Chapter 28
With only two more weeks until Christmas, customers ran in and out of the convenience store. The manager had stocked four times the usual amount of eggs, cream, and butter, as well as other baking ingredients, but here was another woman asking if they had any cinnamon.
“Sorry, Ms. Ruiz,” Manny said, readjusting the Santa hat on his head, “we don’t carry spices.”
“Thank you, Manny,” she said, a look of resignation on her face. He suspected she’d already known the answer. It was just worth it to ask before she trekked through snow to the grocery store a mile away.
“Have a good evening,” Manny called as she walked out the door, “and a Merry Christmas.”
After she left, Della looked up from her Child Development textbook. She was studying for her last exam. “You should make a sign listing all the things you don’t carry—hard liquor, spices, wrapping paper, cards—so people don’t have to wait in line.”
Manny sprayed the counter with glass cleaner and wiped it clean. “But then I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to them. It’s good business to exchange a few greetings.”
“But people are in a hurry at this time of year, Manny. You’ve got to consider their time.” Her voice sounded hoarse from exhaustion, and he guessed that she hadn’t slept much last night. Perhaps it had been worth it—she thought she’d done well on her two exams today, but he missed her usual cheerful attitude.
“Time, time, time,” he muttered. “Americans think too much about time. That’s why so many people here are lonely. If the manager wants to make a sign about what we don’t sell, I won’t complain. Until then, I’ll keep telling people what we don’t have.”
Della closed her textbook, chuckling. “You’re a mystery, Manny—so stubborn about some things and so cooperative about others.”
Manny stopped to help a few customers, but he couldn’t help wondering what Della had meant by cooperative. Once the line disappeared again, he asked, “What am I cooperative about?”
“Wearing that Santa hat.”
His manager had asked him to wear it if he wanted. It hadn’t seemed that big of a deal. He’d seen a lot of Americans wearing them. “You think it looks bad? I don’t have to wear it if I don’t want to.” He pulled the hat off his head, folded it, and stuck it on a shelf below the counter.
“Good choice,” Della said. “It doesn’t go with the uniform at all.”
“You women are so much pickier about fashion than I am. Celia is the same way.” He realized after he’d said it, that it might not have been the best idea to mention Celia.
Della grew quiet and opened her textbook again as Manny helped another group of customers.
Since he’d already introduced the topic of Celia, he might as well continue. He’d been wondering all week whether André had gone away, and whether she was really planning to go back to Cape Verde. Della had to have discussed it with Celia when she came to work at the daycare.
During a short break in the line, he spoke again. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about Celia. Did she say anything about André coming around again?”
Della didn’t even look up from her book. “No.”
“Good. I was also wondering if she really meant it when she said she wanted to go back home.” It didn’t make much sense, considering how well she was doing selling earrings online. She’d sold a hundred pairs over the last few weeks. She wouldn’t be able to do that from Cape Verde. Shipping would cost a fortune.
Again, no response from Della.
“Is she really that miserable that she wants to go back to Cape Verde?”
Della slammed her book shut and stared at him. “Why are you so fixated on Celia?”
“Am I?” He hardly ever talked about her with Della. In fact, he made a point of avoiding the subject.
“She broke up with you—what? Two years ago?” Her voice rose so that a few of the customers on the other side of the store turned to watch them.
He kept his voice down. “One year and—” He paused to count on his fingers. “Eight months. That was when I found out she’d married André. I suppose she broke up with me long before that.”
Della thrust her hands out, palms toward the ceiling. “See what I mean? You’re obsessed.”
This conversation was going from bad to worse. How could he explain this so that Della would understand? “It’s just that Celia and I—well, she’s always been a part of me. We grew up together.”
She pointed back and forth between the two of them. “You and I grew up together. This thing you have with Celia is different.”
He couldn’t lie. His relationship with Celia was different. He’d heard there was something special about every first love, but he knew for a fact that most men didn’t have such a difficult time forgetting as he did. He simply couldn’t stop thinking about her. Maybe it was the way she’d been abused, or the fact that she didn’t know English very well. He felt her vulnerabilities as if they were his own. How could he explain that to Della?
Della was packing her book into her bag now, and he was helping another line of customers. “Don’t go yet, Celia—” His stomach sank as he realized his mistake too late. “I mean, Della.”
She glared at him, leaning forward with her hands on her hips. “That’s exactly the problem, Manny.”
How could he have been so stupid to mix up their names? Could his protection of Celia stem from a love that he still clung to? He’d never meant it to, but what if Della was right? He rang up a customer’s coffee as Della dashed out the door, her words echoing in his head. That’s exactly the problem. It was a problem that he still loved Celia, and he would just have to get over it.
Celia wasn’t available, probably didn’t want him anyway, and Della was exactly the woman he needed right now. Not only was she intelligent and beautiful, but despite all that she accomplished, she still understood what it was to be Cape Verdean. In his head, their relationship made sense. Now, if he could just get his thinking to move deeper into his heart, pushing out all his feelings for Celia.
When the line of customers died down again, he snuck her a quick text. I’m sorry. We need to talk.
After an hour, she hadn’t answered.
She had probably fallen asleep at her apartment, so he would have to go over there first thing in the morning before her yoga class. He couldn’t let her go on thinking he didn’t value her.
∞∞∞
When he returned home that night, the whole place was in commotion. Flora was decorating the walls with a colorful paper chain, and his mother was heating hot chocolate at the stove. “Isobella already told us,” Mama said, her eyes full of sympathy.
Manny collapsed on the sofa. “You mean, she told you about Della and me.”
“Word for word,” Flora said, giggling. “Did you really call her Celia?”
He pulled his blanket up over his body. “So that’s why you’re not asleep.” This was all he needed, a lecture from his mother and sister.
His mother stood over him, a cup of hot chocolate in her hand. “How could I sleep at a time like this? You’re about to lose Della, you know. After all the effort Isobella and I put into this relationship. Sit up and drink your hot chocolate.”
Manny obeyed, taking the hot chocolate from his mother. “I’m going to talk to her in the morning, Mama. She needs her sleep now. She has an exam tomorrow.” He sipped the drink. It burned his tongue.
Flora pulled a chair over to sit in front of him. “You’re probably wondering how my doctor’s visit with Celia went.” She drew out the syllables on Celia’s name, taunting him, while their mother clucked her tongue. “Today was the day I took her to the doctor’s office.”
He’d been wondering about it all day, but he wasn’t about to admit it.
“Celia’s different now than when you knew her, Manny,” his mother said. “Isobella says she’s not interested in men at all anymore. André changed her. You can’t trust a woman who’s been abused. You remember Crazy Maria?”
Did he ever? It seemed he’d thought more and more about Crazy Maria, regretting all the things he’d ever said about her. She was an injured woman, and he wished he’d done more to help her.
Mama placed her hands on her hips. “Crazy Maria never changed.”
“Maybe she would have if we’d changed the way we treated her.” He took another sip of his scalding hot drink and turned to Flora. “So how did the doctor’s visit go?”
“It was cool. The doctors here measure everything. They even put a little machine on Celia’s belly, so we could hear the baby’s heartbeat. The doctor said he sounds healthy and he’s just the right size.”
“What about Celia?” Manny asked, unable to suppress his interest. If he could know that all was well, maybe he could let his fixation go. “Is she healthy?”
Flora shrugged. “Her pee was, at least.” They all burst out laughing as Flora defended her statement. “I’m telling you. They measure everything.”
He tried to act casual, as if he hadn’t been thinking through his questions all week long. “How is her English now? Did she understand the doctor?”
“She didn’t speak much. She just nodded a lot.”
That wasn’t a good sign. For all he knew, she hadn’t understood anything. “Did you translate for her?”
“There wasn’t a lot to translate. The doctor was in and out in less than five minutes. But Celia made us a cake to thank me for coming with her.” She pointed out a golden-brown tube cake on their little kitchen table. “Do you want a piece?”
“Sure.” He stood to get a plate from the cabinet, and cut himself a slice. It was a banana cake with caramelized sugar on top—his favorite kind of cake. Celia had to have remembered that. Had she smiled as she was baking, thinking of him? He cursed the sudden warm feelings inside his chest. It couldn’t have been like that. Celia hadn’t meant anything by it. She could barely stand to look at him now, and like his mother said, she wasn’t interested in any man, much less one she’d already rejected.
He sat down at the table and took a bite. It was just as delicious as he remembered. “Did Celia say anything about going back to Cape Verde after the baby’s born?”
Flora rolled her eyes. “I still don’t understand why you think she would want to move back home after all the trouble it was to get here.”
“It was the way she reacted to André last Friday,” he said, “as if she liked the idea of going back to live on Fogo.” Manny took another few bites of cake, savoring the sticky sweetness of the bananas. It was certainly a mystery why Celia would make this particular kind of cake.
His mother shook her head. “Celia’s got herself in such a mess of trouble, she’d probably be better off going back to Cape Verde.”
Manny gritted his teeth. “She can make it here, as long as she stays away from André.”
Mama watched him, concern in her eyes, as he finished off his cake and then took his plate to the sink to wash it.
“Well,” she said, “you need to stop thinking of Celia, and start thinking about Della.”
She was right. He’d done it again, replaced all thoughts of Della with his concerns for Celia. He lay back down on the sofa and rubbed his hands down his face. “Della is a good woman. I wouldn’t want to lose her.” He pressed his lips together. Had he said it for Mama or did he mean it for himself?