by Nancy Osa
But to Dad, it was everything. “You know how I feel about Castro’s government”—he nodded at Abuela and Abuelo—“how your grandparents have suffered, and yet you pull a stunt like this.”
“And just when you are making your quince,” Abuela said in a voice strained to splinters.
“That’s right!” Dad pointed a finger at me. “Look what you are doing to your grandmother. Maybe you don’t deserve to have this quince. In fact,” he said, nodding, “I think we should cancel it. What do you think, Diane?” he asked Mom.
Mom’s green eyes were a sea of trouble. “Well, after this incident, I don’t know. . . . Maybe she isn’t mature enough. We could always send back the pledges. Return the gifts. Violet was the one who didn’t want the party in the first place.”
“¿Qué?” Abuela winced.
“Oh, that’s just fine!” I muttered. “I finally figure out this quince deal and try to explore my Cuban roots and all that, and you suddenly tell me I’m too young to understand. So, what? I’ve been slaving away over the last nine months for nothing?”
Just then, Mark stuck his head in the kitchen. He must have been eavesdropping, and he saw me in the hot seat. “What happened to Violet?” he asked.
Mom blinked at him. “Upstairs, young man.”
Mark froze.
“This doesn’t concern you,” snapped Dad.
Mark still didn’t budge.
I blew out a hot breath. “Don’t you get it? It does concern him. That’s exactly what forced me to go around behind your backs, looking for answers.”
“Answers to what?” asked my brother, even more curious now.
I glanced from Mark to Dad. “See?”
“That’s it!” Dad threw up his hands. “We’re calling the whole thing off.”
A knife edged my gut, and I was surprised to feel it cut more with fear than with anger. I didn’t want to lose this. I might not have seen the quince for what it was at first, but now I really, really wanted to go through with it. Needed it, somehow.
“You wouldn’t take this away from me!”
“Don’t think I won’t!”
We locked eyes.
“Well, then,” I said, “you’d be taking it away from yourselves too.” I knew that Dad knew how much Abuela wanted this for me.
We all looked at Dad: Mark, jumping with questions; Mom, ready to yield. Abuelo edged closer to Dad. Abuela, her face a confusion of emotions, teetered somewhere in between.
Anything else I said would only get me in deeper.
Mom watched me wrestle in silence. “Let’s think about it, Albert,” she said.
Dad thought about it, all right, and he determined that Leda was my partner in crime. First, Mom spoke to Beth Lundquist, since Dad couldn’t be trusted to be polite. She learned that I’d said yes, my parents knew where I was going that day—which was true, I pointed out. The community center in Aurora. This defense got me a pair of pursed lips and another stint in my room. I couldn’t commiserate with Leda or Janell, whom I’d informed in the cafeteria earlier that day, because my phone and e-mail privileges were a thing of the past.
Then Dad blamed the public school system. It was Señora Wong, after all, who had got me started on my research. He even checked the family computer to see which Web sites I’d been frequenting. He stormed up and down and threatened to send me to boarding school. But even Mom, the scholar, didn’t go along with that.
After dinner that evening, as everyone held their breath wondering who would be attacked next, the perfect scapegoat for Dad’s ire walked in the front door: Tía Luci had arrived.
My heart sank when I saw how cheerful Luz was, excited about the music she’d brought for the quince—and unaware of the previous night’s argument. She kissed Abuela and Abuelo and sat down next to them on the living room couch.
Usually, Dad was happy to see her. That day, she was the instigator of all evil.
“Well, if it isn’t my well-meaning little save-the-world sister,” he started in. “You’re the one who got my daughter mixed up in these doings in the first place.”
“Is there a problem?” Luz asked flatly.
Mom summed it up.
Luz turned her dark eyes on me. “Is that true?”
I nodded, feeling small at my perch on the piano bench. What would Luz have done if she’d been me? She would have just come out and said where she was going and let the dominoes fall where they might.
“I substituted Tibet for Cuba when I told Mom and Dad,” I said, “and I know that’s wrong. And I’m sorry. But Dad never would have let me go, and there wasn’t anything dangerous, or bad, or illegal, about it.”
“That’s also probably true,” Luz assessed. “So what’s at stake here?”
“I am thinking of calling off the party,” said General Dad.
Again, Abuela looked pained, and I felt a sharp twinge inside. All her hard work.
“That seems excessive,” Luz said. “She did say she was sorry.”
Dad’s wall of sternness didn’t crack. “She also said she knew better. No thanks to you.”
Luz ignored the slur. “It seems to me the real problem is Violet’s interest in Cuba relations, not that she lied.”
Abuela stepped in. “Interest is no the problem.” She leaned forward. “Is the type of information she is getting.”
Dad and Abuelo nodded.
“Well,” Luz said, “with all those cubanos in one place, a quince party is the perfect place for a young woman to learn everything about Cuba, firsthand.”
Touché.
Abuelo spoke up slowly. “Pues, punishment o no punishment, tenemos otro problema,” he said to Dad, patting Abuela’s leg. “According to your mamá here, ees too late to cancel the rental of the hall.”
This got Dad’s attention. The ensuing discussion, full of its own roller coaster of ups and downs, determined that the party would have to go on. There were too many contributors and too much invested already.
“Well, Violet,” said Dad with an angry sigh when it was all over, “you will have your little party. But this doesn’t mean I condone your behavior. And I’ll tell you one thing, muchachita,” he said, rising from his easy chair. “I won’t be there.”
I had to drag myself to dress rehearsal. What was the point? Without Dad, the whole show was fluff. Where there had been a meaning to things before, now there was just an empty hole. When I tried to beg off, Mom insisted I go through with the rehearsal and the party.
Seeing my friends throw themselves into their routines only made me feel worse. Mom sat in a corner of the studio, watching soberly as I danced the waltz with Señora Flora leading.
After we dropped Janell and Leda off, as we drove toward Woodtree Lane, Mom said quietly, “The party won’t be the same without your father.” She paused. “I hope you’ve learned something from this experience, Violet.”
I was still feeling offended. “About how stubborn Dad is?”
Her face softened. “Stubborn, yes. But he feels bad about what’s happened too.”
“Then why make a big deal out of it?”
She considered this. “Your father is a very . . . principled man. Maybe a little too much so, sometimes.” She turned a corner. “And maybe not entirely rightly so,” she added. “But that is his business for him to handle.”
“What if he’s not handling it?”
“That’s up to him.”
We were silent a moment.
“So what’s my business?”
“Your business,” she said as we pulled into the driveway, “is being Violet, my dear.” She shot me a look. “Whatever that entails.”
35
The week went by with me not talking to Dad and Dad becoming very interested in the newspaper or the ceiling or his watch. We had never feuded like this. The Friday night before my quince, at dinner, Mom watched us studiously ignore each other. By the end of the meal, a new determination shone from her face.
The next afternoon, I sat with Mark
, watching the Cubs game on WGN, trying to take my mind off the last few nights—and the next few days.
“You should’ve picked baseball as the theme for your keent-sy,” Mark commented.
Not a bad idea.
“Then Abuela could’ve sewed you a Cubs uniform.”
“She didn’t sew anything, dummy.”
“Whatever.” Mark turned back to the TV.
It was one of those perfect spring days at Wrigley Field. Pennants waved on the scoreboard. The ivy was starting to creep in over the outfield wall. Four guys in the left-field bleachers had taken off their shirts, each chest smeared with a big blue letter: C-U-B-S. You just knew it was May. This was my kind of tradition.
I sighed. The world would be a better place if we could live by the rules of baseball. Where things are orderly and you know that strike two comes after strike one.
Dad walked in during the top half of the fourth, as the Cardinals were batting, and sat down in his chair, an unlit cigar in his hand. “Who’s winning?” he asked.
I let Mark answer, “Cards, three-zip,” and went on watching.
Dad cleared his throat. “Oye, Violet.”
I edged my eyes his way.
“Your mother spoke to me again about coming to your party.” He rotated the band around his cigar several times. “I want you to remember that this all came about because you lied to your mother and me. And while it is against my better judgment,” he stated, “I said yes, I’ll go.”
He’d show, then.
I blew out a little breath. “It wouldn’t be the same without you, Dad,” I admitted.
He grew more serious. “But your mother and I expect you to be strictly honest with us in the future. And I want to have a talk with you about these peace organizations. I’m not saying I’ll like what they have to say . . . ,” he warned.
It couldn’t be that easy. “But—will you dance with me? At the party?”
He looked at me a moment. “Sí.”
A smile snuck past my lips.
“But only because your grandmother and grandfather have put so much into this. And many of your relatives. And because your mother asked me to.” He stuck the cigar in his mouth.
“Are those the only reasons?”
He removed the cigar. “Well . . . it’s true, Violeta, that you are growing up. I guess I have to face facts. And while you and I may not always agree on everything, you are entitled to your own opinion.”
I knew those were Mom’s words, but as my eyes widened, he added, “Besides . . . I wouldn’t want to miss my daughter’s one and only quinceañero, would I?” He smiled.
I did too.
“And another thing . . .”
“What?”
“Well . . .” He took a deep breath. “Maybe we should talk a little bit about Cuba sometime. You and me and Mark.”
I goggled at him. “We—should?”
“If there’s something special you want to know.”
“That’s be great, Dad.” I went over and hugged him.
Mark quit pretending he wasn’t listening. “Do I still have to go to the keent-sy?” he asked.
“Yes!” Dad and I both said.
We went on watching the game together, but inside I marveled. The tide had turned again, this time with Mom’s help, I was sure. She had stuck up for me with Dad, had pushed him a little farther than ever before. School was good for Mom. She was . . . braver now. Maybe it would rub off on me.
That night, the phone rang. It was Janell.
“Hang on a second while I get Leda.” She put me on hold. “Okay. There.”
“Hello? Am I on?” came Leda’s voice.
“I’m using the three-way calling,” Janell said.
“Cool,” I replied, suddenly nervous, realizing that the next time I saw them would be onstage.
“We just wanted to wish you luck,” my friend since the first grade said.
“That’s right, Paz,” seconded Leda. “It’s time for your passage from ‘the girl onto the woman.’ ”
I grinned, remembering where she’d gotten the phrase. I was done with Quinceañero for the Gringo Dummy; I’d graduated and given the book to Leda, who’d finally gotten her period. Beth and Niles had agreed to celebrate Leda’s quince in August, with a Norse twist. And I thought my ceremony was nontraditional.
“So how are you doing?” she asked. “Got the jitters?”
My stomach caved in all over again. “Thanks a lot! Hey, guess what? Dad’s decided to dance with me after all.”
“That’s great news,” said Janell. “Look, Violet, whether your dad’s there or not, we just wanted to let you know, don’t worry about tomorrow. We’ll be there for you.”
“Yeah,” Leda added. “We’ve got your back.”
My stomach was flattered. “Gee, thanks, guys. I—don’t know what to say. I guess I’ll just go out there tomorrow and die trying.”
“You will not die trying! You will . . . triumph trying,” corrected Janell. “You can do it, woman.”
“That’s right,” said Leda. “You remember your speech, don’t you?”
I started to wail again, but she cut in. “Of course you do. You’ve practiced it like crazy. Now, you go out there tomorrow, and kick some big, hairy quince ass!”
“We’ll see you tomorrow, girlfriend,” said Janell.
“Hasta mañana,” I said, and hung on to the phone a minute, waiting until I heard both clicks before putting it down.
36
On Sunday morning, tendrils of bacon smoke and the smell of frying bananas climbed the stairs to my room and tapped on the door. “You better come on in my kitchen . . . ’cause it’s going to be raining outdoors . . . ,” Robert Johnson sang to me from the downstairs tape player. I stretched and got out of bed quick. Took another sniff. Alert the media: Dad was cooking.
Even Abuelo was up before me; the main cast of the Loco Family greeted me from the kitchen table, saving the Death Throne for me. I slipped into Dad’s chair while he finished making breakfast.
“Cuban pancakes, my favorite. Thanks,” I said, accepting a glass of juice from Mom. Chucho followed her around the kitchen, then returned to his post next to the chef.
Dad’s signature dish made rare appearances in the Paz kitchen, always greeted with near-rabid anticipation. Fried-banana-and-bacon pancakes, topped with whipped butter, toasted coconut flakes, and a healthy ladle of “Señora Butterworth’s.” ¡Ay, ay, ay!
Or, as Abuelo said after his first bite, giving a little drumroll, “¡Riquísimo!”
The salty bacon plays perfectly off the fried-in-butter banana bits, prompting us all to wonder at one time or another why we’ve never seen the dish on the menu in fancy restaurants. That may be because we don’t visit fancy restaurants much. Or it may be because the American Heart Association would outlaw the combination. In any case, Dad claims it’s the only thing he can cook.
“And how is the quinceañera today?” asked my grandmother, already dressed in a skirt and blouse and made up as if the Shriners’ Circus were in town.
“Estoy muy bien, gracias,” I said, sticking a finger in the pool of syrup on Mark’s plate and tasting it.
“Hey—!” he began, then noticed my look. “Dear sister,” he added. “All ready for your keent-sy?”
I nodded, mainly ready for pancakes.
Mom, next in line, took her plate from beside the stove and sat down. “Someone has to call the florist’s hotline to check on the Sunday delivery, or they might forget. Mark, please take Chucho for his run when you’re finished. And be dressed for church by eleven!”
Father Leone was going to have a coronary: The entire Paz clan would be at Mass at St. Edna’s today, including my aunt Luz, who was staying with an old grade-school friend nearby.
Dad, decked out in his seldom-used I HATE TO COOK apron, brought my short stack to the table and set the plate before me. I started to switch seats, but he said, “No, no. You eat there, and enjoy. I’ll stand.” Even Dad knew bette
r than to tackle the Death Throne. He retreated to the stove to flip some more pancakes.
I poured on some syrup and took a bite. “God, Dad, these are great!”
“I made them special for the quinceañera,” he said, smiling proudly, though whether over my quince or his cooking, I couldn’t tell.
When we’d all had our fill, we lingered around the table burping bacony breaths and finishing coffee or juice. Chucho got bored searching for cast-off food particles and started pestering Mark for his walk, so they took off.
“Ah-cha!” Abuelo swallowed the murky café dregs in his demitasse and pushed his chair back. “Is another hour before we go to la iglesia,” he said innocently. “I wonder what is there to do.”
One by one, we clapped eyes on him.
“¡Corramos!”
He leapt up, getting a head start, and we all raced after him—Dad slowing to grab two Coronas from the fridge— down the hallway and through the sliding door to the players’ porch. God, Father Leone, and my quinceañero would have to wait. The Paz family had a domino match to play.
We took two cars to church and split up afterward. The men went home to heat up some leftover congrís; the women drove to the banquet hall to meet Señora Flora.
Leda and Janell were already there, carrying out Flora’s instructions for seating arrangements and table decorations. It felt good seeing my damas de honor perform some honest work on my behalf.
“Wow! It looks fantastic in here. Thanks, you guys,” I said, really meaning it. “I’d do the same for you.”
“Yes, you will,” warned Leda.
“Right, right. In August.” I grinned.
Flora trotted up to Mom, Abuela, and me looking un-characteristically strained. “Ladies, I’m so glad you’re here. We have caterers, we have cake, we have a sound system, but no flowers. ¿Donde están las flores? ”
Abuela raised her eyebrows at me. I looked accusingly at Mom.
Mom slapped her forehead with a palm. “I knew there was something else . . .” She fished through her purse for the florist’s phone number, in vain, then practically prostrated herself at Flora’s feet. “I should have let you handle the flowers, but Salma promised us such a discount. . . .”