Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The - Junot Diaz [36]
I don’t like him, Beli said. He looks at me.
And now it was his wife who came to the bakery to pick up the cakes. Y El dentista? Beli inquired innocently. That one’s too lazy to do anything, his wife said with no little exasperation.
Beli, who’d been waiting for something exactly like her body her whole life, was sent over the moon by what she now knew. By the undeniable concreteness of her desirability which was, in its own way, Power. Like the accidental discovery of the One Ring. Like stumbling into the wizard Shazam’s cave or finding the crashed ship of the Green Lantern! Hypatia Belicia Cabral finally had power and a true sense of self. Started pinching her shoulders back, wearing the tightest clothes she had. Dios mío, La Inca said every time the girl headed out. Why would God give you that burden in this country of all places!
Telling Beli not to flaunt those curves would have been like asking the persecuted fat kid not to use his recently discovered mutant abilities. With great power comes great responsibility…bullshit. Our girl ran into the future that her new body represented and never ever looked back.
HUNT THE LIGHT KNIGHT
Now fully, ahem, endowed, Beli returned to El Redentor from summer break to the alarm of faculty and students alike and set out to track down Jack Pujols with the great deliberation of Ahab after you-know-who. (And of all these things the albino boy was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?) Another girl would have been more subtle, drawn her prey to her, but what did Beli know about process or patience? She threw everything she had at Jack. Batted her eyes so much at him that she almost sprained her eyelids. Put her tremendous chest in his line of sight every chance she got. Adopted a walk that got her yelled at by the teachers but that brought the boys and the male faculty a-running. But Pujols was unmoved, observed her with his deep dolphin eyes and did nothing. After about a week of this, Beli was going out of her mind, she had expected him to fall instantly, and so, one day, out of shameless desperation, she pretended to accidentally leave buttons on her blouse open; she was wearing this lacy bra she stole from Dorea (who had acquired quite a nice chest herself). But before Beli could bring her colossal cleavage to bear — her very own wave-motion gun — Wei, blushing deeply, ran over and buttoned her up.
You showing!
Jack drifting disinterestedly away.
She tried everything, but no dice. Before you know it Beli was back to banging into him in the hall. Cabral, he said with a smile. You have to be more careful.
I love you! she wanted to scream, I want to have all your children! I want to be your woman! But instead she said, You be careful.
She was morose. September ended and, alarmingly enough, she