She's Got Game

by Veronica Chambers

  “So, what about ‘Princess of the Tides’?” Carmen suggested. “It brings the island theme in, with the idea of a journey across water to arrive at your destination.”

  Binky nodded again. “I do want this to be meaningful. Princess of the Tides is perfect.”

  Jamie didn’t look displeased by the idea. “You’ve got those boats; work that, too. Pick everyone up at Biscayne Bay in your yacht, ride ’em around for an hour, then have the actual party back at your pool.”

  “But what about the church ceremony?” Carmen asked. “I’m sure Binky’s mom wouldn’t have wanted her to just throw a big party to celebrate her heritage. The spiritual element is part of what makes a quince something special. It’s not just a Latina version of My Super Sweet 16.”

  Binky smiled. “Love that show, but you’re right. I want to get all the traditional quince stuff in, too, in honor of my mom and because that’s how Estrella said I should do it. It’s my coming into womanhood, so I want to do it right. Could I have people meet me at the church, then be bused to the yacht, then ferried over to the island?”

  “That’s a lot of juggling. Means a lot of cooperation from everyone. How does the rest of your family feel about your having a quince?” Jamie asked. “I’m sure it’s not anything the Mortimer family has seen before.”

  Binky smiled. “Well, actually, everyone’s getting into it. Dash has been to a few quinces, and I think he’s a little jealous that there wasn’t a guy-equivalent so he could bust out his flawless Spanish and impress everybody. Bev, my stepmother, is excited, but she wanted me to have the events coordinator at the country club organize it. She doesn’t care what I call my fifteenth birthday as long as it’s swank enough to impress her friends. And my dad, he doesn’t say much about anything. He’s a little bit of the strong-and-silent type.”

  Just then, Gaz entered the room, fresh from his shift at the Gap. His dark, curly hair, beautiful brown eyes, and lips that seemed always to be on the verge of forming a slightly wicked smile all brightened the room. “Did somebody call for the strong-and-silent type?”

  Alicia got up and gave him a kiss. “So conceited! We weren’t talking about you. I was beginning to wonder if you’d skipped town on me.”

  “Never,” Gaz said. “You know the deal, I’m just the hardest-working guy in Coral Gables right now. Tough to do that and be a good boyfriend, too.”

  “You’re always a good boyfriend,” Alicia said, squeezing his hand. She turned to Binky. “Binky Mortimer, this is my boyfriend, Gaz. He’s also a member of Amigas Inc. and in charge of music for the quinceañera. You’ll be talking to him a lot as we get closer to the event.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Binky said politely.

  “Mucho gusto,” Gaz said, shaking Binky’s hand. Then he nodded at Jamie and Carmen. “What up, chicas? Is there anything to eat in the kitchen? I’m starving.”

  “Of course. Help yourself, but hurry back; we need you,” Alicia said.

  The girls were silent for a moment, staring down at the clipboards in their hands. These had been presents and were engraved with the words amigas inc. They came in handy at moments like this, when the girls needed to jot ideas down. Having the company name on the clipboards made them all feel extra professional.

  “I don’t know,” Alicia said, breaking the silence and getting back to the topic at hand. “I just think that if you start at the church, then have people take a bus to the boat and then a boat to the island, it feels a little like too much is going on.”

  “Yeah,” Binky said, nodding her head in agreement. “I don’t want people so exhausted by the time they get to the island that they’re too pooped to party.”

  “What if the entire party took place on the yacht?” Jamie suggested. “People get married at sea; couldn’t we do Binky’s ceremony on the boat?”

  “We’d have to talk to her priest,” Carmen said.

  Binky fluttered her eyelids dramatically. “You mean, my very good-looking, very young priest. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Alicia asked.

  “Not kidding. He looks like Chace Crawford,” Binky said. “I have proof. His name is Padre Alfonso. Some of the parishioners have even built a little fan site about him.” Taking out her smartphone, Binky pulled up the site. She passed the phone around. “Ladies, meet Padre Alfonso.”

  The girls crowded around, mesmerized by the photos of the Gossip Girl–worthy priest, including one somewhat unpriestly photo of him in a pair of yellow swimming trunks.

  “What’s up with the swimsuit calendar shot?” Jamie asked.

  “Catholic church retreat,” Binky said. “Isn’t he dreamy?”

  “You know, I really think I need to talk to my parents about switching churches,” Alicia said.

  “Not me.” Carmen shook her head. “Can you imagine going to confession with a guy who was so good-looking? It’s a tiny little box; I’d be so nervous I’d probably develop a stuttering problem.”

  “I’d be too tempted to lie,” Jamie said. “I couldn’t confess anything about making out with boys to a guy who looked like that.”

  Binky raised an eyebrow. “At our church, we have exactly that problem. So many women were going into confession with wild stories that couldn’t possibly be true that they had to take Padre Alfonso off confession duty!”

  “Unbelievable,” Alicia said, her eyes wide.

  “That’s bananas,” Carmen laughed.

  “Maybe giving your church such an eye-candyish priest is God’s way of saying, ‘Get your butt here every Sunday,’” Jamie said, smiling.

  Binky placed her hand over her heart. “Well, I haven’t missed a Sunday this year, so it must be working!”

  Just then, Alicia looked at her watch and let out a little gasp. “While I personally could talk about the sin-inspiring hottie priest all day, we’ve got exactly four weeks and five days to pull off the quinceañera of the year. We’ve got to focus. We have a theme. And I’ll go ahead and make an appointment with Padre Hottie—I mean, Padre Alfonso—to see if he would be willing to do Binky’s quince ceremony on the yacht.” She wrote something on her clipboard.

  “Way to take one for the team,” Jamie said, winking at her friend.

  Gaz came back to the room and stood in the door. “Are you still talking about your crush on the priest? Because I’d really like to join the meeting.”

  “We’re done,” Jamie said, waving him in. “Join us.”

  She quickly filled Gaz in on the Princess of Tides theme.

  “We’ve never done a quince on a boat,” Gaz said. “That sounds pretty sweet. Do you know yet whether you want a DJ or live music?”

  “We recommend live,” Alicia chimed in.

  “Live music, definitely,” Binky agreed.

  Gaz handed her a CD. “This is my band’s music. Listen and see what you think. If it’s totally not your thing, we can hire another group or look into the DJ option. It’s your big day, so we want to do what will make you happy.”

  “Trust me, Binky. Gaz’s band is straight off the hook. He’s one of the hottest up-and-coming indie musicians in the Miami area. You and your friends are going to go nuts when you hear his music. He’s that good,” boasted Alicia.

  Gaz rolled his eyes as Binky laughed good-naturedly. “And, of course, you’re not prejudiced or anything, right?”

  “Me? Never,” replied Alicia, feigning shock at the thought. “Okay, moving on. Logistics,” she continued. They had the venue—hopefully—and the priest—double-hopefully—but that was just the start. “How many people can you fit on the Santa Maria?”

  “Oh, we wouldn’t have it on the Santa Maria. She’s not a yacht, she’s just the ferryboat,” Binky said. “The big boat is the Uptick. My dad had a company retreat on it last year, and I think they said that the capacity was two hundred fifty. That’s plenty; I wasn’t planning on inviting more than that.”

  “Great,” Alicia said. “Well, you talk to your father about th
e quince and make sure he signs off on using the boat, and let’s find out out what kind of restrictions they might have about safety, medical care, catering, and having minors on board.”

  Binky looked surprised. “Whoa, way to sound so grown-up.”

  Alicia shrugged. “It’s our business, and we’ve learned a lot along the way.”

  “Well, I’m impressed,” Binky said.

  Alicia smiled and once again looked down at her clipboard. “Okay. Invitations. We need to get them out right away. Jamie, can you handle that?”

  Jamie wrote something down on her own clipboard. “Of course. Binky, any requests?”

  “Hmm…Well, as I told you, orange is my signature color,” she said. “So, something with that?”

  “Right, I remember you said that.” Jamie skimmed the quince planning guidelines that Alicia had typed up for Amigas Inc.

  “Orange is a good base. What are you thinking Jamie?” Alicia asked. “I bet you have some ideas already.”

  Jamie turned to a clean sheet of her notepad and drew a sketch. “I was thinking with the theme that it would be so cool if the invitations came as a message in a bottle, with seashells and filled with sand.”

  “What do you think, Binky?” Alicia asked.

  “I love it,” she said. “Maybe I could handwrite each invite with a special message to my guests.”

  “Well, that would depend what your handwriting is like,” Carmen said. She’d been quiet for a while, sketching on her own pad.

  Binky made a face. “My handwriting bites.”

  “I can do them,” said Jamie. “I did that course in calligraphy.”

  “Awesome,” Alicia said. “This is going great. What’s next?”

  “If the invitation is in a bottle, then we’re going to need to deliver each one personally,” Jamie said. “You can’t put these in the mail.”

  “Sounds like a job for the boyfriends,” Carmen said, smiling slyly.

  Gaz took the opportunity to interject, “Because message-in-a-bottle invitations are so-o-o manly.” He shot a look at Alicia but then smiled. “We’ll do it. I’ll get Domingo to help.”

  “Who’s Domingo?” Binky asked.

  “He’s my boyfriend. He goes to Hialeah High and works part-time at Bongos,” Carmen said.

  “And what about you?” Binky asked, turning and eyeing Jamie.

  “What about me?”

  Alicia and Carmen tried to send Binky a mental message to stop before she got in over her head, but their attempts at telepathy failed.

  “You’ve got it going on,” Binky told Jamie. “You must have a boyfriend.”

  Surprisingly, Jamie had calmed down since Binky first arrived. In fact, she had been feeling mellow. Although she was loath to admit it, and probably never would unless forced to in a court of law, Jamie could see that Binky was kind of a fun girl to hang out with. But her questions about guys were rubbing Jamie the wrong way, and she quickly fell into her defensive mode.

  “Nope. I haven’t met a guy who’s a good enough salsa dancer to roll with me,” she stated.

  “Ple-e-e-e-ase let me set you up with my brother.” Binky held her hands up in mock prayer. “He likes you, I can tell. And he’s amazing on the dance floor.”

  Jamie laughed. “Mr. Sponge Golf Square Pants dancing salsa? Come on, now.”

  But Binky shook her head. “Believe it. My father always said, ‘Never underestimate a Mortimer.’” Suddenly she got a look on her face as if a lightbulb had gone off. “What are you all doing tomorrow night?”

  “Planning your quince,” Alicia said.

  “Researching looks for your quince dress,” said Carmen.

  “Handwriting two hundred and fifty quince invitations and placing each one of them in a bottle,” Jamie finished, her tone a bit sharp.

  But this didn’t faze Binky in the slightest. “All of those things are, I agree, of vital importance, since I want my quinceañera to be the best one that South Florida has ever seen. But I think there is something else you need to do. You need to come dancing with me tomorrow night. Alicia—you can show me some ideas for choreography. Plus, Jamie can see what an amazing dancer Dash is.”

  “We’ve still got to work on the guest list and the seating arrangements. Then we have to decide on your centerpieces,” Alicia said, a little unconvincingly.

  “You could do that at the club!” Binky said.

  “Gaz usually plays the father-daughter vals, but you’ll need to decide whether you want his band to play all night or whether you want to hire a DJ for the after-party,” Carmen added.

  “We could do that at the club!”

  “And I would love to show you sketches for your dress.”

  “Club; club; club!” Binky chanted.

  “Okay, fine; we’ll go. Need to make the customer happy,” Alicia said, relenting when it was obvious Binky wasn’t going to give up.

  “I suppose I’m down,” Carmen said.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Gaz added.

  “I guess I’m in, too,” Jamie said.

  Binky squealed excitedly. “This is going to be so fun! I’ve got to go home and pick out an outfit. And call Dash.” She leaped up and then turned to Jamie. “He’s going to be so happy to hear you’re coming.”

  Blowing air kisses to the group, Binky ran out of the room, her fingers already on the speed-dial button of her phone.

  “Whatever,” Jamie said to the girl’s retreating back, pretending not to care.

  But, as Amigas Inc. continued to divvy up responsibilities for planning Binky’s quince, Jamie felt the kind of giggly anticipation about seeing a cute boy that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

  EVER SINCE Ojos Así opened, it had been the hottest nightclub for the under-21 crowd in Biscayne Bay. This meant that, despite the fact that Alicia, Carmen, Jamie, and even Gaz were dressed to the nines in their favorite outfits, they were still having trouble getting inside.

  “Join the line, my friends,” said a tall guy who looked not unlike an FBI agent in his dark gray pinstriped suit. It was only the fact that he wore sunglasses at night that gave away his role as one of Miami’s glitterati enforcers.

  “This sucks,” Alicia said, walking away from the crowd with her friends.

  “Where are Binky and Dash?” Carmen asked, looking around.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere else,” suggested Gaz.

  “Or maybe we should just all go home,” Jamie said. “Who wants to spend good money to watch a bunch of rich prep-school kids turn a fierce merengue into a chicken dance.”

  “Let’s not give up yet,” Alicia said. “This could be a lot of fun. And not everyone in there is going to be preppy and ruining your vision of Latino life. Let’s try this again.”

  The members of Amigas Inc.—most especially Alicia—were not used to being turned away at any velvet rope. They weren’t part of the hard-core party crowd at C. G. High, but, as increasingly successful quinceañera planners, they were starting to get to know the players on Miami’s nightclub scene. And Gaz accepted the fact that Alicia sometimes resorted to doing a little pretend flirting if it helped get them all in the door.

  As she was about to do right now.

  “Excuse me,” she said, returning to stand in front of the doorman, tossing her hair to the side. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

  “Dwight,” he said.

  “Dwight,” Alicia said, smiling. “Didn’t you used to work at Flip?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Dwight said. He turned back to the crowd. “Anybody here actually on the guest list? No? Then I have four words for you: Back of the line.”

  He turned to Alicia, Carmen, Jamie, and Gaz. “That means you, too.”

  The crew retreated to the back of the line.

  “I hate these waiting games,” Jamie said.

  “What can you do? Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it just doesn’t.” Alicia shivered a little bit and snuggled up close to Gaz. Her Missoni knit dress was not nearly a
s warm as it looked. Despite the hot days in Miami, the evenings could get quite chilly.

  “How could he turn away so much fabulous?” Jamie said. “I mean, look at me. Vintage Ossie Clark dress from Resurrection in L.A. limited-edition four-inch leather booties from Jimmy Choo for H&M. Lucite bangles from Lanvin, also vintage. I’ve got more style in my little finger than any of these spandex-wearing Miami girls have in their entire bodies. They’d be lucky to have me in their stupid club.”

  Just then, a voice from behind them said, “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Startled, Jamie whirled around, nearly toppling over. She found herself alarmingly close to Dash, who had an amused grin on his handsome face. Binky stood next to him, looking amazing in a Herve Leger dress that, while clearly made of much nicer fabric, was still tight and still short.

  “Eavesdrop much?” Jamie asked, standing nose to nose with Dash.

  “Boast about yourself much?” Dash countered.

  “No more than you, I’m sure,” Jamie said.

  Binky yanked her brother’s arm playfully. “Would you two stop flirting? Dash, come meet Gaz. He’s the musical genius behind Amigas Incorporated.”

  The two guys shook hands and exchanged the usual “Good to meet you, man” greetings.

  “Now,” said Binky, “move your butt and get us in the club.”

  Dash nodded good-naturedly. Turning to Jamie, he boasted, “Watch how a master does it.”

  They followed him to the front of the line, but before Dash even spoke, Dwight reached out his hand. “My man. Nice to see you. Still making that green on the green?”

  “I am,” Dash said, shaking Dwight’s hand.

  “Well, it’s nice to see you,” the bouncer said. “Who’s in your party?”

  Dash pointed to the Amigas and Binky. “Meet my friends Alicia, Carmen, and Gaz. You know my sister, Binky, and this is my new friend, Jamie.” The way he said, “friend,” made it seem as though he were hoping to make it more.

  “Right this way,” the bouncer said, lifting the velvet rope so the group could sail through. “You all have a good time.”