Chapter 47.2: 1995, Ruiz
"Its like history is repeating itself..."
Ambrose's arms were tight around me, holding me on the couch. The lights were bright in the room. I couldn't bear the dark. He was still in a sparkly sort of costume, a blue and yellow sequined cocktail dress that reminded me of Fruit Roll Ups. The sequins were sticking to my cotton shirt, peeling like a Fruit Roll Up, too.
"Hmm?" I nuzzled my nose into his nearly bare chest, sniffling snottily but he didn't care if I got snot all over him. My hands gripped around him anew as I adjusted my position, burrowing my face under his collarbone.
"Like with Miss Paula? Miss Kitty? I was living with Miss Paula when she got sick and then Miss Kitty..." The worry was pouring from his voice. Of course he would be reminded of back then. It was something I had been expecting.
"This isn't like that at all, Ambrose." I sighed softly into him my prepared answer, settling.
"I can't help but be reminded."
"Its not going to happen like that. Because Georgina is going to get better."
"I really hope so."
The softness of his lips bloomed on top of my head and my body immediately relaxed into his. They came again and I sighed deeply. Slow as molasses, his hand began to rub my back.
"Georgina is going to get better, so..." I muffled into his body.
"What's going to happen when she gets better?"
"I don't know. But we have to think about what's happening now. Miss Cha Cha says we all have to get the house ready. She said something about weighting tables? What's that?"
"Hmm," Ambrose's voice resonated against me, calming me further. "I did that with Miss Paula. It can be done two ways? You can put heavy objects on them that counter balance a person's weight, or you can tie weights to the undersides. It was really useful, because I remember how Miss Paula would stumble to the bathroom at night and grab everything to keep herself standing. She was too proud to use a walker and stuff." Sweetly, he began chuckling, causing us to bounce. "The first night she did that she fell down in the kitchen and Miss Kitty was laughing and being like, 'oh, how the proud have fallen' and Miss Paula was like, 'shut up you fat son of a bitch and help me, I gotta piss'. So that morning Miss Kitty and I put all of this heavy shit on everything so it wouldn't happen again."
I couldn't help but laugh with him at this story, remembering when it happened. But how quickly laughter had turned to tears back then. It was easy to laugh, but so hard to cry. I sniffled, quickly quieted by the truth. Humor seemed to have been the only thing keeping us going back then. But it was different now. I couldn't find anything funny with our current situation. It had been different with Miss Paula and Miss Kitty, because they'd always been cracking jokes at each other about how Miss Paula had AIDS but I could never imagine cracking a single joke about Georgina having a stroke. How could two people be so different?
I sniffled, my brain unwillingly imagining Georgina in the hospital probably connected to all of these tubes and everything suddenly again. Warm tears bubbled around my eyes, wetting everything.
"Hey," Ambrose said incredibly gently. I felt his hand brush the top of my hair. Whisper soft, he began stroking the top of my head. "We'll weight everything today. We can go out and buy some weights and tie them under the tables and chairs and stuff. Its going to be hard work, but it will definitely be worth it. We'll take Miss Cha Cha's car after she comes back from her morning class. Imagine trying to take all those weights on the subway? Damn."
"That's so expensive..."
"Hey, don't worry about it. I got a lot of money last night. I'll gladly spend it on this. Kind of makes it worth it."
"Makes what worth what?"
"Hmm?"
I rose my head away from his chest, staring at him. It was neither accusing nor anything negative. More curious. "What did you do last night?"
"Oh. Hm. Well, I was in Queens and I was at this guy's place. We kind of just sat around, I guess."
"What? Why? You just sat around? That's so strange. Why go?"
"I don't know. Its a lot of money."
"Did you sit around all day, too? You were gone all day." My eyebrows raised. "Actually. You didn't come home the night before either?"
"It was kind of a two day party. The first night I went bowling with Jerome and- well we didn't sit around. We did stuff."
"Bowling? In Queens?"
"No, that was in New Jersey."
Everything was so quiet, I could hear the rustling of my clothes as I got up from him. "New Jersey? But you said you were going to Queens."
His face was unmistakably caught. I knew this face. It was the same one from when we were kids when his father had found us going through his drawer looking for "candy cigarettes". It was the face that said he thought he was about to be spanked for telling a bad lie.
"We went to Newark for a while. Jerome had to do something first. So we went along."
"Who's Jerome?"
"Um...nobody. Doesn't matter. I don't see him much."
"Ambrose."
"Yeah." His hazel eyes looked like a cornered puppy's. He was biting his lip. There was fear there. It made me not want to poke, but...I swallowed. I shook my head.
Was he lying to me? Even now, when I was going through so much with Georgina? Didn't he understand how hurt I already was? How he'd hurt me already? Hadn't he lied to me enough? But the fear in his eyes. What was that about? Was it about me? Why was he...
"Nothing. Um. So what should we do until Miss Cha Cha gets back?" I rolled back into the couch, off his lap. I felt him looking at me. I wanted to shake my head again, to get these feelings to go away. They were bubbling up in me like a soda bottle, rising slowly to the surface. So many pin prick bubbles. Each one telling me how uncomfortable I was with him, all his lies even when I was this down. Didn't he care?
"Actually, I should get working on your Pink! event dress. There's only a couple more weeks to go. I'm way behind."
"What?" My head whipped around to him. He was staring at me expectantly for some reason.
"Yeah. I'm gonna do the ruffle work today, on the top. I might have to sacrifice the beading, but the ruffles will look great."
"We're still going to that?" My eyebrows peaked in the middle. What was he talking about? How could he even think about going to that with Georgina in the hospital? I couldn't think about going to a club and trying to make people smile when I couldn't smile on the inside.
"Yeah?" He tilted his head to the side, a habit he'd learned from Miss Cha Cha after being in close quarters for so long.
"You can go, but I'm not going to. Georgina is in the hospital. I can't even think about the club."
"Hey." His voice was smooth as silk, making all of my muscles relax no matter what I was thinking of him right now. I felt like I was sinking into the overly plush couch like I weighed one thousand pounds.
"What?"
"Do you think she'd want you to stop your life because she's in the hospital?"
Oh. Inside, I hated that he was right. But this was a bitterness due to his lies. I didn't like the way I was feeling right now. Hating, but loving him all at the same time. And the sadness. The sadness was swirling like a melting ice cream cone into my stomach, making me feel sick. Thinking about Georgina lying there in the hospital. Ambrose spinning yarns when all of this was happening. Being resentful when I just wanted him to tell me the truth and hold me right now but still feeling like his very skin was thick with garbage. His tongue was garbage.
"Okay," I sighed. "Go work on the dress. I think I'm gonna go..." Do what? I had no idea.
"Sit with me. I miss you. I missed you for two days."
I closed my eyes and breathed. The pin prick bubbles began saying things. I missed you, too. But you weren't here. When I got the news that Georgina was in the hospital, when Miss Cha Cha was crying and I didn't know what to do, you weren't here. You were fucking bowling. Who knows what else you were doing? Oh, but you know. But you won't tell me. That's evil, Ambrose. That's pure evil. But I didn't dare open my mouth.
Why was I scared of my own truths? I had to shake my head again. He was scared to tell me his truths and I was scared to tell him my own.
What were we doing?
"Come on. I want to check the bodice on you. I want to see if its too long? Your torso is kind of short." I watched him get up from the couch. He was smiling a little at me, but his eyes were all wrong. They still looked scared and in a corner. I looked at his hand extended to me, ready to pull me off the couch and towards the sewing room.
I just breathed in, trying to push the bubbles down, all of the truth down, as I let him pull me off the couch. His eyes lightened when he did this, the puppy dog look retreating, and as he kissed me the taste of garbage filled my mouth.