Capítulo 34
We take up as Bernarda and Maria Desamparada (chug-Hic!) are discussing the fact that Padre JP is Burnie’s only son when the doorbell rings. Maria brings in Max and introduces him. After the introductions, he admits he remembers Burnie from the nasty arguments at the house and her recent telephone threats. Maria thinks he must be mistaken but Max never forgets a face, he says. St. Burnarda has threatened to ruin his mother’s reputation and he asks her what she meant by that phone call. Burnie replies imperiously that she’ll tell all in due time and then assures him it is something very painful that “all of them should know about,” not only for his benefit but for hers as well.
Maria doesn’t understand. Max says he doesn’t either and doesn't need to. Max isn’t impressed with either Burnie’s rotten taste in Elizabethan frocks or her imperious mannerisms. He locks eyes with the bruja and tells Maria that the Sra. might wear the veneer of Padre JP’s mother on the outside, but she is someone--or something--else on the inside. “--There’s nothing sacred here, only evil.” And with that, he nearly drags Maria out of the place.
At Casota Scandal-val, meanwhile, Victoria and Osvaldo have just finished the marital mambo and she is in the mood to finally discuss her past. She weeps uncontrollably as she tells Oz she is pained by the way she always seems so indifferent to what happens with his job. Oz is sympathetic, and tells her he needs her greatly--more than ever--then hugs her close. She’s wants to tell him what’s been the cause of it, but she’s too embarrassed to see the look on his face once he hears it, she says. She has him turn away from her in bed. If he doesn’t, she explains tearfully, she might lose her courage. Oz says fine, but admits he’s pretty tired (and with good reason, considering he’s been shtumping Linda-Ho all evening). Vicki says she’ll be quick about it and starts her story about the long ago one-night stand with a young seminarian; their love child and being thrown out to fend for herself after; about being raped by one Rudolfo Padilla; and then, how she lost her daughter after being run over in the street. It takes all of about five minutes, but when she’s finished and asks Oz what he’s thinking, Vick sees Ozzie has already followed the Sandman off to Dreamland and apparently never heard a word of it.
At the firemen’s fair, Nathy continues to enjoy herself. FF>>
Vicky goes downstairs and gripes to herself about Oz falling asleep on her and hearing nary a single word; she’s not sure she’ll have the courage to try telling him again. Just then, Burnie phones to threaten her again. “--I warned you, but you thought I was threatening in vain. Now you’re going to find out just what I am capable of. Your step-son was just here and very soon your husband will know your real story.” Vicki is worried and fretfully asks her what she told Max, but Burnie simply hangs up on her.
At the same time, across town, Maria Magdalena makes a late evening visit to Mother Superior (Sor Clementina) as JP prays for guidance (and courage?) to be able to officially recognize his daughter.
Cruz sings for the crowd at the fair and is cheered. FF>>
Back at the Sandoval manse, Micaela gives Fernanda grief about Scuzzy Tattoo Boy not calling her and --of course-- not being worth Fer’s time. Fer throws a pillow at her from the bed and shoos her out of her room.
Speaking of Scuzzy, he’s waiting for Papa Rudy to make it home. Rudy limps in and tells him he was making a payment to that other vermin, Fermin, his loan shark. Scuzzy tells his papi that he’s worried about their plans with Fer considering what her mother told Rudy the other night. Rudy says he doesn’t think she’ll follow through with her threats and, no matter what, Scuzzy will marry Fer. They’ll just lay low for a time and then they’ll start visiting again.
Maria and Max are now having coffee out and Maria wonders if Max is correct about his assumptions cuz Sra. Burnarda is a priest’s mother after all. Max says just because she’s the mother of a priest doesn’t mean she wouldn’t hurt his mother; he is curious about her reasons. Maria asks what he plans to do about it. Max says he’ll ask his mother and if she won’t tell him, he’s determined to find out what’s going on by himself.
Nat comes home to a dark apartment and, once the lights are on, she finds lascivious Linda-ho (barefoot on the counter and dressed like the floozy she is in a flashy, faux silver and leopard-print mini) listening to tunes on her i-pod. Nat angrily pulls the ear buds out of Linda’s ears and starts giving her grief. Linda got home earlier than expected because Ozzie had to leave early so no one would suspect. Ohhh! But it was di-vi-i-i-i-ne. Linda makes the mistake of asking how things went at the fair and Nat goes off on her. “--If you’d gone you wouldn’t have to ask!!” Linda yells at her to stop acting like such a little nun cuz she’s not in any mood for sermons! Nat asks if she’s really so proud of being somebody’s lover? Linda says it’s an honor, and that there are scads of other’s --including Nathy--who’d love to be in her place! Sensible Nat reminds her that she’s only getting the wife’s left-overs while Linda’s stuck in the shadows getting second billing; and that the woman’s husband can only offer a few hours and then only uses her as if she were some sort of thing or other! “--And afterwards what? He leaves for his home and the woman he really loves. Is that what makes you feel so proud?” [enorgullecerse] Nat goes to her room totally disgusted while Linda is left in tears to cry alone. (Sorry, but Viewerville’s sympathy meter isn’t budging off zero.)
JP leaves the parish to speak with Maria-HO.
Juanjo stops by to check in with Linda while Cruz and Napo the Naco wait in the hall. Nat listens from the bedroom hallway as Linda lies to Juanjo that she’s been crying because she’s so angry she couldn’t go to the fair with him that evening. The dummy swallows it whole and then plants a big mushy macho smooch right smack dab on her mouth. Linda, after an evening of bedroom bliss beso-ing Ozzie, is disgusted enough to try to push him away, but fights the urge. (Trust me when I say Viewerville feels her pain!) They exchange a few turtle-dove coos after and then JJ tells her he wants to get married right away. She flirtatiously asks if he serious. (Viewerville’s gag-o-meter is at +9 and rising.) JJ says yes; and if he’s never had a fiancee before it’s only because he’s never found a woman like her before. (Like hubby always says, even a homely guy never thinks of himself as a loser.) Naco and Cruz are watching this from the hallway, rolling their eyes in disbelief. Juanjo calls her his queen and says he wants her to be the mother of his children. (The Viewerville gag-o-meter has just gone off the scale! Retch alert!! Retch alert!!) Linda giggles flirtatiously and says they’ll discuss it in the morning. It’s late. JJ leaves. Nat comes out and gives Linda a disgusted look. Linda asks if she heard. JJ wants to get married right away!! Now what’s she supposed to do, she asks. (I suppose handing him back that rock is a good place to start! Yeah, maybe when pigs fly!)
Vick gets another late night call from Burnie, despite the late hour, asking her to come see her the next day. Again Vicki demands to know what she told Max when he was there. If Burnie doesn’t tell her then she’s not bothering to come! Burnie says that would be a shame since she has something important to discuss with her concerning her daughter. Vick takes in a deep breath at that. Burnie abruptly hangs up on her again.
Back at Maria’s apartment, Cruz and Naco come back for a little heart-to-heart with Linda.
JP arrives at Maria Desareglada’s for another chat. She’s still not gotten back. He enters her room--uninvited--and calls out to her.
Naco and Cruz tell Linda they aren’t there to beat around the bush. They know she’s been cheating on JJ and they threaten to tell him the truth if she doesn’t do it first.
At Sor Clementina’s, Maria-HO tearfully whines that she’d give anything to be able to live with Sra. Victoria if she’s her daughter, but that her “significant other”, that “scorpion” [alacrán], won’t let her leave. Sor Clem tells her he has no right to force her into that life, that they raised her right and tries to convince her to give up the trade. She even offers to talk to him herself and to set the police on him if necessary. Maria--HO insists that she’s too frightened of him. The mother superior assures her that with Vicki she’ll find the love she’s never had and the strength to change her wanton ways.
Back at Maria-HO’s place, Pimp Guy boyfriend ambushes JP and beats him up. JP is knocked unconscious and falls to the floor. Maria-HO returns and sees JP lying on the floor, bloodied and down for the count. She screams at Pimp Guy that he’s there because she’s supposed to be a daughter of some wealthy woman and they could be rolling in dough if he doesn’t muck it up. Pimp Guy is all ears. He’ll clean him up himself in that case!
Back at the apartment house, Cruz dreams of his first kiss with Fer. He wakes up with a start at the slap part and knocks his head on Milagros’ curio cabinet. He thinks back to his dream as he looks out the window, and then says to himself something like she’s made him a believer. [Me traes hecho un reverendo.] Whatever. He knows he’s got it bad for Fer. FF>>
The next morning Vicki’s getting ready for work and asks Oz if he would stop loving her once he knew she wasn’t the woman he thought she was. (Now, by my standards, that’s a heck of a loaded question. If he were smarter than the average bear, he might have said ‘Whatever you were, I know what you are now, and that’s the woman I will continue to love.’ Unfortunately, Oz has nothing on Yogi The Bear.) Oz says well, yeah, he would. He was totally in love with the woman he met and he wouldn’t appreciate getting some big surprise after twenty years. (WRONG. ANSWER. DUDE!) Vick gets her back up. What about him, she asks. You haven’t changed any? You’re still the same as you always were? Yeah, he’s the same as ever, he tells her. (Viewerville wonders if he isn’t fibbing ju-u-u-u-st a tad there, or if he’s such a machisto at bottom that nothing he does or has done would count against him to his way o’ thinkin’.) Oz is tired of playing twenty questions here and asks what’s going on with her. Vicki gets a bit feisty as she explains how she was trying to tell him the heartfelt truth about everything that’s been bothering her, which she’d never been able to discuss with him before, and then he had the gall to fall asleep on her!! Oz obviously is still recovering from his marathon mating session with lusty Linda the night before. His answer is less than considerate. “--I warned you I was really tired last night.” “--So sleepy that you couldn’t stay awake to listen to what’s been torturing me all these years?” Max of the bionic ears walks in and rudely interrupts to ask if what’s torturing her has anything to do with Padre JP’s mother.
Ozzie’s asks Max what either the padre or his mother has to do with Vicki’s worrying. Vicki lets Oz have it “--That’s what I was telling you last night but you were asleep! So I am not going to repeat it now! Your thoughtlessness drives me crazy!!” Oz goes into defensive mode and gripes that it seems she’s the only one around there with problems! She angrily tells him he hasn’t a right to say such things! Oz says well, you know something? I’m tired of it! I’m fed up with this life we lead!! A life without love! A life that nobody wants--that I don’t want! He walks out of the bedroom. “--Osvaldo!!” Max prevents her from chasing after him. He lends her his shoulder to cry on instead and asks her to please calm down.
Outside, Fer gets ready to drive off in her mini-vertible but stops as she sees a red rose lying on the car seat. She looks around for Cruz and smiles, but then has second thoughts and starts to throw it away. Suddenly she changes her mind and decides to keep it. As she drives off, Cruz comes out of his hiding place in the bushes and nods with a big smile. “--What a night, Auntie!”
Back inside, Vicki tearfully tells Max she doesn’t know what to do about his father. She tried to open up to him and he fell asleep. She even suggested to him that she’d leave her job if that’s what he wanted--anything so as not to lose him! Max wonders what his answer was. She says he didn't want her to be unhappy by having to quit work, but she’s even more unhappy because of the disdainful way he acts and speaks to her. Max says he could see this coming, and they thought a vacation would help. Vicki says he’ll refuse and he accuses her of having no time for loving him! Max says not to worry because things will work out. (Yeah, but as Viewerville knows, it won’t be any time soon.)
Linda arrives at work and is bothered by what Naco and Cruz threatened the night before. She runs into Fer and they start chatting. Fer tells her to use the familiar “tú” with her now since they’re both young and get along so well. Fer reminds her when Linda offered to help her with her boyfriend if she ever needed it. Well, that time has come.
At the same time, Papa Padilla, model father that he is, advises Scuzzy on how to insure Fer and he get married: just get her pregnant. Scuzzy doesn’t think it will be that easy and says she takes precautions. “--Don’t ask her permission! Only eunuchs ask permission! Just do it! Take her to a fancy hotel, buy a bottle of champagne, and seduce her--or you’ll lose her for good! Now you either get her pregnant or you look for another place to live!!” Scuzzy asks Papa if he’s really capable of kicking him out of the house. Rudy says just try me!
Once again at the Scandal-val’s, Vicki heads into the dining room for breakfast. A chastened Ozzie is there waiting for her. He asks her to sit down with him. She does. She sighs and then asks what he plans on doing. He takes her hand and answers. “--To ask your forgiveness.” He apologizes for falling asleep while she was trying to open up to him and he also apologizes for the mean way he just spoke with her. Vicki’s still upset, but they manage to get through breakfast, anyway. FF>>
Back in the barrio, Nat and Millie are having a heart to heart. Nat tells her she’s pretty much resigned to the fact that no guy is going to be interested in her. Millie tells her what we’ve all been dying to: “--You have to help yourself along! Spruce yourself up! [acicalarte] Do something with your hair, start wearing some blue contact lenses instead of those owl-eye things if you want some nice boy to cuddle up [apapachar] with you.” Nat gets a little giggly. Millie wonders if she’s still a virgin. Nat giggles again. Of course she is. Millie is relieved. Good girl! The two hug with mutual affection.
Cruz runs into Naco on the jogging track. There’s some discussion about the love letters he’s gotten. Cruz almost lets the cat out of the bag. Naco jogs off. (If somebody could give a decent translation of the slang and what it was all about, all the better. I was lost with the specifics of this conversation.) Afterwards, Cruz wants to kick himself because if Naco and his aunt realize what he and Juanjo have been doing exchanging those made up love-letters between the two, he’s in deep do-do.
A bit later, Nat’s walking alone in the park and sees two lovers kissing. She wishes Juanjo would kiss her that way.
JP is recuperating in the hospital. His superior is there visiting and he tells the other priest that he feels Dios has not forgiven him his past sins from his youth. The old priest tells him not to blaspheme.
Nat is now eating out with Fab Fabian. He laughs and says they’re both in a fix cuz both of them are in love with the wrong people. The difference, she says, is that he at least has a chance with Fer where as she doesn’t have a sliver of a hope with Juanjo. Fab thinks she’s wrong. He tells her she’s got plenty of great qualities. (We notice he doesn’t mention her looks.) She sighs and says everyone tells her the same thing, but no guy ever gives her a second look. She realizes she doesn’t have Linda’s physical attributes, nor Maria’s beauty, and wonders why guys have to be so interested in the physical. Fab does a poor job at explaining the intricacies of the male and the way one’s sexually wired. He gives up and offers to buy her dessert instead.
At the office, Vicki nearly catches Maria and Max smooching it up in the hallway.
Back at the hospital, JP’s superior is disgusted to see that Maria-HO and Pimp Guy are there visiting him. The man could have killed him he beat him so badly and needs to be locked up! JP is more forgiving. (and way too naive for a priest, doncha think?) He wants to listen to what they have to say. Pimp Guy says he’s very happy JP isn’t reporting him to the police and he’s very sorry for what he did. He just misunderstood JP’s intentions toward Maria-HO. JP says he understands and was only trying to help her reconnect with her mother. Maria-HO starts to plead her case to both priests and says if she finds her mother she would be happy to leave the life. She’s not a bad person, really she isn’t and ...yada, yada. Pimp Guy admits to rotten parents and says they’ve both lived like animals. They beg for forgiveness and JP blesses them. He and his superior talk the two of them into going into the chapel and making confession if they truly want to change. They follow the old priest to do what’s necessary to make the hook-up with Sra. Victoria’s dinero.
Vick, meanwhile, is over at Burnie’s now. Eva is listening behind the closed door, natch. “--What did you want to tell me about my daughter?” Burnie replies that if her daughter has become a hooker it’s because Vick is a bad, bad person and she will not let Vicki destroy her son! Vick reminds Burnie that she’s not exactly as pure as the wind driven snow herself, considering the way she threw Vick out of the house years ago to starve. Burnie sneers back that she’s well aware of Vicki’s game to steal her son’s tranquility just to find her bastard daughter! Vick gets incensed and yells back that she won’t allow her to speak about her daughter like that. She blocks a would-be slap from the old dame. “--I will hit, too, to defend myself!!” Vicki suddenly notices the diamond watch Burnie’s wearing and demands to know who gave it to her. Burnie doesn’t see why it matters. Vick says well, it does because it belongs to her daughter!! “--My husband gave it to her on her birthday and the same day somebody stole it!”
Rudy walks in on the two of them unannounced and greets Vicki. Burnie asks if the two know each other. He answers that they do and says with a toothy smile that he didn’t realize the two of them were friends. Burnie says no, they’re not friends, but Vick is extremely interested in her watch and how she came by it. Would he be kind enough to explain it to her? Vicki doesn’t really need any explanation. One look at Padilla and she is certain she knows. Viewerville awaits to see how Padilla wriggles his way out of this one as Uni cues the kayak.
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