How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (2)

I told La Profesora—she dresses like a teacher from the TV, with the blusa buttoned all the way up to her neck—I’m too old to learn.

No, Cara. If you apply yourself, you’ll learn to write English. I promise you. You can even go to college.

Ha! I laughed so hard I peed in my panties. This is what happens to women who have their babies natural. I carry extra panties in my purse and never leave my house without a Kotex.

How many children do you have? ?Cómo? What are you waiting for? You don’t want to have children? Listen to me: Don’t wait until you get too old.

Lulú says that a person is never too old to do anything, especially to study. She said our neighbor La Vieja Caridad can go to college if she wanted to.

She’s ninety years old! It makes no sense.

But why not? Lulú says. In New York, a lot of old people go to college.

Imagine if I live until ninety like La Vieja Caridad. I could go to college and work for another twenty years in una oficina or something.



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In the Dominican Republic it’s not easy to progress, but in New York La Escuelita is making me think I can dream. I learned many new things. I even have an email now. Did you know that?

Lulú is LuLu175 and I am Carabonita.

Hola, Lulú. ?Cómo estás? Soy yo, Cara.

Ding! The computer tells us we got email.

Hola, cabroncita! Soy yo, Lulú.

Ding!

It’s Carabonita!

Ding!

I know, cabroncita.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

And now I get many emails. Most of them are from Alicia the Psychic. One day, when I looked for my horoscope, I found Alicia through a button: FREE PSYCHIC READING. Of course I clicked it. It was La Profesora who said that the best way to learn how to navigate the internet is if we explore our interests.

Dear Carabonita,

I am delighted to hear from you. I can see that you are anxious for news to unblock all the obstacles in your path. Open my invitation to learn more about what awaits. For a small fee …


Your loving friend,

Alicia

In the beginning, Lulú read them for me, but the emails kept coming every day, and so Lulú showed me how to translate the email from English to Spanish. So easy. Click.

I am enchanted to know about you.

I have news from your personal protector.



When I get that email, I swear to you, the lights on the ceiling went on and off like in a discoteca.

Alicia the Psychic wrote to me even though I never sent her money.

She’s a robot! Lulú said.

Impossible, I said.

Every time I checked my email there was a message from Alicia the Psychic who told me she was losing sleep because my protectors were keeping her awake at night.

La Profesora said to be careful of scams. Email is full of them. She said people like us are the perfect target.

People like us?

I told her and Lulú that I know what is real and not. I am not a pendeja.



* * *



Tell me, you educated dominicana taking all those notes: What do you really think about me? You think there’s hope for me? Ay, qué bueno.

When La Escuelita recomendó I join this program so I can do interview practice, I said, Interview for what? And La Profesora said, For all the jobs you’ll try for! Ha! Between you and me, she’s very positiva, so she’s hard to trust. Be honest: Do you really believe there’s a job for me? Really? I’ve never heard of people that find a job without a key.

The news said this country is in a crisis! Nobody has jobs. It’s the most great recession since the Depression, when the people didn’t have cars and still made pee in pots. Well, maybe our building had toilets, but you understand what I’m saying. La Vieja Caridad, who lives in my building, remembers. She came from the revolutionaries of Cuba, José Martí and all those people. They lived in New York before the telephone and the electricity. For sure, they had no toilets that flushed. Our building didn’t exist. She says there were more trees than people.

Yesterday in the news, I saw a lawyer with two children and a wife, so desperate that he took a job in Wendy’s around here—not even downtown. Things are bad. More bad than bad. It’s just like in Santo Domingo: when there is no fresh bread, you eat casava. I never thought the banks in the United States would rob people. But now I see that this country is like that fisherman with fast hands on the beach who shows you the big fat fish, but when he cooks, he says it shrink.



* * *



My money situation? It’s OK right now because I get El Obama checks, but the only people I know who are prepared for the crisis are my sister ángela and her husband, Hernán. They saved money for many years to buy a house in Long Island. Hernán doesn’t want to leave our building because he can walk to work in the hospital every day, but ángela, she detests Washington Heights. Pero detests. So every weekend they go to look for houses.

Remember early in the nineties, when things were so bad that you could buy an apartment downtown for $100,000? Maybe you’re too young to remember. What age do you have? Thirty-five? Forty?

Wait, I didn’t mean to offend. Of course, you look like a teenager.

What I wanted to tell you is that in the past ángela and I, every weekend, went to look for apartments to dream. Now she dreams with Hernán. But I remember seeing an apartment in the street Eighty or Eighty-one, in front of Riverside—you know, where the rich live? You couldn’t put an entire bedroom set in those rooms, only a bed, maybe a queen, and one of those tall bureaus. But the windows looking to the trees: wow. In those days, there were so many apartments like that, cheap. Now that same apartment costs more than one million dollars. I’m serious. Look it up!