Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz

by Belinda Acosta

  “Look, they got a new Lupe!” Carmen whispered to her cousin, as they entered the church. As was tradition at the Guadalupe Mass, the celebrants laid roses at her feet.

  Carmen hurried to the front of the church just before the Mass began to make her offering. The new Guadalupe came from Chihuahua, carved from a tree trunk, lovingly buffed by hand, every crease and crevice anointed with mineral oil by a devoted wood carver. The base was three feet wide and still had the shape and appearance of a tree trunk, so La Virgen carved from it was literally emerging from the wood. As Carmen made her way back to her cousin, she looked among the faces for Esteban.

  “Tell me if you see my ’apá,” Carmen said, when she returned to the spot along the wall where she and Bianca were forced to stand because they were late. “This is one of his favorite Masses. He should be here, somewhere.”

  “What about your mom?” Bianca asked.

  “I don’t know. Who knows? You know how she is.”

  The perfume of roses drifted over them, and Bianca inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, I want to ask you something,” Carmen asked, breaking Bianca’s peaceful moment. “Will you be the madrina for the tiara?”

  “What? Why me?”

  “Because you’re not in the court, and I want you to be in the quinceañera, too, not just plan it.”

  “Shouldn’t that be for someone older, like your tía Beatriz or your mom? Moms usually bring in the tiara,” Bianca said, remembering that that was what was planned for her quinceañera that wasn’t.

  The music began to play, and the congregation stood to greet the procession led by the Guadalupanas, the most ancient viejitas in the congregation, whose job it was to keep the memory of La Lupe alive and help plan the Guadalupe Mass. They raised the money to buy the new Guadalupe statue. The three Knights of Columbus who drove to Chihuahua to pick her up and bring her to the church, just in time for the special Mass, followed them.

  “But I want you to do it,” Carmen whispered.

  “Does your mom know?”

  “Don’t worry about her.”

  (Ay, qué desgracia!) Bianca knew that Carmen was blinded by the idea that she was a good Catholic girl, but here she was, in church, her two faces side by side—honoring the celestial mother with one, while spitting on her earthly mother with the other. Bianca couldn’t stand it.

  “Carmen, don’t do that,” she pleaded.

  “Do what?”

  “You know!”

  “Know what?”

  “Don’t do her like that. It’s mean!”

  “She said I could design the ceremony however I want, and that’s what I want,” Carmen said, just before the priest invited the congregants to consider their sins in silent prayer.

  Maybe it was the weight of reverence for La Guadalupe all around her, the perfume of the roses, her stubborn cousin’s coldness, or maybe it was because of all of it, but Bianca, like Juan Diego, was struck with a deeply powerful understanding of what she had to do.

  The attendant who was betting against Bianca seeing her mother was up fifty dollars. His coworkers were annoyed. The easy solution would have been to stop betting, but they wanted Bianca to break through her fear, eager for un milagro that would reunite mother and child. In spite of what they had witnessed over and over, they continued betting with the attendant, hoping that Bianca would surprise them. Was that too much to ask, for one small sparkle of hope among so much daily despair? So, when Bianca made her way from her car and into the building at last, the attendants held their breath.

  “All right!” the attendant named Marie said, when she saw Bianca walking into the building.

  “Oh, hell no,” another attendant, Abel, said. “I have plans for my money.”

  “You’re awful,” Marie said.

  Bianca walked up to the desk qué timid. She carried her esqueche pad, a couple of the bags she’d made, and a pink rose. Bianca wanted to turn back, she wanted to run in the other direction, but just like Juan Diego facing the Bishop, she gathered up all her courage, all her determination, and walked to the main desk and stated her purpose.

  “May I see my mother?”

  “Of course,” Marie said. She didn’t have to ask who Bianca’s mother was. “Why don’t you go to that room over there and we’ll bring her out.”

  The room was much nicer than she remembered. Tall windows let in plenty of light, which in itself was comforting. There were other residents in the room. Some watched her every move, trying to decide if she looked familiar, while others played cards or stared out the window, or dozed upright in wingback chairs. Behind a glass wall, she could see a group of patients doing Tai Chi. The moves looked almost like a dance, and Bianca wondered if her mother, who loved to dance, had ever taken the class.

  Bianca’s father wanted her to visit her mother, but he didn’t want her to go alone. He wanted to be there. But Bianca thought the visits were more difficult when Marcos was around. Bianca thought it was because he was so desperate, but the truth was that she was the one who was desperate. She wanted her mother to come back, to be the woman she grew up with. She wanted her mother to be well again, but more important, Bianca didn’t want to be angry anymore. It was too exhausting.

  “Here she is,” Marie sang, when she brought Bianca’s mother into the common room. Teresa de la Torre was tiny and bien flaca, dressed in a powder-blue velour jogging suit. Her eyes were bright, her blond hair combed and held back with a yellow headband. A hint of lip gloss shone on her lips. It would be like my mother to be the best-dressed crazy person in the joint, Bianca thought.

  Teresa sat in front of Bianca and didn’t say a word.

  “Look who came to visit you,” Marie said. Abel had already bet on how long Bianca would stay and was anxious to make up for the money he’d lost.

  “I brought this for you,” Bianca said. Teresa looked at the rose, sniffed it, and then showed it to Marie.

  “It’s pretty,” Teresa said. “Isn’t it pretty?”

  “Oh, yes, very pretty,” she said. “Why don’t I take that? I have some of that powder you put in the vase to make it last longer. How’s that?” Pero, in reality, she wanted to check for thorns on the stems.

  “You can do that?” Teresa asked, as if this were some strange magic she’d never heard of.

  “Oh yes, don’t you worry,” Marie said.

  “But bring it back.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. I’ll bring it back. You visit with this lovely young lady here and I’ll take care of it.”

  Bianca and her mother sat. For once, Bianca had no words—or, it wasn’t that she didn’t have any. She had too many. Where would she start?

  “You still wear your hair that way, eh?” Teresa asked. The question surprised Bianca, and her chongo bobbed from side to side. “Ponytails never go out of style,” Teresa said. “Pretty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Just remember, you can’t always wear it like that. When you get old, you’ll have to wear it down, not like that, not like a teenager.”

  “I am a teenager.”

  “I know what you are,” Teresa snapped. “You look nice.”

  This mix of sweet and sour had been the first sign that something was wrong with Teresa. It was bien subtle at first. As a little girl, Bianca thought maybe her mother was playing a game she didn’t understand the rules to, but when she got older and her mother’s moods and words became more extreme, it was clear to everyone that something was horribly wrong with her. Bianca didn’t understand why it had taken so long for others to notice, until she realized that somehow her mother had managed to hide her strange behavior from everyone but Bianca. That only lasted a year, pero long enough to make Bianca worry that maybe there was something wrong with her instead of her mother.

  “You haven’t had sex yet, have you?” Teresa asked.

  Bianca was flustered, but she tried not to show it. A less direct version of this conversation was one she would have liked to have with her mother, l
ying on their stomachs on the big bed Teresa used to share with Marcos, late into the night.

  “Don’t have sex, and don’t do drugs. And don’t have kids. They change everything, the way you look, the way you think.” She saw Bianca’s esqueche pad leaning behind the chair she was sitting in. “What’s that?” Teresa asked. Bianca turned to see what her mother was looking at.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Let me see.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. It’s probably not something you’ll like,” Bianca said nervously.

  “Can I see and decide for myself?” Teresa said. Bianca slowly reached behind her and passed the pad to her mother. Teresa flipped it open and looked at the drawings one after the next. Then closed the pad with a slap.

  “These are good,” she said.

  “Really? You think so?”

  “What did I say?”

  Bianca smoothed her hair behind her ears.

  “I told your father he needed to bring you to see me. What took so long?” Teresa asked.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy? Busy with what?”

  “School. And this. These are the dresses for Carmen’s quinceañera.”

  “He used to come. Now he just calls.”

  “He’s been traveling,” Bianca explained.

  “That’s what he said,” Teresa said suspiciously.

  “It’s true. He’s been gone a lot. Even I don’t see much of him.”

  “You’re still my little girl,” Teresa said. “You should come see me. More.”

  “I know, Mami.”

  “Give me a pencil.”

  Bianca found a pencil in her bag and gave it to her mother.

  “Not this one, a good pencil. Like the ones you use.”

  Bianca dug in her bag for the pouch of drawing pencils she always carried, and as she was doing that, Teresa opened the esqueche pad she’d just looked at and began to tear out the sheets. Bianca lurched toward her mother.

  “No! Mami, don’t do that!”

  “These are good, but didn’t we decide on formals for your quinceañera?” Teresa asked, as she tore page after page from the pad. “These are for spring. Your birthday is in the fall, or the winter. When is it?”

  “These aren’t for my quince,” Bianca explained. “Stop it, okay?”

  “When is your birthday?”

  “February!”

  “And these colors. These are spring colors. You can’t have spring colors at a winter quinceañera. And where are the muffs? Remember, we talked about muffs instead of gloves for the girls? Fur muffs, faux fur muffs, dyed to match the dresses. I don’t see any of that here!”

  “Mami! These aren’t for my quinceañera! Stop! Please stop!” Bianca finally snatched the pad from her mother, who looked at her with surprise.

  “Why not?” Teresa asked, as if they were having a regular, everyday talk. “Why aren’t these for your quinceañera?”

  “Because that was two years ago, remember? I was going to have one but …” Bianca picked up the sheets of paper before her mother could do any more damage.

  “Before I came to this place,” Teresa said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you bring this?”

  “I thought you might like to see what I am doing,” Bianca said. Her voice was trembling. “And these bags—see these bags? I made them from my own designs, just like you told me I could one day. You said I could one day, and now ‘one day’ is today. You used to like to see what I drew. You used to like my ideas.” Bianca could feel herself falling apart, but something stronger inside fought against her desire to turn and run out.

  “Nice,” Teresa said. “Where’s my flower! That woman stole my flower!”

  “I have your flower,” Marie said, walking back into the common room, looking at the paper still on the floor. “Don’t worry about your flower. It’s right here.” Marie set the flower on the table next to Teresa. “How are we doing, Mrs. De la Torre? Are you doing okay?” She was looking at Bianca, who was winded from picking up all the paper.

  “We’re fine,” Teresa said. “Except my daughter doesn’t want me to help with her quinceañera. What do you think about that?”

  “Her what?” Marie asked.

  “Her quinceañera! If you knew anything, you would know what that is. How long have you lived in this country?”

  “It’s like a coming-out party, isn’t it?”

  “You could say that, and stop talking to me like I’m stupid,” Teresa barked. “I’m not stupid. You talk to me like my husband.”

  “Well, if you say so,” Marie said. “Look at the mess you made. I don’t think your daughter needs this kind of help.”

  “I’m not having a quinceañera,” Bianca tried to explain. “These are for Carmen, Mami.”

  “Who?” Teresa asked.

  “Carmen.”

  “Carmen? Ana and Esteban’s girl? She’s not that old. She can’t be that old. If she were that old then that would mean—” Teresa began to remember the quinceañera that wasn’t and the years that had passed since then, the years she had lost. She looked at Bianca with sad, wet eyes. “I can fix it. I need to fix it,” Teresa said.

  “Fix what?” Bianca asked.

  “Your dress. Where is it? I can fix it.” Teresa stood up and began to look around the room frantically. “I can fix it! I can fix it! Bring it here and I can fix it.”

  “It’s not here,” Bianca said. “There’s nothing to fix.”

  “I can fix it! I can fix it!”

  Marie was getting ready for the worst.

  “Maybe we need to go back to your room now,” she said.

  “I can fix it! I can fix it!”

  “No, Mami. The dress isn’t here. It’s gone. This quinceañera is for Carmen!” Bianca said as loudly as she could without screaming.

  “Oh—I ruined everything, didn’t I?”

  “It’s okay, Mami.”

  “No, it’s not,” Teresa said. She only remembered flashes of the quinceañera that wasn’t. Most of it was snow, and the rest she wanted to believe hadn’t happened at all but was someone else’s nightmare.

  “I bet you think I’m a bad mother,” Teresa said, staring hard at Bianca. “I’m not a bad mother, I do bad things. I don’t mean to, but sometimes I do. I’m not bad.”

  “You’re not bad,” Bianca said.

  “It was nice to see you. I hope you will come back again,” Teresa said. “Will you come back again? You should come back again. I like my flower. It’s pretty, like you.”

  Abel, the attendant who had been betting against Bianca, snorted from behind the main desk.

  “That’s it. She’s outta here.”

  “Shut up!” Marie said. Another attendant took Teresa back to her room, and when they were alone, Marie turned to Bianca. “Are you okay?”

  “Well,” Bianca said. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  “So, we’ll see you soon?” Marie asked.

  “Yes, you’ll see me soon.”

  “Pay up,” Marie told Abel, as Bianca left the building.

  TWENTY

  Wouldn’t you know, Carmen was finally getting excited about her quinceañera, but did she share any of that with her mother? And the truth was, it wasn’t the quinceañera as much as it was seeing El Rey. She mostly saw him at Diego’s band practice, where her brother could feel like he was keeping an eye on her. And she was real careful to make it look like all their meetings were hands off—todo “he’s just a friend.” And he was a better friend than Carmen knew.

  The night he picked her up to take her to the Montalvo pachanga was the night he figured out that the quince in quinceañera meant fifteen, meaning Carmen was only fourteen. At seventeen, Rey thought that those numbers only added up to trouble. The band didn’t seem to be going anywhere, but he liked the boys, he liked—how they say?—hanging out, and he liked having a group he could call his friends, even if they treated him like an outsider, which he was. But he could sure play, and he liked sho
wing off his skills to an appreciative audience. And if Mr. Castañeda was a sample of the fathers he would meet among the girls he met so far, he knew that he better keep his hands to himself for a good, long time. He sure thought Carmen was cute. But even El Rey was not stupid enough to get into a situation that would end his life.

  The week before the quinceañera, Ana thought everything was going good. At work, things were going well, too. Everyone was thrilled about the chance of Montalvo joining the faculty. A writer for the weekly newspaper even had something to say about it, printing a long story on Montalvo’s work and featuring the handsome artist’s photo on the front page. Everything seemed destined to work out.

  The Saturday before the quinceañera, Ana was shopping for dresses with Beatriz. She still needed something special for the quinceañera, and she needed some advice.

  “I set up the girls at the nail place,” Beatriz said. “They’re all giggly and happy, drinking their fizzy water out of plastic cups, así.” Beatriz posed with her pinky in the air, her eyes staring toward the sky.

  “Thanks so much for doing that,” Ana said.

  “Of course! De nada.”

  This was the part of the quinceañera Ana loved. Not the dressing up or the primping, the shopping, or the planning, or the booking of this or that. It was finding out who your family was.

  “So, did you do all this stuff for your quinceañera?” Ana asked.

  “Are you kidding? My mom gave me a ten-dollar perm, my makeup was from the drugstore, and I had press-on nails.”

  “But it was special? I know you joke about it, but it was special to you and your mom?”