by Nina Moreno
When all the containers were packed, Mimi slid a quick, disapproving glance over my outfit. “Nos vamos. But first, get out of your pajamas.”
I grabbed a bag of soups. “These are not my pajamas. It’s a romper.” I headed past her and out the door, knowing she would follow, bearing potions and opinions like always.
“¿Qué es un romper?” Mimi asked Ana, who laughed.
The town square was only two blocks away, and the April evening was a warm gold as the sun dipped low in the sky. Flowering trees lined sidewalks, and shop doors sang greetings with friendly bells. We headed toward the library’s meeting room.
Mimi handed out her soups inside while Ana and I took our seats beside her mother. Mrs. Peña was on break, her apron across her lap and pens still stuck in her curls. We all still called it the bodega, but el Mercado, once a neighborhood quick stop for lotto, snacks, and coffee, had expanded into the bigger grocery and deli restaurant it was now, thanks to Mr. Peña’s food. He was an amazing cook but hated talking to people, so it was always his wife at these meetings and deli counter.
“Don’t forget to put your drums in the van. You have jazz band tomorrow,” Mrs. Peña told her daughter as she handed us a bag of chips to share.
Ana sank into her seat. “God, don’t say that so loud.”
“What’s the matter with jazz band?” I asked as I did jazz hands.
Ana nearly growled. “I’m tired of wearing sequins and playing congas.” What Ana was tired of was school band. Her father was an amazing trumpet player—from what I’d heard—who never played anymore, but her family gave her a hard time whenever her drumming took her off their idea of an established path. To them, band equaled scholarships, which equaled college, which equaled a degree that wasn’t in music.
A bigger crowd than usual milled into the room for the meeting. A row over, Malcolm and Dan grabbed two seats. Penny was bouncing happily on Malcolm’s lap, looking nowhere near interested in a bedtime. Dan’s head dropped onto his husband’s shoulder. I knew a power nap when I saw one. Ana and I shared the chips while everyone said quick hellos and got settled. The four viejitos sat in the front row like always. They were the old Latinos of the neighborhood who mostly hung outside of the bodega drinking coffee, playing dominos, and gossiping. They considered it their duty to be at every meeting for their blog and had recently started an Instagram account, which meant their new response to everything was, Check our story. I recognized every face as the room filled—until I didn’t. My next chip stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Who is that?” I whispered to Ana. She sat up a little and checked out the boy who had just sat down ahead of us. I stared at the backs of his two very tattooed arms. “I don’t know,” she admitted. We knew most everyone by their name or relative, so it was a surprise that neither of us recognized him. He ducked his head to listen to the woman beside him. “He’s sitting beside Mrs. Aquino, though, so maybe he works for her.” The Aquino family ran the marina. I had never been there, of course, but I knew her from these meetings. I wondered if Tattoo Guy was new to town as I studied the blue, nearly luminescent waves that swelled from his wrists and up his forearms, before disappearing beneath the short sleeve of his shirt that pulled tight around his bicep. I leaned forward to get a better look.
And jerked right back when Mimi stepped into my line of sight.
She slid into the seat beside me and reached over to brush my hair out of my face. I gently batted her hand away, but she just switched to fussing with my clothes. “Look at how short these are. I can see everything.” She tsked with disapproval and whispered in Spanish, “I don’t understand this romper business.”
I tugged at my shorts. “You’re making me all tiki-tiki.” It was the sound of frazzled nerves and Cuban for You’re stressing me out.
Simon Yang, our mayor, stepped up to the front of the room. He wore the beach-bum version of office casual: a white button-up with the sleeves rolled and khaki shorts. In addition to his mayoral duties, he ran a breakfast place on the boardwalk. His service dog, Shepard, sat by him.
“What’s the big news?” Gladys asked, sounding annoyed. “My league meets in fifteen minutes.” Her gray hair was a frizzy mess, and her red-and-yellow bowling shirt read NO GUTTER GLADYS on the back. She was retired but wouldn’t tell anyone from what.
Simon sighed. “Unfortunately, we have to cancel Spring Fest.”
The room fell quiet. Beside me, Ana sat up from her slouch. Spring Fest was less than two weeks away. It started as a way for local fishermen and nearby citrus groves to share harvests, but had expanded into a sort of home-coming for the town that included food, music, and even fireworks over the harbor. This year’s was especially important because two of our neighbors were getting married.
The viejitos hurried to take out their phones.
“Canceled? Why?” Mr. Gomez demanded.
Jonas Moon got to his feet. “Because of the harbor.” Jonas was a soft-spoken fisherman with curly red hair. He was engaged to Clara from the bookshop on the board-walk; theirs was the upcoming wedding. “We’re getting bought out.”
At this revelation, the room exploded with noise.
Tattoo Guy moved to stand beside Jonas at the front of the room. As he turned to face us, I caught sight of his short dark beard and watchful brown eyes. He looked standoffish with his colorful arms crossed.
Ana ducked her head and whispered, “Oh my god, that’s Alex.”
I leaned in. “Who’s Alex?”
“Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mad. That’s Alex Aquino!” She gaped at me, waiting for me to confirm the apparently unbelievable news.
“I don’t know who that is,” I confessed.
“He was a year or two ahead of us. I had an art class with him and he never spoke. He was so lanky, I swear he just disappeared sometimes. Kind of awkward.”
I shook my head, unable to connect the name, let alone her description, to the stranger with the huge, brightly painted arms currently standing in front of us.
“I heard he left town after he graduated, but I guess he’s back.”
“Well, he looks mad about it,” I said, my voice small.
Jonas raised his hands for quiet. “A developer made an offer. They plan to turn the area into a mixed-use district. Condos will go up, and the marina will most likely become a private one for residents.”
“And you’re just gonna roll over and let that happen?” Gladys demanded.
“No, ma’am. We were working with Simon on applying for grants to protect the surrounding land from sale. Right up the coast, the university has helped smaller fishing towns with new methods of aquaculture, mostly clams, and they see the potential to certify us as a new conservation district. It would halt the sale.”
“Sounds smart,” Mr. Gomez said.
“Unfortunately, the university just cut funding for further outreach.”
Jonas’s crestfallen look reminded me of how it felt when I first saw the price for my study-abroad program. I sat up. “What would the university program do, exactly?”
Alex’s gaze shot to me before skipping away. Jonas explained, “They bring in teams of students and teachers to cultivate clam farms and retrain our fishermen to work them. Convert boats and open hatcheries. It creates a new, steady, and sustainable line of work.” Jonas gestured to Alex. A slight frown tugged his dark brows lower. “Alex has been restoring oyster reefs out in the Gulf and knows some of these folks, so he’s been helping us with the application process. But we got word today about the cut to funding, and without the project, we can’t stop this sale in time.”
Simon stood off to the side. With his hands in his pockets, he shrugged. “And without the harbor, there’s no festival.”
“Without the harbor, there’s no Port Coral,” Clara said, voicing all of our fears. She was a British Nigerian woman with a cardigan collection I envied. Clara’s soft, broken tone reminded me what losing the festival meant this year. Our weekend of flowering trees, feasts, and music to ce
lebrate the season had all the makings for a whimsical spring wedding, so when Jonas had proposed, we all knew their Spring Fest nuptials would be perfect. Her mother, who lived in Nigeria, had even gotten a visa and plane ticket.
“But your wedding!” I said.
“There will be other days,” Clara said, shoring herself up. Jonas twisted his hands.
“Maybe even other marriages,” Gladys offered. “Get a hobby instead.” She patted the bowling bag beside her. “Marriage is for the birds.”
People broke off into smaller, resigned conversations. Jonas and Alex turned away to talk to a dejected Simon. Mrs. Peña sighed, like she could already see a CLOSED sign on the bodega.
I shot to my feet. “No!”
“What are you doing?” Ana asked, startled.
“Give me a second,” I said, my mind racing.
Jonas watched me with a curious expression. Alex’s sharp glance was dark and irritated. He looked impatient for this meeting to end. Standing in front of his imposing glare made my stomach spike with nerves, even as I straightened my shoulders. I had recently watched a video about power poses.
“A grant, right? That’s what all of this hinges on? If we fund the project, then we’re square and it crosses that problem off the list.”
“What list?” Jonas asked.
“There’s always a list. How much money was the grant for?”
Jonas rubbed his brow. “The one to establish the project here was for twenty thousand.”
Gladys whistled. Twenty thousand wasn’t shoe box money. But I was a scholarship kid with her eyes on a study-abroad program that cost nearly as much. It was time to get creative.
“We need a big idea, fast, because we can’t raise that much among ourselves in this time frame. We need to bring the money in from others.”
Mr. Gomez held his phone up and pointed it at me.
“How do we do that?” Jonas asked.
I caught sight of Clara. “We have Spring Fest anyway,” I declared with sudden certainty. The idea was forming too fast in my head.
“You don’t have enough time.”
I glanced at Alex, surprised to hear his input. His very gruff, negative input. It was disconcerting coming from someone so aggressively tall. I stubbornly stayed put even as Ana tugged on my romper. “We have enough to try.”
“To try to have a party?” His tone was serious, not teasing.
My eyes narrowed as a hot, embarrassed flush burned up my neck. “It wouldn’t be just a party. It could be a community fund-raiser, big enough to possibly raise that amount of money.” Everyone was used to my big ideas—even coddled them when I was younger and would nose my way into conversations, asking too many questions. They were not used to seeing someone so unimpressed by them. Or maybe I wasn’t. But I couldn’t let this go.
Ana tugged on my clothes again, whispering, “You can, like, not do this, you know.”
I glanced at Mimi. This was about all the layers of home to me. People and politics had broken my abuela’s heart. We couldn’t lose Port Coral.
“Unfortunately, the marina can’t afford to sponsor the festival with all of this going on,” Mrs. Aquino spoke up. Alex’s hard gaze softened.
Mrs. Peña stood. “El Mercado will sponsor the festival this year.”
“What?” Ana demanded.
Relief flooded me so fast I had to grab the seat in front of me.
“Rosa is right. We can do this. My husband makes the best Cuban sandwiches and croquetas this side of Miami. We’ll advertise the festival and what we’re trying to do, and then we sell those tourists some lechón asado that will have them throwing money at us. We play some salsa, serve some mojitos, and bada bing, bada boom, we save our town.”
“¿Bada qué?” Mr. Gomez asked.
“I love it.” Xiomara, the owner of the dance school, shot to her feet. “I can do the show for free and give away lessons. Between all of our businesses, we have something to offer.”
“And we won’t have to cancel your wedding,” I said to Clara and Jonas. They didn’t look convinced, but I locked onto the hope shining in both their gazes. “We can still totally do this, and your mom will be here, and it will be just as romantic as you hoped.”
“But how?” Clara wondered. “We already canceled everything, and if we turn the festival into a fund-raiser, Jonas has to work on convincing the university of our success. A wedding doesn’t fit into all of that.”
“It will. I’ll make sure of it.” They shared doubtful looks. I refused to glance at Surly Oyster Reef Alex. “I can do this. I’m super organized and all my classes are online this semester. Let me show you my bullet journal. The layouts alone will show you what I’m about.”
“Please don’t,” Ana said.
“I say it’s for the birds,” Gladys grumbled.
Clara grinned and playfully bumped her shoulder into Jonas’s side. “I’m still in if you are.”
He kissed her hand. “Always.”
Something passed between them before they turned to me with hearts in their eyes. “Let’s do this.”
I grinned at Ana, who was shaking her head. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “But that’s never stopped me before.”
The next morning, I sat outside the bodega to eat breakfast with the viejitos. My final semester was all online, allowing me to pick up extra shifts at the bodega, but it was weird to not go to school every day. I ate my pan tostado and café con leche as the four old men bickered over last night’s spring training baseball game. Within seconds, I’d finished the warm slice of bread smothered in sweet butter.
Mr. Saavedra took one look at my face before reaching into his shirt pocket and offering me antacids. I downed the rest of my cooling coffee and popped one. Mr. Gomez, Mr. Saavedra, Mr. Restrepo, and Mr. Alvarez always wore pressed slacks, button-up shirts, and smelled of sharp aftershave and cigars. Together they were an entire town’s abuelo.
“We need to start getting word out there about the festival and fund-raiser,” I told them.
“Claro,” Mr. Saavedra said. “We already posted about it.” He handed me his phone and I checked their most recent post. It was a picture of the marina with the caption Spring Fest, dale!
“Dale?” I asked.
“People like Pitbull,” Mr. Gomez said and tapped his temple. “You gotta be smart about advertising, Rosa.”
“I like it. I have some ideas to share with Mrs. Peña, too.”
Mr. Gomez harrumphed. “You’re too busy for this. You worry about college.”
“Trust me, I’ve got worrying about that under control.”
“Not like that Aquino boy.” Mr. Restrepo sucked his teeth with disapproval. “He comes back with all those tattoos? Qué oso. It’s always the quiet ones.”
“Yeah, what’s his deal?” I leaned closer. The only time Alex had spoken up of his own accord at the town meeting had been to criticize my awesome idea.
Mr. Saavedra shot me a sharp look. I knew that look. It was the one I got every time I escaped the kids’ table to interrupt grown folks. “Don’t worry about him. You worry about college.” Then he added, “And no tattoos.”
“College, college.” I got to my feet. “Ay, forget it.”
“Have you picked a university?” Mr. Gomez asked me, not for the first time. Only a handful of people knew about Charleston, but I definitely needed to tell Mimi before I told the viejitos.
“Not yet,” I lied. “And stop posting about it.”
They returned to their game of dominos. I headed around to the back where the big gates were rolled up. Inside, Ana’s cousin Junior was unloading a delivery. “Hey, valedictorian,” he called as I walked past.
“I’m not valedictorian,” I returned. Lamont Morris beat me out for the title. He’d also done dual enrollment and was transferring to Duke in the fall.
“Okay, nerd.” Junior was a few years older than me and managed stock. He used to sell we
ed, but now he was focused on getting his mix tape to go viral.
The back room of the bodega was a big space where they handled deliveries on one side, and set up tables and chairs on the other. It was more than a break room, it was the second living room where the Peña kids all grew up while their parents worked long hours. There was a handwoven throw rug, a TV that still depended on an antenna, and a small painting of the store on the corkboard among the schedules and Mrs. Peña’s many reminders. The painting was a long-ago gift from Mom.
I dropped my backpack on the table beside Benny. His leg was stretched out on the chair in front of him with an ice pack on his knee. Ana’s brother was a star soccer player, a year younger than us, and really popular at school. His injury meant that not only was soccer on hold, but so was his social life. He’d been bumming around with us a lot more lately.
“Thanks to you, I’m now an errand boy.” He shot me a look of disgust as he held up a to-do list.
“Your mom is the one who nominated the bodega.” I sat and unzipped my backpack.
“After your dramatic monologue. I saw Mr. Gomez’s Insta. Now Mom says we’re going to Cuban the whole thing up. Oil a pig and make a contest of catching it before roasting it.”
My smile disappeared. “What?”
He shrugged. “That’s what my tío says they had to do before they were allowed to marry a girl in their village.”
I slipped out my notebook, only half wondering if that was true.
“But, listen, I had a better idea. We should search for the Golden Turtle.”
“Oh my god, this again?” The viejitos had posted an old picture of the lost artifact for throwback Thursday, and Benny became obsessed. According to local legend, the Golden Turtle had first been discovered in a sunken pirate ship by a bunch of teenagers who, instead of handing it over to their parents, or I don’t know, a museum, hid the small statue of a turtle for their friends to find. A tradition was born, and every outgoing senior class hid it for the next one until it was lost forever about two decades ago.
“It’s still out there, so why not try to find it?” he asked, sounding earnest and determined, and not at all like the usually carefree Benny.