The family sat down at the long table. Nana had hired a French chef to cook her favorite dish—coq au vin—and had hired three servers, two of whom were Hispanic.
“Muchas gracias,” Juanita said to one of the servers, who looked like her, as she placed the plate in front of her.
“De nada,” the server responded with a smile.
“Dis feel like home, when my moh-der or tía serve me,” Juanita said excitedly to Giselle, who was sitting next to her.
“Gracias,” Giselle said, repeating the words of her cousin as the server moved on to her.
“Juanita,” Nana said, “that is quite an interesting dress you’re wearing.”
Giselle recognized the sarcasm in her grandmother’s voice and cut in.
“Yes, isn’t it pretty,” Giselle said. “Her aunt made it for her…actually, our aunt made it for her. I think that’s incredibly sweet, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, yes,” Nana responded. “Very sweet…and very shiny.”
“Shiny is better than dull, that’s what I always say,” Giselle said, reaching for her fork. Aunt Linda gave Giselle a knowing smile. She was proud of her niece, whose subtle defense didn’t give Nana a chance to critique Juanita too harshly.
Giselle noticed Juanita folding her hands and about to lower her head.
“Shall we bless the food?” Giselle quickly said, folding her hands as well. Everyone looked at her with a bit of surprise but folded their hands and bowed their heads. There was a moment of silence and Nana cleared her throat. “Giselle, dear, we’re waiting.”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly realizing they were waiting for her to pray since she had suggested it. She instantly regretted saying a word. “Uhhh…Bless this food…O God…Thank you…for the food…. Amen.”
“Amen,” they echoed around the table. Juanita crossed herself and kissed her fingertips, then reached for her cloth napkin.
“Like dis, Prima?” she asked, placing it on her lap with the fold toward the waist. Giselle opened her eyes wide with a smile. Juanita had remembered.
“Perfect,” Giselle said. “That’s absolutely right.”
Juanita told the family about Giselle’s etiquette lesson and asked them to make sure she remembered everything.
“How wonderful,” Nana said. “It’s nice to know my granddaughter listens to me when I teach her how to act like a lady.”
“Oh, I listen to alright,” Giselle said. Maybe I listen a bit too much, she commented in her mind.
“Speaking of which, how’s your diet coming along?” Nana asked.
Giselle paused for a second. “Oh, I’m not on it anymore,” she said, surprised by the boldness she was feeling at the moment. “I’ve decided that I’m not really fat, Nana. I just have a big butt. You know, I’m half Hispanic. We’re famous for that sort of thing.”
“Giselle,” Brian said quietly, shaking his head but trying very hard to disguise how much he wanted to laugh. He had never heard her talk that way to his mother.
For the first time, Nana was speechless. She didn’t know how to respond. Aunt Linda cut into the silence with questions for Juanita, who was more than happy to respond. The rest of the evening Juanita was the loudest one at the table and flailed her arms about with passion as she told her stories—but she paid careful attention not to speak with her mouth full and to keep her elbows off the table at all times.
That night as the girls said their prayers, Giselle silently thanked God for this new feeling inside her. She couldn’t describe it or even understand where it had come from, but it felt like something inside her had blossomed before her eyes. That night she kept Juanita up late, asking questions about her family in the Dominican Republic. She wanted to know more about their lives and their lifestyle. She wanted to know what made them happy and sad, what interesting experiences they had, what dreams they had for the future. Giselle wanted to know more about them, because deep down, she desperately wanted to learn and understand more about herself.
CHAPTER 12
Three days later Giselle and Brian were on their way to show Juanita New York City and have dinner with her mother’s cousins in Washington Heights. Katie wanted to come along but was swamped with work at the office. Giselle was happy that it would only be the three of them.
“Der she is!” Juanita shrieked, seeing the New York skyline for the first time. She stuck her head out the window and snapped about a dozen pictures. “Ay dios mio, I feel like I’m in dee movies!” She couldn’t believe she was really in New York City! She’d heard stories from her mother and seen it on television and received postcards from family members, but seeing it with her own eyes gave her an unexpected rush of euphoria. “Dat’s de Empire Eh-state Building, where King Kong climb!” she screamed. Giselle spit out an unexpected laugh but quickly covered it up with a few strong coughs. Once Brian crossed the bridge and parked the car in the garage, the tour began.
Brian and Giselle had to guide Juanita like a blind person along the city sidewalks because she couldn’t stop looking up at all the tall buildings.
“How tall is that one?” she’d ask to a duet of “I don’t knows.” “How about that one?”
Brian promised to look up all the facts when they got back home.
“Watch out!” Giselle shrieked, pulling Juanita to the side as an obese businessman rushed passed.
“Sank jou, Prima,” she said, giving Giselle’s arm a little hug. “I ne-ber see so many person in one place before.”
“I’ve never seen so many people,” Giselle corrected, keeping her promise to help her cousin improve her English. Juanita repeated it the right way with a smile as they approached the south entrance of Central Park.
Juanita loved the bustle of activity in the park, the Rollerbladers and joggers, the crowded green lawn filled with people lying out in the sun, playing guitars, and tossing footballs and Frisbees.
“Jou have dis?” Juanita asked, pointing to the Rollerbladers zigzagging through a line of bright orange cones.
“No,” she said. “People in Long Island don’t exactly go Rollerblading from place to place. I’d look kind of funny Rollerblading in my neighborhood.”
Juanita shrugged.
“I want lie down in dee grass!” she said leading them to the entrance of Sheep Meadow. Brian went to get some hot dogs and Cokes for their picnic.
“But we didn’t bring a blanket,” Giselle argued. “We’ll get grass stains.”
Juanita took off her shoes and felt the cool, soft blanket of lawn under her toes.
“I don’t care,” Juanita said, finding a nice spot to lie down and absorb a bit of sun as she waited for Brian to bring the food.
“Do you think we can find a spot under a tree? I didn’t bring my sunblock.”
Juanita reached up to grab her cousin’s hands to pull her down next to her.
“I can’t!” Giselle shouted, fighting Juanita’s tug. “My pants will get dirty. And my face is going to get too dark.”
“¡Ay Prima, tu eres como una vieja!”
“What?”
“An old lady, jou act like old lady,” Juanita said, shaking her head. “Jou worry, worry, worry and have no fun.”
“That’s not true!” Giselle protested. But when she really thought about it, it was absolutely true. She’d spent her whole life worried about everything—how she looked, how she acted, what people thought of her.
“Come,” Juanita said, walking to a nearby tree. She pulled a light jacket from her bag and let Giselle sit on it.
“Thanks,” Giselle said, feeling embarrassed and silly that she was being such a baby.
After they ate their hot dogs under the tree, they walked to the small pond to look at the rowboats and gondolas. As they walked, Juanita heard the faint sound of merengue in the distance.
“Listen,” she said, stopping in her tracks.
Brian and Giselle followed her as if she were a hound dog hot on the trail. She started to shake her hips the moment she found the small band of
young musicians.
“Vente, Prima,” she said to Giselle as she pulled her in to dance. Giselle pulled back and stiffened her body.
“No, no, no, I don’t know how.”
“I teach jou.”
“Yeah, like later, in my house. Not in front of all these people.”
“No more worry about people. Jou dance! Baila, Prima, baila!”
Juanita grabbed her cousin’s hands and moved her body to the rhythm.
“Uno, dos, tres, quarto. Uno, dos, tres, quatro,” Giselle moved her feet to Juanita’s count. Other than a homeless man dancing with his shopping cart, they were the only ones dancing. Giselle looked around at the people. Some were looking at them while others just did their own thing.
“Eh-stop looking dee people. Look to me!”
Giselle looked at her cousin’s smiling eyes.
“Muy bien, now shake dee hip.” Giselle loosened up and began to really feel the music. In that moment she didn’t care if she was doing it wrong or if she looked like a fool to anyone else. She was having fun, dancing in the park with her cousin.
Brian cut in and twirled his daughter around. He was shaking his hips side to side like a pro. Giselle was shocked. She’d had no idea he knew how to dance to this stuff.
“Your mother taught me,” he said with a smile, reading the look of confusion on her face.
Juanita clapped her hands and jumped up and down.
“Ay, que bueno, Tío Brian! Berry good, berry good!”
After they danced, Brian took his daughter in his arms and hugged her tighter than he had in a long time. Giselle clung to her father with an unexpected lump in her throat that she couldn’t swallow.
“I love you, Gigi,” he said, still holding on to her.
Giselle tried to say something, but instead she started to cry. Brian hugged her tighter.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Giselle cried even harder. They stayed like that for a while as people passed and curiously stared. It wasn’t cool or even proper to make such a dramatic scene in public. But neither of them cared. The music continued to play and Juanita stood nearby, too confused to shake her hips.
CHAPTER 13
Giselle washed her face in the sink of the public restroom. She looked at herself in the mirror—her makeup was rinsed away and her eyes were still red. Giselle smiled at her image. She had lipstick, mascara, and blusher in her Louis Vuitton bag but decided just to wipe her face with a paper towel and spend the rest of the day with a fresh, natural look. Juanita was standing by her side with a what-just-happened look on her face.
“Are jou okay?” she asked quietly.
“I’m great,” Giselle said with a smile. “I feel really good. Don’t worry, nothing is wrong. My dad and I just had…a moment, that’s all.”
They walked over to the tree where Brian was waiting and then made their way to the horse-drawn carriages on Fifth Avenue. Juanita was used to seeing horses trotting down dirt roads in her home town or lazily eating in her grandmother’s small stable. It was funny to see these beautiful animals in this big, busy city, surrounded by buildings and people in suits rushing past. They seemed out of place.
The three of them got in the carriage, Brian in the middle with the girls on either side wrapped around one of his arms.
“What’s the horse’s name?” Giselle asked the driver.
“Her name is whatever you want it to be while you’re riding,” he said, gesturing toward the horse so she could name her. “What’ll it be, pretty lady?
Giselle laughed. “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging.
“Come on,” he persisted. “Whatever word that’s on your mind.”
There were lots of words on Giselle’s mind—love, liberation, family, roots, joy.
“Merengue,” she finally said, doing her best to roll the Rs as Juanita had shown her. “Her name is Merengue.”
The next stop after Central Park was the Empire State Building. Before Juanita got on the elevator to the observation deck, she took a deep breath, crossed herself, and said a quick prayer.
“My moh-der and Tía Jackie were eh-stuck on an elebator when they first came to New Jork.”
“Really?” Giselle asked, wanting to hear more. “How long were they stuck?”
Juanita pulled at her ears, which were tingling from the elevator’s speed.
“Here,” Giselle said, giving Juanita a stick of gum. “That’ll help your ears pop.”
Juanita chewed the gum and told the story of their mothers stuck on an elevator. Giselle learned that her mother was the brave one of the two sisters. Juanita’s mother had cried the whole time, while Jackie had done everything she could to make her big sister calm. She had tried to make her laugh by singing a song to the elevator gods so that it would move again.
“Were there other people in the elevator?” Giselle gasped, surprised that her mother was that silly.
“Many.”
“She wasn’t embarrassed?”
The little story brought a smile to Brian’s face. “Your mother wasn’t easily embarrassed,” he said with a chuckle. “She never told me this story, but it sounds like something she would absolutely do.”
The elevator doors opened and they walked out onto the terrace of the observation deck.
Juanita put her hands on her face and said something to herself in Spanish. Giselle didn’t understand the words but understood exactly how her cousin felt. The two girls stood there looking at the city. Everywhere they turned, the view stretched out toward the horizon with endless possibilities. In that small moment the world seemed to open up for both of them. Juanita was a long way from dirt roads, pigpens, and cackling chickens. And although Giselle had seen this view before, she felt as if she were looking at it now with new eyes. Just like the buildings in the distance, things that had seemed so huge and important before now looked small and trifling. She was spending the day with her father, her cousin, and in a way, her mother, too. As she stood over a thousand feet in the air, she truly felt as if she were on top of the world. Juanita wrapped her arms around her cousin and for the first time Giselle didn’t mind.
The three of them walked around the city; ate soft, warm pretzels from carts with colorful umbrellas; went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and even took a helicopter ride over the city for twenty minutes. Brian had wanted to take them to see a Broadway musical, but the invitation for dinner with Juanita’s cousins was for seven o’clock.
They hailed a cab back to the parking garage and headed to the predominately Dominican neighborhood in upper Manhattan—Washington Heights.
A flood of memories came to Brian as they reached the neighborhood where his wife used to live before they were married. It had been years since the last time he was there, but it felt like only yesterday. He looked at the small details of the neighborhood as if they were old friends—the Dominican flags hanging over the streets, the Piragua man selling snow cones, the men—both young and old—playing dominoes in front of corner bodegas where he could buy sodas in flavors like coconut and pineapple.
They parked the car in another public garage and walked to the family’s apartment. There was Spanish music coming from open windows and cars. The streets were bustling with people laughing, speaking Spanish, and making wild hand gestures like Juanita.
“Rosita is our moh-der’s cousin from Abuelito’s family. She come ebry year to Dominican Republic,” Juanita said as they approached the apartment building.
“One-twenty-six,” Brian said, looking up at the number on the door. “Here it is.”
“Oh my!” Giselle said at the third level of stairs with two more flights to go. “I can’t believe there are no elevators in this place!”
The three of them climbed the long, narrow, and rickety stairs until they reached a door with a bad paint job. Juanita excitedly knocked on the door and when it opened there was an explosion of hugs, kisses, shouting, and laughing.
“¡Mira, que linda te ves, mi amor!” Rosi
ta said, cupping Juanita’s face with both hands, telling her how beautiful she looked.
“Gisellita,” she said, turning to Giselle. “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown! Ja una mujer,” she said, telling her she was already a woman. There were about fourteen people in the small apartment. Giselle must have spent a whole five minutes receiving hugs and kisses from people she’d never met; they all greeted her as if they’d known her all her life. Giselle was introduced to Rosita’s teenage daughters, Lisa, nineteen; Marisol, seventeen; and Evie, thirteen. They were like a cross between Giselle and Juanita. Two of them had their hair straight, while the oldest wore hers in long curls. Their clothes weren’t the designer outfits that Giselle had, but they looked more expensive and up to date than Juanita’s wardrobe. They all spoke perfect Spanish and perfect English.
Everyone in the room seemed to talk at the same time. They had to shout over each other and the merengue music to be heard. No wonder Juanita screams when she talks, Giselle thought. It definitely wasn’t the neat, orderly family function Giselle was used to, where everyone took their turn to speak. The scene was both nerve-racking and fun at the same time.
The pungent scent of the food in the kitchen danced around in each room. It smelled delicious. Giselle sat down with her father on a couch with intricately designed velvet fabric covered in a layer of plastic. Crunch, it went as she sat down. There were plants everywhere—hanging plants, plants on long stands, plants on different wooden furnishings. Some were real and some obviously fake. There was way too much furniture for the small apartment; a large wooden entertainment center with fancy carvings on the corners, an oval glass coffee table taking up too much space in the living room, bookcases, and the large couch with matching love seats. There were little porcelain figurines with tiny colorful ribbons glued to them. They were displayed anywhere that would hold the little communities of swans, elephants, baby booties, and umbrellas. Each ribbon had gold inscriptions marking various occasions—Marisol’s quinceañera, July 7, 2005; Leslie’s baby shower, January 27, 2000; Bernardo’s graduation, June 21, 1998. Over the couch was a painting just like Giselle’s, of Dominican farmers working in the field. Tío Ruben’s work apparently got around.
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