Night at the Fiestas: Stories

by Kirstin Valdez Quade

  The truck did look festive here, Andrea saw with disappointment, against the backdrop of trees. A colorful hand-painted sign announced a pared-down, classed-up menu: Kobe beef, wild-caught salmon, free-range chicken, and vegetarian, all on blue corn tortillas.

  “A vegetarian on a tortilla,” said Andrea. “Ha.”

  “Funny,” said Matty. He scanned the crowd. “They know how to do it up.”

  Tacos were not the only option: caterers in white shirts presided over a vast spread of fresh, colorful food. Tin buckets were lined up on another table, a grosgrain ribbon tied around each handle. Already several beautifully dressed children were in the blueberry rows, picking.

  And now, turning toward Andrea, in a floral shift and Converse sneakers without socks, was Parker. In one hand she swung a bucket, and in the other she held a massive sloshing glass of wine. “Andrea?” She tilted her head, her red hair shining in the sun and slipping over her shoulder. “Your dad didn’t say you were coming. It’s so great you could make it!”

  Was Parker going to hug her? Yes, she was. Andrea put her arms around Parker, and there was nothing casual about it, nothing breezy. She pulled away too soon, terrified Parker would feel the price tags.

  “So,” Andrea said, tongue-tied. She brandished her invitation. “Do I need to give this to you?”

  Parker looked at the invitation, but made no move, and it remained there, large and clumsy in Andrea’s hand. Stupid, to think she might be required to present it like a ticket. She waved it at the party and the field and the orchards. “It all looks great. I haven’t been out here in years.”

  Parker stuck her hand out at Matty. “Parker. Great to meet you.”

  “Oh, sorry. This is Matty.” Andrea smiled at him in a way that she hoped looked affectionate and familiar and somehow also conveyed the sense that they were having lots of spectacular sex.

  “Matthew,” said Matty.

  Andrea smiled woodenly; Matty jingled the coins in his pocket with one hand and, with the other, thumbed the edge of his repellent little mustache.

  Andrea had imagined cornering Parker near the truck, plying her with tacos, which Parker, too polite to refuse, would choke down in class-conscious misery until she was sick. Absurd and far-fetched, yes, but Andrea had gotten a grim pleasure from the image. Now, though, she felt pathetic for even thinking it.

  As if reading her mind, Parker ran her hand through her hair, glanced at the taco truck, then back at Andrea. At least she had the grace to look uncomfortable. “It’s so great of your dad to be here. His tacos are awesome. I ate like six already.”

  “Yes,” agreed Andrea. “They are pretty great.” How many times were they going to say great?

  A gold Tiffany’s heart dangled at Parker’s throat. Something about the necklace combined with the Converse suddenly enraged Andrea. “Man,” she said, “I was really sorry to hear about your parents. I mean, it must have really turned your world upside down.”

  Parker shrugged, but her throat beneath the gold chain splotched red. “They seem to have gotten over it.” She jerked her thumb at one of the clumps of laughing adults. “My dad can’t keep his hands off Judith.”

  And indeed William Lowell had his arm around the thick waist of a beaming woman who could only be the widow. She was short-haired and mannish, a silk scarf tied in the collar of her striped Oxford. It was no surprise she wasn’t as pretty as Elizabeth Lowell, Andrea supposed; William Lowell had been burned by beauty. Still, she felt obscurely disappointed by the widow, as though William Lowell had been guilty of a lapse in taste.

  “Weird that I hardly see you at school.” Parker smiled. “We must travel in different circles.” She turned to Matty and said seriously, “Andrea is super smart.”

  Matty snorted. “She thinks so.”

  Was Parker mocking her? Encouraging her? Andrea bristled. Parker didn’t know how smart she was. Parker didn’t know one thing about her.

  “Seriously, I hear you’re doing really well. Your dad tells my dad.”

  The thought of her father bragging about her was horrifying. Every term this year (and in spite of a B-minus in chemistry), Andrea had received honor roll certificates from the Chicano student association, which had made her proud until she realized they were just part of all the extra efforts made on behalf of minority students: the special dinners and study breaks and offers for faculty mentorship with junior faculty eager to bolster their tenure files. Still, she’d sent the certificates home to her parents, who didn’t know the difference. Now, though, she had a hideous vision of her father flapping the flimsy sheets in William Lowell’s face, William Lowell’s indulgent smile. William Lowell didn’t brag to Salvador about Parker’s accomplishments, you could be sure of that.

  “Last time I was out in the field I was nine, I think,” said Andrea. “You were here, too. Do you remember?”

  Parker shook her head.

  “Why would you? It was so long ago. You were picking blueberries for your mom, and I wanted to help, too, so Isabel—Isabel Gutierrez?—you probably don’t know her, she worked here for years—anyway, Isabel gave me a bucket. So I was out there picking away, happy as can be. Then your dad came down the row and yelled for me to stop.” Andrea laughed heartily, mirthlessly. “He was worried about child labor laws! Wouldn’t want anyone to come by and find a little Mexican kid picking blueberries!”

  Parker tipped her head, laughed uncertainly. Her entire face was pink now. “Sounds like maybe he was being a bit too scrupulous.”

  Andrea shrugged. “I’ve just always remembered it. You kept picking. It wasn’t child labor for you. You were just getting some berries for a pie.” She smiled.

  Even Parker’s flushed face irritated Andrea. What was she, some swooning Victorian?

  “Well, pick as much as you like today.” Parker nodded at the children in the rows. “Today we’re even allowing child labor.”

  Parker politely extricated herself, and then she was off to charm other guests with her straight teeth and easy personality. Matty stood watching her, jingling the change in his pockets.

  “Would you just stop fidgeting for one minute?” Andrea snapped.

  “What is with you?” Matty asked. “You’re fucked up, you know? You’re fucking obsessed.”

  Andrea turned on Matty. “Do you even know how much all this is worth?” Oh, yes, Andrea had Googled the land appraisal—she knew.

  Matty gave her one long disgusted look, then headed for the beer. Andrea nearly ran after him—but to what? Grab his hand, beg him to support her? She winced sourly.

  In the spring, in that lull after midterms and before finals, Andrea had finally run into Parker at a party at one of the co-ops. Andrea had arrived with some dormmates, who, once they’d all swigged their punch, had gone off in search of weed, leaving Andrea swaying at the periphery of the party. It had just stopped raining, and in the backyard several people were naked and dancing a formless hippy dance in the mud, ruining the lawn, which is what Andrea was watching—arms crossed critically as she envied their lack of self-consciousness—when Parker Lowell came up behind her and circled a thin arm around her neck.

  “Andrea!” Parker cried and thrust her friend forward. Parker was drunk, eyes damp and unfocused. “Meet Andrea! Andrea, this is Chantal. Oh my gosh, Andrea and I have known each other our entire lives. Our dads work together.”

  Chantal had glitter on her cheekbones and smeared black eyeliner. But it was Parker Andrea was staring at. “Imagine,” her mother had told her just days before, “that entire family, ruined.” But Parker didn’t look like someone whose world had fallen apart. She looked breathless and happy. She was leaner, gorgeous hipbones poking out the top of impossibly well-fitting thrift-store corduroys. She wore a boy’s AYSO soccer shirt, through which her braless nipples showed. Her bare face shone from dancing, and at her temples Andrea could see veins blue through her nearly translucent skin. Andrea wanted to speak privately to Parker, to tell her how sorry she was, how shocked th
ey’d all been. She’d touch that lovely arm, speak sincerely, and they’d understand each other.

  Instead, Andrea gestured at the mud dancers. “Insane, right? You couldn’t pay me to do that. Not in a million years.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Parker. “It seems kind of fun.”

  Feeling drab to her core, Andrea searched for something else to say but came up with nothing. Couldn’t she even stand like a normal person? Parker and Chantal stood close with their arms looped around each other’s waists, and their intimacy looked so natural that Andrea felt a pang. “I just meant they’re probably getting mud in their cracks.”

  Chantal laughed, but Parker fixed Andrea with sincere attention. “What are your summer plans? Heading home?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably I’ll find an internship.” Andrea was heartsick at the thought of the months that lay between her and the start of the next school year: the chilly, buzzing shifts at Safeway, the hot Stockton nights. Most internships were unpaid, she’d learned, and she didn’t know how to go about finding them anyway. “You?”

  Parker laughed. “I’m totally embarrassed, but I’m just going to hang out.” Her eyes flicked away; she was, it seemed, genuinely embarrassed. “Travel some, maybe. Mostly hang around home.” She laughed nervously. “I figure I’ll have to work the rest of my life.”

  Hope glinted in Andrea’s chest. Maybe they’d get together this summer; maybe, with nothing else to do, with her college and boarding-school friends away on their European tours, Parker would reach out. Already Andrea knew that wouldn’t happen.

  Chantal was looking at Andrea. “What does your dad do again?” she asked Parker.

  “He’s a farmer.” And Parker’s voice was so easy, so unselfconscious, that Andrea knew she believed it.

  A fierce rage rose from nowhere and spotted Andrea’s vision. A farmer! As if her dad was Old MacDonald milking his cow. As if the Lowells were all out weeding in their overalls. William Lowell had a law degree, for God’s sake.

  Later, she would kick herself for not calling Parker on her shit, would cycle through the things she might have said: “Parker’s dad owns farmers.” Instead, she’d smiled hard and bright until the terrible conversation wound down and Parker and Chantal melted into the crowd arm in arm.

  So, yes, this was Parker’s crime: thinking her dad was a farmer. Now, while a three-piece mariachi band struck up at the edge of the clearing, Andrea watched with loathing as Parker greeted her guests. Where did this anger come from? Andrea wasn’t one of these strident activists, with eagle eyes sharp on the lookout for injustice, leading grape boycotts and bus trips to Arizona. She wanted to become a lawyer, and not a civil rights or immigration lawyer, either. She wanted to be a lawyer in a slimming wool suit riding the elevator to the top of a New York skyscraper.

  Yet if anyone mentioned the Lowells, people who’d only been kind to her family—it was, after all, a nice thing, hiring her father’s taco truck—suddenly she was outraged. Andrea didn’t blame the Lowells, not really—they couldn’t help being who they were, having what they had. They weren’t even snobby. And technically Mr. Lowell sort of was a farmer. Except of course, she did blame them, and it didn’t matter that she knew it was unfair. Why did she want to embarrass Parker, dig into that rich guilt that was so ripe and close to the surface? Andrea flexed her fingers, imagined sinking them into flesh that would give as easily as the skin of a browning peach.

  “WINE?” OFFERED THE WAITER at her elbow. “This is a Sauvignon Blanc from the Pink Leaf Winery in Lake County.”

  “Oh,” said Andrea. “Okay.” She drank it quickly, then exchanged the glass when the next waiter came by.

  She was hungry, and the smell from the taco truck was delicious. But she felt stuck here on the edge, without another person to walk with. Under a swinging piñata, Matty was chatting with an older couple, not caring, apparently, that in his t-shirt and work boots he looked like an employee. He should be right here beside her, laughing at what she said. That had been the whole point of bringing him.

  Waiters supplied her with wine, elaborately speared vegetables, savory little puffs. And a beribboned bucket. She was warm, and the wine made her tight-faced and loose-limbed and tipsy. She didn’t know if the bucket was to keep, but she’d just decided she’d keep it anyway when she felt a nail scrape gently at her neck.

  “Tag’s out, honey.” It was the widow.

  Andrea clapped a hand on the nape of her neck.

  “You’re a friend of Parker’s? From school? Bill pointed you out.”

  “I must have forgotten to cut it off.” She felt the miserable heat rise in her face.

  “Don’t look so worried, honey.” The widow gave her a friendly scratch on the back and winked. “I won’t tell. We’ve all done it. It’s a nice dress.”

  Andrea smiled, and it felt so good that she realized it was the first genuine smile she’d smiled all day. “Thanks.” The widow’s hair was coarse and thick, a raccoon’s pelt. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t as pretty as Elizabeth Lowell. “My dad’s the taco guy,” she confessed.

  “Lovely man. He must be so proud of you.”

  “Oh, well,” said Andrea modestly, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Lots of kids get in.”

  “I’m glad Parker has a friend here.” The widow sighed, sipped her wine. “I guess the situation can’t be anything but awkward.”

  “Oh, I know,” said Andrea. “The power dynamics—”

  “Between you and me, I don’t actually know what I’m doing playing hostess. I don’t even know most of these people.” The widow withdrew a tube of lipstick from her pocket and smeared it on thin, tense lips.

  “I think you’re doing a great job,” Andrea said.

  “Both kids are angry, of course. It’s worse for Parker, though, being the youngest.” Parker and her father were standing arm in arm, entertaining a laughing crowd, and the widow watched them as she talked. When she splashed wine on her shirt she swiped at it without looking. “She keeps calling her parents to scream at them. She accuses her mother of being—of sleeping around. She doesn’t think much of me, either, told her father he was pitiful and desperate.” She laughed once, sharply. “She got both of us with that one.”

  It was impossible to imagine Parker raging about anything. She certainly didn’t look angry with her father. She was smiling rosily. Mr. Lowell kissed the silky top of her head. It was like a Ralph Lauren ad. That’s what this party was missing: a camera crew. Briefly, Andrea wondered if Parker’s mother had taken the Paris picture when she moved out, or if it was still in that gleaming kitchen facing the widow as she made her mayonnaise casseroles.

  Andrea was startled and flattered and uncomfortable to be let into the widow’s confidence, and her heart went out to her. “It must be so hard for you.”

  “Do you know, he says he’s not sure he’ll even divorce her. Doesn’t want to leave her in the lurch, he says.” The widow’s laugh was brittle, slightly unhinged. It occurred to Andrea that she was drunk. “He’s too good, that man. Parker scared him to death with that little pill stunt. I told him that was the point. I was young once, too.” The widow smiled brilliantly with magenta lips and played with the tails of her scarf.

  That pill stunt. “Yes,” said Andrea.

  “I told him she should have a summer job, keep busy. My kids have always had summer jobs. I bet you have one, don’t you?”

  Andrea’s head was cottony and the buzz of the wine drained, leaving a heavy, hot remorse. “Parker and I aren’t actually that close. I didn’t actually know about the pills.”

  “You get selfish if you don’t work, I told him. If you never have to think about anyone else. It’s not her fault, but that’s what happens.”

  “Is she really so unhappy?”

  The widow tipped her head and looked at Andrea as if for the first time. Her lipstick was thick, waxy and dry. “She’s quite a performer, your friend.”

  “No,” Andrea said with sudden savage e
nergy that took her by surprise. “She’s not a performer.” Who did this widow think she was, spreading the Lowell gossip at their own party? She was an ugly, hateful woman. “For the record,” she said with indignation, “the Lowells were the most beautiful family I have ever seen.”

  “Ah. I see,” the widow said lightly. “I hope you’ll be more discreet than I was. Do tell your dad how much I enjoyed his tacos. Excuse me.” She gave Andrea’s back another little scratch and moved unsteadily off.

  AT THE BUFFET, Parker and Matty were laughing over a bowl of guacamole. Matty leaned forward in a way that meant he had designs on her. Of course he did. But Andrea didn’t care about Matty just now.

  Andrea was swollen with shame, her upper lip damp as though the shame were actually oozing out of her. And yet, at the edges of the remorse and sorrow, she was obscurely jealous, too, as if with those pills Parker had established once again her supremacy over Andrea. But Andrea would rise above that, be the gracious, expansive person she’d always hoped she’d become. She hurried toward them.

  “Parker,” she said, generous, repentant. She composed her face into a semblance of sobriety, because what she had to say was important.

  “Oh, what now?” asked Matty.

  “Listen—I just met your stepmother.”

  “She’s not my stepmother,” Parker said warily.

  Andrea laid a hand on Parker’s bare arm. She could feel the tiny golden hairs, the heat of her skin, and affection welled in her. “She told me that you tried to kill yourself. And I just wanted to say I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” Why couldn’t she get the tone right? She really was sorry.

  Parker flushed so deeply that her eyelids pinkened, too, and Andrea wondered with a bleak horror if the girl was going to cry, here in front of everyone. “Why are you even here? You think I don’t notice you hate me?”