As soon as Prudence came through the door, home for Spring Break, Miriam knew; sex, lots of it, was being had. Pru reeked of it. Her eyes had that look to them. What Miriam didn’t know was who the sex was being had with. 

“Welcome home, Pru-de-doo,” Miriam embraced her daughter, whose unwashed hair smelled musky and forbidden.

“Mi Madre,” Pru trilled. “Te adoro.”

“You’re speaking Spanish,” Miriam noted. Pru, a Classics major, was already taking a full load. There was no need to over-do.

Pru nodded.

“Did you add a language class?” 

Pru smiled in a way Miriam had never seen her smile before. A knowing smile. An I’ve seen things, done things you can’t imagine smile. “No,” she said as she breezed past Miriam and floated towards the kitchen. “What’s for dinner? I’m famished.”

Miriam’s daughter had been a morose and isolated child. But Pru had never seemed disturbed by her outsider-ness, unlike Miriam, who had spent most of her youth and a good part of young adulthood in a perpetual state of longing to belong. Miriam still worried she might be disposable, the member of book club no one would miss, the middle school teacher no student really admired, the grey-haired nobody her hairstylist was least passionate about turning blonde. 

But Pru was made of different stuff. Indifferent stuff. It wasn’t until high school that she collected a smattering of acquaintances from Latin after school club—teenagers who conjugated and translated a dead language for fun. There had been no wild parties, no drugs, no boys.

But clearly there was a boy now. Or maybe it was a girl. 

Miriam followed Pru’s trail and found her daughter crouched in front of the open refrigerator, peering at the shelves as if she were deciphering ancient hieroglyphics. 

“There’s, like, nada para comer,” Pru complained. “When was the last time you went to the supermercado?”

“Prudence. What’s with all this Spanish?”

Prudence stood up. She was taller than Miriam, and bigger boned. She took after Henry, her father, whose largeness Miriam had found comforting back when they’d first married. Holding him was like resting under the shade of a sturdy oak. All Henry had to do was stand there, frown a little, and people scattered to do his bidding. But not Miriam, not anymore. These days she took pleasure in pointing out a physical flaw of Henry’s, usually some sign of aging –hairs tufting from his drooping ear lobes, age spots on his jowly neck, broken capillaries around his spreading nose,– and watching the slight wilt of his 6’3” frame.

Pru stood with a wedge of cheddar in one hand and a jar of pickles in the other. “I’m speaking Espanol because of Eduardo,” she said with a shrug.

“Who is Eduardo?” Miriam imagined this Eduardo burrowing his nose in Pru’s greasy mane, inhaling the essence of her former child.

“My boyfriend.” Again, another shrug. Pru put the cheese and pickles on the table then opened the bread drawer. “What? No whole wheat?” At least this whining was in English.

“You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend,” Miriam said. Then because she didn’t want to sound offended at being left out of this important milestone and risk future icing out she added, “How exciting.”

“Muy emocionante,” Pru sliced cheese and lay it on semi-stale rye, her only choice. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s…” where was Henry? Miriam hadn’t a clue. He’d probably gone behind the garage to sneak a smoke. 

Suddenly Pru got very still. She looked at Miriam with death ray intensity. “Okay. Before Dad gets home, just promise me you won’t tell him about Eduardo before I do.”

“Why?”

“Because he’ll flip out.”

“Why would your father do that?”

Prudence rolled a pickle back and forth on the Formica countertop. 

“Pru. Don’t play with your food. And answer my question.”

“Because Eduardo is, sort of, older.”

Miriam felt clamminess settle on the back of her neck just as her husband appeared at the screen door. “Older than who?” Henry asked. Miriam could smell the tobacco from twenty feet away. 

Pru pointed a pickle-juiced finger at her father and said, “Than you.”

  They got a full report on Eduardo later that evening, over dinner, once Pru had woken from one of the avoidant coma-like naps college students take when back in the increasingly discordant bosoms of their families.

“I met him at Flamenco Friday,” Pru said through a full mouthful of mashed potatoes. “It’s this thing the Cervantes Society does every third Friday of the month.”

“What exactly happens at Flamenco Friday?” asked Miriam. This welcome home dinner of Pru’s favorite foods was bland; the aforementioned potatoes, simple grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, french bread and butter, yet Miriam was having trouble eating.

“People dance. There’s music. Flamenco, or Flamenco-ish,” Pru said.

“Ole, ole,” Henry snapped his fingers to one side of his head and then the other. 

“Oh Dad,” Pru laughed as she often did, at Henry’s cornball antics, bonding with her father in a way her mother never felt compelled to. Miriam let them have their little cabal of silliness, content to watch, and judge, from the sidelines.

Miriam rolled her eyes. “And Eduardo was there because…” Miriam hoped the answer was simple. Perhaps he was a professor, long single and childless. It would still be shocking, as this Eduardo was supposedly close to forty eight years old. But a less bitter pill to swallow if coated in prestige.

“Kerry,” said Pru, “you remember Kerry? The girl from Scarsdale who lives down the hall from me? She’s a total language geek. She dragged my sorry ass to the January Flamenco Friday. And that’s where I met Eduardo.”

January. It was now April. Pru had known this pedophile for four months.

“So he’s a professor in the Spanish Department?” Miriam asked, fingers crossed under the table.

“Nah,” Pru slathered a hunk of bread with butter then sprinkled on a pinch of salt. 

“So what does he do?” Henry finally asked a question. 

“He’s one of the musicians the Cervantes Society hire to play at their events,” Pru said. “He lives near campus so it’s easy for him to just walk over there with his guitar whenever they need him.”

Walking, Miriam noted. No driving. He was too poor to own a car. And not a professor. Probably an illegal alien who couldn’t risk a driver’s license. 

“Eduardo’s amazing,” Pru added. “He was famous back in Mexico.”

“He sounds fascinating,” Henry nodded. Was it possible Henry was being sincere? Miriam had a hard time reading her husband these days. Or maybe it was just that she didn’t try very hard anymore so that when Henry-reading was required, she was out of practice.

“He’s sooo great, Dad. I think you guys will really get along. He has your sense of humor. You know, doofus-y but funny. Here look,” Pru grabbed her phone from beside her butter knife, tapped and swiped and thrust the screen towards her father. “This is us last week at Eddie’s niece’s quinceanera.”

Miriam leaned sideways towards Henry to get a peek. What she saw on the phone screen was tan skin, a near-pompadour of wavy black hair, a turquoise tuxedo. It was difficult to see much more because Eddie was wearing a Groucho spectacles-nose-mustache get-up so most of his face was obscured. More disturbing was the sight of Pru at Eduardo’s side, clutching his arm like a koala on the branch of a eucalyptus tree. Pru, in a strapless red sequined dress, a dress Miriam had never seen before and had certainly not paid for. Miriam would know because she got all Pru’s credit card bills. Pru, gazing up at this middle-aged jokester in a cheesy disguise with the dreamy swoon of someone in the throes of all-consuming love. 

“You see?” Pru beamed at her parents, “He’s hysterical.” 

No, thought Miriam. I’m hysterical. I’m a maelstrom of emotionality. Miriam considered herself a diehard liberal. She wanted to embrace the idea of Pru dating someone from another culture, someone who might even be in the country illegally, someone with less education, less money, less good fortune. Someone she could flaunt to her fellow do-gooders as they addressed postcards to Congress about the humanitarian crisis at the border. Miriam, could be the lefty with ‘real’ immigration experience. But the appearance of this swarthy older man stirred up all sorts of conservative reservations. 

Henry chuckled. “I love those Groucho masks.”

“You have got to be kidding,” Miriam muttered under her breath. 

◆

“I’m gonna stay up here for the summer,” Pru announced over the phone towards the end of the semester. “I’m moving in with Eduardo. I got a job at Staples. Part time. And this way I can help Eduardo with his PR.”

“Staples? For this I’m shelling out 60 grand a year?” Finally, Henry had less than positive things to say. 

“Dad, really. It’s not like I’m just a clerk. I’m doing admin stuff. I’m back office. Assistant Chief Operations Officer. And it’s just a summer job.”

“Still,” Henry grumbled. “Staples. You’re a Classics Major. And PR? What’s that about?”

“Eduardo is trying to get more gigs. And there’s lots of competition.”

Miriam, listening in on the kitchen extension, watched the fingers squeezing her coffee mug turn white. The other hand holding the phone to her ear was already numb. “Competition? Up there in nowheresville New England?”

“Madre,” Pru sighed. “Hay muchas bandas de flamenca aqui.” 

“Enough with the Spanish already,” Miriam cried. “And shacking up with Eduardo is definitely not a smart thing to do!”

The conversation crumbled, then aborted. Pru refused their calls for the next two weeks. Miriam texted her, and could see that the texts were going through, and that Pru had read them, so at least she knew her daughter was alive, though it was always possible that someone else—an unsavory acquaintance of Eduardo’s perhaps—had taken the phone from her. 

Miriam considered herself an open-minded, forward thinker. As a Middle School Global Studies teacher she was in a constant swirl of cultural diversity; in her lessons, the textbooks, in the faces of her melting pot students. She’d marched for lives that mattered, and immigration rights. Now she found herself awash in racist, classist thoughts. Would she be having these same horrible thoughts if Eduardo was an American named Edward? If as Edward, he was twenty one instead of pushing fifty? If Edward was a classical musician, not a guitar player who, when not moonlighting at college campus events, who, as Pru had told her, strummed at a Mexican restaurant in a sombrero and fluffy vest?   

When once again they spoke, it was Pru who initiated the calls. Pru’s voice over the crackly connection was clipped and perfunctory. Could Miriam send Pru her desk lamp. Thank you. Did her parents have any spare bath towels. Great. How about Grandma’s rug that used to be in the den but had been rolled and stored in the basement once Miriam bought that new fluffy one. UPS would be fine. And they could use a toaster oven if there happened to be a spare one laying about.

Toaster ovens don’t lay, thought Miriam. She ordered a brand new one from Amazon and had it shipped to Pru’s apartment directly. 

◆

Miriam and Henry met Eduardo that July, in the cramped, depressing apartment Pru shared with him in the uncool outskirts of the formerly grand, now rundown New England city her expensive liberal arts college was located in. Pru had invited them for the weekend. This was an olive branch of gigantic proportions.

“You could stay at the Marriott,” Pru had suggested. “Or with us, if you want to. We have a fold-out couch. But only one bathroom.”

Miriam and Henry opted for the hotel. 

“I feel like we’re about to meet the Mexican president,” said Henry once they settled into their hotel room after a five hour drive. He’d just gotten off the phone with Pru who had given him directions on how to get to her, or rather their, apartment. Henry didn’t believe in GPS, or Google Maps. He liked his directions delivered the old fashioned way. “Pru is so excited.”

Miriam had nothing to say. She lay on the bed, staring dead-eyed at the ceiling. She was trying to remain positive. Praying to God, even though she was agnostic. 

The apartment was on the ground floor of a three-story, aluminum-sided house converted into six units. Pru and Eduardo were waiting on the porch as Miriam and Henry arrived. From the street, they looked like a normal couple, standing side by side, smiling and waving. Eduardo had his arm around Pru’s waist, but dropped it as Miriam and Henry made their way up the uneven cement walkway, weeds sprouting out of every available crack. 

Eduardo walked down the stairs to greet them. He took hold of Henry’s hand with both his own and shook vigorously. Miriam noticed the dark curly hair on his muscular forearm. When it came Miriam’s turn, there was no shaking. Eduardo took her hand gently to his lips and kissed it.

“Welcome,” said Eduardo, “I so happy to meet you again.”

“You mean finally, Sweetie,” Pru corrected as she skittered down the stairs after him, her skirt flouncing as if she were happy Heidi with her goats on the mountainside. “Not again.”

“Sorry,” Eduardo shrugged. “My English. Still not so good.”

He was gorgeous. His face a chiseled, unusual masterpiece, his hair an ebony lava-flow. He wore a blue caftan-style shirt, black hairs tufting from the open collar. He had the broad shoulders and tapered waist of a competitive swimmer.  No middle-age pudge detectable. Miriam felt a percolation she hadn’t expected.

“No,” said Miriam. “It’s quite good.”

Eduardo smiled. His teeth were shockingly white and large. The front two overlapped charmingly

“Come in, come in,” he said, as he linked arms with Miriam and started up the rickety staircase. She felt the hot firmness of his forearm and bulging bicep against her own loose flesh. What might her arm feel like to him? A saggy sandbag? An old pillow? Or worse, maybe she felt like nothing at all. 

The apartment was as Miriam expected; cramped and dark, ugly linoleum tile floors and pilling shag rugs, a corduroy disaster of a couch.

“How cozy,” Henry said.

“Thanks, Dad,” Pru said. She looked at Miriam, waiting for her mother to pipe in.

Miriam searched for something, anything she could comment on. Her eyes landed on the complicated overhead light fixture with lots of globular orbs that attempted a modern classicism but barely achieved early nineties kitsch.  

“Now that,” Miriam pointed and nodded, “That is really something!”

“Si! Si!” Eduardo clapped. “I buy that. Especial for Prudence.”

Pru sauntered over to Eduardo and brazenly kissed him on the lips while Miriam shifted uncomfortably, the heels of her sensible shoes digging into the nasty carpet. Miriam averted her gaze towards Henry who had wandered into the kitchen area. Chips and salsa sat atop the paisley tablecloth Miriam had recently sent as a bonus item, along with the toaster oven, which she now noticed sat on the counter, gleaming and new, an oddity among much grimier appliances. 

Henry dipped and crunched.“What’s for lunch?” he asked with his crowded mouth. 

“Eduardo is making chicken quesadillas,” said Pru, “and those chips and salsa are homemade, FYI.”

“Aha! Not only musically talented, but also handy in the kitchen,” said Henry. “unlike your dear old dad.”

Miriam had been thinking something along the same lines. But her thought had started with Not only drop dead gorgeous…

“You hungry, Senora?” Eduardo looked at her. There was a messy magnetism about the man; his nose a bit too broad and askew, a few corkscrew curls sprouting from his head in skyward rebellion. And really, the blue caftan was obviously polyester. Still Miriam couldn’t help herself. His imperfections made him that much more desirable, and although she felt queasy she said, “I could eat.” 

Eduardo opened the wheezing refrigerator and began taking out supplies. Then he slapped his forehead and cried, “Oh demonios. Olvidé el queso.”

“What did he say?” Miriam asked Pru.

“He said he forgot the cheese.”

Next was a quick conversation, between Pru and Eduardo, all in Spanish, excited but by no means heated. It ended with more kisses. Then Pru turned to her parents and said, “So, I’m gonna run to the store and get some cheese and Eduardo is gonna stay here and get other stuff prepared. You guys can just, I dunno, relax or whatever.”

“Want some company, kid?” asked Henry.

Pru’s face lit up. “Sure, Dad.”

“I can help Eduardo with the cooking,” Miriam offered. How brazen. How obvious. But really, it was the proper thing to do, wasn’t it? Lend a hand?

Her husband and child gone, Miriam found herself alone with this hunk in his kitchen, slicing tomatoes and arranging them fanlike on a plastic platter. She snuck sideways glances at Eduardo as he fingered and rolled slices of ham into delicate flutes. She nearly gasped as he popped one in his mouth. She wanted to run her fingers along the line of his lips. Instead she willed herself to stay congenial and focused. 

“So, where are you from, originally?” she asked.

“I from a village in the, the centro, ah…the middle of Mexico. The state of Zacatecas. You know this place?” 

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve never been to Mexico.” 

“Ah, you must go sometime. And visit Zacatecas. We have much beauty stuff. Old buildings, art, music, many hills which are good for ah…” Eduardo stopped his food prep and closed his eyes. He marched in place. The intensity of his concentration was magnetic. Miriam stopped with her tomatoes then blurted out, “hiking?”

Eduardo opened his big, brown eyes and snapped his fingers. “Yes! Hiking! Good for hiking!”

They both laughed. A shared moment, thought Miriam. Something to savor. 

Miriam leaned back on the sticky kitchen counter. She sucked in her stomach, and stretched her neck hoping to tighten her softening jaw line. “And so, what brings you to the States?” Miriam couldn’t believe this was her, flirting, pitching her voice higher and sweeter than normal.

“I come for to get my music career going,” Eduardo rubbed his hands together over and over, concentrating on getting the garble of English words out. “I play guitar since I was four years old. Classico. I study at the Unidad Academica de Artes when I grow up.” He shrugs. “Now, I’m pretty great.” 

“I’ll bet you are.” 

“In Mexico, I do okay. But I want more, you know?”

“I do know,” Miriam sighed. 

Eduardo smiled. Oh those teeth, thought Miriam. So perfectly imperfect. 

“My cousin’s husband’s brother, he sponsor me to work in his clothing factory while I get my music career to go here in the U.S.”

A serious committed artist, thought Miriam. Not a deadbeat after all. Her ideas about Eduardo were changing so rapidly it made her dizzy.  

“You see?” Eduardo plucked the fabric of his blue shirt away from his chest. “I make this.”

Miriam caught sight of a dark nipple in a hairy swirl. She really might faint.

It continued like this for the entire afternoon; Miriam in a silent frenzy. She was uncomfortably turned on by her daughter’s boyfriend and no one had a clue. Miriam let Henry do the talking as they ate lunch, Eduardo’s delicious quesadillas, the fluted ham, the tomatoes swirling the plate in a circle like a flamenco skirt. Eduardo answered Henry’s questions so charmingly, without pretense. No one saw her squirm when Eduardo laughed, so manly, so deep and guttural, Miriam felt a bellowing thrum in every orifice of her body.

“This spread is very nice, Eddie,” said Henry. “Hey Miriam. Whaddya think of me in a shirt like Eduardo’s?”

She took a long gulp of lemonade. Words were hard to form.

“Oh Dad,” Pru laughed, “So not your style.” Pru shoved a third quesadilla slice in her mouth. Miriam noticed her daughter looked fuller in the face. In fact, she looked fuller all over. It was this new way Pru was eating—mayonnaise slathered on the quesadilla when formerly everything for Pru was open-faced and dry. It was the eating of a happy, sexually satisfied woman, a woman whose lover would, in turn, eat her up regardless of a few extra pounds, who might even adore the added flesh. Miriam imagined Eduardo nestling his gorgeous head on Pru’s brand new belly, just below her breasts, just above her nether bits. Surreptitiously Miriam ran a hand over her own flabby meni-paunch, a deflated balloon to Pru’s cute little pot. She wondered what it would feel like to have Eduardo’s head there, in her own lap. What it would feel like for Miriam. What it would feel like for him.

  She’d come into this lunch expecting to hate him. The smart thing would be to banish him from her daughter’s life somehow, and thus, rid herself of her sudden and excruciating infatuation. But Miriam knew she couldn’t. He was too gorgeous, too kind, too humble. He was an infection, a disease of desire. Miriam found herself wanting to rub up against him and never stop rubbing.

◆

Back at the Marriott, Henry, stretched out like a felled telephone pole on the king-sized bed. 

“Well, he wasn’t so bad,” Henry offered with a gaping yawn. 

“I guess he could’ve been worse,” Miriam managed. 

Luckily that was the extent of their recap. Henry was already out like a light. Miriam depended on squishy pink earplugs, the kind used by jackhammering construction workers, to get her through the nights of Henry’s incessant snoring. That night, Miriam wedged the foam pellets into her ears, then turned on her side to examine her husband. Henry wasn’t unattractive, he still had some charm, a sweet face with a bulbous nose, and fleshy cheeks on the way towards jowls. He’d been goofily attractive when she’d first met him, a garrulous teaching assistant in her senior Philosophy seminar, seven years older than she was. Back then it was all very kosher for the younger teaching assistants to date undergrads and there had been so many other, cooler, sexier, smarter, prettier girls he could’ve chosen. Or at least that was the way it seemed to Miriam, who lived in a perpetual state of compare and despair. She felt like an afterthought, not just with Henry, but everywhere, with everyone. When Henry first chose Miriam, she kept waiting for him to change his mind. He never did, and now, it seemed they were stuck with each other.

Sex had been great in the beginning, good in the middle, passable of late, when they actually got around to doing it. Their dried up, middle-aged trajectory was so typical and predictable, it made her cringe. 

And all those annoying habits! The nose-picking when he thought no one was looking. The secret, but not secret cigarette smoking. The chewing with his mouth open. The classic leaving of wet towels on the bed. The pontificating, even after he’d been told, yes, yes, I get it Henry, I understand. The never remembering women’s names, but always remembering the men’s. The laugh that sounded like a drunk hyena. The bad breath, the incessant farting, the terrible jokes.

A quarter of a century, thought Miriam. And here we are, side by side and miles apart. As she lay there, she felt the remaining dribs of fondness she still had for Henry squeeze out of her like the residue of toothpaste in a crumpled tube, replaced by a plump desire for Eduardo.

Very quietly, with her husband lying next to her, Miriam made her own tumult in the hotel bed. She was no stranger to erotic fantasies, but she’d fallen out of habit of late. Miriam had a robust backlist of imagined sexual encounters; outlandish, lusty assignations with postmen, lifeguards, neighbors, movie stars, and other assorted randoms she’d depended on for years. But perio-menopause had depleted her in more ways than one. Or so she thought, until she’d met Eduardo. 

Newly juiced, she returned to the shared moments with Eduardo earlier that day, when he rolled  ham into tubes, when she sliced the tomatoes and watched the juices run. In this fantasy version of the afternoon’s events, Miriam’s flirtatious cues are not subtle. There is little small talk, though Eduardo does tell Miriam in his charming broken English how lovely she is, how desirable. 

“There be no one like you, Miriam,” he whispers. “You are especial.” He unbuttons her blouse, reveals her perfect melon-like breasts in a lacy pink bra. Miriam does not have such a bra. And these breasts are not hers, either. This imagined body is a different body, a juicier body. But this is Miriam’s fantasy and she can do what she wants with it. Eduardo lifts Miriam onto the kitchen table, and her hips rumple the paisley print tablecloth. He pulls off her pants. Pants she doesn’t in reality own, pants that have no zippers, or buttons, or hooks. Pants that slip off as if made of teflon. Fantasy Miriam has fantastic legs and no extraneous hair except where fantasy Eduardo now nuzzles. 

Real Miriam fingered her own damp crevices, squeezed and pinched ignorable flesh. She writhed in the sheets and shuddered, finally turning her face away from snoring Henry to silently scream Oh, Eduardo! into her pillow. 

On the rare occasions Miriam was capable of stepping away from her own obsession to regain the proper maternal perspective, she hated the idea of Pru throwing her life away on an older man, a man who wasn’t even a legal citizen, who worked a factory job, while trying to establish himself in a fickle, artistic field. But such rational thoughts were fleeting. Shamefully, what Miriam felt most was a combination of envy and admiration for her daughter. Pru, who didn’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone thought about her, who’d never stressed about her looks, who was unabashedly weird, had gone and hooked a living god. 

Over the next few months, Miriam called to check in with Pru frequently, always probing. She’d start with questions about school, classes, friends, then wind her way towards Eduardo. 

“So what did you and Eduardo do this weekend?” she asked one day, fishing for an image, a morsel of Eduardo to savor. She’d called from her car, on her way home from a dreary day of breaking up fights between her middle school students, who only listened to her when she threatened them with suspensions.

“Oh not much,” Pru answered. “Just, you know, hanging around.”

Miriam probed deeper. “Hanging around where?”

“Home, Mom,” Pru sighed. “That’s what hanging around means. If we were somewhere else, I’d say hanging at the bar, or at the park, or hanging at so-and-so’s house.”

Miriam did have visuals of Pru and Eduardo’s home she could riff off, leftovers from her one and only visit to their depressing apartment. After that call, Miriam took a ‘nap’ and imagined Eduardo in a pair of briefs, sprawled on their horrible, beige corduroy couch, one leg draped over the back cushion, arms akimbo. A vision of tan skin, hair, bulges and muscles. His mouth slightly open, his lips moist. What followed, oh what followed. Miriam’s secret Eduardo thoughts were a chiaroscuro of darkly shameful reactions and blazing libidinal urges.

◆

Every now and then, Miriam got lucky. Like the time Pru and Eduardo went to Vermont to see the fall foliage and Pru was in a sharing mood.

“Did you take any photos?” Miriam asked. “I’d love to see them if you did.”

“Yeah. I’ll send you some.”

“Wonderful…when?”

“Um, like when we get off the phone?”

“Great!”

“I can just text them to you.”

“Excellent!”

“Las hojas eran hermosas,” Pru said.

“Hermosas,” Miriam exclaimed. “That’s the meat pastry, right?” 

“No, Mom. Hermosas means beautiful. I said the leaves were beautiful. You’re thinking of empanadas. Which sounds nothing like hermosas, but whatever…”

The photos came through, mostly landscapes and vistas, and double selfies of Pru and Eduardo pressed cheek to cheek. There was one shot of Eduardo alone that Miriam coveted. He was standing on a cliff, above a field of orange, yellow, and red. His arms were spread wide, as if he were taking in the entire world, or offering himself up to it.  His head was tipped back so his black hair fell behind him like a lovely little cape. His stubbled chin jutted skyward. His eyes were closed. His smile was ecstatic.

In this fantasy, Eduardo turns to see Miriam, who happens to be there too. She looks like an Austen or Bronte heroine; pale, steely, strong, a bunch of messy skirts swirling around her, making a ruckus in the high grass. He takes her in, gasps in wonder at her, and offers himself to her, as if she were the essential bit more he craved.

◆

Henry was no longer as relaxed about Eduardo as he’d been at the start. Pru was back in school but didn’t seem as interested in her studies, which particularly stuck in Henry’s academic craw. He shared his concerns nightly, over dinner. Miriam, seated across the table, fingered the stem of her wine glass, downed a second splash of Pinot, and let her husband drone on and on. 

“He’s a perfectly nice man,” Henry might say, “But let’s face it. He’s not at Pru’s level.”

Or:

“The teeth. Did you see his teeth? Don’t they believe in orthodontia in Mexico?”

Or:

“Do we know anything about his people?”

This was one of Henry’s faux-patrician terms. One didn’t have family, one had people. When his Waspy upbringing showed up, Miriam’s barely Jewish self felt entirely repulsed. Lately, Henry’s most annoying snippets were like bits of pond scum Miriam could dissolve with a few quick stirs as she floated further away from him, and lost herself in the open, turgid sea of Eduardo.

As the months went on, Pru checked in with Miriam frequently. She shed much of her millennial bristle and took on a woman to woman tone. Pru talked about her classes or Eduardo’s job at the factory. There were  queries for domestic advice; recipes, stain removal, the pros or cons of curtains over shades. 

Then came the time of Pru and Eduardo’s first fight, and Miriam was called upon for sage relationship feedback. And caught. Almost.

“He accused me of not having his back,” Pru sniffed. “Just because one time, one time, I didn’t correct his lousy English when he was trying to order some Thai food.”

Miriam wondered if the inevitable worm of sadism that weaves its way into most long-term monogamous relationships had finally found an entrance in Pru and Eduardo’s May-December bliss. If Pru wanted to see Eduardo squirm the way Miriam sometimes wanted to see Henry squirm. 

“Well why didn’t you correct him?” 

“Seriously Mom? He’s got to learn some of this on his own. I can’t be his language coach every single second and listen to every single thing he says all the time.” 

I could, thought Miriam. I would. 

“Plus there’s other stuff. Stuff between us. A big decision we have to make.”

“What kind of decision?” asked Miriam, concerned for Pru, but also hoping for something to savor later.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

This was typical Pru, always pulling back just when there was an opening for some real mother-daughter bonding. She’d been this way her entire life. It was like parenting a skittish rescue dog. You could never come at her directly, but if you were lucky, every now and then she’d offer her stomach up for a little rub. 

“Plus he said I was malhumardo.”

“Well you can be a bit grumpy at times, Pru,” Miriam said before she knew she’d said it. 

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. 

“Pru?”

“How do you know that malhumardo means grumpy?”

Miriam swallowed. She’d been spending up to six hours a day listening, repeating, cooing in response to the recorded, confident male voice—not unlike Eduardo’s voice— she’d chosen to guide her through the labyrinth of Espanol. In two months she’d already advanced to the Intermediate level. “I’ve been doing Rosetta Stone. Didn’t I tell you?” 

“Um…no. You didn’t. And that’s weird.”

“What’s weird?” 

“Ah, that you didn’t tell me, and that you’d already know a word like malhumorado after only two months of Rosetta Stone.”

“What can I say? I’m a quick learner, Pru-de-doo,” Miriam tried to lighten and deflect.

Another pause. And then, “In that case, por favor nunca me vuelvas a llamar así.”

Miriam got it. Please don’t ever call me that again. But she pretended she didn’t understand.

◆

Miriam made do for weeks on Pru’s messages, and the few photos of Eduardo she’d been able to search out on the internet, by trolling Pru’s social media accounts. She rolled around on her bed with the shades drawn and door locked. Extensive fantasies unfolded. Some had the narrative quality of romance novels, some the brute force of hard core porn. In all, Miriam took centerstage, adored and aglow. The fingers of one hand rubbed and flicked every slippery crease of her labia while the other hand squeezed and stroked any flesh within reach. Miriam twisted and opened like a snake swallowing its prey: engorged, ecstatic, ultimately exhausted. 

Just as source material was drying up, there was an opportunity for gold when Pru called one early November morning. 

“So Eduardo’s booked a gig at the downtown Marriott,” said Pru. “In the Sunset Lounge. It’s a really big deal.”

It sounded horribly cheap and embarrassing. But Miriam would not let on. “That’s wonderful,” she exclaimed. “Send him our congratulations.”

“Well, actually, I was wondering if you guys would want to come up and hear him?”

Desire which had rolled over Miriam like a gentle vibrating massage, day in, day out, became an internal earthquake.

“Mom?”

Adrenaline coursed through Miriam’ bloodstream. She tried to hide the quiver in her voice as she said, “Of course. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Cool. And there’s something else I need to tell you about when you’re here.”

Miriam barely heard Pru’s last sentence. She was already planning what to wear to the Sunset Lounge. She needed the perfect ensemble to attract Eduardo without being too obvious or needy. How horrifying it would be to be thought of as desperate, when all she wanted was to be desired.   

◆

Everyone in the audience at the Marriott Sunset Lounge — a motley crew of business trip boozers, local couples out for supper and a show, a few university undergrads there for happy hour prices and the irony of classical music at a chain hotel — were silent and awed as Eduardo sat under a pool of shimmering light and played his guitar like a master. Seeing him in the flesh after so many months was almost too much for Miriam. He strummed and plucked his guitar strings with a passion so thick it filled the air of the Sunset Lounge with intoxicating sonorous fumes. Miriam imagined Eduardo was plucking her.

God damn you, Eduardo, she thought as she downed her second G and T. Stop being so…so…everything.

Henry leaned across the banquet towards Miriam. “Seems our daughter’s boyfriend is the real deal. I’d say Eduardo is top drawer in the guitar department.”

Miriam didn’t roll her eyes to remind Henry how offensively Waspish he sounded. She’d already moved past it, had her sights set elsewhere, the elsewhere being another banquet across the parquet floor where Pru sat with an elderly couple. The couple were older by decades than Miriam and Henry. The woman was small and brown, built like a fire hydrant. She wore a simple dress, no makeup, no beaded purse resting near her cocktail glass. She had white hair pulled back in a tight bun and a somber, resigned expression that Miriam imagined was because the woman was likely world weary, overtired and underpaid for menial labor, some humiliating, demeaning job. 

The man was as thin and tall as the woman was short and squat. He was also dark skinned, though not as dark as the woman. He wore a crisp white short sleeved shirt with a vest. He sat regally on the cushioned seat of the banquet and surveyed the crowd beaming a smile that oozed of pride. 

Here they were, Miriam thought, Eduardo’s people.

Eduardo finished the song with a glorious trill across celestial strings, and raised his concentrated brow to gaze over at the old couple. Miriam thought back to testy Pru’s words a few weeks earlier: 

And there’s something else I need to tell you about when you’re here. 

Miriam looked back at the table, and saw the old woman—clearly Eduardo’s mother — the brow. the chin, the eyes— place a hand on Pru’s abdomen. She saw Pru shrug and nod. Miriam saw the woman finally cracking a smile. She saw Pru rest her head on this tiny woman’s shoulder in a way Pru hadn’t done with Miriam since she’d been nine years old. What was it Pru had cryptically implied at the end of their last phone call?  It was clear now; the something else was that Miriam’s child was about to have her own child. Pru’s pudgy belly under her loose-fitting dress. Pru’s hormonally plumped, incredibly healthy looking cheeks, her formerly perky little breasts now full blown balloons. A baby, my baby, a baby…Miriam mumbled to herself.  Why hadn’t Pru told Miriam? Clearly she’d told Eduardo’s mother.  All sorts of fears filtered into Miriam’s brain; Pru, just turning twenty this summer, saddled with a baby, only halfway through college. No money, no real job, no prospects. 

But Pru did have Eduardo. And in spite of the disaster this pregnancy might be, Miriam’s standard fantasy of Eduardo was that he was a knight in shining armor. He would save her daughter. But then her emotions did a double-take and all Miriam felt was jealousy coated with a wash of dread. She still wanted Eduardo. She didn’t want to stop thinking about him that way. What kind of horny, greedy grandmother monster did that make her?

It was all too much. Miriam dashed from the Marriott Sunset Lounge and raced outside in her absurd sequined sheath and T-strapped sandals. How ludicrous that she’d somehow managed to ignore the fact that Pru and Eduardo had real sex, lots of it no doubt, over these last few months while back home in the privacy of her own bedroom Miriam’ outlandish encounters with Eduardo had been pure fantasy. She could no longer avoid this perverse discrepancy. There would be a baby to remind Miriam of where, and between whom, the real stuff happened. 

◆

Miriam wasn’t sure how long she wandered the streets. She ignored the incessant buzzing of her phone. After a while, the high from her two Gin and Tonics faded and left her starved and dehydrated, so she stumbled into an all night deli and bought a jumbo bag of kettle corn and a liter of full-throttle Coca Cola. Miriam was sitting on the curb consuming the junk in giant handfuls and swigs when, as if in a movie, she heard his call. 

“Miriam, I find you!” Eduardo cried. The sound of her name uttered in his deep, accented baritone set Miriam a-swoon. Eduardo loped forward, hair blown backwards, his strong thighs visibly straining the fabric of his shiny turquoise slacks. 

And then, there they were, sitting side by side on a dirty sidewalk, thighs pressed together somewhere deep in the belly of the ugly city. This was the second time they had been together, alone, for real, in the flesh. The only sound aside from her own sobbing was the bizz-bizz of a failing streetlight illuminating Eduardo’s face in a gentle, pulsing strobe. 

“We are looking for you everywhere,” said Eduardo. “Henry, he want to call the policia, but Pru say no. She say we find her. And I do it. I find you.”

“This is too much,” Miriam cried. “All too much.”

Eduardo looked around at the derelict buildings and the littered sidewalks. “This is not very much,” he said calmly. “This is very poor.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Miriam wondered how many times Eduardo heard these words, or words like them from Pru or others; No, not that. You don’t understand. You’re getting it wrong. “You are too much,” Miriam tried again. “You and la familia.”

Eduardo nodded. Miriam still wasn’t sure he understood her point. She wanted to say, Te adoro, I love you, but really, she knew what she felt wasn’t love. What she felt for Eduardo was a lusty smokescreen, her own sense of inconsequence obscured by amped up pheromones. 

She took in the all of this man, his scent of sweat and cinnamon, the stubble of dark hair that shadowed his strong chin, the guileless wonderment in his brown eyes. The warm press of his leg against hers. After this, there would be an entire sea of familia between them, but maybe that could work? There would be Pru, and Eduardo, and the other grandparents. And of course there would be the new baby, taking up the least and the most amount of space. If a boy, he might be named Henry Junior. He would be top drawer, according to his namesake, American grandfather. Miriam imagined six adults and the child crammed into her spacious colonial, overflowing bathtubs, jacking up electric bills, blasting Univision telanovellas, perfuming the kitchen with cilantro and chiles. It could be a lovely life. An admirable, blending of cultures, something her friends would marvel at. Saint Miriam and her patchwork family.

Fantasy aside, one thing was certain; Miriam would never be alone with Eduardo this way again, Miriam in a disheveled state of vulnerability, Eduardo her savior. 

“Besame,” she gasped as she grabbed the back of Eduardo’s neck, puckered her lips and pulled him towards her. 

“No, no,” he hissed, pulling away from her, repulsed. This flesh and blood man stared at her as if she were a gorgon. He knew her. He saw her. And Miriam saw him knowing her; a desperate middle-aged woman avoiding the sinkhole of her own pathetic life. 

“Ah! Thank Gods,” Eduardo shouted as he looked over Miriam’ shoulder, his giant, moony brown eyes ablaze with panic.

Miriam turned.

“Ew, Mom!” Pru stared down at her. Pru’s eyes had a new look to them; the steaming glare of an enraged adversary. Any remaining fantasies—happily overcrowded, admirably multi-culti, multi-generational families, secret desires, real lovers, cuddled grand-babies—disappeared in the blink of her daughter’s unforgiving eyes. 

Eduardo stood and took his beloved’s hand. Together they walked a distance away, began talking animatedly in incomprehensible Spanish, a Rosetta Stone level Miriam would never master, while she sat on the curb with nothing left but kettle corn and Coke, a few stray kernels and droplets scattered on the dirt by her feet.