I, on the other hand, did not share his traveler’s instincts. The entire airport looked like a Sudoku puzzle. Everything from the people to the shops to the vending machines to the never-ending maze of corridors seemed amazing. It just reinforced my feeling that I didn’t belong. If I had traveled alone, I was pretty sure that I’d be wandering around aimlessly for hours mumbling to myself and sobbing quietly.
Once we located the baggage claim, it took another thirty minutes for our luggage to come down the belt (so glad we rushed). We headed through the exit onto the sidewalk where passengers were inevitably greeted by friends, relatives, chauffeurs or no one.
“You realize we don’t even know what this ‘Alonzo’ person looks like, right?” I pointed out as I dragged my black rolling suitcase (which was almost as tall as I was) and lugged the bags on my throbbing shoulders. I was sweating under my terry cloth clothes and the smack of humidity from the tropical air wasn’t helping.
“Well, if he hasn’t changed at all in the past twelve years, then I think I know what he looks like,” Vince said.
We stared at the hordes of strangers chatting in Spanish. Not a single face looked familiar.
“How the heck are we going to find him?” I asked.
“I have no idea.”
Out of desperation, I scanned the names the chauffeurs had scribbled on their white cardboard signs: Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Smith. My gaze slid from sign to sign until I finally clapped eyes with my own name: Mariana and Vincent Ruíz.
“There! Over there!” I yelled, pointing at a fair-skinned man with white hair dressed in green plaid shorts and a white golf shirt.
“They sent a driver?”Vince asked as he held my arm and guided me through the crowds.
“I guess.”
A few paces out, the man realized we were headed straight for him and smiled. “Mariana? Vicente?” he asked.
I barely understood the pronunciation of my own name. He called me, “MARI-AAAHNA.” And my brother went from being Vince to “VICENTAY.”We had been on the island for about an hour and already my sense of self was being stripped.
“We’re looking for Alonzo,” Vince stated cautiously, glaring sideways at the man.
“Sí. Sí. Alonzo,” he said, patting his chest.
In a matter of seconds, the youthful dark-haired Latino I remembered from photos became a white-haired golfer who looked more British than he did Puerto Rican. I could only imagine how different we must look to him—we had both grown at least two feet since he last saw us.
Alonzo quickly grabbed the bags off my shoulders, giving me a sense of relief I hadn’t felt since before I was ordered to take this trip, and led us toward his car. Walking behind him, pulling my gigantic suitcase, I realized just how tight his plaid shorts were. They were practically glued to his bony butt (not that I was looking, well not like that). I just wasn’t sure if he had outgrown his clothes or if tight male shorts were in fashion in Puerto Rico. Either way, it fit with the curly gray chest hair protruding from his unbuttoned collar.
Alonzo stopped at a dark green sedan, opened the trunk, and the three of us worked together to hoist our heavy bags inside.
“We’re going to Utuado, right?” I asked as I opened the rear passenger door and plopped down, exhausted.
Vince clicked his seat belt secure in the front seat (I gave him shotgun because I had no desire to be stuck entertaining this stranger for the duration of our ride), and Alonzo turned on the ignition.
“Sí. Utuado,” he said, reversing out of his parking space.
“How . . . far . . . away . . . is . . . it?” I asked, speaking slowly and loudly like he was hearing impaired. I wasn’t sure why I thought that would help.
“¿Como?” he asked, twisting his neck to glance back at me.
“Utuado, how far away is it?”
“Sí. Utuado,” he said.
“Uh, Mariana, I don’t think he speaks English,”Vince said softly, turning to give me his wide-eyed, this-person-is-crazy look.
“Okay, then.”
I thought for a few moments. I couldn’t seem to remember the word for “far” but I knew “close” was “cerca,” so I formulated the best Spanish translation I could manage.
“¿Dónde está Utuado? ¿Es cerca de aquí?”
Alonzo rapidly mumbled off a half dozen sentences in response that I couldn’t even begin to understand, but I was pretty sure I caught the phrase, “dos horas,” which meant two hours. I took that to mean we had a long car ride ahead of us.
Chapter 11
I was once on a wooden roller coaster. My dad took us to Coney Island two years ago and convinced us that our trip to the famed Brooklyn amusement park would not be complete without a ride on the Cyclone. Personally, I had no desire to step foot on the splintering contraption, but I also didn’t want to spend an hour alone on the boardwalk as my family waited in line to ride this “historical landmark.”
I reluctantly boarded the coaster car with my brother, plopping down on a red plastic bench protected by a lap bar that, while fitting snuggly across Vince’s thick thighs, landed a good six inches above my own. I tried to complain to the ride technician, but apparently the safety device was supposed to be that inadequate, because she launched the ride without bothering to respond.
After that, all I really remember is screaming uncontrollably until my throat burned, and then soaring—at around sixty miles per hour—down a hill so steep I lifted from the seat, my butt elevated in the air like a magic trick, while my freakish brother waved his arms above his head. My white knuckles clutching the bar were the only things keeping me from plummeting to my death.
Now as I sat in Alonzo’s hunter green sedan, flying up a mountain road, my hands clenching the gray door handle, I was struck with a very similar sensation.
It seemed that Utuado was not just “in the mountains,” it was at the tippy top of the mountains. Lush green hills filled the entire drive until we finally passed the “town.” A small concrete square hosted a band playing what I assumed was salsa. A yellow church flanked one end, while the other three sides were filled with ailing shops and restaurants, a Payless shoe store and a Chinese takeout (which I found oddly comforting). Then we turned up a narrow two-way road, wide enough to fit one car, and stared down the edge of a cliff (honestly, it felt as high as the Empire State Building) with absolutely no guardrail to stop our fall. And the road didn’t only go up, it curved back and forth creating a path similar to that of the orange cones in a driving test—a constant tight zigzag. And as we “zigged” we couldn’t see if there was another car “zagging” from around the other side.
Of course, none of this seemed to faze our dear cousin Alonzo. He rocketed up that mountain like a NASCAR driver taking a practice spin. Since I barely knew the man and he was more than twice my age, I felt too uncomfortable to scream as freely as I wanted, but I did let an occasional “Watch out!” slip through my lips when we flew too close to the edge. Alonzo, who I’m pretty sure didn’t understand a word I was shrieking, found my entire reaction to the trip absolutely hysterical. And my brother laughed right along with him. With no way to communicate, Vince and Alonzo seemed to have already become the best of friends.
I, on the other hand, was silently cursing my father for setting me up with a lunatic escort and secretly imagining how awful my parents would feel if I plunged to my death while on a trip they forced me to take. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on a happy place—my life back in Spring Mills, Madison and Emily, my dog Tootsie—but my stomach was shifting so much that I couldn’t relax.
Finally, the world slowed. I felt the car straighten out, our speed decrease and the engine roar to a stop. I inhaled deeply and unclenched my eyelids.We were parked in front of a light blue cement house with a pitched roof. It was one story and had an open-air porch jutting from the side. Surrounding it were dozens of tropical trees with dangling green bananas nestled above beds of bright pink and orange flowers—and a flock of wild chickens. Alonzo mu
ttered something in Spanish before I opened the car door. The ground felt strong and solid under my feet, calming my uneasy equilibrium. The smell of damp earth washed over me. But before I could stop to register my surroundings, the cobalt blue front door swung open and out ran a heavy-set older woman and a gray-haired man who, from where I stood, looked nearly identical to my late grandfather. They were headed straight for us.
Chapter 12
It wasn’t exactly a smooth introduction. The couple, who had my brother and me locked in bear hugs, rambled endlessly in Spanish assuming we understood every word. Even if I did speak the language, I doubted I would have been able to squeak a word into their nonstop chatter. All I deciphered was that they were our hosts Carmen and Miguel Mendez, our great aunt and great uncle.
Uncle Miguel was my dad’s father’s (my grandfather’s) brother. I had never met him before; actually, I had never even heard his name uttered before my dad brought up this trip. No one ever talked about our extended family in Puerto Rico, which was partly why I felt less connected to them than I did the casts of most reality TV shows. Frankly, I was surprised they even knew I existed; it’s not like any of them cared enough to attend my grandfather’s funeral. Puerto Rican relatives from up and down the East Coast paid their respects, but not a single resident of the island itself—not even his own sibling. I couldn’t imagine missing my brother’s funeral. Heck, I’d sell everything I owned to pay for a ticket to see him one last time—despite the fact that he was currently responsible for destroying my life.
I peered intently at my great aunt and great uncle. They didn’t seem like heartless people. Judging from the enormous grins on their faces (my uncle’s dimples looked exactly like my grandfather’s), they were genuinely excited to see us. Great Uncle Miguel even had tears in his eyes. And as I stared at him, standing on Utuado soil, I could almost feel my grandfather’s presence. I half expected to turn around and see his spirit standing behind us, like some scene from a hokey crime drama the moment after the victim’s killer has been brought to justice.
I wanted to tell my great uncle how much he resembled his brother, but I lacked the sufficient Spanish vocabulary to express the thought. It only took a few seconds to realize that neither my great aunt nor great uncle spoke any English. And for the third time since our plane touched down, I found myself wishing I had devoted more time to studying for my Spanish classes.
My great aunt Carmen, however, did not seem to notice a language barrier. She continued to babble in Spanish without pausing to catch the glazed expressions in our eyes. Her mouth was glued in a smile, revealing a set of yellowed teeth that looked as though they hadn’t spent much time at the dentist. Her long black locks were in need of a touch up (her gray roots were about an inch long) and they fell just to the top of her massive cleavage. Even I couldn’t help but stare at the enormity of her chest (a gene that apparently hadn’t been passed down to me).
Great uncle Miguel was about half her size—at least two inches shorter and about fifty pounds thinner. His nose was long and pointy at the tip, much like my father’s, and a full mane of cropped silver hair covered his head—quite impressive considering I had twentysomething male cousins who were only a few follicles shy of a cue ball. His yellow-and-blue floral button-down (I was tempted to call it a Hawaiian shirt, but being that we were in Puerto Rico I thought maybe it was a “Puerto Rican shirt”) was soaked with giant round sweat stains that I pretended not to notice.
Carmen, who still hadn’t let go of me, led me from the road toward her house by my biceps. I turned and saw Miguel guiding Vince in much the same manner, while Alonzo stood at the car unloading our bags from the trunk. (My big suitcase weighed more than I did and it had taken the three of us to load it into the trunk, so I had no idea how he was going to haul it out solo.) We hurried across their front lawn, and I noticed that the grass was brighter than it was back home. It matched the sea of emerald that had surrounded us on the drive.
We walked to the front door, and I could hear what sounded like a party inside. Numerous voices boomed above the sounds of salsa and clinking glasses. Aunt Carmen tugged the screen door open and dozens of eyes immediately shifted in our direction. Conversations ceased and all I could hear were the beats floating from the radio. I stepped inside, my pupils struggling to adjust to the dim light. It was early dusk, but no lights were on and I quickly guessed it was to keep the room cool. The house clearly wasn’t air-conditioned, which explained Miguel’s sopping shirt. The air was thick with the smell of spices and perspiration, and I could feel beads of liquid already forming on my forehead (whether I was sweating because of the temperature or my anxiety, I didn’t know).
“Um, hola,” I said meekly, flicking my hand in an embarrassed wave.
The crowd took a collective inhale before sputtering simultaneously and rushing toward me like the paparazzi to a diva. At least twenty strangers buzzed in my ear, hugging me and chatting nonstop. I twisted my neck and saw Vince engulfed in a similar spectacle. With so many different voices in such dense accents talking all at once, I couldn’t make out a single Spanish word they were saying other than “hola,” “chica” and what sounded like the name “Lilly.”
Confused and uncomfortable (I was never big on people touching me, not even ones I was related to), I tried to introduce myself.
“Hola. Me llamo Mariana,” I shouted.
But they still kept uttering “Lilly” repeatedly while stroking my hair and patting my face. I tried to squirm away, stretching my head back and raising my shoulders. I briefly caught a glimpse of Vince laughing hysterically. He was having a much less difficult time with their up-close-and-personal introductions. His face was beaming and his arms were spread wide like a king greeting his subjects. I could tell he was loving this.
“No, you don’t get it. My name’s Mariana. I’m not Lilly,” I stated as I tried to weasel free from the pack.
“Soy Mariana. Me llamo Mariana,” I repeated slowly, thumping my chest as they continued repeating “Lilly.”
“Vince, a little help here,” I called, turning toward my brother, who was still laughing and enjoying himself. “Who the hell is Lilly? They think I’m Lilly.”
Finally, the familiar sounds of English emerged from behind me.
“They’re not saying you are Lilly. They’re saying you look like Lilly,” said the young, feminine voice.
Everyone instantly hushed. I spun around and was face-to-face with my own reflection. Well, not really. But I was staring at a girl who could pass for my sister, if not my twin.
She was about my age and roughly the same height and weight. Her hair was the same shade of brownish red, her face was round and pale, her cheeks pronounced and covered in freckles, and her eyes small, almond-shaped and brown.
“Whoa,” I mumbled.
“I’m Lilly,” she explained, though I had already figured that out.
Chapter 13
Before leaving for Puerto Rico, I had many expectations—most of them bad. I expected it would be miserably hot, I expected no one would speak fluent English, I expected the food to be spicy and odd, and I even expected our accommodations to be less than stellar. And while, so far, I appeared to be right-on with several of those predictions, what I never fathomed possible, was that I’d finally meet the relatives who shared my physical image. For the past fifteen years I joked to my parents, and anyone who would listen, that I was switched at birth, that there was some horrible mishap at the hospital the day I was born and my parents mistakenly brought home the wrong infant. Clearly I didn’t resemble them. I was obviously Irish, Scottish or possibly Finnish. Certainly there was no way I had Puerto Rican blood flowing through my veins.
As I stood staring at Lilly, I realized I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
“Who are you?” I whispered, shaking my head.
“Lilly Sanchez,” she stated matter-of-factly. She was visibly less fazed by my uncanny resemblance to her.
“Dude, you speak English,” Vince
said, as he trudged over.
I almost forgot we were still standing in our aunt and uncle’s living room surrounded by dozens of people. Some had taken seats on metal-framed chairs and couches with pastel printed cushions, which back home would have been considered nice patio furniture, while others stood around or leaned on the hard cement walls. No one was moving and they were all staring at us like we were the main event for a show that finally got started.
“Hey, I’m Vince.”
My brother stuck out his hand and shook Lilly’s. I was still gawking at her openmouthed, unable to move and contemplating the reality of human cloning.
“Uh, this is Mariana. Don’t mind her. We just spent four hours on a plane.”
“No problem,” said Lilly. “And really, don’t let the relatives freak you out. They’re always like this. They get excited when the mail comes.”
She adjusted the low scoop on her tank top, which exposed a good three inches of cleavage—the one clear trait that offset our appearances. With her denim miniskirt and white high-heeled sandals, she could have doubled for a “mall chick” in a 1980s rock video. But considering I was still in the same terry cloth outfit I had worn on the plane, I wasn’t in a position to be knocking anyone’s appearance. If I didn’t shower soon, I was pretty sure people would start to smell me from across the ocean.
“So, Lilly, do you live here?” Vince asked.
“Yup. So do my parents, but it’s my grandparents’ house.”
“So Miguel and Carmen are your grandparents?”
Lilly nodded, her red ponytail bouncing. “Yeah, on my mom’s side.”
“So if our great aunt and uncle are your grandparents, what does that make us?” Vince asked, looking at me.
My brain finally started to unfog, and I began to mentally outline our family tree. My father’s father’s brother’s daughter was her mother. So Miguel (who was my grandfather’s brother, and my dad’s uncle, and thus my great uncle) was her grandfather.
Amor and Summer Secrets Page 5
