The Empanada Brotherhood Read Online Free PDF Page B

but more complete.
    Slowly, I scanned that book, whispering sentences aloud. I reread the last fifteen pages, which left me cold. How could this be? Nervously, I changed some punctuation and made other corrections. I wondered: How could you work so hard on a book and yet remain ambivalent?
    Then I decided to rewrite the college romance one more time, and after that I would attempt to get it published.

13. Death of a Crooner
    My Argentine pals could not resist the lure of Rockefeller Center during the holiday season. Alfonso, Luigi, and I took a bus up there and walked around for an afternoon. We bumped into Eduardo, who tagged along with us as we ogled the enormous decorated tree and the gold statue of Prometheus. We gazed at rich people skating circles at the ice rink. In St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Luigi and Eduardo lit several candles.
    â€œWho are you lighting them for?” Alfonso asked.
    â€œI am lighting this candle for my own face,” Luigi answered.
    Eduardo said, “I am lighting this candle so God will strike down my wife, Adriana, with a thunderbolt.”
    â€œShe’s not your wife, she’s your ex-wife,” Luigi reminded him.
    Alfonso lit one taper for Renata, his volatile Argentine lover, and another for Sofía, his pragmatic Buenos Aires girlfriend.
    â€œI’m playing it safe,” he explained. “Like Henry the Eighth.”
    We mingled with the crowds and ate hot chestnuts and bought four green cookies shaped like evergreen trees. Bells rang, carols played, and everyone had rosy cheeks. Alfonso showed us the building where Diego Rivera had done a mural that the Rockefellers destroyed because it depicted the face of Lenin. Eduardo complained that he hadn’t been laid ever since Adriana began dating the “pimp.”
    We went window-shopping up one side of Fifth Avenue to the Plaza Hotel at Fifty-ninth Street and down the other sidetoward Forty-second Street. Cheery colored lights blinked around displays of jewelry on beds of angel hair. I wanted to buy Cathy Escudero a Christmas present. I wanted to spend all the dollars I could earn over a year for a gold bracelet, a string of pearls, or a pair of diamond earrings from Tiffany’s or Van Cleef & Arpels.
    Instead, Eduardo borrowed ten bucks from me. “I’m broke. I forgot my wallet.” That cleaned me out. “Don’t worry, blondie, I’ll give it back when next we meet at the kiosk.”
    Luigi halted dead in his tracks. A beautiful woman was approaching us, tall and brunette, wearing silver hoop earrings and a knee-length mink coat. Her hair bounced against her shoulders with great verve and she had an air of self-satisfied gaiety. She carried no packages so her arms were swinging freely.
    The burnt man spread his hands wide apart and, in heavily accented English, proclaimed to the universe, “Look at this beautiful woman!”
    The lady stopped, contemplating our comrade with a perplexed frown. Then she brightened, laughing. “And you are a beautiful guy.” She walked right up to Luigi, kissed him on the cheek—“Merry Christmas, little man”—and continued on her way.
    â€œWhat about
me
?” Eduardo called after her in Spanish. To us he moaned, “You see? Adriana has cursed me. When we were married I had a dozen chicas on the side. Now that I’m ‘free’ they ignore me because I’m a cuckold.”
    When we reached Forty-second Street Alfonso said, “Let’s go into the library.”
    We crossed the avenue. Two small boys were sitting astride one of the concrete lions while their father took a picture. Inside, Alfonso led us upstairs to the newspaper reading room. He checked out a
New York Times
microfilm and we gathered around him while he searched for the day that Argentina’s famous singer Carlos Gardel had died—Monday, June 24, 1935.
    An article explained that after a successful Bogotá concert, Gardel’s