16. Fidelity #2
Bedtime had been rough. Lots of negotiating.
Some raised voices. A Category Four tantrum.
Tears. Susana wished these things were more infrequent, but they felt like furniture now.
Most of the time, Susana realized she was bracing herself for impact.
With Jamie. With Oscar. With her phone. Every relationship was built on trying to minimize damage.
“Where’s the fun in that?” she muttered to herself.
She didn’t hear the woman running toward her.
She did, however, feel hands—dry, rugged hands—grasping her arms tightly.
Susana looked up to see a woman’s face—what she assumed was a woman’s face—gaunt, eyes wide, mouth agape… like someone screaming but with no sound. Though there was something else, too. She looked like a caricature of a person—her face stretched out, worn and wasted, not like a zombie but—
Like how I feel.
Susana tried to pull back, but the woman’s grip felt permanent, felt like it was spreading.
She looked down to see the woman’s hands.
Susana tried to scream but couldn’t form the words.
There was some kind of black, bulbous liquid spreading up and over Susana’s arms. She could feel it covering her, slick and hot.
Then the sound of something clattering to the floor.
“You’re next, mija… Eres la próxima… mi próxima… No lo toques… No lo hagas, nina…”
Then Susana screamed, a loud, shrill noise—the kind of primal yell she hadn’t let out since she was a child, watching a frightening movie or being surprised by her older brother in the dark.
She pulled back, hard, a dizziness and strange euphoria enveloping her.
Her vision went black for a second, that gray-white static, the white noise sound, an ache in her chest…
Then nothing.
Susana looked around. The woman was gone. The receipt was on the floor. All she could see was an older woman, hand to her chest, other hand pushing a wobbly shopping cart.
“?Estás bien, mija?” she asked.
“Sí, yes… Sí… I’m fine,” Susana said, gasping for breath, hands on her knees as she leaned forward, certain she was going to throw up.
She looked at the dark asphalt. She saw the glimmer of something.
A small bracelet. Gold. A tiny picture of a child, a little boy.
Smiling. Susana ran the bracelet through her fingers and listened.
To the cheap rubber sliding away from Susana and toward the parking lot.
To the honking and screeching of Coral Way.
The shrill chirp of a crow in the distance.
Eres la próxima.
“What do you mean you don’t argue?”
Joe’s question hung between them as Susana took a sip from her latte. It was a delay tactic. One she’d shared with her clients over the years. If you need an extra second to think of an answer, take a sip. Or say “good question.” It’ll buy you a second, maybe less. But it’ll help.
Why didn’t she argue with Oscar? Susana didn’t know the answer.
At least not cerebrally. She just felt it.
There was no point in arguing. They’d made their choices, and now here they were—their choices activated: the child, the house in the suburbs, the job, the lack of a job.
Little mini-choices made without the proper context.
Only now, to be seen as part of a bigger, more complicated whole.
“We just don’t,” Susana said with a slight tilt of her head as she placed her cup down.
The coffee shop—a tiny spot on Bird Road and 92nd Ave in southwest Miami—was nondescript.
Almost surreal. When Joe suggested it by texting her randomly on a Tuesday morning, Susana had to struggle to remember if she’d ever been inside.
And upon entering, she was certain she hadn’t been.
She wasn’t sure why she was here. Still annoyed and out of breath from a difficult drop-off, she hadn’t expected Joe to reach out.
Had struggled to remember when they’d even exchanged numbers.
But his name appeared on her phone display: SOCCER JOE.
She felt uncomfortable in the blouse and “work” pants she’d shoved on as she raced to meet him at the coffee shop, her day suddenly going from mundane and gray to…
something else. The fabric seemed to cling to her sweaty body.
She wondered if she’d checked herself. If she’d even put deodorant on before walking Jamie out the door. It was too late now.
Why am I here?
Joe leaned forward, his eyebrows popping up.
“All couples argue,” he said, his voice an intimate whisper. He even looked around, as if he were sharing some kind of state secret. The kind of intel that would get them both killed. “My wife and I fight at least once a week. If we don’t, something’s wrong.”
Susana leaned back.
“You never talk about your wife.”
Joe seemed surprised by the comment.
“Of course I do.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. Susana felt empowered now. She was driving the conversation. The narrative. He had invited her here, but she was in charge. “Why is that?”
Now it was Joe’s turn to pause.
As much as Susana let herself go—let her body sink and drown in the routine of her life: the groceries, the cleaning, the shuttling around, the meetings with parents, the park—she was not dense.
She’d spent years in conference rooms, at events, and taking meetings with every kind of man.
Good, bad, the whole spectrum. But she didn’t have a read on Joe yet.
Maybe that had been the appeal. Unlike the others—the creeps, the weirdos, the introverts—Joe seemed happy in his skin.
Didn’t seem bothered one way or another.
She wanted to crack the shell. Wanted to see what was under there.
What living, breathing creature waited for her beneath the surface.
But now she wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.
What am I doing here?
She watched as he rubbed his chin. Watched his expression change from something like confusion to… resignation?
He frowned before talking.
“I don’t think coffee is enough for this conversation.”
Susana checked her phone. It was barely ten in the morning.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Joe dropped a few dollars on the table and stood up.
“Maybe,” he said as he waited for Susana to get her bag. “Maybe not.”
Even when it felt like every waking hour was taken up by diapers, wipes, meals, drawings, everything, there were still pockets of time.
Hours after the sound of the vacuum had ended, as Susana sat in the living room, waiting for Oscar to get home.
Early in the morning, after finishing a hasty workout, sitting on the floor—sweat dripping down her body, her jagged breathing the only sound, thudding in her skull.
The crackle and hiss of the monitor as she watched it, assuring her Jamie was napping.
In those moments, Susana had time to think. Not rational thoughts. Not thoughts about her career, what her parents were doing, what trips they should take.
She thought about that woman. That monstrous, wasted shell of a woman.
It would’ve been easy to shrug it off. A bad trip. A delusion. Her meds kicking in wrong.
But Susana Martinez wasn’t stupid. She believed her eyes. Believed all her senses. That woman had been real.
Until she wasn’t.
Susana felt the bracelet. Let it run through her fingers.
Then she opened her laptop, followed by her browser. The tabs seemed to be waiting for her. News articles. PDFs of old, long-out-of-print books. Of stories her mami used to whisper to her before bed. Of demonios and brujas. Of a whistling, broken man. El Silbón.
She felt the wineglass touch her lips. Felt the cold chardonnay slide down her throat as she clicked on her laptop’s worn trackpad.
She looked at his warm, welcoming face again and smiled.
“It’ll be worth it, I promise—this wine is something else,” Joe said, his house keys jostling in his hand. Susana could smell his cologne now. Some kind of Dolce & Gabbana. She felt dizzy. She hadn’t even had a sip of wine. Not yet.
Why am I here?
He opened the door and ushered her inside. She thought she imagined him taking one last, fleeting glance outside as she walked in, as if checking to see if those nosy neighbors were on the prowl again.
She felt his hand. Warm, rough on her back.
A slight shove. He was impatient. The energy between them was different now.
Things had moved, ever so slightly. From the theoretical to the real.
They weren’t just coincidentally in the same place.
They hadn’t just happened to see each other. Choices were made. Plans. Drinks.
She felt him grip her shoulders and push her against the closed door.
She could smell him now—sweat and fear and wine all mixed together.
She let her body hit the flimsy wood of the door, the door to his tiny house, to this place that clearly didn’t provide shelter for a family.
This two-bedroom bungalow that was home to just one man. This man.
His face was close to hers. The Altoid-laced breath hovering over and around her face. His mouth inches from hers.
“I couldn’t wait,” he said, his voice urgent, hoarse, a rough grunt. “I just—”
She saw the road now, in her mind, a big fork—two paths jutting out in different directions. One path was good, righteous. Correct. The Way To Be. The other was darker, confusing, fueled by lust and hunger and an itching need for something different.
She didn’t move. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to decide. Passivity worked in degrees.
He kissed her, the stinging stubble above his lips brushing against her face.
The kiss wasn’t tender. It was harsh, hungry—his tongue sliding into her mouth like a train shaken off its track.
She let him in. Let his hands tighten on her shoulders.
Let his body lean into hers. She felt all of him, every bit, pulsing and wanting.
She hadn’t done anything, she told herself. He kissed me, she thought. I’m just here.
She was still in the range. Susana had done nothing wrong.