Page 7 of Sinister Hearts
“Pues si.” Ma left me with the bundle in my hands like a deer in headlights.
After a much forced second breakfast, by none other than Ma herself, I had planned to do more job hunting and let Birdie enjoy her grandmother, while they sang in the garden and drank homemade sun tea. I festered up as much energy as I could to get myself looking decent.
I passed myself in the mirror, seeing a reflection I no longer recognized. My collarbones were protruding and the dark circles under my eyes felt like they were permanently tattooed there. While I had a few of those, these ones I particularly had a disdain for. I stared at myself in the mirror ruthlessly; at the clothes that hung from my bony body.
An abrupt glance of a dark shadow stood behind me, in my reflection. For fear of my life, I turned around, ready to stab whatever I was seeing with the sharp side of my brush, but nothing was there. I turned back to the mirror and it had vanished,gone. I was losing my mind. Yup, that is what was happening. The chronic stress made me permanently delusional.
I sighed, taking a deep slow breath. “Now, you listen up, we’re gonna get ourselves back, Faye Robles. We’re just weathering the storm right now. I got this. You got this.” I ironed out my jeans with my palms in a nervous sweat.Who the hell was I trying to convince?
I made a call to Raquel, who thankfully was a mortician, or busy reading the dead. The amount people paid for “channeling” a passed loved one was astonishing. She honestly did well for herself. I just wasn’t really into any of that superstitious mambo jumbo. Having to grow up in a town where the rumor is you’re abrujawas not the highlight of my life.
Raquel was the sister I never had and was bat-shit crazy. Just one of many things I happened to love her for. She was a gothic queen fit for a throne made of thorns. Raquel was like a rose—full of dreadful beauty, indeed. If you were careful and tender, you could avoid the thorns and she bloomed beautifully. She only let in a certain number of people, and she was in love with the dead more than the living. Could I blame her? People sucked. I felt like I was losing my faith in humanity everyday.
Ihad to do something about my mop-chop before I worked up the nerve to beg for my old job back. I couldn’t bartend like this, let alone show my face around the town. Enough was already circulating about me, I didn’t need to give these bastards any more leverage. Being called the town’s bruja who was getting divorced, and was left with nothing to show for it, was shameful enough.
I knew who could find the solution and fix this disaster. Rocky. If she could make even the dead look beautiful, I happened to think I was in good hands. I remember her doing our makeup before we started our trouble around the town. We hosted parties in the cemetery, because Rocky always insisted the dead still needed to have a good time. Who were Penny and I to rain on her goth parade? Plus, the cemetery became our spot. It’s where we had our midnight margaritas and discussed our love interests and never-ending teenage doom.
I pulled up to Rocky’s little cottage downtown. The area was historic and rundown, but she refused to leave her cottage home, on the cemetery grounds; this was her safe haven. The brimstone on her pillars were wrapped with vines of vegetation and plants, and the cottage itself was surrounded by trees and plants. Her house always reeked of palo santo and sage.
I rang the doorbell and it echoed through the cottage walls. I could hear meows and paw scratches from behind the door.
“Prima, we’re back here!” Rocky called out. I could hear laughter and mumbles from the backyard. I walked to the side of the cottage, unlatching her old wooden gate, and followed the scent of cannabis and laughter. Rocky and Buffy sat at her porch table playingLOTERIA. The colorful illustrated bingo-like cards were laid out across the table in piles.
“You’re just in time to see your cousin get her ass handed to her inLOTERIA!” Buffy stood from her chair and threw her cards dramatically.
Rocky rolled her eyes in defiant failure.
“You owe me a cerveza.” Buffy grabbed Rocky’s cheeks and kissed her passionately.
I wasn’t expecting that, so why wasn’t I all that surprised? The truth was Rocky’s sex life was always fireworks compared to mine. She loved who she loved and fucked who she fucked without apologies. I loved that about her. Many judged her andattempted to cast their stones, but she refused to ever let it reach her. She wasn’t fazed by people’s judgments and scrutiny. I kind of envied that about her. Curiosity grew in my belly, wondering what it took for her to be so free. What parts of her had to die?
“Alright, I have to start my shift soon at the hospital, I’ll see you later.” Buffy and Rocky said their goodbyes.
“Let’s go inside.” Rocky led me into her home where dried herbs hung in her kitchen. Raquel looked at my hair and covered her mouth, attempting not to laugh.
“Don’t even start!” We both began chuckling at my expense. Her black cat, Elvira, jumped on the countertop next to me, rubbing and purring against me.
“Let me grab my bag, hold that thought.”
Raquel walked back in from her back room, and I took notice of her outfit. A black lace top with a leather corset on top, and pants. Her black knee-high boots tapped on her dark wooden floor. “What did you do, cousin?” She looked at me, nodding her head.
“Do not laugh, bitch. It was a weak moment,” I said, trying to hold my embarrassment back. “I had a rage and chopped it off.” I touched the ends of my uneven chopped hair.
Rocky walked to me and ran her fingers through it. “It’s okay, we can fix this.” She sounded confident which eased my anxiety. “We can do a mid-length cut, with long layers at the top. It will give you a Stevie Nicks vibe. See, prima, everything happens for a reason. Plus, they do say hair holds energy. My papi always told us when a woman chopped her hair off, it wasn’t her hair that was the only thing that was shedding. This is some symbolic-ass shit.” Rocky began to give me a cool rinse in her deep sink.
“How many dead people’s hair have been rinsed here?” I asked cautiously.
Rocky chuckled as she massaged the shampoo into my hair. “Before Papi or after?”
Bad Omens blasted through her Bluetooth speaker in the background, and Elvira stood on my lap purring.
“Ha-ha, very funny. How is your dad?”
Rocky took the faucet hose and rinsed off my hair, letting the lukewarm water hit my scalp as it relaxed me. “He’s living in paradise, in a jungle in Mexico, retired and on a farm, living my dream. It’s honestly the happiest I’ve seen him in a while.”
My Tio Castel was a proud indigenous leader on the rez, on top of being the owner of their funeral business, which he started with my Tia Catori before I was born. My Tia Catori sadly passed away during childbirth when I was just a one-years-old. She was Ma’s middle sister, whom she was the closest to. Oftentimes I’d catch Ma holding and crying at pictures of her and her sisters when they were younger. Ma never wanted to talk about it. That’s what my family did, they swept things under the rug, until they piled up dust and rubbish. No room left to spare for a fresh beginning. I didn’t blame Ma, it was all she had ever known, but I saw the mark it left on her, the heaviness and the taxation on her soul. Although she would never say it out loud and would try to cover it up with her gardening and warm smiles, there was a sadness in her that lived there. I always felt it in the corner of the room with us, like an unwanted house guest. She was alone and that was my worst fear. As much as I didn’t fault Ma, I knew in my core I had to do things differently for my own healing, and for the following generations. I hoped that the rumors of the lover’s curse were a lie, that it wasn’t real. That even after all this time, even after all the damage, we are worth loving. Love doesn’t have to hurt, it doesn’t have to shake you, it doesn’t have to intimidate, or manipulate. Love is and always will be wild and soft. Even battered and bruised, you still bleed love. I was always terrified to love someone fully, afraid to let them in. Yet, theone time I had, I was made a fool. While Vadon held the key to my trauma, I couldn’t deny he was not the keeper of my heart. There was an ache that consumed me way before him. I wouldn’t hide away my pain or my fault. I’d own every lesson and every mistake, hoping Birdie felt less alone in this world. I wanted to teach her that life isn’t about perfection, and that there’s no shame in learning, even if it costs you sometimes.
Raquel was raised by my Tio Castel. She grew into the embodiment of femme fatale. Rocky took me away from my internal thoughts as she began wrapping my hair in a cotton towel. She walked me to her salon chair, facing me towards her vanity mirror, the lantern light fixtures hanging above the mirror casting their light upon the dark, cold room. “You know what they say, right? A gal who cuts her hair is about to change her life.” She stared at me back in the mirror. I smiled. I liked that.
