Have You Seen Luis Velez?(96)

He caught her instinctively and kept her on her feet.

“I need to go sit down,” she said.

He led her out of the line and back to the table, which sat empty now. He helped her down into a chair.

“Are you okay?” he asked, feeling desperate. Panicky.

“I’m fine. I just need to breathe a minute.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, watching the snaking line of dancers doing their hop, hop, hop. Or Raymond was watching, anyway. He looked back at her to see her eyes wide open, but her body entirely motionless. Just slumping back in her chair, staring at nothing.

Raymond’s heart jumped up into his throat.

“Mrs. G!” he shouted, shaking her shoulder.

“What?” she asked. “Why are you shouting at me?”

“Oh.” Raymond’s breath flew out of him, all at once and involuntarily. “Oh, you’re okay. You scared me.”

“Did you think I had kicked the bucket?”

“Well, you were just . . . you weren’t moving, and your eyes were open, but you weren’t looking at anything . . .”

“Raymond,” she began. A bit derisively. “I’m blind.”

“Oh. Right. Well, now I feel really stupid. You looked different than usual. But I guess just because you were tired.”

She reached along the table and felt for his hand, then patted it.

“You’re not going to get rid of me that easily, my friend. I’m going to live to be a hundred if I can. Maybe older.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“I told you that already.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you did.”



Luis Senior came by as dusk fell, and brought the collection jar, which he handed to Isabel with a formal sort of ceremony.

“Every time we count it, we get a slightly different number,” he said, looking ashamed. “But it’s over seven hundred dollars.”

“That’s wonderful,” Isabel said.

“Listen,” Luis said in return, his voice heavy. “I have four kids. I know seven hundred dollars doesn’t go very far these days.”

“It’s wonderful,” Isabel said again. “It’s a lot. It’ll help a lot. And even if you had only raised fifty bucks, I would’ve been grateful. Because it was just so nice that all these people cared.”

“Well, that’s the idea behind the block party,” Luis said. “That’s supposed to be the point of the thing.”



Raymond and Mrs. G walked slowly toward the subway station together as the sun went down. Isabel and her children stayed behind to party. But Mrs. G had experienced enough for one day, and then some.

The setting sun hovered in front of them, between buildings, causing Raymond to shield his eyes with one arm. He wondered if the light bothered Mrs. G at all. If she was even aware of it.

“I feel like we’re in one of those old cowboy movies,” she said.

“Not following.”

“In the end they would always walk off into the sunset. Or, actually . . . I guess they rode off into the sunset on their horse. But we don’t have a horse, so this will have to do.”

Raymond smiled.

They walked for a minute without speaking.

“You sure you’re okay walking?” he asked.

“Positive. I told you. I just needed to rest for a minute after dancing. Don’t treat me like I’m so terribly fragile. If I wasn’t a tough old bird, I wouldn’t be here. So, had you forgotten that I told you I was going to live to be at least a hundred if I had anything to say about it?”

“No. I remembered. But lately . . . I don’t know. You were so down about everything. I guess I thought you changed your mind.”

“Well, if I did, I changed it back.”

“What changed things for you?”

“Oh, no one thing.”

“More like all those little lights?”

“More like having a friend like you who spent so much time igniting all of them, just to try to please me and help me cope. The world is a tough place, my friend. I’m not ready to change my mind about that. And yet we’re called upon to be grateful that we’re in it. That seems to be our challenge.”

“Yeah,” Raymond said. “Hard sometimes.”

“Well, if we’re being honest with ourselves, it’s hard most of the time. But we have each other. What else do we have but each other? And what would we do without each other? It would be unbearable.”

“I guess it would,” Raymond said.

“But at least I have a good friend. And you have me until you’re in your twenties somewhere, whether you like it or not.”

“I like it fine,” Raymond said.

“The world has taken much from me,” she said after a pause. A silent space. “Or, anyway, it feels that way most of the time. But it gave me you, and everything you brought to my door with you. Isabel and those three beautiful children, and a Luis Velez who threw us a block party, and another Luis Velez who is an attorney and can get money for the children, and that lovely little cat, who warms me up by sitting on me and purring and who never gets under my feet. And even a personal cello concert! And here you have your own life to be living, but you take the time to do all that for me. That’s quite a bundle of good tidings, Raymond, and who am I to say it’s not enough? Who am I to say life took too much and gave too little? I just live here. I’m not running the place. And it’s a good thing I’m not. I don’t know enough.”