In Need of Therapy Kindle Edition

Chapter 19

Catching sight of Ford and me as we approached, Victor moved towards us with outstretched arms. “Mi corazón!

“I’m not talking to you, Victor. Go away!” I tried to elbow my way past him, but he kept blocking me with his body.

“I see you’re still upset about last night. I’m sorry I offended you, mi querida, but I was so overcome by my love for you—”

“That is no excuse for your behavior.”

“I know, I know, but how can a man be expected to control himself when you’re in his arms? The sweet smell of you, the feel of your soft body pressed against—”

“I think I’ll go upstairs.” Ford took a few steps back, looking uncomfortable.

“Yes, leave us!” Victor shooed the other man away with a brushing motion of his hand. “Pilar, doesn’t need you.”

“You have no idea what I need,” I asserted defiantly, then grabbed Ford by the arm and pulled him back to my side.

“And this . . .,” he smacked Ford in the center of his chest with the roses, and crimson petals went flying everywhere, “gringo does? You told me that he was just a friend, that there was nothing going on between the two of you. Was that a lie? If you tell me it was a lie, then I’ll have to kill him!” He raised the flowers in the air as if he was going to strike Ford with them again.

“Stop acting like a jealous maniac and give those to me.” I wrestled the roses away from Victor before he could hurt someone with their thorny stems.

“Ah,” my ex’s wild expression softened, “you accepted my roses, so that means you accept my apology.”

“Yes, fine, I forgive you,” I said wearily as I scooped a handful of rose petals out of my cleavage - I’d picked the wrong day to wear my lavender silk pullover with the v-neck, “but things can’t go on like this, Victor. We need to have a serious discussion about—”

The sound of a small plane overhead drowned out the rest of my sentence.

Victor leaned forward and yelled, “That’s why I’m here! To have a serious discussion about our future!” And before I knew what was happening, he foisted the heart-shaped balloons off on Ford and dropped to one knee in front of me.

Taking my hand in his, he shouted, “I love you, Pilar! I want to spend the rest of my life with you!”

Victor was proposing? To me? I was so horrified that I lost the ability to speak. I kept opening my mouth, but no words would come out. I probably looked like a feeding guppy to passersby.

“Look up, mi amada!” Victor pointed above our heads, and my eyes followed the movement of his hand up to the clear blue sky, where I saw ‘Marry me, Pilar!’ written in big, fluffy white letters.

So, the plane that had been making all of that noise was a skywriter? I glanced over at Ford, who was shaking his head in wonderment at my former flame’s latest stunt.

“Stand up, Victor,” I finally found my voice. It was time for me to put an end to all of this foolishness.

“But I haven’t shown you the ring yet.” He pulled a small, black velvet jewelry box out of the pocket of his linen jacket and opened it to reveal the largest diamond I’d ever seen. My eyes almost popped out of my head.

“It’s 5 Carats,” he announced, obviously quite pleased with himself. “I got the emerald-cut stone because it looked more like you than the round or the marquise.”

I stared with undisguised admiration at the ring. It really was a gorgeous piece of jewelry. Mammoth in size, yes, but somehow it managed to look elegant instead of gaudy. I loved the platinum band, and the setting of the stone between two tapered baguettes. I knew that Ana and my mother would keel over and die if they ever saw that ring on my . . .

“What to do, what to do,” Ford teased.

“She’s going to say ‘yes.’ That’s what she’s going to do,” Victor snapped, reminding me that the ring came with a lifetime commitment to him. That being the case, I was going to have to pass.

“Victor, get up,” I ordered.

“Ford, will you take these,” I shoved my roses into his arms, “and the balloons up to Margo? I need to speak with Victor privately.”

“Are you sure?” he murmured.

“Absolutely. I plan to resolve this situation once and for all.” I brushed a rose petal off his shoulder and smiled.

Although he looked dubious, Ford wished me luck and left.

“Finally,” Victor muttered none-too-graciously when the other man was out of earshot.

“Why don’t we sit down?” I gestured towards the bench a few feet up the street at the bus stop.

“So, when will you marry me?” Victor asked eagerly just as soon as my butt hit the sun-warmed wood.

“The question is if I will marry you, not ‘when,’” I reminded him, “and I’ll answer that after you tell me what compelled you to propose to me today. I mean, you’ve thrown the idea of marriage out before, but this is the first time you’ve ever backed it up with a ring.”

“I proposed because I realized that I’d made a terrible mistake last night, and I wanted to prove to you that I’m interested in more than just sleeping with you.”

“And I appreciate that, but marriage is not something to be entered into lightly. Can you really see the two of us together in ten years? Twenty?”

“Of course!” He took my hands in his. “We’ll have such a wonderful life, mi amor, a beautiful house, lots of children—”

“And who’s going to take care of those children?” I wondered.

“Who else? Their mamá. And we can leave them with their grandparents when we travel or have a party to go to.”

“What about my work? Am I supposed to give that up in order to stay home and change your babies’ diapers?”

With a dismissive shrug, he replied, “You won’t need your practice anymore, taking care of our family will be your job.”

“Victor, you need to listen to me.”

“I always listen to you.”

“You may listen, but you don’t hear. I’ve been trying to tell you for months that we aren’t well-suited, and what you just said confirms it. You want a stay-at-home wife, someone who exists only to make you happy, someone who can love you to the exclusion of everything else. And I can’t be that woman for you. I’d be miserable. I need my career; I need intellectual stimulation. I don’t even want a large family. One child, maybe two, somewhere down the road . . .”

“We could make it work. I love you, Pilar—”

“I know you think you do, but it’s just not the kind of love that can last a lifetime or sustain a marriage. Think back over the course of our relationship. When we were dating, did you ever envision us getting married? Did you look at me and think, ‘I can’t imagine ever being without this woman?’”

Victor scratched the one o’clock shadow on his cheek as he thought about his reply. Finally, he admitted, “No, but—”

“You only started to think you couldn’t live without me after I broke up with you.”

“Because I realized what I’d lost, what a wonderful woman you are . . .”

I shook my head. “No, I suddenly became more appealing to you because I was something that you could no longer have. You’re spoiled, Victor. Your whole life everything has been handed to you on the proverbial silver platter. A good education, your own business, cars, clothes, trips, toys, women, all you had to do was snap your fingers and they were yours. I was the first thing that slipped out of your grasp, which is the reason why you want me back so badly. If we were to reconcile, I guarantee you that the thrill would wear off very quickly and we’d be right back to the place we were three months ago. You’d be too demanding; I’d feel smothered. We’d argue; you’d cheat.”

“Can’t we try anyway?” he pleaded.

“I think we’ve already expended enough energy on us. It just wasn’t meant to be. You’ve got to let me go so that we can both move on to healthier, more satisfying relationships.”

Fixing him with my most serious, ‘Don’t-b.s.-me’ stare, I queried, “Do we understand each other?”

He nodded glumly.

“So, you’ll stop pursuing me and abandon this fantasy that we belong together?”

Victor sighed and looked dejected. “As you wish, but I will consider the loss of your love to be the great tragedy of my life.”

“You’ll probably forget my name in a few weeks,” I said with a soft chuckle as I rose to my feet.

“Never!” he swore, clutching my hand.

“Don’t romanticize me, Victor. Lost loves were lost for a reason. You’ll see, one day you’ll meet a woman who will appreciate all of your unique qualities like I never could.”

“Now,” I removed my hand from his impassioned grip and patted him on the shoulder. “I’ve got to go upstairs. My 2:00 is waiting.” That was his cue to get in his limo and drive out of my life once and for all.

“I think I’ll stay here for a while. I have much to reflect on.”

“Suit yourself,” I mumbled and left with the fervent hope that we would never set eyes on each other again.

* * *

I didn’t remember to call and check on my mother until 5:30 that afternoon, then I felt so guilty for forgetting about her that I decided to drop by and see the patient instead. En route to Bayshore Heights, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some essential items for the bedridden: chicken noodle soup, saltines, orange juice with and without pulp, the latest issues of Glamour, Elle, In Style, and Vogue, some tissues with aloe in them, and four different flavors of throat lozenges. Okay, so maybe I was overcompensating. But it occurred to me that the way I’d been treating my mother lately wasn’t going to win me any Daughter of the Year awards. I’d been impatient and short-tempered with her on more than one occasion and even though she was a pain in the posterior, she deserved better from me, especially when she was sick.

I let myself into my parents’ still smoky-smelling apartment, which was unnaturally quiet and dark due to all of the blinds being closed. Assuming that Mamá was in bed, getting some rest, I tiptoed into the kitchen, poured some of the soup into a bowl, and popped it in the microwave. While it was heating up, I looked around for the white bed trays Ana and Ray had bought my parents for their last anniversary. When I finally located them in the cabinet next to the refrigerator, I pulled one out and began work on making a nice place setting for my mother. I used the good china, silverware, and crystal because I knew how she liked things to be pretty. I, then, filched one of the slightly drooping lilies from a floral arrangement left over from her birthday celebration and laid the flower next to the now-steaming bowl of soup. Slipping the magazines into the slots on either side of the tray, I lifted it with both hands and headed down the hall to the bedroom.

The door was slightly ajar, which allowed a shaft of light to escape through the crack. “Mamá,” I called out softly as I eased the door open with my shoulder.

I entered the room, expecting to find my mother propped up on a bunch of pillows, wearing one of her silk peignoirs, doing her best Camille impression. But her bed, with its rumpled sheets, was empty.

She’s probably in the bathroom,’ I told myself. ‘I’ll just set this tray down’ . . . hearing a door open behind me, I spun around and . . .

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” my mother let loose a high-pitched scream, her hands flying up to cover her bruised and bandaged face.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I matched her scream with an equally shrill one of my own and dropped the tray in horror at the sight of her.

Dios mio! You’ve ruined the carpet.”

I gazed down at my feet, which were now covered with a sticky combination of chicken broth, noodles, and orange juice. “Forget the carpet. What happened to your face? Were you in a car accident?”

“No, no, I just had a little surgery.”

A little?” I cringed. The area under her eyes was a painful-looking shade of purple, and I could see stitches along the lower lids. I had no idea what was going on underneath all of the white gauze bandages that were wrapped around her head, but it couldn’t be good since the part of her face that was visible was all swollen.

Mamá fussed unnecessarily with the sleeve of her green-and-gold caftan. “If you must know, I had a face lift,” she replied.

“And?”

“And . . . some work done on my eyes.”

Some work? She looked like Raggedy Ann on crack.

“Oh, Mamá,” I groaned, removing my soiled shoes and grabbing some tissues from the bedside table so that I could clean myself up.

“Don’t ‘Oh, Mamá’ me. You’re still young. You don’t know what it’s like when things start to sag. The loose folds of skin, the bags under the eyes, the double chin—”

“You didn’t have any of that.”

“Well, I would have . . . eventually . . . if I hadn’t taken preventative measures. What are you doing here anyway? You’re supposed to be with Victor.”

“Why would I be with Victor?”

“You got engaged today, didn’t you? Let me see the ring.” She reached for my hand.

“There’s no ring.” I held my hand up and pointed to my bare finger.

“But Victor called your father this morning to ask for your hand in marriage. He said that he was going to propose today. Haven’t you seen him?”

“Yeah, I saw him. We had a nice talk.”

“About getting married?”

“About going our separate ways.”

“WHAT???????” Mamá shrieked and even though I’d braced myself for her reaction, I still flinched.

“You turned down his proposal? You said ‘no’ to that 5-Carat ring? Are you estupido? Dios mio, where did I go wrong?” She raised her hands to the heavens. “How could I have raised a daughter who has so little sense, a daughter who spits on the holy sacrament of marriage?”

“I do not spit on the holy sacrament of marriage—”

“Yes, you do. You threw away a perfectly good man who wanted to give you his . . . oh, my face! The pain!” My mother clutched her puffy cheeks. “The doctor said I could burst a blood vessel if I got upset and my blood pressure shot up. See, what you’ve done to me!”

“You’re going to be fine,” I said, wrapping an arm around her. “You just need to lie down.”

I steered her towards the bed, being careful to avoid the broken crockery on the floor.

“Lying down’s not going to help me,” she whined. “Knowing I have a wedding to look forward to, and my daughter’s not going to die a shriveled up, childless soltera is the only thing that’s going to help me.”

“Do you have any pain medication?” I asked as I got her settled back against the pillows that were stacked up at the head of her bed. Maybe if I drugged her, she’d mellow out and stop calling me a ‘spinster’?

“In the bathroom.”

I fetched the bottle of white pills that was sitting on the bathroom counter next to Mamá’s collection of hand lotions and filled a glass with water.

“The label says that you should take two of these every four hours. When’s the last time you took a dose?”

“I don’t know, maybe around noon.”

“You’re way overdue then. That’s why you’re in so much pain. Here.” I put two pills in the palm of her hand and gave her the glass.

She dutifully popped the tablets into her mouth and took a sip of water. “Water from the tap?” she chastised after swallowing. “You couldn’t get your mamá some Evian?”

“It won’t kill you,” I assured her, sitting down on the side of the bed so that I could check her bandages.

“There’s no blood seeping through, so you didn’t burst anything. The pain’s probably got something to do with the nerve endings being cut. I can’t believe that you let anyone near your face with a scalpel.”

“It may look bad now, but you’ll see, once everything heals, I’m going to be beautiful. Dr. Preston said he took 20 years off my face.”

“Swell, just what I wanted, a mother who looks the same age as I do,” my tone was sarcastic. “Whatever happened to growing old gracefully?”

“Why should anyone grow old in Miami? We have the best plastic surgeons in the country here.”

“Plastic surgeons,” I pursed my lips with disgust, “they just prey on the insecurities of women and try to make us all look like Barbie dolls.”

“My daughter, the feminista! You’ll change your mind about plastic surgeons in a few years when you need Botox to fill in those laugh lines.”

I immediately stopped making any kind of expression with my mouth. “I don’t have laugh lines. And even if I did, I wouldn’t mind because lines give a person’s face character.”

My mother shook her head. “Character won’t get you a man.”

“Well, you already have a man, so what are you worried about?”

“I’m not worried about myself. I’m worried about you. You’re the one who’s got to look her best so that she can attract a new man. Victor was willing to take you as you are, laugh lines and all, but oh no, that wasn’t good enough for—”

“I have one thing to say about Victor, then I don’t want to ever hear his name come out of your mouth again.”

“I can talk about whoever I want to,” she said petulantly.

“Of course, you can, just like I can go home, pick up the phone, and start calling family members to tell them all about your face lift. I think I’ll start with Aunt Brigida. She’s always asking why you never seem to age.”

Since my mother was incapable of moving any facial muscles, she just glared at me. “And your father thinks you’re the sweet one.”

“I am the sweet one. I’m also the one who’s tired of you cheerleading for Victor. I know you liked him and thought that he was God’s gift to me, but the fact of the matter is, I didn’t love him. Did you really want me to marry a man I didn’t love?”

She sighed. “I guess not, but—”

“But nothing, when I get married it will be because I’ve found a guy who makes me feel the way you do about Papá. I’m not settling for anything less. And if I never get married—”

Ay!Mamá put her hand over her heart.

“And if I never get married,” I repeated, “the world won’t stop spinning on its axis.”

“It might.”

“It won’t.”

I noticed that my mother’s eyelids were starting to droop, which meant the medication was kicking in. Thank God for small favors!

“Why don’t you close your eyes and take a little nap? When you wake up, I’ll make another bowl of soup for you.”

“I am feeling a little drowsy.” Her eyes began to drift closed.

They were at half-mast when she asked, “You won’t tell anyone about my surgery, will you?”

“What surgery?” I played innocent. “You have the flu, a terrible, highly contagious flu that will probably take you a few weeks to recover from.”

Youreagoodgirl,” her words slurred together. “Iforgiveyoufornotmarrying—

“Ah-ah,” I waggled my finger in front of her face, “you’re not supposed to say his name.”

Dontworry.” She patted my hand. “Illfindsomeonelseforyou. Myperiodontisthasasonwhosgettingadivorce. Hessortaoverweight, alrighthesobese, buthesapartnerinthepracticeandhedrivesa—” She nodded off mid-matchmaking.



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