Cuba 15 (16 page)

27

The month slipped away, as holiday months do. Bam, it was Thanksgiving weekend. Bam, we were back in school. Triple bam: Señora Wong’s semester projects were due. And Clarence hadn’t asked me out yet. I could’ve asked him, but then I still would never have been invited on a date. I just wanted that experience; then, I swore to myself, I’d ask guys out whenever I felt like it.

Leda and I turned in our paper and were assigned a presentation slot toward the end of the pack. Our audience would be good and bored by that time. Perfect.

Even the vigilant
señora
was having trouble staying awake by the time our turn came. It had been a week filled with piñatas, tacos, and castanets. We were all about fiestaed out. But the party was just getting started.

Señora Wong called our names, and Leda and I waited a rehearsed beat. And another, until our
profesora
started to glower. Then, as one, we rose.

“What you just heard,” I said, “was not the sound of silence.”

“What you just heard,” Leda picked up, “was the sound of contemporary Cuban music being imported into the United States. Because until recently, recordings by Cuban artists were banned in this country, causing a cultural divide.”

“Our presentation will help bridge that divide,” I said, with a wave of feeling as I realized this was true.

“Welcome to the world of Cuban music,” said Leda.

I popped a tape into the machine and faded in on a searing rhumba. A smile played over Señora Wong’s lips.

Let’s just say, if there had been a final round, we would’ve been in it. Leda punched me several times afterward, her equivalent of
muy bien,
and suggested I try out for Oratory next speech season.

But it was this season that was giving me trouble. Over the next few tournaments, my O.C. rounds improved, but not consistently. I would beat “Mary Ann Pimpleberry,” even Vera in one round, only to collapse in the next. Mr. Soloman promised my ranks would even out. “Practice like crazy,” he said. So I did, in my mirror at home, on the bus to tourneys, even on Wednesdays after piano.

With one tournament left before the next onrushing holiday, I thought I was making progress toward nailing the speech every time. I vowed to put everything else aside and concentrate solely on speech. Vera and I had just arranged for an extra afternoon of work when Mom dropped her bombshell.

We were eating dinner, Mom, Mark, and me—Dad was on swing shift. Mom had made lasagna and garlic bread, and I had fixed the salad.

“So I’ll be staying after school on Thursdays, too,” I said. Seeing Mom’s eyes widen, I added, “Just until speech season ends.”

“Well, I have a new schedule to announce, myself.”

Mark and I both looked at her.

“I have decided to start school in January. I told your father this morning.”

Even if our mouths hadn’t been full, we wouldn’t have been able to speak.

“I’ve decided to take some business classes, and you two are going to have some new responsibilities.”

That last familiar reference was eclipsed by the mention of business classes. Mom’s dream, dead? She must have woken up and smelled the
café,
realized she would never get rich in the restaurant world, even with a whole chain of drive-thru Cuban-Polish bakeries. She would now opt for a prestigious and lucrative, but uninspiring, CEO position over her passion for cooking and organizing. I nearly wept, but I had garlic bread in my mouth.

I swallowed. “Mom,” I whimpered, “what about your restaurant plans? The menus, the funny names, the grand openings?”

Mom narrowed her eyes. “Gone.”

Gone?

She smiled. “This will be even better. Drumroll, please.”

Mark obliged with palms on the table until she had to tell him to quit.

“Catering,” she said finally. “Then I can roll all my ideas into one cookie crust. I was thinking, maybe I could start out catering
quince
parties.”

“Catering? But what about the business classes?”

“There’s a lot more to catering than just cooking. I’ll need to know how to run a business. And I can take some other courses I’m interested in too. So I’m quitting the Rise & Walk and enrolling in community college midterm. I’ve got to start sometime.”

I goggled at her. Mark asked if this meant he’d have to quit PONY league baseball. (It was
December,
for God’s sake.) Mom said, “We’ll see.”

I’d have to keep a tighter schedule as well, meeting Mark after school on certain days. I knew this smacked of the dreaded
R
word that Abuela had predicted would be a part of my
quince
year. But priorities had suddenly changed, and I’d have to do my part. My mother had learned a new word.
Fruition.

The Tuesday before our tourney at Forestfield—Evian High—I showed only a little surprise when Mr. Soloman called me into the speech office and told me I’d be working with the head coach that day.

I dropped my books on the floor in disbelief.
“You’ve got
to be kidding!”

“I’m serious as a heart attack, Ms. Paz.” The Ax had come up behind me. “Now, shall we begin?”

I could feel the brown roots of my blondish hair burn red with embarrassment as I hunched over to retrieve my books. Mr. Soloman abandoned me and went off to work with Vera.

The Ax pulled up his desk chair, all business.

“Your coach tells me you’re having trouble with consistency and focus.”

Nothing like a little secondhand criticism to buck you right up. “Um, yeah, that sounds about right. My critiques are never the same. I’ve been scoring 1–6, 2–7, 1–5.”

“Mmmm,” The Ax ruminated, leaning against the desktop.

I tried to swallow my nervousness.

“Let’s see your routine,” he commanded, and I performed.

“Mmmm,” he said again, afterward.

I stood there, waiting for him to pull his thoughts together. How did Leda stand this scrutiny?

Finally, he motioned for me to sit in the chair next to his desk. “You’re losing your narrator,” he diagnosed abruptly. “Start over.”

“Excuse me?”

“Start over as if you were just memorizing your lines, bar by bar, like a musician. Each time, make your narrator be the melody. Your narrator is what holds the piece together.”

He was speaking my language. I nodded. “That’s the way I learn a piano piece by heart. First the bass part, then the treble.”

He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “You’ve got it, Ms. Paz. You obviously don’t need my help there. Just practice like crazy, et cetera, et cetera.”

His matter-of-fact confidence stunned me for a moment, but I managed to look him in the eye. “Thanks, Mr. Axelrod. Thanks a lot.” My gaze involuntarily fell on the desktop, and I stiffened. His wife’s laughing face peeked out of the picture frame at us. And the envelope marked LETTERS covered a sheaf of papers.

The Ax reached for the stack and pulled one out, sighing. “Letters of recommendation. Well, it’s good to see my students going places.”

Oh.

I took this as my cue to leave.

“See you at the tourney, then, Mr. Axelrod. And . . . I’m s-sorry—about going through your stuff and everything.”

He eyed me, not unkindly.

“We all have our bad days. Don’t mention it, Ms. Paz.”

I followed The Ax’s prescription, even though Mark kept sticking his head in my bedroom and telling me to shut up when I repeated the same couple of lines over and over. I ignored him, my eyes fixed somewhere above his beady ones; it was a good focus workout. By Friday night, I could’ve performed my O.C. on a unicycle in the middle of a cattle stampede, with a trick monkey on my back.

“Good luck, Violet,” Vera said the next morning as we found our names on the board.

“Back at you,” I said.

The high school cafeteria was done up in maroon and blue crepe paper, in honor of Forestfield’s home tournament, and Evian bottles sprouted everywhere. The Forestfielders seemed to have a booster club for the speech team; observers filled the rooms. The large audience would have bothered me if not for the last, intense forty-eight hours of work on my focus. An elephant doing the cancan on a bowling ball would not have caused me to bat an eye-lash. My mind was a steel trap.

Guy “Pimpleberry” gave me a sneer as I sat down in my first round. But he and Ms. Infomercial conferred worriedly afterward, glancing back at me in the hallway.

After Round Two, “Dr. Speak Easy” introduced himself as George VanderHouten and said I’d been great. I didn’t want to say I agreed with him wholeheartedly, so I just murmured, “Thanks. You too.”

I hurried to Leda’s Oratory round, but the door had been closed, and crashing the party was a no-no.

The hallway was empty. I walked to an unlocked exit and stuck my head outside the building. The winter sky stretched low and full, one long whale of a nimbus. A cold wind whipped sharply, with a wet snap that promised snow or sleet. Let it be snow, I thought, pulling back and letting the door fall shut.

I wandered back to the cafeteria and joined my teammates to wait for the final-round postings. When they went up, I didn’t rush over right away. I tried to act like I wasn’t even worried.

“Yeah, Violet, I know how you feel,” F. David Worthington said, pushing his chair back and kicking his feet up on the table. “When you’ve made final round so many times, it’s hardly even worth checking.”

I looked at him, suddenly feeling nauseated, and made a beeline for the posters.

Clarence stopped me en route. He gently grabbed me by the forearms in that double grip of his and smiled. “So you’ve made your first final round. Congratulations.”

I turned to jelly. “I . . . did?”

He tried to hold me steady, but I slipped from his grasp and rushed for the posters to make sure it was true.

Unless there was another V. Paz, I was in. I happened to glance over at the coaches’ table and saw Mr. Soloman and The Ax watching me, looking pleased. I pumped a fist at them, grinning like a goon, then checked the clock.

Enough fun and games. It was time to get in character.

28

Miss Sippy. Dr. Speak Easy. Ms. Infomercial. Mary Ann Pimpleberry. The curly-haired guy, whose driver’s ed skit had improved dramatically. And me. The cream of the north suburban Original Comedy crop gathered to compete before a standing-room-only crowd in Room 248 of Forestfield High School. History would be made here today, ladies and gentlemen. I ate an extra sugar cube for luck.

The judge called me second. “Violet—Pazz?”

Surprise! I was actually able to move and speak. I simply imagined Mark sticking his head in the door to bother me, and nothing could shake my concentration.

My siren opening startled the room. I could feel the electricity.

“The story you are about to hear is true. . . .”

Mr. Axelrod would have been proud of me—for about five seconds. I remembered my lines, all right. But I concentrated on them so hard that I rushed my body comedy. People seemed not to get it. After I’d bombed with the conga-line act—and I do mean
no
laughs,
ningún
—even my closing pantomime with the cell bars felt hokey. Today, Marcel Marceau I was not.

Great physical shtick distinguished each of the other acts: Miss Sippy cocked that hip and waggled her neck; Ms. Infomercial overacted her “And, s-t-r-e-t-c-h!”; even Mary Ann Pimpleberry got some laughs with one of those solo hugs that look like you’re making out with yourself. The others gave their characters that third dimension too.

Afterward, teammates who had never spoken to me before came up to offer congratulations anyway. Greg Ibarra, Leda, and Janell joined me in the hall. Janell gave me a huge hug, and Leda punched me in the arm, her highest form of praise.

“Way to go,” said Greg, who looked neat in a suit, with his straight, short dark hair freshly cut and silver wire-rimmed glasses polished.

“Thanks. Where’s Clarence?” I asked, disappointed. “I thought he’d be with you.”

He shook his head. “Extempers do have free will, you know.”

Thud. He’d chosen not to come.

“Besides,” said Greg, “he didn’t want to miss his own final round.”

Soar. “We both made it?” I’d forgotten to read the rest of the finals postings.

Janell was smiling. “And me, in Verse. I had to run to get here in time.”

I squeezed her hand. “This is so great! Come on, let’s go find Mr. S.!”

Forestfield’s drama department has a real 250-seat theater. Speechies filtered in for the awards ceremony and sat in school clusters. Both Mr. Soloman and The Ax shook my hand.

“How’re we doing for team?” I asked them.

“Excellent,” said Mr. Axelrod. “Ten of twelve events went to final, and some doubled up, like Ms. Campbell and yourself.”

Mr. Soloman consulted his clipboard. “But New Beverly South and Forestfield are close contenders.”

Ugh, if Evian High won their own tournament, we’d never hear the end of it.

“Time to chant,” said Leda.
“Nam-myoho-renge-kyo . . .”
She struck a yoga position in her seat. Luckily, she was wearing pants.

Clarence and F. David returned from their Extemp round and sat in front of us. Then Clarence made Greg switch seats with him, ending up by me.

“How’d it go?” I asked. “What was your topic?”

Clarence grimaced. “It was a bear. ‘Why China Deserves Most Favored Nation Trading Status.’ ”

“Why does it?”

“Why doesn’t it?” corrected Clarence. “At least, that was my point. I editorialized. I’m probably disqualified.”

Leda heard this. “Dude, we could use you in Oratory.”

“Save me a place,” he answered wryly.

The house lights dimmed, and a local speech coach started the show.

Torture! Fifteen events to get through, each placing four to six winners, and finally, the team standings. Suspense began to build early on, when F. David took the first-place Extemp ribbon and Clarence was at least officially recognized with fifth place. Clarence came back to his seat and reached over, and I suddenly found myself holding hands with a guy in a dark theater.

Check that one off my list.

As the awards droned on, Tri-Dist took first or second in nearly every event. The theater came alive with adrenalized kids jogging to and from the stage. Then I was one of them.

“And for Original Comedy,” announced the Forestfield coach, “in sixth place, Violet Paz! Fifth place, Guy Chamberlaine . . .” My ears shut down as I concentrated on climbing the stairs, crossing the stage, and accepting my ribbon with the ghost of Father Leone hovering over me. Success! Packing a suitcase full of smiles, I headed back as Vera came forward for her award. Second! And first had gone to the girl from Forestfield, Ms. Infomercial. The hambone actually took the microphone, liter of Evian in one fist, thanked the judges, and said, “And, s-t-r-e-t-c-h!” Mine wasn’t the only groan in the audience.

Janell got fourth place in Verse, and by the time Zeno and Trish took first for their duet, the Tri-Dist speechies were pumped. But Forestfield and New Beverly South had also made a strong showing, with lower ranks, but doubling up in nearly every event.

We were neck and neck and neck.

“And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for,” said the Forestfield coach, taking a swallow from her bottle of Evian. “The team awards.”

By this time, my amphibious palm had fused to Clarence’s larger, spongelike hand. As each place was announced, we both clutched harder.

“Third place, with sixty points: New Beverly South!”

An extremely giddy girl fell all over herself accepting the trophy. “This is for you, Principal Fernandez!” she said with tears in her eyes.

“Second place . . .”

Janell grabbed my other hand and squeezed it.

“with a new team record of sixty-two incredible points . . .”

I couldn’t take the pressure.

“our very own, hardworking, talented team: Forestfield High School!”

Janell and Clarence let go. With inward breaths, we looked at one another. Then a spontaneous cheer rose from the Tri-Dist seats.

“And first place . . . with sixty-three points . . .”

I didn’t hear her finish.

“Ms. Paz,” came a strong, gruff voice in my ear. “You’re on.”

Amid the mad applause, I turned to find The Ax nodding at me.

The team trophy?

“Me?”

“Well, go on, go on.” He waved me away.

And then I was the one falling all over myself, though
not
over the Forestfield coach, as I gripped the first-place team trophy and said through tears into the microphone, “This is the greatest moment of my life. Thank you to the judges here today, and especially to our coaches, Mr. Axelrod, Mr. Soloman, and Ms. Joyner. I thank you, and Tri-Dist thanks you!”

Roars from our side, and applause all around. It wasn’t just good sportsmanship, either—who cares about that? We’d sent Zeno to a double win, killed in duets, and then there was the way Vera and I had practically swept O.C. Speechies may keep poker faces during rounds, but they know when someone deserves to win.

We packed up to leave, and Clarence walked me up the theater ramp. “Well, that’s it for this year,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’d like to see you during vacation sometime.”

Uh-oh, another vague rendezvous.

“Like, next Friday?” Clarence added. “Night?”

“To do . . . ?”

“A movie!” he said triumphantly. “My mom’ll drive.”

“Sure, Clarence,” I said, as though I accepted dates all the time. “Next Friday. That’d be fun.”

We pushed through the double doors with the crowd and stepped outside to a wintry breeze. Giant flakes swirled through the air, seeming never to light.

The year’s first snowfall. It was an omen, a pristine start to a beautiful relationship between Clarence and me. Either ours would be a frigid, stormy affair—or the chemistry between us would be hot enough to melt glaciers, flood rivers, and dry them back up again. I was hoping for the latter.