Read Online America's Dream by Esmeralda Santiago - Free Book Online Page B

delicately and goes on eating. The wall clock above the door tick tocks in between silence. América picks a loose thread from the fly of her jeans. Correa chews, and his ears move back and forth as if he were doing it on purpose. A rooster sings outside somewhere. The cup clinks against the saucer when he sets it down. A car drives by, spewing acrid fumes. Correa sneezes. “¿Salúd!” she says without thinking, claps her hands on her thighs, starts to get up. “I have things to do.”
    He turns and looks at her as if deciding whether to let her go, picks up the empty cup, hands it to her. “Bring me more coffee.” She takes it, walks slowly, in case he changes his mind, her eyes focused on the coffeemaker in the kitchen, a gift from Correa last Christmas. Her hands trembling, she pours hot coffee, and a few drops fall on the tender space between her thumb and index fin- ger. It burns, drips toward her wrist, but she barely feels it.
    He goes home to change into his uniform. He has missed a week and a half at work. She wonders how he gets away with it, taking off whenever he feels like it, coming back as if nothing.
    She opens all the windows and doors. Rosalinda’s is still closed, and the couple of times América stands in front of it, she hears no sound. She tries the knob. It’s locked. She sways around the living room humming a bolero, dusting everything in sight, spraying glass cleaner and furniture polish, wiping down each surface with long, even strokes. She puts the chairs on top of the table, rolls up the area rug in the living room and drags it out to the porch. She sweeps the room, mops it down, polishes it. Ros- alinda’s door is locked; no movement comes from the room. No sound.
    She lifts figurines from the shelves next to the television, washes and dries each one, replaces them in new configurations. The shepherd playing the flute to a dancing lady now faces a gaggle of geese, the dancing lady flirts with a mother duck leading her ducklings. She takes down the curtains in the living room, kitchen, and from the sliding door that leads to the back-yard. She sets them to wash in the machine, then deals with her

    room, leaving the door open so she can see when Rosalinda crosses to the bathroom.
    She strips the bed, puts on fresh sheets, moves all her cosmetics from the windowsill, dusts and polishes the wood, wipes down each can, bottle, and jar with a cloth dipped in rubbing alcohol, places each with its companion products; hair spray with gel and mousse, cold cream with witch hazel and liquid face soap, tweezers with nail files, orange sticks, and emery boards. Ros- alinda’s door squeaks. América is sitting on the edge of her bed relacing a sneaker so the ends will he even when her daughter walks by to the bathroom without looking at her.
    “I just made you some breakfast,” she calls from the kitchen when Rosalinda comes out.
    “I’m not hungry.”
    América puts a plate of scrambled eggs and ham on the table, a cup of steaming cafe con leche, toast. “Come and eat something. You didn’t have dinner last night.” But Rosalinda has gone into her room and locked the door. América knocks gently. “Nena, your eggs will get cold.”
    Rosalinda opens the door but doesn’t come out. “I said I’m not hungry. I don’t want anything right now.”
    “I already made it.”
    Rosalinda peers suspiciously past her mother at the table set with a place mat, her breakfast served on the good vajilla. América follows her look. “I was washing everything out,” she chuckles, “and thought, might as well use it.”
    Rosalinda steps around her to the table, sits, picks at the food. When did she get this sullen? América doesn’t remember this look on her daughter’s face, this world-weary, nothing-can-please- me air. It must be new. Or maybe it’s that she’s not wearing makeup, and her features even out, so that every expression plays across her face, without the distraction of highlights or