“What about you?” he asks. “Have you thought about college?”
I wiggle my toes in my socks and lean my head against the couch. “Harvard, I guess.”
“You sound thrilled by the prospect.”
“I kind of freak out if I think about it too hard.”
“Freak out how?”
“You know . . . pit in my stomach, sweaty palms, sometimes crying.”
“You realize that’s not normal, right?”
“I’ll get used to it. At some point. I hope.”
“Why are you acting so powerless?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . if the thought of Harvard makes you physically sick, don’t go to Harvard. You’re the one who decides your own future.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not that simple. My parents—”
“You,” he corrects.
I run my hands across my pajama pants. “So what am I supposed to do, then?”
He pauses, then looks at me closely. “Consider your options. Maybe it’s not Harvard, maybe it’s a different college.”
I’ve never considered other colleges, really. My parents have suggested some others as acceptable options. Yale, Princeton, Columbia. Each and every one just as unappealing to me.
“Or,” Strand adds, “come join the College of Life with me. They have a very high acceptance rate.”
“I don’t know if I can be happy if it means making everyone else so miserable.”
The dimple in his cheek deepens. “It’s your life, not theirs. They want you to be happy.”
“Happy at Harvard.”
“No,” he says. “Just happy. Come on, Cutlet. Anyone with eyes can see how much they love you.”
“You make all this sound easy.”
“Not easy. Doable.”
I twirl my pencil between my thumb and index finger. “What do your parents think about your decision not to go to college?”
“My dad doesn’t know yet. He’ll deal with it when the time comes.”
“And your mom?”
“My mom passed away when I was little.”
I stop twirling my pencil. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I don’t talk about it a lot.”
“What was her name?”
“Emilie.”
“That’s pretty. Sorry, should I not ask questions?”
“Feel free.” Strand extends his legs onto my lap. “Is this okay? My legs get sore if I sit for too long.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
I barely notice. My mind is too busy replaying all the snide comments I’ve ever made to Strand. Poor Strand, living life without his mother. Did his father have to learn to do everything by himself? Did Strand have grandparents to help raise him?
As if reading my thoughts he says, “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. I was young when it happened.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I hate feeling sorry for you.”
He laughs. His laugh is smooth, like the tinkling of piano keys.
For kids, Strand wants two. “A boy and a girl. Like me and my sister.”
“I thought you were an only child.”
“Nope.”
Come to think of it, why did I assume Strand was an only child?
“How old is your sister?” I ask.
“She’s twenty. She studies acting at NYU.”
“Acting?” I ask. “That’s so cool.”
“She is cool.”
“Are you guys close?” I ask.
“Very. She knows everything about me. She knows about you, too.”
“Me?” I look up, startled.
“Yeah. I sent her your audition video.”
My hands fly up to my face. “Strand, no. You didn’t.”
“She loved it.”
“The Princess Leia buns? The metal mouth?”
“So?”
“That video is so embarrassing.”
“You’re your own toughest critic, do you know that? I love that video. I’ve seen it about fifty times.”
“No you haven’t.” I look down at his jeans and play with the rip across his knee.
He crosses his heart. “Fifty times, if not more.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re amazing?” He says this as though it’s plainly obvious, like I’m an idiot for not understanding. “Even as an orthodontically-challenged Princess Leia.”
“Whatever,” I say. I need to remember not to take Strand’s compliments too seriously. This is his MO with women, spitting out compliments like a Pez dispenser.
“You should meet her,” he says.
“Who? Your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “I think you’d like her. And you’d like NYU. I bet you could get into their theater program.”
He’s spouting complete nonsense. I’ve always had this mental image of college as sitting in a big lecture hall, listening to stuffy professors who wear jackets with elbow patches. It’s Evanston on a grander scale. Going to school for something I actually love, like singing, has never occurred to me.
My parents would shoot it down immediately. Singing isn’t exactly the college experience they have in mind for me. To them, college isn’t about finding yourself, or even learning. It’s checking something off the list. It’s a guarantee of a future that won’t be spent scrimping and saving. I can already hear them. Their voices are a permanent part of me, filtering every experience though their eyes before mine. “This is why we came to this country? This is what we sacrificed everything for? You’re getting a degree to become a waitress at the Stardust Diner?”
So I ignore the tiny seed that plants itself inside my brain. I’ll starve it, stick it in a dark windowless room with no air circulation.
Strand and I talk for hours. I learn several interesting facts about him. I learn that his mom’s side of the family is white, his dad’s side is black, and his maternal grandparents didn’t approve of the marriage. I learn that Strand is named after the bookstore where his parents first met. I learn that his favorite song is not by the Pixies. It’s by Billy Joel. He swears he isn’t joking, and he won’t tell me which one.
It’s so late that I start to feel drunk from lack of sleep, all dizzy and happy and lacking a brain filter.
“Sing me your song again,” I command him while my eyes are half-closed.
“Dance, monkey, dance.”
“Seriously. I want to hear it.”
He doesn’t fight me on it this time. I guess it’s because the scary part is over—I’ve already heard it. As he launches into the melody that’s gnawed at me for weeks, I close my eyes. But I don’t fall asleep. I’m not even close.
“One more time,” I say as soon as he finishes.
He laughs. “Sing it with me.”
“I don’t know all the words.”
“So? You’ll learn.”
We keep our voices soft, so we don’t wake up my parents. Our voices are different—his smooth, mine scratchy—but they blend perfectly together. With both of us singing, it’s like his song takes on a bigger shape. I can feel what he’s feeling. I wonder why we haven’t done this before.
We finish, and the silence pulses in my ears.
“Wow,” Strand says finally.
I glance at my phone, and the time reads 4:47 a.m. We need to wake up in a few hours to get to Jersey. “I should go back to my room.”
“You should.”
But neither of us moves.
Chapter Forty-Two
“OTHER PEOPLE”
—BEACH HOUSE
My hair looks like a lollipop. It’s piled into a tight bun perched on the crown of my head. All the girls in the quince have the same towering matching hairdos, but Jessica is wearing her hair half up since it’s her “special day.” We’re all packed into a dressing suite like a herd of cattle as we primp.
“It’s fine,” Mom says about my hair when I complain to her. “It b
alances out the fullness of your dress.”
The dress is a whole other disaster. It’s Pepto-Bismol pink and speckled with glitter. Underneath it I’m wearing a slip made up of what looks like three hula hoops. I yawn as Mom tries to apply my lipstick. Things still aren’t okay between us, but Strand and the quince are acting as a Band-Aid, temporarily patching up our relationship.
“Why are you so tired?” she asks me. “You went to bed early last night.”
“I didn’t sleep well.” Truthfully, I’m not sure what time I went to bed. Strand and I talked for so long that I dozed off at an unknown hour while we were on the couch. He must have carried me back to my room. I try not to think about it, because I’ve heard from Annie that I’m not the most beautiful sleeper. I snore with my mouth hanging open and sometimes there’s drool.
When Mom is finished beautifying me, she hurries back inside the main hall to wait with Dad and Matty. The court hasn’t made its official entrance yet. Eduardo lines us up next to our partners on a marble staircase outside of the main doors. This is the first time we’re seeing each other all dressed up.
I try not to gawk at Strand in his rented tuxedo. I pretend that my heart doesn’t rattle in my chest, but it’s hard when he looks prettier than I do.
His face breaks into a smile when he sees me.
Clearing my throat, I take my place beside him on the staircase and tell him, “Don’t say a word. I know I look like a human cupcake.”
His eyes glimmer, or maybe that’s the reflection of my sparkles as he looks me up and down. “You say that like it’s a bad thing . . .”
“It is.”
Eduardo shushes all thirty of us and the hall goes silent as he presses his ear against the doors to listen for our entrance cue. When the opening horns of Celia Cruz’s “La vida es un carnaval” begin, he throws open the doors. From my position on the stairs, I can see past the heads of the quince court and straight into the crowded hall. It looks like we’re about to enter a concert arena filled with colored lights and smoke.
The DJ announces the first couple in Spanish. They shuffle awkwardly onto the dance floor to the applause of all the families in the hall, smiling and linking arms the way Eduardo instructed. Strand and I are the thirteenth couple in line.
“This is a little intense,” he whispers to me, his breath tickling my ear.
“I know,” I whisper back. My stomach is doing an aerobics routine as if I’m about to take the stage with the band.
When we reach the bottom of the staircase, Strand takes my arm and weaves it through his. I look past the couple in front of us and can see my family toward the end of the hall, seated at a round table with Abi. I almost cry when I see Abi, wearing her blue sequined jacket and matching skirt. Matty points at me and waves.
“Ready, partner?” Strand says as the couple before us sashays onto the dance floor.
I’m clawing into his arm. “Ready.”
“Strand Connor y Victoria Cruz!” the DJ bellows, and Strand and I strut in unison down the dance floor like it’s our personal runway, my dress ballooning out with every step I take. My family cheers loudly when we pass their table, and Matty pumps his fist in the air. An unstoppable smile forms on my face.
We gather into our formation, a line of girls facing an opposite line of guys, and start our choreography. It’s nothing too complicated, mostly grape-vining and cha-cha-ing with some scattered turns as we face our partners. Strand makes silly faces at me so I’ll laugh, while most of the other boys look deadly serious, concentrating on not stepping on each other’s toes.
I’m surprised to realize that I’ll be sad when the quince is over. This is the last time we’ll all perform this choreography together. It’s the last time I’ll salsa dance with Strand. Even though I was upset when Levi couldn’t be here, now I can’t imagine another partner.
Jessica makes her grand entrance to thunderous applause and shimmies through the space between our conga lines. She’s wearing a toothpaste-white dress with ruffles down the skirt and a pink sash tied around her waist. And even though the whole affair is as tacky as I predicted, I have to admit she looks beautiful.
When we start our salsa circle, Mom and Dad whip out their phones.
“We’re being filmed,” I warn Strand.
He dips me so low my head almost touches the floor, then whips me back up and shoots the cameras a movie star smile.
“Eduardo’s going to kill you!” I warn him. “How dare you corrupt his choreography!”
“I can take Eddie,” he replies.
After we cycle through the choreography, the quinceañera turns into a full-on party. The DJ plays all the Top 40 hits, the ones that I can’t admit to anyone but myself that I secretly love. Strand and I dance with my parents, Abi, and even with Matty. They’re exhausted after half an hour, but I am the Energizer Bunny when it comes to dancing, relentlessly untiring.
Here’s the thing—I’m in between two worlds, but I can’t fit into either one perfectly. I can round my words when I speak English so that there’s no trace of my family’s accent. Pull my hair up into a bun so you can’t see how wild and unconfined it is. My skin is pale enough to make me ethnically ambiguous—I can pass for Italian or Greek or French. But when I’m around all my Cuban relatives, I don’t feel quite right either. My Spanish is clunky, and I’ve never spoken it fluently so I opt to keep my phrases short, a barely passable Spanglish. I don’t bother with quinces or feel any nostalgia for a country I’ve never visited.
When I dance with Strand, it’s like I’m bridging the gap. I can be here, feeling the connection to this world, my family’s world, and still be me. I think he appreciates it. It’s the same way I feel in the band, a connection to something larger than myself. This music connects me to where I come from, and the band’s music connects me to where I want to go.
Strand and I show each other the nerdiest dance moves we know. As a former athlete, I’ve perfected the running man, while Strand teaches me the Bernie. I launch into the Carlton dance from Fresh Prince, and Strand fights back with the lawnmower. I’m about to attempt the worm when “Shake It Off” comes on and Strand accidentally lets out a whoop of excitement.
I widen my eyes at him. “Oh. My. God!”
“Shut up,” he says quickly. “Let’s never speak of this.”
“You like Taylor Swift! You!”
In all the time I’ve known Strand, it’s taken me until today to realize the truth about him: that underneath the dimple, the smirking, the groupies, and the guitar . . . Strand is a dork. He knows every single word and sings without shame. I join him for the chorus, cracking up the entire time.
“You so practice this alone in your room,” I say.
“I do not,” he says in between lines.
“I’m telling everyone we know. I’m going to shatter your illusion of cool.”
“I’ll show them the footage of you doing the Carlton. Your parents recorded it all.”
“You can’t get my family’s help to blackmail me.”
“Why? They like me better anyway.”
I laugh. “That might actually be true.”
The song ends all of a sudden, and the DJ announces a couples dance. I start to leave the dance floor, but Strand holds me back.
“Come on,” he says. “I still have energy to burn.”
I hear the opening bars of “Other People” by Beach House, one of my favorite songs, and I’m torn.
“Levi won’t mind,” Strand insists.
“Fine,” I say, allowing him to place his hands around my waist. I stare up at the ceiling and drag my arms over his shoulders.
“If it makes you that miserable to dance with me, we don’t have to,” Strand says, a smile playing at his lips. “I know how much I ‘disgust’ you.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Not a big deal.”
I want to make sure Strand knows that dancing with him under the glow of the lights has no romantic effect on me whatsoever, so I fix my face into
a scowl.
“Good song,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I mutter.
“Don’t act like you don’t love it, Victoria.”
I narrow my eyes at him as we sway side to side. “I don’t.”
“I can picture you listening to it under the covers with your eyes closed.”
How the hell does he know I do that?
“All right, so I like the song,” I admit.
“Uh-huh. And how do you categorize this one?”
I stare away from him, into the dark crowd surrounding us. “It’s in the Moonlight Over a Lake playlist.”
“You are so bizarrely specific.”
“I see what I see.”
“Are you swimming in this lake?”
“No. I’m in a rowboat, obviously.”
“Right. Of course. By yourself?”
“No . . .”
“With Levi?”
The heat of his palms warms my lower back, even through layers of taffeta.
“With . . . I don’t know,” I reply. “A faceless man, I guess.”
“Creepy.”
“Why do you care who’s in the boat?”
“I’m just trying to get a visual, that’s all,” he says. “Do you miss him?”
“Who?”
“Levi.”
“Of course I miss him,” I say indignantly. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“So why isn’t he in the rowboat with you?”
“What is your fixation with the damn rowboat?”
“It seems to me that if he’s your boyfriend, you would visualize him with you in this rowboat under the moonlight.”
I shrug in response.
“Do you still laugh?” Strand asks. “When he kisses you?”
“Is this an interrogation?”
“No interrogation. We’re friends, right?”
“Yes,” I say firmly. “Friends.”
But he’s pulling me closer now so that we’re dancing cheek to cheek and I can feel the hair on the back of his neck tickling my fingertips. Friends don’t dance like this. I hope my parents aren’t watching. I should probably pull away, dance like there’s a Bible between us. It’s so hard to do when the song is so beautiful and my dress is twinkling like Strand’s stupid blue eyes.
The Victoria in My Head Page 22