Follow the Sun

by Sophia Rhodes

  “Some of those people I saw on Saturday didn’t look like they’d ever worn a skirt in their life,” I laughed.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard some of them say that being queer is the same as being colored.”

  “Do you think that’s true?” I wondered.

  She shrugged. “Does it matter what I think?”

  ”It matters to me.”

  “Make up your own mind, Diana,” she yawned. “Queers get enough hard knocks in life too. All’s I know is that if my life depended on it, I could put on a dress and try to act straight, but nobody can wash the brown out of my skin.”

  She sat up and took a long look at me. “If I ask you Who are you, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you a woman? An American? A student? What comes first?”

  It was a good question. Never had I reflected on how I identified myself. “I guess…I’m a woman. What about you? Are you Chicano first? Or queer?”

  She grinned. “An artist. My music always comes first.” Slapping her hands together decisively, she grabbed her guitar and motioned toward the outside. “Vamonos. I’ve got lots to show you.”

  Through the evening the festivities got underway. The sounds of cheerful, tipsy voices mixed with the neighing of horses, clucking of chickens and the odd hoot of a distant owl to produce a cacophony of celebration enhanced only by the crackling of wood splintering under the heat of a giant bonfire. Women baked bread in outdoor wood-burning stoves and grilled tortillas on bubbling griddles, giving rise to a mouthwatering aroma that made my stomach churn in anticipation.

  I sat on a long bench in front of the fire and ate a plateful of nearly-black kidney beans, fleshy and covered in a delicious sauce, along with a crisp chicken leg and a ladleful of brown rice. Fat, delicious tomatoes flanked the meal and I devoured them while savoring the fragrance of sun that lingered on their skin. Rosario, who had been catching up with friends for the last hour, finally reemerged to press a bottle of Corona in my hand and sit next to me, her thigh pressing into my own.

  The old woman sitting next to her glanced at Rosario’s guitar and her face broke into a wizened smile. “Cantará para nosotros?”

  Rosario obliged by balancing the guitar on her knee while she began to strum some gentle chords that I recognized as Doris Day’s Que Sera, Sera. When I went to look at her, her wink told me that she was playing it for me. I remembered her telling me the day we first met at Pierce College that I should hear it in Spanish. It actually did sound better, more natural since the chorus lines were already that way, but the fact that Rosario was playing it may have had a lot to do with it.

  We slept like logs that night, with Rosario and Juanita sharing one of the two makeshift beds in our tent, while my dubious role as the lone gringa guest ensured that I would receive the luxury of the other straw mattress. I tried not to show any trace of the jealousy I felt for Juanita, although a teensy part of me was secretly thankful for not being that close to Rosario. I couldn’t imagine the thoughts and wild fantasies that might have been triggered in me if her body had been that close to mine. Could I have stopped myself from reaching for her in the night? Better that temptation keeps well away from me, I cautioned myself.

  Neither the howling of wild dogs nor the screech of owls could have dragged me out of the crudely-assembled bed I would call my own over the next three nights. Just before dawn I awoke long enough to tiptoe across the yard to the wooden outhouses that lined the entrance to the orchard, and afterwards slipped back under my horsehair blanket and slept until the sounds of flapping chickens and crying babies invaded my consciousness.

  I was alone in the tent, having obviously slept through most of the morning. When I finally awoke sometime after ten, I wasted no time in changing into a pale blue knee-length dress with bunched sleeves and soft rounded collars. Little white kittens were embroidered along the full-skirted hemline. The wedding was today and I wanted to fit in as everyone wore their Sunday best.

  Juanita came to get me and we went to help the other women with the final arrangements of flowers and chairs. There must have been close to two hundred people there, greeting and kissing the bride and groom, who in turn stood dressed in white, both looking very young and rather awkward.

  Despite the informal setting, a simple carved gazebo intertwined with lovely little white flowers, the wedding itself was a rather elaborate and exhausting affair. Several rituals had to be followed to ensure the couple’s healthy and prosperous future, but the one that stood out most for me was when a white ribbon called a lasso was tied around their necks, ensuring the two would be bound together forever.

  When the ceremony ended, the newlyweds went on to have their first dance, serenaded by the moving voice of an old ranchero. Everyone moved to hold hands, forming a heart shape around the newlyweds. Relatives took turns waltzing with the bride and groom, pinning money onto their clothing. After the money dance, the bride stood up on a chair while a line of unmarried young women gathered around her. A cheery children’s song marked the pace as the maidens traipsed along, holding onto each others’ waists. When the music stopped, the bride threw her bouquet over her shoulder and the lucky girl who caught it, a short sixteen-year-old with frizzy hair, squealed with excitement.

  The rest of the day was dedicated to festivities – food was the central motif, with a line of a dozen women busily handing out plates laden with steaming meats, potatoes, rice, tacos and fresh tortillas.

  Lovely romantic songs of unrequited love were belted out with gusto by old men who yielded marvelous control over their painted guitars, transforming them into extensions of their own sentiments. They alternated with joyful, fast songs that brought the guests to their feet and pushed them onto the open field that substituted for a banquet hall dance floor.

  “You going to dance, Diana?” Rosario asked as she passed by and saw me sitting on my own next to an unfinished serving of rum cake.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, feeling quite full. “More likely I’m ready for a siesta.”

  She motioned over my head and Luis materialized out of nowhere, his wayward grin impeccably in place.

  “Luis, why don’t you dance with Diana the next one? I’ll play something that’ll really get you moving.” She cut me off before I could protest. “You’re in good hands, chiquita. Luis will keep his hands off you if I tell him to behave.”

  To this, Luis feigned a sad pout, then brightened up again as Rosario disappeared, only to emerge on stage moments later and confer with the other singers. To my chagrin, he dragged me to my feet. “Diana, sweetheart, she’s playing this for you – you have to dance!”

  With an exaggerated sigh, I let him lead me out to where the other dancing couples stood waiting for the next song. We watched Rosario slip the guitar strap over her head and open with an energetic flurry of chords. People cheered as they began gyrating to what was obviously a very familiar tune.

  “Venga,” Luis grinned, pulling me forward. “You’ll see, it’s easy: just put your feet like this. This is an old traditional wedding song,” he said as he spun me around. “We play it at every wedding and parties too.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It just means to dance fast,” he grinned. “Arriba y arriba! It don’t mean that much since every time it’s played, it changes a little.”

  “Slow down, you’re going to break my neck,” I frowned to him and he laughed.

  The quickly-sang words weaved around like the pattern of dancers’ feet on the ground. The lyrics weren’t simply repeated, but had a whimsical nature as the order changed after each set of chorus lines. I had a feeling Rosario was making up the order as she went along, but the amazing thing was that the other rancheros behind her seemed to expect this and followed her lead without missing a beat.

  When the song ended, I clapped until my palms burned. As Rosario came back to us flushed and smiling, I gushed. “I loved it, never heard anything like
that before.”

  “Glad you liked it, La Bamba is one of my favorite songs,” she replied cheerfully. “It’s a couple hundred years old, at least.”

  She would sing several other times through the afternoon, her hands flying over the strings of her old guitar. I basked in the glow of her happiness, for happy she was in her element, enormously happy as she played on that crudely-improvised platform and made all those people in front of her dance.

  As I stared at her with adoration, something else momentarily caught my eye and drew my attention to a nearby table, where an attractive young woman was also looking up at Rosario with an intensity burning in her gaze, and I instantly knew this was the Carmen that Juanita had spoken of. Before I could look away, the woman’s face turned toward me sharply and we locked eyes. There was no mistaking the look reflected there, as I had seen it in my own mother’s face: blazing, unadulterated hatred.

  CHAPTER TEN

  On our first night at the camp I hadn’t made anything of it, except to notice a shadow passing over Rosario’s face at the mention of Carmen’s name. Soon after being told of the woman’s presence, she had excused herself and did not return for a long time. When she did, her face was flushed and I could sense that something was amiss although she did her best to cover it up.

  There had to be history between them, of the kind that doesn’t make itself known in plain sight. I furtively studied Carmen – she looked to be about twenty-five, with long, lustrous black hair, large dark eyes and ruby red lips that she kept licking absentmindedly. A mole punctuated the side of an overly-generous mouth. Her body was toned and curvaceous, wrapped in a simple sleeveless dress with red polka dots, and she had long, lean legs that seemed to go on forever. Radiating a raw, animal sensuality, she was the kind of woman that made me look like a little girl.

  She must have felt my eyes in the back of her neck, because when she turned her head suddenly, an expression of annoyance took hold of her face. I shifted my gaze, but not before she stared straight at me, attempting to stare me down. Her pretty face belied the look she threw at me – one of downright scorn mixed with a healthy dollop of anger. I stuck my hands between my knees and kept my head down until she finally looked away. The small hairs on my neck stood up like a cat’s, and I just knew that running into Carmen in a dark alley would not be a good idea.

  As Rosario stepped off the stage, Carmen stood and walked over to her, smoothing her dress. She touched her arm and whispered something that made Rosario nod, put down her guitar and start walking alongside Carmen away from the banquet. I followed them with my eyes until they headed past the parked camper trailers and vanished from sight.

  Jealousy hit my chest like a load of bricks. Who was she? Was she Rosario’s girlfriend? And why on earth would I feel envious of Carmen? How could I ever compete with a woman like that?

  “Hey,” I waved to Luis and he rambled over to me, a new bottle in hand.

  “Whassup, mamacita?”

  I gestured toward their departing backs. “Who’s Carmen?”

  He laughed and took a gulp. “Bet you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Then why’d you call me over to ask?”

  He had a point. I swallowed and said nothing.

  “Come on Diana, ‘s okay,” he said. “If you really wanna know, Carmen had a thing with Rosario last year. They had a fling behind her husband’s back but everybody knew about it. Not like you can keep that sorta thing a secret in the campos.” He snickered. “I wasn’t the only one surprised that he didn’t kill them both when he found out.”

  “What happened?” I asked, my eyes widening.

  Luis crashed into the empty chair next to me. “Miguel walked in on them when they were out in the field. He went crazy, got in a fistfight with Rosario and it took five men to keep him from beating Carmen to death. Then he got drunker than I’d ever seen him before – and let me tell you, that man could drink anybody under the table – got on his bike and roared outta here in the middle of the night. I thought he’d ride off a cliff or come back with a shotgun. Someone tried to follow, but he’d vanished by then.”

  “Did he ever come back?”

  “No, but couple months later, some lawyer feller from town came here and made Carmen sign some papers for divorce on account of her being a pinche puta, and she had no choice but do that or he was going to write her family in Oaxaca and tell them she slept with a woman.”

  “How terrible.”

  “It was. I remember when Rosario asked Carmen to come to Pacoima with her. But you know what? She didn’t want to. Everybody thought she would – she had a hard time here, with people saying shit behind her back and laughing at her, but she just couldn’t see herself living that kind of life. You know, with a woman.”

  “But she chose to get involved with a woman…”

  “Oh, but just for a little fun in the sack, chiquita, nothing serious… and she thought nobody would find ever out. When it got out in the open, she lost it and wanted nothing to do with Rosario. She blamed her for leading her astray.” Luis laughed derisively. “Like you can sneak under someone’s skirt without them agreeing to it.”

  “Why is she still here?” I asked, trying to ignore Luis’ dirty leer as his imagination led him to envision reaching under Carmen’s skirt.

  “Well, after she broke it off with Rosario she went to pick cotton for a while up north and only came back here last month to do sorting and packing for the harvest. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her, walking around like nothing happened. But she has a couple of friends here and the pay’s pretty good.”

  Luis’ tale had my head spinning. If Carmen had been the one who broke things off with Rosario, why did she touch her arm so possessively? Why did she give me that fierce look of contempt? She couldn’t possibly see me as competition, could she?

  I sat back and sipped my soda pop with a straw, trying not to laugh as Luis approached half a dozen girls and incurred stern glances from suspicious fathers. Rosario returned after an hour. When I saw her walking back from the hills, alone this time, I jumped from the table and raced back toward the tents to block her path just as she was about to go inside. “Hi,” I said cheerily.

  She looked at me as if I was mad. “Yes, Diana,” she said as she pushed aside the flap and went inside.

  I followed her into the tent, blinking to adjust to the low light. “Where were you all this time? I was looking for you.”

  “Just having a chat with an old friend,” she said abruptly, bending over her bag to search for something. “Give me a minute, will ya?”

  I sat back on my heels and crossed my arms. “Is Carmen your girlfriend?” I asked bluntly.

  My question made her pause in mid-track. She straightened and turned around slowly. “How do you know about Carmen?”

  I cocked my head. ”I asked around.”

  “You asked around…” she repeated, her voice trailing off. Then she frowned. “What do you mean by that? Who did you ask?”

  I hadn’t expected her to confront me like this. My brashness evaporated in an instant.“ Luis told me,” I said sheepishly.

  “Diana, with all due respect, this is none of your business,” she snapped.

  Bristling, I defended myself. “I thought you said you didn’t have a girlfriend…”

  Her eyes flashed in anger. “What? Whether I’m with somebody or not doesn’t concern you. But since you’re so keen on knowing – no, she’s not my girlfriend. Not even close. We had some matters to settle between us today, not that I should have to justify to you why I’d talk to Carmen or anybody else.”

  “But I thought –”

  She shook her head angrily. “Basta! Enough already. Frankly, I’ve dealt with more than my fair share of straight girls who play childish games because they find the idea of spending a night with a queer exciting.”

  I gasped, my cheeks turning tomato-red. Had I really been so transparent? “How can you
say that? Where do you get the idea that –”

  She stood in front of me now, crossing her arms. “You don’t think I can tell how you feel about me? Do you think I’m completely stupid?”

  Tears welled up in my eyes. She saw me as some little dilettante who wanted to bed her so I could run back to my friends and giggle about how I’d once experimented with a lesbian. “You think I’m like that, don’t you? Some silly white girl with a crush on you, whom you can barely tolerate?”

  “You tell me.”

  I caught my breath sharply. Not being able to control the tears any longer, I pushed past her and ran out of the tent.

  Steadying my pace until I got past the crowd, my feet picked up speed as I distanced myself from the wedding banquet. I ran through the orchard, past tall trees with thick branches and bark as wizened as the ancient face of timeless creatures. I didn’t know where I was headed, just that I had to get there as fast as my feet could carry me.

  The distant orange hills of Hollinger beckoned to me – a place of refuge, where I could lick my wounds and deal with the shame that infused every pore of my being. What was I thinking? How could I act so pathetic around this woman I knew nothing about, someone about as different from me as I could ever have hoped to meet – a tough migrant laborer, a bulldagger – someone who had lived a life so distant, so set apart from my own it was as though we came from two different planets?

  I should have walked the other way as soon as I saw her. My mother was right – I was wasting my life being like this. I could hear her voice starting up in my head, telling me that I ought to be dating nice middle-class boys who went to ivy-league colleges, or shopping for pretty dresses with friends named Betty or Susie, or even going to drive-ins and sock hops. Instead, here I was in a migrant workers’ farm running after some riffraff.