Fifteen Candles

by Veronica Chambers

  She went to her desk and packed up her things, mostly stuff related to Sarita’s quince—CDs, fabric swatches, photographers’ portfolios—and she piled them all into the shopping bags Lori kept in the cabinet in the coffee room. It didn’t take her long. The buildings at City Hall were always cold, so even when it was a hundred degrees outside, Alicia kept a black cardigan at her desk. She picked up the cardigan and the black Coach tote that her mother had gotten her as a gift to celebrate the new job. There were some papers on her desk, but she figured that Lori would figure out what went where. It wasn’t her problem anymore. She’d been canned.

  Walking through the security scanner at the front door, she willed herself not to cry.

  “Checking out early?” Mr. Bennett, one of the security guards, asked. He was an older African American man, and he always had a kind word for everyone, even Lori.

  “Something like that,” Alicia replied.

  Walking out of the building, she felt the heat descend on her. She walked down the street to the bus stop, dragging her feet; she hated taking the bus, but since he’d just basically fired her, she was fairly confident that her father wasn’t going to drive her home. Or speak to her—ever again.

  Alicia looked at her watch; it was almost two o’clock. She’d been out for a few hours already and was bored, with a capital B. Wow, she thought sarcastically, time flies when you’re unemployed. Luckily, Sarita and Jamie were coming over at three to try out hairstyles. That gave her something to do. She went to the bathroom to give herself a pep talk in the mirror. Despite the fact that she loved fashion, Alicia was a five-minutes-in-the-mirror-makeup girl. Standing in the bathroom with no internship to rush off to, she took a deep breath and tried to let it all sink in. Then she began talking to herself out loud: “Look, you were fired from an internship you really liked. You were yelled at by your dad, who, up until recently, you were pretty sure respected you as a smart, up-and-coming Latina on her way. You can’t change the past, but you can concentrate on the present. Sarita’s quince is around the corner, and if it’s perfect, no one’s going to remember the big blank spot on your college résumé where the City Hall internship was supposed to go. So, gather the troops, and get ready to kick butt, because you’ve got a party to plan!”

  Alicia stopped just short of high-fiving herself in the mirror and shrugged.

  She took off her work shoes, a pair of slightly scuffed Dior heels that were a hand-me-down from her mom, and tossed them across the room. She wouldn’t be needing those anymore.

  And since she had a little time to spare before the great quince hair project began, she decided to check in on her crew.

  She called Jamie first.

  “Hey, Jamie, what’s up?” she asked.

  “What’s up is that I’m on a bus, on my way to your house,” Jamie said, exasperated. “If you call me one more time, I swear, I will turn around and go home.”

  “No problem,” Alicia said. “So what’s your ETA?”

  “I’m losing you,” Jamie said, crumbling a ball of paper into the phone. Then she grumbled, “I’m trying really hard to lose you.”

  Alicia, however, didn’t hear her. She had hung up and was already calling Gaz.

  “Gaz: the mariachi number. I need to know your band can deliver,” Alicia said.

  “Alicia,” Gaz said. “You are bugging out. What is going on with you?”

  “Nothing,” Alicia said. “Just got to hold it all together.”

  “It’s together, Lici,” Gaz said. “This is so not like you. Do you want to talk? I can come over after work. My shift ends at seven.”

  “I’m cool,” Alicia lied. “Just taking care of business.” She and Gaz hadn’t been alone since the club. They hadn’t even talked about what had happened. Would it be weird?

  “Business will take care of itself, Mamita,” Gaz said, interrupting her thoughts. “Who’s going to take care of you?”

  Mamita? Wait, was Gaz her boyfriend now? It would be so nice if something in her life turned out the way she’d hoped. She wanted to tell him everything, about losing her internship, about being so scared that something might go wrong with Sarita’s quince that she couldn’t even think straight. She wanted to tell him that she liked him. But she had just been fired, and she was feeling like a big, giant loser. And if at this very second he liked her, the minute he found out the truth he was bound to stop. She crumpled up a piece of paper right into the mouthpiece of her cell.

  “Sorry, Gaz,” she said. “I’m losing you.” Then she hung up the phone. She would deal with that all later. She hoped.

  When Jamie rang the doorbell, Alicia had pushed thoughts of Gaz out of her head and was ready with a whole new plan for Sarita’s hair.

  “Hey, come in,” she said. “Look at these pictures I’ve printed out. I was thinking that Sarita needs a more grown-up look. She needs something modern and cool, to fit the space theme. She needs…”

  Jamie held up a hand. “Back it up, chica. I thought hair was my domain.”

  “It is, it is,” Alicia said. “I just totally think it should look like this.”

  “Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta?” Jamie said, holding up a picture Alicia had printed out. “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”

  “We’ve got to make Sarita’s quince fashion-forward,” Alicia insisted.

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “And you don’t think I know what fashion-forward is?”

  It was a totally ridiculous question, because Jamie was always one step ahead of the fashion curve, as evidenced by the outfit she was wearing that day: a charcoal gray T-shirt that she’d pimped out with chiffon ruffles on the sleeves, stove-pipe jeans, red gladiator sandals, and bright yellow nail polish.

  “So, are you going to do the cut or not?” Alicia asked, putting a hand on her hip.

  “Are you going to stay in your lane and let me do what I want?” Jamie asked.

  “Nope,” Alicia said.

  “Then, nope,” Jamie said, handing Alicia back the picture of Natalie Portman’s bald head. “I’m outta here, chica.”

  Turning on the heel of her gladiator sandal, Jamie walked down Alicia’s driveway without saying another word.

  Alicia couldn’t believe it. Jamie was straight tripping! A quince was a massive production, like a show or a movie. It needed a director, and Alicia was the natural choice. She was the one who had formed Amigas. She was the one who had brought them all together. If Sarita’s party did not wind up the most unique, memorable quince that Miami had ever seen, then everyone would blame only one person—her.

  ALICIA WENT back into the house, determined to see her vision through. She didn’t need Jamie’s diva antics anyway. She would just do Sarita’s hair and makeup.

  A few minutes later, Sarita arrived. She looked superadorable in a white tank, a long blue and gray boyfriend cardigan, and denim shorts.

  “Hey!” Alicia gave her an abrazo.

  “Sorry, I’m a few minutes late,” Sarita apologized. “The bus took forever!”

  “Don’t even worry about it,” Alicia said. “Come on in.”

  “Tough break about you being fired like that,” Sarita said.

  “I’m not worried,” Alicia said. “Now I can give your quinceañera my full attention.”

  “But I thought the internship was the cornerstone of your master plan to get into Harvard and conquer the world.”

  Alicia cringed. That had been the plan. But things had changed. She was only a sophomore. If she built Amigas Inc. into the top quince-planning business in southern Florida, not only would Harvard have to bow down, but she would be able to pay her own tuition. She smiled for a moment, imagining the scene: her senior year; the day they’d all been waiting for. The big fat envelope from Harvard would arrive. It would say—to paraphrase—Congratulations, Alicia Cruz, you are the bomb. We’d be honored to have a fab Latina sister like you attend our school. In fact, we’d like to do something unprecedented and enroll all of the founding members of Amig
as Incorporated.

  Alicia smiled, lost in the fantasy. Her mother would faint, of course. Her father would apologize for firing her from her very first internship. Then, after her prom and her graduation, Alicia’s parents would drive her to Cambridge—a long road trip from Miami, but her parents would need the time to tell her how much they’d underestimated her. When she arrived at Harvard, after she’d gotten unpacked at her dorm, said hello to her roommate, and gone to the business office to settle that year’s tuition, her parents would take out their checkbook. But Alicia, the most successful teen entrepreneur that South Beach had ever seen, would say, “No worries, Mom and Dad, I’ve got this.” And she would pay her own tuition, because Amigas Inc. would be such a radically successful business. And it all started way back when, with Sarita’s quince and an unfortunate incident that they’d all have preferred to forget.

  Alicia didn’t realize she’d been standing in the hallway, staring at the David Siqueiros lithograph hanging on the wall, until…

  “Are you okay, niña?” Sarita asked. “It’s been a rough day; I get it. I can come back tomorrow.”

  Alicia smiled, trying now to fake the confidence that had been stripped away from her along with her internship. “No way, I’m cool,” she said.

  They walked into the kitchen, where Maribelle was preparing dinner.

  “Are you two hungry?” Maribelle asked.

  “I’m good,” Alicia said.

  “Me, too,” said Sarita.

  Maribelle raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get too skinny. Men don’t like it. Real chicas have curves!”

  Alicia smiled. “We know, we know.” She turned to Sarita and asked, “Do you want some of Maribelle’s famous cucumber lemonade?”

  “Agua de pepino?” Sarita asked.

  Maribelle beamed. There were few things she loved more than teenagers who knew their cultura.

  “Ay, qué bueno,” Maribelle said. “Tú lo conoces?”

  “Claro!” Sarita answered. “Mi abuela lo hacen todo el tiempo en Loreto.”

  Alicia scowled playfully. “Enough already! Come on, Sarita, let’s go to my room,” she said. “We’ve got a ton to do.”

  “Te veo,” Sarita told Maribelle, hanging on to her lemonade as Alicia dragged her away.

  “Buena suerte!” Maribelle said with a wink.

  “This is, like, the coolest room ever,” Sarita said, when they got upstairs. She was looking through the bay window toward the pool.

  Part of Alicia’s fifteenth-birthday gift was the chance to redecorate her room any way she wanted. She had gone with a black-and-white theme. The ceiling and fixtures were all a creamy alabaster white. The walls were charcoal blackboard paint, which Alicia had covered in inspirational sayings. The bedspread was a black-and-white zebra print that matched the ottoman in front of Alicia’s dressing table. Two chairs, one black and one white, of course, faced the window, which overlooked the pool. Alicia had to admit it was pretty fierce.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Why don’t you sit at the dressing table and we’ll get started on your hair?”

  “Aren’t we going to wait for Jamie?” Sarita asked, looking a little concerned.

  “Um, something came up with Jamie,” Alicia said nervously. “I’m going to be doing your hair.”

  “But I liked the style that Jamie had come up with,” Sarita said. “She’s even going to loan me her favorite pair of Me&Ro earrings, that she got in the East Village.”

  “This’ll be better,” Alicia said. “And you don’t need to go to New York to get Me&Ro; we can order them online.”

  “It’s just that Jamie has been so sweet to me,” Sarita said.

  “No te preocupes,” she said. “I’m going to hook you up.”

  Sarita shrugged. “I guess that’s okay. Your hair always looks supercute.”

  “Thanks,” Alicia said. She was wearing her hair in a side ponytail that day, with loose curls that she’d hot-rollered earlier that morning.

  “So, can I look at some pictures?” Sarita asked. “Jamie said she was going to make me a portfolio of styles to pick from.”

  “Well, I’ve got a really cool idea,” Alicia said. “But I want it to be a surprise.”

  “If you say so,” Sarita said.

  Alicia put some Shakira on the CD player and faced the dressing-table chair away from the mirror. She opened a drawer and took out her teasing comb, a bag of plastic clips, and a pair of scissors.

  She combed Sarita’s curly hair back, then divided it into sections with clips. Holding one section up, she said, “Are you ready?”

  “Born ready,” Sarita answered.

  Alicia cut the first piece. And another. And another. She kept snipping until there was no more hair to snip in that section. Sarita, who had been idly flipping through a magazine, looked up. She looked at the cut hair on her shoulders and the ground. Grabbing a hand mirror off Alicia’s dressing table, she held it up so that she could see the back of her head. And then, she screamed.

  “You cut off all my hair! You cut off all my hair!”

  “I told you to trust me!” Alicia cried.

  “To style my hair, not destroy it!” Sarita started sobbing. She rubbed her hand over the scratchy exposed piece of scalp. “Now I’ve got a bald spot. My quince is less than two weeks away, and I’m going to look like a total freak!”

  “Not if you let me finish the cut,” Alicia said.

  “Finish the cut? Are you absolutamente, completamente loca?” Sarita cried through her tears. “This is the worst day of my life!”

  She stood up and raced out of the room.

  Alicia ran after her. “Don’t you even want to see the inspiration photo? I was going to give you a Natalie Portman cut for your quince.”

  Sarita stopped. “Natalie Portman?”

  “She’s cool, right?” Alicia looked hopefully at the other girl. “Totally modern, totally classic style, right?”

  Sarita was still crying, but her sobs had dwindled to a whimper.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  “I’ll be right back with the photo.”

  Alicia ran back to her room and grabbed the picture.

  “See?” she said, coming back. She handed the picture to Sarita. “It totally goes with your quince theme.”

  “Bald?” Sarita said. “V for Vendetta bald? Did you think I was going to go to my quince with no hair? I love my hair! I want to look beautiful at my party, not like some science-fiction character.”

  “You asked me to make you a cool quince,” Alicia insisted. “That’s all I was doing.”

  “That’s right,” Sarita said. “A cool quince. Not some sort of freak show. You’re crazy. Eres loca, loca, loca.”

  Sarita started crying again. “This is the worst day of my life,” she repeated. Then she raced down the hallway and into the kitchen. Pausing, she turned and made herself clearer. “No, the worst day of my life was when I met you. Loca, loca, loca.”

  Alicia shuddered as Sarita slammed the front door.

  Maribelle, who had been sautéing chicken for the arroz con pollo, turned the burner down on the stove.

  “What’s wrong, mi amor?” she asked.

  Alicia sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. Before she could get the words out of her mouth, she felt her eyes fill with tears. “Oh, let’s see,” she said. “My dad fired me from my internship. The Amigas’ first client just deserted us. And, oh, yeah, all my friends hate me. All I was trying to do was help people. Sarita needed a fabulous quince on a budget. Gaz wanted to work on his music. Carmen wanted to show off her designs. Jamie wanted to launch her career as a stylist. At least I thought they did. I know I wanted to start a business. I thought I could kill all of these birds with one stone. Instead, I’ve just ruined everything.”

  Maribelle rubbed Alicia’s shoulders and gave her a big abrazo. “When everything goes wrong, there is only one thing to do.”

  “What’s that?” Alicia said.

  “Make it right,” Mari
belle said.

  Alicia sighed. “That’s easier said than done.”

  “Come on,” Maribelle said, reaching into a kitchen drawer for pen and paper. “You’re a smart girl, and I am a very smart woman. Together, we’ll figure this out.”

  She handed the pen and purple-lined notepad to Alicia. “Let’s make a list.”

  “I don’t think it’ll help,” Alicia said, grumpily.

  “Well, it couldn’t hurt,” Maribelle said. “What would you need to do to fix things?”

  Alicia stared at the blank notebook page. Across the top, she wrote:

  How to Fix My Life

  1. Change my name.

  2. Move to Alaska.

  She handed the list to Maribelle. “Done,” she said.

  Maribelle smiled. “No seas tonta,” she said, handing the pad back to Alicia. “Try again. What can you do to patch things up with everybody? Take it one person at a time.”

  Alicia took the pen and began to write. She was silent for a very long time. Maribelle went back to her cooking, but she watched as Alicia wrote things down, tore the page out, crumpled it up, and began again. Alicia threw out page after page. She drank five glasses of cucumber lemonade. She went to the bathroom. Not once did she say a word to Maribelle. She started writing again and, a while later, looked up and said, “I think I’m done.”

  She handed Maribelle her list.

  How to Make Things Right, by Alicia Cruz