Caray, Caray!

Telenovelas are supposed to carry us into another world. Tonight’s episode achieves that goal. It carries us into a world where logic and reason are as rare as flat-chested actresses. Fasten your beanies. It’s going to be a bumpy night.

Lucas tells Leo that he’s ready to start working at the company, and Leo is stunned silent. Leo is always stunned silent. I think if he got laryngitis, no one would know it. Lucas says, “What’s the matter, Papa, don’t you want me to fill the space left by Diego? From now on I’ll be the son you always wanted.” The boy who couldn’t decide which socks to wear is suddenly ready to throw himself into a career he despises. Tighten your beanie.

Luisa and Sylvia are trying to figure out why Albieri is acting so strangely. Speaking of the King of Clon, he walks in and asks Sylvia into his office. He tells her that she will go to work for Betty Brown in London, starting ASAP. Even though Betty never talked to Sylvia about it. Even though Sylvia is apparently the only MD at the clinic. Makes perfect sense. Tighten your beanie.

Sylvia does find it strange. She tells Julio she can’t help thinking Albieri wants to get rid of her. Julio suggests that Albieri is acting strangely because he doesn’t want to interfere with this great opportunity, but he doesn’t want to lose Sylvia. Personally I think Albieri is acting strangely because when he works past midnight, a strange blue light shines on him from nowhere, and Toccata and Fugue in D Minor plays in the background. He’s obviously Dr. Frankenstein.

Cristina is walking with her coffee order, when an eligible bachelor named Jorge “accidentally” knocks into her and her coffee falls. Somehow he is neither surprised nor disturbed by the “accident,” and he already has his introduction, charm, and pick-up lines ready at hand. He wears a coffee-colored shirt so that he can pull the same stunt twice in one day without changing shirts. Enrique happens to be at that exact café at that exact time to witness it. Tighten your beanie.

Cristina goes home and tells Vicky she’s met the man of her dreams. Vicky’s own dreams are assisted by the magazine she’s flipping through, full of men with oiled pec’s and skimpy Speedos. But she only buys that magazine for the meatloaf recipes. Or was it beefcake? Vicky warns Cris, “You don’t know if he’s a murderer, or married, or has chokum chingus (that’s Korean for “little friends,” a slang term for crabs).” Enrique tells Leo what he saw. Leo is rude to him as usual. Alone, Leo remembers intimate moments with Cristina and looks pensive. Again.

Jade tells Zoraida she wants to be devuelta (returned to her family); how can she get Said to do that? She wants to be a single career woman. Zoraida says she’s nuts. With no education she’ll end up being somebody’s maid. But with a husband, soon she’ll have children to keep her busy and happy. Jade says she’s not going to have children by Said, since she’s taking something to keep from getting pregnant. Zoraida is scandalized. Z demonstrates once again that she and Ali are the only ones with common sense. She reminds Jade that Lucas, the one getting in the way of a happy marriage, is the one who made Jade a ton of promises and never kept any of them.

Marisa finds Lucas on the beach. They are in Miami, on the beach, in the middle of the day, and no one is anywhere in sight. Tighten your beanie. She says that she’s sooooo sorry for Lucas, that he couldn’t marry Jade. In a pig’s eye. She tells him she thought she’d never stop hurting after she lost Diego (like, a few weeks ago), but over time the pain goes away. She tells Lucas, “The point when it stopped hurting is when I fell in love with you.” Lucas, the shy one, decides that a public beach in the middle of the day is the perfect place for sex. Marisa decides that the perfect time for sex is any day with a “Y” in it.

Nariza is complaining to Zoraida that since her brothers got married, they buy gifts for their wives but nothing for her. She laments how terrible it is to have no family, “YOU know what I mean, Zoraida.” Z says she accepts the hand she’s been dealt. She’s not one of those women who goes out in the street with her veil askew, so men know she’s available for a temporary marriage. Z leaves. Nariza, by herself, says, “Why didn‘t I think of that before? I won‘t die without at least one marriage in my life.” And she puts on her veil askew and heads out to the street. Quickly a man spots her loose veil and starts chatting her up. (An unaccompanied woman talking in the street to a man she doesn’t know? Que haram!!!) miracle of miracles, Nariza the mouth shuts up! I THINK she says to herself, “I will be what I don’t understand (what I am not??) so he keeps asking.” He follows her home and peeps through the window as she brazenly removes her veil and shakes out her hair. Jade comes into the room and Nariza crows that she’s getting married. The man didn’t talk to Said but to her. The CC’s said “Sawasha amuta,” but I found it on the net as “Nikah mut‘ah.” Nariza says temporary marriage is for a specific duration, by contract. Depending on how it goes, it may or may not be renewed. Wiki says that the duration can be for as little as an hour, there do not need to be witnesses nor family permission, and payment may be involved. Gee, sounds like prostitution. In fact, the term can be a euphemism for prostitution. Here is one woman’s experience. (Note, I used a Google cached page because the original page has been hijacked.)

Speaking of temporary marriages, at the jewelry market, Said is trying to buy Jade more gold. She says she doesn‘t want jewelry. What she really wants is to study for a profession. Said sucks in his breath, and he says, “We‘ll talk about that later.”

Cut to another jewelry scene, Lucas giving Marisa an engagement ring. He says he‘ll dedicate himself to making her happy, but he doesn‘t say anything about love. Well, at least he‘s more willing to kiss his therapeutic wife than Albieri is. They tell Leo and Rosa the news. Leo thinks it’s awfully fast (well Marisa is a fast girl), but he won’t try to stop them. He only insists that they live here at his house. Yes, you heard that right. Newlyweds, from monied families, moving in with dear old dad. Tighten your beanie. Marisa’s not happy about the housing arrangement, but Lucas has no objection, and Marisa has more obsession than objection, so she accepts. Leo says he’ll take care of costs and Rosa will take care of arrangements. He pulls Lucas away and asks about Jade. Lucas explains that this marriage is to help him forget Jade. Lucas also believes in the Easter bunny.

At the other loony bin, Luisa is trying to get to the bottom of Sylvia’s sudden transfer. She asks whether Sylvia did something to make Albieri uncomfortable. Albi denies, too loudly and too quickly. He asks Luisa, by the way, how is Dora doing. Luisa says she’s moving to New York to have her baby close to her mother. The next morning, the office has a little wine reception to bid farewell to Sylvia. She toasts Albieri as “the father of ethics in our profession.” Albieri chokes on his chardonnay.

Latifa and Mohammed are at a restaurant, and Lucas and Marisa take the table next to theirs (of all the coffee joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine). Latifa tells her husband who Lucas is, and Mohammed tells her we’re leaving orita mismo. Back in Morocco, Said is talking to Ali about heaven. Zoraida goes to Jade’s room and ponders the inequalities - they get 72 virgins and we don’t get doodley. Latifa calls and tells them she saw Lucas today, and he was hugging a muchacha. Latifa has to hang up, and Jade tries to convince herself it didn’t mean anything. Those westerners hug women all the time.

Jade comes up with a new escape plan. If Said won’t let her study for a profession, she’ll get him to buy her lots of expensive jewelry, so she can sell it for lots of money when she abandons him. Okay, for me, Jade just crossed the boundary from foolish, irresponsible, impulsive, and selfish, into the realm of evil. And all this for a loser who left her to her fate. How long until Zoraida stops covering for her?

Albieri goes to Dora’s apartment and finds out she has left for the airport. He rushes to the airport and leaves his car parked at the Departures curb. Where are the Airport Traffic Gestapo telling him to move it or lose it? Tighten your beanie. He arrives immediately after Dora, of course. He tells her she can’t move to NY. She needs to have her baby here. In fact, she needs to move in with him and Luisa. She asks why but he won’t tell her. He says, “Just come to my house and we’ll discuss it there.” Does anyone have visions of gingerbread houses, small children, and big ovens? Naturally she goes along with him to his house, and no one else is home. I guess Dora’s mom told her not to talk to strangers, but never warned her not to go alone to a secluded place behind locked doors, with no good explanation, with a man who is acting like a lunatic. At least Dora should check the back yard for recent excavation! Luisa gets home and Albi informs her, “From now on Dora will live with us.” Dora is a bit unsettled by the “from now on“ part. Duh! Luisa is upset that her husband has brought another woman there to live. But if you ask me, a woman who marries a man who can’t stand to kiss her, and yet she expects they will have a fairy tale romance … a woman like that should be able to swallow just about anything.

Rosa brings Lucas lunch because he’s working non-stop on papers for dad’s business. He takes a little break to strum his guitar and remember Jade dancing for him.

Said walks in the door and Jade starts to badger him, asking if she can study to be a doctor. He tries to dodge and she says, “Don’t you trust me?” Let me count the ways. He snaps and tells her she hasn’t joined herself to him, she wasn’t honest with him, and if she goes to university she’ll move even farther from him. He’s done everything possible for their marriage, and it means nothing to her because she’s still fixated on that westerner. “Did he love you like I do?” Survey says, No. “Was he able to trample his pride like I did? I didn’t abandon you like he did. I didn’t hurt you like he did. I didn’t do all I could’ve done because of the wedding night. I didn’t because I love you. You don’t understand what it means for a Muslim to endure all I have endured for you. And I did it because I love you.“ Go, Said!!!

And Jade answers, “I only asked if I could study.” I wanna’ slap her silly.

Said answers, “On the day that I feel that you’ve accepted me, that your heart beats for me, on that day I’ll give you the sky and the stars.”

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