A New Story by Leslie Blanco (fiction ’07) Appears in SOUTHERN HUMANITIES REVIEW

A Sane Person Doesn’t Do Something Like That

Guanajay, Cuba Late 1957

“HOW MUCH?” Hector said.

In the foyer of their apartment, Yvelis hesitated. It was a delicate thing, to ask her husband for money. Hector never set foot in the bodega, never paid ten centavos to the baker for a loaf of bread, but Hector knew what things cost. If Yvelis asked for too much, he might get suspicious, not enough and Hector would reprimand her later. He liked to go to the bank only once a week. And they had no children. Nothing at all to soften him.

Yvelis calculated avocados, eggs, the milk bill paid weekly to the delivery man, fish if it looked good. “Six,” she said. “Six pesos.”

Hector’s eyes flipped down to the bankbook. He frowned, wrote the amount down, did his own calculations.

They played this game every Tuesday. More often if she wanted something unnecessary: shoes, a dress, a new hat. They’d lived in the one-­bedroom apartment overlooking the square since their wedding almost four years ago, but Yvelis knew Hector had money to buy a house. He was a lawyer for some of Batista’s people. For Batistianos. Who were building high-rises on every street corner in Vedado so air conditioned you could catch influenza just by standing outside and looking in.

Read the rest of the story at this link: http://www.southernhumanitiesreview.com/542-leslie-blanco-a-sane-person-doesnt-do-something-like-that.html