Lights, Camera, Quince!

by Veronica Chambers

  Javier and Natalia, who insisted on wearing her own hot pink Versace dress, came dancing out to the tune of Fergie’s “Glamorous.”

  At the microphone, Javier said, “I produce telenovelas for a living, and that business is pure—”

  “—Drama!” Natalia chimed in, throwing her arms up in the air in a diva pose.

  “But this quince is above and beyond anything I could produce,” Javier said. “To my daughter—and to Amigas Incorporated!”

  Una, wearing a green and gold military jacket with a gold lion of Judah on the back, a gold cami, and a puffy black miniskirt, sashayed out to the tune of Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.”

  “Everybody knows that Carmen is my little sister,” she said, beginning her toast. “She follows in my foot-steps in everything. Lately, she’s been taking Jewish-studies classes, and I wanted to point to a certain lesson that is very important for all young women, especially a girl celebrating her quince. In the Jewish religion, women are believed to have a greater binah—meaning, ‘deeper intelligence, intuition, and understanding’ . . .”

  The guys in the crowd began to call out playfully, “Boo!” and “No way.”

  Una shrugged. “I didn’t write the Bible. Check it out: Genesis, chapter two, verse twenty-two. Women are built, not formed. I won’t go so far as to say we’re superior beings. But I will say that my sister Carmen has already shown great binah. Trust yourself, little sis, because you rock.”

  Carmen stood in front of the runway, her face covered in tears. It had been wonderful to watch all of her family strutting their stuff on the runway, to hear them welcome her into adulthood. But her sister’s words sent her over the edge.

  Domingo squeezed her hand. “You okay?” he whispered.

  Carmen nodded. “I could use some air, though. Want to go for another ride?”

  Domingo laughed, “What? In the middle of your quince?”

  Carmen nodded. “We’ll come right back.”

  They went out to the canal and got into the rowboat. Even though she was wearing a formal dress, Carmen steered the boat expertly along the calm water toward the footbridge.

  “Your sister’s speech really got to you, huh?” Domingo said.

  “It’s just been so crazy the past few weeks, trying to figure out how to do a quince with lots of Jewish flavor, wanting my abuela Ruben to be proud of me, having those crazy Project Quince cameras following me around. Then, when Una spoke, it was like all the dust cleared. When I was a kid and my abuela would come and make Passover dinner, there was a moment when the youngest kid in the room had to say, ‘How is this night different from any other night?’ Well, for five years, from the time when I was five until I was about ten, that was my line. So tonight, seeing Una, having you in my life, being here, with my family and my girls, I realized I’ve spent my whole childhood preparing for this moment. Why is this night different than any other night? Because this is the night when my grown-up life begins.”

  There was silence. Then Domingo waggled his eyebrows. “That’s deep,” he said.

  Carmen stuck a paddle in the water and splashed him.

  “Whoa! Watch the tux! I was being serious! Promise!” he cried, splashing her back, lightly.

  “We should go back to the party,” Carmen said, forgiving him.

  “Is it okay if I kiss you first?” Domingo asked.

  “What an excellent idea,” she replied, leaning forward to meet Domingo’s lips.

  “I thought you would approve,” he said, kissing her again and again.

  It was a rollicking, casual, mixed-up quince—perfectly suited to Carmen’s multiculti, laid-back style—and the Project Quince cameras captured everything.

  But an hour into it on the dot, Carmen went over to the camera crew and said, “Okay, guys, you don’t have to go home, but you do have to turn off the cameras.”

  Sharon smiled. “Excellent, because I really want to dance down that runway!”

  And Arnie, who never spoke, said very quietly, “Do you think your grandmother would teach me to tango?”

  Carmen laughed. “Absolutely! I’ll introduce you.”

  After introducing Arnie to Abuela Ruben, Carmen unhooked her microphone and said to Alicia, “You know, we might not beat Simone’s party. Fake quince or not.”

  Unhooking her own microphone, Alicia shrugged. “I know. But are you having a good time?”

  “Are you kidding? Best night of my life. And you know what the best part is? There isn’t a matzo piñata in sight.”

  “Then my friend, that’s all that matters.”

  THE FOLLOWING Monday, the members of Amigas Inc. were having lunch in the cafeteria when Simone came tearing over to them.

  “You told!” she screamed at Carmen. “You told!”

  “Told what?” Carmen asked.

  “About Raymunda.”

  Alicia shook her head. “As a matter of fact, loca, we decided to take the high road, and we didn’t say a word.”

  Just then, Alicia’s cell phone rang and she excused herself from the lunch table as Simone stomped away. She returned with a huge grin on her face.

  “We won,” she said, in as calm a voice as she could manage. “Project Quince. Our segment airs this weekend, and we can have the prize money on Monday. Watch out, New York, here we come!”

  For a moment, no one said a thing. Then Jamie jumped up and started dancing around. “I’m going to Freestyle! I’m go-o-o-o-ing to Freestyle!”

  Gaz raised one hand. “Hold up! You know we’re going with you.”

  Jamie gave him a saucy look. “You guys aren’t so bad.”

  “So who dropped a dime on Fakealicious?” Carmen asked.

  “Well, when the TV producers went to Hialeah High to get some footage of Raymunda and couldn’t find anyone who’d even heard of her, they got suspicious and began to dig deeper,” Alicia explained.

  “They are reporters,” Jamie pointed out.

  “So good triumphs over evil,” Carmen stated.

  “She’s not really evil,” Alicia said.

  “Just deluded,” Gaz put in.

  “It’s sad,” Carmen remarked.

  “We get to go to New York. It’s great,” Jamie chimed in.

  “I meant sad in a great way,” said Carmen, a wicked little grin lighting up her face. She had had a dream quinceañera. She had a dream boyfriend. And now she was going on a dream trip. No doubt about it, fifteen was starting off . . . well, dreamily.

  A FEW WEEKS later, Carmen, Jamie, Alicia, and Gaz were all sitting on the airplane, bound for New York. Alicia’s mom and dad, who had come along to chaperone, were up front, in business class.

  “So, what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get to New York City?” Carmen asked.

  Gaz replied first. “I’m going to meet my A&R friend at the Bowery Ballroom. Check out some live music.”

  “I’m going to go to SoHo or up to Harlem or maybe over to Queens to check out the Chinese restaurants,” Alicia said.

  Jamie, who was relaxing behind a leopard-print sleep mask, lifted it to answer the question. “Freestyle. Javits Center,” she said. “Why are you even asking me, when you know I need my beauty sleep?”

  “What about you, Carmen?” Alicia asked.

  “I think Jamie’s got the right idea. As soon as we land, I’m going to the hotel to take a nap,” Carmen said. “I love you all to pieces. But you wear a chica out.”

  When I first came up with the idea for the Amigas series, I thought about the many Latina women who, like Alicia, Jamie, and Carmen, had started out as entrepreneurial teenagers. Who, through hard work, imagination, and dedication, were able to take their passions and talents and become role models and successful adults. For me, Jennifer Lopez is such a woman. She has incredible drive and an amazing work ethic, qualities she shares with the girls in Amigas. They, too, needed an equal amount of determination to turn their quince-party-planning business into a huge success.

  So, to get a better sen
se of this connection, I sat down with Jennifer, and we talked about quinces and what it was like for her to be a Latina girl growing up in New York City. Here are some more of her answers. . . .

  —J. Startz

  1. Carmen is determined to make all the gowns for her quinceañera, and her goal is to be a famous designer when she grows up. You’re a designer with an extremely distinctive and successful clothing line. What advice would you have for her and other young designers who want to beak into this field?

  Fashion is so much fun! I would advise Carmen and all young girls who have this passion to stay true to who they are. As designers, we are under pressure to deliver what’s “hot,” but I think if you really believe in a certain design, you should go for it!

  2. The amigas rely on one another to solve their business problems, and each one of them has particular strengths. Whom do you go to for support and to ask advice when you need it? As a businesswoman and entrepreneur, what would you say are your strong points? What’s really hard for you to do?

  I surround myself with smart, trustworthy people from whom I get great advice. I feel that one of my strengths is my tenacity, a sense of never wanting to give up on things in which I really believe. I always remember that smart people surround themselves with smarter people.

  3. Jamie, Carmen, and Alicia all are very tight with their mothers, and each of their moms has a very strong personality. How would you describe your relationship with your mother? Is she an important person in your life? Has she influenced you in your professional and personal life?

  My mother and I are very close. She has always loved music and film and exposed me to it from an early age. I grew up listening to salsa music and watched a lot of musicals.

  4. Jamie is the New York girl in the Amigas crew. She is also the trendsetter—in terms of fashion and picking up on the latest music. As someone who grew up in New York, do you relate to Jamie’s innate sense of style? When you were a teenager, were you up on the latest styles? Looking back, were you ever guilty of any fashion disasters?

  I love Jamie’s sense of individuality! She’s a risk taker, like me. When I was her age I definitely followed the trends but also liked to mix in my own flavor. I was a teenager in the eighties, so you can imagine some of the outfits I dressed in. We had so much fun getting dressed up I wouldn’t swap a moment.

  5. Carmen tries her hardest to come up with a party for her quinceañera that will make all of the members of her family happy. She has a big extended family, and satisfying them all is no easy task. Do you have a lot of family gatherings? Who is usually the party-planner in your family? Who’s the peacekeeper?

  We always had big family gatherings during the holidays when I was growing up. I loved being with my sisters and cousins—we have lots of girls in my family, like the amigas! I would say I’m the party-planner of my family and also the peacekeeper. I just want everyone to relax, dance a little, and have a good time.

  6. The Amigas Inc. party-planning business relies on the group’s ability to make their customers happy by throwing great parties for their clients’ quinceañeras. What is the most memorable party that you’ve ever had? Did you organize it, or did someone else plan it for you? Why was it the best?

  I have planned so many parties it’s hard to pick just one! I do think that surprise parties may be one of my favorite types to plan. The look on the person’s face when you yell, “Surprise!” makes all the hard work worth it.

  7. Like the members of Amigas Inc., you’re a very hardworking entrepreneur and businesswoman. What is your favorite way to relax?

  I love to stay in, watch movies, and order a pizza. Oh, and having a luxurious facial and a massage isn’t bad, either!

  ALICIA CRUZ, one of the founding members of Amigas Incorporated, giggled nervously as she boarded a boat moored to one of the more exclusive docks in Miami. Following close behind were her two best friends, Carmen Ramirez-Ruben and Jamie Sosa. They quickly mimicked her unusually high-pitched laugh. Shooting them a disapproving look, Alicia tried to regain her composure. After all, this wasn’t just an ordinary hanging-out-with-her-friends kind of Saturday; they had a business to run.

  The previous summer, Alicia, Carmen, Jamie, and Alicia’s boyfriend, Gaz, had started a business planning quinceañeras, or Sweet Fifteen parties. And even though the friends were only teenagers themselves, they’d quickly become the hottest game in town.

  They knew how to make a celebration that was modern but respectful of tradition; innovative; and, most importantly, not corny. A quince was like a wedding, debutante ball, and graduation all rolled into one, and Amigas Inc. had perfected the art of making their quinces rock. Still, no matter how many they planned, there were bound to be surprises. And certainly, when they had woken up that morning, none of them had imagined that they’d be taking a private ferry to the Mortimer family estate.

  Growing up in Miami pretty much provided assurance that by the time you reached high school you’d have been on or around every type of boat, pontoon, and Jet Ski there was. What made the Mortimers’ boat, the Santa Maria (the name was scrawled across the side), different was that literally everything on it smelled of money, from the polished oak floors to the shiny brass flagpole to the gold-stitched, monogrammed life jackets. Coral Gables had its share of rich kids, including Alicia Cruz. But Binky Mortimer and her golf-champ brother, Dash, were on a whole other level. And everything about the family ferry, which in any other part of the world would have been called a yacht, confirmed the fact that this was not the kind of wealth you encountered every day. Nor, Alicia suspected, was their destination the kind you encountered every day.

  Miami was surrounded by dozens of small islands. The most famous of these was Fisher Island where Oprah Winfrey had a house. But even Oprah lived on an island with other people. The Mortimers, as far as the girls knew, were the only family in Miami to live on their own island.

  Considering all that (from living in Miami and reading the daily gossip blogs), it was not a stretch to say that Alicia had been surprised—no, make that floored—when she received an e-mail from the Binky Mortimer early in the morning saying that she wanted to hire the Amigas for her quinceañera. It had read:

  Yo-delay-lihoo. I’m having a quince, and it’s going to be hotter than the three-pepper special at Taco Bell. I hear Amigas Inc. is the only gig in town that can pull this throwdown off. So, as Donald Trump would say, “You’re hired.” Come to my island at 3 p.m. for a meeting. XO, XO, Binky.

  Alicia knew that saying no was out of the question. She had quickly told the rest of the group and asked if they were up for a meeting after school. Their reactions had varied. Carmen had flipped at the idea. Jamie had rolled her eyes and said something about “another snobby sitch in the making.” And Gaz? Well, he had just asked, “Who?” Apparently, he did not read the Miami social pages, and perhaps, Alicia had joked, he lived under a rock.

  Now, standing on the deck of the Mortimers’ private ferry, the conversation returned to the most popular topic since they had agreed to meet Binky. Alicia and her girls were of decidedly different minds about whether a non-Latin girl could or should have a quince. Carmen, who’d just thrown a “Hola, Shalom!” quince that celebrated her Latin heritage and Jewish religion, was all for it.

  “Being Latin is all about being inclusive,” Carmen said. “Our people represent practically every skin color and dozens of nationalities. We’re a global culture.”

  Carmen was nearly six feet tall and had flawless café con leche–colored skin. Her dark hair fell in waves down her shoulders. She looked like a model, but designing clothes was her passion. She was dressed for the Mortimer meeting in a Carmen original, a hot pink one-shouldered blouse with a pair of wide-legged khaki pants.

  Alicia nodded in agreement. But her mind was more on the money than on the culture. “Do you know how much money we could make planning a Mortimer party? Money is no object for Binky Mortimer, people. This will take Amigas Incorporated to the next level.�
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  Her eyes sparkled as the headlines and gossip-blog postings flashed through her mind. Alicia’s drive for success was hereditary. She was the daughter of Marisol and Enrique Cruz, who made up one of Miami’s power couples. Her mom was a judge, and her dad was the deputy mayor. Alicia had an engaging smile, cascading mahogany curls, and a flair for vintage style, aided by the fact that her mom had one of those huge walk-in closets like Carrie Bradshaw’s in Sex and the City. Today she was dressed in an original DVF leopard-print wrap dress and a pair of Forever 21 pumps. Her goal? To look like the head chica in charge.

  Though Carmen and Alicia had been pals since elementary school, Jamie had only joined the posse in junior high. Her skin was naturally bronze, with a tan that was the envy of South Beach, and she had dark, stick-straight hair. Jamie had the graceful build of a dancer and the “don’t-mess-with-me” attitude of a prizefighter. It was an unusual combination, but on Jamie, it worked. She was from the Bronx, and while her attempts to “keep it real” could sometimes be a real pain in the butt, Jamie, as Alicia and Carmen knew, succeeded at them. She was the third Musketeer. Without her, they would just have been your run-of-the-mill “besties.”

  The sole male member of Amigas Inc. was Gaz (short for Gaspar) Colón. Gaz was a promising musician and an all-around great guy. Gaz’s father had died when he was young. To help supplement the modest income his mother made as a cleaning woman, Gaz worked part-time, after school and on weekends, as a salesman at the Gap. This added responsibility made the amount of time he could spend with Amigas Inc. somewhat limited. But he did what he could.

  He and Alicia had met in the sixth grade, when Alicia had enlisted him to play in her newly formed ska band. The band was short-lived, but their friendship was not. After many years of being buddies, followed by a brief “flirtationship,” they finally admitted that their feelings had blossomed into something greater, more akin to love. Now they were officially together, and Alicia felt a familiar fluttery feeling as she thought about him. She just wished he could be there now, and not at the Gap, so that he could experience all of this with her and the rest of the group.