Marquita

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JODY SHOTWELL

10.F

Marquita, home from the earliest Mass, unlocked the grilled iron door into the patio and locked it again behind her. Fingering her keys as she did just a little while ago her rosary beads, she stood for a moment looking at Ron's motorcycle at the curb. The Señora Vargas would be annoyed again. Only yesterday she had told Marquita to tell Ron that the vehicle must not be left in front of the house. Translating the landlady's angry Spanish into discreet English, Marquita had conveyed the message. But Ron had either ignored it or forgotten it.

"Oh, tell her I'm sorry," the American girl had said, grinning in such a way that Marquita knew exactly how she must have looked when she was a little girl. "Please, Ron," Marquita begged. "The señora is funny about such things. You will put it in the driveway, always, please."

But there it was again, as beautiful as such a powerful and noisy object could be. All blue and shining chrome . . . a strange means of transportation for a girl. But then, Ron was a strange kind of girl. Marquita, turning toward the door into the house, felt once more the unaccountable quickening of her heart. She removed her high-heeled shoes to tiptoe past the landlady's bedroom door and went into her own room. The bathroom separated her room from Ron's, and she unlocked the door and went through and tapped lightly at Ron's door. "Ron?" It was very important that the señora not be awakened just yet. "Ron!" There was no answer. Marquita tried the knob. Sometimes Ron neglected also to lock doors. This time it was locked.

"Please, Buena Dios, make her wake up!" Marquita prayed, silently. There must be no trouble. Only last month the señora had ordered from the house a roomer who twice left the patio door unlocked. The señora was very rigid about her rules.

Marquita began to feel extremely warm and uncomfortable in her confining clothes. This time of year the San Juan sun blazed hot and early, and Marquita, now past the slimness of her youth, was constrained to restrict her maturing form in one kind of obnoxious undergarment or another. Anxiety dampened her face and she felt a little faint.

"Ron!" She tapped again, and this time Ron's sleepy voice responded. Simultaneously, the clip-clop of the Señora Vargas' slippers sounded on the outside of the bathroom door. Like a child caught in some guilty act, Marquita hastened to her own room and closed the door.

Removing her clothes, Marquita fought back her mounting trepidation.

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