How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (15)

Let me go! she yelled to me.

I didn’t let go. I waited for her to calm down. Then I asked her, Where have you been?

You have no idea what’s happening to me, she said.

And then, I saw her face. She has not been sleeping. Bags under the eyes, no lipstick, not even earrings. I had a feeling this had to be about Adonis. What else could torment a mother like this that she would stop taking care of herself?

Her son Adonis is in trouble. But not a little trouble. Big trouble. Adonis lost his apartment. Her son, the big professional that was making four, five times what we made in the factory, lost his apartment in Brooklyn with a view of Manhattan.

Tell me, you, didn’t he see those people in the news that lost their houses and are camping in the highway? What was he thinking? He bought his apartment, all of it, with a loan. Even his down payment was a loan! The banks call it a balloon—and it popped. The party is finished for Adonis.

Lulú received this bad news when she cashed the last of the unemployment checks. She always made me feel like una vieja because she was more young than me, but now she wants to be old like me so she could do this program and get the benefit checks. Her only income is what she makes working in the bodega. She can’t help her son. Lulú is very humiliated about Adonis. This is why she avoid me. She was afraid to tell me. But I don’t judge. To be a mother is to suffer. You try and try with the children and they step on shit anyway. It’s too bad because in truth our children have it more easy than us.

Lulú never took the side of his son’s wife, Patricia. She mopped the floor with Patricia’s name because, according to Lulú, Patricia never contributes to the rent. She only pays the phone and the electricity, and she makes Adonis do all the laundry for the house. Lulú hates Patricia for that.

She always says, Look at my poor son, working like an animal so that woman can spend her weekends fixing her hair in the salón. But Patricia’s not a pendeja. Women know that if we don’t put in all that work, men like Adonis, that love shiny things, would have eyes on someone else, and fast. But Lulú has no sympathy for Patricia, who works in an office for a lawyer. I am sure, too, that she does most of the work with the babies.

ángela and I never agree, but when we talk about Patricia and Adonis, we agree on this: Patricia was intelligent to put half of her check in a separate bank account. And thank God Adonis refused to marry her with papers. The relief that woman must feel now—legally free from Adonis, his debt, and his bad credit. If she had not saved her own money, Patricia and her babies would be left with nothing.

Women know even the things we don’t see. Yes or no?



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?Ay! But what I was trying to tell you is that I am worried about the changes the building is trying to make. Every time the management makes improvements they make more rules. Look at what happened to my neighbor Tita that lived in the building for more long than me. She did not take the washing machine out of the apartment—and the new lease says No Washing Machine. The management sent a letter to Tita many months ago to say that if she didn’t take out the machine in ten days she and her daughter Cecilia must leave the apartment because she violated the lease! Violated. Tita is cabeza dura so she didn’t take out the machine because she uses the washing machine almost every day. Her daughter Cecilia makes, all the time, a big mess. All of us thought the management, maybe this once, was going to break the rules for Tita, because she lived in the apartment for many decades, and her daughter has a disability. But they have no feelings.

Yes, yes, Tita went to the court. Lulú made Patricia to help Tita. But this is another opportunity for the management to rent an apartment for three times the price we pay. She had a big apartment with two bedrooms. And because Tita did not want to leave the building and be far away from us, she moved downstairs to the one-bedroom with the windows looking to the brick wall. And the rent is now $450 more than what she paid.

Me? Oh, don’t worry. I’m OK. Yes, I pay rent every month. Sometimes I owe a little. But not too much. If we pay the rent, and don’t break the rules of the lease, Patricia told me that the management can’t throw us out. They would have to give us many money to leave. I can pay everything when I find a job. You will help me find a job, yes?



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Ay, I get nervous because very easily, after working so hard, you can be with nothing. Pobrecita Tita. One day, she is ready to retire to have an easy life, and the next day, her life is an infierno. The management have many properties in all of New York. They are so rich, why do this to Tita? We all had washing machines for many years but that was no problem because nobody wanted to live in Washington Heights, only us. But now everybody wants to live in Washington Heights because it’s not expensive like downtown. And now the area has the white people bar, and the white people gourmet bodega, and the $15 white people personal pizza, not even for a family. Fifteen dollars for one person!

Tita thought she could live with the Social Security and the disability. With the low rent, it was enough. But listen to me, there is never rest for the poor. Now pobrecita Tita can’t pay for her new apartment, so she can’t retire—she had to take a job. A terrible job. She saw a paper in the train that said: $10 an hour! No experience necessary! Yes, that’s right, the one you see all the time written by hand on a paper bag. For two days a week, she works, taking care of a vieja. They pay her in cash so she can still get her benefits. But the lady she works for makes Tita sleep on the floor next to her bed. She wants to see Tita all the time.