Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz

by Belinda Acosta

  “Ay, mujer,” Beatriz said. “So, how did your meeting with him go last week?”

  Ana bit her lip and looked out the large window down toward the clusters of girls and their mothers leaving the quinceañera fair. They each had a white shopping bag, thanks to Your Quince magazine, filled with souvenirs, fliers, y otras cosas from the fair. A skinny girl had her spindly arms wrapped around her mother’s thick shoulders—the woman in the purple housedress who had been giving them the mal de ojo earlier. The girl gave her mother un besito on the cheek, and the woman wrapped her flabby arm around her niñita, pulling her in close so her girl’s face rested against hers, petting her daughter’s other cheek with her fat palm. Even though the girl had to crumple down to receive her mother’s affection, she walked with her, cheek to cheek, like she was supposed to be there, like she wanted to be there, like there was no better place for her to be. Ana felt that pang, as small and sharp as a paper cut on her heart, and looked away.

  “We’re going to try again this week,” she said. “We still have a lot of financial business to sort out. He’s just—and I’ve been so busy at work. You know. How do you and Larry do it? How have you lasted all these years?”

  “Bourbon,” Beatriz said.

  The truth was Beatriz Sánchez and Larry Milligan were completamente loco about each other. They both thought finding each other was like winning the lottery. So not to invite bad luck, they told old ball-and-chain jokes about each another. But deep in the secret folds of their hearts, they still truly, deeply, madly loved each other after all these years.

  “You guys don’t even fight,” Ana said.

  “We fight,” Beatriz said. “But never about the big things. Somehow, we always agree on the big things.”

  Beatriz wished she could tell Ana what the secret was, she wished she had a magic formula to offer, but it was simple. It was Beatriz + Larry 4-ever, just like it was when they first met at the University of Michigan.

  “Ay, ’manita,” Beatriz said, as Bianca and Carmen came toward them. Carmen had a large soda, and Bianca carried a fistful of fliers, her sketchbook, and one of the white Your Quince magazine shopping bags on her arm. Bianca was chattering as they walked up.

  “What do you mean you’re ready to leave? I’m not ready to leave. Are you ready to leave, Tía?” Bianca asked.

  “Say hello to mi comadre,” Ana said.

  “Hola,” the girls said in unison.

  “There’s still one more fashion show. Can’t we stay for that?”

  “Why? You don’t like anything,” Carmen said.

  “I get ideas. I’ve gotten lots and lots of ideas, just from walking around and watching everything. Come on, there are still some good seats in the front.”

  “How lovely to see you!” Beatriz sang as she lifted the soda from Carmen’s hand. “Thank you mi’jita.” She handed the drink to Ana along with the aspirin, urging her to take it. Carmen stared at Bianca with her mouth open. Pero Bianca was no tonta. She knew when she was out of her league. She looked back at Carmen with an expression that said, You’re on your own, esa.

  “I would love to join you,” Beatriz said, “but I have to run. See you later?”

  Ana looked at Beatriz blankly.

  “The barbecue at the president’s house? For Montalvo?”

  “I thought that was next weekend.”

  Ana was lying. She had no plans to go to the barbecue and had done everything she could to avoid Montalvo all week. Thankfully, his studio was in a warehouse across campus, not in her building, like most of the others. She was still embarrassed about how he found her that day in the office, how she pierced him with her sharp words, and how she choked with dread afterward. Ana was hoping that if enough time passed, he would forget about it and forget about her.

  “You should come. Really, you should come,” Beatriz said, looking at her watch. “Ya me voy. I’m late already.”

  Beatriz took the soda from Ana and gave it back to Carmen. Then she raised herself up to her full four feet, eleven and three-quarters inches, and leaned in close to Carmen. She wanted to make sure that the girl caught her meaning.

  “It’s so sweet your mother brought you to this. I can’t wait to see what you all pull together. I’m sure it will be wonderful.” Beatriz smiled, and Carmen had no choice but to smile back. To tell you the truth, she liked Beatriz, but la mujer could make the hairs stand on her neck with a wink. Beatriz gave Ana un abrazo goodbye and did the same with the girls and was gone as quickly as she had appeared. That Beatriz. Just like Glenda, the Good Witch, except that she came and went like the Wicked Witch of the West: with a bang.

  “There’s still so much to see!” Bianca said.

  “You know what? I have a headache,” Ana said. “You two go ahead and I’ll wait for you out here.” Ana sat down again and Carmen plopped herself down, far enough away so that someone passing by would not think they knew each other. Having them seated in front of her inspired Bianca. She’d been cooking up her plan all week, and being at the fair made her more sure of herself.

  “We don’t have to go back in there. Oye, so first, we rent a nice place. And I’m thinking Carmen enters in a cloud of smoke under an arch made of white feathers, and then more feathers fall from the sky like little kisses …”

  “Goose feathers?” Carmen asked.

  “White feathers.”

  “I’m allergic.”

  “You’re allergic to white?”

  “No, to feathers, like the ones in ’Buelita’s pillows.”

  “Okay, no feathers.”

  “But I like feathers. Maybe if the feathers are dyed green or blue, or glow in the dark! Can they dye them glow-in-the-dark like the rosaries we got at confirmation?” Carmen smirked.

  “Okay! No feathers!” Bianca said, working hard not to let Carmen get on her nerves. “So, if no feathers, what?”

  “Glitter?”

  “No, you’ll be washing it off for weeks, and if you inhale it, it’s worse than the feathers.”

  “Then, how about Ping-Pong balls?”

  “Shut up.”

  “They won’t go up anyone’s nose.”

  Bianca would not let her cousin win. She pushed on, describing a quinceañera that sounded like a cross between a Las Vegas floor show and Disney on Parade. Ana could feel the aspirin burning a hole in her stomach. She hadn’t eaten, so taking the aspirin was a bad idea. When Bianca got to the part with live doves and white horses, Ana knew she had to speak.

  “Bianca! Who do you think is going to pay for this big production you have in mind?”

  “All of us,” Bianca said. “It’s supposed to be a family thing, right? My dad will help. Just tell him what you need, and you can have padrinos y madrinas para this and that, and I’ll help organize the whole thing. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Coraje! Ana thought. It’s not that she didn’t want the family involved, but since everyone had something to say about the separation, she was not looking forward to making phone calls and hearing remarks on her life:

  Pray to La Lupe every day, mujer …

  I know a curandera who can work miracles …

  Get a makeover, girl!

  What did you do?

  And then, from her brother Marcos:

  Get over it!

  “Ok, I’ll make the phone calls,” Bianca said, as if reading Ana’s mind. “I can do it! Really!” She looked at her cousin to jump in, but Carmen was more interested in her soda, mashing the ice at the bottom of the cup with the straw. Bianca plopped herself between the two and became very calm. Ana could hear the gears cranking in Bianca’s head. Finally, Bianca reached into her white shopping bag and pulled out a copy of Your Quince magazine. She slowly turned the pages until she found what she was looking for.

  “Look what it says here,” she said. “‘You and Your Father on Your Special Day.’” Carmen leaned in as Bianca read from the two-page spread with a big photo of a quince dancing with an older man in a tux.

/>   “‘Your father deserves some recognition, too. This is best accomplished during the quinceañera waltz …’”

  Ándale. Dale gas, girl, Ana thought.

  By the way Carmen was listening, Ana could see that Bianca had found the magic words. It made her heart swell, but she was a little sad, too. She had wanted this to be an event they planned, a way for them to grow close again, not another way for Carmen to be Daddy’s Girl.

  Carmen kept her eyes on the magazine as Bianca read some more. Ana could see Carmen had her own ideas cranking, también. All she wanted was for her ’apá to come back home. If it meant getting all made up and going through a big party to do it, why not? She hadn’t thought about her parents as a couple, the way she thought of movie stars or even kids in school, full of romance and gooey stares. She’d never even seen them hold hands. The only thing she knew was that her father being gone felt like the sun had gone black and the moon had fallen from the sky. It was just not the way the world should be. Maybe the quinceañera dance would be where they came to their senses, where they would forget whatever stupid thing had split them apart and come back together again. Maybe there would be a second wedding! Now that, Carmen thought, she would like to be a part of. Maybe the quinceañera was a warmup to that. It was worth a shot. And besides, some of the dresses she saw were pretty, no matter what Bianca said.

  Carmen snorted when Bianca got to the part where the father helps the quince change from her flats to a pair of high heels. “I’m not doing that! I’ll wear flip-flops.”

  “Flip-flops!” Bianca shouted. “Be serious, Carmen.”

  “I am!”

  Ana had had enough. She sat up and turned to Carmen.

  “Look,” she said, getting herself ready for a fight. “If you don’t want to do this, we won’t do this. There’s no point in spending time and money on something you’re not interested in. So just tell me now, do you want a quinceañera or not?”

  Carmen didn’t want to show it, but she was excited. She wondered if there were other ways to make her father’s part in the quinceañera bigger.

  “Okay,” Carmen said meekly.

  “Yes!” Bianca said, pumping her fist in the air and jumping to her feet to face Ana and Carmen. “So, it’s settled. Carmen is having a quinceañera! And I am the official quinceañera planner pa’ todo!” Ana glared at Bianca, and even Carmen shot her a mal de ojo.

  “Okay! Okay! I’ll be the assistant quinceañera planner, but I’m in charge of the damas and the dresses. And the chambelanes. And the tuxes. I can be in charge of the tuxes, can’t I?”

  Ana closed her eyes and leaned back against the sill again. The spot in her belly felt like it was glowing.

  NINE

  Ana’s Monday was wall-to-wall meetings, each worse than the one before it. A hiring meeting, a tenure meeting, a budget meeting, a meeting to discuss space (always a touchy subject), and another meeting to discuss why there were so many meetings. By three o’clock, Ana was starving. As she walked back to her office, she decided to send Cynthia out for a snack so she could sit in her office with her calendar and calculator and go over the fliers and business cards she got at the quinceañera fair. She needed a plan. Bianca could call herself whatever she wanted, but Ana knew she was the one to make sure it came off without too much drama—or expense. But when Ana returned to her office, she found Cynthia waiting for her with her purse on her arm and her car keys in hand.

  “Oh, thank goodness! Here.” Cynthia handed Ana a thick folder and headed for the door. “My appointment is in twenty minutes.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry!” Ana had forgotten that she’d told Cynthia she could leave early. “I should have told you to go ahead and leave even if I wasn’t here. Go, go! But what’s this?” Ana asked, looking at the folder.

  “Some documents the president’s office sent over. They need Montalvo’s signature by five o’clock today. I would take them, but I really, really have to go.”

  “That’s okay. Mocte can go—”

  “He’s not here today, ma’am. I was here by myself and I didn’t think I should leave. I thought you would be back earlier …”

  “Oh, no. Cynthia—could you please take care of this? I really, really can’t—” Ana stopped talking when she saw Cynthia’s confused look and took a U-turn. “No. You know what? You go ahead. It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. This seamstress is going to make our trajes for Las Florecitas Fuertes. We’ve been waiting for months to get on her schedule. I couldn’t cancel.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ana said as her stomach twisted into a knot. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Ana had to drive to the far end of campus to find Montalvo’s studio. He was the only artist to have a building all to himself, a request she thought the dean would not give. Instead, he called in several favors and turned the campus upside down to find a space that met Montalvo’s needs: a barn-sized A-frame building with exposed crossbeams. The building was scheduled for demolition but had kept mowers and other machines and was a meeting place for maintenance workers. Because of the visiting artist, the maintenance crew had been split up and moved to spots across campus, making Montalvo the talk of many coffee breaks.

  When Ana stepped into the building, it took her eyes a while to adjust to the shadows of the warehouse. A small group of students stood at the far corner of the space, looking up into a dark corner of the ceiling. At first she thought they were staring out the large windows, which let the sunlight spill over them. But that wasn’t it. What were they looking at? She couldn’t see. As Ana got closer to the group, she noticed how quiet they were, and as she got even closer, she could hear her heels clicking on the cement, like she’d walked into a church during prayer. She began to walk on her tiptoes. Ana could hear Montalvo’s voice, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. She turned around, thinking he might be behind her. When she didn’t see him, she turned back to the students, confused, before she heard a screech and rattle, and she finally saw what the students were captured by: Montalvo was hanging over them in a harness. As he lowered himself he came into the light, looking like a large spider slowly twisting in the air. Wide leather straps were cinched around his waist, thighs, and buttocks, and a large pulley hung just over his head, threaded with the thick rope he used to control the speed of his fall. He let the rope glide between his leather gloved hands, lowering himself quickly to the ground but landing with a light tap. The students reared back and aahed.

  “It’s very easy when you understand how it works,” Montalvo said. “So, if you do not like heights and the feeling of freedom, you might not want to do this, but I think you are all adventurous, yes?” The young women in the group giggled. “Upper-body strength is helpful, but this is designed in such a way that you do not have to be, how do you say … ?” Montalvo took a weight lifter’s pose, and several of the girls said together:

  “Strong.”

  The one girl who said “sexy” made all heads turn toward her, and she sank into a puddle. The young men sized each other up like they were in gym class. Montalvo began to hoist himself up again, and Ana noticed the ripple in his forearms and the thicker muscles under his T-shirt. Sweat had made his T-shirt damp so the cotton clung to him, showing the outline of his chest and his hard, chocolate-brown nipples. (Ay, madre santa!) He stopped talking when Ana’s cell phone chirped loudly. She didn’t have to look at it to know it was Bianca. All eyes turned to look at her. She winced and held up the folder.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I have some paperwork for you.”

  “If you want to leave it over there, I will look at it when the class is finished,” Montalvo said. Ana couldn’t tell if there was coldness in his voice or if he was sharing information, nada más.

  “Yes, but I have to get your signature before the end of the day. I’ll wait over here.” She moved away from the students to a small meeting area that had been set up near a drafting table. Her phone chirped again, and she turned it off
as she walked away from the class. She stopped near the drafting table and, seeing the plans for Montalvo’s next project, remembered why he needed the large space. He was a sculptor who made large-scale fiberglass pieces famous for their bright colors and—how they say—muscular, undulating curves. He favored images of men and animals, and one lavish piece featured two Ballet Folklorico dancers in mid-twirl, the woman’s skirt billowing proudly and the powerful, trim body of the male dancer slightly arched over her, his hand lightly touching hers as he guided her turn. (Hermoso!) Ana forgot that this was one of Montalvo’s works. She first saw it in a book and marveled at how she thought it captured power and grace. She would have been bien wowed if she’d seen the piece in person, it standing two stories tall. The piece had traveled all over the world, and Ana wondered what they thought of it in Prague, London, Berlin, and Rome, places she wanted to see someday.

  A swell of laughter and applause let Ana know that the class was over. The students milled about, talking to each other. While Montalvo unhitched himself from the harness, Ana wondered if she should go over to him or keep waiting where she was. She pulled at the sleeves of her blouse, straightened her collar, ran her hands through her hair, and finally leaned against a table, trying to look aquí estoy y nada más. She suddenly felt goofy and stood up again. When she did, a splinter from the old table caught the back of her skirt. She felt a tug at her backside and then a small snap of thread.

  Crap! she thought, looking at the small pucker on the back of her skirt. She was pulling at the fabric when she could feel that someone was standing near her. And when she turned around, there he was, toweling off his arms, sweat glistening on his face and neck.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “No te preocupes,” Ana said. Her voice was down to business. But inside, the híjoles were jumping all over because even though he was todo sweaty, el hombre was still bien good-looking.

  “I hope you did not ruin your skirt.”