Donna Buck

Blue Eyes

I run into a Latina acquaintance at the art affair. She greets me warmly as if no time has passed. Takes care of herself, that’s for sure. A little work here and there, she confesses. Tastefully dressed. She lives in an upscale neighborhood far removed from the tourist slums. Darker-skinned nevertheless.

“You guera”, she often teased, a little jealous. “You’re so lucky. I have to stay out of the sun.” Today she scolds me. Tells me I should dye my hair, for heaven’s sake. “I have no interest in coloring my hair”, I tell her. She reminds me I can’t keep a man this way. I bring her up to date and she responds, unrelenting, “You owe it to your son, then”. No, I think. We’re even. After the divorce I got my degree and took care of us alone. Tiny place. Housework after work, the homework, the daily grind. Put him through school. No, I’ve earned the gray and the grandkids, I think.

It is her eyes that give her away. Casually alert as they scan his movement around the room. “He is such a catch,” she smiles, her fair-skinned guero. A bruise on her arm peeks through the chiffon of her cocktail dress.

“Why do you stay?", I ask her. A moment of surprise. Then the automatic smile. Slowly swirling her bracelet, she answers, "Because he has blue eyes. I'm a lucky girl." From the traveling tray she takes another glass.

gliding past cattails
ducks
glance at the hunter