Tomorrow They Will Kiss Read online

  *

  WE ALL LIVED in the same neighborhood in Union City, just blocks from one another, except Raquel, who lived out toward Newark, where apartments were even cheaper. Imperio and Caridad lived in the same building but on different floors, so they were always together, just like in Cuba. None of us had learned to drive except for Leticia, who charged us each seven dollars a week, which was how she made the monthly payments on her van.

  Riding with Leticia was more expensive than the bus, but to me it was worth every cent. She picked us up at our front doors every morning and brought us back every night. Although Leticia was a recent exile just like rest of us, she had managed to get some money out of Cuba, and with that money she bought a used, bright yellow Ford Econoline, tropical yellow, the color of the noontime sun. Imperio and Caridad said Leticia had dollar signs in her eyes, like a cartoon character.

  The van had two purposes. Leticia’s husband, Chano, used it early in the mornings to deliver pork to butcher shops. He started his rounds at three a.m. and was done by seven. Then he went home and slept all day. Leticia insisted that he clean it up before he handed it over to her. We could always tell when he was running late, because the van smelled like a raw pig. Sometimes the floor was still sticky with bloody water from the packing ice. It could be disgusting. But after a while I didn’t even smell it anymore. It’s amazing what people can get used to.

  “It wasn’t money she smuggled out,” Imperio often said, “it was jewelry, and who knows where she had it hidden.” Caridad always laughed at this, one of her little embarrassed laughs, like a geisha’s.

  Imperio swallowed her curiosity for as long as she could, and one day she just couldn’t hold it any longer. We were all in the van when she finally dared to ask what she had long wanted to know. First she looked at Caridad with an evil grin. She knew very well that what she was about to ask could put both of them on a bus.

  “Oye, Leti,” Imperio said in her chummiest voice. “Is it true that you took jewelry out of Cuba in your chocha?”

  Leticia didn’t bother to answer. She ignored the question the way she ignored the honking drivers who regularly lined up behind her. Leticia’s hands, big as a man’s, held the steering wheel so tight I feared she would snap it in two. From where I sat I could only see the right side of her face, her thick, square jaw set firm. Leticia had an impressively strong face. Caridad once said it was mannish. Imperio, behind her back, called her cara macha, man face, and once even suggested that Leticia had hair on her chest.

  “Comemierda!” Leticia shouted at the traffic. “These Americans drive like they own the road.”

  She hit the brakes hard to keep from slamming into a passing truck. There was a collective outcry from the backseat as we toppled forward. Even Caridad, who from the front seat saw it coming, had to place both hands on the dashboard to keep her head from crashing into the windshield.

  The van continued on, and everyone, a bit shaken but unharmed, settled quietly back into their seats. Dresses were smoothed over knees, hair patted back into place. For the moment, the subject of Leticia’s smuggled jewels was dropped. Caridad turned her head back slightly, just enough to exchange a knowing smile with Imperio that said, “It’s true, the lack of denial makes it so.”

  To them it was a big joke, but I wondered what that day had been like for Leticia, squatting in a dirty airport bathroom stall and shoving a handful of rings and necklaces into the most private and sensitive part of her body.

  I felt safe with Leticia, even though she sailed through red lights as if they were only decorations and was frequently trailed by a chorus of angry, honking drivers. But her driving record was good, just two minor incidents in the time I had been riding with her. Imperio said that Leticia drove like a crazy woman on purpose.

  “She had those accidents to make driving look difficult, to scare us out of getting our own licenses and our own cars,” Imperio said when Leticia was out of earshot.

  “Imagínate!” Caridad said. “She put our lives in danger just to keep collecting our money.”

  Not that any one of us could have dreamed of buying a car. Our little salaries barely covered rent, food, and the monthly payments to Crazy Manny’s for our television sets. We left everything behind in Cuba, arrived with absolutely nothing. No china, no family silver or photos, and definitely no toys for our children. Only Leticia had had the good sense and the courage to shove a handful of valuables into an unmentionable place, and now she alone reaped the rewards. Leticia and Chano, with their three incomes, were the rich ones.

  The rest of us were poor, and painfully aware of it. So the fact that for the past three months Raquel and Berta had been stealing from the factory hardly bothered us at all, until Mr. O’Reilly posted a warning sign near the entrance. It was white with big black letters. The word crime was in red! A Spanish translation, roughly scribbled on a piece of cardboard, was tacked just below it.

  THEFT IS A SERIOUS CRIME.

  THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED

  TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW.

  THE MANAGEMENT

  *

  THE DAY THE SIGN FIRST APPEARED, I walked through the narrow door of the factory ahead of the others, found my time card, and clocked in. I walked right past it. I didn’t stop to read it, didn’t comment on it.

  Jacinto Ramírez, the security guard, stood in front of the door that led into the work area. He was long- necked and long- nosed; every inch of his skin wrinkled and sagged. Jacinto was from Havana and, just because he came from the capital and now wore a uniform, thought himself superior to us.

  “Buenos días, Jacinto,” I said and tried to get past him.

  “Buenos días, Graciela,” Jacinto said. I stopped four feet before him, and even from that distance I could smell his dentures. I tried to continue, but he blocked my way, peering into my plastic bag.

  Factory policy demanded that all female employees carry their belongings in a clear plastic drawstring bag that dangled from their elbow like a purse. No actual purses were allowed in the factory. My plastic bag contained a wallet, the key to my apartment, a compact, a hairbrush, and a sanitary napkin (for emergencies).

  I hated those bags. But they didn’t seem to bother the English- speaking employees—las gringas, las negras, las boricuas. None of them seemed to give the bags a second thought.

  Us Cubans, we worked alongside black ladies who kept to themselves, Puerto Ricans who refused to speak in Spanish to us, and some white, stringy- haired girls so skinny they looked like they’d blow over if you whistled at them. They knew the rules and accepted them. We didn’t.

  “The situation is getting serious,” Jacinto said, pointing at the sign and stepping in front of me as if in a mambo. “Too many people with sticky fingers.”

  The others had stopped behind me, their arms folded protectively across their chests. I could hear them murmuring. Imperio, not known for her patience, walked right up to him.

  “Look, Jacinto,” she said, waving her bag in his face, her little body erect and sharp as a switchblade. “If you’re insinuating something, just come out and say it.”

  Caridad took a deep, loud breath, so loud I could hear it. Her hand sprang to her throat. Leticia, Berta, and Raquel stood beside her. Their eyes tracked from Jacinto to Imperio and back again.

  “No señora,” Jacinto said, flashing his false teeth. “Adelante. Come in, come in.”

  Imperio didn’t return the smile.

  “If they dock us for being late,” she said, “you’re going to hear from me.”

  “Imagínate,” Caridad said as we entered the main floor. “I can understand inspections on the way out, but does that crazy man think we’re smuggling toys into the factory?”

  “This is getting worse than Cuba,” Imperio said.

  “Niiiiñas, I think he just wanted an excuse to frisk us,” Leticia said. We all laughed louder than the comment deserved and continued walking with our plastic bags banging against our hips.

  In spite of
the laughter, the sign made us nervous. Not that anyone in the van ever thought of Raquel and Berta as thieves or criminals.

  For what?

  For stealing little plastic doll parts?

  No.

  Not after all we’d been through. We’d lost our country, had been forced into exile, while the Americanos had stood by and done precious nothing. They owed us, and some free dolls were a small price to pay.

  Raquel and Berta innocently believed that by harmlessly stealing a leg here, an arm there, they would have a few complete dolls by Christmas.

  *

  “STEALING ISN’T THE PROBLEM,” Berta said as the van pulled out of the parking lot that night. She dug into her brassiere, pulled out a little rubber leg, and handed it to Raquel.

  “You’re right,” Raquel said as she casually took the little flesh- colored limb and dropped it into her clear plastic bag, where another little arm or a torso she had stolen that day was waiting.

  “The real problem is that we work on so many different dolls that the arms and legs never match.”

  We worked on all types of dolls. Dolls that cried, dolls that peed, dolls that pretended to drink from a bottle, cute little baby dolls and frightening baby dolls as big as an actual baby. Dolls that walked, dolls that crawled. Dolls like little fashion models with perfect figures, exotic ball gowns, and accessories: necklaces, bracelets, combs, hand mirrors, little purses, even a complete set of matching luggage.

  “Por Dios, Raquel, it’s going to take you forever. And even if you get all the parts, what will you do about its head?” Imperio asked.

  “They’re never going to let a Cuban work with heads,” Caridad said. “Not after the problem with Calixto.”

  Caridad nodded in agreement.

  “Calixto was an idiot,” Leticia said. “Se pasó de mano.” He went too far.

  A few days ago we had watched as Mr. O’Reilly escorted Calixto Guiñón, who worked in shipping, out of the factory.

  “What did I do?” Calixto had shouted. “You got no proof. No proof.”

  Jacinto walked just a few steps behind, acting as if he had nothing to do with the firing of a fellow Cuban. That day Jacinto became a traitor and Mr. O’Reilly, the enemy. From that moment on, Jacinto was pointedly ignored. “He’s dead to me,” Imperio said. To the foreman, the Cuban women only offered insincere, lipstick- smudged smiles.

  Mr. O’Reilly, whose first name was Barry, didn’t seem so awful to me. He did what he had to do. But even before the incident with Calixto, the others in the van had been suspicious of him. Mostly because he wore his hair in a long, blond ponytail and had a pierced ear with a small, silver crucifix hanging from it.

  “There’s something wrong with that one,” Imperio whispered to Caridad, making circles around her ear with her index finger.

  Barry O’Reilly never sat with the other employees in the lunchroom. Instead he read paperback books by himself. During the little free time I had at lunch, I spied on him.

  I was intrigued by the covers of those books of his. I loved the exotic illustrations of dragons, spaceships, and fiery planets, sometimes even alien creatures and robots. I looked forward to new ones he would start.

  I was even a little envious that Mr. O’Reilly, for a half hour each day, could escape to such exotic destinations. My escape, the telenovelas, just took me to the same place every night, a mansion or country estate filled with conventional, earthbound romance. Sometimes I wondered if the day would come when I would know English well enough to read the kinds of books Mr. O’Reilly read. I wondered how that would change the way I looked at the world. But to the others at the assembly line, Mr. O’Reilly remained a danger, as if getting too close to him would expose us to a grave and contagious disease.

  “Only a drug addict would read those kinds of books,” Leticia said as she plugged a little flesh- colored leg into its little flesh- colored socket. She said something similar every time Mr. O’Reilly walked by.

  “Por Dios,” Imperio said. “I’m shocked at the number of people who use drugs in this country. I see it on the news. They’re everywhere.”

  “Imagínate,” Caridad said, waving a little leg in the air. “We saw them at the park, in groups, young people with long hair, bare feet, and crazy eyes. It gives me escalofríos.” Shivers.

  “And it’s not just los negros, like in Cuba,” Leticia said, tapping the skin of her arm with two fingers.

  Mr. O’Reilly displayed every symptom described in the news: the long hair, the weird books, faded denims, his slow and drowsy way of speaking, and his habit of going into the wilderness for entire weekends. Having lost our country to a man who came down from the mountains, Cubans didn’t trust anyone who would actually choose to go camping. But Mr. O’Reilly treated us with respect and seemed to enjoy working with Cubans. Oblivious to the contempt around him, he often dropped a word or two of high school Spanish into his greetings.

  Every morning he walked past us on his way to his office and said, “Buenos días,” and we chorused the same back without looking up, sounding as if someone had let the air out of our tires. We didn’t take our eyes off the black conveyor belt and the hundreds of little limbs and torsos it constantly delivered to us.

  Personally I thought it was very sweet of Mr. O’Reilly to try to talk to us in our native language. One day I looked up as he approached. I tried to meet his eyes and give him a bit of a smile, just to let him know that even if the others didn’t, I appreciated his effort to communicate with us in Spanish. He sort of smiled back, his face reddened, his feet stumbled a little, and the rubber sole of his shoe made a squeaking sound on the polished cement floor.

  After he moved on, I found that I liked thinking about him. He had a nice face, once I got past the long hair and the earring. But the hair could be cut, the earring removed. His eyes were blue and calm, his nose small and straight and sprinkled with just enough light brown freckles that I could almost see the child he’d once been. Yes, a very nice face.

  To the others he looked like any other Americano, like the countless others that populated our new town. They were everywhere: walking down the street, driving past in cars, staring blue- eyed from billboards, holding a glass of Johnnie Walker Red or inviting you to walk a mile for a Camel. They were the enemy and Mr. O’Reilly was too, even though he could have had Calixto arrested but didn’t. Never mind that Calixto had been caught smuggling boxes of toy trucks that he planned to sell for profit. Even after witnessing Calixto’s downfall, Berta and Raquel continued to steal.

  *

  ALL THE DOLLS we worked on were female, and they all had yellow hair and round, blue eyes. But none of us would ever be allowed to touch one of their heads. The head was the last thing that got attached before the doll was dressed and packaged. The Cubans, they said, were too new to work with heads. Only the older and more trusted employees, usually American women, pale, trembling, and docile, were allowed to handle complete toys because of all the theft.

  “I think it’s bad enough that we have to carry our belongings in plastic bags,” Caridad said.

  “Even if there is good reason,” Imperio said with a shaded look to Berta and Raquel, “I think keeping us away from heads is an unforgivable insult. Por Dios, we’re not all thieves.”

  “In Cuba, everyone gets to work on everything without discrimination,” Raquel said with the voice of a petulant child, her orange lips puckering into a pout.

  “Raquel, in Cuba kids use empty rum bottles for dolls,” Leticia said.

  “Not in my house they didn’t,” Caridad said, almost in a whisper.

  “If you think it’s better in Cuba,” Imperio said to Raquel, glaring now, “I’m sure Fidel will welcome you back with open arms and a bag full of toys.”

  Caridad didn’t say anything, but she nodded her head in solemn accord.

  “Chá,” Raquel said. “I’m not talking about Cuba as it is, I’m talking about Cuba as it was.”

  Imperio and Caridad didn’t seem satis
fied with her answer; they couldn’t stay out of other people’s business.

  “What good’s a rumor if you can’t spread it?” Imperio often said.

  “Every rumor has a little truth in it,” Caridad always added.

  That day I took one look at Raquel’s face, pinched to the edge of tears, and couldn’t stop myself.

  “Raquel,” I said carefully, “I don’t know why you even bother to open your mouth around these two.”

  Caridad turned until her round eyes met mine with a look of disbelief. Then her eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly and her lids opened slightly so that I felt like I was falling into the dark pits of her pupils. Then, just as quickly, Caridad’s eyes returned to normal size and she turned back to face the road.

  I knew what that look was about.

  That look was a warning.

  I had secrets.

  chapter two

  Caridad

  My name is Caridad Rodríguez, and no matter what you’ve heard, I detest gossip. Sometimes I may share a thought or opinion with my best friend, Imperio. But other than that, I keep my thoughts to myself.

  Take Graciela, for example. She is an unfortunate creature living a reckless life, yes. But I wouldn’t dream of telling her how to live her life. One would think that after all she went through back in Palmagria, she would have learned her lesson.

  But she clearly hasn’t, and who am I to say? Imagínate!

  Looking at her today, sitting quietly in the van, one might think that she is just another decent, hardworking Cuban in exile. But I know better. I know all about Graciela Altamira de la Cruz. I know more than I care to know.

  I have known her since we were children, but I always kept my distance. Even as a little girl, she behaved provocatively. There was something off- putting about her. I always got the feeling that she would become annoying if she got too close or stayed too long. She was much too much. For one thing, she insisted on performing in every school assembly, reciting the verses of José Martí at every opportunity. Showing herself off. All through school, we were in the same classroom, but we almost never talked to each other. I always sat in the front row; Graciela sat in the back, with the boys.