Free Amigoland by Oscar Casares Page A

much on this street?”
    “We changed days, and tomorrow I need to clean the house for him.”
    “You miss him?”
    Socorro turned down the temperature on the iron until it reached the permanent-press setting, then a moment later turned it
     off completely but continued with her work all the same.
    “Tell me,” la señora insisted, a little louder now. “You miss him?”
    “I work for him.”
    “And because of that, you can’t miss him?”
    “Ay, señora, how can you say that?” She tried her best to laugh at the question.
    “You think you would be the first woman to feel something for the man she worked for?”
    “But he’s much older.”
    “Men forget how to count when they see a young woman — look at the doctor with Gabriela,” she said, pointing the remote back
     at the television.
    “Yes, but he would never be interested in me.”
    “You want me to believe an older man like Celestino Rosales wouldn’t be interested in a young, attractive woman?”
    “Maybe, but not me.” She pretended she was having problems with the pleat on the back of the shirt, so she pulled it off the
     board to flap it open a couple of times, enough to produce a tiny breeze.
    “I saw that you came over two times last week.”
    “Only because I didn’t finish all my work and then one of his daughters was coming to visit him. He wanted everything ready
     for her.”
    “I want you to know you could tell me if he was,” la señora said, “or even if you were.”
    Socorro chose to keep her eyes focused on her work and turned the temperature back up on the iron. “Thank you, but there’s
     nothing to tell.”
    “And nothing has happened?”
    “Like what?”
    “You know, what happens between a man and woman when they are alone all day in a house.”
    “Ay, señora.”
    “You could tell me.”
    “There’s nothing to tell.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “
Sure
sure, or just a little bit sure?”
    “
Sure
sure.”
    La señora didn’t seem convinced, but she went back to watching the rest of her novela anyway. Socorro hoped that she wasn’t
     too obvious about her feelings. She could imagine the old lady spreading the news across the neighborhood. And then there
     were his children that he was always worried about. He said the youngest one talked about her mother as if she were still
     in the hospital and would be coming home soon. How would they feel if they learned their father had found someone else, and
     so soon? Her own mother had remained alone after her father died, which was part of what had made it difficult for Socorro
     to tell her what had really occurred between her and the man whose house she cleaned every week. How could she begin to explain
     this to a woman who had been without a man for more than twenty years?
    Before her first afternoon with Don Celestino, she had never imagined doing such a thing: she used to look down on those women
     who cleaned houses only because they wanted to find a widower with money. Some of these women married and stayed with their
     husbands for a few years, until the old man died or grew so ill that his children took him to a hospital, where finally he
     died. It must have seemed a small price to pay in order to arrange their papers and from then on have a comfortable life.
     With a little luck the old man might leave them with some money, maybe a house or a car, depending on whether he had arranged
     this beforehand and his children didn’t claim it all. Other women remained unmarried but the old men paid them generously,
     as if spreading their legs was simply another chore they were doing, like mending a shirt button or replacing a spent lightbulb.
    At least she knew that her interest in him had nothing to do with what he could give her. She wanted only what they could
     share as a couple, if he would let this happen. Since they had become intimate, her life had turned into two lives. One that
     she lived on the other side of the river with her