Cuba 15 (18 page)

She laughed. “Looked for cute guys.”

“Find any?”

She laughed again. “Oh, yeah. It was the best time I’ve ever had, to this day.” She sobered. “But there was more to the trip than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was when I got back.” She closed her eyes. “I remember Papi came to meet me at O’Hare. When I got off the plane, he was the first person I saw, right up in front, and he was carrying a bouquet of two dozen long-stemmed red roses.
‘Para ti,
mujercita,’
he told me.”

I could see Abuelo, a younger Abuelo—maybe with hair on his head—handing her the flowers.

“He picked up my bag, gave me his arm, and said, ‘Now my Luci has seen things I have never seen.
Estás con
los adultos.
’ ”

“What does that mean? You were—what?”

She opened her eyes, smiling softly. “One of the grown-ups.”

We sat wrapped in the scene for a minute.

Then a soft knock came on the door, and Mom opened it. “Can I come in?”

We made room, and she sat on the foot of the bed.

“Tía was just telling me about her
quince
trip, Mom.”

“To Spain?”

Luz nodded. “And how grown-up Papi made me feel when I got home. I’ll never forget that.”

Mom looked at the two of us, measuring, discerning what we’d been talking about. “There’s lots of Teodoro in Albert, isn’t there?”

Tía and I looked at each other. “There sure is,” we said together.

Dad, home from the night shift, took Tía and me out for breakfast before her flight the next day. The mood in the house had improved after we girls had talked the night before. Somehow, it had spilled over onto Dad.

“
Pues,
mi hermanita,
I’m glad you made it for Christmas,” Dad said to Tía. “And thanks for those CDs.”

He seemed sad to see her go now and promised to call more often. She teased him all through the meal and promised to call before she showed up next time. It was a running joke of theirs, and it shed some sunshine on the cold, overcast morning outside.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that Mom must have had something to do with the sudden December warmth.

30

The weather got so crazy around New Year’s that it kept us inside for several days. Funny how you can be endlessly bored for a while, and then everything happens at once. Vacation ended, and I had a pop quiz in English the day Mom started at community college. This illustrious date was shared with both Mark’s birthday and
el día de los tres
reyes,
the day when Cubans celebrate the visit of the three wise men, twelve days after the birth of the Christ child.

Abuela and Abuelo and Luz, who was in Miami, called that afternoon to wish us a happy Cuban Christmas and happy birthday to Mark. Then Abuela stayed on the line to say that my invitations had gone out in the mail. She had compiled a guest database and streamlined the whole mailing process by computer, using her e-mail address for RSVPs. I would have other duties.

“Let me talk to your father,” Abuela said when she finished with me.

I watched and listened as Dad answered her questions over the phone, using staccato Spanish at first, then fading to a compliant English: “Yes, Mami. No, Mami. I will.”

He hung up, looking suitably cowed. Today was also the fateful day of our dance lesson with Señora Flora.

Mark gladly went down the block to his buddy’s to play new video games for a couple of hours while Dad and I went to keep our dance date. We pulled up to the Arlington Heights party-planning headquarters just as dark was settling in under a low gray sky. More snow coming.

Dad was nervous. “Why couldn’t your mother come?” he grumbled, knowing she was at school.

“Dad, how are you supposed to learn to dance if Mom brings me?”

“How am I supposed to—?” he broke off, smiling. “I’m just a slow learner, that’s all. We’ll give it a try.”

I was in the same boat but didn’t let on. “I brought some of Tía Luci’s tapes too. Just for fun.” Maybe Flora would show us some salsa moves.

Fauna received us with deference, and when she turned to summon her sister, I could have sworn she winked at me through her magnifying glasses.

“What did she mean by that, I wonder—
amigos
del
Papa
?” Dad mused.

“You must be Señor Paz.” Flora greeted us with outstretched hands. Before Dad could change his mind, she led us down a corridor and into a large dance studio with a bare wooden floor and a wall of gleaming mirrors.

“Am I to assume this is a first lesson for you both?”

We nodded. How could she tell? To fit in, Dad had even worn his vintage seventies disco outfit, though he’d never danced in it.

“I can explain . . . ,” Dad began.

Señora Flora raised a finger. “Ah, ah. No need. Now, no more talking. Say it with your hips.” We watched as she introduced us to the steps for salsa and merengue.

My hand went up. “Is this going to be on the test?” I joked.

“Trust me,” she said. “After these steps, the waltz will be a breeze.”

She showed Dad how to lead and me how to follow, then turned us loose. Our knees knocked together (well, mine hit his shins) dancing salsa, and our hands got clammy doing the merengue. This was my usual dance experience.

“Let’s come back to that,” Flora said. “Señor Paz, may I have this
baile
?”

She put a waltz on, heavy with strings and horns that seemed to sweep them across the floor naturally.
One
-two-three,
one
-two-three,
turn
-two-three—and Dad was dancing! After a few circuits, Flora handed him over to me.

She was right, waltzing was a breeze, no syncopation to worry about. Dad seemed more confident too. Our knees still collided every now and then, but gracefully so.

“How am I doing, Violet?” Dad puffed.

“Great!”

After a while, Flora stopped the music. “
Muy
bien
. I’ll lend you the video, and you’ll practice some more at home. Now, let’s see those tapes your aunt sent, Violet.” She selected a frenetic salsa number by Los Van Van and left us alone in the studio.

I started nodding to the beat. Dad wagged a hip. After all, nobody was around. Our eyes met in the mirror on the far wall, and we exchanged grins. And began to dance.

Not one to look a good mood in the horse’s mouth, I took the opportunity on the drive home to bring up the class trip to Mexico. Dad’s head had been in the clouds ever since Señora Flora had praised his innovative blend of merengue and the macarena at the end of our session.

I interrupted his falsetto vocal interpretation of “Cielito Lindo.”

“Dad, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” He smiled in my direction.

“I know it’s kind of early, but next fall the junior and senior Spanish classes are going on a trip to Mexico. You know, a cultural thing. I’d only be in second year, but they’d let me go. You’d have to sign a permission slip. And I was wondering if, I wondered, that is . . . if I could go too.”

His smile faded.

“If I got a job, I’d have almost a year to save up,” I added quickly.

He outright frowned. “Jobs? Trips? These don’t sound like appropriate activities for someone your age, who is only—”

“Who is
only
fifteen,” I reminded him, “the same age as Luz was when she went to Spain for her
quince
. And by then I’ll be sixteen.”

He pursed his lips in silence.

“I’ll have to ask your mother” was all he finally said.

Weeks went by, and Señora Wong handed out the permission slips for early reservations for next year’s trip. They needed an estimate to give to the travel agent.

I took my slip home but didn’t bring up the subject again. If Dad didn’t want me to go, I wasn’t going. I don’t think he even talked it over with Mom. Luz was right. Dad seemed to be purposely trying to keep me in the dark, to keep me from breaking the spell that he’d cast, the cocoon he’d spun to shield himself from thinking about Cuba. It would be easier for me to just take German next year with Leda.

Meanwhile, speech season had started up again, and the balance had shifted. Just when I thought I was getting a handle on Original Comedy, I found myself lost in unfamiliar territory. The state schedule had us competing outside our district now. New faces and routines jostled me from my spot in the pecking order. Some to my advantage, to be sure; I was introduced to a whole new round of bad jokes. But other kids were
good
. My Loco Family took a sound trouncing, two tourneys in a row.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was cut from the next competition, an overnight trip downstate to the Middleville tournament. The team roster was posted outside Mr. Axelrod’s office, as though we’d gone straight to final-round announcements. Greg, Gina, and a few other speechies hovered there at lunchtime when I went by.

“Man! Sophomores don’t have a chance!” complained a guy who did Humorous Interpretation. His duet partner commiserated.

“I beg to differ,” countered Greg, who’d earned perfect ranks twice and snagged the Extemp slot over senior F. David Worthington. He blew on his fingernails boastfully. F. David must have been miffed beyond belief, and had reportedly snapped at The Ax, not improving his chances of ever competing again.

My gym buddy, Gina, gazed sadly at the poster listing Zeno Clark as the Dramatic Interp entry. “The coaches said they could only afford to take one kid from each event. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” she whimpered.

My face mirrored her sentiments. The O.C. choice was Vera, who’d placed her last three times out. I didn’t want to admit it, but I could kind of see the coaches’ logic. Vera had been working at it a year more than me.

“I’m out too,” I said to Gina. “Looks like Vera has juniority over me.”

She gave a weak smile at that.

Cherise Belliard had juniority in Verse over Janell, who would also be staying home. Except for Greg, the rest of the competitors were seniors—with the notable exception of a certain fourteen-year-old sophomore, the lone Oratory representative, who believed strongly in gardening versus meat eating. Leda would be on the bus too.

I’d have a whole Saturday off, for a change. Except that I had to stay home with Mark so Mom could hit the restaurant-equipment convention at McCormick Place. Dad was taking a rare morning off to do lunch with a professor friend in Hyde Park, leaving me stuck with the
responsabilidad
of watching Mark until he got back. Burden, really.

“I’m twelve now!” Mark argued when Mom told us.

“Good. Then you’re old enough for hard labor,” Mom teased. “I want that driveway shoveled by the time your father gets back.” This, she meant.

My brother grimaced, no doubt getting his first taste in a long buffet line of responsibility that would make him grow up big and strong. See how he liked it.

I decided to go ahead with my plan anyway. Since we’d been cut from the team for the weekend, I figured Clarence wouldn’t be too busy on Saturday. Now that I had to stay home till whenever, I couldn’t ask him to go out to the mall with me, my initial bright idea. So I thought I’d see if he wanted to come over. We could play some music or something.

I squared it with Mom, then called Clarence.

He said he’d be there.