A river wails. At noon, a heartbroken sky. Clouds above fight and break up, las nubes fall apart and so rain pours on a valley of Quito. Their white heavenly bodies unfold into the Machángara river, and el río gurgles and swallows the sky whole. It feeds off heartbreak, this river of shrieks. Quiteños who keep their hands steady on the bridge’s rail listen to the valley’s brown and viscous water bubble and cry. The glutted river roars the names of all the drowned, from rainclouds en el cielo to the young women with hair down to their waist, the ones with tattoos on their wrists and hickies on their clavicles, the ones who keep their eyeliner wings sharp and their glasses smudged, the ones who texted it’s over, ya nada an hour ago.
Today the Machángara river opens its jaw and weeps Zoraida.
The webbing of her fingers tickled by hair on Nacho’s knees. With each thump, Nacho groans into Zoraida’s back. His nose catching beads of sweat lingering on her skin, like fruit waiting to be plucked. After, Zoraida visits his bathroom where she sits on the toilet and discerns piles of used cardboard rolls amassed into a flimsy castle. In Nacho’s muggy shower, dishwashing liquid perched next to his two-in-one shampoo. The label reads Quita Manchas. Will it remove all stains. Next to Zoraida, a sink inky with blue toothpaste dollops.
Nacho waits for her back on the couch with a Pilsener beer cap pinned between teeth and a smile so big she counts beyond a thousand canines. Zoraida presses the warm Pilsener bottle up to her face, the beer foam crashing against her lips, yeast sizzling.
There once was a pair of untied black Converse tossed on a beach. River pebbles caught and strung by damp shoelaces. A couple of feet rubbing sand, each other. Then un grito. Some quiteños describe it as a cry. The young man and woman perk up, wipe their lips, and listen. A scream echoes the riverbank and bounces off the brown water and runs into them.
Where’s all the yelling coming from? he had asked.
And she responded, It’s not a yell, it’s a sob.
Quiteños like to tell this next part in a whisper. Their mouths shrinking into a tiny cave where secrets and violence inhabit. El Machángara river that hails from a volcanic glacier and later empties itself and everything in its way out in the Pacific grabs the ankles of the young woman and drags her into itself. She screams, too, as the water opens wide and bites.
Be careful with el río traga-muchachas, they coined it. The river that eats women. Machángara’s appetite insatiable, its strength unparalleled. At night, when rain falls from a heartbroken sky, the river weeps and from its frothing and foaming mouth retches the names of prey.
It wasn’t good, she says to Ari as they lay on the university’s main lawn, palms intertwined. Ants crawl on their bodies and backpacks. Turtles float on the campus lake alongside cigarette butts. Zoraida shifts and places her thigh above Ari’s. Last night’s rain lives deep in the grass’ mud, and the ground below them shifts. Ari lets out a sigh and pinches Zoraida’s leg.
Ow! she responds. It was just all so . . . gross, Zoraida continues.
You didn’t even give him a try, Ari replies, rolling her eyes.
What is a one-night stand but a try? Zoraida says.
Nacho’s one of the good ones, Ari insists. He’s like really good friends with Pablo.
Yeah, that’s not a good measure of worth to me, Zoraida replies, smiling. And I don’t think that’s true—there aren’t any good ones. None of them are. He also bought me Pilsener, Zoraida laughs.
Guácala, Ari exclaims.
Yeah, I know.
So, that’s it? Ari asks, using the tip of her tongue to explore the cracks of her bottom lip. Her lips have been parched since her morning class. They’re dry just like the back of her throat; it aches in red.
What?
Y’all had sex one night y ya? Ari asks and coughs with an open mouth. She chokes after ya.
Ew, Zoraida says, dodging her best friend’s germs. What do you mean ya? she asks. Zoraida lets go of Ari’s hand and props herself up with her elbows digging into wet grass. What’s the problem?
No, nothing, Ari replies, also perking herself up. Some grass stains slashing her blue button-up shirt. No problem, she says.
Wings clap above them. On the tree that likes to use its hanging limb to sometimes poke at nearby turtles lands a gallinazo, a black vulture that hisses when students get too close, especially men who sometimes pick up rocks from the ground and aim their tosses at the winged beast. Today the scavenger rests its talons near Zoraida and Ari, leaning closer and opening the gaping ear that hides inside its skull to listen.
Ari looks at her phone and in between vulture barks says, Pablo’s supposed to see me before his chemistry class.
And now it’s Zoraida’s turn to roll her eyes. Ari turns to face her bestie and spots the freckles that form zebra stripes on her button nose, the lunar she carries inside her eyeball, the eyebrows that like to meet in the middle and the tiny hairs on top of Zordaída’s plump lips, los pelitos she never lets Ari wax. Zoraida’s mouth opens and closes, lips shimmering.
I said Ugh, Pablo, Zoraida repeats.
Umm, yeah, I know, Ari replies, her cheeks turning pink. Nothing I can do about that, she adds.
Ari’s boyfriend Pablo drags his feet when he walks on the lawn. The gallinazo frowns as he approaches the tree. Turtles scatter away.
Ari? Pablo says, his hands sitting in his hoodie’s pocket. Let’s go, he asks. A tall Pablo towers over the young women, the sun behind him crowning his head.
Hola, Pablo, Zoraida waves. I’m fine, how are you?
Hola, Zoraida, he says back, eyes on Ari. The couple walks off, Ari waving goodbye at a Zoraida whose long hair when loose reaches the back of her knees.
As they enter the Guayasamín arts building, Pablo says, I don’t know why you keep hanging out with her. He lets out a sigh. Today, his breath smells like mint with a hint of beer.
With my best friend? Ari asks.
She’s such a slut, Pablo replies, shaking his head. He removes his hoodie cap to reveal a buzzcut.
No, she isn’t, Ari says. University students walk by, some bumping into her backpack. I really wish you’d stop saying that about Zoraida, Ari says, placing her palm on Pablo’s spiky hair. It pokes her skin, akin to a stab.
Pablo leans over, like a kitten who likes to be petted. I’m just looking out for you, he says, edging closer. Nacho told me she just left right after. I mean, who does that. Someone with no feelings.
Ari rolls her eyes and simpers. I have to go to my tejido workshop, she says, placing her hand on her dry neck. She clears her throat and has trouble swallowing.
I’m just saying, Pablo continues. She throws herself at whatever comes her way. Es una sucia, Pablo claims, shaking his head. Anyways, I’m late for chem. Can’t keep walking you to art all the time. He lands a wet kiss on her forehead.
She wipes it off and clears her throat again.
Chao? she says to Pablo’s back.
Ari leans on the hall’s wall and thinks of the elfin spots across Zoraida’s nose, how sometimes they scrunch up when she laughs too hard, how they have been there since forever, since she and Zoraida were so small they’d intertwine their bodies and fit perfectly on her tiny mattress, and then she thinks of Nacho kissing those zebra stripes, of Nacho running his tongue across her face, and she bites her cracked bottom lip until she bleeds.
nachosconqueso: daleeeeee, no seas así. i know you like me, i know you wanna go out with me :p let’s get beers or something
ZozoArisVersion: i mean i guess i once did. i don’t anymore. don’t text me anymore, nacho. chaooo see you around campus okay?
nachosconqueso: pero por que, i dont understand
ZozoArisVersion: dude just stop, i’m not playing. ya nada.
nachosconqueso: eres una puta
ZozoArisVersion: great, thanks.
nachosconqueso: no, no. no puta. zorra. you totally used me
ZozoArisVersion: gracias, nachito.
nachosconqueso: zoraida? more like zorraida.
ZozoArisVersion: you’re so funnyyyyy fuckkkkk. blocked.
When a body is missing, the police turn to the vultures. They don’t search the black bird’s mandible to see what dead thing is entombed in its mouth. They look for what the beasts drag out of Machángara, hooked claws gripping bruised shoulders and torn skin. The gallinazos haul bodies and when the river that wails tries to pry the dead back in with its wave fingers, the birds open their mouths and yelp like pigs crying, a sound so distinctly human.
When a body is missing, when a young woman never comes home, when the Text me when you get there message is left unread, the police eye the riverscape for an obsidian bird towing las olvidadas from el río lloron, fighting shrieking with shrieking.
Zorraida can see the messages reflected on Ari’s irises. She scrolls Zoraida’s phone—some of the screen gunk now embedded in her fingerprints—and bites her bottom lip, teeth pulling skin. Their backs lay on the vulture tree. One of its limbs pets a lake turtle.
Ass, right? A total ass, Zoraida says, placing her head on Ari’s shoulder.
I mean, his feelings are hurt, Ari says, her eyesight on that last Nacho message.
So he gets to call me a slut because he has a broken heart? Zoraida crosses her arms.
No, but you should understand where he’s coming from. He feels used, she says, her voice raspy.
Are you feeling better from your throat sickness? Has it turned into a fever? Because you sound delusional, Zoraida replies. Dudes do this all the time.
Ari hands Zoraida’s phone over, a sweat thumb print lingering on the screen. Zoraida closes the messaging app with a click.
You kind of do this a lot. Offer yourself up to others and then take it away from them, Ari says, those last words cracking.
Take it away from them?
You know what I mean, Ari coughs.
No, I really don’t, Zoraida pulls her head back.
Ari sets her eyes on Zoraida’s and spots her freckles.
You are Zorraida. Like, own up to it, Ari can’t do anything but whisper these lines at her best friend. She taps Zoraida’s phone and realizes the time. When Ari stands up, strands of grass descend on Zoraida’s lower body.
I’m going home, Ari hisses. I’m meeting Pablo later.
As Ari walks away, Zoraida looks at herself on the phone’s dark mirror. Freckles upon freckles. She opens up the Nacho messages and begins to type. A nearby tree branch slithers down to Zoraida’s side and parks a twig on her shoulder.
Zorraida and Ari, pinkies intertwined on Ari’s tiny bed. Breasts filling up training bras and Blink 182 blasting on the stickered boom box. Their free hands running down their navels, searching for warmth. Toes curled, knees quivered, and when blood rushed up to their heads, they turned to each other, eyes on lips, and smiled, metal brackets glistening underneath lava lamp light.
A grin of countless teeth radiating below her. As Zoraida glides and steadies herself with Nacho’s sofa cushions, she realizes she wants to be anywhere but here. Perhaps at the beach of a river where some like to drink beer and then plant glass shards in sand for other’s feet to find and cut and gash and bleed amongst the river that likes to feed. Or maybe on Ari’s bed, pinkies locked into a promise.
When she’s done, she wants to tell Nacho to never touch her again. But instead, thinking of Zorraida, she says, Thanks, but I’m going to go now. I’ll text you later. She buttons up her ripped jeans. And when Nacho grabs her hand and kisses it, the words You’re disgusting bubble up from her mouth and vomit out. A Pilsener glass bottle shatters.
Ari clears her throat. It’s been forever since she uttered a word. The university’s health center doctor said the disease should go away on its own. A common cold that’s made her voiceless. That virus is really spreading around this semester, the young doctor had said, scribbling away on his clipboard. All my girls mute, he smiled.
One of the last things Ari uttered was Zorraida.
Today, she leans her torso on the Machángara river bridge in this valley of Quito, the metal bar tingling her belly button. She waits to hear Zoraida’s name belched by the river, since Ari herself can’t say it aloud anymore. A mute Ari thinks of Zoraida’s neck and how it smelled like lavender that day below the vulture tree. She thinks of freckles on freckles.
Below her, Machángara overflows with trash from quiteños and las olvidadas. Vultures hover above Ari and scowl. They’re close, fleas shedding from their black feathers and landing on her. Foam is spat from the river onto her feet. It’s close, it’s reaching. El río llora and shrieks the names of the young women tossed in, drowned in, the women it curled its waves and pulled in by their heels.
Machángara roars Zoraida’s name. Ari weeps, too. El río froths up Ari’s legs, washing her toes into espuma. Machángara who snakes its way down an alley of fire collecting trash, animals, and us, bubbles and gurgles and gulps the foam that is Ari and after devouring with such melancholia cries Ariel.
