by Diana Lopez
“And Carlos is the father?” I tease.
She blushes when she nods a yes.
Luís says, “Is i-i-i-it a-a boy or a girl?”
Because he’s usually so quiet, I forget that he gets stuck on a syllable sometimes, most of the time. Then when he gets past the hard part, the rest of his words come fast, too fast. So he’s embarrassed to talk, especially around bullies. But Vanessa and I, and a few other enlightened people, don’t care.
“A girl,” Vanessa says. “Her name’s Duchess.”
“Duchess?” I can’t help laughing. “Does Carlos know that his ‘daughter’ is named after your dead dog?”
Luís shakes with the giggles.
“No,” Vanessa says. “As far as he’s concerned, she’s royalty.”
Dr. Rodriguez walks in and starts the meeting. I like her. She’s tall like me and has a no-nonsense discipline style. Miss Luna should take lessons.
“We need to sign up for booths,” Dr. Rodriguez says. “I’ll give you a few minutes to brainstorm. Then we’ll make a list. If two groups want the same booth, we’ll flip a coin to see who gets it. No food booths, please. Your teachers will be selling the refreshments because they have food-handling certificates. Any questions?”
She answers a few while Vanessa and I list our top three choices: the jail, the Coke bottle ring toss, and the face-painting booth. When it’s time to regroup, we discover that we’ve tied for them all! To make matters worse, we lose the coin flip every time. I should have worn my lucky socks today.
“What are we going to do?” I say. “I’m all out of ideas.”
Whenever Vanessa needs to problem solve, she looks up and touches her chin. When I look up, all I see is the ceiling or the sky or the roof of the car, but when Vanessa looks up, she sees answers.
After a second or two, she waves her hand to get Dr. Rodriguez’s attention. “Girls’ athletics,” she announces, “will sell cascarones. Dozens and dozens of cascarones.”
Dr. Rodriguez raises a curious eyebrow, then writes “Cascarones Booth” by our names.
“That’s a great idea,” I tell Vanessa.
“Just killing two birds with one stone—raising money and getting rid of all those eggs.”
“It’s perfect.”
She puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Lina. For our next fundraiser, we’re having a book sale.”
Another genius plan. It’s great having a brainiac for a best friend.
Quien bien te quiere te hará llorar –
Those who love you the most will make you cry
5
Vinegar Stinks Up the House
On the walk home, Vanessa says, “Will you carry Duchess for a while?”
She hands me her potato baby, and I take hold right above the twisty.
“Not like that!” she says. “You’re swinging her by the hair. You’ve probably disconnected her neck or something.”
“It’s a bag of potatoes, Vanessa.”
“That bag of potatoes is my homemaking project, and I plan to get an A.” She carefully takes the “baby” from me. “Now make a cradle with your arms,” she says.
I make a cradle, and she gently places the baby there. It’s a lumpy thing, and since the potatoes are in a mesh bag, dirt gets on my arms.
“Your baby needs a bath,” I tease, but she ignores me.
We get to her house and enter through the kitchen door.
“It’s me,” Vanessa calls to her mom in the other room.
Then she runs to the restroom, and while she’s gone, I hide the potato baby in the fridge. She comes back and searches all over the kitchen, begging for clues.
“Lina!” she scolds when she finds Duchess. “Babies die in the cold.” She grabs the baby and holds it against her chest as if to warm it. “Wait till I get my hands on your next project,” she says.
Vanessa’s only pretend-mad. First chance I get, I’m going to kidnap her baby and send a ransom note for ten bucks. I might even put a French fry in the envelope the way real kidnappers put thumbs, little toes, or ears to show they’re serious.
“Let’s go tell my mom about the carnival,” Vanessa says. She wraps the potato baby in a towel and carefully puts it on the table. I guess Duchess is asleep. Apparently, leaving a baby on the kitchen table is not as bad as carrying it by the hair. As soon as Vanessa’s satisfied, we head to the living room, where her mom’s watching TV.
Ms. Cantu always gets home before we do. She used to be a stay-at-home mom, but after her divorce, she became the odd-job queen. She’s a part-time office assistant at Ray High School, where my dad teaches. She sells Avon. And two or three times a month, people rent her decorations and hire her to set up dance halls for their weddings or quinceañeras.
Because of her decorating business, Ms. Cantu’s garage is packed with candelabras, vases, ruffled table skirts, and a huge heart-shaped arco. There’s also a giant bird-cage for Romeo and Juliet, her doves. When they’re not cooing at weddings, they stay in a smaller cage in the living room.
Ms. Cantu doesn’t put much effort into her decorating business. She says it breaks her heart to see brides and grooms when she knows about the fifty-percent divorce rate. The only reason she gets jobs is because she doesn’t charge much, which is also the reason she never gets to decorate the fancy rooms at Selena Convention Center where the real dances are. Most of the weddings and quinceañeras she decorates take place at Tito’s Icehouse or Milagros Dance Hall, an old barn off Robstown Road.
“Hi, Mom,” Vanessa says.
“Hi, m’ija.” Ms. Cantu spots me standing by the kitchen doorway. “Ay, Lina. Don’t be so shy. Come here.” She pats the sofa cushion and I obediently sit beside her. “Pobrecita, Lina. Growing up without a mama. And she was such a good woman. My closest friend.”
She hugs me and pats my back as if burping a baby. I have to stoop since I’m so tall.
“That’s enough, Mom,” Vanessa says. “You’re smothering her.”
Ms. Cantu lets me go. “I can’t help it,” she says, almost in tears. “I can’t stand a real-life tragedy. And your father is such a good man, Lina. He doesn’t deserve this.”
I want to say that my father isn’t as good as she believes, that he can be selfish like all other men, that he’d rather read books than pay attention to his poor orphan daughter.
“Come help me with these cascarones, girls.”
Vanessa and I sit around the coffee table. Ms. Cantu has already dyed the eggs, using bright colors like yellow, hot pink, and red. She’s also painted stripes or flowers on the shells. The whole house stinks like vinegar. While Vanessa cuts out circles of tissue paper, I grab a handful of confetti and carefully pour it into the shell. Then I hand it to Ms. Cantu, so she can glue tissue over the hole.
“So what are you watching?” Vanessa asks.
“A show on Lifetime, Heart of Sacrifice.”
“What’s it about?”
“This woman falls in love with a man, and he loves her too, and everything’s perfect until she finds out he’s married. So now he’s trying to sweet-talk her into being his woman on the side. Can you believe it? And that tonta’s falling for it.”
“Didn’t you see that movie last week?” Vanessa asks.
“No.”
“Yes, you did. On the Spanish station.”
“No, no, that was Dos Amores, Una Vida.”
“Two loves, one life?” I ask.
“Yes. And it was a completely different story. In that one, the man loved two women, really loved them, and he couldn’t pick between them, so one of the women takes matters into her own hands and murders the competition.”
“And he marries the murderer?” Vanessa guesses.
“¿Quién sabe? It’s not over yet. It’s got two weeks to go. But my guess is that he’s going to fall for her sister. That’s how it is with men. They think forever means three weeks. Just look at your father.”
Ms. Cantu always puts down her ex-husband. Vane
ssa’s shoulders slump, so I decide to change the subject.
“Did you decorate that shirt?” I ask, pointing to Ms. Cantu’s big T-shirt with buttons in the center of appliquéd flowers. All her shirts are crafty. That’s her style. She wears old-fashioned stirrup pants with tennis shoes or sandals and oversized T-shirts decorated with iron-on transfers, fabric paint, sequins, buttons, lace, and bows.
“You like it?” she says, straightening her shirt to give us a better look.
“Yeah. Where did you get those buttons?”
“These?” She points to them. “I plucked them off my ex-husband’s coat.”
“The black one?” Vanessa says.
“Yup.”
“Dad loves that coat. He’s been looking for it.”
“He should have looked before leaving me.”
“But that’s cruel, Mom. How could you destroy his favorite coat?”
“I didn’t destroy it. I just found a better use for it.” Ms. Cantu turns to me. “The buttons are made of wood, see? Very easy to paint. That’s how I got these bright colors.”
“If you ask me,” Vanessa says, “it’s an ugly shirt. And I’m not talking about the decorations, even if it’s just plain wrong to steal buttons. I’m talking about the shape. Why are your shirts extra large when you’re small enough for a medium? You could wear real cute clothes if you wanted.”
“I need big T-shirts,” Ms. Cantu says, “so I can have room for my iron-ons.”
“But you have a nice figure. Why hide it? How’s a sweet guy going to notice you? Especially when you wear socks with your sandals.”
“Socks are cool,” I say.
“With sandals, Lina?”
As much as I hate to dis socks, I have to agree. There is a high tacky index for wearing them with sandals.
“I’m just saying you’re a babe, Mom. You should show off your babehood.”
“What for?” Ms. Cantu says, grabbing a purple Sharpie and scribbling on the eggs. “Here’s my answer next time some man asks me on a date.” She writes “as if” on the first egg. “You wish,” on the second. Then, “when pigs fly,” “talk to the hand,” and “I’d rather eat worms.” The marker ink smears until the eggs get a blotched look.
“You’re ruining them,” Vanessa complains.
We don’t say anything for a while. The woman on Heart of Sacrifice is packing her bags and leaving her boyfriend. Good for her. She wants to be more than the woman on the side. She wants to be the main character in her man’s life—the protagonist, my dad would say. And why shouldn’t she be? I wouldn’t mind ousting the hero of my dad’s favorite book and taking his place.
“Okay, let’s talk about some good news,” Vanessa says. “We’re having a school carnival for Halloween and girls’ athletics is in charge of a booth.”
Ms. Cantu is quick to respond. “Oh, no! I’m not volunteering my face so people can throw pies at it.”
“I wasn’t asking you to.”
“And I’m not sitting in the dunking booth, either.”
“Let me finish, Mom.”
Ms. Cantu eyes her suspiciously, then nods an okay.
“We’re going to sell your cascarones,” Vanessa announces.
I thought Ms. Cantu would holler and scream and punch the sky, but the exact opposite happens. She gets very quiet and looks off with a dreamy twinkle in her eye.
“That’s genius!” she suddenly blurts. “We can use the carnival to test the market. Who says cascarones should be limited to Easter? We should make them a year-round commodity!”
“No, Mom,” Vanessa says. “We’re getting rid of them once and for all. It’s embarrassing to live in a house that looks like a confetti-egg factory.”
“Factory, yes. Another great idea.” Ms. Cantu forgets us and starts talking to herself. “And I can use different themes. Orange and black dyes for Halloween. Red and green for Christmas. And for Thanksgiving… I can glue little beaks… or turkey feathers!”
Ms. Cantu heads for the kitchen, still brainstorming aloud.
“And I can have specialty confetti too,” she says to herself. “Rice instead of paper for… for… yes… wedding cascarones!”
“Mom. Mom!”
Ms. Cantu doesn’t hear her.
“I can’t stand this!” Vanessa says. “I was trying to solve a problem, but instead I created a new one.”
Una acción buena enseña más que mil palabras –
Actions speak louder than words
6
Papas con Huevos
Mom always had after-school projects waiting for me. “Can you help decorate cookies?” she’d say. Or, “Go outside and pick some flowers.” Or, “Fix my nails, please.” She loved to paint them, but since she wasn’t coordinated with her left hand, her right-hand nails looked like a preschooler’s coloring page.
I guess these projects were chores, but they were fun, too. Now when I come home, I’ve got to sweep, fold towels, or scrub the bathroom sink. Dad helps, but sometimes he makes a big mess.
Like today. He’s got flour, potato skins, and crumpled napkins on the counter. The pot boils over with brown scum. And I don’t want to talk to him because I’m still mad about the volleyball game, but I have to know what he’s up to.
“What are you doing, Dad?”
“Making dinner. Thought I’d give you a break.”
Except for game nights, dinner’s my responsibility. I cook while Dad cleans—that’s our rule. And even though I don’t cook as well as Mom did, Dad never complains.
“What are you trying to make?” I ask.
“Carne guisada and papas fritas.”
“You need a recipe for that?”
“Are you kidding? I need a recipe for peanut butter sandwiches.”
How mad can a girl be at a man who makes fun of himself and wears a green frog apron that says KISS THE COOK and tube socks over his hands for potholders?
We clear space on the table. Dinner’s served. The beef’s tough and the papas are mushy, but who cares? I pretend it’s delicious because my dad lets me blabber about the Halloween carnival. He laughs out loud when I describe Vanessa’s potato baby and Ms. Cantu’s creative cascarones, so I don’t complain when I notice he served ranch-style beans straight from the can instead of heating them up first.
Everything’s great until he asks about my English class.
“Any new vocabulary words?” he wants to know.
“I guess. Maybe. Super… super… super something. Can’t remember.”
“Was it supersede?” he asks. “Supercilious? Superfluous?”
“I don’t remember, Dad. It could have been super-duper or super-loop for all I care.”
He gets sarcasm from his students all the time so he’s good at ignoring it.
“Remember that super is a prefix that means ‘above and beyond,’” he says. “So no matter what the word is, you can get its meaning if you take it apart.”
“Okay, Dad. I get it. So did I tell you we’re having a book sale for our next fundraiser?”
“What else are you doing in English?” he asks. “Reading any novels?”
I sigh, bored, but he doesn’t get the hint. He just waits for my answer. “Yes,” I finally say. “I don’t remember the title, but it’s got a rabbit on the cover.”
“Is it Watership Down? It’s got to be Watership Down.”
“Yes, that’s it. But I left it in my locker. I guess I can’t do my homework.”
“Nonsense. I’ve got a copy somewhere. Let me look.”
He leaves the table to scan the bookshelves, and all of the sudden, I care about the tough beef, the mushy potatoes, and the cold beans. Why should I eat when my own father has abandoned his food? Nothing’s more important than his books and vocabulary words. He might say I matter, but when he goes on a scavenger hunt for a book, I realize that I really don’t.
I take my plate to the kitchen, grab my half-finished soda, and head to my room. When I walk past him, he’s kneeling to search
the lower shelves. He’s got a paper towel and wipes it lovingly over the titles as if polishing a sports car. He doesn’t hear my angry, stomping footsteps. I catch the last part of his sentence.
“… a classic epic journey,” he says as if he were in class with a bunch of students. I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it. I’d rather have Vanessa’s crazy mom.
Later, just as I write I love Luís for the three-hundredth time, my dad peeks through my bedroom door.
“Found my copy of Watership Down,” he says, handing me a paperback whose spine’s been taped a dozen times. “How far do you have to read tonight?”
“The first four chapters,” I say.
“That’s a lot. You better get busy.”
“Sure, Dad. I’ll start reading right away.”
But I don’t. As soon as he leaves, I put the book on my nightstand and use it as a coaster. The condensation from my soda makes a big, wet circle on the cover.
The next morning, Vanessa knocks on my door. She holds out her potato baby.
“Did Duchess lose weight?” I ask.
“Is it that obvious?”
I nod. “What happened?”
“Dinner happened. Guess what I ate last night?”
“Eggs?”
“That’s a given. What kind of eggs?”
“Don’t tell me,” I say. “You ate papas con huevos!”
“That’s right. Remember how I left Duchess on the kitchen table? Well, part of her got peeled, diced, and fried. I didn’t realize I was eating my own daughter till halfway through my second taquito!”
“You’re a cannibal,” I tease.
“It’s all my mom’s fault. Just like everything else in my life.”
“Don’t blame your mom when you left the potatoes on the table. Of course she used them.”
“I guess you’re right,” Vanessa says. “So, can I borrow some potatoes to fatten her up?”
