I prance down the hallway to Mom’s bedroom, fantasizing that I’m Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, waiting to get kissed so I can wake up after sleeping for a thousand years. “Sí, Mamí? I say cheerfully, peeking into her bedroom. Now that she has given me fifty dollars to buy a new pair of pointe shoes, I don’t feel so mad at her for bringing Pucci that stupid scooter.
“I got you something,” Mom says, handing me a shiny pink box. It can’t be another French beret, because the box is too big.
I feel my heart fluttering as I open the flesh-colored satin ribbon—which reminds me of the beautiful ribbons I sew so carefully onto my pointe shoes. “Ooo,” I sigh as I tear into the creamy layers of tissue paper and see the pink netting underneath. “Aaaaah, Mamí!” I exclaim as I hold up a powder pink tutu. La más bonita!
“Nobody makes a tutu like the French. Nadie It has sixteen rows of tulle net.” Mom is trying to act nonchalant. Then she abruptly barks, “I’ve gotta get this thing off my face. I’ll be right back!”
I think Mom ran into the bathroom because she doesn’t want me to hug her.
I try not to let the disappointment show in my face when she comes back out of her private bathroom. Now she sits in front of her vanity table, and opens one of the fifty jars she has lined up in neat rows.
That’s when I get a good look at her. Cuatro yuks! Her face looks lighter than the rest of her body! I think that hockey mask sucked all the oxygen out of her, like a vampire or something. She’s lucky she still has skin on her face after wearing that suction trap!
“You know, Chanel, I always wanted you to be a ballerina,” Mom says, heaving a deep sigh and slathering cream all over her face. I think it would be better for you than being in that singing group.” Then she frowns. “Just because Bubbles doesn’t have the discipline for ballet, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”
“I know, Mamí,” I say, getting teary-eyed, because I think she is finally trying to tell me that I’m good at something. “Thank you for the tutu.”
“De nada, amor,” Mom says, beaming at my reflection in her mirror. “You know, the French invented ballet, too.”
“Really?” I say, surprised.
“Of course, Chanel—why do you think all the movements are in French—plié, pirouette?” Mom sounds a little annoyed with me. “Por qué?”
I stand dumbfounded, clutching my new tutu, because I can’t think of an answer. I should have known the reason why Mom liked ballet. She likes anything French—even five-day-old croissants!
“I knew that, Mamí, I just forgot,” I say, telling a poco fib-eroni. I know God will forgive me. I try to seem interested in Mom’s trip to Paris, so she will get off my case.
“Did you go to anyplace interesting, like the Eiffel Tower?” I ask.
“No, Chanel,” Mom snipes. “I did not go to the Eiffel Tower—that’s for tourists.”
Now I feel like a complete babosa, because of course only tourists would go see the Eiffel Tower, and Mom does not consider herself a tourist in Paris. The silence is very uncomfortable. Then, gracias gooseness, Mom says, “We did go to the Musée d’Orsay—you know, most of the exhibits there come from the Louvre.”
“Sí, Mamí,” I say, nodding. I wonder what the Louvre is; but I don’t ask. Knowing Mom and Mr. Tycoon, it must be someplace where snobby people go.
“Oh, the sculpture!” she sighs wistfully. I never heard her speak that way about art, but I guess now that Mr. Tycoon is her boyfriend, she’s learning a lot of new things. “When you walk in the center aisle, there is this wonderful series of busts—thirty-six of them.”
Did Mom say busts? Does she mean they had ladies’ breasts in the museum? I don’t say anything, because I don’t know what she’s talking about, and I don’t want her to think I’m stupid or something.
“Then I saw this bronze statue that took my breath away—’Young Dancer of Fourteen,’ by Edgar Degas. The statue looked just like you, Chanel, with her feet poised in second position, and long braids down her back. That’s why I went and bought you the tutu.”
I feel the tears welling up in my eyes, so I look down at my shoes, but the change in Mom’s voice snaps me out of my sadness.
“I still don’t think you should try out for the Junior Ballet Corps Division yet,” she pronounces in a tone of warning. “But if you’ve got your mind made up, you’d better start practicing every day.”
“I will,” I say defensively. “Can I use the exercise studio now?”
“Okay, but I wanna get in there soon and do my belly dancing,” Mom says, rubbing her calf. “I didn’t exercise the whole time I was in Paris, and I ate like a puerco. I know I’m gonna pay for it on the scale.”
“You don’t look like un puerco,” I say jokingly Mom is very skinny, but she is always imagining that she puts on weight.
Suddenly I think, again, maybe I put on weight, too! I tried not to eat too much food in Houston, but you know Southern hospitality—and besides, it was Thanksgiving…. I hold the tutu up against my stomach and look at myself from the side in the mirror. My butt is sticking out even more than usual!
“Tuck your butt in,” Mom warns me, like she’s reading my mind.
Now I remember why else I gave up ballet—it wasn’t just because of Bubbles. I thought my butt stuck out too much for me to be a ballerina! I hold the tutu tighter against my chest, and try not to think about it.
“I’m going to exercise now,” I tell Mom. Trying to fight back tears, I blurt out, “I’ve never forgotten that you took me to see Sleeping Beauty when I was little.”
“Did I?” Mom says, like she doesn’t remember.
“I’m already fourteen, Mamí, and I want to be Sleeping Beauty—Princess Aurora, I mean—before it’s too late.”
“That’s true—you are getting older, and the decisions you make now will affect the rest of your life—that’s all I’ve been trying to tell you, Mija.”
“I know, Mamí,” I sigh, then run out of her bedroom, because I want to cry Suddenly I don’t trust her. Why didn’t she give me a hard time about auditioning for American Ballet Theatre? Maybe she wants me to get back into ballet because she thinks I’m a terrible singer. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t want me to be in the Cheetah Girls.
Mom is waiting for me to finish exercising, but right this minute I’m too upset to concentrate. I run into my bedroom instead, and pick up the receiver on my red Princess telephone. While the phone rings, I hold my breath, because I know that Bubbles probably doesn’t want to talk to me. She hardly said a word to me the whole way home from the airport.
“Hi, mamacita,” I squeal into the receiver, trying to sound cheerful. “I, um, was wondering if you would bring Toto and come with me to the Blessing of the Insects and their Four-Legged Friends Ceremony,” I say. When Bubbles doesn’t say anything, I add, “I’m gonna bring Mr. Cuckoo—’cuz stupid Pucci won’t do it.”
“Sure,” Bubbles says, surprisingly cheerful. “That’ll give Toto something to do. He’s been walking around the house sulking because I left him alone all week. And by the way …”
I know that tone of voice. It means Bubbles has good news. No wonder she didn’t yell at me about Houston! “Mom’s got this tight idea,” she says proudly. “I’ll tell you when I see you.”
“Okay!” I can’t wait to hear about Madrina’s great idea. She always has la dopa ideas—that’s why she’s our manager, and my godmother for life.
“I’ll meet you in front of the cathedral at five o’clock,” Bubbles says. Then she yells to Toto, who is barking in the background, “Hold your hot dogs, Toto, I’m coming!”
When I become a famous ballerina, and get my own apartment, the first thing I’m going to do is get a dog just like Toto! For a second, I get mad again at Mom, then realize that I shouldn’t be. It’s not her fault she’s allergic to dog and cat fur. And besides, she did buy me a tutu in Paris! How many girls at American Ballet Theatre can say that, huh? Nadie, está bien? Nobody but me.
Staring at my tutu, I remember again the time Mom took me to see Sleeping Beauty at Lincoln Center. I was five years old, and wearing a pretty pink dress with ribbons in my hair. Mom kept showing me off to all the ladies in the balcony where we were sitting. It was one of the few times I remember going anywhere alone with Mom—Pucci was too little to go, and Daddy was working at his restaurant. He was always working back then.
I loved Sleeping Beauty, even though I got very scared when the wicked fairy Carabosse appeared—uninvited—and put the curse on the baby princess, telling her parents that she would die on her sixteenth birthday.
What will happen to me on my sixteenth birthday? I don’t want to think about that right now. Instead, I carefully put down my new tutu, and slip into my black footless cotton unitard and my old pink ballet shoes. Uh-oh—they’re a little tight. I reach under my bed, feeling for the shoe box that contains the can of shoe spray I use to stretch my shoes. I can’t afford to get any blisters right before my audition!
Dragging the box from under the bed, I take out my very first pair of pointe shoes—all moth-eaten and old, and so tiny! Mom bought them for me when I was seven years old….
I start crying like a baby, and plop to the floor. Mom was so disappointed when I stopped going to Ballet Hispanico. I remember that Bubbles didn’t like our teacher, Mrs. Bermudez. She thought she was too mean. I can still remember Bubbles poking her mouth out at Mrs. Bermudez. In ballet school, the teacher conducts the class and students are expected to follow whatever she says. Bubbles hated that. She doesn’t like teachers telling her what to do.
I can see Mrs. Bermudez now—her black hair slicked back into a tight bun on top of her head, and her skinny lips accented by red lipstick. “Don’t let your backside stick out, Chanel!” she would say sternly when I did my grands pliés, which are very deep, and require the upper body to remain perfectly straight.
Wiping away my tears, I put my old pointe shoes back, and take out the can of shoe stretch spray I was looking for all along.
After spraying inside my ballet shoes, I walk on demi-pointe to the exercise studio until my shoes dry and mold to my feet. I look at my profile in the exercise studio mirror. Suddenly it hits me—not only my butt, but my stomach is sticking out! I suck it in and stand up straight. I’m not going to eat dinner tonight—even if Mom makes my favorite Dominican-style arroz con pollo! No dinner for Miss Cuchifrita!
Now it’s time to stop fussing around, or I’ll be late meeting Bubbles at the cathedral, and I don’t want her yelling at me. I’m always late for everything, it seems. I put my hand on the barre and start my pliés, then do my tendu exercises to warm up my feet, then dégagés and ronds des jambes, on the floor and off—making sure to keep my heel forward. That is so hard, I hate it!
My favorite part of the workout is the cooldown. That’s when I do my grand battements in each direction—these are big, controlled kicks, and they’re fun to do. I can hear Mrs. Bermudez in my head: “Chanel, don’t lean forward—stay straight.” When you’re doing grand battements, you’re only supposed to move the hip sockets and below—the upper body should be perfectly still. “Think of the beautiful swan swimming across the pond,” Mrs. Bermudez used to tell us.
I am a beautiful swan, I tell myself. Then, suddenly, a voice inside me shrieks, What if I’m really the ugly duckling?
I put my arms high over head, making my movements as graceful as ever, moving my arms from fifth position to first and open to second position, then gloat in the mirror at my reflection. I am not an ugly ducking—because no ugly duckling in the world does ports de bras as graceful as mine!
I sure hope I got the audition appointment—because if I get to try out, there’s no doubt this girlita is gonna make it into the Junior Corps!
Chapter
4
The Blessing of the Insects and Their Four-Legged Friends Ceremony at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, at 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, is very popular—muy popularo. It coincides with the Feast of St. Cucaracha of Washington Heights, a saint who loved animals and nature. Of course, St. Cucaracha is one of my favorite saints, too. I know Mom would croak if she heard me say that, but it’s true! She hates animals because they shed a lot of hair, which makes her sneeze and gets all over the furniture. I’m sorry, but I think Mom sheds more hair than any animal I’ve ever met.
Standing at the bottom of the steps in front of the beautiful cathedral, I lift my heels so that I can balance myself on my tippy-toes and look over the crowd. Sure enough, I see Bubbles coming toward me, wearing a red knit hat with a big red pom-pom on top. It bops to her beat, like a cherry on an ice cream sundae. I guess there’s no way I would be able to miss her in that outfit!
“Where’s Mr. Cuckoo?” Bubbles asks, before she even gives one of her usual flippy salutations.
“I didn’t want to bring his cage,” I explain in a whiny voice. I don’t mean to sound like that, but I’m still nervous about Bubbles being mad at me, even though I’m trying to pretend I’m not. Qué broma, what a joke. I mean, the tension between us is thicker than nutty Nutella spread, está bien? I open my backpack, so Bubbles can see Mr. Guckoo nestled in a towel inside.
“Ohhh, he looks smaller,” Bubbles says, concerned, like he’s not being taken care of properly or something.
“He’s bigger than he was when we bought him,” I insist.
“Oh. Well, maybe it’s the way he looks wrapped up in that towel—you know, the background contrast is so close to his color,” Bubbles says, like she’s doing an assignment in one of our art composition classes at school.
Toto stands up and rests his paws on my leg. “Hi, Toto!” I exclaim, bending down to fix his cheetah jacket, which is riding up toward his neck. “Oh, you need a haircut, boo-boo!”
“Why don’t you give it to him?” Bubbles asks, muy sarcástico.
“If you want me to, I can do it later,” I reply.
“Mom is gonna take him to the Doggies Can Be Down Spa next week, so hell get a cut there and a pawd-icure,” Bubbles explains. I wish I went to as many different beauty parlors as Toto goes to, está bein?
“Are you going up?” asks this lady behind me, like she’s annoyed because Bubbles and I are just hanging out on the cathedral steps.
I turn around to look at her, and catch the Wicked Witch expression on her face. La gente in Nueva York can be so rude! But I can’t be mad at her for long, because the parrot atop her shoulder squawks at me, “Hello, pretty!”
“He’s so beautiful!” I exclaim, admiring the parrot’s red plumage, which is brighter than my favorite shade of S.N.A.P.S. lipstick—Raven Red. “What kind of parrot is he?”
“It’s a girl,” the Wicked Witch lady snaps back.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” the lady says, softening. “She’s an Eclectus Parrot—the males and females have completely different colors. The males are bright green.”
“Oh,” I say, fascinated. “Has he—I mean, she—ever been to St. John’s for a blessing before?”
“No, it’s her first time—and from the looks of this crowd, it may be her last,” the Wicked Witch lady snipes at me, looking around in disgust.
It is getting pretty crowded. I mean, St. John’s Cathedral looks like it’s going to the dogs … and cats and fish and—“Ooo, look, Bubbles, somebody brought an elephant!”
“That’s nutso,” Bubbles squawks. Toto starts barking, because the crowd is getting too close to him, so Bubbles picks him up, even though he weighs a ton. “Come here, Fatso,” she says, rubbing his underbelly as he lies floppy-style in her arms.
The dumbo jumbo el
ephant is flanked by police officers on horses, and luckily, is ushered through a side entrance of the cathedral—or else we would have had a stampede!
“I wonder whose pet that is?” I ask in disbelief. I mean, there are so many rich people in New York, maybe some little boy who lives in a castle is the proud owner of Mr. Dumbo Jumbo. As much as I love pets, the one thing I wouldn’t want is an elephant—because they stink too much, and I don’t like smelly things around me all the time.
“I heard they’re expecting four thousand people,” the Wicked Witch says, turning slowly back to the front so that her prized parrot doesn’t get jolted from her shoulder. “But it looks more like forty thousand if you ask me.”
It’s a good thing nobody is asking her. I look around at the crowd again—and see kids with fishbowls filled with lizards, frogs, and fish.
“There’s a Chihuahua, Chuchie,” Bubbles say, turning to her right.
“Ay, Dios—there are three of them!” I say, counting the three ladies with kerchiefs holding my favorite little dogs in their arms. As much as I love Toto, what I really want is a Chihuahua, imported straight from Mexico and into my arms!
“We’re finally moving,” moans the lady, giving me and Bubbles our cue to move up the cathedral steps.
Even though I’m eager to hear about Madrina’s great idea, I’m more anxious to tell Bubbles about my decision to try out for the American Ballet Theatre. I just want to get it over with, está bien?
“Mamí brought me a tutu from Paris,” I say, turning to Bubbles with a smile. I can feel the squigglies starting in my stomach again.
“Really?” Bubbles asks, bouncing Toto up and down in her arms.
“In that big city of soufflé and dreams, why would she get you a tutu?” Bubbles asks, crinkling her nose.
“Y-you know, Mamí, wants me to be a … ballerina,” I stammer.
“Yeah, well, wants and wishes are best bestowed by fairy godmothers with magic wands,” Bubbles snorts.
“I want to be a ballerina, too,” I blurt out. Immediately, I feel my stomach get more squiggly.
Cuchifrita, Ballerina Page 3