Page 51 - WTPVol.XI#4

he pointed to Juan in the other tank. And the smallest snake over there was Maria.
He reached into where Clarita lay stretched along the bottom of the glass. I inched back as he gently lifted her. Clarita’s pointed tongue flicked in and out almost mechanically as she began to slowly and rhythmi- cally wrap herself around Pedro’s muscular arm. He watched her with a wistful smile. It was intoxicating,
“He reached into where Clarita lay stretched
along the bottom of the glass. I inched back as he gently lifted her. Clarita’s pointed tongue flicked in and out almost mechanically as she began to slowly and rhythmically wrap herself around Pedro’s muscular arm. He watched her with a wistful smile.”
watching Clarita move. Like they were caressing each other. The whole room felt suffocated with longing, mine and Pedro’s.
I pulled the envelope from my back pocket, suddenly remembering it there.
“I-I found this on the bedroom floor when I went to open the windows,” I lied. Then added, “I heard it’s your birthday.”
Pedro glanced quickly down the hall and took the envelope.
“Is Maria your daughter?” I asked him.
He hesitated a moment and nodded, working to stuff the envelope into his pocket, the snake still wrapped around one arm. And there was Joanie. She had changed into a pale billowy top and a pair of shorts,
her painted toes bare.
“What’s that?” she said.
“It’s Clarita,” Pedro told her, his arm extended. The snake had wrapped herself around his arm all the way up to his shoulder, her tongue flicking along
his neck. “She knows it’s me. She uses her tongue to smell.” A sliver of the envelope still announced itself from his pocket, bright white against the denim.
Joanie put her hand on her hip, her jaw set. “Put that thing away and tell me what you just stashed in your pocket.”
“Ah, Joanie—”
“I said put the snake away, Pedro, and tell me what that is.”
He blinked, knitting his brows, and turned to watch Clarita who seemed content to stay on his arm, her tongue seeking him. He reached up to stroke her, his hand etched and stained by the dark earth of the Mucks.
Joanie lifted her chin.
“I’m not going to ask you again.”
Pedro’s look changed, as if someone had turned the page on his face.
“Put that snake away and show me what you’re hid- ing,” she said.
Pedro said nothing as he watched Clarita.
“This is my house,” Joanie said. “And I want that damn snake back where it belongs, and I want to see what’s in your pocket!”
“Don’t speak to me like that,” he said.
“Joanie, please—” I said.
She looked at me and her eyes narrowed. Then she looked back and forth between Pedro and me. “You two.” She shook her head and uttered a stony laugh. “So there’s a baby on the way, is that what’s going on here?”
“Oh for God’s sake, woman!” Pedro said. He bent over the tank and gently untangled Clarita from his arm, easing her down into her bed. The way he settled the cover on the tank reminded me of how I’d just tucked in the twins. I wondered about Pedro’s daughter and if she ached on the inside like me.
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