliterating point of gloom from which there was no escape. Didn’t stop him coming back the next day but no one was home, and by the time he saw her again, three days later, he was starting to think that she had warped back to whatever Forerunner world had spawned her. Where were you? he said, trying not to sound as miserable as he felt. I thought maybe you fell in the tub or something. She smiled and gave her ass a little shiver. I was making the patria strong, mi amor.

He had caught her in front of the TV, doing aerobics in a pair of sweat pants and what might have been described as a halter-top. It was hard for him not to stare at her body. When she first let him in she’d screamed, Oscar, querido! Come in! Come in!