Caray, Caray!

I’m a bit distracted tonight – the dog got skunked partway through my recap efforts. Just one brief scene from yesterday: Mari tells Cande to tell JM (or Ed?) that she doesn’t want the flowers In Grannyland, Mayita is telling Granny that JM went to Boston and that she can talk to him over the computer. Granny exclaims over new technology. And sure enough, we see JM and Mayita seeing each other live on the computer. They chat and she wants to know when he’ll be back. He says it’ll be quite a while, as he’s studying to be able to do a very important surgery when he comes back. Mayita mentions Granny, and JM says he can’t see her. Mayita says but she’s here (and there she is next to Mayita), and JM says I believe everything you say, so I’ll try real hard to see her. Mayita tells Granny to lean closer so the camera can see her. Granny does and exclaims, very moved, that she can see JM. JM is smiling hopefully. Mayita says can you see her? JM says I see you and you’re adorable. Mari is still cranking about the flowers and tells Cande to get rid of them. Cande says okay, okay, and puts them in the in the bedroom trash. Mari says JM is making fun of me. Cande says no, it’s a lovely gift for your anniversary. Mari says come on, for what anniversary? I don’t want any reminders of JM. Mayita holds up Cuate and JM says he’s the most adorable dog in the world and he’s glad Mayita loves him because Mari found him in the street and gave him to her. Mayita can’t wait until her brother and Mari come live with them and JM says ojalá. JM says he has to get back to studying, and Mayita is saying goodbye while Granny cannot tear her joyful and yearning eyes from the screen. She reaches out to the screen and says my son! Don’t worry about Mayita, she’s fine and doing very well in school. JM smiles indulgently at the screen. Mayita scolds him for not answering and he looks drolly back. Now we see the screen from JM’s point of view and there is Mayita on a couch, indicating at empty space and saying Granny is right here! JM rubs his forehead. He says okay and he says Mama, I see you! Thank you for all you do for Mayita – she is always telling me about her times with you. Granny is thrilled and throws kisses at the screen. JM tells Mayita not to forget to ask Onelia to take her to see Mari. Mayita says she won’t forget; she can’t wait to see Mari and her little brother. JM once again signs off saying here’s a kiss for you and another for Mami. Granny catches the kiss in her hands, thrilled. My son! Granny is overwhelmed and makes the sign of the cross on Mayita and thanks her for letting her see her son. And how well father and daughter get along! She holds Mayita close and says thank you, my little angel, while tears stream down her cheeks. Please, oh please, JM, don’t suddenly become competent and cure Mayita of this tender fantasy. Or is it a fantasy? Later we see Mari out on the lawn while Ceci gives direction so she can walk alone. Both are smiling. Then we see Mari practicing carrying Juanito on the lawn all by herself. Now it’s nighttime at Casa Verlarde and Mari is sitting alone in her bathrobe thinking of the note in the flowers. What anniversary? Then she thinks maybe the anniversary of JM’s marriage proposal. We see a flashback of that. She gets weepy and feels her way over to the trash where the flowers still are. You’d think AJ would’ve swiped them, but no, they’re still there. JM’s hotel room floor is covered with neat stacks of books. He’s at his computer, but his thoughts are going back to his wedding day with Mari. AJ is on the phone with Balbina. She wants to know why she can’t reach Onelia. Balbina fudges that she’s out a lot. AJ says she needs to get the number and address of the hotel where JM is staying. She says she’s called his cell a lot but he never answers. AJ asks Balbina if she knows his address or number and Balbina says no and AJ says sharply okay, good night! Mari has gotten the orchids out the box and she’s sniffing them and crying and remembering his kisses. Do orchids have a smell? He should have sent her gardenias -that would give her nose something to do. Meantime, JM is in bed remembering the last time he saw her there on the lawn. He swears that he will return and cure her. Mari is cuddling her orchids. She falls asleep and dreams that she and JM are riding bikes together out in the country. They ride, stop, laugh, kiss, ride some more, kiss some more, laugh some more. Ah, love and lust! Great stuff. Un Cancho al Corazon muy pronto! Is that the next 8 o’clock show? Or something else? After a refreshing ad break, we see Mayita sitting on Mari’s bed while Mari pets Cuate. Mari wonders why Onelia doesn’t come up to see her and Mayita says she’s downstairs talking to Cande and that they’ve brought a present from her, Grandma Onelia and JM. Mari is a little nonplussed. Onelia and Cande discuss a present, then Onelia asks how Mari’s doing. Cande reports that she’s learning to walk around the house and bumps into things less and less, and even goes up and down the stairs. Cande says AJ is teaching her and tells Onelia she really doesn’t like her. Onelia says I happen to know that she’s not as nice as she pretends. Cande says ooooh! How do you know? Onelia says suffice it to say that she can’t be trusted with you or with Mari. Aw, c’mon, Onelia, spill! Drat, she doesn’t and just sips her tea. Mayita asks Mari if she knows that JM is gone – for six months! She says she misses him and won’t Mari miss him too? Mari says mmmmm. Out of the mouths of babes: Mayita says I don’t know why you and Juanito don’t come live with us. You’re the one who doesn’t want it, right? Mari says um, what happened is… um. It’s life. Things change. Mayita says if you’re mad, it’s not good for me or Juanito. Mari says don’t say that. Mayita says it’s true. My papi loves you a lot. I heard him tell Grandma Onelia, but don’t tell them I heard. AJ is at JM’s office talking to his secretary, Esther. AJ says she knows he’s out of town and she needs a favor. Mayita says my papi suffers because he’s apart from you and Juanito and because you are the love of his life. Even Granny Marianna says he loves you. Huh? says Mari. I thought she was in heaven. Yes, says Mayita and I talk to her all the time up in the attic. You don’t believe it? Come live with us and I’ll take you to see her. Mayita says my papi has gone to the United States to study and then come back and..… Onelia walks in at this critical moment, bearing Mari’s present. Smiles all around. AJ has scored JM’s e-mail address. She tells Esther that she wanted to call him on his cell, but it’s so expensive and besides he might be in an important class or something. Looks like JM forgot to keep Esther in the loop. Mari’s gift is either a clock that plays music or a music box – we only see the back of it. Mari says it’s lovely and Mayita says it’s from me, Grandma Onelia and my papi. Cande says I hope she doesn’t throw it in the trash like she did the orchids. Oops, she says, that just slipped out. She tells Onelia about the flowers and the note. Onelia says and you threw them away? Onelia pets Mari and says please know that we all love you, JM included. He’s not your enemy. JM is in a tiny classroom which is painted bright yellow. The professor finishes up and the other students take off. JM stays and looks at his laptop when suddenly an IM from stalkerchick@runforyourlife.com pops up. She says she knows he’s online and can they talk? JM thinks about it a while and in Mexico, AJ waits. Mari asks Cande to get something out of her dresser and tells her which drawer and to look behind the clothes. Cande finds the orchids and exclaims. JM’s brain is stuffed so full of ophthalmology class facts and moony Mari thoughts that there isn’t one neuron left to devote to searching his mental psychiatry database for a little guidance. He says okay, so AJ starts to talk to him camera-to-camera. She tells him how sorry she was, that she had a weak moment and could not hide what her heart was feeling. Blug. JM tells her what happened means a friendship is no longer possible. AJ says I know, but please please please forgive me. AJ should consider camera angles when going onscreen to a man she wants to seduce. With her laptop in her actual lap, we get a bit of an up-the-nose shot with a distorted chin. JM says it’s in the past. AJ says I’m so sorry that now I’ve been sacrificing myself! I’m dedicating every waking moment to helping the woman you love learn to walk and to function independently. I’m hoping to be worthy of you and your forgiveness. JM looks like oh, brother. Me, I’m feeling a bit urpy. Mari and Cande are alone now and Mari tells Cande she kept the flowers and wanted to let them dry so she could save them. Cande has a different idea of how to preserve them that I didn’t understand, but Mari likes it and says okay, help me out. AJ says say something, JM! He says I forgave you a long time ago. Really? she gushes. Yes, he says, and I appreciate what you’re doing for Mari. AJ gushes some more: You don’t know how happy that makes me to hear you say that! (Brace yourselves.) JM says I would even kiss your hands, the hands that are helping Mari in her world of darkness. AJ says I will guide and protect her until you return. JM says you’re very noble. And I’ll come back and complete your job. I live for Marichuy! AJ doesn’t look so gushy all of a sudden. She snaps her laptop shut and gets all snotty mimicking JM “ I live only for Marichuy…” Cande is packing the orchids into some kind of box. Cande takes this opportunity to tell Mari that Onelia said don’t trust AJ. Mari says but Onelia doesn’t really know her, does she? Cande says Onelia didn’t want to exactly say why. Mari says AJ has been good to me. But she tells Cande to hide the flowers so AJ doesn’t see she’s saved them. Everything seems yellow tonight. Purita is in a bright yellow sundress in the light-yellow baby room where there’s a crib and toys. She hopes that all this baby stuff will bring on an actual pregnancy, like Adrian hopes. Adrian eavesdrops at the door as Purita picks up a little blanket from the crib and pretends it’s a baby, cooing to it. This is seriously weird. Adrien is starting to look freaked out. Purita dances around singing to the blanket in her arms. AJ is soliloquizing - he loves only Mari! He’s the first man even to refuse me, and it’s all her fault! Plus she doesn’t appreciate him at all. I’m gonna get her. We see Cande about to descend the stairs, baby bottle in one hand and cereal bowl in the other. Oops, the cereal bowl slips from her hand and there’s a mess on the stairs. She creeps downstairs past the mess and shortly afterwards, AJ shows up and sees it. She kicks at the bowl and finds the stairs are slippery. A lightbulb appears over her head and she smiles fiendishly. For some reason, Cande is back in Mari’s room (which is upstairs, isn’t it?) and hands her the bottle, telling her she dropped the bowl and has to go clean it up. Now she is coming up the stairs and AJ is at the top, complaining that it’s dangerous. Cande says it was an accident. AJ says I’m sure not going to clean this up, and why did you call me envious (when was that?). Cande says because you are – when Mari got flowers and you didn’t, you were envious and don’t deny it. I do deny it, says AJ, smiling. AJ says why do you treat me like an enemy? You’re always so sarcastic with me. Cande says because I know what you are. She bites her thumb (cool gesture!), flips her head and walks off. AJ looks squinty-eyed after her and thoughtbubbles that she has to get Cande tossed out of this house, a.s.a.p. AJ comes in and Mari says where have you been? AJ says she had to pay some bills and then stopped by to ask about Amador. She says she doesn’t know which is worse, to be killed or to be dead in life, a vegetable. AJ says he’s paralyzed all over, can’t speak and is fed through a tube. Mari says oh wow. We see Amador being wheeled into his aunt’s place in a wheelchair. He isn’t in his mummy outfit, he’s in slacks and a T-shirt and his biceps are so amazing they have resisted atrophying and are bulging defiantly. His cellos are still trailing after him, and even though they’re a bit subdued, I suspect they hint that his evil still glimmers somewhere inside him. He stares into space. The aids want to put him in bed, but his aunt says he must be tired of lying around. The nurse reminds her that he doesn’t know what’s going on. His aunt says well, they said he wouldn’t make it and look at him now – alive. Closeup of his staring eyes. AJ asks Mari if she hates Amador more than JM. Mari says no, I don’t hate him. I hated what he did to Bea, and how he reacted to the baby, but if this is some kind of retribution, how horrible. Holy cow! Amador is thoughtbublling! Is this some sort of punishment, that I’m still alive, but can’t move or talk? It’s a living death, with no hope. Whatever I’ve done bad in my life, I didn’t deserve this. I wish I could talk to my aunt Mimi to tell her what I’m feeling and thinking. Everyone is talking around me and I can’t communicate with them in any way. I never thought something like this would happen to me! And I haven’t gotten any better. I’ll probably stay this way… I don’t deserve this! What crappy luck. I was about to escape, and look what happened to me. My only hope is to get better, to react somehow. If I can’t, I’ll be a person that everyone wants to be rid of, even Aunt Mimi who is so concerned now. Hey, Amador, look at the bright side! At least you can see. Sorry, just trying to be helpful. I don’t think we’ve ever been in the Velarde’s kitchen before. What’s up with those two big pillars? Who does the cooking? Martirio, and Dora washes up? Anyway, Dora is kind and tells Cande she’ll go clean up the mess and Cande protests a bit, then tells her she’s a good girl. AJ asks Mari if she wouldn’t like to go for a walk outside before it gets cold. Mari says she’s waiting for Cande to bring the baby bottle. We see Cande coming down the stairs where Dora is cleaning the little mess with the most giant mop I’ve ever seen. She compliments Dora on her work and says she wouldn’t want the princess falling. Dora thinks she means Mari, but Cande says no, that AJ. But now that she thinks of it, Mari could slip on the wet step. Cande goes in to Mari, then realizes she forgot something in her room. Meantime, we see AJ in the kitchen cutting off a nice big hunk of butter which she then takes and rubs on the steps. Cande, walking by on the landing, sees her sitting on the steps, but doesn’t see what she’s doing. Cande wonders to herself why AJ is sitting there. A side trip to Grannyland where Mayita pretends she’s a doctor and Granny pretends she’s cut her finger in the kitchen. For reasons that are unclear, Cande is not on the scene and AJ is standing on the landing with Juanito on one hip, telling Mari to do the stairs without holding the banister. Mari doesn’t stop to think that this would be very stupid advice even for a sighted person. Yaaaaaa cries Mari as she slips and falls. Avances: Mari falls further down the stairs and ends up on the middle landing, apparently unconscious.

Labels: Cuidado