|
(Continued)
Elvira snorts. “If it gets
food on the table...” she begins.
“Teofilo chokes on any
food he thinks he didn’t earn,” my mother says, which is true.
Even though our family needs the money, my father hates letting my
mother work. That’s not what she married him for, Papi says. If she’s
going to work, he says, he might as well just keep house and have
the babies. My mother says that would be fine by her, but as far
as I can see, she’s still the one keeping house and my father
has yet to ever wash his own dish.
Papi didn’t get a job for
almost a year after we arrived in Miami. He said it was just a
matter of time before the government toppled, and we could get by
until then. Every month, it became harder and harder to “get by,”
and finally my father decided he would need to start working
again. The trouble was, the American government wouldn’t let him
practice law here. His English wasn’t good enough to pass the
tests. For weeks, he moped around our motel room--we didn’t have
an apartment back then--complaining about the ridiculousness of
the country we were in.
My mother must have got
tired of his whining, because the next thing we knew, she was
employed for the first time in her life. She came home one day and
announced, “I have a job.” So my mother was working at a
sewing factory doing piecework, and then Teo went and got a job
picking tomatoes in Boca Raton, and finally my father realized he’d
better find something, too.
If my mother and Elvira
started up some little business, Papi would quite possibly drop
dead of embarrassment. I do feel for him, because I know he liked
doing law, and the stuff he does now--pumping gas or delivering
food--is not exactly intellectually challenging. It’s hard not
to be angry with him, though, for seeming so pathetic. He doesn’t
try anymore, and he gets grouchy when my mother does.
After seemingly endless
fussing, my mother takes a few steps away from me and admires her
handiwork. My dark hair now falls in perfectly symmetrical curls
that have been pinned so severely they don’t dare bounce, even
when I jump up from my seat.
“Where are you going?”
she calls after me. “Don’t muss yourself up!”
Ada is one of the first
guests to arrive. She wears lipstick one shade redder than my
mother will allow, and even a big frilly party dress can’t hide
her curves. I don’t bother feeling jealous. Ada is perhaps the
only real friend I have who will be attending my quinceañera,
though to call her a friend implies an equality that doesn’t
really exist between us. Ada is more like a big sister. She’s
eighteen, the kind of girl who has a different boyfriend every
week. My mother says she is loose, but after extensive
conversations with Ada, I know my mother’s wrong--though maybe
not entirely. Loose, by my mother’s standards, could imply as
little as kissing, holding hands even. I’ve always wished Ada
would marry Teo. She would be a more exciting addition to the
family than Lourdes.
We cruise through the
backyard arm in arm, Ada and I, as my mother and Elvira set out
the last of the food on a picnic table. As usual, Ada has a secret
to tell me. And, as usual, it’s about a boy.
“Promise you won’t tell,”
she says, and I promise. “Okay,” she takes a deep breath. “You
know that boy who lives next door to me?”
“The americano?”
I ask, eyebrows raised, but she doesn’t answer because her
mother has come over to congratulate me, the birthday girl. In no
time I’m besieged by a slew of well-wishing guests, and Ada
disappears into the crowd with a dreamy smile.
“Que linda,” the
women tell me, and the men make suggestive jokes which don’t
quite overstep the bounds of decency, trying to flatter me. The
boys my age stand around awkwardly, scratching themselves,
sweating in the heat, or picking at the food my mother’s put
out. The bolder ones, Antonio and Pedro Morales, strike up a chat
with the prettier girls my mother has invited. I wouldn’t mind
talking to one of the Morales brothers myself, but even all
dressed up, I know I’m still very plain.
The band starts up, a Beny
Moré song that pleases all the parents. I’m plotting how to get
a dance with Pedro when Ada breezes by me and latches onto my arm.
I excuse myself from the crowd of bustling women and follow her.
We’ve hardly taken two steps when she whispers, “I’m
engaged!” I turn to her, not especially startled, and ask who
the boy is. “The americano,” she reminds me, “John.
From next door.”
I stare at her. This is a
different story. “Does your mother know?”
“Shh,” she tells me, “of
course not. But I love him so much.”
“He doesn’t speak
Spanish!” I point out.
“Well, I know,” she says
with a shrug.
“You hardly speak English!”
Ada pouts at me, and I can
see why the boys love her so much. “Marisol,” she says, “it’s
love. I mean, we don’t need words to communicate
the important things.”
I wonder how they do
communicate. Maybe my mother is right about Ada being loose. “Does
his family know about you?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “He
hasn’t told them yet. I mean, they won’t like it. They want
him to marry someone white, of course.”
“But Ada,” I say, “you
are white.”
“Well, sure,” Ada
agrees, “but they wouldn’t think so. I’m not, you know, American.
Anyway, they’ll get used to it. So will my parents. They’ll
have to. It will be okay.”
I sit down and consider this
for a moment. “But what about your family? Do you really want to
stay here all alone when they go back to Cuba?”
(Turn
the page)
|
