Telenovela Dreams

Margarita’s arrival to the Ojeda house coincided with the last season of the long-running telenovela Simplemente María.

Like the sweet and innocent protagonist of the TV show, Margarita originally came from a poor town in the central mountain range. Also like the telenovela character, Margarita was tall, thin, and very pretty. She had striking green eyes that waited for something to happen.

But in every way that mattered, Margarita was the very opposite of María.

The telenovela told the story of an innocent country girl who was hired as a maid in a modern city, was seduced by an evil young doctor, but thanks to her loving teacher, became a successful dressmaker in Paris. The show was a simple lens through which to see my complicated world.

It played once a week at noon. Güicho, La Nena, Tita and I, gathered to watch the episodes together on our blue and white portable Sony Micro. Mami didn’t like us watching the big TV set, which she hid behind potted plants in the library, but she allowed us to watch Simplemente María in the terrace.

The three of us shared the blue and white wicker sofa. Margarita joined us and Tita. The soft afternoon light seeped through the wooden trellis that protected the otherwise open terrace from prying eyes. We waited expectantly for the seven notes of the theme song that repeated the title of the telenovela: Sim-ple-mente-Ma-rí-a.

The melancholy theme song was a simplified version of the original, which had been a more dramatic Argentine tango.

Tita told us that after more than 200 episodes, the main character, María, was to marry Esteban in a real church in Lima Perú. The wedding was all over the news, and Tita told us that the crowds that came to watch María’s triumph thought it was a real wedding and went to the church dressed in their Sunday best to witness the ceremony.

María succeeded in life despite the best efforts of Roberto, the aristocratic doctor, who had seduced and disgraced her at the beginning of the show, and still haunted her at the end.  

Braulio Castillo played Esteban, the maestro, and he was Tita’s favorite Puerto Rican actor.

Esteban was a sweet man, considerate, and sensitive. He reminded me of police officer Menéndez.

Like Esteban, Menéndez also was good-looking, soft-spoken and mild-mannered. He was from Ponce, so he knew Mami’s family and was kind to all of us children. When the strikers from Papi’s warehouse picketed in front of our house, Menéndez had parked his Harley in front of the gate, blocking the way and protecting us from the angry workers.

Officer Lavoe, his buddy, was Menéndez’s evil twin. He was bad but suave and cool, and he reminded me of Roberto, the evil doctor from Simplemente María. Lavoe wore his police cap off-kilter and he had a thin moustache that made him look suspiciously like a pirate.

Lavoe was from the outskirts of the metropolitan area, and he would often take me aside and ask me about Margarita, about her comings and goings, and about her habits. I knew his intentions were not honorable, but he was so confident and charming that I overlooked my suspicions. I told him everything he wanted to know. A part of me wanted to be just like him when I grew up.

More recently, Margarita had arrived at the Ojeda house by way of Barrio Obrero, a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of San Juan, in Santurce. She was thin and fine in her features, where Tita was heavy set, with a large nose, big mouth, and dark eyes. At seventeen, she was a few years older than La Nena, but younger than Tita.

And Margarita had her own opinions about everything.

As we sat in the terrace, waiting for the start of the last episode of Simplemente María, Margarita let us know that she didn’t care for the wedding of María to Esteban.

“He’s too much of a goody-two-shoes.”

Margarita picked up the TV Guide magazine, VEA, from the coffee table and flipped through it.

“Sure, Esteban is a good provider, but he’ll never make María happy in the ways that really matter.”

I asked Margarita, what ways were those? She was about to tell me when Tita gave her a “you-better-watch-what-you’re-about-to-say” look. Margarita modulated her voice.

“What I mean is that Esteban is kind of boring.” She rolled her magazine into a tight club. “María could be happier with somebody more adventurous, more exciting. More like Roberto.”

“More like officer Lavoe?” I asked.

Margarita hit me softly over the head with the rolled up VEA and winked at me.

The jingles from the TV commercials clashed with the sweet chords of the theme song.

Tita sucked her teeth.

“If you knew what was good for you, you would stop making eyes at Lavoe and pay more attention to Menéndez.”

She took the VEA away from Margarita.

“Menéndez is a good man, and he would be a good husband. I know what I’m talking about.”

She smoothed out the magazine, laying it flat on the coffee table, next to the TV set.

“If it wasn’t for Vietnam, I would be in Ponce now, living with my husband, taking care of our family.”

“That’s just it.” Margarita shook her head. “I’m not made to take care of children, and I don’t want to go back home. I want more out of life.”

She swept her long mane of black hair away from her eyes.

“I want the freedom to come and go as I please.”

She tied her hair into a ponytail with an elastic band ending in two red plastic pebbles.

“I want to travel, see the world, and leave this place.”

I thought Margarita took good care of us. Whenever Tita left Margarita in charge, we did pretty much as we pleased. She didn’t keep too strict an eye on us and wouldn’t tell us what we could and couldn’t do. She let us be, and watched us from afar. Mami and Papi were worried that if we stepped outside the gates of the Ojeda house, something would happen to us. But Margarita would let me go out of the compound and talk to the police officers outside the gates, especially when Lavoe was on duty.

An advertisement for the Pablo Casals music festival flashed across the screen. What Margarita said about freedom made me think of the French opera, “Carmen.”

Meri, our music teacher had arranged for the San Juan’s Children’s Choir to perform the famous opera by Bizet at the Casals Festival. We had been learning the quadrille, the song that the children sing during the changing of the guard, when the Gypsy first meets the Spanish soldier.

Meri was a very religious person, and she taught us that Carmen, the Gypsy, was a heathen, who didn’t believe in God, and didn’t obey the law, or care for social rules. She said Carmen was lost. She was more interested in her so-called freedom than in her good name, or in the good name of the Spanish soldier. Carmen, she explained, wounded the pride of the soldier. She made him insane with jealousy. And that’s why he had to kill her in the end.

Mami didn’t like the opera, nor did she care for Meri’s lessons about the Gypsy, either. She told us that the end of “Carmen” was in fact tragic, and that the world conspired against the poor woman’s happiness. But she liked to hear me, and La Nena, sing the quadrille song after choir practice anyway.

Margarita didn’t care for opera in general. She preferred the popular music of the Sonero Mayor, Ismael Rivera. She liked songs like “El Cumbachero,” which the notorious singer composed when he got out of the State penitentiary, after spending several years in the Oso Blanco for drug possession. And even when Margarita heard that women like Carmen were punished in the end, it didn’t seem to make a difference to her. She said she was determined to have her way in the world, “no matter what.”

I think Mami secretly liked Margarita’s determination, her fighting spirit, and her rebellious attitude against the rules of the Ojeda house, as if Mami wasn’t responsible for setting them in the first place.

The wedding between Esteban and María finally came on the TV. Tita shushed all of us to be quiet. The episode was a rerun. She’d missed the original broadcast, which had aired sometime before Braulio Castillo’s accident. Tita didn’t want to miss it again.

Braulio Castillo (aka Esteban) and María walked down the aisle of Margarita Teresita Church. She was wearing a simple white dress and carried a rosary in her hand. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt, the tip of a white handkerchief peeked from his breast pocket. Behind them the Church pews were filled with admirers. A choir sang.

“Look how handsome he was.” Tita’s eyes watered.

***

That night, Margarita put us to bed. I wasn’t very sleepy, so I stole the copy of the VEA from the terrace and brought it upstairs to bed with me.

Braulio Castillo was on the cover. He was dressed very differently from the wedding. He had on a black shirt with multicolored flowers, mustard-colored tight pants, and black leather boots. His hair was short, his face clean-shaven, but his sideburns were long. It was an old issue of the magazine that announced Braulio Castillo’s trip to Puerto Rico with Sabi Kamalich (aka María).

By now, we all knew the trip was not to be.

Braulio Castillo suffered a serious head injury while filming a movie later in the year, and he was taken to hospital for an emergency operation. He was never the same after that.

The accident made the entire population of Puerto Rico very upset. People from the four corners of the Island went to the airport to greet him, and Abuelo Beto invited him to the Governor’s mansion for a visit.

Tita had shown me the photo of the visit in the newspaper. The telenovela star stood with Abuelo Beto in La Fortaleza, shortly after the operation, shaking his hand. The two of them were smiling and joking, probably about the fact that Braulio Castillo was wearing a toothbrush mustache, just like Abuelo Beto’s.

The photograph stayed with me. Braulio Castillo’s head was shaved clean. A lobotomy-scar that followed the outline of his head and went from his left ear all the way to the top of his forehead replaced his familiar head of dark wavy hair. The star was smiling, but he looked like Frankenstein’s monster.

Margarita entered my bedroom and sat on my four-post bed. It didn’t have a box spring, so it didn’t make a sound when she sat next to me. The soft mattress lay on top of a wooden board that replaced the old leather straps. Like most of the furniture in the Ojeda house, my bed was an heirloom from Mami’s great grandparents.

“Noti, you should be getting ready for sleep. What are you doing with that VEA?”

Margarita took the magazine from my hands.

“I’m not very sleepy and I wanted to read about María and Braulio Castillo. Don’t tell Tita, please.”

“I won’t tell her, but you must promise me to help me with Lavoe tomorrow.”

She rolled up the VEA and waved it like a magic wand.

“Promise me you’ll keep quiet.”

She again touched my head with it, as if she were turning me into a pumpkin.

“It will be our secret.”

“I promise, but only if you do something for me first.”

“What?”

I was embarrassed but I asked her if she would give me a Topo-Gigio-goodnight-kiss, el besito de las buenas noches?

Margarita smiled and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

She got up from my bed, turned off the light, and left my room. I could see her thin silhouette move through Güicho’s bedroom, which was next to mine, and exit the door to the hallway. She disappeared and the light went off.

***

The next day, after breakfast, I went to see if Lavoe was posted outside. He was standing by the gate, next to his blue and white Harley, smoking a cigarette. The chrome on his motorcycle reflected the morning sun, blinding me. Lavoe’s eyes were protected by a pair of Aviator sunglasses.

A mangy dog was peeing in the sentry box across the road from the Ojeda house.

“How’s it hanging, flaco?”

Lavoe folded up the magazine he was reading and shoved it inside the back pocket of his tight uniform.

I liked the way he talked to me, as if I were one of his friends.

“OK, I guess. What do you have there?” I reached out around him. “What’s that?”

He turned around and took out the magazine.

“Nothing much, just pictures.”

He looked at me, the smoke from his cigarette made a contrast with his dark glasses.

“Wanna peek?”

He unfolded the magazine and gave it to me for a look see. I saw pictures of women in various stages of undress. They were striking very difficult gymnastic poses.

“Are these TV actresses?”

“I don’t know about TV, but they’re actresses alright,” Lavoe chuckled.

“They’re not the real thing, at least not in the way that really matters.”

“And what way is that?”

Lavoe flicked his cigarette.

“Well, take Margarita for example…”

As if by magic, I felt Margarita’s hand on my back.

“Hello Miguel,” she said to Lavoe. “What are you boys up to?”

She took the girly magazine from my hands.

“You’re too young to be looking at these, Noti.” She smiled at me.

“And you, Miguel, you shouldn’t be giving Noti ideas.”

She pushed the magazine against Lavoe’s chest returning it to him.

“You know better than that.”

She turned to me as Lavoe looked down sheepishly.

“Now, go on and play across the street, while I have a talk with Miguel.”

She shood me away. I was sorry to leave them. I wanted to know what they would talk about and all about their plans. Lavoe was a charmer, and I thought I could learn from him how to make friends at school and how to bring Tomás around to my way of thinking during our many arguments.

“Remember our agreement.”

I did as Margarita asked and went to play with the dog in the sentry box. As I walked away, I overheard Margarita and Lavoe making plans for that evening.

The puppy looked sad, his tongue was sticking out, and he was panting. The day was a scorcher, and the poor animal was resting in the pool of shade inside the sentry box.

I recognized him.

I’d tried to save him the week before, only to have Papi chase it away with my BB gun.

Papi didn’t approve of my feelings for stray dogs, realengos, he called them. He was made of sterner stuff than me.

“No matter what they teach you in school, the bold, not the meek, will inherit the earth.”

He’d shot the dog and sent him away, whimpering. I had to look away.

“Remember that, Noti.”

How could I forget? I resented Papi’s cruelty, and I approached the poor animal to try to pet him, but he didn’t trust me anymore. He ran away and joined a pack of his friends under the tamarind tree.

***

Later that day, I spied on Tita from the breakfast room. She was in the kitchen, at the stove, preparing our lunch. Mami came into the kitchen, and I overheard them talk about Margarita. 

“I hate to say this, Ma’am, you know how I feel about the girl, but she isn’t working out.”

Tita filled the rice pot with a thin layer of oil and butter and put it on the burner. She was a good cook. I particularly liked her pegao, the caramelized hard layer of white rice that stuck to the bottom of the pot. She would save it for me, and I would eat it straight from the stove, before she served us our food in the dining room.

“She’s not taking care of the children like she should. In fact, she’s more work for me. She’s another child, and a wild adolescent to boot.”

The aroma of the buttered frying rice reached my nose and made me hungry for lunch.

“She’s hard to control, and now I’m afraid one of the policemen is after her.”

Tita was stirring the pot.

“I don’t know where things are headed, but I fear the worst.”

Tita was talking about Lavoe. I pricked up my ears and leaned across the table. Hiding behind the crystal oil and vinegar dispensers, I moved them slightly to the side to get a better view. Tita faced Mami. She had a strong grip on a wooden spoon in her hand. Tita could be very persuasive with her spoons, almost as much as with her chancletas.

“Is there nothing you can do for her?”

Mami stood back from the stove. She didn’t want the oil from the pans to stain the wide lapels of her baby blue jacket.

“She’s from a poor family in Barrio Obrero. Papá met her on one of his political rallies. He asked me if I could help her out. She seems like a bright girl to me, but with few prospects.”

Mami took the saltshaker and waved it over the pot. She then went to the sink to wash her hands with soap. “It’s good for your skin,” said Tita, imitating the Manicurist in my favorite Palmolive commercial.

Mami chuckled.

“What do you say we give her a little more time?”

Tita put the wooden spoon in the pot with the meat stew and stirred some more.

“You’re the one who knows, Ma’am.”

She then put a spoonful of the hot broth in the crook between her thumb and her index finger and cooled it down with her breath.

“You know what’s best.”

She took gentle sips of the broth from her hand, and smacked her lips.

“We’ll give her time.”

I tried to silently move the crystal oil and vinegar flasks back to their original position. But my hands were shaking, and the oil flask was slippery so it slid to the edge of the ceramic table, launching its stopper to the ground. I caught it before it fell on the floor, but only just.

***

That night, Tita went on an errand for Mami, and I waited until she left the Ojeda house to go into the servant’s quarters to warn Margarita about the conversation I had overheard.

Margarita’s and Tita’s rooms were in a separate building, some distance away from the main house. The long structure included several rooms for different purposes. The structure separated the property from the school yard that abutted the Ojeda house.

On one end of the building was Chencha’s ironing room. It also housed the washing machines. Next to it were two car garages. And next to those, on the opposite end of the building, at the north end of the property, were the servants’ quarters: Margarita’s and Tita’s bedrooms, one next to the other.

The door to the servant’s quarters led to a small vestibule that opened to a tiny bathroom, that gave access to the two bedrooms, one after the other.

Margarita’s bedroom came first. Tita’s bedroom was the last one, at the end of the building. On the very opposite end from Chencha’s ironing room.

I often secretly went into Tita’s room to watch telenovelas on her TV set, which was bigger than our Sony Micro.  So, I knew the layout by heart.

The sun had set as I entered the bathroom. I heard a noise, and instead of turning on the light, I decided to investigate. I noticed something strange right away. Clothes were strewn all over the floor of the bathroom, the door to the bedroom was ajar, the bedroom was dark, and I could hear metallic noises and human voices coming from inside.

There was a little window above the toilet that opened into Margarita’s bedroom. I climbed on the seat and pulled myself up by the ledge to peek through the blinds.

The soft glow of the night light shone on what looked like Margarita, who was on top of Lavoe with her eyes closed. She was smiling. They were moving slowly up and down, and I could see her trying to make as little noise as possible. But the springs of the old mattress squeaked. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Margarita bent down and kissed Lavoe.

Suddenly, the light in the vestibule to the bathroom turned on. I was startled and let go of the narrow window ledge, falling back on the toilet. Tita stood in the doorway. She must have forgotten something and had returned to look for it.

“And what do you think you are doing, niño del demonio?”

Tita went immediately for her chancleta. Wyatt Earp reaching for his Peacemaker in the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral.

I got myself up and ran as fast as I could around her out the door. I was about to reach the door to the main house when I felt the sting of the leather sandal hit me right in the back of the head. It stopped me on my tracks.

I turned around just as the door to the servants’ quarters closed shut. Fighting words came out of Margarita’s room. Suddenly, the door opened again, and Lavoe hightailed it from the rooms, through the yard, past the gate, and out of the compound.

The commotion brought Mami to the patio. Mami told me to go upstairs to my room. I went inside and upstairs rubbing the back of my head.

“What happened?” Güicho and la Nena asked in unison.

I explained as best as I could what I’d seen. It was almost impossible to describe the smile on Margarita’s face, her eyes closed, her head tilted back. I’d never seen happiness as carefree as that. Nothing in Simplemente María could match it.

It was easier to describe Lavoe’s escape. I thought of the poor realengo chased away by Papi and my BB gun. I wondered if we’d see any of them again.

***

The next day, after breakfast, I went outside to see who was posted at the gate. Menéndez was standing next to his Harley. I went up to him and he grabbed me by the ribs and sat me on the motorcycle. He knew how much I liked it, and he let me ride on it as long as I didn’t push any of the buttons. Especially the big red one that turned on the light and made the siren howl.

“Are you ok, Noti?” He let me try on his motorcycle helmet. “I heard there was a ruckus last night.”

I told Menéndez what happened. But I knew enough to leave out the part about me looking through the bathroom window and what I’d seen.

“I heard Lavoe was fired.”

I felt guilty. Maybe if I hadn’t been peeking through the bathroom window, I could have kept Tita busy, made a noise, warned Margarita and Lavoe what was coming. I stopped myself from tearing up.

“Margarita is a sweet girl, and she will make herself and somebody else very happy, when she realizes what’s important in life.”

I took off the helmet and returned it to Menéndez.

“Margarita said that she needed somebody to make her happy in the way that really matters. Do you know what that means?”

Menéndez put his hand on my head and messed with my hair.

“I wish I knew, Noti.”

He sighed.

“Perhaps we learn what really matters too late in life.”

He pulled me up and put me down on the ground.

“In the meantime, one must take the good with the bad, and have faith that it will sort itself out in the end.”

Menéndez spoke his words carefully, slowly, like the teacher in Simplemente María. Braulio Castillo couldn’t have said it any better. He inspired some confidence in me. The world threw challenges at us, and we simply had to be patient and resilient. The problems would resolve themselves. The world was a telenovela. After 200 episodes of detours, and frustrating reversals, there were wedding bells in the end.

And yet, I couldn’t forget Braulio Castillo’s scar, and the accident that ended his storied career. Fortune turned against him in the blink of an eye. Fate, or a similarly powerful and cruel force, could turn a puppy dog into a realengo, just like that.

***

At dinner that night, I learned that Mami had let Margarita go.

Papi served himself a big helping of rice and beans.

“I know you liked Margarita, honey.”

He took the ladle by the silver handle and fished out chunks of beef from the thick and perfumed stew.

“But she rubbed me the wrong way from the very beginning. Uppity.”

He spread the sauce in a circle on top of the mound of savory beef.

“I told you it wasn’t a good idea to hire her. What happened?”

“Margarita’s family needed her back,” Mami lied.

“They came for her, and I had to let her go.”

I was curious to know why Mami was lying. Was she as uncomfortable as I was with the story of Margarita and Lavoe? And what was the meaning of Margarita’s smile? Was it from the happiness that “really mattered”? Sensing I was about to ask, Mami turned her steely stare on me. I got her message and zipped it.  

***

After dinner, Tita, La Nena, Güicho and I, went to the terrace to watch TV.

We were eager to watch the broadcast of “El Show de Topo Gigio.” Tita joined us because Braulio Castillo was often the host. The episodes had been recorded before his accident. He was clean shaven, wore a suit and a tie, and didn’t have a moustache.

Every night they went through the same routine. Braulio Castillo told Topo Gigio it was time for bed. And Topo Gigio asked for a good night kiss, even though he was embarrassed to ask. Braulio Castillo happily obliged and gave Topo Gigio a kiss on the nose. This time, Topo Gigio was so excited about his goodnight kiss that he dropped his pants and ran off the stage. Braulio Castillo apologized profusely to the audience.

“Did you see what happened, Tita?”

Güicho and La Nena laughed out loud.

“Did Topo Gigio just drop his pants?”

Tita chuckled.

“Topo Gigio couldn’t keep his pants on because he was so happy that Braulio Castillo gave him a goodnight kiss. We all should be so lucky.”

Tita turned off the Sony Micro.

“Enough TV, it’s time for bed.”

I went up the stairs thinking of Margarita and Lavoe, and about how Margarita chased after what really mattered in life. She was the very opposite of Topo Gigio and of María, who married Esteban and lived happily ever after.

Margarita stole her kisses, and lived happily no matter the consequences.