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Quinceañera
By
Hester Young
In the photographs, I am
like a pale and smiling bride. My hair falls in perfect unnatural
curls; my dress is a blinding, virginal white. I am fifteen years
old, a young woman at last. “Que linda,” the old women
say, “how pretty you look. And that boy--so handsome!” They
gaze nostalgically at the photos, reminded of their own quinceañera
back in Havana. They sigh. “Que linda,” they say again,
and I nod, I smile, I don’t tell them how the dress itched and
it was too hot and I just wanted to cry and cry. I know it’s not
me they are admiring in those pictures, but the memory it conjures
up of their own girlhood, we left Cuba, before our world went
wrong.
***
I wake up drenched in sweat,
my head throbbing. Through the doorway I can make out my mother
running around our apartment, frantically preparing food. Her
friend Elvira has come over to help, but as far as I can tell, she’s
just making a nuisance of herself.
“More garlic,” she says,
peering over my mother’s shoulder. My mother is stirring
something over the stove, yuca con mojo maybe, and she
whirls on Elvira in annoyance.
“I’ve got it,” she
says, “go take care of the plátanos.” She notices that
I am awake and gestures for me to get out of bed.
I roll off the thin
mattress, unfolding my skinny limbs as one might unfold a rusted
lawn chair. Already the heat in our small apartment has become
oppressive, and the air, thick with the Miami summer and my
mother's steaming pots, is difficult to breathe. I run a hand
through my damp hair and rub the sleep from my eyes.
My mother looks me up and
down. “You’re a mess,” she tells me, “you better wash
yourself. And no dawdling. We have to be ready when your guests
arrive.”
I roll my eyes at the words
“your guests.” My mother has handpicked every one of the
fifteen girls that will be coming today. I suppose the idea is to
pretend that I have friends, or at least the kind of friends that
she approves of: pious, well groomed, and unfailingly polite. This
party was not my idea, but my mother is determined to adhere to
tradition, even if it kills her. Even if it kills me, which
is more likely.
“For God’s sake, Marisol,”
Elvira chides, “it wouldn’t kill you to smile! It’s your fiesta
de quince! Aren’t you excited?” I shrug, and she shakes a
finger at me. “Come on, look lively!”
Actually, I feel about as
lively as the pig hanging in our backyard. My father and my
brother, Teo, have strung it up and stand admiring it when I go
outdoors.
“Lechón,” Papi
says, licking his lips with false cheer. “Can’t beat roast
pork, right?”
Normally, I would agree with
him, but today the sight of the pig swaying slightly in the breeze
turns my stomach. I want to ask him how much it cost: the food,
the drinks, my new dress, the band, the photographer they’ve
hired. I know we can’t afford this.
In the beginning, I fought
them. I didn’t want a quinceañera, I said. I
didn't have any friends here. It would be embarrassing to have to
find fifteen girls to invite. My fiesta de quince would be
more like a fiesta de dos.
“The girls at school,”
my mother suggested when I bemoaned the guest list. I didn't tell
her that they made fun of my accent at school, laughed at my
stumbling attempts at English. I didn't tell her that American
girls cared about Sweet Sixteen parties, that a fifteenth birthday
meant nothing here.
“They don't speak Spanish,”
I mumbled. “Anyway, it will cost too much.”
Still, my mother remained
determined.
“Why do you care so much?”
I asked. “It’s not your stupid birthday.”
“Don't you get fresh with
your mother,” she warned, wagging her finger. “It's tradition.
Being away from home makes these things more important than ever.”
Important to who? I wonder
now, as I gaze at the dead pig. Certainly not important to the
birthday girl.
I watch my father try to
look enthusiastic, and observe my brother, who’s not even
trying. I suspect he’s had to pay for this too, money he was
saving so he could marry Lourdes. If I didn’t know Lourdes, I
might feel truly guilty. It's not that she's a bad person
exactly--just sometimes overwhelmingly good. My brother's novia
loves God so desperately there's nothing left for rest of us.
She told me once she would have been a nun, except that she loves
babies.
As we prepare for my party,
I try to think the kind of pure and holy thoughts that come so
effortlessly to Lourdes. I am not terribly successful. The morning
is much too hot, and it takes my mother a full hour to style my
hair to her satisfaction. I’ve bathed and dressed myself in the
absurdly stiff, starched white dress she has picked out. My mother
alternately fusses with my hair, stirs ajiaco, and quarrels
with Elvira about the food. Elvira decides, amidst the chaos of
our overcrowded kitchen, that they should start a catering
business.
“It would fill a gap in
the market, you know,” she tells my mother, who nods and tries
to reply through a mouthful of bobby pins. “Everyone has these
family events,” Elvira persists, “but no one wants to do the
cooking.” I shift uncomfortably in my chair, bored by their
talk. My belly is aching, and my scalp itches from the hair
curlers.
“Hold still!” my mother
exclaims, dribbling pins as she speaks. Elvira continues with her
catering plans, getting more and more excited until my mother
interjects, “I don’t think the husbands would like it.”
(Turn
the page)
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