Cuba 15 (4 page)

Watching her, I saw it too. Saw how important it must have been to her.

“
Pero
, this Coo-ba is gone.
Muerta,
” she said bitterly, the color draining from her cheeks.

The Communist revolution had taken all that away a long time ago. Abuela and Abuelo had been forced to leave the country. Whatever plans they’d had for themselves, just out of college, and for Dad, who was a baby, evaporated. They’d had to make a new life in the U.S., and then Luz came into the picture, and they’d moved up north to find work. They could never go back to what they’d had, I realized. All this resided in the diamond-edged look in Abuela’s eye.

Mom asked smoothly, “Don’t you and Teo belong to a new club, down in Mamita’s neighborhood?” My grandparents moved back to Miami several years ago to be near Abuela’s mother, who doesn’t travel.

Abuela’s face softened, but the hard look didn’t leave her eye. “Is no the same,” she said.

I guessed it wouldn’t be. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe there is nothing funny about Cuba.

I gave up. “I’ve got homework,” I said, reaching for the domino box. “Are you finished with these?”

Mom eyed Abuela, who shook her head and got up from the couch. Her color was returning. Only one thing could take my grandmother’s mind off her troubles. A nice, friendly game of cutthroat.

“Juego,”
Abuela said, the corners of her mouth turning up. “I play now.”

5

Friday was a day off from school, so Abuela and Mom had me invite Janell and Leda dress shopping downtown with us. My two best friends had agreed to be damas de
honor,
part of my honor court.

“Whoever heard of a sweet fifteen party?” Janell said when I brought it up at lunch one day.

“It’s
Cuban,
” I groaned. “Tradition with a capital ‘T.’ ”

“I think it’s excruciatingly cool,” said Leda. “Mom wants me to have a ritual too. If I ever get my period.” Leda, a year younger than Janell and me, had skipped eighth grade, or whatever they’d called it at her progressive school, and started as a freshman at Tri-Dist last term. Like Janell and me, Leda had begged her parents to let her attend public high school. We had been three grade-school fish looking for a bigger pond.

By those standards, Tri-District High was a Great Lake, or a small sea: over five thousand students and faculty, known for a championship girls’ basketball team, the TriJets; a losing football team, the Tridents; and our principal, Doc Waller, former Western B-movie costar and current record holder for growing Illinois’s largest beet.

But even though I’d made some new friends over the past year, I still didn’t know twenty-eight people I would ask to be in the court of such a strange personal event as this
quince
thing. Mom had found me a book through the Internet called
Quinceañero for the Gringo Dummy,
which explained all the elements of the traditional
quince
party. I scanned the first few paragraphs before tossing it in a corner of the kitchen. Basically, the
quince
is a show that opens with an entrance ceremony by the honor court, fourteen girls and fourteen guys, each couple representing a year, plus the fifteen-year-old herself, who has to give the first dance to her father. There’s a cake, and music, and speech time—a lot like a wedding; I know, because I went to Janell’s sister’s reception.

We had to go shopping for dress ideas for me and the court members. So far, there were just the two of them. “Do I get to bring Willie?” Leda asked. Willie was her sometimes boyfriend who lived on the South Side, whom she’d met one weekend at a fur-awareness demonstration.

“Then who would I bring?” Janell wanted to know. My friend since the first grade was not into dating, though I do remember her having a thing for Janet Conklin’s brother back in 4-H. She says she has other pursuits right now, and we leave it at that.

“We’re not doing escorts,” I broke in. “Just like we’re not doing a limousine arrival or a court of fourteen. You can bend some of the rules, according to Abuela.” This had come as a relief to me, but it still wouldn’t save me from the dreaded long dress. About that, she’d been adamant. I looked at Janell. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.
I’m
the one being embarrassed that day.”

Mom doesn’t like driving in downtown Chicago, so we picked up Janell and Leda, locked the car at the C&NW station, and took the train to the Loop. I wore my favorite outfit, a suedelike tunic and loose pants in a very Septemberish rust color. I couldn’t find my sandals before we left, so I had to wear red sneakers.

The others wore dresses; Leda and Janell must have tried on some formal wear in recent memory and knew the drill. When I first came out to the car, Mom and Abuela looked at each other and said something in Spanish; then Mom told me to go back inside and change into a skirt.

“You wear what you’re going to try on,” she said.

I muttered about not having anything but my old St. Edna’s uniforms, so Abuela said, “Do you want borrow some-sing of mine, Violeta?”

Double the horror.

Go out in public in my grandmother’s clothes? That’d be like turning instantly old. I shuddered. “Let’s just go,” I said, getting in the car. I couldn’t see what earthly difference changing would make. “We’ll miss the train.”

Abuela and Abuelo were right, September is one of the finest times to be alive in Chicago. The five of us emerged from the busy Canal Street station and walked east toward Lake Michigan. The stripe of water on the horizon was a deep, dizzy blue—the white dots on top of it, sailboats, and the white dots above those, seagulls. Warm, steady wind blew in off the lakefront, and the locust trees in Grant Park clung tightly to slightly yellow-tinged leaves.

We turned left, past a manic traffic cop, and followed Abuela up Michigan Avenue a couple of blocks to a bridal shop. CHEZ DOLL, read the discreet curlicue lettering on the window. We had to wait to be buzzed in through the front door.

“Who would hijack a wedding dress?” I asked. Then my surroundings awed me into silence.

The atmosphere inside was at once bustling and subdued. Mauve and gray walls met a silvery carpet as thick as the stacks of money the place must have been hauling in. Sales staff hurried to and fro beneath armloads of dresses. The well-turned-out clientele looked as though they’d gone shopping in order to shop here.

Our group of five stuck out like dandelions in a rose garden: Mom, sporting a snazzy yellow and green checked dress; Janell, matching the decor in a gray leotard and maroon wraparound skirt; Leda, with the peasant look; and me in my pant outfit and sneakers. Abuela presented a sober impression, except for her makeup, in a navy pleated skirt and white ruffly blouse. She was dressed exactly like the store clerks.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Do you have this in a size ten?” someone was already asking her.

We found our own clerk (though the card she gave us said SALES DELEGATE), and she abandoned us at the bridesmaids’ section, a multicolored forest of satin, lace, and fibers unknown.

“Isn’t this a little . . . formal?” I asked Abuela, pointing at a floor-length lacy, ruffly, pleaty thing in a honeydew shade.

Mom gave a whistle at the price tag. “Isn’t it a little— expens-
ivo
?” she said, as though no one but us would understand Spanglish.

Abuela threw surreptitious glances over both shoulders. “
Sssst!
This is where we find
el modelo
for the dress! Then we have it copied by the dressmaker.”

Mom gave her a sly nod.

“Cool!” said Leda.

“What are your colors?” Janell asked. “We’ll be here all day if you don’t narrow it down.”

“Purple, not pink,” I said, glancing at Mom. She and Abuela had given in to me on this one; we had decided last night.

“Rosa,”
pouted Abuela, “is the
color tradicional
in our
familia. . . .
”

“It’ll be sort of a pinky purple,” Mom affirmed cheerily.

“Fuchsia,” said Janell.

“Magenta,” Leda added.

“Purple,”
I stressed. “It’s my favorite color. But the
damas
dresses can be any color that looks good with it.”

Abuela took charge again. “We choose your
vestido
first.”

A squeal went up at the other end of the showroom, where a bride-to-be stood on a platform in front of her friends, the clerks, and the other customers to model the gown she was trying on. “I am not doing that,” I stage-whispered fiercely in Mom’s direction, but she was already engrossed in a purple and white pin-striped number.

I rolled my eyes at Leda. “Barney meets Wall Street,” I muttered, brushing past to another rack. A shiny violet-blue gown drew my eye, but it had a plunging neckline. I don’t even have a plunging neck.

Abuela sensed my interest and shook her finger at me. “The
chica
always wears many buttons in front.” She fluttered her fingers in front of her chest to demonstrate.

“Like this?” asked Leda, displaying a long, bubble-gum pink, pearly, lacy dress that seemingly buttoned up to the nostrils, the neck was so high. “Looks like bat wings, doesn’t it?” she said, pointing to the capelike collar.

I didn’t see anything here that I might wear. My only criteria was: Would I, or would I not, bust out laughing when I saw my reflection in the mirror? Because if I couldn’t carry it off in front of myself, I didn’t see how I could get up in front of anyone else and dance the macarena with my dad. He swears that’s the only dance he knows.

“I’ll just wait in the dressing room,” I sighed.

Abuela gave an evil grin. “You go,” she said. “We bring. We bring.”

The ugly truths one discovers about one’s body while trying on clothes are best kept a secret, such as the stark blue vein in my left shoulder that looks terrible against spaghetti straps. But modesty was impossible.

Abuela, Mom, Janell, Leda, and our sales delegate, Iona, all trooped into the fitting room with me and at least two thousand purple dresses. Plus two pink ones that Abuela insisted I “just try.”

Gaping into the full-length mirror, wearing the first gown, I discovered why clothing choice is important to a shopping trip. The summery dress Mom had picked out had a plum-colored bodice and a white muslin three-quarter-length skirt. In the harsh light of the dressing room, I—and everyone else, even though we
were
all girls—could see right through the skirt. I hadn’t worn a slip, of course. And my athletic shoes gave me a macho air.

“Xena the Warrior Princess meets Tinkerbell,” pronounced Leda.

“Try this one on,” said Janell.

The saleswoman brought me a borrowed half-slip. I wriggled in and out of thousands of dresses, from those that would have been suitable for, say, a midsummer ship’s christening to some that, I thought, would have been perfect for the funeral of the owner of a bridal shop.

“Shall we repair to the Bridal Circle?” Iona asked when I’d been zipped into yet another lavender chiffon. She wanted me to go out and model on the pedestal, where everyone else in the store was waiting for a good laugh, and subway lowlife probably pressed their noses up against the outside window for a free show whenever they passed this way.

“But we’re all in here already,” I pointed out, feeling a little punchy. Everyone else was looking strained too. “I’ve tried on so many dresses, I’ve got sliplash!” I said.

“Ha!”
yelled Mom after a beat, followed by three silent
ha
s through open lips.

Iona was not amused.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing one of my grandmother’s peppermint ice cream selections. “Is this dress awfully pink, or is that just a pigment of my imagination?”

“HA!”
Mom laughed more loudly, shaking her shoulders hard three times afterward.

Even Abuela smiled.

“If there won’t be anything else . . .” Iona huffed from the room.

I got back into my comfy clothes, and we walked over to State Street to have lunch in the Oak Room at Marshall Field and Company.

6

The adults were arguing already. I hadn’t been fifteen a week, and I could see that it was going to be a very long year.

After lunch, Mom and Abuela had reached an impasse in the clothing negotiations, nearly causing a scene in the After Five shop in Field’s. Mom kept insisting on styles reminiscent of that fourth-grade corduroy jumper of mine, and Abuela couldn’t stay away from the candy-frosting types. When the two appeared to be on the verge of a slapfight, I reminded them that we had agreed the night before that I would have final say on the dress. I had worn Abuela down.

We marched back to Chez Doll and grabbed the first purple and white dress I had tried on, plus a slip, which Mom charged to her credit card. The
damas
dresses would have to wait; no one complained about that. Luckily, the northbound train was crowded, so Mom and Abuela sat in separate rows all the way home. Janell and Leda looked relieved as we dropped them off, saying they’d see me tomorrow.

When we got home, Mom made me model the new dress for Dad and Abuelo. “But don’t get it dirty, whatever you do!” she admonished. “We’ll have to return it to the store after the dressmaker copies the pattern.”

Dad must have asked in Spanish how much the dress cost. Mom said, “Nine ninety-five, plus tax,” and Dad rolled his eyes and clucked his tongue. “But we’ll get a refund,” she assured him.

At dinner, Abuela had gone on and on about all the party pieces that needed to fall into place by May. “Here, in Lincoln Ville”—she insisted on saying the name as two separate places—“we arrange for the dresses, the hall,
la
música, y las invitaciones. Por allá,
in Miami, I will find the party favors, the cushions for the gifts, and the
especial
guest book made to order. Then, don’t forget—”

“And just who is supposed to pay for all this?” Dad asked.

Abuelo grinned.
“El papá.”

My brother, Mark, laughed with his mouth full and pointed at Dad.

“Y los padrinos,” added Abuela seriously, “the ehsponsors who pledge to give one of these things as a gift to Violeta—to the
quinceañera
. Your
abuelo
will give the beegest gift,” she pronounced, beaming, “for the hall.”

Abuelo’s smile vanished. Abuela said a few more words in Spanish to Dad.

“I am supposed to beg Carlos for
dinero
? No, not even for a
fotógrafo,
no.” He listened to her for a moment, then sat back in his chair. “A photographer costs that much?”

“Claro que sí,”
murmured Abuela.

They continued their logistical discussion in Spanish, inflections and tempers rising and falling like stormy ocean waves. Mom and Abuelo joined the fray. Mark paid no attention. But I sat up straight when I started to hear
Violeta
over and over again, and
Dios,
which means God.

“What are you talking about?” I cut in.

Nobody answered.

“What are you saying?”

Dad’s glare was all eyebrows. “Not now, Violet!”

I felt about five years old. “But I’m supposed to . . .”

They continued without me.

The rice I’d been eating stuck in my throat. This scene was too familiar. I slammed my fork down on my plate and got up. “You people are so rude!” I threw my napkin on the table. “It’s not
my
fault I don’t know Spanish. But then you wouldn’t have your little code language, would you? How do you think that feels?”

“Don’t you talk to your family that way!” said Dad.

Mom looked surprised to see me still there. “You may be excused, young lady,” she said. Then she turned back to Abuela and finished what she’d been saying.
En español
.

Now my whole family was downstairs arguing. Urgent tones of Spanish drifted up to my room along with the too-sweet aroma of frying plantains for dessert. I don’t like mushy ripe plantains anyway.

I flopped on my bed upstairs and coaxed Chucho into my lap. Even on a warm day, his poodle body heat was comforting. I kissed his neck and took a deep breath with my nose in his fur. Some dogs smell doggy, but Chucho, despite his other foul habits, always smells nice. Aromatherapy for the dog lover.

I popped a tape of mournful harmonica tunes into my cassette player and turned the volume low. “I’ve got the Cuban blues, Chucho,” I told him. He sighed his little-old-man sigh and snuggled tighter into a ball on my lap.

I had finally blown up over something that had been boiling inside me for as long as I could remember. Mom and Dad had always used their shared language to discuss whatever they didn’t want me and Mark to hear. Dad, of course, had grown up speaking Spanish. Mom had learned to speak it with the kitchen staff during her waitressing years in the city. That’s what had endeared her to Abuela and Abuelo.

Spanish was currency. Currency I didn’t have.

I understood a few dozen words, maybe more, now that I remembered Señora Wong’s cognates. I could usually figure out what Mom and Dad were talking about from their tone of voice and the words I knew, but I couldn’t connect those things to the whole Spanish vocabulary. “That must be how it sounds to a dog,” I said to Chucho, who was snoring now. I thought of a comic strip I once saw about what dogs really hear when you talk to them: “Blah blah blah, Ginger, blah blah.”

That’s how I felt. Blah.

I couldn’t see what the fuss was about—why I had to tip-toe around the subject. Abuela and Abuelo, Dad, and even Mom were so touchy about Cuba that anything I knew, I’d learned by accident. I was half afraid to ask pointed questions anymore, never knowing whether they would draw blood or be deflected like weak arrows with some offhand remark. Whichever it was, I rarely got answers.

Someone owed me an explanation. I decided to give my aunt Luz a call.

Chucho felt me stir and opened his big black eyes. He brayed a mighty yawn that ended in a little squeak, got up, and resettled himself on my pillow. I went to Mom and Dad’s room to call Tía Luci long distance.

Dad’s sister, Luz, is my favorite aunt. She lives on the West Coast and travels around the world, documenting whatever needs documenting with her camera. We never know when she’s going to show up, but she always makes me feel like she came all the way just to see me. And she includes me in stuff no other grown-ups would.

Dad says she’s
poca loca,
but I know he loves her and admires her. It’s funny, though. Luz, who was born in Miami, seems more . . . Cuban than Dad. Or more willing to admit it.

“What’s happening, Birthday Girl?” Tía asked when I reached her.

“Oh, I got in some trouble over this party Abuela wants me to have.”

She purred sympathetically on the other end of the line.

“Tía Luci, did you ever have a
quince
party?”

“Not me,
niñita
. Your
abuelo
was too cheap,” she said, kidding. “Actually, they gave me a trip to Spain for my fifteen. I refused the party.”

“Refused!” God, Luz was a strong woman.

“I had already been to about fifty
quinces
back when we lived in Miami. All my Chicago friends were going to Spain. It was the cool thing to do. I leaned on Papi until he came around. It cost less than a party, that’s for sure.” She paused. “Mami, well, she was a different story. But Chicago wasn’t Cuba, and it wasn’t Miami either. I think she knew what I needed most. In the end, she let me choose.”

“But what about the . . . the . . . color tradicional? You know, the pink dress?”

“Pink dress? It doesn’t have to be pink anymore. Of course, Mami wore a pink dress. She made her
quince
in Cuba, you know.”

Cuba. That
was
traditional. And not a subject I intended to broach downstairs.

“So,” said Luz, “am I invited?”

“You’d come?” I asked.

“
Por
supuesto
. I wouldn’t miss your
quince
for the world!”

Well, that made one of us.

“You think it’s a good idea, then?”

“I can’t tell you what’s on Mami’s mind, but I’m sure her heart is in the right place.”

I had known there wouldn’t be any easy answers.

I sighed. “Thanks, Tía. Oh, one other thing. What is the tie-in with the church? That’s what they’re all downstairs arguing about right now. The truth is, we haven’t all been to Mass together since Mark made his confirmation last spring. Will we have to do some kind of penance, or what?”

I heard the line hum while Tía Luci thought. I could almost see her roll her eyes and purse her lips before telling me, “Violet. How can you make your
quince
if you don’t even know what it is? Would you jump out of a plane before looking for your parachute?” I could practically hear her smiling wryly. “Not everybody has a church ceremony,
chica
. Now go find out what you need to know before you start jumping off the big cliffs.”

“I will, Tía. And thanks.”

I marched back down to the kitchen to bust up the junta.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I began. “But I have something to say.”

They all looked at me: Mom, perturbed; Abuela, skeptical; Abuelo, curious; and Dad, still upset, but looking sharp in a brown short-sleeved rib-knit shirt that zipped up the front. His long legs stuck out from under the kitchen table in knee-length blue plaid shorts. As a concession to the warm weather, he wore his bowling shoes with no socks.

Must I invite these people to my party? I thought, trying to hold firm. “Being the one turning fifteen and all,” I said to my audience, “I just want to say that I would rather have gone on a trip to Spain. But I was not given that choice.”

Abuela opened her mouth.
“However,”
I continued, silencing her, “since my dear grandmother has offered to throw me a
quince
party, I have gratefully accepted the idea.” If only to find out why, I thought.

Mom smiled and started to say something.
“Now,”
I went on, “I don’t know what
Dios
has to do with it, but I do know one thing: The dress, the hall, the music, the photographs, the dinner . . . all this—
eh
stuff—is going to be a huge job to pull together.”

Mom and Abuela heard this and nodded eagerly. Abuelo nodded soberly. At last, people were agreeing with me.

I continued. “As far as I can tell, it’s going to take a no-holds-barred onslaught of time and energy from
all
of us. And not just the ladies.” Here, I addressed Dad, who was squirming on the edge of his chair. “There will be tuxedos rented, friends invited, and dances learned.”

I eyed each of them in turn. “And I’m making it my duty to see that every one of you”—I gave Dad an extra-hard stare—“looks presentable.”

Dad started to protest, but I raised an index finger. “And we are going to have one person, and one person only, in charge: me! Is that clear?”

They looked at each other and buzzed worriedly.

“Listen up, people! This
quince
planning means war, and I need to know whose side you’re on. Are you with me?”

Mom and Abuela nodded meekly.

Abuelo was unconvinced.

“
Momentito,
Violet!” said Dad. “That’s fine to have one general, but don’t forget, I have the keys to the war chest.”

Mom stepped in. “She’s right, though, Alberto. Too many generals spoil the troops.” She raised an eyebrow, looking for any takers for her joke.

I ignored her. “Okay,” I said. “Dad, you’re general of finance. You’ll have the final say on
el dinero
. Mom, you’re captain of strategy, with Abuela and Abuelo as your Miami liaisons. Now, can everyone live with that?”

They hesitated, glancing at one another, then nodding.

“And you, Violeta. Who, may I ask, are you?” asked Abuelo, smiling his great piano-keyboard of a smile.

“That,” I said, “is what we are about to find out.” I picked up
Quinceañero for the Gringo Dummy
and retreated to my quarters.