Lights, Camera, Quince!

by Veronica Chambers

  “You’re right, you’re right,” Javier said. “Continue.”

  “She’s coming for my quinceañera,” Carmen said.

  “Wait, Abuela Ruben is coming to Miami?” Javier asked. “When?”

  “Six weeks, Dad,” Carmen said, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.

  “Great, I’ll make sure Natalia is out of town.”

  Ignoring her father’s selfish comment, she went on. “I want to bring some kind of religious element into my quinceañera so Abuela knows that I value the part of me that’s half Jewish.”

  “Sounds good, niña,” Javier said, seeming distracted.

  “But that’s the thing, I don’t really know a lot about my Jewish heritage.”

  Both father and daughter stared straight ahead, taking in the vista of the infinity pool and the way it seemed to spill into the ocean. It was true, it was hard for Javier to focus, and he was perfectly content to leave the majority of the parenting of his children to Carmen’s mother and stepfather. He and Natalia lived a different life. At the same time, he loved his daughter, and he could see that she was struggling with her current dilemma.

  “I think you’re making a big mistake in thinking that you’re half Jewish and half Latina,” Javier said finally. “In Buenos Aires, my family is all Jewish and all Latin. It’s not like an Oreo cookie. You can’t separate the different parts.”

  Carmen gave her father a weak smile. “Wow, Dad. That was actually kind of deep.”

  Javier held a hand to his heart. “Are you teasing me?”

  “No,” Carmen said. “Totally serious.”

  Javier puffed out his chest a bit and continued. “Don’t think about Judaism as a formal institution. To tell you the honest truth, I don’t think I’ve been in a synagogue since Natalia and I got married. But I think about being Jewish every day. Think about what it means to you personally; that’s the only way to honor your heritage in any kind of a meaningful way.”

  Before he could say more, a young female production assistant wearing a baseball cap, a T-shirt that said REALITY SHOW RUNNER-UP, and a walkie-talkie on a belt buckle approached them. “Excuse me, Mr. Ruben,” she said meekly. “They’re ready for you on set.”

  Javier stood up and kissed his daughter on the cheek. “Querida, I’ve got to go.”

  “Go, go,” Carmen said. “Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it.”

  “You will get back to me about what you want for a quinceañera present?” he asked.

  “Not a car?” Carmen called out, playfully.

  “Not a car!” her father said over his shoulder as he followed the production assistant back to the set.

  For a moment, Carmen stood there, just enjoying the feeling of a good heart-to-heart. Then a voice startled her.

  “Excuse me,” a tall young woman nearby interjected. “I hate to be rude, but I couldn’t help but overhear. Did you say, ‘quinceañera’?” She came closer.

  “Yeah?” Carmen said, surprised.

  “Are you about to have one?” the young woman asked.

  Carmen nodded.

  The woman handed her a card and said, “My name’s Mary Kenoyer, and I’m a producer for ¡Hoy en Miami! with Sharon Kim.”

  Carmen beamed. “My friends and I love Sharon Kim!”

  Mary nodded as if this were nothing new. “Yeah, she’s pretty awesome. Listen, we’re planning a competition to see who can throw the most spectacular quinceañera.”

  Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Well, in that case, let me give you my card. We’re planning my party as we speak.”

  Mary looked down and read it aloud: “Amigas Incorporated, Quinceañera Planners.” She glanced up. “It seems this is my lucky day. That’s killing two birds with one stone. When is your event?”

  “Early October,” Carmen said.

  “Perfect. Well, talk it over with your parents and the rest of your team, and call me so we can try and work something out,” Mary said. “The station gives each team a budget of a thousand dollars to work with. There’s lots of fun prizes, and it’s pretty cool being on TV, but being filmed for a competition can get really intense. We’d be following you all the time. You’d have to make sure you’re all up for it.”

  “Um, okay,” Carmen said, trying to stay cool. Mary waved good-bye and Carmen made her way through the hotel lobby and outside.

  Then she lost her cool. Squealing, she called Alicia. “You’ll never believe who I just met!” Carmen cried.

  LATER THAT afternoon, the three girls met at Alicia’s house to discuss the television project. Gaz was at work but had put in his two cents via e-mail.

  The Cruz family had done well for themselves—Alicia’s mother was a judge and her dad was deputy mayor—and lived in one of the most chichi parts of Coral Gables. Jamie and Carmen practically lived at Alicia’s house, which was why on that day they didn’t think anything of following her down the long hallway and changing into their bathing suits in her bedroom.

  Living in the Miami area meant that all three girls owned many, many swimsuits, and their favorite thing to do was to swap, mix, and match their tops and bottoms. Carmen wore a hot pink bikini top with a pair of leopard-print boy shorts. Alicia slipped into the leopard-print top and a pair of black bikini bottoms. Jamie rifled through her friend’s bags until she came up with a pale pink check Burberry bikini top.

  “What do you think of this with my khaki board shorts?” Jamie asked, trying the two pieces together.

  “Perfecto,” said Alicia.

  “Do you think we’re nuts putting all this effort into styling and profiling when we’re just hanging out at your house and nobody will see us?” Carmen asked as the three girls walked back toward the kitchen.

  “Hey, I’m not nobody,” Maribelle Puentes said, reaching to pull Alicia into a big bear hug. The polite Latino way of greeting a friend was with a kiss on the cheek—one if you were in a rush, two if you had more time and were being European and chic. But Maribelle didn’t play that. She was a hugger, through and through. After squeezing Alicia tightly, she greeted Jamie and Carmen with similarly robust embraces.

  Maribelle was the Cruz family’s cook and housekeeper, but she was also a substitute grandmother for Alicia. Alicia had no idea exactly how old Maribelle was. Her hair was white in front, but jet black from the crown back. Her face was round, soft, and crinkled around her eyes and mouth, and her skin was perpetually tanned. To Alicia, who had never known a life without Maribelle, the woman never seemed to change.

  “Have you had lunch, niñas?” Maribelle asked now.

  “No, but we’re ready to move straight to dessert,” Alicia said, eyeing the freshly baked dulce de leche cake cooling on the counter. She reached down to scoop some of the chocolate icing off with her fingers and Maribelle pretended to smack her hand.

  “That’s for later, when your parents get home,” Maribelle said with a tsk-tsk. “You’ve got to eat. How does three cubano sandwiches sound? I’ve got roast pork and manchego cheese.”

  Alicia smiled. “I love you, Maribelle. Thank you.”

  “Do you love me?” Maribelle teased. “Or do you love my food?”

  “Can’t I love both?”

  “Gracias, Maribelle,” Carmen said, picking up a tray of three tall, icy glasses of horchata from the counter where Maribelle had left them.

  “Totes,” Jamie called out, following Carmen and Alicia through the glass doors to the pool.

  In the kitchen, Maribelle muttered to herself, “‘Totes.’ What is this ‘totes’? It is hard enough keeping up with teenagers in one language, much less two.”

  The three girls waded into the pool, where they’d held at least a dozen Amigas Inc. meetings that summer.

  It was not even noon and the temperature was well over a hundred degrees. There were only two choices in Miami on days like this: seek out the chilliest, most air-conditioned room you could find, or get into the water. Gaz’s job at the Gap dictated the AC option for him; the girls had gone
with the latter.

  “So, what do you think of Project Quince?” Carmen asked as she arranged herself on a flotation pillow in the pool. She had done some more research on Mary Kenoyer’s proposition when she got home from her dad’s set, and now she filled her friends in on what she’d learned. The TV show Mary had mentioned was called Project Quince. From what Carmen could tell, it was a reality show and would showcase two different girls getting ready for their quinces. The girl with the best party—and party-planners—would win some pretty sweet stuff. They were also given a budget.

  “Well,” Alicia said when Carmen finished filling them in, “a thousand dollars isn’t much of a budget.”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “So says the rich girl.”

  Carmen stepped in to mediate before Alicia could retaliate. “Don’t start. This is an amazing opportunity. If my mom and stepdad find out that the TV station is going to pay for my quince, no matter how little, they will be thrilled. There’s a budget for my quince, but with six kids, things are always tight for them.”

  Jamie nodded, understanding. “Sometimes having a limited budget makes you extra creative,” she pointed out. “Like the way I hooked up my line of sneakers for the freestyle show. Short on cash, but long on creativity.”

  Alicia chimed in. “And having a Jewish fashionista quince is a great twist. We’d definitely stand out.”

  “So, we’re doing it?” Carmen said. She knew her theme wasn’t fleshed out yet, but they would get to that. “You really want to open your lives up to the camera?” It was a rhetorical question. Alicia would never back away from the opportunity—as a businesswoman and a TV junkie.

  “We’re doing it,” Alicia confirmed. “Project Quince is on.”

  At that moment, Maribelle opened the patio door. “I could bring lunch outside, but it’s so hot,” she announced. “Better you eat inside.”

  The girls toweled off and made their way into the breakfast nook, where the Cruz family ate their more casual meals. The cubano sandwiches were lying on a plate and were hot and cheesy, which was perfect in the coolness of the air-conditioned room.

  Carmen took a big bite and sighed. “Nobody makes sandwiches like Maribelle.”

  Alicia, who’d already finished half of her sandwich nodded. “Agreed. Speaking of which, I did some research about traditional Jewish foods, and I’ve been thinking that at your quince, we could serve noodle kugel, potato latkes, and bagels and lox.”

  Carmen let out a loud laugh. “We’re not having bagels and lox at my quince.” Then she grew silent. If only she knew what they were going to eat. . . .

  Although the idea of having her quince featured on a major television show was exciting, the problem of how to have a quinceañera that would meld her Latin heritage and her Jewish religion was all Carmen could think about. Since she had left Alicia’s house, her mind had been going about a hundred miles per hour. Now she sat up in the room she shared with her sister, anxiously playing with a piece of fabric.

  “So, what do you think, Una la Unica,” Carmen said, riffing on her sister’s nickname. Legend had it that their parents had begun calling her Una because when their mother became pregnant with her brother, Tino, Una—whose birth name was Valentina—had thrown a fit and said, “Sola una. Sola una.” In other words, that she should be their only child. It had stuck—and her wish hadn’t come true.

  “Think about what?” Una said as she flat-ironed her hair.

  “How can I make my quince more Jewish?” Carmen reached into the closet and took out a set of rollers and began to set her own hair.

  The two girls were wearing the same set of Victoria’s Secret T-jamas. Una’s was a short-sleeved lavender T-shirt with blue and purple plaid pants, and Carmen’s was a white T with mint green and pink plaid pajama pants.

  “You mean, how can you make Abuela Ruben happy?” Una asked, her gaze never wavering from the mirror, where she carefully straightened her locks, piece by piece.

  “Exactly,” Carmen said, tucking her hair neatly around the curlers.

  “You can’t make anybody happy,” Una said. “You can only please yourself.”

  “You sound just like Mom,” Carmen moaned.

  Una balled up a couple of elastics and threw them playfully at Carmen. “Shut up. I do not.”

  “If you say so. But seriously,” Carmen went on, “I should’ve done like you—had a bat mitzvah and a quince.”

  Una put the iron down and turned to look at her sister. “Do you know why I did that?”

  Carmen shrugged. “Of course. Because you wanted to honor your Jewish roots and your Latin heritage.”

  Una rolled her eyes. “No, tonta. I did it because that way I got twice as many presents.”

  Carmen gasped; she did feel a little tonta. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Una turned her attention back to her hair. “Because you’re a Goody Two-shoes, and I’m not.”

  Carmen picked up the elastics to throw them back. “Do not throw things at me!” Una scolded, catching her in the act in the mirror. “I’m holding a dangerous hot instrument.”

  At that moment, Christian poked his head into the room. “Ah, childhood. It never changes. Someone is always throwing something; someone is always holding a dangerous hot instrument.”

  Carmen thought she’d never tire of Christian’s British accent or his slightly goofy sense of humor. Both she and Una had agreed that when it was time for them to go to college, they were going to study abroad in England, not in Spain or Latin America, the way most Miami girls did.

  “Carmen,” Christian said. “Phone for you. Someone named Domingo.”

  Carmen leaped out of the bed. “Domingo from Bongos?”

  Christian and Sophia’s daughters were only six and eight years old, so his experience with being a parent of teenagers was still limited, despite the fact that he’d been married to Carmen’s mother for years.

  He sighed and said in his charming accent, “The young man did not say, ‘Domingo from Bongos.’ But I assume that if that is where you gave your phone number to someone named Domingo, then this is he.”

  “Who’s Domingo?” Una asked, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She sensed an opportunity to do some serious teasing.

  Carmen shot her a look that said “later” and stepped into the hallway to take the call. Grabbing the portable phone from the table in the hall, she walked onto the little Juliet balcony off the upstairs hallway. It was one of the few places in the Ramirez-Ruben house where you could really be alone.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively.

  “Hi,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “It’s Domingo, from Bongos.”

  Carmen looked out onto the canal and realized for the first time why they called the little space off the hallway the Juliet balcony. She was pretty sure this was exactly where you were meant to stand when your own Romeo called.

  “Hey,” she said, trying to play it cool. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” Domingo said. Then he laughed. “Aren’t you going to ask me where I got your number?”

  Carmen flushed and said a silent thank you that he couldn’t see her. “Um, yeah, how did you get my number?” She tried to listen to the answer, but the voice on the other end was as smooth as milk chocolate, and all she could think was yum, yum, and, oh, yeah, yum.

  There was a silence and Domingo said, “Are you still there?”

  Carmen sputtered. “Yeah, um, sorry. So how’d you get my number again?”

  This time, she willed herself to listen, in spite of the fact that the ducks that lived in the canal had chosen this exact moment to do their evening march and were sending out a cacophony of quacks.

  “Well, you left the restaurant so quickly,” Domingo said.

  “Yeah, my mom was picking me up, and she hates it when I’m late.”

  “So, I asked your friend, the one with the cool sneaks.”

  “Jamie,” Carmen said, making a mental note to give Jamie a big hug wh
en she saw her.

  “Yeah, her. She gave me your number and said something about you needing to get a life,” Domingo said, chuckling.

  “Nice,” Carmen said, making a mental note to scratch the hug and give Jamie’s butt a kick when she saw her.

  “I find it hard to believe that a beautiful girl like you doesn’t have guys beating down her door,” Domingo went on. “Are you seeing somebody?”

  Carmen was once again glad that Domingo wasn’t there. If he had been, he would have seen her jaw drop almost to the floor. Quickly she tried to think of something fun and witty to say. “Just you,” she finally said, flirting a little harder than was her usual style.

  It paid off. Domingo laughed, and Carmen was pretty sure it was the nicest sound she’d ever heard. “In that case, I should take you out on a proper date. Not just bring you free drinks when you come into Bongos. The question is when. I work at the restaurant six days a week, but I’m off on Sundays.”

  “Of course, you are,” Carmen said. “Domingo can’t work on domingo.” She was met with silence. Now it was her turn to ask, “Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” Domingo answered.

  “Do you get it? You’re off on Sunday and your name is Domingo. It’s a joke.”

  “I get it,” he said. “Only a beautiful girl could get away with such a corny joke. I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  They said their good-byes, but Carmen continued to stand on the balcony. She didn’t want to go inside. Not yet. She wanted to hold onto this feeling. At that very moment, her life felt magical. There was no other word for it.

  Finally she walked back into the hall. She didn’t have time to return the cordless to the base before Tino grabbed it out of her hand.

  “Nice job hogging the phone, squirt,” he said.

  Usually, she’d put him in his place with a quick comeback. But tonight, she had other things on her mind. She had to memorize the entire conversation so she could tell it to Una, and then to Alicia, and then to Jamie. But the words kept blurring together. All she could think about was the sound of Domingo’s voice. It wasn’t, she decided, like milk chocolate at all. His voice was much better. More complicated. Like dark chocolate toffee sprinkled with sea salt.