Dirty Girls on Top

Chapter OneUsnavysso, youknowI'm not a hoochie, okay? But an unhappy marriage can make a woman do questionable things. Things she's not proud of, things she only tells her closest friendsand even then with the understanding that, if they blab about it, they'll get their butts kicked. So it is,m'ija, that I am cheating on my husband at a big adobe resort outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have never cheated on him before, and I'm not sure I'll do it again. Alls I knew was I had to do it just this once.My college friends, thesuciaswho've been my support network for fifteen yearssince we met as freshmen at Boston Universitywill arrive here in a few days for our annual vacation trip, a tradition we started two years ago. Me, though? I flew here from Boston yesterday to take care of some personalbusiness. A seven-year-itch kind of thing, only a little early. I am not proud of it. I decided I'd seduce the golf pro after I saw his photo in the brochure for the resort. I learned what I could about him, and I concocted my strategy. It worked.My husband, Juan? He'd looked up at me through his smudgy Clark Kent eyeglasses over the morning paper across the breakfast table before I left yesterday, his curly black hair sticking up all greasy wherever it wasn't receding. "Why are you going early,mi reina?" he wanted to know.Reinameans queen, and to him, I'm still an empress. He doesn't know about the golf pro, and I don't think you should tell him, either.I told Juan I wanted to get to the resort early, to observe some outreach programs having to do with Latinas and AIDS in New Mexico, for my work as an executive with the United Way of Massachusetts Bay. It sounded very official when I said it, and he was duly impressed with his empress. "They've been very successful," I assured him, with a wave of my hand. "It's a model that might be emulated here in New England."He believed me,el pobre. He thinks marriagechangedme. For a while Ididchange, too, but now I know better. Listen to me. After ten years of juggling no less than two men at a time, a woman does not just up and change, even though God and the world know there's a piece of paper and shared taxes involved now. I am a "manizer" the same way my daddy was a womanizer. I was to the manor born, as theamericanossay, and, even though I'm not proud of it, I seem to have stayed the way he met me.Juan thinks I'm different because he chooses to see the best in people, even when it isn't there. His heart hallucinates. I know, you think that's a plus, right? Being married to a loving optimist like Juan. Butnena, that's justit. Juan believeseveryoneand he does it indiscriminately. Ain't no backbone inthat. The boy is naive. Back when he had him ajob(ahem), he believed all them drug addicts when they told him they were clean and sober as an Osmond now, he believed them when they said they were going to get jobs and stop doing shit like stealing cars. Then he acted all surprised when they came crawling back into rehab after getting arrested for crime and crack again. I try telling him, people don't change that much,m'ijo, no matter how bad you want them to.Badly. Yes, I know the difference between good and bad grammar; no, I don't give a rat's ass. Whatever, no?This resort is supposed to look like a Pueblo Indian village, like in those Georgia O'Keeffe paintings, where the pastel flower petals look all coochie unfurling in their glistening glory. I think this place looks like a big bunch of caramels all stackeValdes-Rodriguez, Alisa is the author of 'Dirty Girls on Top', published 2008 under ISBN 9780312349677 and ISBN 031234967X.