Chapter 3
When the top of the convertible was down, I felt like I got an entirely new perspective on the world. From the passenger seat in my brother’s BMW convertible, our high school looked like a castle in a fairy tale. Tall stone buildings nestled on perfectly landscaped fields surrounded by every species of tree found in the Northeast. Spring Mills was the most affluent public school district in Pennsylvania, and nicer than most of the local college campuses.
“Dude, the parking here sucks,” Vince complained as he pulled out of the gated lot and drove to the back of the administration building to look for an available space. We were running late, as usual.
“Hey, a few more days and you’ll never have to park here again,” I reminded him, as I stared at my classmates rushing off to first period.
“Thank God. I can’t get out of here fast enough.”
“You know, it’s really not that bad.”
“Easy for you to say. Mom and Dad practically bow down and worship you.”
“That’s because I don’t get arrested.”
“Don’t start, Mariana,” he droned, pulling the parking brake on the car and pressing the button to raise the convertible top back into place.
“I’m just saying. It’s your own fault Dad’s always on your case.You shouldn’t have gotten caught.”
I unclicked my seat belt and applied a fresh layer of Chapstick while I waited for the top of the car to secure before opening my door.
“Well, it’s easy not to get caught when you don’t go out in the first place,” Vince snapped as he slammed his door shut and hiked up his dark designer jeans, which were professionally ripped at the knees.
“I go out!”
“Dance recitals don’t count.”
“Vince, I have friends.”
“What? The ballet crew? A bunch of wild and crazy anorexics.”
“I am not anorexic!”
“No, but your friends are. Madison doesn’t put more than a lettuce leaf in her mouth in a given day.”
That was partly true. Madison did have a few issues with her weight. She was the only one of my friends who, after twelve years of practice, had never scored a solo in a dance performance and she was convinced it was because of her weight. She was a size six when we’d entered high school and now, two years later, she claimed she wore a size two but I was pretty certain there were more zeros floating in her closet than anything else.
But her lack of recognition in ballet really had nothing to do with her weight. Sadly, the girl just wasn’t talented, but no one had the heart to tell her. Her father was a vice president at the Campbell Soup Company and Madam Colbert, our instructor, was not about to tell him that his daughter was a sucky dancer (Madam Colbert’s husband was a Campbell’s product manager). So my friends and I were left with the responsibility of trying to convince Madison that she could afford to put a little more dressing on her salad—actually, a lot more dressing.
“She eats. She just doesn’t like to eat in public,” I mumbled, feeling a flush of embarrassment for my friend.
“And what’s your excuse? It’s not like anyone can tell what you look like in those clothes.”Vince looked me up and down and smirked.
“What? What’s wrong with my clothes?” I shrieked, looking down at my faded boy-cut jeans and solid green T shirt layered over a yellow tank.
“Nothing, I’m sure there’s an actual girl under there somewhere.”
“Just because I don’t wear micro-stretch hoochie-momma jeans like the girls you go out with doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the way I dress.”
“Whatever, forget it,” he said, turning his head away from me to end our conversation.
“Yeah, you really think you can brush me off that easily? Nice try.” I pushed his shoulder, which was covered in an intentionally wrinkled button-down shirt. “Seriously, you need to let this whole Europe thing go. It’s not gonna happen and the fights with Dad are getting a little ridiculous.”
We walked through the stone columned entrance into the school.
“Well, if he would just freakin’ let me go . . .”
“Give it up! You are not going. Move on. Plan a different vacation, or here’s a thought: get a job.”
“Mariana, I am eighteen years old. I’ve got the rest of my stinkin’ life to get a job. If you want to spend your summer wiping snotty noses with a bunch of losers, fine. But that is not my idea of a good time.”
“Yeah, well, Dad’s not gonna pay your way forever,” I stated as we walked down the hallway to our lockers.
“You’re right, he’s not. So why not enjoy it while it lasts?”
Vince veered off in the direction of the senior wing—located on the second floor of the main building with a view of the tennis courts and soccer fields. Freshmen were herded into the ground-level hall with classrooms that overlooked the parking lot.
I stood in front of my locker and dropped my floral cotton bag on the floor, a gift my mother purchased in Provence last year during my dad’s “business trip” to the south of France. It was the first time our parents had left Vince and me home alone, and we came pretty close to making them seriously regret it.
As expected, my brother planned a party. I knew he would and I didn’t want to make a federal case out of it, but I also didn’t want to get involved. Drinking and puking was not my idea of a good time. So I let my older brother, who was sixteen at the time, invite some friends over, trusting that he wouldn’t let things get too out of control. I was wrong.
I had gone to a movie with Madison and afterward we met her parents for dinner at this trendy Japanese restaurant on Main Street. By the time I got home, which was still fifteen minutes before my curfew despite the fact that my parents were out of town, the neighbors were screaming at my brother and threatening to call the cops on the hordes of drunken teenagers parked on their lawns. I spent more than an hour kicking everyone out of our house, then I had the pleasure of going door to door to convince all of our neighbors that the party was over and an incident like this would never, ever happen again. It was a four-hour party but it took nearly two days to clean up. My brother helped by vomiting the entire next morning and by exerting himself just enough to take out a few bags of garbage—which my friends and I spent half a day collecting. Thankfully, when our parents came back, not one neighbor blew our cover.
“Hey, Bobby,” I greeted, as I swung the metal dial on my locker.
Bobby McNabb and I had been locker neighbors for the past year. We didn’t share any classes or after school activities—he was more of the future-NYU-film-student type. Our locker chats were our only form of contact.
“Hola, Mariana,” he replied, as he dug through his long skinny locker, his shaggy mop of blond curls falling onto his black-framed glasses.
“Oh, yes, let me whip out my Spanish accent for you,” I joked as my locker door swung open. “So, Bobby boy, what are your plans for the summer? Ya gonna write some poetry in a coffeehouse or make a documentary on the war-torn Middle East?”
“Both, hopefully.” He smiled.
“Seriously? ’Cause I was kidding.”
“So was I, sort of. My parents signed me up for some summer film program in Dublin.”
“Like, Ireland?”
“Well, that’s where Dublin is,” he teased. “It’s some NYU thing.”
I laughed.
“What?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Bobby boy, you are destined for New York’s Lower East Side. NYU might as well admit you now.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m the last remaining starving artist.”
“I don’t know how much you can really starve in Spring Mills.”
“True. But I think I can still starve in Dublin.”
“Ah, something to look forward to.”
Just then I felt a familiar tap on my shoulder.
“What up, Spic!” yelled Emily Montgomery as she pushed me slightly with her sculptured nails. My forehead clenched slight
ly.
My friends had been calling me Spic since sixth grade. They thought it was hilarious that I was half Puerto Rican, and even funnier that my teachers expected me to have some sort of natural aptitude for the Spanish language, like, just because my father was born there I must be fluent. Unfortunately, languages are not passed down in the DNA and my father never spoke a word of Spanish in our home, except when my grandparents visited. But they passed away five years ago.
My father had spent hours standing next to my grandfather’s coffin (he died suddenly of a stroke), speaking in a language I couldn’t understand, to relatives I barely knew. I felt almost offended. My grandfather was a part of our family; he and my grandmother ate dinner at our house every Sunday; they watched our dog when we went on vacation; and they bought us unfashionable clothes for Christmas. I didn’t like having to share their funerals—my grandmother died a few months after my grandfather of heart disease—with strangers who couldn’t even speak my language. I felt that if I hadn’t met these relatives before, then obviously they didn’t love my grandparents as much as I did. They didn’t have a right to be there acting like they were so distraught. They should have cared about them when they were alive.
“Uh, Mariana, the bell’s gonna ring any second.You ready?” Emily asked, snapping me out of my daze.
“Oh, yeah,” I replied, shaking my head. “Madison was freaking about her party again last night.”
“What else is new? Did you hear the hotel won’t allow dogs, so she can’t walk in with Tweetie?”
“Oh, my God! What is she gonna do with that silver gown she had made for her?”
“You think Madison’s giving up on this? Please! She’ll get that Chihuahua in if she has to smuggle the thing in her purse.”
“No way. She’d wrinkle Tweetie’s dress.”
We both laughed. Madison’s idea of a grand entrance with her two-pound dog in matching couture was a little too “Paris Hilton” for us. But we wouldn’t tell her that. She was determined to upstage any Super Sweet 16 ever aired on MTV. Somehow she watched that show and saw inspiration where I saw humiliation. At least other cultures had birthday celebrations with some religious or social significance, like Bar Mitzvahs or Quinceañeras, but we just flaunted our wealth for the heck of it.
“Anyway, thank God, school’s almost over,” Emily stated, pushing her long, chestnut locks over her shoulder. I could hear her cell phone buzz from her tiny black wristlet.
She yanked out the hot pink phone and read a text message off the screen. “It’s Madison. She says she heard Friday’s skip day. Everyone’s goin’ into Philly.You want in?”
Every year, in the last few weeks of school, the entire student body skipped class (the seniors usually determined when) and the faculty looked the other way—they used the time as an “in-service” day to get all their grades in order before the year closed.
“Where in Philly?” I asked as Emily was busy texting Madison back.
She paused and adjusted the top of her black sleeveless shirt. “We’ll find out soon.”
Her phone buzzed again seconds later.
“There’s a free concert at Penn’s Landing. Some hippie-fest thing, but it should be fun. Madison wants us to go shoe shopping while we’re there,” she said, reading the screen of the phone.
“Shoe shopping? I don’t even have a dress for her party yet! Whatever. Fine, let’s do it.”
“Very cool. Spic is in,” Emily replied as her fingers flew over her phone’s keypad.
I smirked and headed off to class.
Chapter 4
The lawn was damp and the music was lame. I sat on a soggy picnic blanket surrounded by girlfriends I’d known since grade school, listening to some artist I’d never heard of perform on the waterfront stage. I lifted my butt to feel the seat of my jeans. Just as I thought, wet. Now it was going to look like I peed myself. I yanked on my navy blue T shirt, even though I knew it wasn’t long enough to cover the water mark. Not that many people here would notice. Aside from my classmates, everyone else at the concert was wearing at least one article of clothing made entirely of hemp.
Emily and Madison were sprawled out next to me in their bare feet, our flip-flops stacked on the grass beside us. Emily was reading some article about Uganda in the latest Marie Claire while Madison was busy texting her event planner.
“Yes! Gayle found the pink, rhinestone-studded cell phone holders I wanted to give as favors!” Madison shrieked.
“That’s awesome, Mad,” I said, half listening as I scanned the crowd.
I knew Vince was here somewhere. He’d dropped us off in the parking lot and then darted to meet with a group of jocks I didn’t realize he knew. He rotated friends more often than his underwear. It was easy for him. He was universally liked by rockers, nerds, stoners, everyone. He had a knack for making any situation more fun. At church when we were little, he used to make shadow puppets on the pew in front of us as we kneeled, silently praying. I’d spend the entire hour guessing the animals he was contorting his hands into—dogs, butterflies, alligators. It made the never-ending Catholic mass move surprisingly quickly, especially since half the time was spent trying to suppress our giggles.
“Yo, Spic, is there any more water in the cooler?” Madison asked, not looking up from the screen of her phone.
“Yeah, I think so,” I answered through clenched teeth. I opened the red and white cooler. I pulled out a bottle of dripping wet Evian and handed it to her.
“Uh, hello! Don’t get my phone wet or I’ll never hear if Gayle found my tiara!”
“You’re wearing a tiara?” I asked, my eyes narrowed.
“Uh, obviously. But Gayle’s trying to pawn off some tacky thing that doesn’t even have real crystals. Like I would ever wear that! I swear I don’t know what we’re paying her for.”
I did. The poor woman probably needed a team of assistants just to keep up with Madison’s requests.
“Hey, Mad, this band is pretty good. Why don’t you hire them?” I joked as the dreadlocked chick on stage began to yodel.
“Very funny. Besides, we already booked the same band that played at my cousin’s wedding.”
“Wasn’t your cousin’s wedding in Los Angeles?”
“Yeah, so? They’re flying in.”
“Oh, okay. Um, that’s cool,” I remarked, shaking my head.
“I don’t get why they have concerts on the Philly waterfront,” Emily stated, changing the subject. “It’s ugly.You have a gross view of Camden. Who wants to stare at that?”
She pointed across the Delaware River to the fog of black smoke emanating from the refineries in New Jersey.
“I know. Camden literally smells like crap,” Madison stated. “My dad complains about it all the time. I don’t get why they just don’t move his office.”
The Campbell Soup Company is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey, and it is one of the few redeeming qualities about the city. I had only stepped foot in it twice in my life—for my grandparents’ funerals. They wanted to be buried in the place they’d raised their family, which drove my father nuts. He worked hard to brush away his poverty-stricken past and hated any association with his former lifestyle. That’s why he moved our family (and my grandparents) to Spring Mills, quite possibly the whitest town in the tri-state area.
We were so conspicuous that once when my mom’s Polish relatives sent a Christmas package addressed only to “Irina Ruíz, Spring Mills, Pennsylvania,” it still arrived the day after it entered the States—even without the street address. It was easy for the mail carrier to determine its destination; we were the only family with an Hispanic last name within a ten-mile radius. A fact that didn’t go unnoticed by my grandfather. He never ceased to mention it and every time he did, my father’s fists clenched until his knuckles whitened.
“Hello! Mariana! Earth to Mariana!” Emily yelled. “Madison wants to go look for shoes.”
“I want you guys to both wear black, so you’ll complement my silver
dress,” Madison said as she dropped her phone in her purse. “I’m thinking black strappy sandals.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” I answered.
We all climbed to our feet and I neatly folded the blanket we’d been sitting on for the past two hours.
“Hey, can we get something to eat first? I’m starving,” Emily said. “There’s this Mexican place in Old City that’s supposed to be awesome. My parents went there a couple weeks ago.”
“Hey, Mariana—Mexican.We can visit your people,” Madison joked.
“I’m Puerto Rican, chica, not Mexican. Get it right,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“¡Ay Dios mío! So sorry señorita!” she replied with a laugh.
“Oh, you know we love you! Our little ethnic friend,” Emily teased.
“For the last time, I am not Hispanic. My name is.”
I shoved the plush blanket in my backpack and followed my friends off the field and away from the concert.
Chapter 5
South Street was mobbed. Not much of a shocker—it was June and a warm seventy-five degrees. But who would expect this many people to have nothing better to do on a workday. Don’t these people have jobs?
After we had finished our Mexican meal and Madison had deemed not a single pair of shoes in Old City worthy of her party, we decided to walk over to South Street’s funkier shops—which sell everything from crotchless underwear to cashmere sweaters.
“Hey, guys. I think I want to get a henna tattoo. What do you think?” Emily asked, as we strolled past a Goth clothing store.
“As long as you get it somewhere that won’t show during my party,” Madison said, as her cell phone buzzed for the millionth time.
“It’s a temporary tattoo.Your party’s not for weeks,” Emily pointed out.
“Uh, sure. I saw a news special on how some of those tattoos never really go away. You can totally screw yourself up.”
Amor and Summer Secrets Page 2
