Shame the Stars

by McCall,Guadalupe Garcia

  Mamá turned to our housekeeper, who was clearing out the evening’s coffee cups. “You know anything about this, Luz?”

  “Ay, sí. Lupita’s quinceañera.” Doña Luz nodded, placing the dishes on a tray to take them back to the kitchen with her. “It’s going to be very different, not like a real quinceañera — young people are going to have to put on máscaras con plumas on top of their heads.” She waved her hands around her head, as if they were feathers.

  Mamá giggled a little. “A masque ball?”

  Doña Luz clapped and pointed at Mamá. “¡Sí, that’s it! That’s what the invitation said.” She frowned and shook her finger, going on a tangent that was a familiar topic around the kitchen table. “I’ll never understand why people waste all their money on quinceañeras they can’t afford. They end up asking everyone they know to chip in, just so their daughters can waltz around in a fancy dress. If I had daughters — ”

  “If you and I had had daughters, Doña Luz, I suspect we’d call in every favorcito we had coming to us to make their party special and unique,” Mamá said, patting Doña Luz’s arm.

  “Well, I better get going,” I said, turning toward the front door. “Mateo and Fito are waiting for me.”

  “Wait!” Mamá waved at me frantically. I turned back around. “Maybe you should stay home tonight. You saw what happened to Gerardo — ”

  “Mamá, por favor. Don’t act like that,” I interrupted her. I hated it when she treated me like a little boy who needed her permission to leave the house. “I’m a grown man. Besides, I’m not Gerardo. I’m not joining the rebellion. It’s just a birthday party.”

  “Joaquín, m’ijo.” Mamá stood up and came to hug me around the waist. “I know you’re a young man and you need to get out sometimes, but couldn’t you just stay in for tonight? There will be time for this kind of thing later. There’s always something going on on the weekends in these parts.”

  Mamá let go of me with a sigh and busied herself pinching something off the sleeve of my shirt. To my surprise, my father got up to join us. Letting out a little sigh and placing his hands on her shoulders, he said, “It’ll be all right, Jovita. Don’t worry. I’m sure the boys won’t go any farther than Monteseco. The town square is safe and close enough to the sheriff’s office should anyone get out of line.”

  “Oh, no. We’ll be fine,” I said, not feeling too much guilt about meeting Dulceña in secret. Tomás would say that omitting facts was the same as lying, but I couldn’t help it. It was a sin I was willing to commit.

  Don’t forget to tell that to Tomás at confession, my conscience said, and I promised I would let my brother chastise me in the confessional at the Capilla del Sagrado Corazón early Sunday morning before mass.

  “Just be careful, Son.” Papá pulled Mamá off me and into his arms. She chided him quietly for letting me go off tonight as Papá said, “Stay with Mateo and Fito. There is safety in numbers. And try to not to stay out too late. I want you to go into town with me tomorrow and see about bailing Gerardo out. That outta be easy enough. Judge Thompson owes me a favor.”

  “Don’t worry, Papá,” I said. “I’ll ride into town with you in the morning, no matter how late the boys want to stay out tonight.”

  * * *

  For as long as I could remember, Mateo, Fito, and I had been inseparable. When we were young, our fathers kept us busy cleaning stables, feeding the animals, and weeding the gardens at Las Moras after school. We were happy to do our chores, as long as we got to do them together, because working with friends was so much easier than working alone or with strangers.

  Unfortunately, that changed the day Mateo and Fito dropped out of school right after their sixteenth birthday. Mateo wanted to earn money so he could marry Conchita as soon as he turned eighteen.

  Fito didn’t have a girlfriend, but he seized the opportunity to drop out of school with his brother. He always shadowed his brother’s actions. If Mateo did it, Fito had to do it too. I can’t say I blame either one of them. They knew their lot in life was to toil in the fields, and they didn’t want to waste any more time in school when they could be earning a living and helping their family prosper. It also didn’t hurt to have their own money to spend when they went into town on the weekends.

  When he first got to Las Moras, Gerardo Gutierrez had joined our friendly working group, but then his attitude changed. Being older than us and not from around here, he had different ideas about my father’s friendship with the Rangers. When I questioned his loyalty to my father and Las Moras the way he questioned Papá’s loyalty to tejanos, he pulled away from the group. Back then, I could only speculate that he’d been embarrassed to be caught talking badly about the man who had taken his family in when they’d needed it most.

  That conversation never sat right with me, but I didn’t tell my father about it. I didn’t have to; I knew why Papá kept Munro around. “It’s good to know where the snake likes to lay in the brush. It’s the only way to survive,” he said every time my mother complained about one of Munro’s “friendly visits” to Las Moras.

  It took a while to get to the quince. I was quiet for most of the ride, letting Fito and Mateo do most of the talking. It wasn’t unusual. I was always the discreet one of the bunch. At Lupita’s quinceañera, several of her cousins stood at the dance hall door handing out plumed masks. “I hope this helps you find your Juliets!” a hostess said as she handed me mine.

  “I can’t wait to see my Conchita,” Mateo said, putting on a red mask. “Hey, Joaquín. You think I should ask Conchita to give Dulceña a holler? Maybe your girl could get out here for a quick twirl around the dance floor. What do you say? Should I ask her?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” I pulled the strings of my purple mask to fasten it to my head. It was still too loose, so I looped the string behind my ears and tightened the knot.

  “Why not?” Mateo wiggled his mask over his face until he could see me better.

  Fito, who was carrying his mask around like he didn’t know what to do with it, turned to me then. “What’s the matter? You two get in a fight or something?”

  “No, that’s not it.” I walked past the foyer and stood at the entrance of the dance hall. Before us was the most extrava­gant birthday party I had ever attended. Lupita’s parents weren’t rich, not by any means. It was obvious her parents had called in many favors from friends and family. The live music was not being provided by the usual conjunto group, but a long-tailed band. The músicos were Mexican, but they weren’t local, certainly no group I’d ever seen before.

  The decorations were beyond extravagant. The whole room was swathed in wide colorful ribbons. The swatches of cloth extended from the ceiling at the center of the room, billowing outward in every direction. At the edge of the ceiling, the giant ribbons were fastened with enormous bows and dropped downward, elegantly draping the walls until they dusted the floor. Every table had a different-colored skirt, and on every runner lay a huge elaborately decorated chest with bedazzled fans; long beaded necklaces; and assorted jewels the guests could crown and pin on each other, layering them on one after another until they looked like royals.

  As we moved into the warmly lit room, staying in the shadows by skirting the cold stucco wall, masked girls dressed in rich, luxurious, long dresses walked past us, giggling with their friends. Some of the more sedate ones sat at elegantly draped tables with their sisters and mamás, waiting to be asked to dance by the masked boys milling around the room.

  Every one of the guests wore contoured masks adorned with lentejuelas, delicate sparkling sequins in a rainbow of colors. The girls’ masks had long, colorful plumes that trembled and quivered with every word they whispered as they goggled at the room.

  “Then what’s going on? Why don’t you want her to come?” Mateo asked when we found a clear spot along the wall to linger. “Are you dumb or something? It’s the perfect opportunity to meet up
with her. You could make ojitos at each other all night long and nobody would ever know because we’re all wearing masks.”

  I pointed straight ahead to a girl with a matching purple mask. “She’s here.”

  Fito, on my right, craned his neck to see where I was pointing. “What? Really? When did you arrange this? You sneaky possum!”

  “Never mind that,” I said, unable to concentrate on Fito. No matter how much my loyalty pushed me to be honest and real with my friends, there was no way I was going to tell them about my secret correspondence with Dulceña. To disclose our most guarded, most intimate secret would dishonor my love and respect for her.

  “Well, all right. I guess you know what you’re doing,” Mateo said, patting my shoulder and pushing me forward a little. “Go on then. Go ask her to dance.”

  I shook my head and tightened my mask, taking in a long deep breath. As I took a step in her direction, she stopped, turned around. I couldn’t see her eyes, but her lips lifted a little at the corners. My heart beating wildly against my chest, I held my breath and froze in place.

  Her cousin, Irma, put her hand on Dulceña’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear. Dulceña’s lips parted and her teeth sparkled as she smiled that generous, full smile I had grown to love. My pulse quickened. Without taking her eyes off me, she pushed the girl away gently, lifted her skirt to keep the hem off the dance floor, and started to inch around other guests in the crowded room.

  I moved forward too, slowly, until we were face-to-face in the center of the dance floor amid an array of couples swaying to a gentle waltz. There were so many people that we didn’t have to work at getting close.

  “Are you my Julieta?” I asked. Grinning, I offered her my hand.

  She smiled and giggled nervously before taking it. “I don’t know,” she said. “Are you my Romeo?”

  “You are stunning,” I said, and she winked and curtsied before me.

  Dulceña took my hand. “What took you so long?” she asked. “It’s almost eleven.”

  “Oh, you know my mother. She had some concerns,” I whispered as we positioned ourselves among the couples.

  “We’re being watched,” she whispered, leaning into me as we took to the floor and swayed with the music. “Mamá is intrigued, but Madame Josette knows exactly who you are.”

  I scanned the room as we turned in the waltz. Doña Serafina sat at a table to our left. “I think Madame Josette is trying to distract her,” I whispered, sweeping Dulceña farther away from the two women. “Where’s your father?”

  “Against the far wall, to your right.” Dulceña dipped her head in that general direction.

  Don Rodrigo was talking to Mr. Simmons, our neighbor over by Las Moras and co-owner of the sugar mill. “He looks busy.”

  “Yes, but not for long. He’ll be joining Mamá soon, and they will want to know who I’m dancing with,” Dulceña whispered. Taking my lead, she twirled beautifully under my uplifted hand. The ease of our movement together surprised me. We hadn’t had occasion to dance with each other in more than two years, not since our parents stopped socializing. It felt good to hold her in my arms again.

  “So what do you want to do?” I asked, spotting the nearest exit.

  “Listen, we have to talk,” Dulceña said. She took the lead and turned us so that my back was to her party’s table. “There’s something I need to tell you. But not now. Not here.”

  “What do you want to do?” We moved to the rhythm of the music, stepping forward and back with ease.

  Dulceña leaned in so that our cheeks were almost touching, but not quite. “Meet me at midnight in our secret spot. There will be a big display of cuetes in the plaza at midnight. I can sneak away then.” We switched positions and moved within view of her parents. Don Rodrigo stood up as if he was about to leave. Doña Serafina put her hands on Don Rodrigo’s arm and held him back, speaking in his ear.

  “What?” Why would she want to meet in the woods? There were bandits and Rangers out there. “No. It’s not safe.”

  “Midnight. Be there — it’s important,” she whispered. Then she let go of my hands and backed away from me between the other couples, mouthing, “I love you.”

  No. We shouldn’t. We can’t. The words got stuck in my throat. I didn’t get a chance to say it because Don Rodrigo was coming my way. Dulceña squeezed through the throng of dancers, disrupting their well-counted steps until she got to her father. She grabbed his hand and said something, likely very sweet and witty. Don Rodrigo smiled, and they started to dance.

  “Let’s go, Romeo, time to move.” Fito put his hand on my shoulder and pressed me to move. “You can’t stand here all night. Not unless you have a dance partner.”

  “Yeah.” I pushed my way through the crowded dance floor and came up for air on the far side of the dance hall. Dulceña twirled under her father’s arms, unaware of the dilemma brewing in my heart. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I should have refused to meet her out there at night. Doña Serafina was still sitting with Madame Josette at their table. I couldn’t hear Dulceña’s mother’s words, but her mouth lifted into a wistful smile, then she turned her face away.

  As soon as Don Rodrigo took Dulceña back to the table, Geronimo, a young man who’d graduated the year before us, came up and offered Dulceña his hand, asking her to dance with him. She shook her head and sat down instead, ensconcing herself modestly between her mother and Madame Josette.

  I was visibly tense, my body straight and taut, and I had the urge to run. Fito patted me on the back. “At least you got to dance with her once,” he said. “Come on, let’s go get something to drink. It’s hot in here.”

  “No. I have to get out of here.”

  “What?” Fito asked, following me as I made my way to the front door. “But we just got here. Joaquín, wait.”

  I didn’t wait for Fito. It wasn’t quite yet time to go to our secret meeting spot, Arroyo Morado, but I just couldn’t stay there and watch Dulceña dance with someone other than her father. Because that’s what was about to happen. She would be asked to dance many more times throughout the night, and to please her parents, she would give each boy a couple of turns on the dance floor. Etiquette dictated that she dance no more than twice with each suitor — asking a young woman to dance more than twice would indicate a young man was officially courting her. Her acceptance of the third dance would mean she was interested in him as a suitor. I just couldn’t stand around, watching that scenario play itself out. Not that I thought she would ever dance more than twice with any of the young men in Monteseco, but it would still be too hard to watch. It was better to just walk away.

  I rushed out of the dance hall and into the dark summer night, throwing off my mask as I jammed my hat on my head. I ran off to the corral where we’d left our horses, then got on my horse and rode out of town at a gallop. The hot summer breeze caught my hat and whisked it off my head. I didn’t lose it, tied down as it was, but I left it off, lying flat against my back as I slowed down and turned my horse, taking the road that ran to Las Moras south of Monteseco.

  I stopped at the covered bridge just outside town. From the bridge, there were a number of directions one could take in order to find some excitement. There were several small towns both to the east and west of the creek and a few more down southeast, along the border of the Rio Grande, but I wasn’t going much farther along Arroyo Morado. Less than half a mile past the bridge westward along the creek, there was a small slope in the land. I stopped at the oak tree with a giant limb shaped like an alligator. Its wide-open mouth signaled the clearing I’d been searching for.

  Here I dismounted. Tying my horse to the oak, I pushed through the thick brush and heavily clustered mesquites until I came to an alcove, a tiny recess where my brother and I used to swim when we were younger. Those times were long gone, but recently the swimming hole had become the secret meeting place for me
and my Dulceña.

  Ever since she’d left school, it was where we saw each other. We didn’t meet there often, only when it became absolutely necessary, and never this late at night. Most of the time we met early in the morning or in the middle of the afternoon after Madame Josette had been dismissed for the day. On those rare occasions, she’d send me a letter very early in the morning and I’d skip school to meet her at the creek.

  That night, the air in the clearing was hot, oppressive, and the gibbous silver moon hung low in the sky over the bank of Arroyo Morado. I had at least another hour before Dulceña would arrive — in my hot-headed escape from the dance, I hadn’t considered I’d have nothing to do while I waited. I just knew I wanted to be there by the time she arrived. The waning moonlight bounced off the tops of the dense growth of pecan trees deeply rooted along the edge of the creek and wavered wistfully in the dark water before me.

  The silence of the night reminded me of another ominous evening. I was eight years old at the time, and by all accounts, I shouldn’t have been there. But for some childish and ridiculous reason, I had picked Arroyo Morado as the perfect place to live when I’d decided to run away from Las Moras. I couldn’t remember why I ran away that night, only that I did.

  The wind had howled all around me as the storm that had threatened to come all afternoon caught up with me. I remembered standing on the edge of the water, a skinny boy, afraid, but just mad enough not to turn around and head back to Las Moras when the furious storm became violent.

  As the skies had opened up and the rain crashed into me, I inched down the incline, hoping to find shelter from the raging winds. Then, as if in slow motion, my feet slid out from under me, my legs gave out, and I couldn’t support myself. The water was cold, colder than I remembered it from the swimming lessons my brother, Tomás, had given me all summer in that same spot.

  “Help!” I had cried, my voice swallowed up by the roar of the water and wind. “Help! Socorro!” I swam for my life, but made little headway against the current. Then, because I could think of nobody else in the world stronger and more courageous than my big brother, I had called out to him. Again and again, I called out, “Tomás! Tomás! Help me, Brother! Help me!” Weighed down by the rain, I bobbed in the current, which soon swallowed me. I went under, taking mouthful after mouthful of water as I panicked.