Olga Dies Dreaming(106)

“Hello?” Olga called out from her bedroom. She felt scared, but also desperate to be rescued.

“Olga, honey?” It was her Tía Lola. “Olga, Matteo came by the house today; he’s worried about you. We, um, we’re worried, too. No one has heard from you and you missed Richie’s birthday dinner.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She could hear Mabel’s voice whispering to their aunt.

“Mabel?” she called out. “Mabel, come lay down with me?”

Mabel came and climbed onto the bed and started to comb Olga’s hair with her fingers. When they were girls, in junior high, they would fall asleep like this sometimes, lying in bed, listening to music, Mabel combing Olga’s hair with her hands. They lay there quiet for many minutes. Olga couldn’t remember another occasion when Mabel had gone so long without speaking.

She could hear her aunt cry out to Dios when she entered her kitchen. Olga could only imagine how it looked. She heard her cleaning up, bottles being taken to recycling, glasses into dishwasher. Laundry started. Water into pot. Chopping. Chopping. Her aunt began to hum to herself and broke the silence of the apartment.

“Olga,” Mabel said very gently, “whatever Matteo did, you should give him another chance. He’s a good guy.”

“I know,” Olga said, staring up at her ceiling. “He didn’t do anything.”

Mabel didn’t say anything.

“I fucked up.”

“Ay.” Mabel sucked her teeth. “You fucked somebody?”

Olga nodded, and felt the tears begin to flow again.

“Okay, okay,” Mabel said. “Pero, why so sad? He obviously doesn’t know yet. So, you fucked up. You either tell him and ask him to forgive you, or put it past you, keep the secret, and try again. Why throw the whole thing away?”

“You don’t understand,” Olga said.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Mabel said. “Why do you always have to make your life harder? I’ve watched you do this before, you know.”

Olga knew she was talking about Reggie.

“Mabel, this is different.”

“I know this is different. You’re happier this time. You’re a vieja now; you take twenty more years to find another dude, and no one will want your dried-up ass. I can’t let you fuck up again. I won’t be able to forgive you. Or myself. So, tell me what’s really fucking going on here so we can figure out how you fix this.”

Mabel had minored in psychology in college and Olga wished now that she had followed that pursuit. If there were more shrinks like Mabel maybe she would have tried going to one. Olga thought of the years she had been single after Reggie—not lonely, per se, but not exactly happy. She thought about the calm Matteo brought her, how joyful their time together was, how at ease with her own self he made her feel. She covered her face with her hands.

“Mabel, what if I don’t deserve to be happy?”

“Olga,” Mabel whispered in her ear, “unless you kicked a puppy or have a body buried someplace that I don’t know about, you deserve to be fucking happy. Okay?”

She couldn’t talk about this and actually look at anyone—not Mabel or anyone—so she kept her face covered and told her what happened with Dick. Mabel never stopped stroking her hair.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She paused. “You didn’t do anything wrong, you know. You can’t punish yourself, mujer.”

“But what do I do?” Olga asked.

“You tell him what happened to you. You let him listen. You let him tell you he still loves you, because he will.”



* * *



OLGA TOOK A very long shower. She washed her hair and, to her own surprise, put on mascara and lip gloss, just to bring some life back to her face. She felt lighter for having told Mabel. It wasn’t Mabel’s words that made the difference as much as it was, she realized, that speaking what happened aloud had begun, ever so slightly, to deflate the balloon of humiliation that had been taking up so much space inside her. When she came out of the bathroom, she could smell her aunt’s cooking and felt an appetite, a desire, return to her again. She felt excited to eat and a smile broke out on her face for the first time in many, many days. But, on entering the kitchen, she was surprised to see Lola and Mabel sitting at her kitchen counter with such serious expressions on their faces. In front of them, a pile of her mother’s letters.





BASTA YA





It had been Tía Lola’s idea to gather the letters from her mother, in chronological order, and read them, all together, out loud.

She had found them on Olga’s desk; Olga had taken them out and reread some of them while she had grappled with her fateful decision to visit Dick and, well, she’d not given them another thought. Mabel had been disturbed by what she described as “psychological abuse.” Lola latched onto the notes about Reggie.

“I always knew your mother talked you into breaking up with him; my mother wouldn’t say, but I knew it was her.”

Olga just shrugged. She felt exposed knowing other people could hear the voice that had been whispering in her ear for so very long.

“This is wack, Olga,” Mabel exclaimed. “Wack. You realize that, don’t you?”