Love on the Ledge by Zoraida Cordova Page B

replacements for. That’s why I took to wearing Pepe’s hand-me-downs. If my Dad didn’t like the food, he’d scrape his plate into the garbage and tell my mother he’d had better. If Pepe was watching TV, he’d berate him and call him lazy, even though he knew well that Pepe went to night school after his shifts at the restaurant.
    Sure, Xandro is tall, handsome, polished. But there’s something in the undercutting tone of his words, the demand, the need to bend other people to his will. That was my father. I used to stay away from Latin guys for this reason exactly. But Bradley had some of the same qualities. It has nothing to do being brown or white, it’s something that runs deep in their hearts.
    “I’ll tell you one thing,” Pepe says. “Xandro's not going nowhere. Not the way he’s got his eyes on you.”
    “If you don’t want him,” Emily, a petite, buxom girl, winks at me. “I’ll take him.”
    “Have at it,” I say, pulling the dress over my head. I switch back to my sundress and step out of the curtain.
    “You don’t want that,” Vera tells Emily. “Men who take too long to get dressed are hiding something.”
    “Yeah,” Pepe says, “their boyfriends.”
    “Pepe,” I say, “how are you so calm right now?”
    Pepe takes the stretch of fabric scrap and folds it neatly on the table. “Believe me, I’m not. I’m so nervous I could shit bricks.”
    “Please don’t,” Vera says, deadpan. “Ze carpet is white.”
    “Do you remember what I was like before I met Tony?”
    “You certainly wore fewer jewel tones,” I say.
    Emily snickers and champagne comes out of her nose. Vera makes a face and shoves a box of tissues towards her.
    “I was wound up. It was right after I had gotten the apprenticeship at Valerio Guzman.”
    “Ohmigod I love their purses,” Emily says. “Not as much as yours, Pepe.”
    “That’s my girl. Anyway, I was happy. I threw myself into my work. I fell into a routine of coming and going. But there was something missing. It was like a part of me was still sleeping, even though I was out, loud, and proud. When I saw him—I had no idea if he was gay or straight—suddenly I came awake. All of me. He’d dropped a bunch of files on the way out of the elevator, and I normally took the steps, but for some reason I decided not to that day. And he didn’t usually take his lunch break at that time, but he got held up.”
    “Was it love at first sight?” Emily asks.
    “Yes,” Pepe says, “and no. I knew that I needed to know more about that man. I needed him in my life. But I was too afraid that he wouldn’t feel the same way. There’s no such thing as gaydar. People like to think that it’s real, but when so many men and women spend their lives trying to hide a precious part of themselves, there’s no kind of radar that’ll detect it if it doesn’t want to be found.”
    “So what did you do?” Vera asks.
    “I went into the elevator, of course. He apologized and we went our separate ways. But then…” Pepe smiles a mile wide. “I made sure to be downstairs at the elevator every day. It wasn’t until we started dating that Tony told me he wasn’t going anywhere. He’d just go downstairs to see me, then after I got in the elevator, he’d go back to his office.”
    “That’s so sweet,” Emily says.
    It’s my favorite story. Pepe and Tony are the only couple I know that really fit together. If anyone can convince me that love is a real thing and marriage isn’t just an outdated tradition, it’s them.
    “Who made the first move?” Emily asks.
    Pepe laughs, and his cool-as-a-cucumber persona is back. “He did, of course.”
    “When did you know?” I ask him after a long silence. “That Tony was the one?”
    Pepe takes a needle from between his lips and stabs it in the pin cushion at his side.
    “I didn’t,” he says. “I was in the closet for so long, I didn’t think it was an option for me. It’s a different time now. But back then,