Yo-Yo Boing!

— Todavía te amo y te amaré toda la vida—labios que sellan el silencio sin tocar la saliva de sus otros labios—tanto me diste, mi amor, tanto me engañaste, tanto me enseñaste — todavía guardo la forma en que me hacías la muerte y el orgasmo, tan suave, corriéndote por los vellos alados de mis muslos, y cuando me lo clavabas por detrás, yo me convertía en una rana, y no croaba, arañaba, mordía, sentía que me corría por todo el bolero de mi orgía. Bolero, sí, bolero, mi amor. Atravesé tus ojos, y seguí andando, como si tú ya no existieras, aunque dentro de mí existías en toda la existencia que sentía palpitar dentro de mí, un relámpago, un trueno y una estrella. Después ni caso que te hice ni me hiciste. La distancia rezagada y el respeto secreto se retrasan, pero nunca morirán, qué pena.

Nací sola. Moriré sola.

— Naciste con la ayuda de tu madre, un médico, y dos enfermeras. Vamos a ver si vas a tener tanto amor cuando te mueras. Debes amar lo que tienes en lugar de añorar lo que perdiste.

— No añoro. Amo.

— Recuerdas lo que amaste.

— Sí, pero no añoro. La nostalgia es la decadencia.

— Pues déjate de hablar del pasado. A nadie le interesa tu biografía personal.

— Déjame escribir mi novela. Tengo que hacer un recuento de mis días y mis años para saber si han perdido sueños mis añoranzas, o si todavía siguen soñando.

— Your past, as if it were something to be nostalgic about. When we would take our long trips up Madison Avenue to Sant Ambrose, que era mi Meca and mi meta, where we would slurp gelato cones, you would stop in front of the pastry shops and plan the parties you always dreamed of hosting with parfaits, truffles, cream puffs, and the Sant Ambrose cake decorated with Starry, Starry Night, and for Christmas, you wanted the potbellied Santa Claus stuffed with mousse and pannetoni.

— Maybe we can take Santa Claus to Puerto Rico as a Christmas present for my mother. It’s made of marzipan. Will it melt?

My thirst would grow when after the gelato we would visit the Met, and there you would stand in front of Rembrandt and say out loud:

— You were really a buffoon like me. You had Hendriecka and Tito to save you. If only I could have a Tito helping me. I used to have a Jabalí.

It always baffled me how, instead of revering his profounds of mind, you would jot down the dates the portraits were restored. Then you would spend the rest of our visit admiring the museum’s tracklighting and giftshops. And it always struck me that wherever we went the most minuscule objects caught your fancy in display windows — sunglasses, whistles, pens. Once a tennis racquet made of chocolate. You thought of sending it to your mother in Puerto Rico. And you browsed for clothes and shoes at the most conservative boutiques, and you would tell me over and over again the story about the only gift Jabalí ever gave you, apart from the Pan Am peanuts he would bring from his MLA trips to Indiana and Mississippi.

— He said he wanted to buy me a sweater, the most beautiful sweater in New York. Time went by and I never received my sweater, so I found it myself in Ferragamo. It was the most beautiful sweater in New York.

You took him to Ferragamo, and he said:

— But that’s half my paycheck!

— I never get anything except peanuts. You promised.

Then you told him how your grandmother used to take you shopping.

— What do you want?

— Nothing.

— Don’t be shy. Take whatever you want.

— These.

— That’s all? And these? You want them? Take them all.

How you used to carry the whole store in your arms, and when the cashier would ring it up, Mamá would say to her: