by Alisa Valdes
As the bells begin to peal in the tower, my nephews pull up the doors on the wire cages. The doves sit there for a minute, as if they don’t know what to do. I kick the cages with the pointy toes of my silk Jimmy Choo slingbacks.
“What are you waiting for, pigeons?” I ask them. “Fly, already. Be free.”
One by one, the three dozen birds flap out of the cages and rise into the cobalt sky above San Juan, toward the small puffy white clouds. The guests watch them go, eyes shielded with their hands, and they cheer. Then the idiots begin to toss rice in my hair. I told them not to do that. Do they know how long it took me to get this mess straightened and glued just right into the goldilocks extensions? I don’t want to spend my honeymoon picking arroz out of my princess curls, m’ija.
Juan and I run for the limo, and I swear he looks like he’s going to trip on those too-long tuxedo pants. Poor shrimpy thing. I tried to get him to do a decent fitting, but he said he was too busy. He holds the door for me, and I roll myself in. Juan stuffs the long train to my dress in after me, jumps in, and then I spread out. I was born for limos, girl. All this room, the champagne and the little television. I could live back here. I press the button to lower the window and call out to my friends, “Meet us at the beach. And you sucias better be hungry, entienden?”
There they are, standing in those fluorescent dresses on the sidewalk waving at us. Rebecca with her gorgeous new man, smiling in that new red dress with the plunging neckline. Can you believe she caught the bouquet? He’s good-looking—and rich. Not that this means anything. I can’t believe the way that girl rubs up on him, it’s like she’s a different person. I don’t blame her, though; he’s charismatic and sexy, especially when he looks at her. Wish I would have gotten to him first. Just kidding! He’s been good for her. Girl needed some meat on those puny bones.
Sara’s here with her mom and dad. She’s got those little boys of hers. Look at the way she lifts them into the air and smothers them with hugs. That’s love. I’m just sick that Roberto has been located in Spain. I hoped he was dead. But still, she better get some money when this is all over. He left, and that’s abandonment, m’ija, and in the eyes of the law that don’t look good. He’s also a fugitive, so she should absolutely get the house, everything. In the meantime, the sucias have started a Sara trust fund, plus we’re all invested in her new interior design business. I always thought she should be doing something like that.
There’s Lauren with Amaury. I can’t believe how nice he cleans up, m’ija. He almost looks classy, except for that hoody limp. I’m glad she brought him. I owe him an apology. It’s incredible, the whole thing with him throwing those huge parties for all his friends and Amber selling all those records in New England because of him. Wow! I’m sorry for everything I said about him. I thought he was El Arabe. Then when Lauren told me he got a story published in that literary journal and got himself accepted to the Latin American studies program at UMass Boston, on a scholarship, and that he wants to focus on marketing in Latin America and Latin communities? I could have swallowed my tongue, girl.
Speaking of Amber. That rat man she was dating isn’t here. He’s history, she said, and that was all she said. Guess they had a royal Aztec divorce. Amber doesn’t mess around. She looks happy, even though you get the feeling she’s living in a tower now, all by herself. You’d think she might get some designer gear and sunglasses, go that route, but she doesn’t. The bodyguards follow her around. What kind of a life is that? We need to make sure that girl doesn’t get too stuck on herself from that record. Keep her grounded. Maybe when this is all done, I’ll have her over for a week and and we’ll lose those bodyguards and take us some long walks.
Liz is here with that poet of hers. Turns out they can’t stay in Colombia because of the government’s new habit of jailing or killing gays and lesbians. Does drama follow that born-again poet or what? They look serene, and Selwyn doesn’t look half bad with a tan. I wouldn’t do her, but, you know, I’m a married woman now.
Juan covers me with kisses. I always wanted to be married in Puerto Rico, and I did it, just like I wanted to, in the church in Old San Juan. I can’t believe I made it up the cathedral steps in these shoes, with my long train, without tripping.
All the sucias except Rebecca were my bridesmaids. (She had to work until the last minute and just got here.) I know you’re not supposed to have that many. Sometimes a girl has to break with tradition. It was hard to pick the right color for dresses for those girls! I mean, what color is going to go with all those different skin tones and hair colors? I had to compromise and go with peach.
I got my dress in Paris, m’ija. I’m not one of those women who’s going to wait overnight outside of Filene’s for that one big sale day on wedding dresses. Ay, no, m’ija. Paris for me. I didn’t make Juan go with me, either, he asked to come. But would he let me pay his way? No. I told him it didn’t really matter anymore, because what was mine was going to be his soon enough.
“And what’s mine will be yours,” he said, goofy and sincere.
I had to laugh. I didn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings, but it’s not going to make a speck of difference that I can access the twenty-three dollars in his checking account. You know what I’m saying?
He leans into me now, all hot and bothered.
“Down, boy,” I say, slapping his wrist softly. “Can’t you wait?”
“No, I can’t. I want you.”
“Por Dios,” I say, shooting him the stare. “You better chill.” He laughs and nibbles my lower lip. I nibble back. I love this man.
After that speech he gave me in my house last year, I don’t know exactly, but something in me just snapped. That whole thing with Sara got to me. Ay, no, m’ija. I had to realize then, maybe it’s not about the money. Rich men leave you too, you know. Maybe rich men come with a whole new set of problems to deal with. Or, worse, maybe rich men and poor men all come with the same set of problems and we act like they’re different. Pigeons and doves.
The driver waits until all the guests are in their cars, and we drive in a big honking snake to the beach outside the city where I’ve reserved my spot of sand.
The white tents flap in the breeze, surrounded by lush green palm trees. As we walk from the parking lot across the white sand, the beating of the congas grows louder. I can’t believe La India, my favorite singer, was available, or that Rebecca, feeling guilty for not being able to make the ceremony, paid for her to perform at the reception. That girl has gotten very generous since she started dating that man of hers. I have to thank him later.
We get to the dining tent, with the portable wood floor, and I circulate, making sure everyone finds their seat. I stop at one table, silent. My mother and father sit side by side, even though that wasn’t the seating arrangement, talking about old times.
Ay, m’ija. That was such a big part of how this all happened. I found my dad’s phone number on-line and called him, told him how I felt about everything he did to me, and then I forgave him, m’ija. It was liberating. He said he was a drunk when he left us, and that he found God and got sober later, but he was too ashamed of himself and what he’d done to look me up. I don’t know if I believe that part or not, but it felt good to let it all go, to forgive him and stop punishing Juan for everything that man did to me and my mom.
My father came to my wedding.
Now I just have to tell Lauren to take a lesson from him and stop that drinking nonsense before it gets her in real trouble. She doesn’t think she has a problem, and I can’t say for sure she does. But all of us talked about it, and we decided we’d do like an intervention or something. She’s our sucia. I don’t want any of us to hurt ourselves anymore.
We take our places at our tables, Juan and I at the one on the small platform with the scalloped skirt around the bottom. One by one, our friends stand and give toasts. I know it’s breaking with custom, but when everyone is finished, I stand up and make my own toast, to the sucias.
“All y�
��all know this wedding wouldn’t have happened without you,” I say. They forked over a lot of the money for this. “And I want to say thank you.”
Twenty thousand dollars they gave me, combined! It would have cost twice that much back in the States. No, I know, Puerto Rico is part of the States, I’m not retarded. But if you’re Puerto Rican, I mean deep down inside a true Puerto Rican, you call it a nation because that’s how it feels. Lauren, with all her preaching, doesn’t understand that. Puerto Rico is more of a nation than the U.S., at least in raw emotion.
“You a bunch of filthy rich dirty girls, you know that?” I joke. “How’d that happen?”
“Hey, I’m not rich,” Sara calls out. “Remember?” She grins. “Yet.”
The crowd laughs.
“Now eat!” I command.
I dig in. I’ve got caviar, lobster, and the little puff pastries. There’s the traditional Puerto Rican food, too, you know me, but at least I got those men with big white hats on to serve it on these china plates. I can’t have me a party without some arroz y habichuela’, you know what I’m saying?
After dinner, Juan and I cut the cake. He feeds me, I feed him. The flash bulbs pop. Smile! We drink champagne. And then, to my surprise, my father comes to stand by the table.
“It’s custom,” he mumbles, head hung low like a dog. “To share the first dance with your father.”
My eyes flood with tears as I take my father’s hand, and we dance. His neck still smells of wood. “Daddy,” I say, “I missed you.”
“I’m sorry,” my father says. “For everything. You turned out great. I’m proud to be your dad.”
I look up at Juan as we dance by, and his eyes are damp. He smiles and mouths the words “I love you.”
I’m filled with the peace that comes from knowing Juan will never leave me. I don’t care if we end up living in my little renovated Victorian house in Mission Hill for the rest of our lives. I love him. And that’s all that matters. Please, if those big movie stars can marry the lowly key grips or whatever they are, then I can marry this wonderful hombre I’ve adored for ten long years. That’s right. Ten years. Oh, I had a heart, m’ija, all this time. I had a heart. It was just in pieces.
You heard me. That man right there, that goatee-wearing, baggy, rolled-up-tux–having, able to fix anything in my house, nearsighted, good-hearted fool. I’ve loved him for ten long, stupid, crazy years.
And now I’ve gone and done it.
Now I have to love him until I die.
I didn’t catch the bouquet. But I blame Usnavys. That Puerto Rican housewife throws like a girl.
—from “My Life,” by Lauren Fernández
lauren
IN HONOR OF her newly announced engagement to software millionaire Andre Cartier, we allow Rebecca to pick the restaurant for the sucias meeting this time around. True to her nature, she picks Mistral, in the South End, near her incredible brownstone that Sara has made even more incredible by decorating it in this style she calls “Yankee Chic.” It’s Victorian enough for little Miss Uptight, but truly hip and, I can’t explain this kind of thing, you know me, the perpetual mess that I am, but it’s really fantastic over there, all modern art and Persian carpets and clean smells.
I am early, as usual, because if you’re late, you miss the story. Miss the story, and you risk some white guy … well, I think I’ve told you all about all that already. A lot of things have changed this past six months. But that’s not one of them, unfortunately.
Just this morning, one of my editors stopped by my office to talk about some protests going on down at the Boston Herald, over a columnist there who was so ignorant he wrote that we should stop letting Puerto Rican immigrants enter this country. Puerto Ricans, in case you have forgotten, or never learned, have been U.S. citizens since 1918, and Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, for better or worse. I guess I told you that a few times, too. Sorry.
“What do the Latina people, you know, the Latina community, think of all this?” he asked me. He twittered and chirped with all the brilliance of a little yellow canary.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “But as soon as we all get on our daily conference call this afternoon, I’ll ask them all and get back to you.”
He nodded and thanked me. He actually believed me. He not only believed that all Latinos think the same, but that we all get on the phone with each other every day to plot our next swarthy, mysterious, and magical move. I may have mentioned that I think we have a long freaking way to go in this country, and that sometimes, just sometimes, it feels to me like we’re moving backward. Don’t. Think. About. It.
I sit at the bar. I’m not drinking anything tonight. I haven’t had a drink since two weeks ago, when Usnavys got married in San Juan and all the sucias ganged up on me and told me I was a lush. I’m not, okay, I am not a drunk, and they, as usual, were just overreacting. I just wasn’t happy back then, when I was drinking a little. And being unhappy can make a girl do stupid things. But I’m happy now.
Know what’s amazing? Cuicatl’s selling more records in New England and New York than any other region except California and Texas—a first for a Spanish rock album. SoundScan shows the numbers started pumping up as soon as Amaury started working for her. I had no idea. I’ve never seen a person work as hard as he does. He has parties every night, somewhere new, which exhausts me and makes me not so sure of him as my final man in the long line of men I’ve had. It’s like those millions of Dominicans all know each other. He says it’s easy because parties are “part of the Dominican psyche.” Did you know that? Did you know Dominicans were the single largest immigrant group to New York City in the 1990s? Millions of them came, and until now no one in the mainstream music industry paid attention. They still haven’t noticed at the Gazette, but Dominicans are everywhere. I’m too tired of fighting to care.
I never thought that so much of Amber’s Mexica success would come thanks to a bunch of Afro-Dominicans. It’s hilarious. Next record, Cuicatl says she wants to put more Dominican influence on it. I like Amaury. I’m just not sure I love him. Is that bad? I mean, am I scared because it’s so easy, or am I finally realizing I really ought to admit to what I am—a middle-class American—and stop trying to fit the foreigner stereotype loved by my editors? Amaury’s a good guy, but he’s not perfect for me. But maybe no one is ever perfect. Maybe Amaury is American too. Hmm?
The head of Latin marketing for Wagner called Amaury yesterday, wants a meeting so he can find out my boy’s secret. Seems they want to get his help on a few other projects, not just Cuicatl. They’ve offered him a salary, $50,000 a year, plus benefits. I told him to hold out for more, and he is. He’s already saved some money and he and his sister are moving their mother and other relatives to Boston, to a little apartment in Dorchester, so she can get good health care. He’s moved in with me for good now, and when he’s not working he’s going to school and looking up words in his Spanish-English dictionary. It’s crazy, but this man does not lie, does not cheat. We exist peacefully together. He’s always around, and I’m invited to all the parties he throws. It’s inexplicable, but I trust him. I’m a size ten again. You figure out what that means. Means I’m happy! And you know what? He loves me that big. He says he’d even like to see me a little bigger. “American women are too set on being skinny,” he says. “It’s not sexy.”
Speaking of big girls, Usnavys comes next, as usual. She’s outdone herself tonight, with a hat. And I don’t mean a winter hat. It’s full-on spring now, with all the snow melted and all the little white blossoms popping up on the trees everywhere, a beautiful, alive time in Boston, and that means only one thing for Usnavys’s wardrobe: color and hats. This isn’t the kind of hat you wear to stay warm. This is the kind of hat with a little net that hangs down in front of it, a pillbox hat. It’s purple and matches her suit, which has white piping all down the front, and, of course, her feet are smashed into those little pointy shoes. She’s dressed like Jackie O. Or an Easter egg. And she’s on that littl
e cell phone. It looks even smaller than the one from last year. And, yeah, she looks a little bigger. We’ve all noticed that. We expect to see a little baby in a pillbox hat and fur coat coming along any day now. Once it gets married, you can bet it’s gonna whip that ring around like that, too, just so everybody knows, you know, that another Puerto Rican has arrived, y’all.
Next comes Sara, alone. She hasn’t dated anyone since her husband left and do you blame her? They still can’t find the guy, either. They think they’ve got him, and he disappears again. Creepy. She made her parents rent out their house in Miami—to some young rap star, people, isn’t that hilarious? They moved up here with her to help her with her boys for a while. Her mom watches the kids while Sara runs her new business, “Interiors by Sara.” I’ve talked to her a few times, and she and her parents seem to want to sell the house in Chestnut Hill next, and move back to Miami, to that big old house of theirs, “but only once we get the business nationally known, and we start the TV show.”
I’ll tell you about the TV show in a minute. Be patient, damn.
I told you a long time ago I thought Sara would be a great interior designer, and it’s true. She’s already scored some big clients—it doesn’t hurt when you’re running a business in Newton Corners to be Jewish, okay?—and the calls keep coming in. She’s able to support herself now, and doesn’t have the time or desire to focus on anything else. That’s what she tells us, anyway, and we respect that. Sara’s never been alone before. I guess she’s having fun now.
She seems to like it, a lot.
Sara always looked good, as you might recall, put together and everything, but now she glows. She looks a lot younger this year than she did last year, even if she does still look a little too much like Martha Stewart, minus the prison stripes. Guess in that line of business looking like Martha can’t hurt. Especially if you’re planning to start your own Spanish-language TV show about interior design. Elizabeth, who ran back to the U.S. when Barranquilla cops started questioning her “lifestyle,” produced the pilot, and Target is already interested in carrying a line of Sara-designed house-wares in Spanish-dominated U.S. cities like Chicago and Houston.
