Maybe she'd tell about Pulgarcito

On the drive home from Nati’s Sunday barbecue in her garden at the beach, Adela slept. She couldn’t stop herself from sinking into a thick, delicious sleep. Faraway she heard Noel’s car radio, the old boleros. “Quisiera abrir lentamente mis venas…” She was utterly free of wanting to die. The high pitched pink of the setting sun contained them as they steadily wound through Sunday evening traffic back to the Metropolis.
Monday she struggled to rise for work. For a moment she didn’t know where she was . She listened for the humming of the sea. There was only the hiss of tires on wet pavement. She looked out the window of their little sunken bedroom. Their room was dark, dug into the foundation of her uncle Nestor’s huge old house. This apartment would have belonged to the maid or the chauffer. But her uncle had no need of servants. Tia Matilde was an industrial housekeeper able to conscript all the women of the household as her aides, even, sometimes, Adela. She liked her cave home. One small room just big enough for their bed and a small kitchen was all they needed now. When Pulgarcito came they’d have to figure out where else to live. Tio Nestor was letting them live here rent free and gave Noel the use of a shed in the back for his studio. Until they got on their feet, however long that took. He was her Godfather. Although he was a businessman, Nestor put family above politics when her Father threw her out of the house for being a communist. “We left Ventura just so you wouldn’t become a communist. We sacrificed it all and this is how you repay us.” He threw the copy of Verdades at her, open to the article with her byline on page 3. She’d never even read the piece about resolutions from a routine Party meeting. Why was her Father even reading Verdades? The irony was the article had been written by the editor> He’d added her byline at the last minute because he felt pieces about routine meetings were beneath his rank. She’d been glad for a big family. Someone had been there to take her in when her Father threw her out.
Through the drizzle she saw Noel standing at the door of his studio looking at the light. She dressed with her Monday uniform. She slid the solid blue dress over her head, slipped into open toe shoes with little heels, stuck fake pearl studs into her ears. Still happy to not be thinking she walked out into the mist. Already the sun was burning off the rain. As she stepped out the door the clouds parted. Sunlight made her dizzy. She must need food. Pulgarcito must need food. But she was on the edge of vomiting. Food was unthinkable. She walked in on Noel. He stood bent over the work table by his back window puttering his way to the mind for painting. Up close she saw him put cuttings he got from Nati into water glasses filled halfway with water and a drop of plant food. She kissed the back of his neck and strode to the white Oldsmobile her parents had given her when they bought themselves a new one the month before they disowned her for being a communist. She liked a car that was big all around her. Not like Noel’s little bug. She eased the car onto the street. She was late by five minutes and traffic was already heavier than she was used to. She honked her way into a bumper to bumper lane, aiming for the highway. In her mind she mapped out her route, rehearsed her turns, pictured her cluttered desk at the Presidio, the stacks of requests for investigations of the disappeared. She usually liked the Monday coffee hour with her office mates. Thinking of coffee, she retched. Maybe today she’d tell Susana, sonia, Marina, even Betzaida…about Pulgarcito.