“Are you really trying to convince me that not everyone loves a big-booty Latina?” I ask rhetorically with a sweet smile.
As intended, his eyes widen at the phrase. I may have hacked his search history, but in my defense… it was easy. He was mooching off the free Wi-Fi I set up for my elderly upstairs neighbor Mrs. Louis, so he was basically asking for it.
He snorts, trying to save face, but I take inordinate pleasure in the sudden red stain creeping up his cheeks from his thick neck.
Yeah, that’s right,pendejo—I know your dirty little secrets.
“I’d have gone with ‘fat ass’,” he hisses.
“How unoriginal.” I roll my eyes. “Those last two brain cells you’ve got are really fighting for third place, huh?”
His smile freezes into something ugly. “The fuck did you just say to me?” he asks, tone rising.
“The irony of being too stupid to understand when someone calls you stupid,” I mutter loud enough for him to hear, laughing and shaking my head. Not sure why Todd starts this shit—at this point he must know that he can’t finish it.
“Say it to my face,” he growls.
Cautiously, my eyes flick over to him at the aggression in his tone, but though he’s standing rigidly, he’s not poised to make a move. So, I just shake my head and breeze past him towards the front doors.
“Eat a dick, Todd,” I reply, bored with his posturing.
“I got one for you right here, bitch.”
I don’t have to see the gesture to know that he’s gripping himself through his pants. Just before stepping outside, I get the last word. “No thanks, I’m allergic to shrimp.”
He curses me out as the door swings shut, and I chuckle to myself, pleased and exhilarated. I’ve been sitting on that one for a while, and I’m so pumped he gave me the opportunity to use it.
I’d never let someone likeToddget to me—he’s the kind of guy who’d call you fat in front of his friends and jerk off to your profile picture in secret. Hypocrisy chafes me worse than forgetting to wear bike shorts under a dress.
But, hey, he can hate-fuck his hand thinking about me all he wants… Still, thank God for thick walls, because I don’t want to hear that shit. It’s bad enough I’ve been seeing him more often since I took that job at SmarTech, where he works as a desk jockey in IT.
Just another reason to look forward to the big dramatic exit tomorrow.
My apartment is in a reasonably nice area of town—no one has a backyard, but you hardly ever hear gunshots. It’s an old building, one like many others onthe street that was turned into six units back in the 90s, and I somehow always manage to snag an up-front parking spot.
Since it’s the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday, my drive across town is a breeze. Construction is minimal on weekends, potholes are easy to avoid with fewer cars on the road, and I only have to give one asshole in an SUV the finger—all in all, a fairly tame ride.Fuck around and find outis a creed by which I live my life, and I don’t mind playing chicken with my inherited 20-year-old Corolla. Pretty sure it’s running on pure Toyota magic at this point, anyway.
Sunset Hills, the facility where Abuela lives, is nestled in a stretch of recently developed farmland. There’s plenty of convenient parking, lots of helpful staff, and it smells more like antiseptic than aging bodies. Afternoon on a weekend day is peak visiting hours, and there’s a spectrum of noise—high-pitched childish glee and calls of “Grandpa!” at one end, and polite, strained, “So, how have you been?” at the other. Both make me feel icky, like I need to visit more.
I’m escorted to Abuela’s room by Manny, one of the nurse aides on her floor. He’s an imposing guy, looking more like a biker than a nurse—a few inches taller and wider than most people, and with much more hair. I’ve caught him staring at my ass once or twice, but I know Abuela likes him, so I’ve decided to just let him have it as a little treat.
Abuela’s room is as bright as my apartment—shades of yellow and orange everywhere you look. The woman herself sits in a swivel lounger facing the TV. She turns her chair on its spinning axis to face me, and it’s like seeing my reflection 50 years from now… if I dyed my hair back to its natural color. Vasquez women are small-boned, short, bronze-skinned, and have dark features with full lips, a round-tipped nose and an otherwise broad face with hollow cheekbones. Some of the brown in her complexion got diluted by my Caucasian bio dad, but otherwise I’m the spitting image of every Vasquez woman in my family. And I love that about my heritage.
“Hola,Abuela,” I greet as I stand in the doorway leading from the sterile white hallway into the cozy room that smells faintly of Windex and Vicks Vapo-Rub.
“Ah!” she hisses instead of greeting me, laser-focused on my hair. “Who is this punk rocker? Notmygranddaughter.”
With a chuckle, I tuck a green lock behind my ear. “You like it?” I ask rhetorically.
“Why did you do that again, Madison?” she admonishes. “It was finally a nice, natural color!”
Only the front pieces are colorful this time, but I probably should have waited until after visiting her to go from the “nice, natural” shade calledDragon Fireback to my tried-and-trueGreen with Envy.Though I suppose it only would have delayed the argument…
The frail woman being swallowed up by her lounger may be slowly losing pieces of herself, but she is as vain and opinionated as she ever was. Her hands shake too badly for eyeliner now, but she still swipes on classic red lipstick every morning and religiously winds curlers in her hair every night before bed. I’ve wondered if she wants to look nice because she found an old dude to do it with. Apparently, STIs are a real problem in retirement homes.
“I’m just not a nice, natural girl, I guess,” I shrug, entering the room and hanging my purse on the hook by the door. I leave the bag with the muffin in the mostly empty mini-fridge.
She glares at me for my flippant response.
