Fifteen Candles (9 page)

“We should go back inside before they miss us,” he said, looking back at her.

“Absolutely,” she replied, willing her pulse to stop racing and her sweat glands to stop working overtime.

Then Gaz did the awful thing that cemented the horrible moment and set Alicia's cheeks blazing—and not in a good way. He kissed her on the forehead and began to walk back to the club.

Alicia did not know much about boys and dating, but one thing she did know was that boys who wanted to be your boyfriend did
not
kiss you on the forehead. Did they?

Back inside, Gaz and Alicia sat across the table from each other, looking everywhere but into each other's eyes. In the DJ booth, Hector was playing Daddy Yankee, but Alicia didn't have the desire to shake her groove thing anymore. She sat across from Gaz, sipping her
mojito
and wondering why he hadn't kissed her.

Forty-five minutes later, Hector's set was done. Alicia and Gaz still sat across from each other. But somehow, during the set, their hands had stretched across the table, and now their fingers were touching at the very tips. It wasn't exactly holding hands, but Alicia almost liked it more. It was as if there were little crackles of electricity where their hands met. It made up for the forehead kiss—mostly.

Arriving back at their table, Carmen looked at her friend and raised an eyebrow. Alicia looked right back and thought,
Chica
, if you only knew; touching Gaz's hand is the least of it. But as confusing as it all was, she didn't want to talk about it with Carmen. She wanted to hold on tight to the sweet memory of Gaz dancing with her. Alicia feared, somewhat irrationally, she knew, that if she told Carmen about
every
thing
that had happened, it would seem a little too real. And maybe Alicia would have to confront the fact that while he was very fond of her, Gaz just didn't like her in the same way she liked him.

EVEN THOUGH
Alicia would have been content to dwell on Gaz and his mixed messages, she had a
quince
añera
to plan. And the closer they got to Sarita's
quince
, the more stressed—and difficult—Alicia got. With two weeks left till the big day, she began to focus
only
on the
quince
. For her internship, she was supposed to be working on a liaison request for a
telenovela
production company for the Office of Film and Cultural Affairs, but she spent most of
her mornings keeping tabs on her crew.

One morning, during a city council meeting, she ducked into her father's office to make a few calls out from under Lori's watchful eye.

Alicia sat down at her father's desk, dialed nine for an outside line, and called Gaz.

“What are you doing?” she asked when he picked up. She spoke to the members of the club so often that she didn't even bother to say hello. Still, when it was Gaz, she was often flustered.

“At this very second, I'm folding a new shipment of lightweight cashmere sweaters,” Gaz said. “I'm at work.”

“Have you and your brothers worked on the mariachi number for Sarita's father-daughter
vals
?” she asked.

“I told you we did,” Gaz said. It was only eleven in the morning, but it was the third time that day that Alicia had called him. He had a good mind to start ignoring her phone calls, but he retained the hope—a hope that was fading fast—that the next time she called, she'd be back to her old self, saying, “Hey,
loco
, what's the
qué pasa
?”

“The
vals
is very important, and the mariachi music is Sarita's big cultural nod to her family; you've got to get it right,” Alicia said.

Gaz had volunteered to learn Sarita's father's favorite song and to play it with his brothers. “We've never done mariachi before,” he had told Sarita, “but I think we could make it both fresh and old-school.”

“That's exactly what I want for my
vals
,” Sarita had said, beaming.

Alicia knew that Gaz needed to show off his band's stuff if Sarita was going to get “exactly” what she wanted. It was, she told herself, the reason she kept calling, and it had nothing to do with hearing his smooth, sweet voice. Nothing at all.

After checking on Gaz, Alicia called Carmen.
“Digame,”
she asked. “How's that dress coming?”

“The same way it was when you asked me two hours ago—fine,” Carmen said. “Stop sweating me!”

“I'm just making sure we're all on target,” Alicia said. “We've got a lot to do over the next few weeks. And it's my job to make sure that it all gets done.”

Carmen sighed. “It'll all get done
a lot
faster if you don't call me every five minutes.”

She was about to blow a gasket, but Alicia was oblivious.

“Okay,” she said. “Sounds good. Just text me this afternoon with an update.”

“Good-bye,” Carmen said.

“Don't forget, we're meeting tomorrow afternoon at three,” Alicia said. But it seemed that Carmen had already hung up. She dialed her friend's number again.

“Hey,” Alicia said. “I think you hung up.”

“I said, ‘good-bye,'” Carmen grumbled.

“I just wanted to remind you that we have a meeting tomorrow at Lario's, at three.”

“Good-bye, Alicia,” Carmen said, hanging up the phone again.

Alicia thought it was interesting how planning Sarita's
quince
was really bringing out people's true colors. Carmen lived in a house of total chaos. You would think she would have been able to handle a little pressure. But she was clearly flipping out. Alicia grabbed her iPhone and made a note to give everybody a pep talk about staying organized and
calm
at the meeting.

She put an “urgent” flag on the pep-talk note and then called Jamie, who answered the phone screaming.

“Stop calling me!” Jamie yelled. “You are working my last nerves.”

Once again, Alicia failed to recognize that the stress her friends were exhibiting had anything to do with her.

“Look,” Alicia said. “I know what you're going through. We are working our butts off. We're not getting paid, and Sarita's
quince
is two weeks away. That's why we've got to keep our cool, help each other out, and try to remember that we got into this business to have fun.”

“Do you want to help me out?” Jamie asked.

“Of course,” Alicia said. “That's why I called.”

“Then stop calling me!” Jamie said, and she hung up.

Alicia sent Jamie a text message:
Hola. I think we had a
bad connection. What's going on with the plan for Sarita's hair,
makeup? How many rsvp's has she gotten? Have you ordered the
favors? I'd like an update soon.

Alicia looked at her watch. It was only a little after eleven. She retyped the last line:
I'd like an update by noon. Ciao.

The next day, Sarita, Alicia, and Jamie headed to Paso Doble boutique to shop for
quince
heels. These were one of the few items that Amigas Inc. couldn't actually make. Shoes were, of course, a big deal. At the church, before the big party, the father helps the girl having the
quince
change from flats into high heels, to symbolize her transition into womanhood. Sarita had already chosen a pair of silver ballet flats to wear to the church. Now she needed something fierce, her first pair of real heels, to wear to the party.

Everything else was coming together brilliantly. Sarita loved the idea of re-creating a little bit of Cape Canaveral on South Beach, and Alex was completely psyched to build them a model rocket and the rest of the space-age set. Carmen was going to start final fittings for the dresses on Wednesday. Little by little, the
quince
was coming together.

The shoe store had been open for twenty minutes by the time the girls made their way inside. On this particular shopping trip, Alicia and Jamie were the designated grown-ups, with the responsibility for an envelope full of cash from Sarita's mother. But they soon found themselves falling into girlfriend mode as Sarita tried on shoe after gorgeous shoe.

Although it was lovely, they rejected a white d'Orsay pump as being too formal for the beach setting and Cape Canaveral theme.

A pair of white T-straps would have been, as Jamie put it, “supercute with a white T-shirt and a pair of dark-dyed jeans. But too informal for a
quince
.”

Jamie and Sarita fell hard for a pair of hot pink stilettos, but Alicia rejected them as too high to dance in.

“Do I have to dance? Can't I just stand around looking gorgeous?” Sarita joked, teetering around the store like a ballerina wearing pointe shoes for the very first time.

“Of course you have to dance,” Alicia said. “You have the first
vals
with your dad. You have the group dance with the
chambelanes
and
damas
. Plus your opening solo. But don't you worry. I'll teach you everything you need to know.”

Sarita did three more tiny-stepping tours (wobbling the whole way) around the shoe-store floor before sitting down and taking the heels off. “Speaking of dancing, I've picked my escort for the evening. His name is Diego,” she said, beaming. “I've only known him for a few weeks. He lives on the second floor of my building. Seeing him in the elevator is, like, the highlight of my day. So I just decided to ask him to be my
chambelane
, and he said yes.” Sarita had moved on to a pair of silver sandals with two braided straps across the insteps. “What do you think?” she asked Alicia.

Jamie had gone off to negotiate with the store's owner for a discount, in exchange for an ad in Sarita's
quince
program.

“Do you like this one?” Sarita held out her foot so that Alicia could get a closer look at the shoe.

Alicia raised an eyebrow.

“No client of the Amigas is turning fifteen in half-inch kitten heels,” Alicia said decisively.

“Shoes are what I do, I'm the image consultant, and I say they look great,” Jamie said, coming back in time to overhear Alicia.

Sarita and Jamie exchanged glances, uncertain as to whether Alicia was ignoring them or just hadn't heard them. She'd wandered off to the high-end section of the store.

She returned with a pair of black-patent-leather Yves Saint Laurent cage booties.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Sarita said.

“Try them on,” Alicia insisted. “They're your size.”

“They may be my size, but they're definitely not my style,” Sarita said.

Alicia looked slightly annoyed. “You're a Miami girl now. Styles change,
chica
.”

Jamie grabbed Alicia by the shoulder. “May I talk to you for a sec?” she asked through clenched teeth. She didn't wait for an answer, but simply dragged Alicia to a quiet corner of the store.

“Alicia, come on,” she said. “I'm all for speaking your mind, you know; I do it all the time. But you're way out of line here. This is Sarita's
quince
, not yours.”

“Don't you think I know that?” Alicia said, huffily. “But her party is
our
calling card. It's got to be over the top or else we've got no business.”

“Well, you'd better check yourself before you wreck yourself,” Jamie said, throwing her hands up in the air.

When they rejoined her, Sarita was standing in the designer heels, her hands pressed against the store's full-length mirror. It quickly became apparent that she was holding on for balance, and for dear life.

“I get that these shoes are fierce, fabulous, and flawless,” she said, “but if I can't walk in them, then it's going to be a pretty miserable
quince
.”

Alicia shrugged her shoulders and replied, in a world-weary tone that implied that she was years and not merely months older than Sarita, “We've all got to suffer for beauty.” Then she handed her credit card to the salesperson and said, “She'll take them. My treat.”

It was the first time that Alicia had used the card outside of Barnes & Noble, and she half expected the charge to be declined, as if her parents could see that she was spending hundreds of dollars on designer shoes for Sarita's
quince
.

Sarita looked both embarrassed and uncomfortable. “These are really expensive shoes, Alicia. I can't let you spend so much money on me.”

Alicia signed the credit-card receipt with a flourish. “It's a done deal. Consider it my
quince
present to you.”

“I consider it the beginning of Queen Alicia's reign,” Jamie muttered under her breath.

ALICIA KNEW
that it was probably not the brightest idea to schedule a dance rehearsal in the wedding room at City Hall. But give a
chica
a break, she thought. It was Thursday, and Sarita's
quince
was less than two weeks away. Sarita might have been a rocket scientist, but she could barely walk, much less dance, in high heels. Not to mention the fact that her
chambelane
, Diego, was clearly the guy born to defy the wisdom of Gloria Estefan. While it may have been true that the rhythm was going to get 99.9 percent of the Greater Miami population, Diego belonged to the .1 percent that the rhythm was
always
going to miss. After running him through some simple steps a day earlier, Alicia had simplified the choreography. Then she'd simplified it again. But still, Sarita was teetering in her heels and Diego was tripping over his two left feet. Alicia scheduled the dance rehearsal at City Hall, because she was not going to have a goofy number ruin the first event run by the Amigas. Not on her watch. It was time to practice.

She had checked the schedule to make sure no weddings were planned for that morning. She had also made sure, before scheduling a thirty-minute dance rehearsal, that Lori would be out of the office at her anger management course, where she always went at eleven on Thursday mornings. It made perfect sense to rehearse at City Hall, because Alicia and Sarita were already there, which meant they could eliminate the pesky business of arranging a ride or taking a bus after work. It was a foolproof plan.

Or so she thought.

Approximately fifteen minutes into the rehearsal, the mayor walked in with the number one tennis star in Miami, who had decided to elope with her longtime boyfriend. It turned out that Lori had purposely not put it on the schedule so as not to alert the press. Alicia was right in the middle of trying to teach Sarita and Diego the sexy
paso
doble
from Shakira's “La Tortura” video. To demonstrate the singer's sexy belly dance, Alicia had knotted her blouse below the bra (and done the same to Sarita's).

To make matters worse, her father had joined the wedding party to serve as an official witness. It was clear from the flash of his dark eyes and the furrow of his brow that he was not, in any way, amused. But the real drama had yet to unfold. Lori's anger management class had been canceled and she followed behind the mayor, the tennis star, the tennis star's intended, and the deputy mayor.

When Lori saw Alicia, her face turned scarlet. If Alicia hadn't been so nervous, she would have commented that a little blusher would have done wonders for Lori. But then the supervisor started fuming. “I should have known,” Lori said icily. “This is completely unacceptable. Please leave—you're fired!”

Alicia jumped to turn off the music, which was booming from her laptop, then ran to cower behind her father. Her
papi
would protect her. “Dad, I didn't want to tell you, but I'm pretty sure Lori is nuts,” she whispered.

Mr. Cruz seemed less interested in Lori's histrionics—she'd moved on from the subject of Alicia and was now screaming about the jerk who'd cut her off in traffic that morning on I-95—and more interested in his daughter's misbehavior.

“You are fifteen years old,” Mr. Cruz said. “Show some humility,
hija
! I did not arrange this internship so you could party in City Hall with your friends!”

“We're not partying,” Alicia protested. “We're rehearsing for Sarita's
quince
!”

“Leave me out of it,
niña
,” Sarita said.

Turning back to Alicia, Mr. Cruz said, “Lori is right. This is unacceptable. You are
not
here to bare your midriff. You are
not
here to blare loud music in a government building. You
are
here to listen and learn. You haven't done much of either since you showed up for this internship, according to Lori's reports. I will not let you waste an opportunity another student would give her eyeteeth for. I agree with Lori—go home.”

With that, he turned and walked away.

Alicia couldn't believe it. Her own
papi
, giving her the boot. Her mother was going to
kill
her. She was never going to Harvard, and her parents were going to rub it in her face for the rest of her natural-born life. Her father, who was always the mellow one, was being such a hothead!

If he had seen Sarita and Diego dance, he would have understood why she had to schedule extra rehearsals by any means necessary. It wasn't her fault that the wedding hall was being used for a top secret celebrity wedding. She'd checked the schedule. As they said in the legal profession, she'd done her due diligence. She was
on time
every morning. This was largely because her dad gave her a ride. But still,
fíjase
, it took an effort to get up early, be dressed and ready on time. Her father was tripping. Totally taking his problems out on her. He was up for election the following year. It was only his first term as deputy mayor. Maybe he was worried about losing his appointment. That had to be it. He was
so
in love with public office that having a Latina daughter who was trying to do something for her
hermanas
did not fit his image of the campaign-friendly daughter. He hated her. Why else, how else, could he fire her, just like that?

She went to her desk and packed up her things, mostly stuff related to Sarita's
quince
—CDs, fabric swatches, photographers' portfolios—and she piled them all into the shopping bags Lori kept in the cabinet in the coffee room. It didn't take her long. The buildings at City Hall were always cold, so even when it was a hundred degrees outside, Alicia kept a black cardigan at her desk. She picked up the cardigan and the black Coach tote that her mother had gotten her as a gift to celebrate the new job. There were some papers on her desk, but she figured that Lori would figure out what went where. It wasn't her problem anymore. She'd been canned.

Walking through the security scanner at the front door, she willed herself not to cry.

“Checking out early?” Mr. Bennett, one of the security guards, asked. He was an older African American man, and he always had a kind word for everyone, even Lori.

“Something like that,” Alicia replied.

Walking out of the building, she felt the heat descend on her. She walked down the street to the bus stop, dragging her feet; she
hated
taking the bus, but since he'd just basically fired her, she was fairly confident that her father wasn't going to drive her home. Or speak to her—ever again.

Alicia looked at her watch; it was almost two o'clock. She'd been out for a few hours already and was bored, with a capital
B
. Wow, she thought sarcastically, time flies when you're unemployed. Luckily, Sarita and Jamie were coming over at three to try out hairstyles. That gave her something to do. She went to the bathroom to give herself a pep talk in the mirror. Despite the fact that she loved fashion, Alicia was a five-minutes-in-the-mirror-makeup girl. Standing in the bathroom with no internship to rush off to, she took a deep breath and tried to let it all sink in. Then she began talking to herself out loud: “Look, you were fired from an internship you really liked. You were yelled at by your dad, who, up until recently, you were pretty sure respected you as a smart, up-and-coming Latina on her way. You can't change the past, but you can concentrate on the present. Sarita's
quince
is around the corner, and if it's perfect, no one's going to remember the big blank spot on your college résumé where the City Hall internship was supposed to go. So, gather the troops, and get ready to kick butt, because you've got a party to plan!”

Alicia stopped just short of high-fiving herself in the mirror and shrugged.

She took off her work shoes, a pair of slightly scuffed Dior heels that were a hand-me-down from her mom, and tossed them across the room. She wouldn't be needing those anymore.

And since she had a little time to spare before the great
quince
hair project began, she decided to check in on her crew.

She called Jamie first.

“Hey, Jamie, what's up?” she asked.

“What's up is that I'm on a bus, on my way to your house,” Jamie said, exasperated. “If you call me one more time, I swear, I will turn around and go home.”

“No problem,” Alicia said. “So what's your ETA?”

“I'm losing you,” Jamie said, crumbling a ball of paper into the phone. Then she grumbled, “I'm trying
really
hard to lose you.”

Alicia, however, didn't hear her. She had hung up and was already calling Gaz.

“Gaz: the mariachi number. I need to know your band can deliver,” Alicia said.

“Alicia,” Gaz said. “You are bugging out. What is going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Alicia said. “Just got to hold it all together.”

“It's together, Lici,” Gaz said. “This is so not like you. Do you want to talk? I can come over after work. My shift ends at seven.”

“I'm cool,” Alicia lied. “Just taking care of business.” She and Gaz hadn't been alone since the club. They hadn't even
talked
about what had happened. Would it be weird?

“Business will take care of itself,
Mamita
,” Gaz said, interrupting her thoughts. “Who's going to take care of you?”

Mamita
? Wait,
was
Gaz her boyfriend now? It would be so nice if something in her life turned out the way she'd hoped. She wanted to tell him everything, about losing her internship, about being so scared that something might go wrong with Sarita's
quince
that she couldn't even think straight. She wanted to tell him that she liked him. But she had just been fired, and she was feeling like a big, giant loser. And if at this very second he liked her, the minute he found out the truth he was bound to stop. She crumpled up a piece of paper right into the mouthpiece of her cell.

“Sorry, Gaz,” she said. “I'm losing you.” Then she hung up the phone. She would deal with that all later. She hoped.

When Jamie rang the doorbell, Alicia had pushed thoughts of Gaz out of her head and was ready with a whole new plan for Sarita's hair.

“Hey, come in,” she said. “Look at these pictures I've printed out. I was thinking that Sarita needs a more grown-up look. She needs something modern and cool, to fit the space theme. She needs…”

Jamie held up a hand. “Back it up,
chica
. I thought hair was
my
domain.”

“It is, it is,” Alicia said. “I just totally think it should look like this.”

“Natalie Portman in
V for Vendetta
?” Jamie said, holding up a picture Alicia had printed out. “Don't you think that's a little harsh?”

“We've got to make Sarita's
quince
fashion-forward,” Alicia insisted.

Jamie rolled her eyes. “And you don't think
I
know what fashion-forward is?”

It was a totally ridiculous question, because Jamie was always one step ahead of the fashion curve, as evidenced by the outfit she was wearing that day: a charcoal gray T-shirt that she'd pimped out with chiffon ruffles on the sleeves, stove-pipe jeans, red gladiator sandals, and bright yellow nail polish.

“So, are you going to do the cut or not?” Alicia asked, putting a hand on her hip.

“Are you going to stay in your lane and let me do what I want?” Jamie asked.

“Nope,” Alicia said.

“Then, nope,” Jamie said, handing Alicia back the picture of Natalie Portman's bald head. “I'm outta here,
chica
.”

Turning on the heel of her gladiator sandal, Jamie walked down Alicia's driveway without saying another word.

Alicia couldn't believe it. Jamie was straight tripping! A
quince
was a massive production, like a show or a movie. It needed a director, and Alicia was the natural choice.
She
was the one who had formed Amigas.
She
was the one who had brought them all together. If Sarita's party did not wind up the most unique, memorable
quince
that Miami had ever seen, then everyone would blame only one person—her.