Cuba 15 (10 page)

16

Even if I had refrained from sticking up for Mark, it wouldn’t have saved me from my impending appointment with Señora Flora, party planner to the stars. My dress had to go back to Chez Doll soon, and Señora Flora’s sister was going to handle the dress replication, or whatever you’d call this guerrilla tailoring.

As Dad was putting the bags in the car for my grandparents’ trip to the airport, Abuela handed me an envelope to give to Señora Flora. Mark and I had apologized the night before—in English—and Abuela had promised never again to make
arroz con pollo,
if that was what it did to Mark.

So Mark was happy.

But he wasn’t on his way to see Señora Flora, a meeting I looked forward to with about as much enthusiasm as another class trip to Springfield, Illinois. I had visited the sixteenth president’s hometown thousands of times during elementary school, but if forced to choose between hearing Lincoln’s life story broadcast at his tomb once more or having Señora Flora size me up and dress me down, I’d be gathering brochures and buying log cabin figurines in a heartbeat.

I figured this Señora Flora for some fussy, ruffly type who harbored set ideas about how us
quince
-babes were supposed to look and act. She’d probably teach me the Cuban minuet. I wondered what was in Abuela’s envelope, a fifty with the word
tradicional
scrawled across it?

Mom drove us to Arlington Heights and made me look for the street number when we got close. A compact blond brick building housed the salon, with the famed party planner’s name up in Broadway-style lights: SEÑORA FLORA, FI-ESTERA DE LAS ESTRELLAS. Mom crowbarred us into a parking space, and I carried the dress box into the shop.

A tiny slip of a woman in a suit hunched over the front desk, reading a
Sun-Times
through the thickest glasses I had ever seen. She took in Mom’s out-on-the-town ensemble— powder-blue knit skirt, red and white sailor blouse sewn all over with anchor buttons, plus her “sensible shoes,” soot-colored nurse’s oxfords bought at a uniform-store fire sale— and hoisted a magnified eyebrow. Apparently her glasses prescription was right on the money.

“¿Nombre?”

“We’re Paz,” said Mom.

This didn’t impress the woman. “¿Y quiénes se nos
refieren?”

“References?” Mom was taken aback. “
Mi
suegra
, Lupita Zarza.”

That was Abuela.

“¿Y hay otra . . . ?”

Now Mom was pissed. “Yeah, I’ve got another reference. The Pope! You want his number?”

This invented credential did impress the nearsighted woman.
“¡El Papa! Pues . . .”

“We have an appointment with Señora Flora at four. Are you gonna get her?”

Our hostess jumped off her stool.
“Seguro, seguro, Doña
Paz, cómo no, cómo no.”
And she disappeared behind a blue curtain.

With a great rustling of fabric and clinking of metal bracelets, Señora Flora swished through the curtain, kissed Mom on two cheeks, and took the dress box out of my hands before you could say
cocotazo
.

“
Buenas
tardes, bienvenidas,
welcome!” she said, taking a step back and getting a good look at me. I wore my rust-colored tunic outfit again, this time with a maroon T-shirt underneath and my favorite sandals.

Señora Flora gave me a nod and said, “You must be Violet. Lupita told me great things about you.”

“Me too, you—too, that is,” I said stupidly, even though Abuela had told me zip about her, except that her parties were so popular that she normally had a waiting list a mile long. But Abuela had an in.

How she knew Señora Flora, I couldn’t imagine. The party planner to the stars was, first of all, young; way younger than I’d expected. She must have been under forty, because she had good hands. I’d read in some magazine that you could always guess a woman’s age by her hands, and it showed how hands look at different ages. The twenties and thirties hands hadn’t looked too bad, but once those fingers hit forty, you could tell. Too many years, too many dishes.

Besides the smooth hands, Señora Flora had a shiny black pageboy with just a few gray hairs streaking it, chestnut eyes with big dark lashes, and a comfortable manner. She wore a long, sweeping silk dress in a bold abstract print that Ms. Joyner would have envied.

“Never mind my sister. Fauna gets carried away with security sometimes.”

Fauna?

“She’s very thorough,” Mom said with a barb.

Señora Flora didn’t seem to notice. “Step into my office.
Por favor,
this way.”

Señora Flora was surprisingly businesslike. First off, we talked scale and we talked money. We filled in the blanks on her form: number of guests, type of refreshments, number in the court. Dressmaking and dance lesson fees. Invitations and party favors. Music and lights. Tux rentals and corsages. Mom obliged by showing her the plans in our “portfolio,” a Snoopy notebook just like Mom’s restaurant planner, with a twelve-month AT-A-GLANCE calendar stapled to the back cover.

When we had agreed on an affordable package, Señora Flora sent Mom back to the waiting room. She said she wanted to talk to me alone.

I remembered Abuela’s envelope and offered it to her, ready to defend myself against whatever pinkness it contained. “Señora Flora . . .”

“Call me Flora,
amiga
.”

“But isn’t that your last name?”

She grinned sheepishly, tearing open the envelope. “It’s Flora Markowicz. My mother is Cuban and my father was Polish. My parents’ neighborhoods overlapped, and I’m the result.”

“Me too—the opposite,” I said, amazed. “Señora Markowicz?”

“You can drop the
Señora.
I’m not married. It just sounded like a catchy business name. Would you trust your once-in-a-lifetime party to a Señorita Markowicz?”

I had to admit,
Señora Flora’s
had more of a ring to it.

Flora scanned Abuela’s note—I didn’t notice a money bribe in there—and folded it back into the envelope. Then she looked into my eyes with such unexpected feeling, I recoiled on the office couch we were sharing.

“What do you want from life, Violet?”

What kind of question was this? And what kind of answer did she want: the car-house-kids one; or the health–happiness–world peace one?

When in doubt, lie.

“Um, I want to become an emergency-room veterinarian and teach people about animals and stuff.” This had been true several years back, before I realized that I was deathly allergic to cats and that I had no affinity for blood, two things that make a bad animal doctor.

“I mean personally. How do you see yourself?”

“Well . . .” I could either snow her now, or tell it to her straight. “Well, since you ask.” I narrowed my eyes. “First of all, I’m not the
quince
type.”

Her eyebrows flexed, but she said nothing.

“I don’t wear dresses—haven’t since grade school. A person has to choose their own style. Though I know Abuela doesn’t think so. . . . And plus, I don’t do slow dances, with or without my dad, and I don’t know any of the Cuban customs.” I thought that summed it up.

Flora nodded. “This is what you are not. How about what you are?”

“I am . . . someone who likes to watch sports but hates playing on teams. I’ve studied piano since I was four, but I don’t know how to play the kind of music I really like. I’m on the speech team and I’ve done lots of skits and puppet shows, but I’m not really the onstage type of performer. It’s like, I have a lot of half talents.”

She nodded, still silent.

“I guess I want them to be full talents, and that’s the kind of person I want to be.”

“Anything else? Any other hopes, dreams, aspirations?”

I considered. “I wish Spanish weren’t so hard for me. I’m taking first year. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“You are on your way, then.” She got up from the couch and went around to a file cabinet on the opposite wall to fish through some papers. “My job, Violet, is to take what is true about Violet Paz and put it into the
fiesta
. The
quinceañero
is a statement, about who you are and where you are going.”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

“You do; you don’t think you do, but you do. Who knows you better than yourself?” She brought a folder and the Snoopy notebook and sat back down next to me, flipping to the theme page in my notebook. “ ‘All the World’s a Stage.’ You are already cultivating one of your—not ‘half,’ but shall we say, hidden, or amateur, talents.”

I relaxed some. What she said was smart. And she seemed interested in the me-ness of me. That was a new one.
I
wasn’t even that interested in me.

Flora produced a questionnaire from her folder to fill out. “I’ll be talking with you more in depth over the next few months. Now I want you to go see Fauna about your dress. Here,” she said, handing Abuela’s note back. “Give her this.”

She smiled warmly. “You’re going to have a fabulous
quince,
Violet. Think about what we’ve talked over, and I’ll see you again in a month or so. Fauna will schedule you.”

I let Fauna take my measurements and told her that, yes, I did like the fabric and the colors of the Chez Doll dress. I didn’t tell her it was the dress part I disliked. I was beginning to feel like a freak.

After a perfunctory look through her heavy lenses at the white and purple gown, Fauna rewrapped it in its tissue paper and returned the box to me.

“Don’t you need to . . . trace the pattern or something?” I asked.

A smile passed over her face.
“Todo está
aquí,”
she said, pointing to her right temple.

“Cool,” I said. Fauna had hidden talents too. I thought maybe I should tell her we didn’t really know the Pope.

Then I thought, Nah.

17

The speech tournament at Taylor Park was approaching. On the day of my rehearsal with Mr. Soloman, I awoke to the familiar seesawing between blind courage and pure terror that preceded any performance. I was so revved up that I wore two different socks, one fuzzy anklet and one crew— both white, but still.

“Relax,” Mr. Soloman said to me from a seat in the back row of one of the classrooms. “But not too much. Being keyed up keeps you on your toes.”

I was already performing mental pirouettes. I’d waltz right through, then.

“We’ll let you get your feet wet this weekend, and after that we’ll work on revising and improving,” he said.

Revising? I’d
finished
the writing part. And it was pretty darn good, if I said so myself, which I humbly kept quiet about. I paused to get in character, then began the routine I’d practiced a dozen times in front of my bedroom mirror.

I started out: “The story you are about to hear is true. None of the names have been changed, because no one is innocent. This is the sad case of a girl wrongfully accused, tried, and sentenced to life—with her family.

“It all began innocently enough: I was born, I went to kindergarten, I lost my front teeth. By then, it was already too late. I was a Paz.”

I described my family’s hereditary fashion deficiency, the domino gene, the penchant for puns. Then I narrated the crazy domino party, from Abuela’s suspicious good luck to the conga line and the burning roast. Finally, the cops showed up.

“I can explain everything, Officers,” I said, holding out my hands to accept the cuffs. “Just take me away, please!”

After a whirlwind trial, I was sentenced to life in prison for belonging to such a notorious family. The ending bit was me, gripping the bars of an imaginary cell, contemplating my future confinement. My whole family shared the same cell.

“I know there’s no hope of ever being released. But maybe,” my character hoped, “just maybe, with my record for good behavior . . . they’ll put me in solitary!” The end.

I only faltered a little at the beginning, and I remembered nearly all my lines. Mr. Soloman gave me a hand and said, “A few more run-throughs and some practice on your focus, and you’ll be ready for Saturday. Then we can see how you stack up against the competition.”

I gave him a bogus confident smile. “You’ve heard of Seinfeld? Chris Rock? Rosie O’Donnell?”

My coach rubbed his chin. “Who’re they?”

I nodded. “That’s what the judges’ll be saying when they see my act.” I scooped my books together and got ready to go.

Mr. Soloman clapped me on the back. “I like your style, kid. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep before the tournament. And practice like crazy. And—”

“I know, I know. Kick ass!”

Mr. Soloman squinted at me through his raccoon-style glasses. “I was just going to tell you to wear matching socks.”

I gave him a withering look and jammed out of there.

I nearly ran past Clarence Williams.

“Hey, Violet!”

He was out in the hall with another Extemper, a serious-looking guy who said hi and bye and hurried away with a stack of
Newsweek
s.

“Doesn’t he talk to females?” I asked.

“Greg doesn’t talk to anybody when he’s on a trail.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what he calls his train of thought, Extemp-wise. Mental flash cards. He just made me give him a topic, and now he’s like a hound on the trail.”

“What was the topic?”

He showed me some teeth. “U.S.-Israeli foreign policy, the early years.”

“Sounds like a breeze.”

“Yeah, no sweat.”

Clarence seemed taller than he had before. Then I realized I’d never seen him standing. He had on jeans and a long-sleeved red Chicago Bulls T-shirt and cross-trainers that had been scrubbed their whitest with a toothbrush recently.

“I missed you at the last team meeting,” I said. “What happened?”

“Dentist.”

When he said it, I noticed how very white his teeth were. “What are you doing here? Don’t you Extempers guys just practice in a dark closet with a tape recorder?”

He laughed. “You’d be surprised how much acting is involved. Mainly, it’s composure. But for me, that’s acting!”

I knew what he meant. “Yeah!” I laughed weakly. “I hope I don’t melt into a puddle on the floor in front of the judges.”

Clarence shook his head. “It’s all in the attitude. You put on your game face. And don’t forget the sugar cubes.”

“Sugar cubes?”

“Just bring some. You’ll see.” He picked up his pack and the Extemp file box from the floor. “I’ve got practice with Axelrod now. I’ll see you Saturday.”

Indeed, he was the first person I saw at school on Saturday. At the crack of 7:30, we were the first two on the curb, waiting for the bus and the team to show up. Clarence wore a lightweight gray suit, double-breasted, plus a light pink shirt, silver tie, and shiny black shoes. In short, he was styling. I felt underdressed in khakis and a knit top.

By 7:45, Janell, Leda, and the rest of the team had materialized, plus Ms. Joyner and Mr. Soloman. “The Ax never attends the early tourneys,” Clarence had explained, as though these were beneath the head coach. Mr. Soloman gave me a thumbs-up from the front of the bus, which I returned, glad he was along.

The bus was hushed as we crossed the Lincolnville city limits. We hit the expressway and drove awhile, past the famous lip-shaped Magikist sign near the airport, bound for the far suburbs they call “the land beyond O’Hare.” One thousand nine hundred eighty-seven, I thought. I had started counting the number of times I passed the Magikist sign when I was, like, five.

Then kids started to go over their lines. But did they practice together? No. Those working on their delivery faced their reflections in the bus windows and rehearsed out loud, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions.

Soon a low babel of voices intertwined—some earnest, some grave, some in Brooklyn or French or Tennessee Williams Southern accents—rising and falling with an urgency born of fear and too little sleep the night before. Motorists who happened to glance at our bus that morning saw what must have resembled a rolling insane asylum for deranged thespians. If their car windows were open, they might have heard the odd “I have a dream” mixed with “Stella!”

But on board the bus, the speechies acted like this was normal, so I gave it a try. You can never memorize anything too well.

We pulled into the parking lot of Taylor Park High School, and my entire O.C. speech momentarily dematerialized from my mind. As we got off the bus and people greeted friends and pointed out old nemeses, the lines came floating back, and I frantically whispered my opening over and over again. Janell and Leda tried to tell me about some TV show they’d seen, but I shook them off.

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

They both looked at me like I was nuts, but I had already learned my lesson in the bus window. You can never memorize anything too well.