Amor and Summer Secrets

by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

  “I was thinking I could just hang out on my laptop for a while, write some e-mails. Do you know a place where I can get Internet access?”

  I refused to look at Vince while I said this because I knew he was going to flip out. I was doing exactly what he was accusing me of—refusing to make a new life for myself here.

  “You are so lame! I can’t believe you’re going to spend the summer on your freakin’ computer whining to your friends from home. News flash, Mariana: They’re not sitting at home obsessing over you. Emily and Madison—they’re out right now. They’re having fun,” Vince harped.

  He may have thought he was persuading me, but all he succeeded in doing was further emphasizing my need to connect with my girlfriends. I didn’t want them to forget about me. I didn’t want to be excluded from their lives. At least if I could talk to them regularly, if only on the computer, I’d still be in the loop. I wouldn’t miss everything.

  “Look, you guys do what you want to do. And I’ll do what I want to do. I want to go to an Internet café. Lilly, is there one around here?” I asked, firmly.

  Lilly looked at my brother. He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes.

  “Uh, yeah. There’s one down the street from here, near the library. I’ll take you there.”

  “No, I can find it myself.” I grabbed my black laptop bag, which I had brought from the house, thinking that the hotel had Internet access (I seriously needed to remember I wasn’t in Spring Mills anymore), and headed for the door.

  “It’s two blocks down on the left,” Lilly instructed, her eyes darting between me and my brother.

  I could tell she was waiting for him to stop me, but I knew he wouldn’t. My mind was made up and Vince knew that.

  “See you guys. Have fun,” I stated as the glass door to the hotel swung behind me.

  I looked out at the strangers on the sidewalk. It was the middle of the day, one o’clock. Madison was probably lounging by Emily’s pool right now, smeared in SPF 4, complaining about how some new tragedy was threatening to ruin her Sweet Sixteen. I could visualize the entire scene down to the pitcher of overly sweetened iced tea. Only every time I did, I saw myself beside them.Where I was supposed to be.Where I wanted to be.

  Chapter 18

  I sat at the Internet café alone. Lilly and Vince had jetted off to San Juan together. It was clear that Lilly might look like me, but she definitely acted like my brother. The two of them were perfectly suited for each other. They were probably getting ready right now to whoop it up at this Puerto Rican fiesta, thankful that I didn’t tag along and ruin it.

  I logged on to Instant Messenger and almost cried when I saw Emily’s screen name. A message quickly popped on my screen. They were hanging out at Emily’s house, sunbathing by her pool just like I thought. They said they kept the computer running just in case I tried to contact them. They missed me.

  EMBOT: Hey, Spic! It’s Madison. How’s island life? Ya tan yet?

  (I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one could see my screen. Somehow having the word “spic” displayed in a Spanish-speaking environment seemed wrong.

  I was almost embarrassed.)

  MARIRUIZ: I’ve been here, like, a day. I’m as white as when I left.

  EMBOT: And you’ll be that white when you get back.

  You don’t tan.

  MARIRUIZ: No, I don’t.

  EMBOT: So what’s it like there?

  MARIRUIZ: Sux. Everyone speaks Spanish.

  EMBOT: What’d ya expect?

  MARIRUIZ: I dunno. Whatev. There’s one girl, some cousin named Lilly, who speaks English. But it’s freaky. She looks just like me.

  EMBOT: Shut up! Really?

  MARIRUIZ:Yeah.

  EMBOT: Like you’ve found your twin in the world?

  MARIRUIZ: Not exactly, sort of.

  EMBOT:Well, it’s cool you have someone to talk to.

  MARIRUIZ: I guess, but aside from the red hair we’re crazy different. Get this, she and Vince are crashing some girl’s birthday party right now.

  EMBOT: What! OMG! I would freak if someone did that to me! Hello, Gayle’s been working on this seating chart for months!

  MARIRUIZ: I know! I mean, the birthday girl’s a friend of Lilly’s. But it’s not like she knows us. I’m not just gonna show up there uninvited.

  EMBOT: Well, of course you wouldn’t, because you have class.

  MARIRUIZ: I know. So how are the Sweet Sixteen plans going?

  EMBOT: It’s nuts. Can you believe Gayle’s trying to get me to do a cake that’s shaped like shoes? She’s so trying to ditch my LV purse idea. And she wouldn’t even make the shoes Manolos, like whatever. I’m not having a Payless Shoe birthday cake!

  MARIRUIZ: Seriously. I wish I could be there!

  EMBOT: And check this out—Emily’s got a date with your locker buddy Bobby!

  MARIRUIZ: My locker buddy? I thought he was going to some film thing in Dublin.

  EMBOT: Mari, it’s me, Em. I can’t believe Mad told you that, it’s not a big deal. We’re going to some indie-film downtown.

  MARIRUIZ: OMG! That’s a real date!

  EMBOT: Don’t say that! He leaves in two weeks for Dublin so I don’t want to read too much into it.

  It was already starting. I had only been gone a day, and already Emily was going on her first real date and I wasn’t there to share it with her. They tried to downplay it for my benefit, and the two of them repeatedly told me how much they missed me. I wanted to believe them, and I might have been able to convince myself it were true if they hadn’t dropped the major bombshell—Orlando Bloom was in Philadelphia shooting an action flick and Madison’s dad’s coworker had a connection with a casting director in town. He was getting them both roles as extras in a Hollywood feature film. They were going to spend at least three days on a movie set, in scenes with Orlando, and they were going to get their hair and makeup done by professional makeup artists.

  It took every ounce of self-control I had not to smash my head against my laptop repeatedly. I knew that if I were a true friend, I would have put aside any feelings of jealousy and have felt nothing but joy for their good fortune. After all, it wasn’t their fault. Only my brain suddenly shifted to an image of me sticking sharp pins in a Voodoo figure of my father. For fifteen years, nothing had happened in Spring Mills. The most exciting person to visit was a senator who spoke at our school, and that was only because he was the uncle of one of the students in our class. He was sixty years old and fat. He was no Orlando Bloom.

  To make matters worse, after dropping the news, my bestest buds told me they had to go because their pizza had arrived and they wanted to have time to eat before they “practiced for their scenes.” From the way they were typing, I almost thought they were getting their own trailers. The shoot wasn’t for another couple of days, but of course they couldn’t ditch me fast enough so they could focus on it and not have to worry about lonely old me—the big downer.

  I clicked off my computer. It was only two o’clock. That gave me the rest of the day to do nothing but seethe at my misfortune. I trudged back to the house. When I got there, Lilly’s mom and my Aunt Carmen were arguing over the clippings in the Quinceañera book. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but after months of watching Madison go at it with her mom over her Sweet Sixteen, I had a pretty good idea. I stood at the doorway watching, not wanting to intrude, until my Aunt Carmen saw me, jumped up and ran to the stove.

  She said something that I thought translated into “dinner in an hour,” so I nodded and smiled.

  There were two things I could do here: I could go into my bedroom and hide until I was called to dinner, or I could volunteer my help for the party. Lilly might not be into details, but with all the time I had spent around Madison lately, I pretty much was an expert in them.

  “Señora Sanchez?” I asked tentatively.

  “¡Angelica! ¡Por favor!” she corrected.

  “Sí, sí, Angelica. ¿Um, esta es para la Quinceañ
era, verdad?”

  After that I understood the words “yes” and “Lilly,” but then my cousin went off on a rant that I wasn’t even sure I could have followed if I did speak Spanish fluently. I walked over, sat down and grabbed the magazine she was holding. She was looking at dresses. I had a feeling that this was where all those countless hours in boutique dressing rooms with Madison were about to pay off.

  I grabbed the stack of magazines and after a lengthy effort on everyone’s part, I was able to finally communicate that fifteen-year-old teenagers don’t want to look like fairy princesses, they want to look like women. I threw out all of the lacy, tutu-like, long-sleeved, puffy-shouldered dresses that Angelica was keeping photos of in the binder. And after more than an hour of analyzing every picture available, I was able to find one that I thought would be acceptable and flattering on Lilly’s rather curvaceous fourteen-year-old figure. It was pink, most were, with one-inch wide straps that went over her shoulders and crossed in the back. It had a fitted bodice that would show some cleavage, but not too much, and a dropped waist that flowed into a nice, smooth silhouette (nothing Cinderella-like). It took quite a long time for us to have this conversation, but by the end of it Angelica cried with happiness and I was rather proud of myself for having conducted an entire conversation in Spanish—no matter what the topic or how long it took.

  By the time we were finished, dinner was ready and the table was set. My poor great aunt must have been so offended by my not eating her overabundance of food the night before that she went out of her way to cook me a special dinner—a plain chicken breast with fried plantains. Around the table sat Uncle Miguel, Angelica and her husband Juan, Alonzo and his friend José (who I recognized from the night before as the guy helping Alonzo with my luggage). I got the impression that Alonzo and José might be roommates because they arrived at the house in the same car and ate off each other’s plates. Aside from me, everyone else dined on a mountain of yellow rice and roasted pork.

  I never told Aunt Carmen I preferred plain foods. She must have studied my plate last night and figured it out, which was something I would have done if I were in her shoes.

  I went to bed early, only I couldn’t sleep. I never had insomnia, but tossing around endlessly was the worst form of torture I could imagine at the moment. I remained wide awake at two o’clock in the morning, thinking about Madison and Emily and Orlando Bloom, when the front door to the house crashed open. I heard Lilly and Vince barrel in, hysterically laughing and knocking over a chair in the living room. They sounded drunk, which shocked me since they were coming from a fifteen-year-old’s birthday party. I couldn’t imagine getting drunk at Madison’s Sweet Sixteen, let alone at some quasi-religious birthday celebration in front of family members. But either Lilly didn’t think her state of mind was a big deal or she was too wasted to mask her condition, because she was talking so loudly that her parents’ door slammed open.

  Angelica’s voice boomed at her daughter like a foghorn. I couldn’t make out every word. (Really, I only understood the curses and that’s because back in Spring Mills, all the boys in my class made a concerted effort to learn how to curse in Spanish). My brother and Lilly instantly fell silent—their only defense. I was pretty sure breathing their alcohol-laced breath and slurring rebuttals was not going to get them anywhere, and I was rather impressed that even in their drunken state they realized that too.

  After several minutes of screaming, a fit that would have made my father proud, Lilly’s mom was satisfied. I heard her tiny feet charge down the hallway and her bedroom door slam shut. A few moments later, Lilly and Vince were whispering outside my door.

  “So, uh, what was she so pissed about?” Vince asked. Clearly, he hadn’t understood a single word Lilly’s mother had shouted.

  “Uh, we’re drunk, stumbling in at two o’clock in the morning and we left my grandma’s car in San Juan.” She hiccupped. “Like your dad would be any cooler, Vince?”

  “It’s VICEN-TAY,” he corrected with a chuckle.

  “Oh, I forgot, your Puerto Rican alter ego.”

  (I rolled my eyes when I heard this.)

  “Whatever.” Vince burped. “Dude, I had a blast.”

  “Good, now if you can only get Mariana to hang out with us then maybe I wouldn’t get in so much freakin’ trouble. . . ,” Lilly mumbled.

  I quickly sat up when I heard my name. I had never actually overheard anyone discussing me before. While I assumed girls from home probably talked about me behind my back (girls talk about everyone), I had never listened to a live conversation about myself. My stomach knotted as I concentrated on their voices.

  “What? Why’s Mariana getting you in trouble?”

  “Because my parents made this big deal out of me hanging out with her while she’s here. I’m supposed to include her in my plans and, you know, be friends with her.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  My mouth hung open. My brother had sold me out. Here was this girl, a virtual stranger, telling him she was forced to put up with my presence and he just agrees with her. He didn’t even defend me! I felt my temperature (which was already peaking due to the sweltering, unair-conditioned bedroom) reach a new high.

  “I know, but what’s her deal? She’s so uptight,” Lilly snipped.

  “Seriously, Mariana’s cool. She’s just kinda stubborn. She’ll come around. Eventually she’ll get bored enough to hang out with us,” Vince stated, not offering me very much redemption.

  “Well, I hope she does soon. Otherwise, I’ll be spending my summer grounded, and that’s the last thing I need. I know she’s your sister and all, but she needs to lighten up.”

  I heard Lilly’s voice fade as she said good night to my brother. She was headed to her bedroom. I dropped back on the mattress, curled on my side and hastily pulled the sheet up over my head. Vince turned the doorknob and staggered into our room moments later. He called my name once, but I pretended to be asleep.

  Chapter 19

  For the next two weeks I didn’t say more than a few words to Lilly. We’d go to work at the hotel, eat dinner at the same table, watch TV on the same couch and all the while I’d pretend not to see her.

  “Mariana, want to go into Old San Juan? We can sightsee, go to El Morro,” Lilly would suggest.

  “Nope,” I’d reply curtly.

  “Want to go out to dinner tonight? I can take you to some of the cool local places.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Maybe we could go to the beach? I have a friend who can get us into The Ritz-Carlton’s beach.”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  Every time I rejected her plans, she was forced to stay home. It was clear from the glaring looks of her mother that Lilly was not allowed to go out without me. And I had to hand it to the girl, she was trying her hardest to persuade me to leave the house. She must have suggested everything from a road trip to the El Yunque Rain Forest to bingo at the local church to get my butt in gear. But I had no intention of appeasing her. I was perfectly content to stay home and read a book from the library or sit at the Internet café chatting with my girlfriends. Lilly, however, was not so content, and I loved watching her squirm as her mother forced Quinceañera plans down her throat.

  Last night, they actually spent an hour sifting through photos of what looked like Barbie dolls dressed in Quinceañera dresses. Apparently the doll was to be presented during the reception to symbolize the perfection of the day, which would have been sweet if the entire concept didn’t make Lilly want to poke needles in her eyes. The party was in less than a week, and unbeknownst to Lilly, I spent almost every afternoon lately poring over party details in the kitchen with her mom while Lilly was stripping beds at the hotel.

  Angelica had taken quite a liking to me and was pulling me out of work as much as Uncle Miguel would permit. We got along great with the exception of our significantly dense language barrier and our drastically different tastes in fashion. I was never into clothes or makeup, b
ut I didn’t live in a bubble. I knew what was in style. I just preferred my baggy clothes and undyed hair, but that didn’t mean my jeans weren’t expensive and that my shampoo wasn’t from a salon. Angelica, however, was a “more is more” kind of woman. Her hair was bleached blond and shellacked into a low ponytail that looked almost painful. Her faced was covered in countless layers of colorful makeup that implied electric blue eyeliner was still all the rage in Utuado. Her tops were tight and all her pants were at least two inches too short.

  So when it came to selecting matching jewelry for Lilly’s Quinceañera dress, we crashed heads immediately. She actually wanted Lilly to wear yellow gold. It was as if the woman was trapped in a time warp. No one’s worn yellow gold in at least a decade unless it was intentionally kitschy. Just the thought of clashing yellow gold against a pale pink dress would have given Madison night sweats. Of course, I couldn’t actually say any of this. I couldn’t really say much of anything in Spanish, except for “no, no, no.”

  I knew Angelica couldn’t afford any high-priced bling (she was sewing Lilly’s dress herself), but that didn’t mean we had to sacrifice good taste. With enough care I was able to point her toward some delicate pieces that would complement the dress and not look cheap.When we finally settled on the white gold locket, I thought I was going to tear with joy.