Cubanita

by Gaby Triana

  “Nothing, an eighteen-wheeler drove me off the road, and I couldn’t get out of a ditch. Andrew found me. A tow truck pulled me out. Just a scratch on the Chevy.”

  Dad listens, glancing at Andrew appreciatively.

  I sit on the sofa. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Eh, she had a checkup in the afternoon. Probablemente está sentada en tráfico. Ese Kendall está de madre.” He looks at Andrew again, this time to clarify in English. “She’s probably sitting in—”

  “Kendall traffic,” Andrew interrupts. “I got it.”

  Dad smiles. “Oh, that’s good. Very good.” He kneads the back of my neck, a pat on the back for reeling in a good one. My dad has always appreciated my judgment of anything, even guys. So not typical of Cuban dads. One reason why I love him.

  Andrew looks around. “Mind if I use your bathroom?”

  I point toward the bedrooms. “Right around the corner, next to the giant picture of me in the cream puff dress.”

  He walks off, and a moment later I hear him laughing down the hall.

  My dad sinks onto the couch next to me, placing a hand on my knee. “Isa, no le digas nada a tu mamá de lo que pasó.”

  Don’t tell my mom anything? “¿Por qué?”

  “Porque sí. She worries enough about everything without knowing that you’re out there falling off roads. She’s estressed for anything.” I love the way my dad says stressed. Otherwise, his English is pretty darn near perfect.

  “So I sent her to see Dr. Hernández,” he adds.

  Any little thing wrong with anyone, and my dad suggests a visit to Dr. Hernández, family friend and physician. “Why, do you think he’ll be able to figure her out? It’s more here”—I point to my head—“than anything. That’ll take more than a tongue depressor down her throat, tú no crees?”

  “Chica, deja a tu pobre madre ya.”

  “Fine, I’ll get off her case for a while. I’m only on it because she doesn’t leave me alone. She treats me like a baby, Dad. Sometimes I wish Carmen were here to share in Mami’s insanity.”

  “Oh, and Robi called you,” he adds.

  I roll my eyes. Robi again? Why can’t he let me be? If I call him back, it’ll do more harm than good.

  Andrew reappears, rubbing his hands together. He touches my arm lightly. “All right, I guess I’ll be going now.”

  “’K.”

  “Hasta luego, mi hijo,” Dad says.

  “Adiós, señor.” Andrew nods. Most Cubans don’t really say adiós, but “see you later.” Still, at least he tries.

  We walk to the front door. “Thanks for rescuing me.” Prince Andrew.

  “Hey, no problem. Call me later?”

  “Okay.”

  Another kiss. A quick good-bye on the lips. Call me later? Man, Andrew and I have been talking every day this week. Do I mind? Hell no. He makes me swoon, remember? That alone means something. There has to be something wrong with him. Nobody’s that perfect.

  I watch as he pulls out of my driveway, wet tires squeaking against the sidewalk. Then, in the rosy light of the waning sun, he takes off on his white horse. 4Runner, I mean.

  Ten

  Friday night, we ate in the Grove. It felt different to be on a date with someone who ordered two pints of Sam Adams. I wouldn’t necessarily call Andrew a drunk, though. I can’t believe Susy actually tried that one on me. Anyway. After tipping the belly dancer and splitting a skyscraping dessert, we strolled Cocowalk. He bought me the cutest bracelet with brown stones and beads.

  When we got back to my house, nobody was home, so we kissed in his car for, like, half an hour. I had to force myself to say good night or I honestly don’t know what would’ve happened. Believe me, it wasn’t easy.

  Last night, I didn’t see him. He went fishing with Iggy’s family again. He said he’d bring us dolphinfish today if they caught any, but it’s already 2:00. Last Monday he called late. Therefore, I seriously doubt we’ll see any fresh fish today.

  Before accompanying Mami to Sedano’s, I check my e-mail and find two new messages, one from Robi (how’ve you been please call me, aargh!) and one from Carmen. I spin the bracelet Andrew gave me over my wrist as I read the one from my sister:

  From: C. Díaz-Sanders

  To: Isabelita

  Subject: Patience pays

  Hi, baby girl. Dad says you’ve been losing it with Mami. Take it easy, sweetie. You know how she is…her bark is worse than her bite. Hang in there for another four weeks, and try to make your summer with her as pleasant as possible. You may feel exasperated now, but you’ll miss her later, believe me. How are things with Andrew, is it? Be careful, sis. Send Stefan a kiss for me, okay?

  Love you,

  Carmen

  Dad said that? Why? Since when does he need help from my sister in talking to me? Mom’s the one who looks for confrontation, not the other way around. I can be patient with the endless talk of Fidel the Devil, but when she starts inviting Robi over at her own discretion? That’s a different story.

  “Isabelita!” Mami barks from the foyer.

  “¡Ya voy!” I pull off the bracelet and tuck it into my night table drawer. What’s the point in her seeing it? It would only launch a discussion that’s better left alone.

  “Vámonos,” she says when I emerge from my room and find her with reddish eyes, purse slung over her shoulder, ready to go food shopping.

  What is that all about? “¿Mami, qué pasa?” I look intently at her eyes.

  “Nada, hija, los lentes de mierda estos me tienen cansada. Es hora de cambiarlos.”

  Yeah, time to change the disposable contacts, my butt. I’ll ask Dad later if he knows what’s eating Mom. I swear, if this is all a plot to make me feel guilty and get me to stay home for college, I’ll…I…I don’t know what I’d do, honestly.

  I sigh heavily so she’ll know I’m not buying into her little act. Outside, we get into her car, and she notices something on the Chevy I’d hoped she wouldn’t.

  “¿Y ese arañazo?”

  “What scratch?” I lean over her to see the thin wavy lines on the front right bumper of my truck. Great. Distract her. “I don’t know! How’d that get there? I’ll show Dad when we get back. Hurry, it’s gonna rain.”

  Sedano’s supermarket is always a circus. Ringmaster…clowns…everything. First, there’s a DJ for 95.7 F.M., El Sol out front, drawing people to an already overpacked store with his superspeedy merengue music. Then, as the automatic doors slide open, the old cubanazos sip café cubano at a counter to my right, served by a woman with hair orange enough to make Lucille Ball roll in her grave. To my left, there’s a line of men, practically drooling at my mom and me. No particular reason…we’re female. And my absolute favorite—the ladies wearing workout shorts, chancletas, and giant rollers in their hair. What, if not for going out in public, are they doing their hair for? I mean, really. Did I mention all these people will buy lotto tickets before they leave the store?

  Anyway, Mami decides to make paella. That way, if Andrew drops off some fish, she can use it in the dish. If not, it’s still got the chicken, chorizo, and shrimp. In the middle of the produce section, there’s a bin with both American and Cuban flags.

  “Why do people here fly the Cuban flag?” I ask, tugging the fabric on one. Woops. I should’ve known better. Oh well, I already opened up the can of worms, guess I have to let them out now. “Isn’t Cuba communist? So doesn’t that make them communist, too?”

  “Mi vida, it’s not that simple. The Cuban flag means many things to many people, but mostly, it represents the people.”

  “But the people in Cuba are communist.” Duh. And these plantains are way too ripe.

  Mami bags them anyway for the maduros. “Sí, pero the people who display the flag here don’t see communism, Isa. They see a place they once loved and still love.”

  “Yeah, but that place is now communist.” I mean, helloooo?

  She sighs, checking the firmness of a few tomatoes. “Isa, you don’t underst
and. It’s about honoring a memory of old Cuba. It’s a need, hija…the power of need.”

  “You’re right, Mami,” I say, as I bag some fresh parsley. “I don’t understand how people here can fly the Cuban flag, not the American flag, when America is the country that took them in. They wouldn’t have anything without America, and yet, they wave the Cuban flag, a communist flag.”

  My mother sighs her oh-young-one-you-have-much-to-learn sigh. “Primero, the Cuban communist flag is red and black, okay?”

  I love how she says okay. “Okay,” I reply in her accent.

  “Second, the Cubans here do fly the American flag. Just look at every other house on the street. But as for the Cuban flag…” She pauses to walk over and rip a couple more plastic baggies. “Let me ask you, Isa…”

  See what I started? Me and my big, fat mouth.

  She proceeds to choose the ripest green peppers from the bunch. “If, God forbid, something happened in this country, where there was a takeover of the government—”

  “That would never happen,” I interrupt.

  “Ah, sí? How confident you are of that. I hope to God you’re right, mi hija.”

  Jeez, would you look at these lovely hurricane candles with the Virgin Mary and all the saints on them? Supermarkets all across America should carry them.

  “Just imagine it. Government takeover…and you had to move to another country to keep your derechos humanos, your human rights—”

  “I know what derechos humanos are.”

  She stares at me.

  Woops. “Sorry.”

  “You don’t really want to know about this, Isa, así que olvídate. Forget it.”

  “No, sorry, Mom,” I say again, remembering my dad and sister’s warnings to go easy on my mom. “Please continue.”

  Her expression softens. “How would you feel seeing the American flag, your flag, after something like that happening? Would your feelings for it change? Or would you still love it? After all, it was not communist Americans who designed it, just as communist Cubans did not design la de Cuba.”

  Easy. “It would probably still make me proud, but I wouldn’t wave it around, knowing it now represents something different.”

  She glances away, disappointed. We reach the deli counter, and she takes a number from the dispenser. She looks back at me, square in the eye. “I don’t believe you, hija. You would wave it. And every time you saw it, you would think of America as you knew it, with its cities, and its bitches…”

  “Beaches.”

  “And the movie theaters, and el barrio where you grew up, and your friends, y tu familia, and the hamburgers you love, and the Kee line pie, and how you could say anything and nobody would put you in jail for it. No matter where you end up living, this will always be your home, even if another nation was so kind as to take you in.” She crosses her arms and turns to watch the numbers on the digital display.

  I don’t know. She’s kind of right, but I still wouldn’t fly the Cuban flag. It’s communist! Then again, I’ve never known Cuba any other way. But Mami has childhood memories there. Summers at the beach and all that. Maybe I do understand it a little, but still. “Whatever, Mami. I wasn’t looking to argue with you.”

  “But we’re not arguing! This is good. You need to see what we see.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Mi vida, los cubanos en el exilio.”

  “Mami, I’m not Cuban! I’ve never even seen Cuba with my own eyes!”

  She faces me again and practically yells, but no one notices. Everyone here is practically yelling. It’s the normal voice volume. “Isa! Yes, you are! ¡Tus padres son cubanos, tus abuelos son cubanos. Naciste aquí, pero nos tienes en tu sangre! Open your eyes, hija! What are you so ashamed of?”

  Next to me a lady is staring, waiting for my response. Her little girl clings to her leg as she sucks at a lollipop that stains her lips red.

  I focus back on Mami’s eyes. Rich, brown eyes, like looking into a mirror in the future. “Mami, I’m not ashamed of anything, okay? I love my family. I know we’re not completely American, whatever that even means. I just wish sometimes you could be…a little less enthusiastic about Cuba. It makes me wonder if you wouldn’t move there again once things are back to normal.”

  She laughs softly, but it’s not real. “Things will never go back to normal, Isa. And if they do, I won’t be around to see it.”

  The other lady smiles at me, at least it looks like a faint smile, and reaches up to the counter to receive her package. She walks off with her daughter skipping behind.

  “Sí, yo sé que I’m enthusiastic, pero maybe if you loved your heritage as much as we do, I wouldn’t have to try so hard.”

  Oh. So that’s why she does it? Because she thinks I’m not enthusiastic enough? Because she thinks I don’t care? Well, hey, if that’s all. Fine, a little enthusiasm, maestro.

  I reach into yet another bin of Cuban flags, pull one out, and wave it high in circles and plaster a grin on my face. “¡Viva Cuba libre!” I announce to everyone within hearing range, and a few butchers from the meat department cheer.

  Mami shields her eyes and shakes her head. “Loca.”

  Eleven

  Where’s my fine brush? Oh, there it is. I’m dying to finish this painting already, so I can start a new one when I get to Michigan. The scenery will be different, so it wouldn’t make any sense to finish this sandy landscape up there. The whole vibe will be different, like between my mom and me and the whole Sedano’s discussion yesterday. You’d think, as the baby in the family, that I’d get along better with her, but we’ve always lived in different worlds.

  Like I remember when I was little…I used to love lighting a candle on stormy nights and walking around the house in my long nightgown, pretending to be an actress in some old movie, a visitor at a mad scientist’s castle. Every now and then, I’d stop and strike a pose for the imaginary camera before wandering on. My final destination was always the bookcase in our den, the scientist’s secret library. Then I’d hear eerie violin music coming from somewhere within the walls. And just as I’d be about to pull the book on human anatomy (which was really a switch to a secret passageway), Mami would suddenly fling open the door, flick on the light, and demand, “¿Isabelita, que estás haciendo?”

  “Nothing,” I’d say, and just like that, I was jolted back into reality, into her world.

  It’s sort of the same thing with my family. Am I Cuban or American? Where do I belong? I was born here, but if I say I’m American, it’ll draw no, mi vida looks from my folks. If I say I’m Cuban, that wouldn’t make any sense either, since the closest I’ve come to seeing the island was with binoculars on a cruise ship one summer. But I have to know and be comfortable with it before I go to Michigan. Because here, I feel the most gringa of all my family, but there, I’ll be the Latina girl with an accent I never knew I had.

  Why do I think about such lame things when I’m painting? I have to stop staring at this canvas and start already. Maybe I should add something unique to this storm scene, but what?

  “Hey, Isa.” Andrew’s here—pulling off his orange poncho in the middle of the art room. Talk about being in my own world. I didn’t even hear him come in.

  “Hey, sweetie!” Whoa, I just called him sweetie.

  He looks tired. I totally understand; it’s been a long day. He also looks major hot with that new haircut.

  “I’ve been dying to see you,” he says, inching over to my easel, taking the brush right out of my hand, and tossing it aside.

  God, help me. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” He drops his face to mine and pulls me close. And that’s the extent of the conversation.

  We probably shouldn’t be doing this here, with staff members nearby. But that thought goes away quickly, replaced with feelings I never knew I had. Every inch of my body is alive. I always thought that phrase sounded corny in love songs, but I get it now. The butterflies are back, frantically flapping their little wings inside m
e, as if trying to warn me. About what, I have no idea. Because if there is something wrong with Andrew, I just don’t care anymore.

  Twelve

  Dad loves Home Depot, especially on Monday nights. It’s the hardest day of the week for him, so he likes to unwind by taking in the scent of freshly sawed plywood. Me, I like the paint aisles. Maybe I’ll start getting ideas for the mural I plan to do in my future home.

  Whenever I have a problem or something I don’t want to tell my mom about, I talk to Dad at Home Depot. I wonder if he has any wisdom regarding Coach.

  “Dad, you know Andrew?”

  “Andrew? Sí, cómo no, ¿qué le pasa?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with him.” Dad always has to ask what’s wrong with everybody. The family fixer-upper. “That’s the problem—nothing’s wrong with him.”

  “¿Qué quiere decir eso?”

  “Well, I mean, I really like him. He’s great, he’s funny, he’s smart, helpful…”

  I won’t mention how he makes me…Okay, no. I definitely can’t tell my father how I have to change my panties after almost every time I’m with Andrew.

  “And I shouldn’t like him. He lives here, goes to school here, and soon I’ll be gone. See what I mean?”

  “So what do you want to do, hija?” he asks as we turn into the bath appliance aisle.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.” I run my finger along the dusty shelving, leaving a long, clean trail. “What should I do? Should I not be seeing him?”

  “For now? I don’t see why not. You’ll just have to decide what to do when your time’s up, that’s all.”

  Huh? Is he even listening? He checks out the faucets on sale. For whose bathroom, I don’t know. All our faucets are pretty new, but I forget that my dad’s on this endless quest to accumulate spare parts in our garage. “Pero listen,” he says, eyebrows drawing close.

  Uh-oh. I hope what’s coming next doesn’t involve the word contraceptivo.