Cuba 15

by Nancy Osa

  I could just see Mark in his quinceañero tux, pointing at me and laughing in front of all our relatives, my friends, my piano teacher, and the Caprizios, whom Mom had insisted on inviting.

  Janell let loose another string of body parts, repeating, “ ‘I’m a woman / Phenomenally. / Phenomenal woman, / That’s me.’ ”

  Oh, sure. With my stumpy legs and triple-a bra size, real phenomenal. What was that supposed to mean? The warm glow had turned to cold needles that I couldn’t ignore.

  Janell continued ruthlessly. “ ‘I say, / It’s in the arch of my back, / The sun of my smile, / The ride of my breasts, / The grace of my style.’ ”

  Hold it. Did she say breasts? Isn’t that illegal in speech?

  No way. I had to get out of there.

  “ ‘I’m a woman / Phenomenally. . . .’ ”

  I bolted so fast, I didn’t hear her finish the rhyme.

  Once I was in the hallway, the phenomenal fifteenyear-old woman’s tears came. I maturely pretended to have something in my eye, until I left the speechies behind for the far side of the building. Blindly, I followed hallways and staircases as far as they would go, winding up finally at the women’s locker room in the basement. I tried the door and went in.

  The rows of benches and lockers stood silent. My foot-steps echoed. I found the toilet stalls, locked myself in one, and slouched against the wall.

  Janell Kelly, my best friend since we’d moved to Lincolnville, my best friend since forever, my dama, man— a traitor. And to think I’d worried about sparing her feelings, nixing the idea of escorts for the court so she wouldn’t have to rent one or something. I could ask Clarence, and Leda could still ask Willie, but who could Janell invite? Her French horn?

  Well, I didn’t need her artsy impression of my life. She could shove that poem, and the party for all I cared.

  After a while, I went and washed my face, waiting for the pink in my eyes to fade and feeling sorry for myself. Even though I didn’t want Janell anywhere near my quince now, I hated to think of replacing her. I knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  As composed as possible, I headed back to the auditorium that was serving as team base. I noticed that Mr. Axelrod had put in a late appearance, and I waved down the row of theater seats, but he was talking to Ms. Joyner and didn’t see me, or pretended not to. Leda noticed me, though. In a navy linen jumper and T-shirt, her hair drawn back in a long ponytail, she looked almost puritanical.

  “Yo, Paz, what happened to you? Kelly said you walked out of her round. She’s really pissed.”

  “She’s pissed?” I sniffed. “Leda, she was reading this positively pornographic poem that she picked—especially for my quince,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Leda wasn’t disturbed. “How much porno could a poem picker pick, if a poem picker could pick porn?”

  “I’m not kidding, Lundquist.” I threw up my hands. “I don’t need this crap! I’ve gotta go check on my ranks.” I spun on my heel and left her there.

  Before I could reach the scheduling board, my O.C. teammate came galloping up and threw herself at me in a hug.

  “I made finals! I made finals!”

  “That’s great, Vera,” I said when she let me breathe again. A small, dim, twenty-watt bulb of hope switched on inside my brain. “What about . . . me?”

  Vera looked at me blankly, then shook her head and mumbled a few names from the roster. “Next time, huh, Violet?”

  After watching Vera’s Miss Sippy mow them down in finals, I sat grimly through the awards ceremony next to Leda, with Janell on her other side. Our team took first in five events, including Vera’s first win, and placed in several others. This time, Zeno won in both Interp and his duet with Trish. The guy was an acting genius.

  Our numbers were good. Even though we didn’t have a full team this year, being void in three events, Tri-District earned the team trophy, and Ms. Joyner sent our senior Extemper, F. David Worthington, to the podium to receive the award. F. David, golden from head to jeweled fingers to Italian-loafered toes, was a long, tall, vanilla milk shake of a seventeen-year-old guy, sweet to look at but too rich for my blood. He’d missed the first few tournaments because his family was in Belize.

  F. David held the Stanley Cup–sized trophy over his head and war-whooped while somebody snapped a picture. “I just want to thank the judges for giving Tri-Dist this trophy . . . because, basically, we deserve it!”

  The team went ballistic with shouts, making the coaches get all serious with us, but you could tell they were pleased. As the tournament broke up, I saw Mr. Soloman congratulate Vera, who was hugging her trophy like an Oscar.

  Humph. When Mr. S. gave me my judges’ critiques ranking me two and two, I didn’t say a word, even though I must have just missed making finals. Some of us could be humble.

  However, in a few short hours, it would be Saturday night. Halloween night. Headless-date night. I was going to go home and transform myself. I had finally put together a costume, something wild, something no one else would be wearing. And “humble” was not how I’d describe it.

  24

  The Clark basement, decorated to look like a dungeon, oozed with costumed humanity. Indecipherable stereo bass boomed, black and strobe lights cut the gloom, and steam from dry ice hissed from the corners. Zeno, attired in doublet, hose, and plumed cap, with medieval shackles on his wrists, must have been auditioning for the lead of Hamlet in Chains. His entourage clustered tightly about him: Trish and her boyfriend, Slade Gale, star quarterback for the already-losing Tri-Dist Tridents, and some other upper-class speechies, including F. David Worthington, and their dates. Zeno’s status, as fate would have it, was massively single; he’d broken up with last year’s class president when she went away to U. of Illinois in September. Zeno’s friends all wore theatrical costume, and the rest of the milling crowd didn’t look too shabby either.

  Dad had dropped me off alone, since Leda was riding with Janell. I scanned the room from the steps but couldn’t pick either of them out in the half-dark, half-strobed-out dankness. I made my entrance solo, in an outfit inspired by Mom’s mannequin inventory at the thrift shop—down vest, grass skirt, sombrero, and tights, plus the Frankensteinian capper: green face makeup and a pair of used ski boots. Only now it seemed more gaudy than hilarious. You couldn’t miss me. But no one seemed to notice.

  Waving hello in Zeno’s direction, I lumbered over to the refreshment table and helped myself to a cup of blood-red punch and some of that awful candy corn, just to have something to do. The line of grotesque creatures forming behind me forced me to move aside. I ended up standing by the garbage can, watching people throw out used cups and plates.

  Where was Vera? I scanned the room for masked goblins about her height but didn’t think she’d be a clown, a trash can with arms and legs, or Yoda. Maybe she wasn’t here yet. I hadn’t worn a mask myself since the third grade, when I ran into a mailbox because the eyeholes of my Cat Woman mask kept sliding up. I thought I’d hit a car, or a car had hit me, and I started to cry in front of all the trick-or-treaters on my block. That kind of incident will make a person swear off masks for good.

  Aha! Here came someone I knew. Enter, a tall somebody wearing a cow mask and dressed from head to toe in Chicago Bulls wear, from jersey to shorts, leggings, socks, and bright-white shoes with red and black trim. Dark arms stuck out from the tank top, another clue. And who else on the team was that tall, other than F. David (who was probably a chess aficionado, not a basketball fan)? I propelled my booted legs in the bull’s direction, then stopped short.

  An identical Bullsman stepped out from behind the first one, like some cheap carnival trick, and then another, and another, each as tall, dark, and anonymous as the first. They split up and seeped into the crowd. The Williams brothers, Extempers all. Had to be. But which was which?

  Before I could puzzle them out, Leda and Janell arrived. The music stopped just as they descended the basement stairs under the black light, and heads turned. Leda was some
sort of Victor/Victoria—a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman. She’d tucked her hair into a beaded skullcap, stuffed her bra with who-knows-what, and tried to fill out one of her mother’s black evening dresses, with a pair of men’s trousers sticking out through the skirt slits. For extra effect, she carried the cigar she’d won from Marianao, stuck in a cigarette holder.

  As for Janell, she had not put together an ungainly blend of winter and summer clothing and ski boots from the local thrift shop, like someone I knew who wished she’d at least thought about trying to look chic. No, Janell was a black-lit apparition in a body-colored leotard, with slivers of white chiffon scarves that glowed purple sewn on like feathers. They swayed with her movements and made her seem to float above the shadowed floor. A white see-through half mask lent her a sexy air of mystery. Janell looked hot. And I felt a cut of jealousy seeing the unmasked guys eye her costume.

  Studiously I turned my sombreroed head away, made for one of the Bullsmen, and struck up an emergency conversation.

  “Great party, huh?” I said, looking up into a smiling cow’s face, probably as close as he could get to a bull mask.

  The cow regarded my ensemble. “What are you supposed to be—the Jolly Green Midget?” His voice was much more nasal than Clarence’s, but that could’ve just been from the mask.

  “I’m Frankenstein on vacation,” I answered, indignant.

  “Oh.”

  “I like your costume,” I complimented him, “but someone else had the same idea, I see. Heh-heh.”

  A bovine pause.

  “Look,” said the cow, “do I know you? Are you a senior?”

  “I don’t know, I mean, no. I’m a sophomore. And I don’t know if I know you. I mean, who are you?”

  An impatient bovine pause. “I’m the Chicago Bull, what does it look like? Hey, I’ve got someone . . . I’ve gotta go.”

  Certain that the blood-red glow from beneath my green makeup was outglaring the strobe light, I turned and sidled away, as well as one can sidle in ski boots.

  “Hey, Violet, how ya doing?” Gina from gym class greeted me. She was dressed as a skeleton. Under the black light, the white bones painted on her dark tunic and the permanent morbid smile crayoned onto her face flashed a chalky purple.

  I gulped some oxygen. “Wow, Gina, you look really cool.”

  “Thanks. Where’d you get that costume?”

  “Oh, heh-heh, I made it myself. Could you tell?”

  “Uh, yeah. What’s it s’posed to be?”

  “Frankenstein on vacation,” I said, thinking this question was going to get old fast.

  She smiled. “That’s pretty good. You’re in O.C., right? That must be fun.”

  “Yeah, it’s great. Like being in a comedy club. What about you, Dramatic Interp?”

  “That’s right. Me and Zeno Clark. I might as well be acting in a broom closet for all the attention I’m getting.”

  “Ha, I know what you mean.”

  She looked at me oddly, as though I couldn’t possibly know what she meant, but I was wearing a grass skirt and ski vest. Maybe that was it.

  “Well,” said Gina, “where’s the food around here? Let’s get some punch.”

  I made a nontactful point of not speaking to Janell, who was standing around with her Verse teammate, as I went past. I followed Gina to the table and got another cup of punch, but when I turned, Gina was gone.

  The stereo boomed, and ghouls swirled around me. I picked out Leda in her he-she costume, chatting it up with two Chicago Bulls who sat on a sheet-draped sofa along one wall. Maybe she had figured out which one was Clarence. I started over, then jerked to a stop. These boots weighted me to the floor when I wanted them to, that was for sure. I stood there, leaden.

  Leda had climbed onto the lap of one of the Bullsmen and slung an arm around his shoulders. They all laughed as Leda stuck her cigar in his mouth, where it lodged in the mask. She tried pulling on it, but the Bull finally had to take his mask off to loosen the stogie and get it out of there. The strobe light cut their movements to shards, and the blasts of bass enhanced their waves of laughter.

  When the Bull finally tugged his mask off, I stared grimly.

  It was Clarence.

  25

  Mom picked me up. “Isn’t it a little early?” she asked. “I wasn’t expecting your call so soon. It’s not even the witching hour yet.”

  I didn’t say anything. I thought I might explode.

  Our house was silent as a tomb when we returned. Dad, still on the early shift, was already in bed; Mark was off at a friend’s watching scary movies. Feeling like the un-dead myself, I unsnapped my ski boots at the door.

  Mom scurried into the kitchen and plopped down at the table, where her notebook lay open. I must have called her away from her doodling.

  “More restaurant ideas?” I asked. “Lay ’em on me.”

  “Hmmm? Oh, I’m just looking over the community college catalog, making some notes.”

  Due to my mood, I didn’t recognize this as the giant red flag that it was.

  I tossed my sombrero on the Death Throne in the corner and got the milk and chocolate syrup from the fridge to make hot chocolate. I needed some comfort food.

  Mom looked up from her work. She knew my life had just fallen apart in some unexplained manner, but she didn’t press me about it. “Why don’t you let me finish the hot chocolate for you, Vi, hon? Go on upstairs and change. There’s a surprise from your grandmother on your bed.”

  With my boots off, I flew upstairs to my bedroom and shut the door. Having waited for this moment all day, I was ready to cry in the privacy of my own room. A few sobs rose, only to be swallowed when I saw Abuela’s gift on my pillow. Quickly I stepped out of my grass skirt and peeled off my tights, slipped into a pair of sweatpants, and went to investigate.

  On my powder-blue pillowcase perched a jeweled tiara, like the ones I’d scoffed at in my quince book. But this wasn’t some Miss America–type rhinestone crown. This headpiece was elegantly simple, a hammered silver ring beaded with tiny freshwater pearls, silvery pink nuggets that looked good enough to eat. And though the metal was highly polished, the piece looked old—antique. It must have belonged to Abuela. Given to her, maybe, by her grandmother. The small card next to it read, TO VIOLETA IN HONOR OF YOUR FIFTEEN YEARS. LOVE, ABUELA. Reverently, I reached for the tiara and placed it on my head.

  As I turned to catch my reflection in the round mirror over my dresser, I started. Frankenstein meets Tiffany’s! That would have been a better costume, I thought wryly. I ran downstairs to show Mom, just as the doorbell rang.

  “Can you get that?” Mom called from the kitchen. “The candy is in the bowl on the floor.”

  I grabbed the bowl and answered the door.

  “Trick or treat!” came the unison threat.

  The visitors stared at my alien princess getup, and I gaped back at them.

  There, on the porch, dressed as both man and woman, stood Leda Lundquist. And beside her, Janell.

  My damas wrestled me upstairs and into my room without further ado. Janell, strong as a kick-boxing ox, pulled one arm; Leda, bony knuckles indenting my other wrist, pushed. It felt like I was being hustled by the Mob to a waiting black sedan. The quinceañero book hadn’t said anything about possible abuse of power by damas.

  “Why don’t you guys just leave me alone?” I whined as Janell sat me forcefully down at my desk.

  “Oh,” said Leda, shutting the door. “So you can just, like, not deal with us?”

  “You guys are being real jerks!”

  “Oh, shut up, Violet. You sound like my dad, blaming everybody else.” Janell took a seat on my bed and looked me in the eye through her half mask. “You’re being the idiot, and you are going to talk to us and tell us what we want to know. Then, if you want, we’ll leave.”

  Leda wordlessly reinforced the threat, her back to the closed door.

  I couldn’t believe this. After all the incredible crap today, my t
wo ex-best friends—neither of whom I wanted to see at this particular juncture—were ganging up on me. In the last twelve hours I had lost a tournament, a maybe-possible boyfriend, and two best friends, who were about to add insult to injury. If I couldn’t count on them now, how could I count on them at my quince? Janell looked back at me, mouth stiff beneath her mask, waiting for an answer.

  Leda guarded the door fiercely, eyebrows raised. “Well?” she challenged.

  The sinking sadness in me went sour. Hmph. I didn’t have to answer to her—a fourteen-year-old, for one thing. And Janell . . .

  I was about to give Janell a piece of my mind when I caught my reflection in the mirror again. My eyebrows clenched low, my lips punched up. Finger streaks marred my green Frankenstein makeup, and Abuela’s tiara sat roughly askew.

  I looked ridiculous.

  My shoulders started to shake. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the shakes still came. Then the tears, as I opened my eyes, and then the laughter.

  The girls looked bewildered.

  “Hey, are you crying?” asked Leda, coming closer.

  “Or what? What’s the matter?” asked Janell with concern.

  I was laughing too hard now to explain. I pointed at the mirror, my tiara.

  They eyed each other, then me. And joined in.

  When she could speak, Janell pointed at me and gasped, “Wh-what’re you? Princess Leia with a hangover?”

  “HA!” Leda shouted, followed by three rumbling shakes. Mom’s laugh was contagious.

  “Did I hear somebody crack a joke?” The door opened and Mom walked in with a tray of steaming mugs. “Hot chocolate, anyone?”

  We calmed down enough to take the drinks from her, giggles spurting on and off like an artery had opened. Mom left us alone, and I got up and went to my closet for a T-shirt.

  “I’m boiling in this down vest,” I admitted. My green makeup had run from the sweat and tears, and I got some on my shirt in the switch, but what the hell. I righted my tiara and sat back down with my hot chocolate, next to my friends.